The first rule of the apartment was simple, non-negotiable: After 3 AM, you lock the deadbolt. Not just the handle latch. The big, heavy, steel deadbolt.
My roommate, Eva, had repeated this into my head from day one. It wasn't a suggestion; it was the law of the land, as vital as paying the electricity bill.
"It's not about burglars, Jane," she'd told me, her usually cheerful face dead serious. We were moving my boxes in, and she'd pointed at the sturdy brass lock like it was a holy relic. "Burglars are random. This is… scheduled. Think of it like a tide. At 3:01 AM, the wrong kind of water rises in the hallways. You just make sure your boat is sealed."
"Scheduled?" I'd laughed, wiping sweat from my brow. "What, like a creepy mailman?"
Eva didn't smile. "Something like that. Just trust me. The previous tenant told me, and the one before told her. It's just what you do. You hear the clock strike three, you get up and you turn the lock. Every night. No exceptions."
For the first three months, I treated it like a weird quirk. Eva was a great woman, a bit superstitious maybe, but solid. I'd humored her.
Most nights I was asleep before 3 AM anyway. But on the nights I wasn't, playing video games or finishing work, I'd watch the digital clock on my laptop. 2:58… 2:59… and at exactly 3:00 AM, I'd hear the soft thump of Eva's feet hitting her bedroom floor, the pad of her steps down the hall, and the decisive, satisfying CHUNK of the deadbolt sliding home.
Only then would her footsteps retreat back to her room. It was our ritual.
Then Eva left for a weeklong conference. "You remember the rule, right?" she said, her gym bag slung over her shoulder.
"Deadbolt after three. Yeah, yeah, I got it," I said, waving her off. "Don't let the scary mailman in."
Her expression was serious. "It's not a joke, Jane. Just do it. However tired you are, whatever you're doing. Just get up and lock it."
"I will. Safe travels."
The first two nights alone were fine. I set an alarm for 2:55 AM, got up, locked the deadbolt, and went back to bed. It was annoying, but easy.
On the third night, I was deep into a coding problem, headphones on, completely zoned out.
The numbers on the screen blurred together. I finally cracked the bug and leaned back with a massive yawn, my spine cracking. I pulled off my headphones.
The silence of the apartment was sudden and deep.
And that's when I heard it.
A soft, wet sound. Like someone sucking the last bit of a thick milkshake through a straw. A pause followed. Another came after. Shhh-lick.Pause.Shhh-lick.
It was coming from the hallway. Right outside our door.
Eva's words echoed in my head: 'The wrong kind of water rises in the hallways.'
I slowly, so slowly, turned to look at the clock on the microwave.
3:17 AM.
I felt my pulse skip. I'd forgotten. I was so engrossed in my work, the alarm must have gone off under my headphones and I'd dismissed it without thinking.
Shhh-lick. Pause. Shhh-lick.
The sound was unhurried, rhythmic. Intentional. It wasn't an animal. It was too… specific. Too mindful. I held my breath.
I tiptoed from my chair, moving lightly on my feet, avoiding the one board I knew would creak near the kitchen. I had to get to the door. I had to lock it.
The door had a peephole. I told myself not to look. Just lock the door. Just turn the bolt and it's over. But my body didn't listen. Curiosity pulled me to the door. I leaned in, my eye pressed against the cold glass of the viewer.
The hallway was dark, lit only by the weak, stuttering emergency light at the far end. And there was a shape there. A man, I thought. He was on his hands and knees, his back to me. He was wearing a dark, stained jacket. And he was… cleaning.
Shhh-lick.
His head was down, and his arm was moving in a slow, circular polishing motion on the ugly floral carpet. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw the rag in his hand. It was dark and wet. And I saw what he was cleaning.
A long, thick, smeared trail of blood led down the hallway, ending right where he was working. He was carefully wiping it up. He dipped his rag into a small plastic bucket beside him, squeezing it out with a soaked squelch before continuing his work.
This wasn't a burglar. This was a janitor.
The relief was so intense it made me lightheaded. It was just the building's custodian.
Some poor guy stuck on the night shift, cleaning up some freak accident. Maybe someone had a nosebleed. A dropped package of meat. Something logical.
I almost laughed at my own fear. Eva's superstition had gotten to me. This was the "scheduled" thing? A janitor? I reached for the deadbolt, my hand shaking not from fear now, but from released adrenaline. I'd just lock it quietly. No need to startle the guy.
But as my fingers touched the cold brass, the man outside stopped. His circular motions paused. He went perfectly still.
He'd heard me.
