The Storage Room Tally

The summer after my freshman year, my cousin Vera and I decided to spend a week cleaning out my late uncle’s storage unit. The unit, number 17 in a forgotten corner of the sprawling Oakhaven Self-Storage, had been untouched since he died in 2009. Vera and I were both into all things eerie, devouring podcasts and internet forums about the unexplained. We thought we’d find old photographs and maybe some quirky knick-knacks, never expecting anything truly frightening. We were inseparable, always with each other, so we felt safe.

On the fourth day, we’d cleared a path to the back, where an old steamer trunk sat buried under mildewed blankets. Inside, we found an unmarked metal tin containing a stack of yellowed index cards, each covered in my uncle’s spidery handwriting, dated from 1998 to 2003. The cards were a log, not of inventory but of events: ‘3 AM, humming from the far wall, 2 minutes’, ‘Lights flickered, breaker checked, no cause’, ‘Something tapped the metal door, three times, from inside. It was locked.’ We were fascinated, reading them aloud, the mundane recordings making the hair on our arms stand up. That night, we decided to sleep in the unit, just for the thrill, our sleeping bags laid out on the concrete floor, our phones on the charger we’d smuggled in from the office.

The next morning, we woke to a strange silence. The constant hum of the fluorescent lights above was gone. In the darkness, our phones were dead, their screens black. We fumbled for flashlights, but they too were dead. Then, from the direction of the steel door, came a sharp, distinct snap. It wasn’t the click of a lock or the crack of a joint; it was like a finger snapping, loud and deliberate. We both froze, staring at the door. We tested it by snapping our own fingers, but the sound was flat, nothing like that crisp, ringing snap that seemed to come from the very air.

We tried to rationalize: maybe a rat, maybe the metal contracting, but we knew. The door was padlocked from the outside, and we had the only key. We threw ourselves against it, but it wouldn’t budge, the handle turning uselessly. The snap came again, closer now, from behind us. We spun around, flashlights dead, to see the trunk, slightly ajar, the tin of index cards on the ground beside it. We couldn’t explain it, but a cold, prickling dread settled over us, and we knew we were not alone.

We spent what felt like hours in that pitch-black room, our hands clasped, whispering to each other. Then, Vera’s voice cut through the dark, hoarse. ‘It’s counting us,’ she said. ‘The cards. They were a tally.’ I didn’t understand, but then I heard it – a soft rustling, like dry pages turning, and a voice that wasn’t ours, a low rasp that seemed to emanate from the trunk itself. ‘One,’ it said. Then a pause. ‘Two.’ We were two. And then the snap again, right between us, so close I felt the vibration in the air.

We scrambled to the door, hammering our fists against the cold metal, screaming for help, but our voices were swallowed by the heavy silence. The tally voice kept going, now from all around us, each number dropping like a stone into a deep well. ‘Three.’ ‘Four.’ We were trembling, desperately trying to remember the exact sequence of events on the cards, realizing with horror that each entry corresponded to a presence, a visit. The last card we had read, dated March 2003, simply said ‘Nine. Then silence. I hope it’s done.’

We lost track of time. The tally reached eleven, then twelve. The air grew icy, and we could see our breath. Then, a shape began to form in the corner, a darker patch against the black, roughly humanoid. It was very still, but we felt its attention on us. I pulled Vera toward the far wall, pressing our backs against the cinderblocks, watching the shape. Suddenly, the trunk slammed shut on its own, the sound echoing through the small space. The shape dissolved, and the silence returned, except for the hum of the lights, which flickered back on. Our phones buzzed to life, showing the time: 3:00 AM, exactly, on the fifth day.

We didn’t speak, just grabbed our things and ran to the office, but the clerk looked at us like we were crazy when we told her we’d spent the night in unit 17. ‘That unit’s been sealed since your uncle passed,’ she said, frowning at a logbook. ‘No one’s been in there since the estate sale, and you need a manager to open it.’ We rushed back, and she unlocked the door. The room was empty, not just of us, but of everything – no trunk, no boxes, no blankets. Just clean, gray concrete walls and a single, faint scuff mark on the floor, like the heel of a shoe.

Vera swore she’d never speak of it again, and we never did, not to each other. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I catch myself counting, and I realize the tally in that room had a sequitur, a continuation we never saw. Maybe the count wasn’t of visits, but of souls. And I know, with a certainty that chills me, that the snapping sound was the marker, the first note of a song that would eventually call us all, one by one, to stand in that dark room, waiting for our number to be called.