She rubbed her hands together, trying to restore some semblance of warmth to them. When she took the trash out to the curb, she wasn\u2019t expecting the door to lock behind her. She hadn\u2019t even realized her door could lock without a key.<\/p>\n
She thought about knocking on one of her neighbor\u2019s doors and asking if she could sit inside until her landlord opened the office in half an hour, but she hadn\u2019t had a chance to get to know any of them yet. The only neighbor she\u2019d met had given her the creeps and she didn\u2019t want to risk knocking on his door in a robe and slippers.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t even have her phone on her. Whoever designed her robe and pajamas clearly felt that pockets were unnecessary. Up until now, it hadn\u2019t been an issue.<\/p>\n
Chafing her hands wasn\u2019t doing much good in the freezing weather, so she shoved them under her armpits, dancing about to keep her blood circulating.<\/p>\n
This was the last time she would ever leave the apartment without her keys.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
A week later, she came home to find her door unlocked. Nothing had been disturbed, but she\u2019d sworn she locked it that morning before leaving for work.<\/p>\n
She double-checked that the deadbolt was thrown before going to bed and always made sure to test the handle on her way out the door in the morning.<\/p>\n
Every now and again, she would come home and find that her door had unlocked itself.<\/p>\n
It was driving her crazy.<\/p>\n
She invested in a security camera.<\/p>\n
Her door continued to randomly unlock itself, but the camera picked up no signs of movement other than the deadbolt flipping from locked to unlocked. Sometimes it was minutes after she left. Sometimes it was in the middle of the day. Sometimes it was as she pulled into the driveway.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
She\u2019d been in her apartment for nearly six months by the time she noticed anything else unusual.<\/p>\n
She woke up one morning to find the coffee pot started. It was a time saver to prepare it the night before so that all she had to do was push a button.<\/p>\n
That continued for a week. Then she started coming home to the TV on.<\/p>\n
She called an exorcist.<\/p>\n
The woman waved around a stick of incense, chanted some mumbo jumbo that gave her the heebie jeebies, and then charged her an exorbitant fee and departed.<\/p>\n
The blaring radio woke her minutes after she fell asleep. She slapped it off only to have the TV flicker to life, just as she managed to drift back to sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d She demanded to the empty apartment.<\/p>\n
Silence greeted her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you upset because I called in an exorcist?\u201d More silence. \u201cTurn on the TV for yes, the radio for no.\u201d<\/p>\n
The TV flicked on, remained on for a long moment, and then turned off.<\/p>\n
She staggered backward, her bare heels catching on the cedar chest. She sat heavily on it. \u201cAre you going to hurt me?\u201d<\/p>\n
The radio blared to life. She massaged her head. \u201cOkay\u2026\u201d The radio turned off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you a ghost?\u201d Nothing. \u201cSorry, that was rude. Umm\u2026 Why are you here?\u201d She scowled. \u201cRight. Sorry. Yes or no questions. Umm\u2026 Will you stop messing with the door lock?\u201d<\/p>\n
The TV flicked on for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks. Can I get some sleep now? Without interruptions?\u201d She took the silence as a yes.<\/p>\n
When she crawled into bed, the covers tucked themselves in around her.<\/p>\n
Well, now that she had an understanding with her\u2026 ghost? Poltergeist? Apartment haunting spirit? Maybe this wouldn\u2019t be so bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She rubbed her hands together, trying to restore some semblance of warmth to them. When she took the trash out to the curb, she wasn\u2019t expecting the door to lock behind her. She hadn\u2019t even realized her door could lock without a key. She thought about knocking on one of her neighbor\u2019s doors and asking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[422,459],"class_list":["post-8763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-flash-fiction","tag-ghosts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}