I Moved Into A 1500 unit Apartment Complex; I Just Found Out I'm the Only Tenant. No One Else Lives Here.

My family and I moved in late at night, after a grueling 7-hour drive up from North Carolina. I had just been discharged from the Army, and while I was out-processing, we signed for a unit in an apartment & townhome community called Crystal Meadows, sight unseen. Don't judge me; when you're discharged, they send you back to the state of your home address at the time you joined—I've got a wife and son, and we needed a place to stay. Couldn't just wing it; better to have a roof over your head when you return home than to let the chips fall where they may and hope for the best.

To be fair, the pictures on the website looked good, the units seemed clean, and the leasing clerk was friendly enough. Most importantly, the rent was reasonable, even low, compared to the surrounding areas. Some might say I took a shot in the dark, but I'd describe it more as dimly lit. I had some idea of what I was getting into.

We arrived at the complex around 11 pm and started moving our belongings into the unit in the townhome section, all under the cover of darkness. Naturally, it wasn't the ideal time to go knocking on our neighbors' doors with a Kool-Aid smile and a cheerful "howdy." Besides, we were dead tired after driving nearly the entire length of the eastern seaboard. We moved in what we could, saved the rest for tomorrow, and crashed on the floor. We couldn't be bothered to reassemble our bedframe that night. After about an hour of shut-eye, I was jolted awake by a loud banging noise. I looked over and saw my wife still asleep, though she had stirred a little and rolled over to her other side. My son hadn't moved an inch, and his snoring, which sounded like a revving V8 engine, told me he could probably sleep through a hurricane after such a long trip.

The banging continued, accompanied by a scraping sound, like furniture being dragged across hardwood. The noises were muffled, distant. I sat up, trying to pinpoint their origin, and realized there was drywall and brick separating me from the source. It was coming from our neighbors' unit to the left. We were in unit 44; they were in 43. I got up, went to the wall, and pressed my ear against it. The banging and scraping became clearer, sounding like some kind of carpentry work—people rearranging, building, maybe even destroying things. I couldn't fathom what the hell they were doing at midnight.

My wife stirred more; my son's leg twitched.

Damnit. I got up, left our unit, and walked over to our neighbor's door. I knocked and waited. Standing outside on their porch, the noise had subsided, replaced by the dreamy chirping of crickets. I knocked again, waited. No answer. As long as the noise had stopped, it was good enough for me to head back to sleep. I'd deal with it in the morning.

Morning arrived swiftly. My wife and I brought in the rest of our belongings and began reassembling our bed when I told her about the previous night's events.

"Banging and scraping?" she asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "Sounded like construction work or something."

"Maybe you should try talking to them after we finish this."

I agreed and, once we had sorted out our furniture, I left our home and walked back to the neighbors' door. However, in the daylight, I noticed something I hadn't seen the night before: a red eviction lock on the door handle. It meant no one was getting in, and if you were already inside, you weren't getting out. I tried to jiggle the lock, but it wouldn't budge. Then, I noticed something else through the window next to the door—the unit was fully furnished, with a sofa, coffee table, TV, and even a basket of clothes in one corner.

That's what happens when you get evicted; whatever you leave behind stays in the unit. The complex's maintenance workers would come soon enough, load everything onto a flatbed, and either auction it off or haul it to the dumpster.

So, the sounds I heard last night couldn't have been the neighbors—they had apparently been evicted. If Crystal Meadows forced their maintenance crew to work through the night like that, we were going to have a problem. I decided to visit the front office and have a chat with the friendly-enough clerk to find out if this was a common practice. And if it was, I'd demand they stop, at least during normal sleeping hours.

As I passed the unit of our neighbors to the right—unit 45—I saw it again: another bright red eviction lock on the door.

You've got to be kidding me. I walked up to the unit, cupped my hands against the glass, and peered through the window. It was more or less the same: the living room was furnished as if people had been living there as recently as yesterday. In fact, in this unit, the TV was still on, tuned to static.

I rapped my knuckles on the window. Hard. Hard enough to make it impossible for an actual tenant living inside to ignore. No one came to the door, and even if they wanted to, there was no way for them to open it.

