I found the place on a Tuesday in October. Basement flat in Archway, Zone 2, £850 a month—basically a miracle for London. I’m a copywriter, twenty-six, and I’d been sleeping on my mate’s sofa for three months. When the landlord, Mr. Pemberton, showed me around, I didn’t ask too many questions. I mean, it was dark, obviously, being underground and all, but it had a bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and the Wi-Fi worked. I signed the lease that afternoon.
The footsteps started on my fourth night there.
At first, I thought I was imagining it. You know how old buildings settle, especially Victorian conversions like this one. Around 2 AM, I’d hear this soft thud, thud, thud beneath my bedroom floor. Slow, deliberate steps. Then nothing. I’d lie there in the dark, holding my breath, waiting. But it wouldn’t come back.
“Probably just pipes,” I told myself. “Or rats. Big rats.”
Looking back, I realize how stupid that sounds. Rats don’t walk like people.
By the end of the first week, it was happening every night. Always around 2 AM. Always the same pattern—five or six steps, then silence. I’d gotten into this ridiculous routine of lying perfectly still when it happened, as if whoever—or whatever—might hear me moving around.
I should have said something sooner.
On Saturday morning, I caught Mr. Pemberton as he was collecting rubbish from the bins out front. He’s this elderly guy, maybe seventy, always wearing the same brown cardigan.
“Mr. Pemberton, hey—quick question. What’s below my flat?”
He looked at me like I’d asked him to explain quantum physics. “Below? Nothing, mate. Just foundation. Concrete and earth.”
“It’s just… I keep hearing footsteps. At night. Under the floor.”
His face did something weird then. Not quite a frown, not quite a smile. “Old building,” he said. “Sounds travel in funny ways. Probably the couple upstairs.”
“At 2 AM? Every night?”
“They work late shifts.” He turned away, dragging the bin. “You’ll get used to it.”
But I didn’t get used to it.
The sounds got worse. Heavier. Sometimes they’d stop right under my bed, and I’d feel—I know this sounds mental—but I’d feel like something was listening to me through the floorboards. My heart would pound so hard I thought I might actually have a heart attack. I’m not a paranoid person. I mean, I’d lived in London for five years. I’d dealt with dodgy landlords, weird flatmates, the whole lot. But this felt different.
Something wasn’t right.
About two weeks in, I noticed the loose floorboard. It was next to my bed, near the radiator. When I stepped on it, it see-sawed slightly, the nails having worked themselves free. I probably walked past it a hundred times without really seeing it.
It was a Thursday night—I’ll never forget—and the footsteps had been particularly loud. So loud that I’d gotten up, turned on every light in the flat, and just stood there in my boxers, feeling ridiculous and terrified at the same time.
That’s when I saw the floorboard was slightly raised, like someone had pried it up and not quite pushed it back down properly.
I should have called the police right then.
Instead, I grabbed a screwdriver from my kitchen drawer and knelt down. The board came up easily, revealing a dark gap below. I turned on my phone’s torch and pointed it into the hole.
My heart dropped.
There was a crawlspace down there. Maybe three feet high, extending into darkness. And directly below where I was kneeling: a sleeping bag. Navy blue, the expensive kind. Next to it, a neat stack of food wrappers—Tesco sandwiches, crisps, energy bars. A plastic water bottle. And a torch.
And photographs.
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. I reached down and grabbed the photos—maybe five or six of them, printed on regular paper. They were all of me. Sleeping. In my bed. Taken from different angles, like someone had been moving around under the floorboards with a camera pressed to the gaps.
In one photo, you could see my face clearly, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. The time stamp in the corner read 2:47 AM. Two days ago.
I felt sick. Properly sick, like I might throw up right there.
That’s when I heard it. A scraping sound. Coming from the crawlspace.
Someone was down there. Right now.
I don’t remember dropping the floorboard back down or running to my front door. I don’t remember grabbing my coat or my keys. What I do remember is the sound of movement speeding up below me as I ran—someone scrambling, trying to reach something.
Trying to reach me.
I was out the door, up the stairs to street level, into the cold October air. I called 999 while standing under a streetlamp, shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone.
The police came. They found the crawlspace, the sleeping bag, the photos. They told me there was an old coal cellar access in the back garden, hidden behind overgrown bushes. Someone had been breaking in and living underneath me. They found more photos on an old digital camera down there—weeks’ worth. Me eating breakfast. Me working at my laptop. Me sleeping.
They never found who it was. No fingerprints, apparently. No DNA matches. Just the stuff they left behind.
Mr. Pemberton swore he didn’t know about the coal cellar. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he did. I moved out that same night, crashed with my mate again, broke the lease. Lost my deposit, but I didn’t care.
To this day, I still can’t sleep in ground-floor flats. I’m up in Finsbury Park now, third floor, and I check under every rug, every loose board. I know it’s not rational. I know the chances of it happening again are basically zero.
But sometimes, late at night, when the building settles, I hold my breath and listen.
Just in case.
