The Keeper of the Locks

In the autumn of 2011, I was drifting. My long-term relationship had ended abruptly on New Year’s Eve, my grandmother had passed away in February, and by spring I was back with an old flame, Marcus. We’d dated briefly in high school, then lost touch, but he’d cleaned up his act and wanted to try again. I needed stability, so when he offered a room in his apartment, I took it. The place was off a forgotten road in the outskirts of a small town called Hollow Grove, a two-bedroom unit above a closed laundromat. The building was old, with creaking floors and a smell of mothballs. Marcus had furnished it with odds and ends from his mother’s attic: a floral sofa, a wobbly kitchen table, and a collection of mismatched chairs. We had few belongings, but we made do.

Marcus was charming but impulsive. He’d lose his keys, forget to pay bills, and leave the stove on. I often joked that he needed a keeper. In that apartment, I believed I was that keeper. The first few weeks were peaceful. We’d watch old movies on a secondhand TV, cook pasta on the rickety stove, and dream about the future. But then strange things began to happen. At night, I’d hear the soft click of a lock turning, as if someone was testing the door. I’d get up to check, but the chain would be on, and the bolt secured. Marcus would mumble that I was imagining things. One evening, I found a new lock on the bedroom door that I hadn’t installed. It was a heavy brass deadbolt, tarnished with age. Marcus shrugged, saying he bought it at a flea market for security. But when I asked about the key, he said he lost it.

I started to feel watched. Objects would move—my toothbrush would end up in the sink, the TV remote on the windowsill. I chalked it up to Marcus’s sloppy habits, but his explanations became increasingly unconvincing. He’d claim he had no idea how the remote got there. Then the notes appeared. Scribbled on torn paper, they read: ‘I know you’re not sleepy. I watch you at night.’ and ‘You forgot to lock the bathroom.’ My handwriting? No, it was spidery and sharp. Marcus insisted he never saw them. I confronted him, but he just laughed nervously, saying it was probably a prank from the landlord’s kid. But the landlord was an old woman who lived miles away.

The apartment seemed to grow darker. I’d wake in the middle of the night with the sensation of someone breathing beside me, but Marcus would be at work. The hallway outside our door, once dim, now felt suffocatingly pitch black. I bought a nightlight, but it would burn out within hours. The clicking of locks grew more frequent. One night, I found the front door unlocked, swinging slightly, and the cold air rushing in. Marcus was at a bar, so I was alone. I slammed it shut and threw the deadbolt. Then, from the bedroom, I heard a faint whisper: ‘You can’t keep me out.’

I became obsessed with locks. I bought new chains, padlocks, and a motion-sensor alarm. I installed a peephole, but when I peered through it, all I saw was darkness—even in the lit hallway. Marcus grew worried, suggesting I see a doctor. But I knew it was the apartment. I started sleeping with a kitchen knife under my pillow.

Then the photographs appeared. They were old, sepia-tinted, of a family posing in front of a house. The father held a ring of keys, the mother clutched a baby, and behind them, a young girl stared blankly at the camera. I found them in a drawer we never opened. Marcus said they came with the furniture. But the girl in the photo—she looked just like me as a child. The resemblance was uncanny. I’d never told Marcus about my childhood, but the similarity was too much. I showed him, he paled and said I was tripping.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wanted in—or wanted out. I started recording the apartment at night with my phone. The footage showed nothing, but the audio captured faint metallic clicks and a low humming. I played it for Marcus, and he finally admitted that the previous tenant may have died here. The landlord told him a man had lived here decades ago, a janitor who collected locks. He was found dead in the basement, with all the locks removed from the doors, arranged around his body. I shuddered.

One evening, I had enough. I decided to open the basement door, which had been locked since we moved in. The key was missing, but I used a crowbar. The stairs descended into blackness, and the air was cold and musty. I took a flashlight and went down. The basement was filled with hundreds of old locks—padlocks, deadbolts, chain locks—all rusted and hanging from hooks on the walls. In the center, on a workbench, was a journal. I opened it. The entries were written in a shaky hand, describing a man’s obsession with securing his home, but also his fear of being trapped. One entry read: ‘I must keep them out, but they keep me in. The locks are my guardians, but they are also my prison.’

The last entry was dated November 2010, a month before we moved in. It said: ‘She will come. I saw her in the mirror. She’ll understand the locks.’ I dropped the journal and ran upstairs. Marcus was gone for the weekend, visiting his mother. I was alone.

That night, I locked every door and window. I put a chair under the door knob. I lay in bed, shaking. At 2:33 AM, I heard the distinct sound of a key turning in the front door. I froze. The door opened, and I heard footsteps. They were deliberate, unhurried. I grabbed the knife. The footsteps stopped outside my bedroom. A voice, low and raspy, said, ‘You forgot the lock on the bathroom window.’ I screamed.

Morning came. I hadn’t slept. The footsteps had continued for hours, then faded. I found the front door locked, the chain on, but the bathroom window was wide open. On the windowsill was a small brass key, tarnished like the deadbolt I had found. I knew it was the key to the bedroom door. I tried it. It fit.

Marcus returned that afternoon to find me huddled in the corner, the key clutched in my fist. I told him everything. He listened, then went to the bathroom. He returned with a look of dread. He said, ‘Who opened that window? I locked it before I left.’ We both knew the answer. That night, we gathered our few belongings and fled. We stayed at a motel, then moved to another town. But I still hear the clicking of locks at night. Sometimes, I wake to find my apartment door ajar, and a faint smell of mothballs in the air. I know the Keeper of the Locks is still searching for someone who understands. And I fear that, one day, I will return to that apartment and find a new lock on my childhood bedroom door—one that I cannot unlock.