I backed away from the unit, confused.

I changed my mind about the leasing office; that could wait. Instead, I decided to try and speak with one of our neighbors who hadn't been evicted, to get the 411 on how things worked around here and what the maintenance schedule was like.

I walked to unit 46. Red eviction lock.

Unit 47. Red eviction lock.

I went the other way. Unit 42—red eviction lock. 41, the same thing.

All the townhomes were still furnished.

Maintenance hadn't removed anyone's belongings from their homes. This was especially puzzling considering that for new, rent-paying tenants to move in, these units would need to be cleaned out sooner rather than later.

Was I spooked? Sort of. But not without good reason; it meant that something had made the tenants feel the need to stop paying their rent. It wasn't the same as moving out once your lease was finished. In that case, you'd take your things with you. You wouldn't leave behind an expensive TV, a sofa, or clothes.

So, I pondered what it could be. Leaking pipes? Rat infestation? Mold?

With increasing panic, I scurried over to the next block, which consisted of rows of apartments. Four doors, two stacked units per building.

Eviction locks on all of them. I climbed over the patio railings, peering into each unit's window. It was the same as the townhomes—furnished living rooms, pictures on the walls. No one inside.

Then, I saw something strange.

In apartment #89, amidst the furnished living space, I noticed a figure. It was walking down the stairs, but... not in the way you'd expect. It didn't move. It was frozen mid-stride as if it had been descending the steps and just... froze. I took my sleeve, covered my fist, and rubbed it against the window in a circular motion, trying to clear up the oxidation on the glass. I rubbed and rubbed until there was a small circle with a clearer view. Pressing my eyes to it, I got a better look at the figure—a man, I thought.

Furrowing my eyebrows, I cursed under my breath. The man wasn't... well, he wasn't a man at all. It was a cardboard cutout of a man. Black cardboard that seemed to have been crudely cut to form the shape of a man walking down the stairs, like some sort of arts and crafts project.

I backed away and turned. My bewildered eyes scanned the array of apartments on the other side. Choosing one at random, I darted over to it and hopped the patio railing. The same routine—I rubbed a circle in the glass and pressed my eyes to it. I felt sweat on my back, not realizing how much I'd been running. My heavy pants fogged up the view quickly, forcing me to wipe it clear again.

A couch. A wooden table. A suitcase by the closet. A coat rack with a couple of jackets perched on it. The kitchen light was on. Someone was in there, poking their head out past the wall that divided the living room from the kitchen. I could only see their head, but they were looking right at me. 

"Hey! Excuse me!" I rapped on the window, banging incessantly. 

The person continued staring from behind the wall, not bothering to answer. Considering that they might've been frightened, I stopped knocking. More calmly and controlled, I asked them to come to the door. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, trying not to look entirely deranged. They did nothing. I wiped the window one more time. With a curt gasp, I jerked my head back, stumbling away from the window, my back smacking against the railing. 

It wasn't a person peeking their head out of the kitchen—it was another cardboard cutout. 

Okay—back to Plan A: Going to the leasing office and finding out just what the hell was going on. 

I made a beeline for the office. When I got to the front, I pulled on the door, but it wouldn't open. There was a sign on the window, and I craned my head to read it. 

THIS OFFICE IS CLOSED

that's all it said in bold letters. Nothing more, nothing less.

I put my hands on my hips and looked all around me, huffing in breath. Units on top of units, everywhere the eye could see. Townhomes side by side, a monotonous array that stretched the length of the street I was on. And then I realized something. There was no one outside. No one walking their dogs, no cars cruising in and out of the complex, no one jogging. It was so quiet around here that traffic from the nearest major highway—at least 3 miles from where I stood—sounded like an IMAX experience.

I circled the leasing office, looking for any bit of information I could scrounge up. A number, a name. Anything. I spotted a sheet of paper posted on a window in the rear of the building. Notably, it was stained yellow with age.

