The Last Boarder

The guesthouse behind my aunt’s place in the dry foothills had always made me uneasy, even before I broke my leg in a stupid, clumsy fall on the hiking trail. Forced into early retirement from my job as a ranger, I accepted her offer to recover there—it had a ramp, a tall toilet, and a wide, open layout that didn’t require navigating stairs. My aunt, a retired nurse, was away visiting her sister for three weeks, so I had the place to myself, which was fine. I’ve never been one for company.

The house itself was a relic from the 1970s, all wood paneling and shag carpet that held the scent of dust and old cigarettes. My bedroom was at the end of a long, narrow hallway, and the windows faced a thicket of juniper bushes that pressed close, their branches scratching the glass on windy nights. From my bed, I could watch the moon rise over the hills, casting silver light across the worn floorboards. But the first night there, I realized the light wasn’t right. The moon would rise, and the hallway would fill with a pale, watery glow that seemed to hang in the air like a fog, making the walls feel farther away than they should be.

It started small. A refrigerator hum that wasn’t quite a hum, a floorboard creak that followed my own footsteps, a sensation of being watched from the corner of my eye. I dismissed it as painkiller haze and the adjustment to a new place. But the dreams were different. Vivid, lucid dreams where I stood at the end of the hallway, staring at a door that didn’t exist in the waking world—a plain white door with a brass knob, ajar, a sliver of darkness behind it. In the dream, I always wanted to open it, but something held me back, a primal dread that made my stomach drop. I would wake gasping, my leg throbbing.

One afternoon, I decided to explore the house more thoroughly, hoping to find a logical explanation for my unease. I checked the closets, the attic hatch, the crawlspace under the porch—nothing. But in a dusty box in the back of the hall closet, I found old photographs and a guestbook from when the house was a small boarding house in the 1980s, run by a woman named Margaret. The photographs showed a smiling, middle-aged woman posing with various guests, all of them men, all of them looking stiff and uncomfortable, as if they didn’t want to be there. The last few pages of the guestbook had strange, cramped handwriting, entries like ‘Day 40. Still here. The door is open at the end of the hall, but I can’t leave’ and ‘She won’t let me go. She says I have to stay until the last boarder is gone.’ The final entry, dated a week before the house was closed, was just a single word: ‘Forgive.’

The handwriting matched my aunt’s. I called her, but her phone went straight to voicemail. I told myself it was a prank, a joke for my recovery, but that night the dreams worsened. In the dream, I walked down the hallway, and this time, the door was slightly ajar, and I could see a shadow moving just behind it. I reached out, my fingers brushing the brass knob, and it was warm, like flesh. I woke with a scream, the echo of a laugh in my ears.

The next day, I dragged myself up the stairs for the first time, determined to find that door. There was a second floor I hadn’t explored, a small attic room, dusty and filled with old furniture. And there, in the far corner, was the door from my dream. It was a plain white door with a brass knob, covered in cobwebs, but the knob was clean, polished. My heart pounded. I reached for it, and as my fingers touched the metal, it turned cold, icy. I yanked my hand back. The door was locked. But I felt something on the other side, a presence, pressing against the wood, breathing.

I called my aunt again, leaving a frantic message. Then I tried the door one more time, apologizing, saying I was sorry for whatever had happened there. And I heard a voice, faint but clear, coming from the other side: ‘You’re not the last one. She’s still waiting.’

That night, I woke to find the door to my room open, and the hallway swallowed in a black so thick it seemed to drink the light. I heard footsteps, slow and heavy, coming toward me. I froze, unable to move. The footsteps stopped at my door. A woman’s voice, soft but wrong, like a record played backward, said, ‘You’re in her room now. You can’t leave.’ I fumbled for the lamp, and when the light flooded the room, there was nothing there, but the temperature had dropped, and the air smelled of mothballs and decay.

The next morning, I called my aunt again, and this time she answered. Her voice was hollow, distant. ‘You found the door,’ she said. ‘I told you not to go up there. But you never listen, just like your mother.’ Then she whispered, ‘She’s the last boarder. She won’t leave until you do.’ I begged her to explain, but the line went dead.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in the living room with every light on, the television blaring a static channel, because the radio was dead. At 3 a.m., the power flickered, and the TV turned off. The silence was deafening. Then, from the hallway, I heard the sound of a door swinging open, creaking on old hinges. I grabbed my crutch, hobbled to the hallway, and saw the attic door at the top of the stairs was ajar, pale light spilling from it. The voice came again, clearer than ever: ‘Come on. She wants to meet you.’

I went. I don’t know why—maybe because I was tired, maybe because I had to know. I climbed the stairs, each step a struggle, and pushed the door open. The room was empty, except for a single photograph on the floor, face down. I picked it up. It was a photo of me, taken from the window of the house, on the day I arrived. On the back, in my aunt’s handwriting, was a simply phrase: ‘He never made it out. You won’t either.’

I turned, and the door was closed behind me. The knob was warm, and I heard a woman’s laugh from inside the wall, a voice that was both my aunt’s and someone else’s, old and hollow. I banged on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The light in the room began to fade, and the air grew thick and suffocating. I sat down in the corner, the photograph clutched to my chest, and I could feel her in the space, waiting. I’m still here. The last boarder. She keeps me company.