The Neighbor Below

Every night, someone walks under your floor.

You live on the ground floor. An old building, creaky floorboards, windows facing the courtyard. There's no basement. The landlord told you so at the viewing, and you even wished you had somewhere to keep your bike.

It starts at two a.m. Every time.

Slow footsteps. Heavy, but muffled, as if through a layer of earth. They start at the kitchen wall. They cross the living room. They come into your bedroom.

They stop under your bed.

For a long time. Then they move away, back the other way, to the kitchen wall. And the silence comes back.

· · ·

On the third night, you get up. You lie down on the floor next to the bed and press your ear to the boards.

Nothing. Not a sound. Just cold air rising through the cracks, a damp cold that smells of stone, and has no business in a bedroom in September.

The next day, you call the landlord. You choose your words carefully so you don't sound crazy.

He laughs. "A basement? The building sits on bare dirt. There's nothing under you, I promise."

· · ·

The next night, the footsteps come back. Faster.

They don't stop under the bed anymore. They stop right under your pillow. A few inches from your head, on the other side of the floorboards.

Three soft knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Like someone at a door. Like someone politely asking to come in.

· · ·

In the morning, the landlord calls back. His voice has changed. He dug through the old floor plans at home.

"There was a basement. Bricked up in nineteen sixty-two. I don't know why."

A silence.

"There's only a trapdoor left. In the back bedroom."

Your bedroom.

Under your bed.

You push the bed aside. There it is, under the dust: a square of darker wood, an old rusted iron latch. It's been under you since the first night.

· · ·

Tonight, at two a.m., the footsteps come back.

They cross the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. They stop under your bed.

And they don't move away.

You hear the latch.

It opens.

From underneath.