So I moved into this apartment that had been built before 1950. I think to myself, “Gosh, it would be awful if this were haunted,” and then I kind of laugh because this apartment IS SO NOT HAUNTED. You don’t paint the place butter yellow with white trim and go, “IT LOOKS HAUNTED.” And it’s a great place. Built-in bookshelves. Hardwood floors. Fireplace that probably worked once upon a time but now just looks nice. Original tile in the bathroom. There’s even a balcony. And for a two-bedroom apartment, the rent is low. Low enough that I don’t need a roommate, so screw it, I’m not getting a roommate. That balcony is MINE. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.
Two weeks pass, and it’s freaking bliss. It’s my first time living on my own outside of college. I live close enough to my job that I can walk to work. I have a cat. The cat loves the place, too. It’s just mostly chilling and hanging out. I’m not living like a queen by any means, but it’s NICE. Like, really nice.
And then I get sick. BAD sick. Might have been a really bad cold or the flu, but regardless, I was in bed, unable to do more than shuffle around the apartment and maybe occasionally take a shower.
The second night of being really sick, I wake up in the middle of the night, and there’s a thing in my bedroom doorway. Which is kind of an odd place to put a thing. And to make it worse, it looks kind of person-shaped. Even worse, it looks like a person would look if the person were wearing a hood and cloak. And this thing is pitch black. Like, absorbing light pitch black. I didn’t have the light-blocking curtains then, so I could still see the stuff in my bedroom. Everything except this thing.
I sit up, and I stare at it. It stands there. I stare at it. It stands there. I stare. It stands. I run through a mental checklist of all the furniture in my room. I point to each piece of furniture in the room. “Bookcase. Bureau. Bedside table. Bedside table” None of which, you might notice, could be mistaken for a person wearing a cloak standing in my doorway. I point at it. It stands there. I count off the furniture again. Done, I point to the thing in the doorway again. And then I realize something, the way you realize where you left your glasses when you’ve been looking for them for ages. And I say, “I’m too damn tired for this.” And I roll over and go to sleep.
But hold up. We’re not done.
Night three of being sick. My dishes are rattling in the sink. I roll over and listen to them clinking around. It is obviously the sound of dirty dishes in the sink the next room over. I look for my cat to see if she’s the one causing this. She sits behind me on the bed, looking from the doorway to me and back again, and we stay in bed, listening to the bowls and forks move around. “Better not miss a spot,” I say, thinking whoever - or whatever - is in my kitchen is doing my dishes. “I don’t want to have to do the dishes in the morning.”
I’ll go ahead and tell you now: No dishes were washed. I ended up having to wash them all. Years later, and I’m still pissed off about it.
SO NIGHT FOUR. Okay. This is the big one. Night four.
The thing is back. Only it’s not in my doorway anymore. It’s closer to the bed. I wake up in the middle of the night, sit up, and there it is. About three feet away from the foot of my bed. And it’s standing there, not moving. I stare at it. It stands there. We’ve been through this before. I know how it goes. But I keep staring, and it keeps standing. I can’t see its face. I can’t any eyes. The whole thing is pitch black, and just… standing.
I count off the furniture a couple times. I stare at each bit of furniture, making sure I can identify it and that it’s where that particular piece of furniture is supposed to be. All the furniture is accounted for. I stare at the thing again. I staaaaaaaaaaaaare at it. I still can’t make out any features. It still isn’t moving. And I go, “You didn’t even wash the dishes.”
To which it, of course, says nothing. But that’s okay, because I don’t need it to talk for this conversation to go down.
“You’re not paying rent. You’re not going to, either, are you. Not like you can get a job when you can’t even do the damn dishes. Just rattled them around in the sink, didn’t you. I had to do the dishes myself. This morning.”
And it keeps standing there.
So I’m like, “So look. I pay the rent here. I pay the bills. You can stay. I don’t care. But we’re going to set up some ground rules. If you stay, you have to help out around here. Do the dishes. Feed the cat. That sort of thing. But if you’re not going to participate, if you’re going to freeload, you can’t stay. I can’t have you creeping around like a creeper. And I’m doing EVERYTHING here. So you decide what you want to do. You can stay, no problem. Or you can go. Either way, I’m too tired to deal with this right now. So good night.” And I rolled over and went back to sleep.
And I never saw the thing again, never saw it standing in my bedroom or heard it lying about doing the dishes. I started feeling better the next day, and I enjoyed the hell out of that apartment until I moved out.
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