The Unseen Terror: A Tale of the Third Floor

In 2018, my boyfriend.

Alex and I moved into our first apartment together.

We were so excited that we would finally have our place and be adults.

It didn't take long for our new apartment to be spotted.

The complex residents.

Weirdo.

He lived in our building.

On the third floor.

We were on the first floor.

He was late 50s or early 60s, and how to face that seemed to lack all emotion.

He drove an incredibly rusty old truck and would go outside to feed the Wildcats in the area every day.

He seemed harmless weird, but harmless.

One day Alex and I get back home after work and he's outside standing beside his truck.

His eyes are glued to us and shivers run down my spine.

Alex tells me that he doesn't want to get out of the car because he's freaked out.

I don't want to let him know that I'm on edge too.

So I reassure him that we're in the open.

It's daylight and nothing bad is going to happen.

We got out of the car, and I opened the trunk to get my backpack because I was planning on grading, my student's vocabulary quizzes.

And when I close the trunk and look up, the creepy old man is right in front of me, his eyes are wide as if he just saw something that unnerved him I jump and say oh, I'm sorry.

You scared me is everything, okay?

No, he responds.

That woman that just moved into the fourth floor is such a bitch, right?

His voice reminds me of one I've heard before but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Well, sir, I haven't met her.

Is there?

She called the office about these cats and now they're going to call animal control on them.

He interrupted.

Oh, wow.

I'm so sorry.

Yeah, I figured you guys would feel the same way.

This place is a fucking hellhole and they've gone to shit in the past year.

He puts his hands up to his mouth as if he's about to tell us a secret.

I used to work for them.

You know, I'd open and close up the pools and clean up a little bit about the property.

They fired me a few months back once they found out about my lifestyle.

They don't get our lifestyle.

He says, moving his finger to point at himself, Alex, and me.

I assumed that he meant because we're gay men, but even now, I'm not entirely sure.

Damn, that's fucked up.

Alex says trying to Edge his way closer to the apartment door.

Yeah, they're all just a bunch of cocksuckers and I hope that new bitch.

Here's what he says, and at this point, I realized where I've heard his voice before, The Nightmare on Elm Street films.

He sounded just like, Freddy Krueger.

Alex says, well.

I hope it's not too bad.

I start working there on Monday.

Well, good luck.

Try to keep your business quiet.

Otherwise, you might be out of a job.

Just don't turn into one of those assholes.

Karma may come back to get you.

The old man said chuckling to himself.

Alex, and I laugh nervously as well.

Well, good luck with the cats will see you around.

I say, putting my hand on Alex's lower back and lightly pushing him towards our apartment.

All right guys.

Nice talking to you.

He said still chuckling to himself.

Although it was more creepy than joyous.

It reminded me of the Joker from Batman, a maniacal laugh.

A month passes and we see the old man, occasionally, the cats are still there.

So we figured things worked out for him.

However, we haven't had another conversation with him, thankfully.

Alex managed to keep his job at the office where there was not a trace of homophobia.

And that's when we heard the news.

Evicted.

I asked Alex when he came home from work, one day.

Why are they evicting him?

Well, my boss says that the office receives harassing phone calls from him every week.

Even some of the other tenants have reported being harassed by him.

I mean, yeah, he's creepy.

But is that enough to affect him?

I guess so.

They gave him a week to get all of his shit and move.

A week later, Alex was at the office and the old man came in to return his keys.

Alex was at the front desk and had already found her.

The manager, but the old man started whispering things under his breath.

Get out of here.

They're fucking cocksuckers.

All of them.

Get out.

The manager comes in grabs the keys and escorts, the creepy old man out of the building.

A week went by and we hadn't seen any trace of the old man.

Alex and I are watching TV at around midnight.

One night.

When I hear a knock at the door, I pause the show thinking that it may be a neighbor complaining that our TV is too loud.

I look through our people to see the creepy old man staring at me back through it, a smile covers his face, but it's unnatural.

I've never seen a smile.

So big in my life and it makes my whole body Runkle.

I start to stumble back from the door.

Alex sees that I'm pale with fear, babe.

What's wrong?

He whispers.

It's the old man.

I was / back tears, welling up in my eyes.

Alex gets off the couch and stands behind me, and we're both facing the door, the man knocks again, and it startles me back to reality.

I started walking to the kitchen and I grabbed all of the knives that I could, I told Alex to go into the bathroom, which is the only room without a window, and called the police.

I start to walk to the bathroom when I hear Keys, start jangling against our door.

I looked back to find that the security bolt was not folded against the door.

This works like a hotel room security bolt where someone can use a key to open the deadbolt.

But as long as the security bolt is across the door.

It won't open fully.

I silently make my way back over to the door knife in hand and slowly quietly.

Fold the security bolt across the door as soon as it touches the door.

The old man started banging, making me jump back a bit and I almost dropped the knife.

Then it was quiet.

No keys, No knocks, no bangs.

Whispering.

Come on, boys.

Let me in.

It's just me.

Come on.

It's karma.

If I wasn't utterly freaked out before I am, now I run to the bathroom and close the door quietly.

So he doesn't hear us, moving around and know where we are.

Alex has already gotten off the phone with the 911, operator.

And she said the police were on their way.

Five minutes pass and it's still quiet.

So, Alex wants me to go check if the man is still there.

I look through the peephole and don't see anything.

I sigh with relief, but then I think to check the parking lot to see if his truck is still there.

I go to the guest room with a view of the parking lot and peer through the blinds.

His truck is parked right next to my vehicle and I see that he's in the driver's seat.

And he's staring right at me.

Well, I can't be 100% sure but it looks as if we've locked eyes, I don't want to move out of fear that I'd be giving myself away in the off chance that he wasn't looking at me.

He opens his truck door and that breaks me from my stupefied state.

I run back to the bathroom and tell Alex to lock the door, and then I fill him in on the information.

About three minutes passed before we hear banging at the door, shit.

I say under my breath, but then we hear police open up.

I go outside and check the peephole and it is an officer.

So I open it and tell him what's been going on.

The officer said, he saw the truck outside but no one was in it.

He said he was going to look around the apartment and see what he could find Alex.

And I continue to camp out in the bathroom.

All of the lights in our apartment.

Now off.

We wait to hear from the officer, but within 10 minutes, we start to hear crazed screaming.

Almost demonic noises hissing, coughs screams, and laughter.

My heart drops, and I'm overcome with more fear than before, what is going on.

Five minutes later.

The police officer came to our door and said that he found the man in the vacant apartment directly above ours.

When the officer got there.

The man was standing facing into a corner, laughing under his breath.

When the officer put handcuffs on him.

He began thrashing about screaming and spitting the officer told us that he had him in the cruiser and that they arrested him for breaking.

When the police officer left, we checked the front of our door, where there were now dense from the man's keys.

He stroked our door with them.

After being unable to get in the next day.

We went upstairs with the manager of the apartment complex and we saw a small hole in the floor of the bathroom and not an apartment.

The man must have known that we were hiding in our bathroom and he was trying to get in there from the ceiling above us.

Luckily, he didn't have any heavy-duty tools to do the trick.

And the hole was made by a screwdriver being stabbed into the floor of the linoleum over and over again.

So, creepy stalker who wanted to trap me and my boyfriend.

Let's never meet again.

Let's never meet again.