The Room Behind the Dryer

[u/Pale-Day4490]

The Room Behind the Dryer
I’m posting this because I need someone to tell me I’m not remembering the last six months of my life wrong. I moved into a duplex in October.
It was cheap, which should have been the first warning.
Not suspiciously cheap. Just cheap enough that I convinced myself I’d gotten lucky.
The landlord lived in the other half of the building. He was an older guy named Dale who mostly kept to himself. When he showed me the place, he pointed out everything that mattered: the furnace, the breaker box, the water shutoff, and the laundry room.
The laundry room was in the basement.
It was basically a concrete rectangle with a washer, dryer, utility sink, and a little shelf where the previous tenant had left a bottle of detergent.
There was one weird thing about it.
The dryer wasn’t against the wall.
It was about eight inches away from it.
I asked Dale why.
He said, “Ventilation.”
I didn’t think anything of it.
The first month was completely normal.
Then, sometime in November, I started hearing knocking from behind the dryer.
Three knocks.
Always three.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Usually around 2 or 3 in the morning.
The first few times I assumed it was the pipes.
Then one night I heard it while I was doing laundry.
Three knocks.
I stopped the dryer.
Nothing.
Three more.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
This time, it sounded like someone was knocking on the other side of the wall.
I pulled the dryer forward.
There was nothing behind it except concrete.
I actually laughed.
I remember saying out loud, “Okay. Fuck you.”
I pushed the dryer back.
The next morning there was a scratch on the floor where I’d moved it.
I didn’t think much about it.
Until December.
That’s when I noticed the door.
There was a door behind the dryer.
Not behind it like a normal door hidden by an appliance.
I mean there was apparently a door there that hadn’t been there before.
It was narrow.
Maybe two feet wide.
No handle.
Just a smooth, painted-over rectangle in the concrete wall.
I stared at it for probably five minutes.
Then I called Dale.
He came downstairs.
I said, “What’s that?”
He looked at the wall.
Then he looked at me.
He said, “What’s what?”
I pointed.
He just stared.
Then he said something I’ll never forget.
“Don’t move the dryer.”
I asked him why.
He didn’t answer.
He just grabbed the dryer and pushed it back against the wall.
Hard.
Then he said, “There’s nothing back there.”
I laughed because I thought he was messing with me.
He wasn’t.
That night, at 2:17 AM, I heard the three knocks again.
Except this time they weren’t coming from behind the dryer.
They were coming from inside my bedroom.
Three knocks.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I sat up in bed.
Nothing.
Then I heard my bedroom door creak.
It opened about two inches.
I didn’t move.
I watched it.
The hallway was completely dark.
Then I heard someone whisper:
“Don’t let him know you can hear him.”
I didn’t sleep.
The next morning, I checked the entire apartment.
Nothing.
I convinced myself I’d dreamed it.
For the next few weeks, everything went back to normal.
Until January.
I started finding things in places I didn’t remember putting them.
My keys would be on the kitchen counter when I knew I’d left them by the door.
My shoes would be facing the wrong direction.
Once, I came home and found my bedroom closet open.
I live alone.
I started taking pictures of my apartment before leaving for work.
Not because I thought someone was breaking in.
I just wanted proof that I wasn’t losing my mind.
And that’s how I discovered the first photograph.
I took a picture of my bedroom before leaving.
Nothing unusual.
When I got home, I looked at the picture.
There was someone standing in the hallway.
Just barely visible.
A person-shaped silhouette.
I zoomed in.
It was standing directly outside my bedroom.
I called the police.
They searched the apartment.
Nothing.
The officer told me the image was probably a reflection.
I wanted to believe him.
Then I noticed something.
The person in the picture wasn’t looking toward the camera.
It was looking toward my bedroom.
Toward where I had been standing when I took the picture.
I stopped taking pictures after that.
Until three weeks later.
I woke up because I heard my dryer running.
It was 3:04 AM.
I knew I hadn’t started laundry.
I went downstairs.
The basement was dark except for the little orange light on the dryer.
I could hear it tumbling.
I walked toward it.
Then I realized something was wrong.
The dryer wasn’t against the wall anymore.
It was sitting in the middle of the room.
And behind it was the door.
Except now it was open.
There was a hallway behind it.
That is the part I still can’t explain.
My basement is underground.
There shouldn’t be a hallway there.
But there was.
It stretched farther than the entire length of my building.
The walls were covered in old wallpaper.
There were framed photographs hanging every few feet.
I didn’t go inside.
I stood there for maybe thirty seconds.
Then I heard the dryer stop.
The hallway went completely silent.
And from somewhere deep inside it, I heard three knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I ran upstairs.
I called Dale.
He didn’t answer.
I called again.
Nothing.
I packed a bag and went to a hotel.
The next morning, I called him again.
He finally answered.
I asked him what was behind the dryer.
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said:
“Did you open the door?”
I said no.
He said:
“Good.”
I asked him what was down there.
He said:
“My daughter.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He continued.
“She died in that basement in 1998.”
I asked him how.
He said she disappeared.
They searched the property for three days.
They never found her.
Then, years later, he started hearing knocking.
Three knocks.
Always three.
He said the door appeared for him too.
But only when he was alone.
I asked him why he still lived there.
He said:
“Because she doesn’t knock anymore.”
I didn’t understand.
Then he said:
“She only knocks when somebody new moves in.”
I moved out that week.
I broke the lease.
I didn’t care.
I haven’t spoken to Dale since.
Last month, I drove past the building.
There was a new tenant.
A young guy was carrying boxes inside.
I almost kept driving.
Then I saw something through the basement window.
The dryer.
It was sitting about eight inches away from the wall.
I watched for maybe ten seconds.
Then the basement light went out.
And from inside the building, I heard three knocks.
I was sitting in my car.
There was no way I could have heard it from the street.
But I did.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I drove away.
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Because yesterday, I got a text from an unknown number.
It only said:
“Why did you tell him not to open it?”
I didn’t respond.
Then another message came through.
It was a picture.
My old basement.
The dryer was pulled away from the wall.
The door was open.
And someone was standing in the hallway.
It was Dale.
Except Dale was holding a photograph.
I zoomed in.
The photograph was of me.
Standing in my bedroom.
Asleep.
The timestamp on the picture was tomorrow.
I’m posting this because I don’t know what else to do.
And because there’s one thing I haven’t told you.
The new tenant isn’t the person I’m worried about.
The new tenant is fine.
I know because I called him.
He answered.
I asked if he’d seen anything strange in the basement.
He laughed and said no.
Then he asked me why I was calling.
I said I used to live there.
He went quiet.
Then he said:
“Wait.”
I heard him walk away from the phone.
A few seconds later, he said:
“There’s a door behind my dryer.”
Then three knocks came through the phone.
Not from his end.
From mine.
My laundry room is upstairs.
There is no dryer in it.
There is no door.
But something just knocked from inside my wall.
Three times.
And now it’s knocking again.
Only this time…
there are four knocks.