The Wall-Face

The summer I turned fourteen, my family moved into a sprawling Victorian that had been abandoned for nearly a decade on the outskirts of a town called Greyhollow. The locals called it the ‘Marrow House’ because of the way the bones of the original owner were supposedly found in the walls. My parents rolled their eyes at such tales, but my sister Lily and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was watching us.

Our first morning there, I was in the downstairs bathroom, brushing my hair in the dim light of a naked bulb. The house creaked and moaned as if it were settling into its own skin. My little sister, Maya, stumbled down the stairs, her face pale, her nightgown twisted. ‘Is Grandpa here?’ she asked.

I laughed. ‘No, Grandpa is in Arizona.’

‘Stop messing with me,’ she insisted, her voice trembling. ‘Is he or isn’t he?’

‘Really, Maya, he’s not here.’ I turned back to the mirror, but I saw her reflection behind me, frozen.

She went back upstairs, but two minutes later, she returned, her eyes wide. ‘There was a man in my room,’ she whispered.

‘No there wasn’t,’ I said, running the brush through my hair.

‘Dad just left to start the truck,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘But there was a man in my room, and he walked right through the wall by my window.’

I put down the brush and looked at her. Her face was not that of a child playing a prank. Her hands were trembling. ‘What did he look like?’ I asked.

‘Old, like Grandpa, but not Grandpa. He had holes in his face, like someone poked out his eyes and nose.’

A cold draft swept through the hall, and the light flickered. I forced a smile. ‘It was probably a dream.’

But Maya shook her head stubbornly. ‘He had a key in his hand, and he was trying to open the wall.’

That evening, after the boxes were unpacked, I went to my own room, which was on the third floor. The ceiling sloped, and the only window faced the overgrown backyard. I tried to read, but my mind kept drifting back to Maya’s words. Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, I heard a soft knock on my door. I opened it, but no one was there. I stepped into the hallway, and the floorboards creaked. From the corner of my eye, I saw a shape—a tall, thin figure—slip into the wall at the end of the corridor, leaving a faint, greasy smear on the wallpaper.

I should have told my parents, but what would I say? That I saw a ghost? They’d think I was being dramatic. Instead, I spent the night with my lamp on, watching the walls for any sign of movement.

A week later, my father began renovations. He wanted to open up the wall between the living room and the old parlor. On the first swing of the sledgehammer, the plaster cracked, revealing a hollow space. Inside, we found a tarnished brass key, its teeth twisted like roots. My father held it up to the light. ‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s an antique.’

I felt a chill. ‘Don’t touch it,’ I said.

But he did. He wiped it clean and slipped it into his pocket. That night, I dreamed of a wall made of flesh, pulsing like a heartbeat. I woke to find my bedroom door open, and a figure standing over me—a man with a face that was a blank expanse of skin, no features at all. He raised his hand, and in it was the key. He pressed it against my forehead, and I felt my own features melt away, sliding down my cheeks like hot wax.

I screamed, but no sound came. When I jolted awake, my sheets were soaked with sweat. I checked the mirror: my face was intact, but there was a single crimson line across my brow, as if someone had drawn a keyhole there.

Over the next weeks, the house grew worse. Doors would slam on their own, and at night I could hear a rhythmic tapping inside the walls, like something pacing. Maya started sleepwalking, and I would find her in the hallway, her eyes open but unseeing, her hands pressed against the wallpaper as if she were feeling for a seam. One morning, she woke up and said, ‘He says the key is not for the door. It’s for the wall.’

Our parents finally decided to have the house inspected, fearing rodents. The inspector arrived, a wiry man with a toolbox. He spent hours in the basement, and when he came up, he was pale. ‘You have a lot of drywall damage,’ he said. ‘But there’s something weird in the framing. Looks like the original plaster is some kind of… organic material.’ He couldn’t explain it, but he recommended we open up more walls.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I crept downstairs to the kitchen to get water. The house was silent, save for the hum of the old refrigerator. As I passed the parlor, I noticed the wall where my father had uncovered the key. Now, the outline of a door had appeared—a thin, jagged crack that ran from floor to ceiling, as if the wall was trying to open. I approached it and saw that at eye level, there was a small, perfectly circular hole. Without thinking, I took the key from a hook where my father had placed it and inserted it into the hole. It fit perfectly.

I turned it.

The wall split open with a sound like tearing flesh, revealing a dark passage that smelled of damp earth and decay. Inside, I could see a figure—the wall-face man—waiting. He had a face now, but it was a collage of all the faces I had ever seen, shifting and rippling: my mother’s, my father’s, Maya’s, and finally, mine. He reached out, and his fingers were long, like needles. ‘You let me out,’ he said, his voice a thousand whispers. ‘Now you take my place in the wall.’

I tried to run, but my feet were rooted to the floor. He placed his hand on my chest, and I felt the skin of my face begin to stretch, to peel away. I screamed, and Maya appeared at the top of the stairs. She was holding a hammer—the same one my father had used. She ran down and swung it at the figure, hitting him in the head. He recoiled, and the wall began to close. I yanked the key out as the crack sealed shut, leaving a faint scar on the wallpaper.

Maya helped me up. ‘He’s still in there,’ she said. ‘But he’s trapped again.’

We never told our parents. But from that night on, the house was quiet, except for a faint scratching on the walls, always just out of sight. And sometimes, when I pass a mirror, I see a face in the reflection that isn’t mine—a face like mine, but with hollows where the eyes should be, and a keyhole in the center of its forehead. I try not to look. But the key, I keep it with me always, in my pocket, cold and heavy, because I know that one day, the wall will open again, and I’ll have to decide whether to let him out or go in.