MAINTENANCE SHED

JIM [scratched out]

27 Elizabeth Drive

PHONE #: 555-6778 EXT. 5

I wondered if Jim himself had done the scribbling or if someone from the office had taken the liberty. Don't want to give out the last name of the man possibly responsible for doing a shabby fix-up job, I supposed. Well, there's a company looking out for their employee.

I ran like a madman through the deafeningly silent complex, reading every street sign as I galloped under a cloudless blue sky, my collared shirt sticking to my chest.

MERCURY DR.

JEFFERSON DR.

I passed a half dozen more drives until I finally crossed onto Elizabeth. I saw a worn shed positioned at the end of the block, flanked by 10-foot chain fencing. Some lawn equipment sat off to the side, and a rustic Ford pickup was parked out front, with piles of junk jutting out from its flatbed like hedgehog spikes.

I ran up to the gate, slotted my fingers through the chain mesh, and called out for anyone. After a couple of minutes of shouting, a man limped to the front gate and pulled it open just enough to stick his head through. His skinny neck stretched out to look at the intruder of his solitude. The few gray strands of hair he had left waved in the breeze as he glared at me with weary eyes.

"What," he said flatly, his voice throaty.

"Hi there. Jim, right? Sorry to bother you," I said, jabbing a thumb behind me. "I noticed that there are a lot of evicted tenants in this place..."

The man said nothing, just sniffed.

"Um..." I went on, suddenly feeling like my son when he was asked to present in front of his class. "I was wondering if you guys work at night? I mean, when it comes to cleaning out apartments... moving stuff in and out—"

"No," Jim said. His glare could cut diamonds.

I took a deep breath. "Okay... um, well, can you tell me why so many people have gotten evicted? I—I know it's not a question for you, but I tried the leasing office, and... it was closed..." I said. "Midday." I chuckled at that last part, maybe to get him to chuckle too, or maybe it was involuntary, perhaps I was laughing at the absurdity of the statement. What kind of leasing office is closed on a weekday at noon?

The man gagged, then spat a loogie on the ground; it splattered right in front of my tennis shoes. He appraised me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, his face contorted in disgust—either that, or there was a foul smell wafting under his nose from somewhere. "May I suggest to you, mister..."

"Oh, Trent," I stammered. "I'm Trent."

"May I suggest to you, Mister 'Trent,' that you not come here again. You thrill-seeking types only set about getting yourselves in trouble. I done warned your buddy the other day, but he wouldn't listen. So, what happened, happened."

"I... I don't understand what you mean."

"Do not come back here. Go home. Find some other place to blog about."

"But I am home."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "What'd you say?"

"I live in a townhome, on Gregory Drive."

My answer caused him to open the gate further, its hinges squealing as it wrenched back. He stepped out, revealing his skinny frame beneath paint-blotched coveralls. "You live here," he said, his voice a few pitches higher now. "As in, these apartments?"

I nodded dumbly. "Yes."

The man looked past me, around at the surrounding units, his lips parted as if in awe or wonder. Or maybe it was incredulity. His eyes came back to me. "How?"

My face screwed up. "What do you mean how? I signed a twelve-month lease for a townhome. Listen, Jim, I just wanted to know if—"

"Who'd you talk to?"

I wiped my forehead. "I don't know, some lady from the leasing office. Why? Why does any of this matter?"

The man looked past me again, as if in search of something. He gave a drawn-out hum to my answer. "Ain't no one in the front office."

"Not today, no. But when I called a couple of months ago, I spoke to someone. It's all been taken care of, Jim. I live here now."

"Ain't no one in the office," he said again, leaving behind whatever secrets lay past the gate and stepping out onto the street. He shut the gate behind him with a soft clink and started towards the rusty pickup with his pronounced limp. "Hasn't been anyone in there for decades," he said over his shoulder.

I followed after him, my words fumbling to escape my mouth all at once. "The leasing office has been closed for... for two decades? That's obviously not true, Jim. I just told you I spoke to—"

"You didn't speak to anyone," he scoffed, cutting me off. He reached into the flatbed and began rummaging through the piled junk. "Not anyone real."

