u/maz-mora

I've never dreamt of labor, and frankly, I can't imagine that those who do are that fulfilled. That isn't to say that every job I've had has been unbearable. Sure, like most, I've had my share of shitty jobs; I work in building maintenance, so I'm no stranger to tight, unventilated spaces or the smell of cleaning agents. At a certain point, rats in a space that didn't have rats moments before cease to be surprising. But you wouldn't believe how much I've been able to get away with at some places.

Maybe three years out of college, I had such a job, and it was, of all places, at Disney World. You figure it's Disney, massive entertainment company, geared towards families, they've probably got you on a short leash. And yeah, to a certain extent, that could be true; you're gonna have pain in the ass higher-ups no matter where you end up in the world. But I worked nights, and with all the guests gone and with us working in small teams around the park we were assigned to on a given night, you could reasonably get around without someone breathing too hard down your neck.

I was fortunate in that the team I usually got put with were all fairly laidback. Most of us just wanted to get done what we needed to so that, god willing, we could enjoy a few minutes of downtime before we headed out in the early morning. A few of the folks had young families, which I imagine meant they had precious few minutes of quiet to enjoy otherwise.

So we'd head to whatever spot we were supposed to service - inspect the wiring on Expedition Everest, do cleanings on Pirates, test the lighting on Spaceship Earth, that sort of thing - and then we'd find a quiet corner where a supervisor wasn't likely to go poking around immediately. Sometimes shoot the shit, sometimes not. Sometimes, we'd head to one of the break rooms in the corridors running under the parks, sometimes we'd stay topside, look out over the property.

I always liked the latter; I'd gone to Disney a good bit as a kid, and I suppose looking out at it at after dark, there was something about it that took me back. Feet hurting, heading out for the night, knowing that a firm hotel bed was waiting for you. Granted, that wore off some after a little while. This was a job, after all, and like with any job, I couldn't exactly pretend I was exhilarated to be there every single night. Especially if, say, a light went out on Main Street, and we had to replace the whole row.

My team was assigned to Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom one night. I hadn't been working there for long; this would have been, I want to say, 2012, maybe 2013? It was definitely November, because we'd spent the previous several shifts putting up holiday decorations (if I never saw a strand of Christmas lights again, it'd be too soon). Thankfully, this evening's work wasn't anything too crazy. We'd gone over to the queue areas of Splash Mountain and then Thunder Mountain, done some basic cleanings, made sure everything was squared away. Tested the circuits, saw that no bulbs were out of date and that the ride systems could still power on and connect right.

Having just gotten done with Thunder Mountain, we headed outside and found a little area to sit down. A couple folks took a bench, the rest of us leaned against the faux-wooden fence that bordered the path. We looked out at the water which ran besides the land. Chattered a little, but it died down quick. Despite how monotonous the job could be, moments like these did still shine through sometimes. Here and there, a little lap of the water against the rock and concrete, the faint "clack, clack, clack" of another team walking along ride tracks somewhere in the distance, the November air, which was unusually chilly for Florida. I could have fallen asleep standing there.

To stop that from happening, I pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Smoking on the job was absolutely forbidden, especially if you were in a building. Can't have Little Jimmy riding Winnie the Pooh and smelling lingering Camel smoke. But tonight, the manager overseeing my team was Will, who was usually pretty lax. There'd still be consequences if you got caught breaking the rules, but it was usually more just getting chewed out. Not like Greg, who'd have you go over every foot of track on Space Mountain with a magnifying glass if he caught you wearing clothes that were too dark.

I lit up, offered the pack to the others, some of whom took one, and we puffed away, smoke mixing with our visible breath. This was back when the parks still had smoking areas (not that we were in one), so the way we saw it, we weren't doing anything the guests wouldn't do. Besides, we had several restaurants and shops to do rounds through that night. We needed something stimulating.

A few drags in, my eyes shifted across the river to Tom Sawyer Island. It occurred to me that, in contrast to most of the area, there weren't any light's on, as far as I could see. Just a dark mass in a pool of vaguely reflective water.

I turned to Jan, one of my team members. "No one working on the island tonight, huh?"

She shrugged. "Guess not."

"You figure a lot of people get hurt over there?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, they've got those caves you can walk through. Pretty narrow. You get some kid not looking where he's going, that's a good way to get a bloody nose."

"Yeah, I can see that. It's still open, so I can't imagine it's a huge concern."

"I suppose not. You ever worked over there?"

"Yeah," she replied. She ashed her smoke on the rim of a nearby trash bin, then brushed the ash in, dropping the butt in after it. "Couple times. Like working anywhere else. The lighting over there isn't that good, but if you watch what you're doing, you'll be fine. They'll usually have us working there at the very beginning of the night or at the very end, when it's lightest."

