The Keyhole of Room 14

I’ve been living in the Gravenstein complex for three years now, in a building that was erected in 1947 as temporary housing for factory workers. It’s a squat, three-story concrete block split into three separate stairwells, each with six apartments. The walls are thin, the radiators clank, and the whole place smells of damp and old cigarettes. But the rent is cheap, and the neighbors keep to themselves.

My friend Lena moved into apartment 14, on the second floor of stairwell B, a year after I moved in. We’d known each other since childhood, and she’s the most grounded person I know. She’d never been one for ghost stories or the supernatural, which made what happened to her all the more chilling.

Lena’s apartment was a typical one-bedroom, with a small kitchen that overlooked a courtyard. The only peculiarity was a shallow recessed shelf in the hallway, just above eye level, where a previous tenant had left a rusty key. It was too small for any of the doors in the building, and no one knew what it belonged to. Lena kept it as a trinket.

A few weeks after she moved in, she started noticing small things: the key would occasionally be turned a few degrees when she came home, even though she never touched it. She dismissed it as her own absentmindedness. Then the dreams began. In her dreams, she would stand in the hallway of her own apartment, but the light was dim, and she would hear a faint scratching from inside the wall, right behind the keyhole. She would wake up with a start, her heart pounding.

One evening, when I was over for dinner, she told me about the key and the dreams. I laughed it off, but she was serious. ‘It’s like something wants me to put that key somewhere,’ she said, stirring her tea. I didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject.

A month later, Lena called me at 2 AM, her voice trembling. ‘There’s someone in my hallway,’ she whispered. I could hear the floorboards creaking in the background. I told her to call the police, but she said the sound was coming from inside the wall, behind the keyhole. I told her to get out, to come to my place, but she refused, saying she felt compelled to stay. The line went dead.

I rushed to her apartment. The door was locked, but I had a spare key. I let myself in. The place was empty, but the keyhole shelf was pulled out, and the key was lying on the floor beneath it. The wall behind the shelf had a small, perfectly round hole, as if something had been drilled from the inside. The hole was dark, but when I shone my phone’s light into it, I saw a glint of metal, a chain, maybe. And then I heard a faint, rhythmic scratching, like a nail being dragged across stone.

I grabbed the key and shoved it into the hole. It fit perfectly. I turned it, and I felt a click. The scratching stopped. Lena was never found. The police searched the building, but there was no sign of her. The keyhole wall was bricked up a week later by the landlord, who claimed it was a ‘structural issue.’ I still live in the building, and sometimes, when the building settles, I hear that scratching again, closer than before. I know that key is still in that hole, turning slowly, all by itself.