My grandmother and I moved into Apartment 3B at the historic Fenwick Building three weeks ago, adopting a stray hound named Buster who roamed the alley.
Chloe’s confession hung heavy in the air, a chilling confirmation of my worst fears. Grandma Martha just sat there, clutching her rosary beads, a faint tremor in her hands.
“He threatened you?” I asked, the words barely a whisper. “Just for asking about stains?”
Chloe nodded, her face grim. “He was a different person in that moment. It wasn’t just a threat. It was a promise. I saw a darkness in him I never imagined.”
She stayed for a while, sharing what little she knew about Clara – that she was a quiet, kind woman who loved gardening, especially the rosebushes in the courtyard. She confirmed Clara’s dog was a hound mix, just like Buster.
It all fit. Clara’s collar, the lease payments, the buried SIM card, Marcus’s desperation to get Buster out of the building. And now, the bloodstains.
After Chloe left, promising to stay in touch, the weight of it all pressed down on me. We were living directly below a murderer.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake, listening. I knew what was coming. The chill, Buster’s growl, the shadow. But I was also listening for something else.
Midnight.
Just as the digital numbers on my phone clicked from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM, a faint, rhythmic tapping started from the radiator pipes.
*Tap-tap… tap-tap-tap… tap-tap.*
It wasn’t random. It was precise. Too precise to be the natural creaks and groans of an old building.
I grabbed my notebook and a pen from my nightstand. My hands were shaking, but I forced myself to focus. This wasn’t just noise. This was a message.
I started writing down the pattern, counting the taps, noting the pauses.
*Tap-tap* (two taps)
*Pause*
*Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap* (five taps)
*Pause*
*Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap* (seven taps)
*Pause*
*Tap-tap-tap-tap* (four taps)
And so on. The tapping continued for almost five minutes, a complex, deliberate sequence.
It felt like someone was trying to communicate. Someone, or *something*.
I looked at the pattern on my page. Numbers. A series of numbers. Two-five-seven-four. Then three-zero. Then one-five.
Suddenly, a realization hit me like a physical blow.
Missing cloud backup logs. Chloe mentioned Clara was meticulous about backing up her data. What if these weren’t just numbers?
What if these were dates? Numeric calendar dates. Timestamps.
The radiator was directly below Marcus’s apartment, right where Clara had disappeared. And it was tapping at midnight, the exact beginning of a new day.
This wasn’t a random haunting. This was a ghost trying to tell me something, trying to point to specific moments in time related to her missing data. The SIM card.
The taps continued, a steady, chilling rhythm against the silent apartment. Clara was still here. And she was talking to me.
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