"That makes sense." I ashed my own cigarette and lit another.

"You ever been?" Jan asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe once or twice when I was younger. Don't remember a lot from it." I thought for a second. "Except the mannequins at the fort. I remember those creeping me out. Oh, and that big screaming rock face in the cave. Come to think of it, I remember a lot of that place kind of giving me the creeps."

Jan chuckled. "Yeah, that place hasn't changed much since.... well, since I was a girl."

"The smoking rule also hasn't changed," spat a voice behind us, making us jump. We spun around to see Will, who scanned us sternly. Glancing at the rest of the group, I noticed that all of them had finished and gotten rid of their cigarettes, and none had taken another. As far as Will was concerned, I was the only one who'd lit up.

We sat there a second, Will staring at us, us averting our gaze. "Well," he said, "Put it out, Gwen, will you please?" Realizing my smoke was still lit, I ashed it at once, tossed it, and sputtered out some half-comprehensible apology. "Yeah, yeah," Will said, rolling his eyes. "Alright, break's over. The rest of you get back to work. I've got a special job for miss Gwen here."

This was bad. "Special jobs" were never desirable and often didn't have much of a purpose at all. The first time I got assigned a "special job" for having my phone out when I wasn't supposed to, I'd had to walk all along the railroad tracks going around the park to make sure there were no sticks between the trestles. Once the others were out of earshot, Will turned to me and gestured to walk with him.

We headed down into the underground corridors, rounded a couple corners, and without a word, Will led me into a supply room. After opening a large box and rummaging through it, he pulled out a small speaker and turned to me. "One of the speakers in the Mystery Mine over on Tom Sawyer's shit itself today. You're gonna go replace it."

I furrowed my brow. "But I've never installed a speaker before. What if I fuck this one up just as bad?"

"My, my, the Marlboro Man has rotted our brain, hasn't he? It'll be fine," he said, matter-of-factly. "It's in the room with the ore poking out of the wall. There's only one speaker, and it's in the upper left corner; you'll know it when you see it. You'll just need to grab a ladder, unhook and unplug the old one, and hook the new one in."

"Ok," I said, thinking it over. "What exactly makes this a 'special job?'"

"Because the maintenance lights are also shitting out, so you get to find your way out using this," he said, handing me a small flashlight. "And when you get back, you can get rid of the garbage bag that you all soiled with your cigarettes and put a fresh one in."

"Wait, you know the others were smoking? Why aren't they stuck doing this, too?"

"'Cause you're the only one who let yourself get caught." He stretched his mouth into an exaggerated frown. "Maybe this will teach you that addiction doesn't pay." He turned away and headed out. "Just follow the directions, the corridors will bring you up under the island."

I smiled and shook my head. "By the way," I called after him, "It was Joe Camel that rotted my brain, not the Marlboro Man."

"Even sadder," he called back, his footsteps fading down the hall.

The real punishment was trying to carry the ladder and the speaker at the same time. Neither was really that cumbersome, but it was near impossible to position them in a way that felt comfortable in my hands. I almost dropped the speaker at least twice, and once I reached the end of the long corridor going under the river to the island, I had to get everything up a flight of stairs and through a door.

By the time I'd made my way onto Tom Sawyer Island and found the entrance to the Mystery Mine, I was sweating bullets and had almost fallen down a set of steps and cracked my head open. Before entering, I leaned against the rock wall and heaved a few deep breaths. The place was just as dark as it had looked before. The flashlight didn't do much, and the only other source of light around came from the buildings across the water. Neither did quite enough to stop the greenery from looking like ink blots that had drowned the place out. I shuddered, took another deep breath, and hurried inside, wanting to get my special job over with.

The Mystery Mine normally had dim lanterns illuminating the way, but they were all turned off. It was fairly normal for some form of light to be on in other dark areas, but here was a blackness that rivalled the most unlit parts of Space Mountain. Not helping was the fact that the mine was intentionally built to be lopsided in several places, which made carrying a ladder an absolute joy.

It occurred to me about halfway through that there was not a sound to be heard outside my footsteps and the occasional "clunk" of the ladder against the floor. As I said earlier, I'd only been in there a handful of times, but I seemed to recall them playing cave ambiance in there. Now, it was just the damp thumps of my shoes, hardly even any reverberation to speak of. It was like I was a worm, entombed alive in oil and artificial rock. I knocked against a wall at one point, thinking it might echo, but there was only a low, dull thud.

