The Lath House on Pinecrest

In the autumn of 1984, I rented a room in a sprawling Victorian on Pinecrest Avenue, a house known locally as the Lath House for the latticework that covered its wraparound porch. Built in 1892 by a reclusive timber baron, the house had stood empty for nearly a decade before I moved in. My housemates were a motley crew: my roommate, Dana, who worked graveyard shifts at the county morgue, and our upstairs neighbor, a quiet history grad student named Elliot who kept odd hours. The house had a reputation, of course—the realtor had lowered the rent without prompting, and the neighbors avoided eye contact. But I was young and broke, and I needed a place near the university.

Our floor plan was peculiar: the main living areas were on the second floor, with a kitchen and a wide parlor that faced the street. The third floor held three bedrooms and a single bathroom. Above that, a narrow staircase led to an unfinished attic, and from there, an iron ladder went up to a widow’s walk that overlooked the overgrown garden. The basement was a labyrinth of storage rooms, and Dana claimed she’d once heard scratching sounds behind the walls down there. I dismissed it as the house settling, or maybe rats.

Every night, Dana would leave for work at 11 PM, and Elliot would retreat to his room to read, often until dawn. That left me alone with my cat, a black tom named Poe, and the creaking silence of the old house. I’d usually curl up in the parlor with a book, trying to ignore the way the floorboards shifted underfoot, or the occasional draft that smelled of damp earth and something else—something metallic and sweet.

One night, about a month in, I woke to a sound. It wasn’t the usual creaks; it was a rhythmic thumping, like someone was bouncing a ball on the floor above. I checked my watch: 2:47 AM. Dana was at work, and Elliot was probably still reading, but his footsteps were never that heavy. I lay in bed, listening, and the thumping stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Then I heard what I can only describe as the sound of a door being slowly opened, its hinges crying out in protest. But the only doors up there were the attic door and the one to Elliot’s room—and I’d checked before bed: the attic door was locked from the outside.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Poe stirred at the foot of the bed, his ears swiveling. I wanted to believe it was the wind, or the house settling, but the sound was too deliberate. I eased out of bed, tiptoed to the hallway, and saw a sliver of light under Elliot’s door. He was still awake. I crept up the stairs to the attic, my bare feet cold on the wood, and found the door slightly ajar. The lock was still engaged, which was impossible—the bolt was on my side, and it was turned.

I pushed the door open. The attic was a cavernous space, filled with furniture draped in sheets and stacks of dusty trunks. A single bulb hung from the center, but it was dark. The moonlight through the dormer windows cast long, distorted shadows. I saw something move in the far corner—a figure, hunched and indistinct, too large to be human. I opened my mouth to scream, but the figure dissolved into shadow, and the only thing I found when I got closer was a single sheet, crumpled on the floor, with a pattern of handprints pressed into it, as if someone had been pushing against it from the other side.

The next morning, I told Elliot about what I’d seen. He went pale and whispered, ‘You saw the lathmaker.’ I asked what he meant, but he clammed up, muttering something about the house’s history. I did my own research at the university library. That’s when I found the truth: the timber baron who built the house had a son who was born with a twisted spine and spent his life hidden in the attic. The boy would press his hands against the latticework of the widow’s walk, watching the outside world he could never join. After the old man died, the son was forgotten, locked up there until he starved. The house had passed through several owners, but no one stayed long.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the handprints. At 3 AM, I heard the thumping again, coming from the attic. I woke Elliot, and together we climbed the stairs. The attic door was locked from the outside, but as we stood there, we heard a sound from within—a faint, rhythmic scratching, like nails on wood. Elliot whispered, ‘He’s always trying to get out.’ I felt a cold breeze, and the door rattled in its frame.

I knew then that the house wasn’t just haunted; it was hungry. The boy’s spirit was desperate for release, but it couldn’t leave—it was bound to the lathework, to the house that had become its tomb. And I understood, with a sickening clarity, that the house had chosen new tenants to feed that hunger. The thumping was its heartbeat, and the scratching was its plea. Dana hadn’t been hearing rats; she’d been hearing the lathmaker’s fingers tracing the walls, always searching for a way out—or a way in.

A week later, I found the attic door open one night, and the latticed paneling on the widow’s walk was torn away, as if something had clawed its way out. I moved out the next day, leaving Dana and Elliot behind. Sometimes, I still dream of that house, and I wake up with the phantom feel of rough wood pressed against my palms. I never found out what happened to the others, but I know the house is still there on Pinecrest Avenue, its latticework pristine, waiting for its next tenants. And if you listen very carefully at night, you might hear the soft tapping of fingers, testing the wood, learning the shape of your own hands.