The Apartment Above the Funeral Home

The funeral home sat at the edge of Bellmore Street like an old man too stubborn to die.

Its bricks were stained dark with rain and years of cigarette smoke from mourners who stood outside under the rusted awning. The sign out front — Mercer & Sons Funeral Services — creaked every time the wind changed direction, which in that town was often.

Elias moved into the apartment above it because it was cheap.

That was the only reason.

Not because he liked the place. Not because he believed the landlord when he said the building had “character.” And definitely not because he enjoyed waking up every morning to the smell of lilies and embalming chemicals drifting through the vents.

He moved there because grief had emptied his savings account almost as efficiently as it had emptied his life.

Three months earlier, his younger sister Nora had died in a car accident during a thunderstorm.

Since then, everything in Elias’s world felt unfinished.

Sentences. Meals. Sleep.

Breathing itself.

The apartment was small — one bedroom, peeling wallpaper, crooked windows — but it was quiet.

At least, it was during the day.

The noises started exactly one week after he moved in.

2:13 AM.

A long scraping sound dragged across the ceiling above his bed.

Elias sat upright instantly.

Another scrape.

Like a heavy dresser being pulled slowly across hardwood floors.

Then footsteps.

Measured. Slow.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

He stared upward, confused.

There shouldn’t have been anyone up there.

According to Mr. Mercer, the elderly funeral director downstairs, the top floor apartment above Elias had been empty for over a decade.

“No tenants stay long,” the old man had muttered during move-in.

At the time, Elias assumed he meant the depressing atmosphere.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

The next morning, Elias asked him directly.

“There someone living upstairs?”

Mr. Mercer paused while arranging flowers near a coffin display.

“No.”

“I heard footsteps.”

“You hear many things in old buildings.”

The answer felt rehearsed.

That night, Elias stayed awake intentionally.

2:13 AM.

The dragging started again.

SCRAAAAAPE.

He grabbed his phone flashlight and climbed the narrow staircase leading to the sealed upper apartment.

Dust coated the banister.

Cobwebs stretched across the doorway.

No signs of life.

Yet the sound continued inside.

Slow scraping.

A thud.

Then silence.

Elias swallowed hard and pressed his ear against the door.

For a moment, nothing.

Then—

Breathing.

Not loud.

Not monstrous.

Just soft human breathing directly on the other side.

He stumbled backward.

The breathing stopped instantly.

The next day, he bought a crowbar.

Grief does strange things to fear. Once someone you love dies, the world already feels broken beyond repair. Terror loses some of its power after that.

At 2:10 AM, Elias climbed the stairs again.

The building groaned around him.

At exactly 2:13, the scraping began.

He jammed the crowbar into the doorframe.

Wood cracked loudly.

Another shove.

The old lock snapped open.

The apartment smelled like dust and rainwater.

His flashlight beam shook across faded furniture covered in white sheets.

Everything looked frozen in time.

A calendar still hung on the wall.

October 2014.

Then Elias noticed the floor.

Scratch marks.

Long deep grooves carved into the wood.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Like someone had been dragging the same heavy object for years.

The sound came again.

SCRAAAAAPE.

This time from the far hallway.

Elias followed it slowly.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears.

The hallway ended at a bedroom door slightly ajar.

Inside stood a woman.

Or something pretending to be one.

She wore a pale yellow dress stained dark at the hem. Her long black hair hung wet against her shoulders as if she had just stepped out into rain.

But it was her face that stopped him cold.

Not because it was horrifying.

Because it was sad.

Terribly, impossibly sad.

Her eyes looked swollen from endless crying.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.

Elias couldn’t move.

Neither could she.

For several seconds they simply stared at one another like two grieving people trapped behind different windows.

Then she glanced toward the corner of the room.

The flashlight followed her gaze.

A crib.

Old-fashioned.

Covered in dust.

SCRAAAAAPE.

The crib moved slightly across the floor by itself.

One inch.

Another inch.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

The woman closed her eyes.

“He won’t stop crying,” she whispered.

Elias suddenly understood.

Not fully.

Not rationally.

But enough.

This wasn’t rage haunting the apartment.

It was guilt.

The woman looked at him again.

“I fell asleep,” she said quietly. “Just for a minute.”

Her voice cracked.

“Just one minute.”

The room around Elias felt colder.

Somewhere downstairs, thunder rumbled.

Then came another sound.

A baby crying.

Faint.

Impossible.

The woman covered her ears immediately.

“I tried to wake up,” she whispered desperately. “I tried—I tried—I tried—”

The crib slammed violently across the room.

Elias flinched.

The crying grew louder.

Not angry.

Hungry.

Lonely.

The kind of cry that demanded love.

The woman began sobbing.

“I didn’t mean to.”

Elias’s chest tightened painfully.

Because grief recognizes grief.

Even here.

Even now.

He thought about Nora.

About the voicemail he still couldn’t delete.

About all the guilt people carried after death. The endless inventory of things they should have said differently. Done differently.

Loved differently.

“You need to let go,” he whispered.

The woman looked at him with hollow eyes.

“How?”

Elias had no answer.

Outside, rain hammered the windows.

The crying softened.

Then softened more.

The woman slowly approached the crib.

With trembling hands, she reached down as though lifting something invisible into her arms.

And suddenly the apartment changed.

Warmth spread through the room.

Not heat.

Peace.

The crying stopped entirely.

The woman smiled faintly for the first time.

Not happy.

Just relieved.

She looked toward Elias one last time.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Then she vanished.

The room became still.

No shadows moving.

No scraping.

Only silence.

Real silence.

The next morning, Elias packed his things.

As he carried boxes downstairs, Mr. Mercer watched quietly from behind the front desk.

“You saw her,” the old man said.

Elias stopped.

Mr. Mercer sighed heavily.

“She lived up there with her son. Winter of 2014. Heater broke during a storm.” He swallowed hard. “Baby froze during the night.”

Neither man spoke for several seconds.

Finally Elias nodded toward the stairs.

“She’s gone now.”

Mr. Mercer stared at him carefully, as if deciding whether to believe him.

Then, slowly, he nodded back.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped.

For the first time in months, Elias looked up at the morning sky without feeling crushed beneath it.

Grief was still there.

Maybe it always would be.

But some ghosts, he realized, aren’t trying to haunt us.

They’re only trying to be forgiven.