I made my way through a couple steps at a time, barely helped by the cheap flashlight. The sideways mine shaft widened into a room full of prop equipment and fake gold ore in the wall which reflected my light back at me. Somewhere off to the right was the blackened exit to the room, which began with a turn, and to the upper left was the speaker I was to replace.

Will was right; the job itself didn't take more than a couple minutes. With the new speaker hooked up and presumably ready to play the background noise which would turn on in the morning, I stepped down and folded up the ladder. I pulled out my radio and told Will that the speaker was hooked up, and he glibly replied that now I could take out the garbage. I rolled my eyes and approached the inky, curved passageway leading out, but as I did so, a small sound came from within.

And then came another. They were just barely perceptible, but as I froze and listened closely, sure enough, they were there. At first, the sound were like coughs; someone sputtering, just barely able to inhale. But then came a small, nasally whine. It was a child crying.

"H-hello?" I called, flabbergasted. How could there be a kid in here? The park had been closed for hours, and the only way to access the island was by a barge that a cast member piloted, so this kid's parents would have had to have left without them.

"H-hello?" echoed a little girl's voice. They were hidden by both the darkness and the asymmetrical rock walls.

"Uh..." I to find the words. Working at Disney, you'd maybe find the odd person who'd hidden out and stayed in after closing, but a kid? "A-are you ok?"

"M-mommy?" the voice called. "I don't know where I am!"

I took a step forward and then stopped. There was something about the way the girl spoke that didn't sound quite right. It might have been because she was crying; no one can talk right when they cry. But something about the way each syllable came out felt lilting and uncertain, as if the girl wasn't entirely sure she was pronouncing them right. Like when you're in a language class and don't quite know what you're doing yet.

"Hello?" I repeated. "What's your name?"

A moment of quiet. And then the voice repeated back to me: "What's your name?" The cadence was exactly the same as mine had been. And the timbre of the voice was slightly different than it had been. The first two words still sounded like the same little girl, though it didn't sound like she was crying anymore. But that last word fell into a slightly deeper pitch that didn't sound like it could have come from a kid.

If there was some little girl stuck in here, having been left by her family, I obviously wanted to help. But something about this just felt off. There were definitely cameras in here; how could no one have noticed her? I took a step forward but held off on entering the passageway. "I'm Gwen. Do you need help?"

"I'm Gwen. Do you need help?" the voice echoed, its cadence and inflection perfectly matching mine. Again, the last word dipped lower in a way that didn't sound entirely natural, but everything else could have been a perfect recording of what I had said. I stepped back, dropping the old speaker and ladder, then broke into a run back the way I'd come.

I lit the floor beneath me as best I could, but it still didn't stop me from tripping once or twice. The way I'd come in was probably only a short walk from the room I'd been in, but I swear I ran two miles in that cave. But sure enough, I found my way to the entrance, the moonlight from outside looking comparatively bright to what I'd just been in.

As I exited, the voice called out one more time: "M-mommy? I don't know where I am!" Syllables dipped at random. It was as if their vocal chords couldn't decide how they were supposed to sound. It reverberated through the mine so loudly that I was sure it was audible from across the water.

I hurried back to the corridor entrance, all the while collecting myself as best I could, and I felt relative relief as I descended the steps into the florescent-lit space. I sped back to where Will and I had come in, not entirely sure where I was going until I stumbled into a break room and collapsed into a chair.

I sat there, catching my breath, unable to stop wondering why that voice echoed so much when nothing else in there did. Just as I started to consider that I'd only been at Disney a few months and that maybe this was some elaborate hazing, Will stepped into the room.

"Wow," he said, "Remind me to never hire you as a sanitation worker. Have to find a replacement in three days." I nodded, unable to think of a proper response. His eyes narrowed. "Hey, are you alright?"

I swallowed. "I, uh... yeah, I'm fine."

"You sound very confident in that." He sat across from me. "You look sick. Did something happen?"

I considered the question. "You've been working here for a while, right?"

"Fifteen years," he nodded.

"Have, uh... have you ever known people here to pull weird pranks on each other?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I've seen the odd thing here or there. But it's not something that happens especially often. Why?"

I took a deep breath and relayed what had happened, emphasizing that I was fully aware that I may have just been hearing things or that maybe someone had played something over another speaker. Will's face fluctuated between concern, astoundment, and irritation, finally settling on something I couldn't quite place.

When I finished, he sighed. "Alright. I'm going to call the overnight security folks - which you should have done, I'll add - and have them take a look at the area. I'd be shocked if there was actually someone there, but I'd be just as astonished if this was some prank. If there is someone, though, it's my ass."

He called the disturbance in to the overnight security and turned back to me. He massaged his temple and sighed again. "Meantime, maybe you should go home for the rest of the night. You don't look so good, and I can't have you making the rounds under the weather."

"A-are you sure?" I stuttered.

He nodded. "Yeah, go rest up. Try to get better by tomorrow night; still lots to do." I got up and headed for the door, but then he added: "The parks have been around a pretty long time and cover a lot of ground." I turned to face him. He now had a knowing, resigned look on his face. "I'm not going to sit here and speculate on whether something did or didn't happen. But what I will say is that in the time I've worked here, I've known the odd cast member - hell, even the odd guest - to see or hear something strange."

Not sure how to respond, I settled on: "Is that so?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Like I said: lot of ground, lot of shadowy corners on that ground. I've never seen anything out of the ordinary myself - not here, anyway - but if it's any comfort at all, you're not the first who's had some ride play tricks on her at night." He paused, letting what he'd said sit. "I'd maybe just advise you to be careful talking about it too much. Already enough urban legends to go around, right? Don't need the higher-ups thinking we're trying to cause dissent." He gave a sad smile.

I returned one. "Yeah. Sure, Will." And I was off.

I didn't get much sleep, predictably. For one thing, I couldn't get that stilted, echoed voice out of my head, and even when I did drift off, it followed me into whatever shallow dreams I had. I also couldn't shake the feeling that I had let someone stay in danger.

But early that morning, I got a text from Will saying that security had done a full sweep and reviewed footage but hadn't found anyone. Whole thing was being chalked up as some prank, even though no one else was spotted on video on the island while I was there.

I went back to work the next night feeling like a sack of hammers, but I got assigned to some fairly light maintenance work at Disney Springs. Had a decent bit of downtime, and when I returned home after that shift, I slept considerably better. I'd end up working at Disney for another three years before finding a better paying job in Chicago, and I can't say I really saw anything else that crazy. Had plenty of times working in dimly lit areas, even worked on the island again a few times, but I almost always had my team and didn't have any other moments that sent more than a slight shiver down my spine.

I did take Will's advice, though, and didn't talk to anyone about the voice in the cave. Not that any of us held a particular reverence to Disney; I guess I just figured no one would believe me. I liked my team and didn't want to seem like I'd gone off the deep end. But after all these years, I still sometimes have a hard time getting that voice out of my head. I thought maybe someone here would have experienced something similar or, at the very least, might believe me.

I do think that I made the right choice in getting out of there as quick as I did. I like to think I know better than to follow strange voices into the dark. But I can never quite get past my curiosity of what I would have seen if I had gone into that unlit passageway.

TW for slight racism and a reference to a shooting. Exactly as the title implies. For context: I’ve worked at a university for a couple years, and I started hearing this stuff pretty much as soon as I started. I can’t stress enough that these are all real and are all from one person. Names redacted for the sake of anonymity.

-“Professionalism is my jam.”

-“The student assistants’ LinkedIn pages will inspire you.”

-“I’m not much of a favorite color person, but mine would be either pink or beige.”

-“I’m going into a staff celebration committee meeting.” (Said word for word every time she goes into a Zoom meeting with what is essentially the party planning committee)

-“I’m, like, obsessed with what she does.” (On our boss)

-“We should print out the characters and put them up. What are the characters? The monkey?” (On theming our area around The Wizard of Oz for an event; she had never seen it)

-“[Higher up person] should be the kid because he’s got a Boy Scout uniform!” (On making one of our executive people dress as Russel from Up for that same event; again, a movie she’d never seen)

-“[Director] could be the bird!” (On making our department’s director dress as Kevin from Up, a movie she’d never seen)

-“What was the highlight?” (In reference to a meeting the part time people had with our boss)

-“It’s Friday, and everyone’s ready for work. Wow.”

-“I grew up going to Law of Attraction conventions.”

-“I think we should just stick with the instrumentals.” (Upon hearing that they used to play actual music in the office; she proceeded to play crappy MIDI stuff in the background)

-"Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Asian food. And I don't like Mexican food."

-“That’s on you.” (Said to me after our receptionist transferred a call to me from a person we weren’t supposed to take calls from; I had no choice but to take it and talk to this person)

-“It’s, like, not even a country; it’s an island!” (On Taiwan)

-“Why would you leave the US? People are, like, dying to come here.”

-“People are literally getting the whole pirate experience. Why did we have to go so hard?” (In an office with a bunch of clip art parrots, AI images, scribbled-in cutouts of cannons (the thing looked like a giant piece of cat shit), and inflatable swords stuck to the wall)

-“We don’t need the chat box. I am the chat box.”

-“Maybe we should go with a peaceful one. This one is, like, raising my heart rate.” (After turning on ambient music from Pirates of the Caribbean)

-“Ahoy, mateys!” (Said at least two dozen times the day of the fall crawl event (basically boring trick or treating around the office), and not a single time did she put any amount of inflection into her voice to make it sound even a little bit pirate-like)

-“Magic crystal shards. Embrace your magic with crystal shards that sparkle and shine all day and night.” (Read aloud from a 2D jar decoration she had in her cubicle; she dictated all the text at least twice on the same day)

-“So far, this has nothing to do with pufferfish. It’s called Operation Pufferfish. When do we get to the pufferfish?” (On some housing development project from 2020)

-“It’s National Spring Contract Opening Day.” (Proceeded to laugh out loud)

-“I might as well wear a long-sleeve under my sweater at this point.” (On a 60-degree day)

-“It’s called an ‘air-go-nom-ic’ chair.” (Seemingly trying to pronounce “ergonomic”)

-“I can’t go with the flow. I have to create the flow. No one else is allowed to dictate flow. Only me.”

-“I need to check if this is fake news or not: Apple just released a new laptop.”

-“I’ve been an Uber member since middle school.”

-“It’s not like I’m shopping all the time, like I used to when I had the money. I am going shopping this weekend, though. I was supposed to go last weekend, but my friend keeps postponing on me. The only reason I give her slack is because she’s in the PHD program.”

-“The thing that sucks about Uber is that you’ll get a driver who’s ten minutes away, but then they’ll be twelve minutes away. You’re, like, beholden to someone else.”

-“We get responses out fast because we have a reputation to uphold. Customer service is A-1 here.”

-*After she got her wisdom teeth out, she yapped about it for at least two straight weeks; there were multiple instances in which multiple people went to her cubicle and were talking to her about it, resulting in me doing more of the work

-“I’ve been eating real food like it’s nothing, and it’s making my mouth hurt afterwards.”

-“Yeah, it’s created a lot of ethical dilemmas and hijinks. But guess what? It was right! It was busy.” (On ChatGPT allegedly being used by the person who shot up the university to gauge when the target building would be the busiest)

-“The whole thing felt really staged. It happened three minutes before twelve.” (On the shooting, in which she was in the building where it happened. Obviously, no one deserves that, but oh my god, why would you phrase it like that??)

-“I had to take a theater class when I was a junior, and it was soooo annoying. We had to watch all these musicals. And I can watch a musical on stage, but on a screen? Like, what? How did you get this many people in on the bit? How did that happen?”

-“My professor said I wasn’t artistic!” (Said in a tone that implied she was surprised by this)

-“Don’t just sort out the things you don’t want; you’ve gotta send me something meaningful.” (On her mom, who works for Sephora, sending her stuff from Sephora; I cannot stress enough that Daniela had to pay $0 for Sephora products)

-“This kid’s name is Chester, like Cheetos! (Laughter) I bet that’s been his nickname for his whole life.” (Earlier that day, she had talked about how she “used to be” a bully)

-“I never eat microwaved meals. I don’t consider them food.” (She has said on multiple occasions that she doesn’t cook; this leaves me to assume that she orders out for literally every meal)

-“You know how in karaoke, people will be like ‘you sing this verse and I sing that one?’ No. I’m gonna sing what I’m gonna sing, and you can fill in the rest. Like what is a verse?”

-“I was probably the only one at the party that knew Taylor Swift music.”

-“Isn’t Pokémon a Japanese thing or an Asian thing?”

-“I need to get my life together. I’m gonna ask ChatGPT how to sort my life out.”

-“I hate when I’m watching a show and it’s not in English. I hate that shit (laughter). You know what I mean? And I hate when I’m watching one that’s in English, but it’s not made in English. So the audio’s just fried. I’ll turn a show off for that.”

-“I just think those things are a little goofy.” (On musicals)

-“I had an epic summer wedding romance.” (On some guy from California she met at a wedding, said word for word at least five times in under ten minutes)

-“The assignment is to ‘interview someone over the age of 40 on their experiences with Hurricane Katrina.’ What does that mean? Like I don’t even talk to my parents like that. They don’t know what that means; they don’t know what Hurricane Katrina is. I don’t know anyone over 40. And what is the point of interviewing someone who’s already in public administration? I read the assignment to my mom and started cracking up. I’m not turning in that assignment.” (She’s an emergency management grad student)

-“I swear, in my dream, I brushed my teeth. Then I woke up, and I was in bed. I was like ‘how is this happening?’ (Laughter)” (After showing up for work an hour late, and her schedule already begins fifteen minutes later than mine because she was previously late so often)

-“That’s what I was trying to tell you and [other coworker]: when we reassign people, we have to delete their booking so we have a record of it.” (Spoken in a pissy tone, in reference to a conversation that never happened, describing a process in a way we’ve never done it before, and I had clearly left notes on everything I’d done, so she had no reason to be confused about the student in question)

-“On my last paper, I wrote ‘at the same time’ three times, because the whole point is that it’s happening at the same time. State government and federal government. And my computer keeps trying to tell me to write ‘simultaneously,’ and it’s, like, no, that’s not what I’m trying to say. So I typed ‘simultaneously,’ and it just didn’t sound good. Like I’m going to keep it how I had it in my head.”

-“The point of the wedding is the party. Like who are you? You’re lucky you even caught the invite.”

-“I’ve been tracking her while she’s been in California. Life 360. Most used app. (Laughter)” (On her friend, who had just gotten married)

-“She keeps turning her location off. So I put her on Life 360. Can’t turn that off. She keeps saying ‘oh, my phone’s doing it on its own.’ You have to click, like, three buttons to do that! She wants that independent life. Nope. Not happening.” (I cannot possibly stress enough that this was about her friend who was on their honeymoon)

-“I like 24 because it’s even. 2+4=8.” (She could have misspoken or been making a joke, but I’m counting it)

-“Back in action, everybody.” (Said as she was leaving the office to go to Starbucks, after being gone for her birthday (not a milestone one) for a week and a half, having just been in the office for a half hour, most of which was spent away from her desk)

I suppose my daughter's bath water had made the process seem slower.

I’ve never been one for hookups. I have nothing whatsoever against people who are; I’ve just always preferred to get to know someone for a while before becoming intimate with them. For me, it takes a lot of vulnerability, and I like to know that I can trust someone before I take that step with them.

Staring at the bedroom ceiling of the stranger snoring next to me, I wondered how I had come to trust her so quickly. Thinking back on every partner I’d had before, it had never been this brisk. The soonest I had slept with someone prior to that night had been after a month or so of dating. But she had given me one look from across the bar at Poor Richard’s and had made my heart stop. Then she had been sitting with my group of friends and I, I had learned that her name was Tarah, and we were complimenting each other’s tops and comparing music tastes. Next thing I’d known, we were stepping out of the cigarette-reeking building into the chill night air towards her car, our hands clasped. And now I was here, her pink sheets loosely covering us and her arm resting over my chest. Inhaling, it occurred to me that her hair still smelled vaguely of nicotine. We never showered. Maybe next time?

A thousand thoughts buzzed through my head, underscored by the cheap fan on Tarah’s nightstand. She was the first woman I’d been with. I’d always told myself that if I ever dated a woman, I wanted to take it steady, really savor the honeymoon phase. But there had just been something inexplicable about her that made me want her with blood-warming immediacy. And now I had no idea if Tarah, whose hair was just a bit too short to mask the tranquility on her face as she slept, would even want to date me. Sure, she had given me every indication that she was attracted to me and had seemed to thoroughly enjoy my company, but was it just a good time for her?

When we’d arrived at her apartment, we’d sat by the fire pit on her back porch. She played me a couple songs by Richy Mitch and the Coal Miners while talking about her asshole neighbor. I hadn’t been familiar with the band, but I liked how they sounded. And now, just making out one of their records on a nearby shelf, I wondered if I’d be able to hear their music again without a lump forming in my throat. I felt crazy; I’d only known Tarah a few hours, and already, the thought of not seeing her again made me want to cry. My jeans lay on her bedroom floor, barely visible in the darkness, and I hadn’t even gotten her number yet.

I nearly bolted upright. Where was my phone? I had meant to text my roommate, Jade, that we had gotten to Tarah’s place safely, and I’d completely forgotten. It wasn’t next to me in the bed, and scanning the nightstand, I realized it wasn’t there, either. Maybe it was in my jeans pocket or in my purse? The last thing in the world I wanted to do was lift Tarah’s arm off of me, but not knowing where my phone was would keep me from getting a wink of sleep. Reluctantly, I kissed her fingers and moved her arm away, doing my best not to wake her.

I tiptoed out of bed, nearly jumping when I caught my reflection in the mirror I had forgotten was on her wall, and searched my pants pockets to no avail. My purse, which sat nearby, had my wallet and charger inside, but nothing else. After slipping on my jeans, I crept into the living room, wondering if I had maybe left it on a table or a counter. No such luck. The only possible places it could be were in the car or, god forbid, back at Poor Richard’s.

