The Rust-Red Stairwell

In the autumn of 1982, I was a graduate student in library science, living in a drafty Victorian house with three other students. I had been practicing a form of meditation to heighten my perception of the unseen, and I’d had some success—mostly gentle presences, a flicker of warmth, a whisper of a voice I couldn’t quite catch. It was peaceful. It was comforting. But I was about to learn that some doors should stay shut.

My roommate, Jenna, had a friend from her art history class named Marcus. He was a quiet, intense guy with a love for vintage photography. One afternoon, after a seminar, he mentioned he needed to pick up some prints from his apartment. I offered to walk with him, curious about his place.

The building stood on a narrow street near the abandoned railway tracks. It was a former tuberculosis sanatorium, converted into cheap studios in the early ’70s. The brick facade was covered in soot, and the windows were narrow, like squinting eyes. As we approached, I noticed a faint, sickly sweet smell, like rotting flowers, but I dismissed it as the nearby dumpster.

We entered the lobby, which was dimly lit and empty. The floor was cracked linoleum, and the paint on the walls was peeling in long strips. Marcus led me to a stairwell, and as soon as he pulled open the heavy fire door, the stench hit me like a physical blow. It was the sharp, metallic smell of blood mixed with something else—something organic and foul, like a dead animal left to rot in a sealed room. I gagged.

‘God, what is that?’ I covered my nose.

Marcus frowned. ‘The pipes. old building. Sometimes the drains back up.’ He didn’t seem bothered.

I followed him up the stairs, my sneakers squeaking on the rubber treads. The walls were painted a dull institutional green, and the air grew thick, almost viscous. We passed a door on the second floor landing, and I felt a sudden chill, as if a draft had blown through, but the windows were sealed shut. I heard a faint, rhythmic thumping, like a heartbeat, but it stopped when I focused on it.

We reached his apartment on the third floor. He unlocked the door with a skeleton key. The studio was one large room with a small kitchenette and a bathroom off to the side. The windows were large, letting in weak afternoon light, but the room felt shadowed, especially in the corners. There were photographs pinned to a clothesline: grim, overexposed images of decaying buildings and twisted roots.

‘I develop these in the basement,’ Marcus said, gesturing to a cabinet of chemicals.

I walked to the window to get some air, but the pane was cold under my hand. Then I noticed it: on the sill, there was a small, rust-colored stain, like dried blood. I touched it, and it flaked off. ‘Marcus, this looks like blood.’

He came over, frowning. ‘Is it? The previous tenant was an old woman who died here. Maybe she cut herself.’

I felt a wave of unease. That smell from the stairwell seemed to seep through the walls, stronger now. I turned to leave, but my eye caught a dark spot on the ceiling above the bed. It was a deep brown, like an old water stain, but it was shaped oddly—like a handprint spread wide, fingers straining.

‘Marcus, what’s that?’ I pointed.

He looked up and his face went pale. ‘That wasn’t there before.’

A low hum began, coming from the walls. It was a bass note, almost subsonic, and I felt it in my chest. The photographs on the line began to sway, though no breeze touched them. The handprint stain seemed to pulse, and I could swear I saw it darken, as if fresh blood was seeping through the plaster.

‘I think we should leave,’ I said.

But Marcus was transfixed. ‘It’s her. She’s still here.’

‘Who?’

‘The old woman. Her name was Agnes. She was a nurse here during the sanatorium days. She used to take care of the TB patients. But she didn’t die here—she fell down those stairs. They found her at the bottom, her neck broken. They think she was pushed.’

A cold draft wrapped around my ankles. I looked down and saw that the floor was slightly damp, as if something had been mopped recently, but the water had a reddish tint. The hum grew louder, and then I heard a voice—a woman’s voice, whispering from the bathroom. It said, ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

Marcus grabbed my arm. His grip was cold. ‘She’s speaking to you because you can hear her. She wants you to help her find who pushed her.’

‘I can’t. I just want to go.’ I shook him off and headed for the door.

As I twisted the knob, the door wouldn’t budge. It was like it was locked from the outside, though Marcus hadn’t locked it. I banged on it, but the sound was muffled, as if we were in a padded room. The hum became a pressure, squeezing my head. I turned to face Marcus, and I saw his eyes were wide, not with fear, but with something else—recognition.

‘You saw her, didn’t you? In the stairwell?’

I thought back. On the second floor landing, I had seen a blur, a figure in a pale uniform. I had dismissed it as a shadow. ‘No.’

‘She’s been trying to get out. She’s been trapped in this building for decades. You’re the first one who can hear her. You have to help her.’

The bathroom door creaked open on its own. Inside, the tiles were stained with rust. In the mirror, I saw her behind us—a gaunt woman with hollow eyes, wearing an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform, but it was soaked in blood, and her neck was bent at an unnatural angle. She opened her mouth, but instead of a scream, a stream of black water poured out, carrying a foul smell.

I screamed and yanked at the door. Finally, it swung open, and I stumbled into the hallway. The hum stopped. The smell vanished. Marcus was beside me, looking shaken. In the hallway, the lights flickered on and off, and from below, I heard a rhythmic thumping, like a body being dragged up the stairs.

We ran down the stairs, not stopping until we were outside in the cold October air. I leaned against a lamppost, gasping. Marcus’s face was white. ‘She’s not going to let either of us go. She knows we saw her.’

‘She didn’t see me. She saw you.’ I looked at the building, and in a second-floor window, I saw her face pressed against the glass, her hands splayed like the stain on the ceiling. She mouthed something, but I couldn’t read it.

I never went back there. I moved out of the house a few weeks later, unable to shake the feeling that she was following me. Sometimes, late at night, I would hear a hum in my new apartment, and the bathroom mirror would fog up, even when the air was dry. And on the floor of my closet, I found a small, rust-colored stain that would never come out.

I still don’t know what she mouthed that day. But I know what I felt: a desperate hunger, a longing for release that would consume anyone who got too close. Marcus moved away soon after, but I heard rumors that he was found dead in his studio, his neck broken, a look of terror on his face. The police called it an accident, but the neighbors swore they heard a woman’s voice whispering from his bathroom, over and over: ‘You shouldn’t have come.’