The Third Tenant

The house on Maple Street was a tired old Victorian, its paint peeling like sunburned skin, its porch sagging with the weight of decades. My friend Dana had rented the ground floor with two roommates, but they’d all gone home for the holidays, leaving me and my ex, Elliot, to house-sit. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was cheap, and we’d spent many evenings there playing cards and drinking cheap wine, so it felt familiar.

We arrived late, around 11 PM, the streetlights casting amber pools on the cracked sidewalk. The air smelled of wet leaves and chimney smoke. Dana had left a key under the ceramic frog by the door, and we let ourselves in. The hallway was dim, with a single bulb flickering at the top of the stairs. We dropped our bags in the living room, where the furniture was a mismatched collection of thrift store finds, and immediately got ready for bed.

I took a quick shower in the tiny bathroom off the kitchen, the water pressure a pathetic trickle. When I came out, wrapped in a towel, Elliot was already in the bedroom we’d chosen, the one at the end of the hall. It had a window that faced the neighbor’s overgrown hedge. I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed beside Elliot, who was already scrolling through his phone.

Twenty minutes passed. The clock on the nightstand said 11:47. Then, from the other bedroom across the hall, came a sound that made my blood run cold: the unmistakable creak of a window being pushed open. It wasn’t the wind; it was a deliberate, slow slide, as if someone were lifting the sash from the outside.

Elliot sat up, his phone forgotten. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.

I nodded, my heart hammering. That bedroom was supposed to be locked. We’d checked all the doors when we arrived. The only other person with a key was Dana, but she was in Ohio.

We lay still, listening. A cold draft crept under the bedroom door, carrying the smell of damp earth. Then, footsteps. Heavy, deliberate steps crossing the wooden floor of the other room. They stopped after a few paces, and then we heard a low, guttural voice, not quite a word, more like a growl.

Elliot swung his legs out of bed. ‘I’m going to check,’ he said, his voice shaky.

‘No,’ I hissed, grabbing his arm. But he was already pulling on his jeans, ignoring me. He grabbed a flashlight from the nightstand and crept to the door, his movements exaggeratedly careful.

I followed, my bare feet cold on the hardwood. The hallway was pitch black. Elliot clicked on the flashlight, the beam cutting a cone of light. The door to the other bedroom was ajar, which we hadn’t left it. I could see a sliver of the room inside, the moonlight filtering through the now-open window, casting a pale rectangle on the floor.

Elliot pushed the door open fully. The room was empty. The window was wide open, the sheer curtain fluttering in the breeze. On the floor, just below the window, there was a muddy footprint, too large for any human I knew.

We stood there, frozen. Then, from behind us, we heard the bathroom door click shut. We spun around. The bathroom door, which had been open, was now closed. And from inside, we heard the sound of running water, then a soft, rhythmic drip.

Elliot’s face was ashen in the flashlight glow. ‘Who’s there?’ he called out, his voice cracking.

No answer. The dripping stopped. Then, the toilet flushed.

We backed away, our eyes fixed on the bathroom door. The handle began to turn. Slowly, it rotated, and the door creaked open a few inches, revealing nothing but darkness beyond. And then, a shape emerged, not human, but vaguely man-shaped, made of shifting gray mist. It glided out, pausing for a moment as if looking at us, though it had no face, then drifted down the hall and vanished through the wall.

We didn’t sleep that night. We sat in the living room, all the lights on, huddled together on the couch, listening to the occasional creak of the old house. At dawn, we called Dana. She laughed and said, ‘Oh, that’s just the third tenant. I forgot to mention him. He’s harmless, just doesn’t like to be ignored.’

We left that morning, never to return. But sometimes, late at night, I still feel the draft from an open window, and I hear the sound of a toilet flushing, and I know that somewhere, a window is sliding open, waiting for the next visitor to move in.