by Riley Sager
“Do you think it’s possible for a place to be haunted, even if there aren’t any ghosts there?” she says. “Because that’s what it feels like to me. Like the Bartholomew is haunted by its history. Like all the bad stuff that’s ever happened there has accumulated like dust and now floats in the air. And we’re breathing it in, Jules.”
“You don’t have to stay there,” I say. “I mean, if it makes you so uncomfortable.”
Ingrid shrugs. “Where else am I going to go? Plus, I need the money.”
There’s no need for her to say anything else, a sign that she and I might have more in common than I first thought.
“I need the money, too,” I say, in what is surely the understatement of the year. “I couldn’t believe how much the job paid. When Leslie told me, I almost passed out.”
“You and me both, sister. And I’m sorry for getting all creepy on you just now. I’m fine. The Bartholomew is fine. I think I’m just lonely, you know? I’m on board with all the rules except for the one about not having visitors. Sometimes it feels like solitary confinement. Especially since Erica left.”
“Who’s Erica?”
“Oh, Erica Mitchell. She was in 12A before you.”
I give her a look. “You mean the owner? The woman who died?”
“Erica was one of us—an apartment sitter,” Ingrid says. “She was nice. We hung out a little bit. But then she left a few days after I got there. Which was strange, because she told me she had at least two months left.”
I’m surprised Leslie never mentioned there had been an apartment sitter in 12A before me. Not that she had any reason to. It’s none of my business who lived there. But Leslie had made it sound like the owner had just died, leaving the place suddenly vacant.
“Are you’re sure she was in 12A?”
“Positive,” Ingrid says. “She sent me a welcome note down the dumbwaiter. When you arrived, I thought it would be fun to do the same thing.”
“Did Erica tell you why she left early?”
“She didn’t tell me anything. I only heard about it from Mrs. Evelyn a day after she left. I guess she found a new place to live or something. I was bummed because it was nice to have an upstairs neighbor to hang out with.” Ingrid’s face brightens. “Hey, I have an idea. We should do this every day. Lunch in the park until our time is up.”
I hesitate, not because I don’t like Ingrid. I do. Quite a bit. I’m just not sure I’ll be able to handle her every day. This afternoon alone has left me exhausted.
“Please?” she says. “I’ve been so bored in that building and there’s a great big park to explore. Think about it, Juju. That’s what I’ve decided I’m going to call you, by the way.”
“Duly noted,” I say, unable to conceal a smile.
“I know it’s not perfect. But your name is already kind of a nickname, so that leaves me with limited options. And I know, there’s such a thing as bad juju. But there’s also good juju. You’re the good kind. Definitely.”
I highly doubt that. I’ve had bad juju swirling around me for years.
“But as I was saying, Juju, think of all the fun things we could do.” Ingrid begins to count the possibilities on her fingers. “Bird watching. Picnics. Boating. All the hot dogs we can eat. What do you say?”
She gives me an expectant look. Hopeful and needy all at once. And lonely. As lonely as I’ve felt the past two weeks. Other than Chloe, all my friends seem to have vanished. I don’t know if this is my fault or theirs. Maybe I pushed them away without realizing it. Or maybe it’s just a natural by-product of my downward spiral. That loss inevitably begets loss. First Jane, then my parents, then my job and Andrew. With each loss, more and more friends drifted away. Maybe Ingrid is the person who’ll reverse that tide.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m in.”
Ingrid claps excitedly. “Then it’s settled. We’ll meet at noon in the lobby. Give me your phone.”
I pull it from my pocket and hand it to her. Ingrid enters her phone number into my list of contacts, spelling her name in all caps. I do the same with her phone, typing my name in appropriately meek lowercase letters.
“I will be texting if you try to ditch me,” she warns. “Now let’s seal the deal with a selfie.”
She holds up my phone and squeezes against me. Our faces fill the screen, Ingrid grinning madly and me looking slightly dazed by the encounter. Still, I smile, because for the first time in a long while, things don’t seem so bad. I have a temporary place to live and money on the way and a new friend.
“Perfect,” Ingrid says.
She taps the phone, and with a click, our pact is complete.
11
I spend my first night at the Bartholomew joyfully confounded over how I ended up here. The evening progresses in a sequence of impromptu steps—a happy dance being made up on the fly.
First, I climb the corkscrew steps to the bedroom, take off my shoes, and revel in the plush softness of the carpet. Walking on it feels like a foot massage.
I then fill the claw-foot tub in the master bathroom, pour in some pricey lavender-scented bubble bath I discover beneath the sink, and soak until my skin is rosy and my fingertips are pruned.
After the bath, I microwave a frozen pizza and plop it, sticky and steaming, onto a china plate so beautiful and delicate that merely touching it makes me nervous. I find a box of matches in the kitchen junk drawer and light the candles in the dining room. I eat sitting alone at one end of the absurd gangplank of a table as the flickering candlelight reflects off the windows.
