Same time, same knock.
Last night, a weird girl had banged on this door asking for Li Xiumei. Tonight, the exact same rapping echoed through the quiet hallway at the stroke of midnight.
Jake and I exchanged a look—equal parts confusion and irritation—and trundled over to the door, both of us pressing our eyes to the peephole at the same time.
Sure enough. Her.
The same young girl, standing there in that floor-length black dress, her feet shod in those blood-red stilettos that glinted like a warning in the dim hallway light. She kept knocking, slow and steady, no words this time—just rap-rap-rap.
"That's her," I whispered, my voice tight. "The one who asked for Li Xiumei last night."
Jake's already foul mood took a nosedive. He had a hell of a case of bedhead, and the sleep still clinging to his eyes did nothing to soften his scowl. "You told her there's no one here named Li Xiumei last night, right? Chick's got a screw loose."
Before I could stop him, he twisted the doorknob and wrenched the door open. My heart leaped into my throat. I half-expected something terrible to happen the second that door swung wide—something that would prove all my paranoia right.
But nothing did.
She just stood there, her long black hair falling in a curtain around her face, her features eerily delicate, her posture perfectly straight, like a porcelain doll left out in the dark. Same outfit as last night, same vacant stare. Even from here, I could see how pale her skin was—paler than the moon outside, paler than anything alive should be. A chill skittered down my spine.
No jump scares, no hissing, no claws. Just… silence.
Jake crossed his arms over his chest, his tone sharp with annoyance. "What do you want? We told you last night—there's no Li Xiumei here. Wrong unit."
The girl's lips moved, her voice flat and lifeless, exactly the same as it had been twenty-four hours prior. "I'm looking for Li Xiumei. Is she home?"
It was like she was running on a broken loop. Same question, same inflection, no acknowledgment of Jake's words at all.
Jake threw his hands up in frustration. "Lady, I don't know who Li Xiumei is, and I don't care! This is private property! You keep coming back here, and I'm calling the cops!"
She didn't respond. Just went quiet again, her unblinking eyes fixed on something behind us—something over our shoulders. Then, slowly, her right hand lifted from where it had been hanging at her side, her fingers pointing straight toward the master bedroom.
My blood turned to ice.
The master bedroom. Where the Carters had felt those eyes on them every night. Where the concrete footprints had vanished into thin air. Where I'd sleepwalked from, like a puppet on strings.
I whipped my head around, half-expecting to see something standing in the doorway—but the hall was empty. Just the faint glow of the living room lamp, casting long shadows on the walls.
When I turned back, Jake was slamming the door shut, his face twisted in anger. He fumbled with the deadbolt, sliding it home with a loud click.
"Total nutcase," he muttered, shaking his head. "Probably escaped from some psych ward down the road. C'mon, let's go back to bed. It's our last night here, anyway. We'll be out of this dump by sunrise."
I grabbed his arm before he could march back to the master bedroom, my fingers digging into his bicep. "Wait—what if we sleep in the guest room instead? Just for tonight?"
The girl's pointed finger flashed through my mind. The master bedroom. It felt like a target. A trap. Even if I didn't believe in ghosts or curses, the string of weird crap that had gone down in that room was enough to make my skin crawl.
Jake stared at me like I'd grown a second nose. "Are you kidding me? The whole reason we're here is to prove the master bedroom's fine! If we bail on it now, the Carters win! We lose the commission, the brokerage takes a hit, and you're out a grand. You wanna eat ramen for a month, chief?"
Before I could argue, he hauled me into the master bedroom, kicked the door shut behind us, and flopped onto the bed like a sack of bricks. Dude had the sleep schedule of a bear—one minute he's cussing out a stranger, the next he's snoring loud enough to wake the dead.
I hesitated for a second, my eyes locked on the door. Then I crossed the room, flipped the lock, and leaned against it for a minute, my heart thudding in my chest.
If I'd been alone, I'd have booked it out of here faster than a bat out of hell. But with Jake—six foot two, built like a brick shithouse—lying there beside me? I felt a little safer. Not much, but enough.
The beer I'd chugged earlier hit me like a truck, and between the alcohol and the exhaustion, my eyes started to drift shut. I collapsed onto the bed, and within minutes, I was out cold.
That's the thing about sleep, though—it plays tricks on you. Sometimes you're half-awake, half-asleep, your brain conjuring up whole scenarios that feel real enough to touch. Like when you're dying to pee, and you dream you're in the bathroom, only to wake up still bursting.
That's how I felt when the first sound registered.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
High heels on hardwood. Slow, deliberate, getting closer. I couldn't tell if it was a dream or reality. My brain was still muddled, my eyes glued shut by sleep.
Then came the second sound.
A soft, scraping noise—like someone was troweling wet concrete onto a wall. It was right next to my ear, loud and clear, even over Jake's snoring.
My eyes fluttered open, my consciousness sharpening by the second. The scraping grew louder, the click-clacking drawing nearer. And then, above it all, I heard it—the one sound that turned my blood to ice.
The TV.
It was on. Blaring, just like it had been last night.
I jolted upright, my breath catching in my throat, fully awake now. Cold sweat soaked my shirt.
I was on the couch. Again.
The living room TV flickered in front of me, casting a blue glow over the walls. And there, right where I'd seen them before—clear as day—were the concrete footprints. Narrow, sharp, perfect stiletto shapes, trailing from the front door to the master bedroom, vanishing at the threshold.
Fear flooded my veins, cold and heavy, pinning me to the couch. But this time, I didn't care about the footprints. This time, all I could think about was Jake. I had to get him. I had to prove that I wasn't crazy—that the footprints were real, that this house was wrong.
I turned my head, ready to scream his name.
And then I saw him.
Jake was sitting on the other end of the couch, his back straight, his eyes closed. In his hand, he held the TV remote, his thumb resting on the volume button like he was adjusting the sound.
He was sitting there, just like I had been last night.
Watching TV with his eyes shut tight.