The Static Between Floors

I never thought much about the apartment above mine. It was just the place where the elderly Mr. Hargrove lived, or used to live until he passed in March. The landlord said the unit was being cleaned out, but no one ever came. So when the sounds started, I told myself it was just the building settling, the old pipes groaning. But my cat, a skittish tabby named Miso, knew better.

It began last Tuesday. I was curled up on the couch, half-watching a documentary, when Miso, who had been dozing on the windowsill, bolted upright, her fur bristling. She stared at the ceiling, her ears flat, and let out a low, guttural hiss. I followed her gaze, but there was nothing—just the water stain that had been there since I moved in. ‘What is it, girl?’ I asked, scratching her chin. She didn’t calm down. She just kept staring, her tail thrashing. A few seconds later, a faint scratching sound came from above, like something was being dragged across the floor. It stopped as abruptly as it started. I chalked it up to the wind, but my hands were shaking.

The next night, at 3:17 AM, I was jolted awake by Miso yowling. She was in the hallway, facing the bathroom, her back arched, spitting at the closed door. The bathroom light, which I had definitely turned off before bed, was on, casting a yellow wedge into the dark. I crept over, my heart pounding, and pushed the door open. The room was empty. The medicine cabinet was open, and my toothbrush lay on the floor, as if it had been knocked off. I didn’t remember leaving it there. I turned off the light and shut the door, but Miso wouldn’t come near me. She stayed in the living room, her eyes fixed on the bathroom door, for the rest of the night.

The third night, I decided to stay up, to catch whatever was happening. I brewed a pot of coffee, sat at the kitchen table, and watched the clock. Miso was on the counter, alert, her ears twitching. At exactly 1:11 AM, the radio in the bedroom, which was off, crackled to life. Static poured out, a harsh, white noise that filled the apartment. I rushed in, and the dial was spinning on its own, briefly landing on stations—eerie music, a sports game, a preacher’s sermon—before settling back to static. The dial froze. The static grew louder, and I could swear I heard a voice buried in it, whispering my name. ‘Sarah… Sarah…’ I screamed and yanked the plug, but the radio kept playing, even unplugged. I threw it against the wall, and it shattered into plastic and wire, but the static persisted, seeming to come from the walls themselves. Miso was underneath the bed, trembling.

I called my brother, Tom, who lived twenty minutes away. He came over, looking bleary-eyed. He helped me search the apartment, and we found nothing—all doors and windows were locked, no sign of intrusion. He laughed it off, saying I was stressed from work, that the radio was just a malfunction. But as he was leaving, he paused in the hallway. ‘Hey, you ever hear that scratching upstairs?’ he asked. I hadn’t mentioned it. ‘It’s probably just mice,’ he said. But his face was pale.

After he left, I tried to sleep, with Miso tucked under my arm. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Miso was gone. I heard her hiss from the hallway. I got up, and the bathroom light was on again. The door was ajar. I pushed it open, and Miso was sitting in the bathtub, staring at the wall. Not at me. At the wall. And the wall was moving—a strange, rippling shadow, like something was pressing against it from the other side. I reached for Miso, but she hissed and swatted at me. Then the shadow seemed to solidify, and a sound came from the wall, a low, wet thumping, like a heartbeat. I backed away, grabbed my phone, and ran out of the apartment, naked except for my pajama bottoms.

I stayed at Tom’s place for a week. When I finally returned, with a friend from work and a borrowed crowbar, the apartment was unsettlingly normal. The bathroom wall was smooth. The radio was in pieces on the floor. Miso was in the kitchen, grooming herself as if nothing had happened. ‘Maybe it’s over,’ I said, but friend wasn’t so sure. He made me talk to the landlord, who admitted that Mr. Hargrove had died of a heart attack in that bathroom, and that his body wasn’t found for three days. The landlord gave me a strange look. ‘He had a cat too, you know. It stayed in the apartment the whole time, alone. They found it sitting in the tub, staring at the wall.’

I moved out the next month. But before I did, I noticed a loose tile in the bathroom. When I pried it up, I found a small, dried-up chrysalis—the kind a moth would make. And scratched into the concrete beneath it, in shaky handwriting, were the words: ‘It’s not a moth. It’s a man who forgot to die.’ I don’t know what that means. But sometimes, at night, from the vents in my new place, I hear a faint scratching. And Miso, who never meows, starts to growl at the ceiling.