When dinner is over, I open one of the bottles of wine Chloe gave me and plant myself at the sitting room window, drinking as night descends over Manhattan. In Central Park, the lamps along the paths pop into brightness, casting a ghostly halogen glow over the joggers, tourists, and couples that scurry by. I peer through the brass telescope by the window, spying on one such couple as they walk hand in hand. When they part, it’s with reluctance, their fingers extended, reaching out for one final bit of contact.
I empty the glass of wine.
I refill it.
I try to pretend I’m not as lonely as I feel.
Time passes. Hours. When my third glass of wine has been emptied, I retreat to the kitchen and linger there, rinsing the wineglass and wiping down the already-clean countertops. I mull a fourth glass of wine but decide it’s not a good idea. I don’t want to get stumblingly drunk for the second time in two weeks, even though the occasions couldn’t be more different. The first time—when Chloe took me out for those ill-advised margaritas—was a sad drunk, with me weeping between sips. But now I’m oddly happy, content, and, for what feels like the first time in forever, hopeful.
Without thinking, I grab the matches off the counter, swiping one against the box until a flame flares at its tip. I then hold my left hand several inches above the flame, feeling its warmth on my open palm. Something I used to do quite often but haven’t tried in ages. There wasn’t a need.
Now that old urge has returned, and I slowly lower my hand toward the flame. As I do, I think of my parents and Jane and Andrew and fire chewing the edges of photographs before working its way to the center.
The warmth on my palm soon gives way to heat, which is quickly usurped by pain.
But I don’t move my hand. Not yet.
I need it to hurt a little more.
I stop only when my hand twitches against the pain. Self-preservation kicking in. I blow out the match, the flame gone in an instant, a few swirling fingers of smoke the only sign it was ever lit at all.
I light another, intent on repeating the process, when a strange noise rises from the dumbwaiter shaft. Although it’s muffled slightly by the closed cupboard door, I can tell the sound isn’t the dumbwaiter itself. There’s no slow turn of the pulleys, no almost imperceptible creak.
This noise is different.
It sounds, I realize, like a scream rising up the dumbwaiter shaft from the apartment below.
Ingrid’s apartment.
I stand frozen in the kitchen, my head cocked, listening intently for a second scream as the lit match burns its way toward my pinched thumb and forefinger. When it reaches them—a hot flash of pain—I yelp, drop the match, watch the flame wink out on the kitchen floor.
The burn spurs me into action. Sucking on my fingertip to dull the pain, I go from the kitchen to the hallway to the foyer. Soon I’m out of 12A, moving down the twelfth-floor hall on my way to the stairs.
The scream—or at least what I thought was a scream—replays in my head as I descend to the eleventh floor. Hearing it again in my memory tells me checking on Ingrid is the right thing to do. She could be hurt. She could be in danger. Or she could be none of those things, and I’m simply overreacting. It’s happened before. All my experiences past the age of seventeen have taught me to be a worrier.
But something about that sound tells me I’m not overreacting. Ingrid had screamed. In my mind, there’s nothing else it could have been. Especially now that I’m moving through the nocturnal silence of the Bartholomew. All is quiet. The elevator, sitting at one of the floors below, is still. In the stairwell, the only thing I hear is the whisper of my own cautious footfalls.
I check my watch when I reach the eleventh floor. One a.m. Another cause for concern. I can think of several bad reasons why a person would let out a single scream at this hour.
At the door to 11A, I pause before knocking, hoping I’ll hear another, happier sound that will ease my mind. Ingrid talking loudly on the phone. Or laughter just on the other side of the door.
Instead, I hear nothing, which prompts me to knock. Gently, so as not to disturb anyone else on the floor.
“Ingrid?” I say. “It’s Jules. Is everything okay?”
Seconds pass. Ten of them. Then twenty. I’m about to knock again when the door cracks open and Ingrid appears. She looks at me, eyes wide. I’ve surprised her.
“Jules, what are you doing here?”
“Checking on you.” I pause, uncertain. “I thought I heard a scream.”
Ingrid pauses, too. A seconds-long gap during which she forces a smile.
“It must have been your TV.”
“I wasn’t watching TV. It—”
I stop, unsure if I should be embarrassed or relieved or both. Instead, I’m even more concerned. Something about Ingrid seems off. Her voice is flat and reluctant—a far cry from the chatterbox she was in the park. I can see only half of her body through the gap in the door. She’s dressed in the same clothes as earlier, her right hand shoved deep into the front pocket of her jeans, as if searching for something.
“It sounded like you screamed,” I finally say. “I heard it and got worried.”
“It wasn’t me,” Ingrid says.
“But I heard something.”
“Or you thought you did. Happens all the time. But I’m fine. Really.”
Her face says otherwise. Besides her rictus grin, there’s a dark glint in those widened eyes. They seem to burn with unspoken distress. She looks, I realize, afraid.
I move closer to the door, staring directly into her eyes. “Are you sure?” I whisper.
Ingrid blinks. “Yes. Everything’s great.”
“Then I’m sorry for bothering you,” I say, backing away from the door and forcing my own smile.
“It’s nice that you were so concerned,” Ingrid says. “You’re a sweetie.”
“Are we still on for tomorrow?”
“Noon on the dot,” Ingrid says. “Be there or be square.”
