The Apartment

 The dog sprang off of the bed with a growl rumbling in her throat.  I sat up in bed and watched her move slowly and intentionally towards the room's open door.  The hallway was dark.  My roommate either wasn't home or was already asleep.  Everything felt still and quiet, except for the dog, who continued her guttural noise.  The air around me suddenly felt cold, like the air conditioner had just kicked on.  It was the dead of winter, though, so I knew it wasn't that.

She must be here.

I pulled my covers up to my chin and watched the dog.  He was a boxer/doberman mix who belonged to my roommate's boyfriend and so whenever they came over, my roommate tucked herself in with her man and I tucked myself in with his dog.  Only seems fair.  He was a sweet dog, even though he shed like a beast.

And also, ever since this new snuggled-in routine of ours began, she started showing up.

My roommate and I had moved into this apartment at the start of the semester.  We'd lived in a different unit in the same building last year and had liked how conveniently close it was to campus and liked the layout and liked how chill the building manager was and liked how so many of our friends lived nearby.  It was just like being in the dorms, except without any supervision.  

While last year, it had just been parties and shenanigans, this year had a completely different vibe.

Because of her.

The dog's growling remained at a steady hum.

I gently called his name but it only made him growl a little louder, every hair on his body standing at aggressive attention.  I knew that all he was doing was protecting me.  But it honestly scared me more than she ever could.

Have you ever lived in a haunted house?

When I was a kid, I swore my house was haunted -- but living in this place now?  I know that was just my imagination -- a real haunting is like this.  Objects would move from one room to another, distinct footsteps would be heard in the hall, lights would flicker even when the power was off.  

She had a bit of magic to her, if you ask me.

We first noticed her on the third night we were living here.  My roommate, her boyfriend, his dog, and I were watching a movie when a picture we'd hung earlier that evening suddenly crashed to the ground.  We heard glass shatter and everything -- but when we went to pick it up, it was perfectly intact.  All we had to do was hang it back up on the nail, which was exactly as we'd hammered it in a few hours before.

"That's weird," my roommate said before we all shrugged ourselves back to the couch to finish the movie.

Later that night when we'd all gone to bed, the dog had done exactly as he was doing tonight: he started to growl.  But that time when I woke up, he was standing over me in a protective stance, as if I were about to be brutally attacked.

That's when I saw her, a shadow lingering in the hallway.  I could see the outline of long hair and a flowing dress.  She had no legs, at least not that I could see.

I blinked and when I went to focus in on where I'd seen her, she was gone.

Even so, it took the dog another few minutes to lay back down and stop seeming to need to protect me.

The next morning, I told my roommate and her boyfriend about what happened.  Her boyfriend got a strange look on his face and said, "I wonder if this is where she lived."

"Who?" my roommate and I asked in unison.

A shiver seemed to travel through his body.  "Haven't you ever heard the story of Shadow Woman?" he asked, his voice dropping low, as if he didn't want to be overheard.

We each shook our heads.

He went on.  "I'd heard that one of the apartments in this building was haunted," he said.  

"From who?" my roommate asked.  "We lived here last year and never heard about that."

"You lived on the third floor, though, right?  Not this apartment," her boyfriend asked.

"Well, yeah," my roommate said.  "But even so, we never heard the building was haunted."

"It sure seems like it might be," I chimed in, goosebumps popping up on my arms.

Her boyfriend nodded while he pointed at me.  "Right, whatever happened last night wasn't exactly normal.  Like, if just the picture had fallen or just the dog acted a little strange or you just thought you saw someone with no legs hovering in the hallway, that could be a coincidence.  But all three?"

My roommate and I looked at each other.  

"Pretty creepy," my roommate confirmed a moment later.

Nothing else strange happened over the next few weeks, though, so much so that I nearly forgot anything had happened at all.  Then came a night when it happened again -- the dog woke me up with a growl, ready to protect me.  Maybe I saw the Shadow Woman in the hallway again, but I couldn't say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that the next day, my roommate and I made a point of going by the building manager's office to ask if he'd ever heard any of the units was haunted.  We fully expected him to laugh, but instead, he got very serious and lowered his voice, just like my roommate's boyfriend had done.

"She's harmless, probably," he said.  "But she's around."

"You rented us a haunted apartment?" I squeaked.

He paled for a moment before clearing his throat.  "Well, you two took a long time to make up your mind about signing the lease.  There wasn't another unit available."

"And you didn't tell us?' I squeaked again.

He shrugged apologetically.  "Not everyone who lives there, ya know, sees her," he said.

My roommate and I looked at each other, our jaws gaped.  Maybe this explained why we'd never heard this rumor before.  

"Who is she?" my roommate asked.

The building manager leaned back in his chair.  "She was a student, too, like you two.  No one's really sure who she is exactly but sometimes people who see her see her hunched over a table, like she's writing a paper."

"Are you serious?" I asked.

The building manager nodded gravely.  "The rumor I always heard was that she killed herself."

"In our apartment?" my roommate asked as she instinctively grabbed my arm.

The building manager held up his hands defensively.  "Nobody said that.  Can't even confirm she was a real human -- like I said, I've just heard the stories.  She seems to be a friendly ghost, if not a bit studious," he added with a chuckle.

We were not amused.

The smile dropped from the building manager's face.  "Look," he said.  "If you want to break your lease and move out, I won't penalize you."

My roommate and I looked at each other for a long thirty seconds.

"We'll stay," she said, representing the results of our silent meeting.  

"For now," I added.

And now?  It's a few months later and she has become semi-regular fixture in our home.  The dog still growls at her.  But the rest of us have learned to offer her a sleepy hello and return our heads to the pillow.

I called the dog's name again as a chill runs through me.  I'd gotten so used to this that it barely even bothered me anymore.  The dog's spell finally seemed to have broken so he scampered back up and curled himself at the end of my bed.  If I squint, I can see a figure fading slowly down the hallway.

Her.

I laid my head back down and pulled the covers up to my chin.  As I drifted back to sleep, I wondered if we'd ever learn her name.

First line by Meredith Brown

2023

Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar