Chapter 3

"Which elevator did your wife get in?" it asked.

I stared at it and said nothing.

It stepped back. Those hands slowly withdrew into its body, and the ripped pajamas sealed themselves shut. A few seconds later, it looked like my wife again, except its face was deathly pale.

"Listen to me," it said, its voice suddenly urgent. "She can't go into that elevator. That elevator—"

Before it could finish, the whole building suddenly shuddered.

It was light, like a truck had just passed outside. But I knew that wasn't it, because right after the tremor, every light in my apartment went out.

Outside the balcony, the lights in the building across from mine were still on. Only our building had gone dark.

The thing outside the glass door turned and looked toward the hallway.

"Too late," it said.

I followed its gaze.

At the end of the hall, near the elevator lobby, there was a light.

It was dim, a blinking sickly green. And with each pulse of that light, I heard the elevator moving. Steel cables tightening, pulleys rolling, the car rising.

But that elevator had been broken for three months.

So what the hell was moving?

The elevator sound stopped.

Ding.

That was the arrival chime.

Our floor.

Then the doors opened slowly, creaking like a rusted gate being forced apart.

Then footsteps.

A lot of footsteps.

No, not a lot. Just one. But it echoed in a way that made it sound like a whole crowd was walking in perfect sync.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Getting closer.

The thing outside the glass door turned back to look at me. The expression on my wife's face was complicated.

"Don't open the door," it said. "No matter who comes, don't open it."

Then it vanished.

It didn't run. It just disappeared, like it had never been there at all.

I stood on the balcony, clutching my phone, listening as the footsteps came closer and closer.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then they stopped outside my door.

Silence.

Then the doorbell rang.

Ding-dong.

I stared toward the peephole, but the apartment was too dark to make out anything.

"David?" a voice called from outside the door.

It was my wife's voice calling, "David, open up. I'm back."

I didn't move.

"The signal in the elevator sucked just now, so the call dropped," she said. "What are you doing? Open the door."

I lowered my eyes and looked at the gap under the door.

There was a shadow there.

The shadows of two feet.

I moved to the edge of the balcony and leaned halfway out toward the hallway window. Light from the building across the way spilled onto the floor outside my door, revealing a single person standing there.

She was wearing my wife's coat, carrying my wife's bag, and even standing the way my wife always did.

"David?" she called again. "Are you opening the door or not?"

I opened my mouth, but I had no idea what to say.

Right then, my phone buzzed.

I looked down. It was a text message from an unknown number.

It read: [Don't open the door]

[The one outside isn't me

[I'm your wife. I'm in the elevator]