I'd never sleepwalked a day in my life.
Not once. Not until I'd crashed in that master bedroom last night. Now here I was, doing it again—and this time, I wasn't alone. Jake, the guy who'd laughed off my "ghost girl" nonsense, the guy who'd bragged about not being scared of anything, was right there with me. Eyes shut tight, remote in hand, staring at a TV he couldn't even see.
I didn't believe in curses. Didn't believe in haunted houses. But at that moment, sitting on that couch in the blue TV glow, staring at the concrete stiletto prints snaking across the floor, I knew—knew—that house was wrong. Deeply, irreparably wrong.
My first thought was run. Get the hell out before whatever was messing with us decided to up the ante. But Jake was still stuck in that sleepwalking haze, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady breaths, completely oblivious to the footprints, to the TV, to the cold dread that was clawing its way up my throat.
I swallowed hard, my voice a shaky whisper. "Jake. C'mon, man. Wake up."
I didn't dare yell. I'd heard the old wives' tale—wake a sleepwalker mid-trance, and they'd lose their mind. Stupid, probably. But I wasn't taking any chances. Not here. Not tonight.
Thankfully, the soft call was enough. His eyes fluttered open, confused and groggy. The remote slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor. He blinked, taking in the TV, the footprints, the fact that we were on the couch, not the bed.
Then his face drained of all color.
"Holy shit. HOLY SHIT."
He didn't even glance at me. Didn't say a word. One second he was sitting there, the next he was on his feet, scrambling for the front door like it was the only lifeline in a sinking ship. He tore it open and bolted, his socks sliding on the hardwood floor, his shouts echoing down the hallway.
"JAKE! WAIT FOR ME!"
Panic flooded my veins. I grabbed my phone off the coffee table, tripped over the couch leg, and hauled ass after him. We sprinted down the stairs, two grown men in our socks, our breaths coming in ragged gasps, not stopping until we burst through the front doors of Maplewood Estates and stumbled onto the empty street.
Jake's left slipper was gone. Somewhere between the fifth floor and the curb, he'd lost it. We collapsed under a tree, our shoulders heaving, our bodies shaking like leaves in a storm. The sky was still pitch-black, the only sound the distant scrape of a street cleaner's broom, far away in the quiet dawn.
"How?" Jake whispered, his voice cracking. "How the hell did we get on the couch? I was asleep. I was in the bed!"
He was always the tough one. The guy who'd laugh at horror movies, who'd dared me to spend the night in a cemetery when we were sixteen. Now he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Worse—like he'd become part of the ghost story.
"Dude," I said, my throat dry. "That house… you think something actually happened there? Like, for real?"
He shot me a look that was equal parts fear and fury. "It's your listing! You tell me! I'm the one who's now a certified sleepwalker, thanks to your haunted condo!"
I held up my hands, defensively. "I checked, okay? Talked to Henderson, called the cops—they said the place was clean! No deaths, no crimes, nothing!"
But even as I said it, doubt gnawed at me. The old lady's words popped into my head, unbidden. Fifteen years of dust and silence. Why would anyone buy a perfectly good house and let it rot for a decade and a half? Why not rent it out? Why not flip it? It didn't make sense. None of it did.
We sat there in silence, both of us thinking the same thing. That house wasn't just a little weird. It was bad. And we were stupid to have ever stepped foot inside.
"This is a disaster," Jake muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. "The Carters are gonna sue us. We'll lose the brokerage, lose our savings—hell, we might even end up in jail for not disclosing a haunted property!"
He was right. We had cameras rolling the whole time. If we didn't show the Carters the footage, we looked guilty. If we did show them? Footage of two grown men sleepwalking, of us booking it out of the house like our asses were on fire? It was proof the place was cursed. Either way, we were screwed.
"You saw 'em too, right?" I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "The footprints?"
Jake's face turned even paler. He nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Red stilettos. Concrete. Leading straight from the door to the bedroom." He paused, his eyes widening. "Wait a second. Last night, they stopped at the bedroom threshold. Tonight—they went past it. All the way to the couch."
I felt my blood run cold. He was right. Last night, the prints had vanished at the master bedroom door—like whoever made them had gone inside. Tonight? They'd led from the bedroom to the living room. Like whoever made them had come out.
We stayed under that tree until the sky turned pink, until the first birds started chirping, until the street cleaner's broom faded into the distance. Neither of us wanted to go back. But we had no choice. If we left those cameras, if we left that house hanging, we were done for.
Jake pulled out his phone, his hands still shaking. "Call the new guys. The college kids. Tell 'em to meet us here. Now."
I knew who he was talking about—Pete and Leo, the two fresh-out-of-college interns who'd joined the brokerage last month. Kids with bright smiles and zero clue how cutthroat real estate could be. Kids who still believed the world made sense.
I dialed Pete's number. He picked up on the third ring, his voice groggy with sleep.
"Ethan? It's, like, five in the morning. What's up?"
"Grab Leo. Get over to Maplewood Estates. Now. Jake's covering your Uber fare." I didn't elaborate. Didn't tell him about the footprints, about the sleepwalking, about the girl who wasn't really there. Some things were better left unsaid.
Thirty minutes later, a beat-up Uber pulled up to the curb. Pete and Leo climbed out, bleary-eyed and confused, holding a paper bag of breakfast sandwiches.
"Yo, bosses!" Pete grinned, holding up the bag. "Grabbed you guys some bacon egg and cheeses. Figured you'd be hungry. Whatcha need us for? Showing a client a sunrise listing?"
Jake looked at him, his face still pale as a sheet. "Not a client. A house. And it's not a listing. It's a problem." He paused, swallowing hard. "It's haunted."
Pete and Leo blinked. Then they burst out laughing.
"Haunted?" Leo snorted. "C'mon, man. You guys are messing with us. This isn't a horror movie."
If only they knew.
We led them back into the building, up the creaky stairs, to unit 502. The door was still hanging open, just like we'd left it. The living room was spotless—no footprints, no TV glow, no sign that anything had ever been wrong. Just a quiet, empty house.
"See?" Leo said, rolling his eyes. "Nothing weird here. Just a regular old condo."
Jake and I didn't argue. We just walked straight to the laptop, pulled up the footage, and hit play. We skipped to midnight, the sound of knocking echoing through the speakers. We watched as Jake marched to the door, as he wrenched it open, his mouth open in a snarl.
Then we hit pause.
Pete and Leo's smiles died on their faces. Their eyes went wide. Their breakfast sandwiches slipped from their hands, hitting the floor with a wet splat.
On the screen, Jake was standing in the doorway, yelling at thin air.
There was no girl. No black dress. No red stilettos.
Nothing.
Just an empty hallway.
And two idiots, screaming at a ghost that wasn't there.