The House That Remembered

I rented the house because it was cheap.

That is the embarrassing truth.

It stood at the end of a narrow lane, squeezed between two newer buildings, as if the neighbourhood had grown around it and deliberately left it untouched.

Two floors.

Faded green windows.

A rusted balcony.

And a wooden front door that opened with a sound like someone taking a long breath.

The landlord was an elderly man named Mr. Sharma.

He showed me every room personally.

Kitchen.

Living room.

Two bedrooms upstairs.

One small study.

Then we reached the end of the upper corridor.

There was another door.

Unlike the others, this one had three locks.

Mr. Sharma stopped.

"This room isn't included."

I laughed.

"What is it?"

"Storage."

"Can I use it if I need extra space?"

"No."

He looked directly at me.

"Especially at night."

I thought he was simply an eccentric old man.

Three days later, I understood.

The first night was normal.

The second night, I heard furniture moving upstairs.

The problem was that I was already upstairs.

I was lying in bed when something heavy scraped across the ceiling above me.

There was no third floor.

I stood on the mattress and stared upward.

The scraping stopped.

Then someone knocked from inside the ceiling.

Three times.

I slept with headphones on.

The next morning, I found grey dust scattered across my pillow.

I blamed the old plaster.

On the third night, I woke at 1:46 a.m.

Someone was crying in the corridor.

A child.

Softly.

I opened my bedroom door.

The corridor was dark.

The crying came from the locked room.

I stood there for maybe ten seconds.

Then the child whispered:

"Monu."

My stomach tightened.

Nobody had called me that in more than twenty years.

It was what my mother called me when I was a child.

She had died when I was eleven.

"Monu."

This time the voice sounded exactly like her.

I stepped towards the locked door.

"Maa?"

The crying stopped.

Then she laughed.

Not loudly.

Not happily.

The laugh came from right behind the door.

I ran back into my bedroom.

The next morning, all three locks were open.

The door itself remained closed.

I called Mr. Sharma immediately.

He arrived within half an hour.

When he saw the locks, he didn't ask what happened.

He simply closed them again.

"You spoke to it?"

I said nothing.

His face told me that silence was enough.

"What is in that room?"

He looked towards the staircase.

Then back at me.

"It doesn't matter."

"I heard my mother."

"No," he said.

"You heard something that heard your mother."

That sentence stayed with me.

I told him I was leaving.

He nodded.

"Leave before sunset."

Naturally, I didn't.

Packing took longer than expected.

At 7:30 p.m., rain began.

By nine, the lane outside was flooded.

I decided to stay one final night.

At 12:04, every light in the house went out.

My phone still had battery.

I switched on the flashlight.

The locked-room door was open.

I could see darkness beyond it.

Then a television switched on downstairs.

I didn't own a television.

I slowly walked towards the staircase.

Blue light flickered across the living-room wall.

An old box television stood in the corner.

On the screen was a home video.

My home video.

My seventh birthday.

I was sitting beside my mother, cutting a cake.

I remembered that video.

It had been recorded on a camera my father lost years ago.

Onscreen, my mother turned towards whoever was filming.

Then she looked directly into the camera.

Her smile disappeared.

"Monu," she said.

I froze.

She had never said that in the original recording.

"Don't look upstairs."

Something creaked above me.

I looked.

A woman was standing at the top of the staircase.

My mother.

Exactly as I remembered her.

Same blue sari.

Same hair.

Same face.

Except her mouth was open much too wide.

And inside it, something was moving.

I backed away.

She began walking downstairs.

One step.

Then another.

I ran towards the front door.

It wouldn't open.

Behind me, my mother's voice said:

"You left me alone."

I pulled the handle harder.

"You didn't come when I called."

That wasn't true.

My mother had died in a hospital.

I had been beside her.

I turned around.

She was halfway down the staircase.

Now she looked older.

Then younger.

Then older again.

Her face kept changing.

For a second she became my father.

Then Mr. Sharma.

Then me.

The thing smiled using my face.

"Which one do you want?"

I screamed.

The front door suddenly opened.

I ran into the rain.

I didn't stop until I reached the main road.

The next morning, I returned with Mr. Sharma and two policemen.

The house was empty.

No television.

No footprints.

The locked room was closed again.

One officer insisted we open it.

Mr. Sharma refused.

The officer threatened to break the door.

Finally, the landlord handed him the keys.

Inside was a small room with no windows.

No furniture.

Nothing except photographs covering every wall.

Hundreds of them.

Families.

Children.

Old people.

Couples.

Different decades.

Different clothes.

Some black-and-white.

Some recent.

Every photograph had been taken inside that house.

Then I saw one near the floor.

It had been taken the previous night.

I was standing in the living room facing the television.

Behind me, halfway down the staircase, stood the woman wearing my mother's face.

The policeman asked who she was.

I couldn't answer.

Then he pointed to another photograph.

A newer one.

In it, the four of us were standing inside the locked room.

The photograph showed us exactly where we were standing at that moment.

Except there were five people in the picture.

Something stood between me and Mr. Sharma.

Tall.

Black.

Its face blurred.

One hand rested on my shoulder.

I dropped the photograph.

Mr. Sharma whispered:

"We need to leave."

Then every photograph on the wall changed at once.

The people disappeared.

Every single picture now showed the same empty room.

Except one.

The photograph at my feet.

In that picture, the room was still full.

But we were gone.

Only the black figure remained.

It was closer to the camera now.

Much closer.

The police officer laughed nervously.

Then the door slammed shut.

The lights went out.

In the darkness, my mother whispered:

"Monu."

I felt something take my hand.

I don't remember how we escaped.

The police report says all four of us were found unconscious in the front garden.

Mr. Sharma sold the house three months later.

It was demolished the following year.

A new apartment building stands there now.

I know because I went back once.

I stood across the road, staring at the balconies.

A woman on the third floor noticed me.

She came outside.

"Can I help you?"

I asked how long she had lived there.

"Six months."

"Anything strange?"

She hesitated.

Then laughed.

"Actually, yes."

My mouth went dry.

"What?"

She pointed towards one of her windows.

"My daughter keeps talking to someone in her room."

"An imaginary friend?"

"Probably."

"What does she call her?"

The woman smiled.

"Monu's mother."

I have never gone back.

But sometimes, just before I fall asleep, my phone receives a photograph from an unknown number.

It is always the same room.

No windows.

No furniture.

Empty walls.

And every time the photograph arrives, the black figure is standing a little closer to the camera.

Last night, there was no figure in the photograph.

Only the empty room.

Then someone knocked three times from inside my wardrobe.