The Loft Above the Mill

My name is Elara, and I’ve never known a quiet home. It’s not a choice; it’s a curse that follows me like a stray dog. Every place I’ve lived, from a cramped city apartment to a creaking farmhouse, has hummed with something unseen. But the worst, the one that still wakes me in a cold sweat, was the old mill apartment in the fading textile town of Blackwood Falls.

My mother, a nurse working double shifts, needed a place she could afford on her own. The mill, abandoned for decades, had been converted into lofts, and the rent was laughably low. The realtor, a nervous woman named Mrs. Gable, kept glancing at the ceiling as she handed over the keys. ‘It’s a bit… drafty,’ she said, her smile never reaching her eyes. We should have known better.

Our loft was on the top floor, a cavernous space with exposed brick and massive windows that looked out over a rusted waterwheel. The previous tenant had left behind a heavy, iron-framed bed in the corner, its mattress stained with something dark. My mother shrugged it off, saying we’d get a new one soon. But that night, as I lay on the pull-out couch (my mother had claimed the big bed), I felt the floorboards vibrate, not from the old machinery outside, but from beneath me. It was a rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat.

A week later, I had a friend over, a girl named Mira. We were sitting cross-legged on my pull-out, talking about school, when the thumping started again. This time it was louder, more insistent. Mira froze. ‘Do you hear that?’ she whispered. I nodded, my heart starting to race. Suddenly, the floor beneath us bucked upward, a violent, powerful shove that sent us both tumbling off the mattress. My cat, a usually placid tabby named Juniper, let out a blood-curdling hiss and latched onto my arm, her claws drawing blood before I could pry her off. She darted under the bed, and we could hear her snarling at something we couldn’t see.

After that, the activity grew. The waterwheel outside would start turning on windless nights, its groans echoing through the loft. Doors would slam shut on their own. And always, the thumping—like someone pounding on the floor from below, desperate to be heard. My mother tried to ignore it, attributing it to the old building settling. But one night, I woke to find her standing at the foot of the iron bed, staring at the wall where a faded, water-stained outline of a man’s shape was barely visible. She was muttering, ‘He’s still here. He’s still turning.’

I started researching the mill’s history. I found an old newspaper article from 1921. A man named Josiah Thorne, a foreman, had been crushed by a malfunctioning loom. They said his body was tangled in the gears for hours before they could free him. His last words, according to the article, were about the wheel—’It won’t stop. It wants to keep turning.’ The mill closed shortly after.

The night I read that, I couldn’t sleep. I lay on my pull-out, listening to the thumping, which now seemed to sync with the creak of the waterwheel outside. I got up and crept to the window. The wheel was spinning slowly, even though the night was dead calm. As I watched, I saw a dark silhouette inside the wheel, a man-shaped figure that seemed to be turning with it, his arms reaching out as if to grab something. I stumbled back, and the thumping below grew frantic, like fists pounding on the floor. Then, from under my bed, I heard a sound I’ll never forget—a child’s whisper, but not a child’s real voice, it was like the wind through a crack: ‘He’s coming up.’

I ran to my mother’s room, but before I could shake her awake, the iron bed in the corner of my room began to shake violently, its legs scraping against the floor. The waterwheel outside let out a shriek of rusted metal, and then everything went silent. The next morning, my mother announced we were moving, and I didn’t argue. I never saw the silhouette again, but to this day, whenever I hear a rhythmic pounding, whether it’s a heartbeat or a distant machinery, I freeze. And sometimes, in the quietest moments, I can still feel the floor beneath me vibrate with the endless turning of the wheel.