The Last Cigarette on Holloway Road

The last cigarette of the night always tasted like regret. Marcus stood at the open window of his third-floor flat on Holloway Road, the glow of the city a sickly orange beyond the rooftops. He’d turned off the lights to avoid being seen, but the streetlight below cast his shadow long and thin on the opposite wall. The clock on his phone read 1:03 AM. He checked it not for the time, but to see if she’d replied. She hadn’t. Lucy was marrying someone else tomorrow, someone she’d been with for five years, and Marcus had spent the better part of a year convincing himself he had a chance. Now, with the smoke curling into the cold night air, he felt the weight of his foolishness pressing down on his chest.

He thought about the way she laughed at his stupid jokes, the way she’d touch his arm when she thanked him for a drink. He replayed their conversations in his head, looking for signs he’d missed. But there were none. She was just friendly, and he’d built a cathedral of hope on a foundation of politeness. He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the sill and immediately lit another, a nervous habit. As the flame flickered, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the dark glass—haggard, eyes hollow, a man who’d let a dream consume him.

The street below was quiet, save for the occasional taxi hissing past. He heard a sound then, like a soft thud coming from the flat above. He lived on the third floor, and the fourth was supposedly empty—the landlord had mentioned it had been vacant for months. Marcus tensed, listening. Nothing. Probably a pigeon on the ledge. He took a drag, exhaling a plume of smoke that seemed to hang in the air longer than it should.

Then he saw her. A woman standing on the opposite side of the street, under the amber glow of a streetlamp. She was dressed in a long white nightgown, her hair dark and loose, and she was perfectly still, staring up at him. Marcus’s breath caught. His first thought was that it was Lucy, but she lived across town. His second thought was that it was a ghost, but he didn’t believe in ghosts. He squinted, but the light made it impossible to see her face clearly. She raised one arm, slow and deliberate, and pointed at him. Then she lowered it and turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows between buildings.

Marcus felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. He told himself it was just a night owl, a drunk, someone walking home from a party. But the white nightgown bothered him. He tried to shake it off and went back to thinking about Lucy. He lit a third cigarette, his mind drifting to the wedding that would happen in less than twelve hours. He imagined her in a white dress, smiling at someone else, and the despair was almost physical.

A knock at his door made him jump. He froze, the cigarette burning down to his fingers. He dropped it, cursing, and listened. The knock came again, soft but insistent. He crept to the door and peered through the peephole. The hallway was empty, lit by a flickering fluorescent light. He opened the door a crack, and a draft of cold air rushed in, bringing with it the faint scent of lilies. He slammed the door shut and locked it, his heart pounding.

He returned to the window, but now the street was empty. The woman was gone. He lit another cigarette, his hands trembling. He was a rational man, a skeptic, but something was off. He thought about the dream he’d had the night before—a nightmare where he was drowning in a sea of white petals, unable to scream. He hadn’t thought much of it, but now it felt like a premonition.

He heard the sound again—a thud, then a dragging noise, coming from the ceiling. It was rhythmic, like someone pacing in the empty flat above. Marcus lived alone; the building was old, the tenants were mostly elderly, and no one was up at this hour. He grabbed his phone to call a neighbor, but the screen was dead, even though he’d charged it. He plugged it in, and the phone buzzed to life, but it showed 3:33 AM. He’d sworn it was 1:03 only minutes ago. The clock on the wall confirmed it: 3:33. He’d been standing there for over two hours, lost in thought, unaware of the time.

The knocking resumed, this time at his door, more urgent, more frantic. He stumbled to it, shouting, ‘Who’s there?’ There was no answer, but the knocking continued. He pressed his eye to the peephole again, and this time he saw her—the woman in white, her face pale and gaunt, her eyes black orbs that seemed to drink the light. She was directly outside his door, her hand raised to knock again. She spoke, her voice a whisper that seemed to come from inside his head: ‘She doesn’t love you. She never did. Come to me.’

Marcus staggered back, his mind reeling. He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t obey. The knocking stopped, and a silence fell, deep and oppressive. He turned to the window, and the woman was there, on the other side of the glass, her face pressed against it, her breath fogging the pane. She smiled, and her teeth were needle-sharp. She reached through the glass as if it were water, her fingers closing around his wrist, ice-cold, impossibly strong.

He screamed, but no sound came out. The last thing he saw was her face inches from his, her eyes no longer black but a deep, familiar brown—the same brown as Lucy’s. And then the darkness took him.

The next morning, the neighbors found Marcus’s flat empty. His phone was on the floor, its screen cracked, showing a text message he’d never sent. It read: ‘I’m coming, Lucy.’ The police searched the building, but there was no sign of him. The only oddity was the white lilies scattered on the floor, soaking in a puddle of black water. They wrote it off as a prank.

But the woman in white was seen again, on Holloway Road, watching the wedding from across the street, a smile on her pale lips. And Lucy, walking down the aisle, felt a sudden chill, as if someone had walked over her grave. She looked out the window, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw a man with Marcus’s face, standing beside a woman in white, both of them smiling at her. Then they were gone, and the ceremony continued.

Marcus was never found. But sometimes, on clear nights, the residents of Holloway Road report seeing a man on the third floor of the abandoned flat, lighting a cigarette, his eyes fixed on a point far away, his lips moving soundlessly, as if whispering a name he can never let go.