Footsteps from Nowhere
15 Minute Write
It was late. Rigby was jet lagged. The ancient lift in the apartment block where he was staying for the next two weeks had a sign attached to it in Spanish. He didn’t need to understand the language to know what it said. This is why he had to climb the wooden steps, lugging luggage. His body ached with a gravity greater than Earth’s, pulling him physically and emotionally toward the only thing he needed: his bed.
The place was empty when he arrived - unsurprisingly, given it was past midnight and a midweek day. His footsteps and the rhythmic thump of his suitcase, as he dragged it up each step, echoed with a festival hall reverb. He was past caring what anyone heard or thought: a perfect indication of just how tired he was.
The bed was delicious, with a clinically clean feel and thick, white sheets, pillowcases, and the lightest of duvets on a firm mattress. He imagined that, perhaps, this is what heaven might feel like. But instead of the deep, much-needed slumber his body yearned for, the jet lag had other ideas. His sleep was broken; he floated in and out of consciousness, hearing the strange new noises in a building and a city unfamiliar to him. He was certain he had heard footsteps walking up the stairs. Perhaps he wasn’t the last one in the building tonight?
It took him two days to get over the jet lag and feel almost human again. Long days exploring the new city wore him out, but in a deeply satisfying way. He slept like someone who worked 18-hour shifts. Almost. There was a strange anomaly. He woke each night between the hours of one and one-thirty. He would be awake to hear footsteps on the stairs outside his apartment. They were soft, light, but always there in his waking half an hour. He wondered whether they were the reason or whether he was awake, and then heard them. He couldn’t be sure.
On the sixth night, he decided to try and see who was causing the noise. Not directly. He would use the peephole in his front door to check them out. He awoke slightly early and stood guard, waiting, face pressed up against the door. Sure enough, the footsteps came, but he didn’t see the person who made them. Perhaps all that echo was distorting where the noises were coming from - perhaps they were a couple of floors down, or up, which is why he couldn’t see their owner.
The next night, the same thing happened, but this time he opened the door to try to look down and up to see if he could find out who the steps belonged to. Nothing. Well, almost, looking down, he saw footprints, wet as if the person had stepped out of a shower or bath and taken a walk. The footprints were small, feminine - he couldn’t be sure, though.
By the time it came to leave the apartment and head to the next city on his trip, the intrigue had overtaken him. It was all he could think about. Consumed, his vivid imagination had run away with ideas of sleepwalkers, affairs, secret meetings and even ghosts. Who was this woman or person, and how could he find out?
He came up with a plan whilst at an art gallery, where his obsession made him unable to focus on any of the incredible paintings he placed himself before. Velázquez, El Greco and Goya passed before his eyes, barely registered.
That night, his last, he woke early at the allotted time and took the lift to the top floor of the building. Wherever the footsteps were coming from, if he descended to the ground floor, he would have to pass the person generating them. Surely enough, the footsteps started, light at first, then growing louder, he pushed the button to go down to the ground floor - there could be no way he would miss who it was. If he were quick, he could stab the button of the nearest floor, get out, and introduce himself. That they were probably Spanish hadn’t crossed his mind. Which, in the end, didn’t matter. He saw no one.
He resigned himself to the fact that this would be one more story. One more idea to write about when he got back home. Another mystery with no answers - let anyone who read his story make up their minds, have their ideas. He decided to walk back up to his apartment. There were no footprints tonight. And there were no noises now, except for his steps.
He grasped the cold brass of his door handle, turned it, pushed the door open and gasped. There on the parquet in front of him were the damp footprints he’d seen on the steps nights earlier, from the same feet, he just knew. He traced them across the room to his bedroom door. A chill coursed through his body, causing him to physically shudder, his flesh goosed. Whoever it was, they were in his bedroom. Burglars? A hitman? He crossed the room, opened the door to his bedroom and traced the footsteps from the bedroom door to the edge of his bed. They had been in his bed. He pulled back the cover to reveal nothing. Almost casually, his eyes moved up to the pillow. There, right in the centre, were two damp round patches. From the en-suite, he heard a hiccup, or someone catching their breath, no, it wasn’t that at all, what he heard was a gentle, stifled sob.
Both images Madrid, Spain. 2024 - Nikon d750