The Sixteenth Floor

My older sister, Mara, had always been the practical one, the one who laughed at ghost stories and called me a romantic fool for believing in the unseen. So when she called me from her new apartment in the recently renovated Meridian Tower in downtown Austin, her voice trembling, I knew something was profoundly wrong.

She and her husband, Derek, had moved into the sixteenth floor of the tower three months ago. They had a two-year-old son, Liam, and a newborn daughter, Chloe. Mara described the place as a dream come true: floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, a modern kitchen with stainless steel appliances, and a gym and pool on the second floor. Derek had gotten a promotion, and they’d wanted a fresh start.

‘I know you’re going to think I’m crazy,’ Mara said on that call, her breath catching. ‘But something in this apartment is wrong. It’s not a person, not a ghost, but a presence. It watches us, especially the kids. I feel it in the walls, in the air, in the silence between heartbeats.’

I had heard enough. I booked a flight that evening.

When I arrived, the tower gleamed like a monolith of glass and steel against the Texas sun. Mara looked pale, dark circles under her eyes. Derek was stoic, but his jaw was set. Liam was unusually quiet, clutching a stuffed rabbit, while Chloe slept in a bassinet, her small chest rising and falling with unsettling evenness.

‘The first thing I noticed,’ Mara began, ‘was the elevator. It’s always slightly out of sync. It stops on the sixteenth floor even when you don’t press the button. And when the doors open, there’s a draft that smells like old books and damp soil.’

We tested it that day. As the elevator ascended, it hummed a low, dissonant chord, and on the indicator, the number ’16’ lit up of its own accord. The doors slid open with a sigh, revealing the empty hallway. The draft hit us, carrying that musty scent.

Derek shrugged. ‘Old building,’ he said, but his eyes betrayed him.

Inside the apartment, the feeling was heavier. I felt a pressure on my chest, as if the air itself was dense. The baby monitors were always crackling with static, and at night, Mara said, they picked up the sound of a muffled lullaby. Not a pleasant one, but a slow, dirge-like melody with no discernible words.

The first incident had been after Chloe was born. Mara was up for the 2 a.m. feeding, walking the floor, when she saw a figure at the end of the hallway. It was tall, thin, and silhouetted against the dim light from the window. It didn’t move, just stood there, watching. When she blinked, it was gone. Then she heard a whisper, so faint she thought she’d imagined it: ‘Sixteen.’

Over the weeks, it grew bolder. Liam started having ‘imaginary friends’ – two of them, he said. A man and a woman who would stand by his crib at night, smiling. But their smiles were too wide, and they never blinked. When Mara tried to capture them on camera, they appeared as smoky blurs in the images.

The baby reacted too. Chloe would stare at a blank wall and giggle, as if playing with something invisible. But sometimes her giggles would turn into wails, and Mara would find her with red marks on her arms, like fingerprints.

We decided to do some research. I found an old newspaper article from 1932, when the tower was a hotel. There had been a fire on the sixteenth floor, and a family had perished: a mother, a father, and two children. They were never identified, and it was said that a maid saw strange shadows in the corridors afterward. The hotel was demolished in the 1970s, but the tower was built on the same plot, incorporating some of the original steel beams.

That night, we sat in the living room, the city lights twinkling below. Liam was asleep, Chloe in her bassinet. The air grew cold, and the static from the baby monitor intensified. Then we heard it: a child’s voice, singing a nursery rhyme, but the words were twisted.

‘Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down…’ It stopped abruptly, replaced by a high-pitched whisper: ‘Come play with us. We’re lonely.’

Mara grabbed my arm. ‘They’re here.’

Suddenly, the lights flickered. The baby monitor exploded in a burst of static, and the door to the hallway slammed shut. A faint scratching came from behind the walls, like nails on plaster. Then, a man’s voice, deep and resonant, filled the room: ‘You are guests in our home.’

We tried to flee, but the front door wouldn’t open. It was as if something had sealed it. The pressure in the room increased, making our ears pop. Chloe woke up and began to scream, a high-pitched, terrifying sound that went through our bones.

Mara rushed to her, but as she lifted Chloe, she froze. Behind her, the hallway now stood open, and a man and a woman, still dressed in old-fashioned clothes, stood there, hand in hand, with two children beside them. Their faces were pale, their eyes hollow, and they smiled in unison.

‘You will be a part of our family,’ the woman said, her voice like wind through dry leaves.

Derek, usually the calm one, fell to his knees, clutching his head. ‘Get out! Get out!’ he screamed.

But they advanced, step by step, their feet not quite touching the floor.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed it, but they passed through the foam as if it were mist. They reached for us, and I felt a cold, tingling touch on my cheek.

Then, as suddenly as it began, they stopped. The man looked at his wife, and they seemed to fade, their forms becoming translucent. The children followed, dissolving into the air. The pressure lifted, the lights steadied, and the front door clicked open.

We didn’t wait. We grabbed the kids and ran, taking the stairs, never looking back. We checked into a hotel that night, and the next day we moved out, leaving everything behind.

It’s been a year now. We’re in a new house, one with no history, no whispers. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see that hallway, and I hear that whispered ‘sixteen.’ I look at my mirror, and I wonder if they’re still waiting, still watching, for their next guests. And I know they are, because last night, I saw a shadow slip past my door, and the air smelled of old books and damp soil.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be free of them. But I know one thing: never, ever take an apartment on the sixteenth floor.