The Linoleum Gap

The summer I turned six, my parents shipped me off to my great-aunt Edna’s farmhouse while they dealt with some ‘grown-up trouble’ back in the city. The house was a sprawling, drafty Victorian that smelled of dust and camphor, and my room was on the second floor, far from the only bathroom, which was at the end of a long, L-shaped hallway on the ground floor. I was supposed to be asleep by nine, but the unfamiliar creaks and groans of the old house kept me wide awake, and the glass of lemonade Aunt Edna gave me with dinner was a ticking time bomb in my bladder.

By midnight, I was squirming on the lumpy mattress, my need urgent. The hallway outside my door was pitch black, and I knew the journey to the bathroom was a gauntlet of unlit corners and creaking floorboards. But nature’s call was insistent. I threw off my thin blanket, wrapped it around my shoulders like a cape, and padded to the door. I cracked it open. The hallway light switch was at the far end, near the bathroom. I’d have to fumble in the dark.

I took a deep breath and stepped out. The floor was ice under my bare feet. I shuffled along, my blanket pulled up over my head like a cowl, leaving only a small slit to see ahead. The first few steps were fine, but as I reached the midpoint of the hall, a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature slithered down my spine. I felt eyes on me—from the kitchen to my right, and from the darker continuation of the hallway to my left, past the bathroom. I froze.

My heart hammered. I peered through my blanket slit at the kitchen doorway. The window above the sink was a faint grey square in the darkness, and for a moment I thought I saw a face pressed against the glass, white and indistinct. I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to ten, and looked again. Nothing. I forced my legs to move, shuffling faster, passing the bathroom door (thankfully closed) and reaching the L-turn. I glanced left. The hallway stretched into deeper blackness, and at the very end, where Aunt Edna’s sewing room was, a thin line of light glowed under the door. I didn’t remember her being awake.

Just as I was about to step into the bathroom, I heard a sound from the kitchen—a soft, wet slither, like something heavy dragging across the linoleum floor. I whipped my head around. The kitchen was still dark, but now the back door at the far end was open a crack, and a draft made the curtain over the sink billow. I could smell something earthy, like damp soil and old leaves. My bladder screamed. I ducked into the bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it—a flimsy brass hook that barely held.

The bathroom was tiny, with a clawfoot tub and a pedestal sink. The window above the sink was open a few inches to let out steam from Aunt Edna’s baths, and it faced the back yard and the woods beyond. As I relieved myself with trembling hands, I stared at that window. The trees swayed, and I saw something move among them—a pale, hunched shape that seemed to bob and weave, as if it was trying to find a better angle to look in. I finished as fast as I could, yanked up my pyjamas, and stood there, frozen.

A sound like fingernails on glass—but deeper, slower, like a stone dragged across a pane—came from the window. I backed away, bumping into the bathtub. The shape in the woods was closer now, almost at the edge of the yard. I could make out long, thin arms and a lopsided head. Then it raised one arm, and through the gap in the curtain, I saw that its hand had too many fingers—maybe eight or nine, all wriggling like worms.

I bolted. I unlocked the door and flung it open, not wanting to look down the hall, but I had to pass the kitchen. The slithering sound was louder now, and I could smell rot. I kept my head low, letting the blanket drape over my face, and ran. My bare feet slapped against the cold linoleum. Halfway across, something wet and sticky touched my ankle, like a tongue or a tendril, and I screamed, sprinting for the stairs.

I didn’t stop until I was back in my bed, covers over my head, shivering. I told myself it was a nightmare, a product of a child’s imagination. But the next morning, when I crept downstairs, the kitchen floor was covered in a slimy, grey trail that led from the back door to the hallway, and then disappeared as if it had just stopped. Aunt Edna was at the stove, humming, and she didn’t seem to notice. But when I stepped into the kitchen, I saw that the back door was still ajar, and the curtain over the sink moved slightly, even though there was no breeze. And on the linoleum, right where I thought I’d felt something touch me, there was a perfect, wet footprint—not of a bare foot and not of a shoe, but something with three toes, and a stench that made me gag.

I spent the rest of that summer avoiding that hallway, and I never slept soundly again. But what haunts me most is not the thing in the woods or the slithering in the dark. It’s the fact that when I told Aunt Edna about the footprint, she just smiled, wiped at the floor with her slipper, and said, ‘Child, that’s just the linoleum gap. It’s been there since I was a girl.’ And for the first time, I noticed that the kitchen linoleum had a crack running across it, exactly where the footprint was, and it was shaped like a mouth, grinning up at me. I never asked her what she meant, and she never explained. But every night after that, when I walked through that gap, I could feel something breathing beneath the floor.