I give her a wave and take a few steps down the hall. Ingrid doesn’t wave back. Instead, she stares at me a second longer, her smile fading to a grim flat line just before she closes the door.
At this point, there’s nothing left for me to do. If Ingrid says she’s fine, then I need to believe her. If she says I didn’t hear a scream, then I have to believe that, too. But as I climb two sets of steps—one to the twelfth floor, the other to the bedroom of 12A—I can’t shake the feeling that Ingrid was lying.
NOW
Bernard leaves.
A doctor enters.
He’s older. Snowy hair and strong jaw and tiny glasses perched in front of hazel eyes.
“Hello there. I’m Dr. Wagner.” He pronounces it the German way, with a V instead of a W. All his words, in fact, are thickened by an accent that’s at once rough and charming. “How are you feeling?”
I don’t know enough about how I’m supposed to feel to give a proper answer. I vaguely remember being told I was hit by a car, which I guess should make me feel lucky I’m not dead.
“My head hurts,” I say.
“I imagine it does,” Dr. Wagner tells me. “You banged it up pretty good. But there’s no concussion, which is fortunate.”
I touch the bandage on my head again. Lightly this time. Just enough to feel the contour of my skull beneath the fabric.
“Your vitals are good, though. That’s the most important thing,” Dr. Wagner says. “You’ll see some bruising from your thigh to your rib cage. But there are no broken bones, no internal damage. All things considered, it could have been much worse.”
I try to nod, the motion stymied by the neck brace. It’s heavy and hot. Patches of sweat have formed around my collarbone. I slide a finger behind the brace, trying to wick away some of the sweat.
“You’ll be able to take that off in a little while,” Dr. Wagner says. “It’s really just a precaution. But for now, I need to ask you a few questions.”
I say nothing. I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer them. I’m not sure the doctor will believe me if I do. Still, I attempt another neck-brace shortened nod.
“How much do you remember about the accident?”
“Not much,” I say.
“But you do remember it?”
“Yes.”
At least, I think I do. I recall nothing concrete. Just snippets. I take a deep breath, trying to collect my thoughts. But they’re an unruly, unreliable bunch. My skull feels like a snow globe recently shaken, swirling with important bits of information that have yet to land. And I can’t grasp one, no matter how much I try.
I recall a screech of tires.
A blast of car horn.
A panicked yelp from somewhere behind me.
Pain. Darkness.
It’s the same with my arrival in the hospital. I remember half of it. Bernard and his bright scrubs and being told the unfortunate news about the car. But I can’t recall how I got here or what, exactly, I said when I arrived.
I chalk it up to painkillers. They’ve made me light-headed.
“Let’s try another question,” Dr. Wagner says. “A witness said he saw you burst out of the Bartholomew and run right into oncoming traffic. He said you didn’t stop. Not even for a second.”
That I remember.
Even though all I want to do is forget.
“That’s right,” I say.
The doctor casts me a curious look from behind his tiny frames. “That’s not exactly normal behavior.”
“It wasn’t exactly normal circumstances.”
“It sounds to me like you ran away.”
“No,” I say. “I escaped.”
FOUR DAYS EARLIER
12
I dream of my family.
My mother. My father. Jane, looking exactly like the last time I laid eyes on her. Forever nineteen.
The three of them walk through an abandoned Central Park, the only people there. It’s night, and the park is pitch black, all its lampposts having been snuffed out. Yet my family gives off their own light, glowing a faint greenish gray as they traverse the park.
I
watch their progress from the roof of the Bartholomew, where I sit next to George, one of his stone wings folded around me in a gargoyle semi-embrace.
Out in the park, my parents see me and wave. Jane calls to me, glowing hands cupped around her mouth. “You don’t belong here!” she shouts.
As soon as the words reach me, George moves his wing.
No longer hugging.
Shoving.
The stone of his wing is cold against my back as he pushes me right off the roof. Soon I’m falling, twisting in mid-air as I plummet to the sidewalk below.
I wake with a scream in my throat, on the verge of setting it free. I gulp it back down, coughing a few times in the process. Then I sit up and eye George through the window.
“Not cool, dude,” I say.
My words have barely faded in the cavernous bedroom when I hear something else.
A noise.
Coming from downstairs.
I’m not even sure it qualifies as a noise. It’s more like a sensation. An ineffable feeling that I’m not alone. If someone asked me to describe it, I wouldn’t know how. It’s not an easily definable sound. Not footsteps. Not tapping. Not even a rustle, although that’s the nearest comparison I can think of.
Motion.
That’s what it sounds like.
Something moving through space and leaving a slight whisper in its wake.
I slip out of bed and creep to the top of the steps, leaning over them to hear more. I end up hearing nothing. But the feeling—that hair-raising sensation—persists. I am not alone in this apartment.
It occurs to me that it could be Leslie Evelyn, making an early-morning check of the apartment to see if I’m following the rules. I’m sure she has a set of keys to the place. Annoyed, I throw on my tattered terrycloth robe and whisk downstairs. She said nothing about apartment checks. I wouldn’t have agreed to that.
Who am I kidding? For twelve grand, I’d agree to almost anything.