The Voice in Apartment 413

After her divorce, Alina needed to disappear.

She didn’t want sympathy, advice, or the pitying glances from coworkers. So she quit her job, sold the house, and moved to a different state. She didn’t tell anyone—just packed up and drove until the city skyline turned to trees and silence.

That’s how she ended up at The Elmridge, a weathered old apartment building just outside a sleepy New England town. It was cheap, quiet, and tucked behind a curtain of pine trees. The kind of place you could get lost in, and stay lost.

Alina took apartment 210 on the second floor. The hallway smelled like dust and stale air, but the rent was cheap, and the landlord, Mrs. Callahan, was kind—if a little odd.

“Don’t bother with the other units,” Mrs. Callahan had said on move-in day. “Only four are occupied. And you won’t need anything from next door. It’s empty.”

“Which unit is that?”

Mrs. Callahan paused. Her eyes flicked toward the door next to Alina’s. Then she smiled tightly.

“No one lives in 209.”

Alina didn’t think much of it—until that night.

Around 2:17 a.m., she woke up suddenly. Her room was cold, far colder than it should’ve been in May. She sat up, disoriented, then heard it: a knock.

Not on her front door. On the wall behind her bed—the wall shared with unit 209.

Three slow knocks. Then silence.

She waited. Maybe the building was just settling. Maybe it was a pipe. She lay back down.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

This time, closer.

Alina sat up and pressed her hand against the wall. It was ice cold. She waited, breath held, until the knocks stopped.

She didn’t sleep.

The next morning, she asked Mrs. Callahan about it.

“There was knocking,” Alina said cautiously. “From 209.”

“I told you,” the old woman said, stirring her tea. “That unit is empty. Always has been. Maintenance keeps it locked.”

Alina frowned. “Then why is someone knocking from the inside?”

Mrs. Callahan looked up from her teacup. Her expression was unreadable.

“If I were you, dear,” she said, “I wouldn’t ask questions that want to stay unanswered.”

The next few nights were quiet. Alina almost convinced herself it was stress. Trauma. Echoes of her old life rattling around in her head.

Until Friday night.

She was brushing her teeth when she heard it again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then something different: a voice.

“Help… me…”

Alina froze. She turned off the water. Silence.

Then, clearer:

“Please… I’m still here.”

She backed away from the wall. Her heart thumped against her ribs like it wanted out. She ran into the hallway and stood in front of Unit 209.

It looked ordinary—dusty, with peeling paint and a rusted number plate. But the door handle had fresh fingerprints.

Against her better judgment, she knocked.

No answer.

She grabbed the handle.

Locked.

But as she turned to leave, she heard a whisper—right behind the door.

“Don’t go.”

The next day, she marched down to the basement where the maintenance records were kept. They were old, yellowed papers in a dusty cabinet.

She flipped through folders until she found it: Unit 209.

Tenant history:

1981 – vacant

1982 – vacant

1983 – vacant

1984 – Evelyn Rowe – Disappeared

1985 – sealed by order of city health department

The name chilled her.

She grabbed her phone and searched. Evelyn Rowe. There was only one hit—an archived newspaper article.

“Local Teacher Vanishes Without a Trace. Last seen entering apartment 209 at The Elmridge. No signs of struggle. Police suspect mental breakdown or foul play. Case unsolved.”

Alina leaned back, breathing heavily.

209 hadn’t been empty. It had been silenced.

That night, Alina waited. She sat in bed, lights off, voice recorder running.

Nothing for hours.

Then: Tap. Tap. Tap.

Followed by:

“You found me…”

She moved to the wall.

“Evelyn?”

“They buried me here. In the wall.”

Alina’s throat went dry. “Who did?”

“The man upstairs.”

Her eyes widened. The third-floor unit above her—309—had a tenant. She’d seen him. A gaunt, quiet man with pale skin and sunken eyes.

She grabbed her coat and keys and ran to the landlord’s apartment.

Mrs. Callahan answered in her robe.

“309,” Alina gasped. “What’s his name?”

The old woman stared for a long moment.

“309 is empty,” she said slowly. “It’s been empty since the man who lived there… died.”

“Died when?”

“1985.”

Back in her apartment, the knocks grew frantic.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

“He knows you heard me! He’s coming—”

The wall behind her bed cracked.

Alina screamed as something punched through the drywall from the inside—a hand, skeletal and pale, reaching, clawing.

And then—it stopped.

They found Alina the next day.

She was huddled in the hallway, incoherent, pointing at the wall. When police finally opened Unit 209, they found the mummified remains of Evelyn Rowe—sealed inside the wall cavity behind the bed.

The building was condemned. Mrs. Callahan moved out. And 209?

It was bricked up. No door. No windows.

But some nights, people say you can still hear it.

Knock. Knock. Knock.