Slowly, in a sequence of small, wet cracks, he began to turn his head. It rotated too far, beyond a normal human range, like an owl's. His face came into view, pale and sharp in the dim light.
He wasn't cleaning the blood off the carpet.
He was licking it. His long, grey tongue was the rag, dragging over the fibers, soaking up the redness. His mouth was smeared with it, thick and dark. And his eyes were solid, glossy black orbs that reflected the dim hallway light like a beetle's shell. They were fixed directly on the peephole. On me.
He knew I was there.
A sound came out of him, a wet, rasping, low, that slid under the door and into my brain. "Ssssoap…"
I fell back from the door, crawling away on my hands and feet, a choked scream stuck in my throat. I crashed into the side table, sending a lamp crashing to the floor. The thing outside let out a low, pleased gurgle.
THUMP.
Something heavy leaned against the door. The wood, so solid a moment before, creaked under the pressure.
THUMP. THUMP.
It wasn't knocking. It was the sound of a head, gently, patiently, beating against the other side. The deadbolt held, but the entire doorframe shuddered with each impact.
"Ssssoap…" the voice rasped again, closer now, right from the crack at the bottom of the door. "The mess… must be cleaned…"
I was hyperventilating, curled into a ball against the opposite wall. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be real. The thumping continued, a steady, patient rhythm. A predator testing the strength of its prey's cage.
And it stopped.
The silence was more terrifying than the noise. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it had left.
A new sound. A muted, grating scratching. It was subtle, precise. It was the sound of a key testing a lock.
It had a key? Of course it had a key. It was the janitor. It had keys to everything.
I heard the soft click of the lower lock, the handle lock I'd forgotten to engage, turning. There was only one barrier left. The deadbolt. The rule.
The scratching moved higher. A thin, dark, wire like object, glistening with something wet, slid through the narrow gap around the deadbolt.
It wasn't a key. It was something else. Something organic and flexible. It wiggled, feeling its way, searching for the mechanism inside.
I was paralyzed, watching this thing... a tendril, trying to pick the lock from the inside. This was it. This was how I died. Because I forgot a stupid rule.
CHUNK.
The sound was deafeningly loud. The tendril instantly went stiff, then whipped back out of the hole.
From the other side of the door, a frustrated, furious hiss erupted, so full of rage it made my bladder let go.
It's a sound of sliding, of something heavy being dragged away down the hall. The awful shhh-lick sound started again, fading into the distance.
I sat there for an hour, maybe two, shaking uncontrollably in the pitch dark. I didn't move until the first rays of the sun began to filter through the blinds.
When my nerves were steel enough, I approached the door. The deadbolt was still securely locked. I bent down, my nose wrinkling at the smell.
There was a dark, reddish brown smear on the brass around the keyhole. And on the floor, just under the door, was a single, stained drop of water. Or something like it.
I spent the day cleaning the spot, scrubbing until the smell was gone. I didn't sleep. I just stared at the door.
Eva returned the next evening, looking tired but cheerful. "Hey, Jane! How'd it go? Any trouble?"
"No," I said, my voice hoarse. "No trouble. The lock held."
She looked at me, really looked at me, and her smile faded. She nodded once, a heavy understanding passing between us. "Good."
That was a week ago. The fear has faded, replaced by a numb vigilance. I haven't forgotten the lock since. I set three alarms now. I check it twice.
Tonight, I woke up suddenly. The digital clock on my bedside table read 2:59 AM. Right on schedule. I swung my legs out of bed, ready to perform my duty. But as I walked down the hall, I heard it.
From the other side of the door. Shhh-lick. Pause. Shhh-lick.
It was early.
My feet froze to the floor. It had never come early before. I sneaked to the door, my eye reflexively finding the peephole.
He was there. The Janitor. But he wasn't cleaning. He was just standing there, facing my door, his black eyes staring ahead. And he wasn't alone.
Behind him, in the dark hallway, stood others. Shapes. Shadows. Some tall, some stooped. All still. All waiting. A silent, gathering tide.
The Janitor's head snapped. His blood crusted lips didn't move, but the voice slithered into my mind, right through the wood and steel.
"Ssssoon," it whispered. "The new tenant is… forgetful."
He turned, those black eyes seeming to stare right at the neighbor's door across the hall. Apartment 4B. Where a college kid had just moved in yesterday. A kid I'd seen struggling with grocery bags, who'd laughed when I told her to make sure her door was locked tight at night.
The Janitor took a step toward 4B, his long, grey tongue tracing a line over his teeth. The things behind him trailed forward in unison.
My hand was on the deadbolt. My part was done. I was safe. The rule only said I had to keep my door locked.
It never said I had to warn anyone else.