I breathed as steadily as I could, trying to quell my mounting panic. There was no sense freaking out if I didn’t need to. I had absolutely brought my phone with me that night; there were only so many places it could be. If worst came to worst, I would go back to the bar in the morning and see if I’d left it there. It was probably just in Tarah’s car. I would slip out, check as quickly as I could, and if it was there, I would at least know where it was, and I could get some sleep. As much sleep as I could get while not knowing what the future held for me and the gorgeous stranger whose bed I lay in, anyway.

Before heading for the front door, I peaked back in at Tarah. She breathed steadily, clearly in deep sleep. I made sure there was no mechanism on the door that would automatically lock behind me, and satisfied that there was none, I opened it as slowly and silently as I could and shut it behind me. I would need to be quick; the last thing I wanted was for Tarah to think I was leaving in the middle of the night. She lived on the first floor of a small row of apartments. Every window was black, and there were no streetlights; the only light came from the moon, which was full and clear. Far off in the distance, beyond the trees that covered the neighborhood, I could hear a car rumbling here and there.

She had parked right in front of her apartment, and I realized now that her car was one of only three or four in the little parking lot. It was the middle of December; maybe folks had gone out of town for the holidays early. I stepped to the passenger door and peered in. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, I sighed with relief. I could just make out the vague rectangular form of my phone on the passenger seat. Predictably, the doors were locked, so I’d have to wait until morning to get it; there was no way I was about to wake Tarah up to unlock them. But now I knew I wouldn’t have to go looking for it the next morning.

I turned away from the car and froze before I could head back into the apartment. Though the window of the unit just next to Tarah’s was completely dark, I could make out a figure peering out at me. You’d have never been able to tell that there was anyone there if it hadn’t been for their eyes, which floated in the inkwell of a room. They were the most sickly shade of brownish yellow and had no irises or pupils; it was only possible to tell that they were eyes because they dimly illuminated a few spots of the skin surrounding them. The eyes disappeared into uninterrupted blackness for a moment before reappearing. A blink.

Neither of us moved for what felt like minutes. Every hair on my body stood on end, and my stomach felt almost as icy as my skin. Finally, the eyes moved to the right, never breaking their gaze until they disappeared behind the wall bordering the window. The motion was completely smooth, as if the person to whom they belonged was gliding across the floor. My senses returned, and in one motion, I darted into Tarah’s apartment and locked the door behind me. I took a couple steps backwards, not taking my eyes off the door, waiting to hear something on the other side or for the knob to begin turning. But neither happened. If anyone had stepped out of the next apartment, it was impossible to hear them.

I tiptoed back to Tarah’s room, glad to find that she was still asleep, and closed the door most of the way behind me. I started to breathe more steadily. I had to have been seeing things. There were no glowing eyes in the next apartment; that was ridiculous. It had to have been the reflection of car headlights or the refracted image of a streetlamp or something. As I crawled back into bed and Tarah shifted closer to me, the warm ease I felt cooled some when I remembered that there were no streetlights. And there had been no car passing.

I lay there for a while, comfortable but wide awake. There was a window just above Tarah’s headboard, and the slits in the blinds let in a shallow pool of pale moonlight that just barely showed the details of the room. I went for what I guessed to be fifteen minutes without falling asleep, then thirty. I tried to let my mind wander but kept finding myself pulled back into that dim room by the shadows of tree branches listing across the ceiling, looking just a bit too much like a set of long, knotted fingers. Here and there, a sound that I couldn't quite convince myself wasn't the front door's handle.

I was just beginning to nod off when, barely perceptibly, the bedroom door began to creak open. First a half inch, then two more inches, and then it stood wide open, exposing Tarah’s small living room. I knew perfectly well that the apartment was probably just settling; it was hardly the height of luxury, and it was wholly possible that the doorframe wasn’t very good quality and was causing the door to hang loose. But that didn’t stop the goosebumps from coming back. Even under the covers and with Tarah so close to me, the air felt indistinguishable from the winter outside.

It stayed that way far too long. And maddeningly, Tarah didn’t stir at all, even as my arms grew slippery with sweat. I stared forward, not wanting to admit to myself that I was waiting for something to emerge in the doorway. Nothing did, but I was suddenly aware that something smelled like smoke. It was different from the nicotine scent of Tasha’s hair; the room reeked of burnt meat. Just when I thought my whole body might snap into pieces from its own rigidity, a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan came from next to me. Turning over, I was met by Tarah staring at me, her mouth hanging open.

Her eyes were open as wide as they could be; it was as if she had no eyelids at all. I swore that they would explode from their sockets. Her pupils were shrunken to tiny specks which I could only see because the irises surrounding them shown through the darkness a little more than they should have. The sound pouring from her mouth grew louder by the second. My heart raced, and as the groan rose to a sort of whispered scream, I held my hands tightly over my ears and shut my eyes.

