Short scary stories

Stranger In The Hallway

One experience that has haunted me for years: When I was 19, I had a one-bedroom apt in NY with a roommate. I had the bedroom, she had the living room, and there was a long narrow hall between the two rooms. A few months after we moved in, this woman upstairs who was 26 and very dramatic, started asking to borrow our phone. She had just moved to the city and didn't know anyone, had no money, etc. She was very fixated on me and she made my skin crawl, but I felt sorry for her because she was clearly struggling with some mental problems. Anyhow. One night I wake up and hear shuffling. I get up and see over a dozen people shuffling up and down my hallway, and they're all emaciated and silent and staring straight ahead in the dark. I scream and turn on the light: they're gone. My roommate tells me I'm crazy. I don't mention to her that I felt like they were Holocaust victims because it sounds even nuttier - but somehow I knew that was what happened to them.

A few nights later, I wake up to more Holocaust victims standing around my room - not looking at me, just staring into space. I turn on the light - they're gone.

At this point, I feel pretty fucking haunted but have no idea why this is happening. Then Neighbor comes down two nights later in a bathrobe. She's clearly distressed and as we're talking, the bathrobe begins soaking through with blood; she's cut herself with a knife on her stomach, legs, breasts, etc. It's rolling down on her legs onto the floor. We call 911, ambulance and cops come, and they send me up to her apartment to get her some clothes to wear to the hospital.

I go up to her apartment, where I've never been. All the lights are on, so is the TV, 2 faucets running. And all over the walls are photos of her standing in concentration camps she visited in Europe - like over 30 black and white pictures of her in these places - and other pictures of Holocaust victims, along with notes she's printed out and taped up saying "I should have died" etc. Every wall is covered with Holocaust notes and pictures. I'm now fully FREAKED OUT but I grab clothes, take them down to her and go off to the hospital with her. Where, thank god, they admit her.

On my way back to our building, I see my roommate walking toward me with a terrified face. She says "You're going to think I'm crazy, but after you guys left, I kept picturing in my mind all these people who died in the Holocaust like they were in our apartment." Mind you, I had never told her my theory about the people I saw, and I hadn't had time to tell her what I saw in Neighbor's apartment.

Neighbor left NY after that and I thought it was over. But one night I was in the kitchen pouring water with the lights off and I saw another one of them standing in my roommate's room - a very emaciated dead woman just watching me. I froze and she vanished. We ended up subletting for the summer and both moved out.