I stood by the truck, watching Jim fiddle with a trinket, throw it back in the flatbed, grab another thing, repeat. He seemed a bit unnerved now, losing some of that steely arrogance from when we first started speaking. "You're not making sense, Jim."

He suddenly dropped whatever was in his hands with a loud clunk and spun to face me, his eyebrows scrunched low over his eyes. "You were set up, Mister Trent. The apartment put out a fishing line, and you took the bait. That's what she does. Lures people in. But if you're quick enough, if you leave right now... it might not be too late."

I put my hand on the lip of the flatbed, canting my head in astonishment. "You sound like a lunatic," I replied, dropping all pretenses. "They put people like you in charge of going into tenants' homes?"

"Just get the fuck outta here," Jim said, returning the favor of dropped pleasantries. He ripped my hand away from the flatbed. "You take your little tennis shoes, pack whatever little things you came here with, and head back down that highway."

"Whenever I have an issue in my home," I said, walking away. I opened and closed my collar rapidly to try and fan air into my face. "You make sure you send one of your co-workers. I don't want you anywhere near my wife and son."

"Wait a minute!" Jim yelled after me. It was the most emotion I'd heard from him since we'd met. When I turned around, it startled me to see how wide his eyes were, like a newborn baby's. "You brought family? Here?"

I put my hand out in a defensive posture. "Like—Like I said, don't come near my family—"

"Where are they now?" He said, his eyebrows forming extreme curves over his eyes. "You didn't leave them in the unit alone, did you?"

I slowly brought my hand back, confused. "Yes... why?"

"Shit!" Jim snapped. He limped around to the driver's side of the truck. "Get in!"

"Wait, what's going on? What's wrong?"

The truck rattled to life; a billow of smoke pushed out the bent tailpipe. "I said get in!"

This was a different Jim. Something in his tone, his behavior, told me he wasn't some crazy old coot after all. There was humanity in his voice now, something earnest. I ran around to the passenger side, pulled the door open, jumped in, and slammed it shut.

The truck jerked from the side of the road and sped down the street.

"You said Gregory Drive?" He shouted over the roaring engine.

I pressed my hand to the roof of the truck. "Yeah!"

The truck screeched to a lurching halt on Gregory Drive. Jim hopped out of the truck and limped down the sidewalk. I beat him to the punch, rushing past him and counting the units as they flashed by.

Unit 46. Unit 45. 44.

43.

I ran up to the door and grabbed the knob. Before I could burst in, calloused hands snagged onto my shoulders and pulled me back. I toppled backwards, falling on top of Jim.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I yelled, wrestling with him on the ground. He was stronger than his frail body gave away. I couldn't escape his bear hug.

"It's too late, you can't go in!" He shouted in my ear.

"My wife and son are in there! If something's wrong, I need to get them out."

With every ounce of strength I could muster, I ripped free from the old man's hug and sprang to my feet. I rushed back to the door, thought it over, and went to the window instead. I peered inside. Half a dozen moving boxes were scattered in the living room. A plaid sofa. A TV on the stand. A few black trash bags filled with clothes on the dining room table.

My son was sitting in front of the TV. My wife was standing in the kitchen.

"Oh, thank God," I said with a great sigh. I rapped on the window. "Honey?" I waved to her. She was looking right at me. "Honey, come to the door. Open the door."

She didn't move. Neither did my son. He didn't even look over to see who was knocking. But my wife, she saw me. I saw her.

The brightness of the outdoors made it hard to see inside the unlit living room, so I cupped my hands together and stuck my head in between them, pushing up against the glass. This was better. I could see for sure now, and perhaps it made it easier for my wife to see me.

I blew back from the window like I took a shotgun shell to the chest, my face contorted. Screwed. Horrified. I stammered back, bumping into Jim, who placed his hand on my back, steadying me. "I... I don't understand," I whimpered. "What... What happened to them?!"

