The Pattern in the Hallway

I’m Elara, and I live in a converted Victorian schoolhouse that’s been split into three apartments. Mine is the top floor, a long corridor with a bedroom at each end and a bathroom in the middle. The other two bedrooms are used as storage for my landlord, who lives on the ground floor. It’s the kind of place where the radiators clank and the floors creak, but you get used to it. I’d been living there for two years, and nothing unusual had ever happened.

Last night, I was up late editing photos for a client. It was past midnight, and I had my headphones on, the music turned up to drown out the city hum. But nature called, and I pulled off the headphones, stood up from my desk, and immediately heard it: a knocking. It wasn’t the rhythmic hammering from the radiator or the occasional settling of old pipes. This was deliberate, like three slow taps on wood, coming from somewhere down the hallway. I froze, telling myself it was probably the landlord’s cat, Mr. Soots, who sometimes wandered up here, or the neighbor downstairs moving furniture. But the taps were too even. I took a deep breath, opened my door, and the knocking stopped. Silence. I walked to the bathroom, did my business, and convinced myself I’d imagined it.

Then, as I stepped back into the hallway, it started again. This time, it was at the far end of the corridor, near the door to the storage room. The sharp, dry sound of knuckles on wood echoed down the hall. But there was nobody there. The hallway was empty, the only light coming from the bare bulb at the center. I called out, ‘Hello?’ and the knocking ceased. I could feel my heart pounding. I walked toward the storage room, my flip-flops slapping on the worn floorboards, half-expecting to find Mr. Soots pawing at the door. But the door was closed, and there was no sound from within. I turned to go back to my room, and the knocking started again, now faster and closer, coming from the wall behind me. I spun around, but it stopped. I realized then that the pattern was repeating: three taps, a pause, three taps. And it was moving down the hallway, closer each time.

I retreated to my room, locking the door behind me. But the knocking followed, now against my own door. It was a frantic rhythm, like someone’s desperate plea. I covered my ears, but the sound was inside my head. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the room was dark. The knocking had stopped, and I could hear a whisper, soft at first, then growing louder. It was a voice I’d never heard, saying my name over and over, the syllables drawn out. And then I saw it: the wallpaper in my room, which had always had a floral pattern, was undulating. The flowers were morphing into faces, their mouths moving in sync with the knocking. I stumbled backward, and the floorboards beneath my feet began to tremble. The door burst open, and in the hallway, the light flickered, revealing a figure at the far end—a tall, emaciated shape with too-long arms, its knuckles dragging along the walls, tapping them in a three-beat rhythm.

I ran. I don’t remember how, but I found myself on the stairs, tumbling down to the ground floor. The knocking echoed behind me, growing fainter as I reached the main door. I yanked it open and burst into the cold night air, gasping. I didn’t stop running until I was a block away, leaning against a lamppost. When I looked back at the schoolhouse, all the windows were dark, but I could see a shadow moving behind the glass of my former room. The knocking had stopped, but I knew it was waiting. I haven’t gone back, and I don’t think I ever will. Because I remembered then: the landlord had told me that the storage room at the end of the hall was never to be opened, and now I know why. The pattern in the hallway wasn’t just a sound—it was a key, and I had turned it.