One of my my biggest fear is being alone in a closed room, and for good reason. When Katie slammed the door, my breath caught and I fell to the floor. You’re fine! my brain screamed, willing me to stand up. I fought back the panic with deep, gasping breaths, and finally managed to get to my feet. But by the time I opened the door, Katie was nowhere to be seen. The fifth floor, I thought.
I raced to the stairwell, just in time to hear screaming above me. “Katie! I’m coming!” I shouted, not caring if I woke up the entire building. I took the stairs two at a time, and emerged into the hallway. I didn’t see Katie, but other people had come out of their apartments and were clustered around the door at the end of the hallway. The screaming was coming from inside the apartment.
“It’s locked!” one of them said, and another replied, “The employee went to get keys, he’ll be here any second.”
The employee came back out of his apartment as I was running past it. I hurriedly explained that it was my friend Katie. He quickly unlocked the door, and we both darted inside.
“Katie!” I yelled. The apartment was empty. I flicked on the lights, chasing away the shadows, but Katie was nowhere in sight. I still heard the screaming, louder than before. “It’s coming from the closet!”
I pulled open the closet door, and a powerful stench hit me. It smelled like decaying flesh. The employee appeared beside me, holding his nose.
“Where is she?” he shouted over the screaming. I was baffled. The closet was completely bare, but the screaming was even louder.
That’s when I noticed the barely-visible seam in the wall, as if the back of the closet had a removable panel. I dug my finger into the crack, trying to pry it out. The employee saw me and joined in. My blood was rushing; I knew I needed to help Katie, but at the same time I was terrified at what I might find behind the panel. With one last pull, the panel came free.
Out tumbled Katie, and her screams turned into sobs of relief. I leaned over to help pick her up off the ground, when I glanced into the darkness of the crawlspace behind the wall. I’ll never forget what I saw there. Two sunken eyes stared at me from a face of stretched, rotted flesh. A mouth opened up into a gaping, silent scream. For a second, I thought I did hear it scream, until I realized that was my own voice.
When the employee saw what was in the closet, he hurried us out of the apartment and called the police. They said the corpse had been there for months, and it was the body of the girl whose apartment it had been. It turns out she was killed and hidden in the wall around the time people moved out last year. The apartment complex thought she’d left, and she had had such a troubled life at home that her family believed she’d finally cut ties with them and run off.
I learned later that the police had been able to link DNA evidence to her abusive ex-boyfriend, who lived in town. He was arrested two days later.
When we learned the victim’s name, Katie looked up in shock and said, “I knew her!” It turns out the girl, Anna, had had a lot of trouble making friends in her first year of college. Katie noticed, and had gone out of her way to be nice. It was near the end of the school year, so they didn’t get a chance to know each other well, but Anna seemed very grateful for Katie’s company.
I don’t know if Katie will sleep any better now, but at least her nightly wanderings have come to an end. The next morning, I saw Katie when I arrived in Biology. She told me something she’d just remembered. The last thing Katie ever said to Anna was this: “If you ever need anything, anything at all, just let me know and I’ll come right over.”
I guess Anna did need something after all.
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