Mira had been on the phone with her brother for eleven minutes when the shower started. She stopped halfway through telling him about the Halloween decorations in the lobby. Water struck the bath with the familiar hollow rush, then softened as though someone had stepped beneath it. “Hold on,” she said. “I haven’t turned that on.”

Daniel asked whether she had a guest. Mira looked around her small living room. Her coat lay over the chair where she had dropped it after work. Beyond it, the hallway ended at the closed bathroom door. She lived alone. “Probably the tap,” she said, because saying it made the distance down the hall feel shorter. She carried the phone with her.

The handle would not turn. Mira tried it again, gently this time. The bathroom lock was an old brass catch she had never trusted enough to use. On the other side, the water continued. Then a voice said, “I’m nearly finished.” Mira stepped backward. It was her voice. Not similar. Hers, with the small breath she took before the last word.

“Who was that?” Daniel asked. She told him. For a moment, she heard only his breathing through the phone. “Don’t open it,” he said. “Get your keys. Go downstairs.” Mira kept her eyes on the door as she backed toward the living room. The water stopped. She heard the shower curtain slide along its rail, one metal ring catching at the same place it always caught.

“Mira?” the voice called. She stood beside her coat. It had never sounded strange hearing her own name until she heard herself say it from a room she was not in. Daniel asked whether she had her keys. She found them in her pocket. “Yes.” Behind the bathroom door, her voice repeated the word with exactly the same flat urgency. “Yes.”

Mira did not answer it again. She lifted her coat and headed for the front door. A towel brushed across something in the bathroom. Then the voice grew warmer. “Tell Pip he can come up.” Daniel went silent. Mira gripped the keys so tightly that their edges pressed into her palm. She had called him Pip when they were children, before he grew taller than she was, before their parents sold the old house. Nobody in this building knew it.

“You heard that?” she whispered. “I heard it.” His reply was immediate now. She could hear him moving, the scrape of a chair, a door closing. “I’m coming. Don’t wait for me there.” Mira opened her front door. The hallway lights were on. A paper skeleton taped to her neighbor’s door shifted in the small draft. She stepped outside and pulled her own door shut without looking back.

Downstairs, Mrs. Calder was collecting a parcel from the lobby shelf. Mira asked whether she could stay with her for a few minutes. Something in the way she asked made the older woman put the parcel down. She brought Mira into her apartment, made room on the sofa, and left the door unlocked for Daniel. Mira stayed on the phone until she heard his footsteps outside.

He sat beside her without asking her to explain it again. Mrs. Calder offered tea, then discreetly went into the kitchen. Daniel held out his hand. Mira passed him her keys, but he closed her fingers around them again. “Not tonight,” he said. She let out the breath she had been holding since the curtain moved. Whatever was upstairs, she did not have to listen to it alone.

At Daniel’s house, they checked the doors together. He gave her the spare room and left a lamp on in the hall. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed when her phone lit up. The building manager had replied to the message she had sent from Mrs. Calder’s sofa. He could meet her downstairs in the morning. She thanked him and put the phone face down.

Daniel knocked softly. “You all right?” Mira looked at the open doorway, at her brother standing where she could see him. “Better.” He nodded and went to make another cup of tea. She lay down without changing, watching the band of light beneath the door.

Her phone lit up again. A second message from the building manager. One thing before tomorrow. Your sister just called from your apartment. Is she expecting us?

Who would you call before opening that door? The same person you would give Zombie Infusion and its natural antimicrobial ingredients. The shower can wait until daylight.

Follow the Monster movement on Instagram and YouTube.