When Julia Tran moved into the Briar Ridge Apartments, she thought she’d finally gotten lucky. The rent was impossibly low for the city, the building was quiet, and her new job was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Sure, the hallways smelled faintly of bleach and old carpet, and the lighting flickered sometimes—but she’d seen far worse.
Her unit, 9B, sat at the end of the top floor hallway. The previous tenant had left in a hurry, according to the building manager, a thin, tired-looking woman named Mrs. Harrel. She handed Julia the keys with a quick smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Welcome. If you need anything, let me know. I don’t usually come up to this floor at night, but you can always leave a note under the office door.”
“Why not at night?” Julia joked, expecting to break the ice.
But Mrs. Harrel didn’t laugh.
She just said, “The elevator gets noisy after dark,” and walked away.
Julia shrugged it off. Older buildings always had quirks.
The first few nights passed peacefully, though she noticed something strange: every morning, a faint dusting of white powder appeared under her front door. At first she assumed it was drywall from maintenance work, but it kept returning—just a thin line, like someone sprinkled it deliberately.
Still, she had work to worry about. Strange dust could wait.
---
On her fourth night, Julia stayed late finishing a report. By the time she walked home, the building had gone unusually quiet. She stepped into the elevator and pressed 9.
The doors began to close—
—but stopped halfway. Something jammed them.
Julia backed up instinctively.
A hand—thin, pale, bony—slid between the elevator doors. It wasn’t reaching for her; it was simply… probing the opening. The nails were too long, yellowed and chipped. The skin almost grey.
Julia’s breath froze in her chest.
The hand lingered for a moment, fingertips scraping lightly against the metal like it was learning the shape.
Then it withdrew.
The doors shut. The elevator continued up.
When it opened on the ninth floor, Julia ran.
She locked her door behind her, heart pounding. She didn’t sleep for hours.
---
The next morning, the line of white powder under her door was thicker—almost like someone had pushed it inward from the hallway.
She crouched, touched it.
Salt.
Confusion prickled through her. Why salt?
She found Mrs. Harrel in the lobby, sorting mail.
“There’s something weird on my floor,” Julia said. “Salt under my door. Do you know why?”
Mrs. Harrel’s hands froze mid-sorting. Her eyes flicked up.
“Oh.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “So you’ve seen him.”
“Seen who?”
After a long pause, the woman set the mail down and gestured subtly for Julia to follow her into the office.
When they were alone, she locked the door.
“Unit 9B,” Mrs. Harrel said quietly, “should never have been rented. I told the owners. They didn’t listen. We haven’t had someone stay longer than two weeks since… since Mr. Cormac.”
Julia’s mouth went dry. “What happened to him?”
“He died,” Mrs. Harrel said. “In the elevator. Body was found with the doors open. They said heart attack, but his hands were… scraped raw. Like he’d been clawing at something.”
A cold wave washed through Julia’s stomach.
“There’s something in this building,” the manager continued. “No one knows where it came from. Some say it’s older than the building itself. It shows itself only on the top floor. And it fixates on the person who lives in 9B.”
Julia forced a laugh. “You’re joking.”
Mrs. Harrel shook her head. “I’m not. The salt helps. It doesn’t like crossing it. But it always finds a way to wear the line down.”
Julia swallowed hard. “So I should move?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Harrel said. “As soon as you can.”
---
Julia wanted to dismiss it. She really did. But dread sat like a stone in her chest as she rode the elevator back up.
That night, she placed a thick line of fresh salt along the bottom of her door—inside this time. Just to feel safer.
She was brushing her teeth when she heard it.
A soft shuffle outside her door.
Not footsteps.
More like something dragging its limbs as it crawled.
Julia froze.
The sound moved slowly down the hall… stopped just outside her door… and then came the tapping.
Light, testing taps. Four distinct points, like fingertips pressing delicately against the wood.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Then a slow, dragging sound down the length of the door.
Julia backed away, shaking.
After a moment, the figure—whatever it was—moved on, scraping its way back toward the elevator. She waited until she could no longer hear it before she dared to breathe normally again.
---
She didn’t sleep.
At dawn, she opened her door a crack.
The salt line outside had been pushed inward again, disrupting the barrier she had made.
Worse:
On the carpet in front of her unit sat four long smears—dusty, finger-shaped streaks leading toward the elevator.
Julia packed her bags that morning.
---
She avoided the elevator completely, taking the stairs two at a time. By noon she had loaded what little she owned into her car. All that remained was turning in her keys.
Mrs. Harrel met her by the building entrance.
“I’m glad you’re leaving,” she said. “Most don’t get a chance.”
“You should warn people,” Julia replied, trembling.
“I try,” the woman said bitterly. “But the owners replace me if I push too hard.”
Julia was about to respond when the elevator dinged behind them.
She turned instinctively.
The doors slid open.
There was no one inside.
But the floor between the doors was smeared with four long prints, like something damp had pressed its hand there before slipping away.
Mrs. Harrel inhaled sharply. “It’s not usually active during the day.”
Julia didn’t wait.
She left the keys on the counter and walked out without looking back.
---
That night, in her friend’s spare room, Julia dreamt of the ninth-floor hallway: long, dim, stretching into darkness. She saw her old apartment door. Saw the salt spilling inward. Saw a tall, thin shape bent at an impossible angle, its hands brushing lightly along the floor as it crawled.
Its head snapped toward her in the dream.
Eyes pale and wide.
Mouth hanging open like it had forgotten how to close it.
She woke up screaming.
---
Two days later, Mrs. Harrel called.
“I thought you should know,” she said quietly. “The owners rented 9B again. A college student this time. Moved in last night.”
Julia felt her throat tighten. “Did you tell him?”
“I tried.”
“And?”
Mrs. Harrel hesitated.
“He laughed.”
Julia closed her eyes.
In the background of the call, faintly, she thought she heard something:
The ding of an elevator.
The scrape of long fingers on metal.
Then—
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Right before the line went dead.
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