Jim bowed his head, shaking it slowly. He reached into his coveralls and pulled out a red eviction lock. As if he were taking part in a funeral procession, he went up to my door with a frown, making sure it shut real tight, then he went about putting the lock on the door. "I try to warn people," Jim said solemnly, fiddling with the red lock. He fixed it over the knob. "I try and I try and I try... It used to be worse than this... Tenants used to come here by the dozens, but I made headway... Anytime the complex would put out ads on the Internet, or billboards off the highway, I'd have to come behind it and clean it all up. Write disparaging remarks online to combat the ads; pay a few punks to vandalize the billboards..." A heavy thump signified the security of the red lock. It was in place, and it would stay that way. "But there's always one or two people who... who fall through the cracks. Either don't read the reviews I've left behind, or don't care."

I ran back up to the window, ripping past Jim's pleading hands. I peered through the glass again. "How... how do they turn into...  How is this possible? What happened to my family?"

Jim put his hairy arm around me and shepherded me from the window. I didn't feel his arm; I didn't feel anything. I looked like a freshly caught salmon with my mouth agape and my eyes big round bowls of shock. He took me back to the truck and ushered me into the passenger side like a hospital patient unaware of the time or place. "People stopped coming. New tenants, I mean," he said, then shut my  door. He limped around to his side, opened the door, climbed into the seat. Shut it. "That was good. But then word got out, whispers, about the malevolence of Crystal Meadows. Never made big waves, you see, but in some godforsaken corner of the internet, there are dedicated people—thrill seekers, wanting to come through here and try to provoke it, breaking into the units and such."

I didn't reply. I couldn't. I was dreaming. Just one fucked up nightmare was all. I was asleep in a Motel 6 after hours on the road, with my wife and son. We were halfway home, and we stopped to get some food and sleep. That's what I chose to believe. That we were sleep in some motel on the side of the road.

Jim pulled the shift lever down, and the truck began rumbling down the road. "I can't tell you what happened to people in these apartments, but I recognized patterns, after years of being here." Jim put his wrinkly finger up, wagging it. "Complaints. I noticed... I noticed whenever tenants came to the maintenance shed to complain about something in their apartment or townhome... Well, I'd get there a few hours later, and that's what I'd find. Tenants gone. And in their stead, just cutouts. Cutouts of the person's last action, immortalized in cardboard."

"How...?" I said faintly. I repeated it. Again and again. It was all I could say. At least until I woke up. I didn't bother entertaining this nightmare anymore, feeding it.

"The complex don't like when tenants complain," Jim croaked. "She gets... she gets offended, I think. As if she can somehow get her feelings hurt. In some perverted, twisted way, I think... I think the complex replaces people with cardboard versions. Fake people don't complain about the drains clogging, don't complain about the water heater, about the creaks in the floorboard..." Jim's face lit up, his eyes growing big. His mouth moved quickly, his toothless gums yapping away. "But she don't want to be lonely... no, she don't want to be lonely. She don't want its stomach empty, so she keeps things inside the units. To keep herself full, you see."

His white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel, a faded gold-plated ring on his finger glinting in the sunlight through the windshield. The truck slowly turned onto Elizabeth Street, as if the vehicle itself was in mourning. "I know her," Jim whispered. "I know her better than anyone, and I try to keep people away."

I wiped my eyes. With a groan, I think I told him it was okay, but I don't remember. I sniffed up snot. Wiped my eyes again. The truck pulled in front of the maintenance shed. Jim pushed the gear shifter up. "I'll be back, Mister Trent. You just sit tight. We're gonna get ya outta here." He jumped out of the truck, slammed the door. The idling engine droned on as I sat in bewilderment. Jim limped to the gate, opened it, went inside, and scraped it across the concrete 'til it clinked shut.

I looked around in the cabin. A mess of wires in the backseat, like a ball of wool. I looked in the center console. There was an ID tag. It looked like one issued from the complex, an employee ID, I think. I reached for it, picked it up. It was a white card, and running across the top in italicized letters were the words:

Crystal Meadows Apts & Townhomes

There was a photo of Jim's face. Next to that was the usual info—name, address, job title...

I read his full name—Jim Meadows.

My eyebrows furrowed. I went back through the day in my head. The leasing office. The maintenance shed poster on the window. Jim's last name, scratched out.

His words... his words...

"I know her... I know her better than anyone, and I try to keep people away."