The Sixth Drawer

The mortuary in Cedar Falls was a converted Victorian house, all creaking floorboards and frosted windows that never quite let in the sun. I took the job as an administrative assistant because the pay was decent and the hours were regular, not because I had any particular affinity for the dead. But I found I didn’t mind the stillness, the heavy quiet that settled over the place after five o’clock when the funeral directors left and I was alone with the paperwork and the faint chemical smell that clung to the air.

My desk was in what used to be the parlor, now a small office with a window overlooking the front lawn. To my right, a hallway led past two bathrooms and a door marked ‘PREPARATION ROOM – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.’ The crematory was in the basement, but I never went down there. The prep room, however, I had been in once, during a tour on my first day. It was clean, sterile, with steel tables and a drain in the floor, and a wall of refrigerated drawers where the deceased waited for their final arrangements. The drawers were numbered, six of them, and the sixth was never used.

At first, I attributed the sounds to the building’s old bones. A settling timber, a hissing pipe, a draft rattling a loose window. But as weeks passed, I began to notice a pattern. The sounds came only when I was alone, usually in the late afternoon when the light was low and the corridors fell into shadow. It was a soft, rhythmic tapping, like fingernails on glass, coming from the direction of the prep room. I’d stop typing, hold my breath, and listen. The tapping would cease the moment I paid attention, only to resume when I returned to my work, as if it were waiting for my focus to falter.

One Tuesday, the directors were at an off-site service, and the building was emptier than usual. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the hum of the fluorescent lights. Around three o’clock, I had to use the restroom. The hallway seemed longer than I remembered, the shadows stretching like dark fingers toward the prep room door. I passed the first bathroom, and as I reached the second, I heard it clearly: a distinct knock, followed by two more, coming from behind the prep room door. I froze, my heart thudding. I told myself it was the pipes, the old furnace, anything. But the knocks were deliberate, a rhythm I almost recognized. I took a step closer, my shoes squeaking on the polished floor, and the knocking stopped.

I almost convinced myself to go back to my office, but my curiosity, or maybe some morbid instinct, pushed me forward. I placed my hand on the cool metal doorknob. It turned easily, and the door swung open with a soft click. The room was as I remembered: immaculate, with the steel table under a bright examination light, and the row of drawers along the far wall. The sixth drawer, the one that was never used, was slightly ajar. A thin blade of darkness showed between the rubber gasket and the stainless steel. I knew I shouldn’t, but I walked over and pulled the drawer open fully. It slid out on silent rollers, revealing an empty, gleaming tray. The air inside was cold, but it carried a scent, not of chemicals but of something earthy, like wet soil after a rain. And there, on the tray’s surface, was a single, perfect fingerprint, as if pressed into the metal.

I shut the drawer quickly and backed out of the room, my mind racing. I didn’t return to my office. I sat in the break room, sipping cold coffee, until the directors returned. I didn’t mention it to them. I thought perhaps I had imagined it, or that it was some trick of the light. But the next day, when the directors were out again, I heard the knocking again. This time, I didn’t investigate. I just sat at my desk, pretending to type, but my hands were shaking. The knocking grew more insistent, no longer a polite tap but a steady drumming, as if someone was pounding on the inside of the drawer.

I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I grabbed a crowbar from the maintenance closet and stormed into the prep room. The sixth drawer was open, fully open, the tray gleaming under the fluorescent lights. The pounding stopped the instant I entered, replaced by a profound silence. My breathing was loud, ragged. I stepped closer, and I saw that the fingerprint was still there, but now there were more – a smeared palm, like someone had been pressed against the metal from the inside. And then I heard it: a low, guttural sigh, so close it might have been behind me. I spun around, but there was nothing. The room was empty, save for the dead in their drawers.

I fled, leaving the crowbar on the floor, and I didn’t stop running until I was in my car, driving home. The next morning, I called in sick. But I couldn’t stay away. I was drawn back into that place, as if by some invisible thread. When I walked into the office, there was a note on my desk from the lead director: ‘Saw you left your crowbar. Everything okay?’ I crumpled the note and threw it away. I didn’t want to talk about it.

The knocking didn’t return for a week. I began to relax, to chalk it up to my imagination, stress, something. But then, on a quiet Sunday when I was catching up on paperwork, the phone rang. It was the director, asking if I could check on the prep room because a relative had complained the temperature wasn’t right for the body of their loved one. I said I would. I walked down the hallway, my feet heavy, and opened the door. The prep room was cold, colder than usual. The sixth drawer was open, and the tray was no longer empty. On it lay a figure, shrouded in white, but the sheet was drawn back just enough to reveal the face. It was a face I knew, the face of the lead director, Mr. Hargrove. But Mr. Hargrove was at a funeral in another county. I stared, and then the face’s eyes opened, white and milky, and it whispered, ‘You left me in there.’

I screamed and ran. I never returned to that place. I quit the next day, and I moved out of Cedar Falls. But the knocking followed me. It’s here now, in my new apartment, coming from the wall behind my bed. It’s soft, rhythmic, patient. And sometimes, in the dead of night, I swear I can hear Mr. Hargrove’s voice, muffled, saying, ‘Let me out. You left me in the sixth drawer.’ And I know, one day, the drawer will be open for me too.