The Weeping Wallpaper

I moved into the old farmhouse on the edge of the Salt Flats with my roommate, Tess. We were both drawn to the isolation, the way the house sat like a forgotten thought against the vast, pale horizon. We loved horror movies, and the house’s creaking bones felt like a promise. The first sign was a smell—mildew and old roses, drifting from the upstairs hallway. Then, a single, perfect rose petal on the kitchen counter, though no roses grew within miles. Tess laughed it off, calling it ‘the house’s perfume.’ A week later, my grandmother’s locket vanished from the nightstand. We tore the room apart, and I cried, but it reappeared three days later, tucked inside a sealed box of winter clothes in the attic—a box I hadn’t opened since I moved in. Tess started seeing things out of the corner of her eye: a flicker of a hem, a shadow that didn’t align. She joked we had a ghost, and we named her ‘Elsie’ after the wallpaper pattern in the upstairs bedroom—faded, peeling roses that seemed to weep in the damp. But the playfulness curdled. One evening, I found Tess huddled in the bathroom, the light blazing, her face ashen. She said she’d been reading on the couch when she felt a breath on her neck, so close and cold that it smelled of decay. She swore she saw her own hair lift, as if stirred by silent fingers. She refused to be alone after that. We started sleeping with all the lights on, but the house seemed to breathe darkness. Objects moved with intent: a knife skittered across the counter, a door slammed so hard it cracked. We heard footsteps pacing the hallway at night, and once, a low murmur, like a voice swallowed by the walls. The wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom began to peel faster, revealing dark, greasy stains beneath. Tess started having nightmares, waking with scratches on her arms. I found her one morning standing by the window, staring at the Salt Flats, whispering, ‘She wants us to leave.’ I tried to rationalize, but my own terror was growing. One night, I woke to the sound of weeping—soft, muffled, coming from the walls. I foolishly climbed the stairs, my heart hammering. In the bedroom, the wallpaper was moving, undulating like a living thing, and from the peeling edges, thin, hair-like tendrils reached out. I stumbled back, and the weeping grew louder, morphing into a guttural growl. I bolted downstairs, grabbed Tess, and we fled to the car, leaving everything behind. We never went back. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I smell mildew and old roses. And I see a single, dark tear streak down the bathroom mirror, as if the house is still weeping, and it’s called my name.