And all at once, it stopped. I slowly lowered my hands but didn’t open my eyes. The room sounded as still as it had before, and that rancid smell had dissipated, but I dreaded what I might find when I took another look.

But within about ten seconds, the steady rhythm of Tarah’s deep, slumbering breath resumed. I slowly opened my eyes and found her as she’d been before her eyes had opened, evidently unaware of what had happened. I lay awake for hours, on guard for anything else to happen, but nothing ever did. Though a few times, I thought I caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye in the mirror. I wondered if Tarah had had some sort of seizure, but I had never seen one like that. And for the rest of the night, she slept soundly, not moving any more than anyone else would while asleep. It wasn’t until the birds began to chirp outside that I drifted into my own shallow sleep, and almost as soon as I did, her alarm woke us both up.

“What time is it?” I groaned.

She checked her phone. “It’s eleven.” She set it down, turned toward me, and smiled.

“Did you sleep ok?”

I shook my head. “No. I realized that I left my phone in your car last night, and when I went out to make sure it was there, I…” I doubted that I should say anything. She would think I was out of my mind, and that was a thought I could hardly bear. But her smile had sunk, and replaced by plain worry. I had already begun, so I sighed and continued to explain what had happened. As I finished, her expression went from worrisome to contemplative. “Have you ever—I don’t know—had seizures before? Or, like, any sort of weird fits when you sleep?”

Tarah shook her head. “Not that I know of.” She shrugged. “Well, like I said: my neighbor’s an asshole. He was probably messing with you.”

“I suppose,” I said, hesitantly. “Seems like a weird way to mess with someone, though. And I’m still worried about what happened in here.”

She furrowed her brow. “What, are you saying I’m lying?”

“W—no, I didn’t say that, I just—”

“You just sound like you don’t believe me.” There was a heavy twinge of irritation to her voice that made my stomach sink. “I told you last night: he’s an ass. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s on you.”

There was an almost tangible silence between us. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. The whole thing just felt really weird.”

“Yeah, well, he’s a weird guy. I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you were seeing things.”

“Are you sure you’re ok?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. “I really was worried about you last night. You don’t remember anything? Waking up? That smell?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” she replied flatly. She sighed. “Should we go get your phone? Then I can drive you home.” It was over. The rapport which had developed so effortlessly the night before was gone in a few seconds, and I had no idea why. Tarah had held onto me so gently just minutes before, but now, every inflection in her voice pointed me to the door.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my purse, and was out the door before she was. I didn’t want to stay another second in a place I wasn’t wanted. My eyes were hot with tears. I had wanted so badly for this to go somewhere; I had been more immediately attracted to Tarah than I had ever been to anyone, and she had been so warm and kind. And now it was all too clear that I would never see her again. And if this was how she acted over a small misunderstanding, that was for the best, but I ached for it to not be for the best.

As I waited for her to come out, I glanced at the neighbor’s window, and the despair was immediately replaced with the same icy dread I had felt the night before. I knew I shouldn’t go any closer; no good could come from looking inside. But everything had deteriorated so fast that I could hardly understand any of it, and if I could just assure myself that there was nothing in that apartment to be afraid of, maybe that would give me some tiny amount of closure. I had surely just been seeing things. Or it had been a dream. One of the two. I just needed to assure myself of that.

I would only take a quick peak. The neighbor might have been home, and I didn’t want him to catch me staring though his living room window. I stepped up and peered in with as much subtlety as I could, and when I made out what was inside, my heart stopped. The entire apartment, as far as I could see, was empty. There was not a single piece of furniture or any sign that the place had ever been lived in; only a bare tile floor with a fine layer of dust collecting over it and undecorated grey walls.

Not a single word passed between Tarah and I as she drove me home, and once her car disappeared from view, all doubt was gone that that was the end. Maybe I could have asked for her number, but she never would have given it to me. I took it easy for the next few days, let myself feel sad and stay mostly in my bedroom, but within a few weeks, I met and started steadily dating a woman named Nora, who’s a friend of Jade’s.

Things have gone great with her so far. We’ve been together a few months now, and I’ve found that she’s someone I feel like I can always be myself around. We haven’t argued about anything yet, let alone had an argument like the one I had with Tarah. It did take me a couple weeks to feel comfortable visiting her house, and my first time was in the middle of the afternoon, but with time, it’s felt more and more normal. Nora’s never made me feel judged for being tentative, either, which makes me feel even more at home around her. It’s not often anymore that I think about my first and only hookup. I only really remember it once in a blue moon, when I wake up in the middle of the night from a dream that’s been tinted brownish-yellow.