Chapter 65
It’s a diary . . . of sorts. Most of the pages are blank.
Only the first twenty or so are filled with the jumbled thoughts of whoever owned it, written in a shaky, hurried hand.
I can almost feel the author’s growing distress as I flick through the pages and the writing becomes more frantic and harder to decipher.
Hi self. It’s me. I’m writing to you because I’m freaking out right now. Like, really freaking out! Just got woken up by this loud noise in the apartment. It’s the middle of the night and I’m alone and I don’t know what to do.
Come on Jackie, pull yourself together! Go take a look . . .
It was a lamp. A stupid lamp in the spare bedroom.
The door was open and there’s no way I left it like that.
I Always keep it closed because I hate walking past open doorways, especially at night.
Yeah, I know. It’s a stupid fear but blame that on the closet in my bedroom when I was a kid.
I was sure something was hiding in that closet and that it would just reach out and grab me, drag me inside, into the darkness .
. . Great, now I’m freaking myself out even more.
Enough already. Stop thinking about that closet.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Ok. Back to tonight. So, the spare bedroom door was open and when I turned the light on, the lamp was on the floor. Like, unplugged and off the nightstand and all the way on the other side of the room as if someone had thrown it there. WTF?
The spare bedroom. That must be the room that I’m currently using as an office. I can’t help casting a nervous glance over my shoulder toward the closed door before looking back down at the notebook and turning the page. The next line chills me to the bone.
I’m beginning to think this place is haunted!
I almost set the notebook aside right there and then, because I have to sleep in this apartment all by myself tonight, and the last thing I need is my imagination running wild with thoughts like that.
But I don’t, because I’ve been having similar thoughts about the Glendale, and this apartment, so I keep on reading.
Seriously . . . Either this apartment is haunted or I’m losing my mind.
Or maybe it’s both. Because other shit has been happening.
I’ve tried to ignore it, but it just keeps piling up in my mind and I can’t stop thinking about it.
I don’t know . . . maybe it will make more sense if I write everything down, make a list of all the creepy stuff that’s been happening .
. . or maybe not, but what the hell, it’s not like I’m going to get any more sleep tonight, anyway.
You and me both, sister, I think to myself, turning the page. And there is the list.
Came home from work one day last week and the bedroom light was on. I didn’t leave it on. I never use it in the morning. The sun shines right in and wakes me up. Would the doorman come into my space without permission? Maybe. Still unsettling.
I had seven bottles of wine in the side cabinet.
Went to open one on Wednesday and there were only six.
I know there were seven because I bought them when I was out with Carrie at the warehouse store on Saturday, so I took advantage of her car and membership to stock up because they are heavy to carry, and I hate having to slog home with them on the subway.
I know I didn’t drink any. Checked the receipt and yes—seven bottles, not six. Where did the other one go???
A couple of nights ago, I woke up with a headache at like 2 AM.
Went to get something for it from the cupboard in the kitchen where I keep my pills, and I swear I could hear whispered voices.
It was almost like two people arguing, but they were so faint I couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying.
It was more like mumbling. Figured there must be someone out in the hallway, but when I looked out the peephole, I didn’t see anyone.
Opened the door, but the hallway was empty.
Couldn’t hear the voices anymore, either.
But I know what I heard, and it kind of freaked me out.
There was no way I was going back to bed.
Sat up the rest of the night with all the lights on and the TV playing.
There are other incidents, too. Items going missing and then appearing again later.
Things being moved. Noises in the middle of the night.
The list is long. I read it with growing concern, not just because the person who wrote it was clearly terrified, but also because it’s obvious that the events cataloged on these pages took place right here, in my apartment.
And worse, they remind me of my own experiences at the Glendale, like getting trapped in the basement, hearing a phantom crying baby, or having the mood board go missing right before my meeting, then reappearing.
I don’t want to keep reading, but I can’t help myself, because as I turn the pages, the entries are getting more frantic.
They start to sound like the ravings of a person who’s lost touch with reality.
The paranoia increases with each new entry I read.
And yet at the same time, I connect with what this mystery woman is going through, especially when I reach the page that initially caught my eye.
Someone is watching me, and I don’t feel safe here anymore.
At first, it was nothing but a faint unease that I could easily dismiss, but now I’m certain that I’m being watched.
Last night I was sitting on the sofa in the living room reading a book when all of a sudden, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I put the book down and jumped up, feeling that I wasn’t alone, but nobody was there—or at least nobody that I could see.
But then I noticed the curtains. I had drawn them across the doors leading to the balcony earlier in the evening, and now they were parted as if someone had pulled them open to go outside.
I damn near fainted with shock. I even went to the doors and looked out onto the balcony, expecting someone to be standing there staring back at me. Thankfully, there was no one.
For the rest of the night, I kept telling myself that it was my imagination, that there was nothing to fear.
But after I went to bed, I was overcome by that same overpowering sense that I wasn’t alone.
I lay there listening to every tiny sound the apartment made.
The fridge compressor turning on. A drip of water from the shower in the bathroom.
The squeak of my mattress whenever I shifted position.
And something else. At one point, I was sure that I heard a faint shuffle of footsteps outside my bedroom door.
I was so scared . . . I didn’t dare get up and look.
I just pulled the covers up and lay there staring at the door, praying that the handle wouldn’t turn . . . That it wouldn’t swing slowly open.
Then, when I came home from work today, my front door was open.
I know for sure that I didn’t leave it that way.
I Always lock my door. I rushed back downstairs and got the doorman, made him come up, and we searched every inch of the apartment.
We even checked behind the clothes in the closet and under the bed.
Everywhere anyone could hide. But it was empty.
Not that I feel any safer because of that, because the feeling is back and stronger than ever.
Honestly, I don’t know what to do. I think I’m losing my mind.
I can’t keep living like this, engulfed by fear and paranoia.
My friends tell me that I’m just jumping at shadows, that I’m nervous because I’m living alone, and I’ve always had roommates or a boyfriend before.
That it’s lack of sleep or stress, or something.
But I know that it isn’t any of those things. This feels to . . . real.
I have the lights on all the time now. I keep the TV running as well, to drown out the silence.
But it’s not helping. Nothing helps. The fear is always there, lurking.
I hope that putting my experiences down on paper will help me make sense of it all, but even as I’m writing this, I can’t shake the dreadful feeling that someone is standing there, right behind me .
. . and I want to jump up and look . . . but I’m afraid of what I’ll see.