And yet…unquestionably a brilliant man. A historian. A tenant who would sit up with her many nights, delivering detailed monologues of Goblin’s dark past. Why, if it weren’t for the renovations next door, Mrs. Doris might consider Walter Kamp the most interesting Gobliner she’d ever met. And perhaps if she’d only heard him working, hammering nails, drilling holes, maybe she could have let it go.

But Mrs. Doris wasn’t above letting herself in when she knew Walter wasn’t home.

And she’d seen what the rooms next door had become.

There were no doors in Kamp’s apartment. No cupboard, no cabinet, no trash can lid, and no top to his toilet seat. Spotlights were supported by tall steel tripods, and Christmas lights hung in rows across the ceiling. The walls had been removed. Most of them anyway, as piles of drywall remained where each of them once stood.

The windows were sealed shut, including the one that led to the fire escape, and Mrs. Doris understood that she’d have to talk to Walter about that. And yet, where to begin? The bed frame was made of the same Plexiglas that had been used for the refrigerator door. Trip wires and alarms ran along every wall. The couch and bookshelves were nailed to those same walls as if Walter didn’t want there to be any room, anywhere, for something to hide.

Mrs. Doris recalled Walter’s concern with being startled, his worry about being “scared to death.” In his rooms she found no corners, no crannies, no nooks.

Walter had successfully remodeled his rooms so that he could see everywhere at once, no matter where he stood.

Mrs. Doris stood in many places, shaking her head, wondering at the sort of decisions that would lead to such a state. Was Walter okay? Certainly he was allowed to move things around (and she had no doubt she’d had more troubling tenants in the past), but his rooms had all the hallmarks of a cry for help.

Was Walter Kamp crying for help?

There were no pictures on the walls. Certainly not. Framed photos behind glass would be a nightmare, Mrs. Doris realized, as they provided a glimpse of what might be behind Walter, a surefire path to a potential heart attack if he were to see a face reflected, a face not his own.

She wondered why she was thinking this way. Why she, too, was imagining supernatural experiences, sudden frights, jump scares. She’d never had a moment’s unease in her building, and in the fifty-two years she’d been running it, not one tenant had complained about a ghost.

Not even Walter Kamp.