Psychological Horror: The Tenant

The agency said Mr. Dunmore was quiet, tidy and worked nights. Claire said that sounded perfect. After the divorce, the house was too big and too silent, and the money would help.

He moved in on a Tuesday while she was at work. When she came home, the spare room door was closed, a new lock gleaming on it, and there was an envelope on the kitchen table with the first month’s rent in cash and a note in neat blue ink.

Thank you for having me. I’ll try not to be any trouble. — D.

The notes

She never saw him. She left for work at eight; he came home, she assumed, sometime after she was asleep. Some nights she heard the stairs creak, or water running at 3am. In the mornings, there was sometimes a clean mug on the drying rack that she didn’t remember using.

The notes continued, always on the kitchen table.

Please don’t move my things.

She hadn’t. She hadn’t been in his room at all.

You left the gas on last night.

She checked the stove. The knob was turned just past off. She stood in the kitchen for a long time after that.

The notes grew warmer. You forgot to eat again. There’s soup in the fridge. There was. She didn’t remember buying it.

Call your sister. She misses you. Claire hadn’t told the agency she had a sister.

The camera

She bought a small camera and set it on a kitchen shelf, pointed at the table. She felt ridiculous doing it. She told herself it was about the gas.

In the morning, there was a new note: I don’t mind the camera. I think you should watch it.

She sat at the table with her laptop and pressed play.

The kitchen, in gray night vision. 1am. 2am. Nothing. At 3:04am, the kitchen door opened, and someone walked in wearing a pale dressing gown. They sat at the table, took out a blue pen and began to write, slowly, carefully.

It was Claire.

She watched herself write the note. She watched herself fold it, leave it on the table and pause, looking at nothing. She felt, absurdly, relief. It was her. She was tired, she was grieving, she was writing notes in her sleep. Doctors had names for that. It could be fixed.

Then, on the screen, behind the woman at the table, the spare room door opened.

The one who writes

Someone stood in the doorway. Tall, very still, face lost in shadow. They watched the woman at the table for a long moment. Then they walked over, gently took the pen from her hand, and began to write.

The woman on the screen didn’t move. She didn’t look up. She just sat, as if this happened every night.

Claire stopped the video. Her hands were shaking. She went upstairs and knocked on the spare room door, then pounded on it. No answer. She called the agency. The number rang and rang.

She called her sister.

“Claire,” her sister said, sounding so relieved it hurt. “Oh, thank God. It’s been weeks. Are you okay? Is someone with you?”

“I’ve got a tenant,” Claire said. Her voice sounded thin and far away.

A pause. “Claire,” her sister said carefully, “you don’t have a spare room. You turned it into the office, remember? After Mark left. There’s no lock on that door.”

Claire looked down the hall.

The spare room door was open. Inside, just the desk, the lamp, the boxes of old files. No bed. No lock. No Mr. Dunmore.

On the desk was an envelope with the rent inside, and a note in neat blue ink.

You don’t have to pretend you live alone anymore. I’ve been looking after you. Go back to sleep.

More stories

For a gentler kind of eerie, read The Last Passenger. For stories set inside houses that won’t behave, try our haunted house stories, and for tales told like real accounts, creepy stories that feel true.