Plywood Claustrophobia

I sit down in my practically empty apartment, my new Boston apartment that is probably a hundred years old to this city. When my landlord handed me the keys she warned me that the apartment creaked a little, like any old building. I started to unpack; I would go out to eat with Jody when I was ready to take a break. I hate unpacking, I hate packing as well, but unpacking is worse. I put the shower curtain on the rusty curtain rod and just as I turn it falls. I jump and there is a scratching noise on the floor of the shower. Is there something under the curtain that I didn’t see? Is there a mouse in the apartment? I poke the curtain and only the plastic moves. I try to account it to just being alone jitters. I lift the curtain and wedge the rod back into place. I walk out of the bathroom, back to the living room to unload more boxes and I hear something fall again. The stupid curtain rod, I’m sure of it, it’s broken. I go in the bathroom and the curtain is fine. I look around the bathroom and nothing is in disarray. I stick my head under the sink cabinet to see if anything fell under there. There is a knocking at the door and I bang my head on the cabinet. I hold the top of my head as I open the door. “Ready to go eat? I’m starving and really just couldn’t wait for you to call. Let’s go.” Jody is standing there with a smile larger than life and eyes squinted just enough so I can see the excitement she can’t wait to spread. “Ok. I guess I could take a break now anyway. I think something crashed at the neighbors place.” “Really? Are the walls that thin?” “Eh, cheap rent, probably cheap building. Let’s go.” I tell Jody about the falling curtain rod and the thing at the end of my closet. She tells me how moving into a new place is always nerve racking when you are by yourself. I guess I can’t help but agree. She went to her place and left me to unpack by myself. I set up the T.V. just to get some noise going. It’s so creepy being by myself here, in a new place. I start putting all my dishes away in the cupboards. It’s so weird having my own dishes. I hear a crash in the bathroom again. I go back in to check it out and again there is nothing wrong. Is it really the neighbors? I go back to the kitchen and decide its time to give up; I’ll finish putting kitchen stuff away tomorrow. I go to the bedroom and make the bed. I put on some pajamas and just collapse into bed. All I hope is that I will be able to sleep in this new place. After tossing and turning for a while, I realize, clearly, I can’t. I pick up The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and start to read. I’ve been trying to finish this story for years now; I just never get around to it. There’s a pitter-patter of small feet in the closet. Crap, there is some kind of mouse or something in the apartment. It’s probably stuck in the walls or something. Maybe the landlord just told me that the place creaks because she knew there were mice living in the wall she didn’t want to take care of. I start to throw things at the closet in hopes of scaring the mouse, or mice, and notice a small door at the end of my bedroom closet. I can’t tell if it’s actually a door or just some board nailed to the wall. Maybe tomorrow I can open the door and stick a few mousetraps in there. The pitter-patter finally stops. I start to fall asleep but the noise begins again before I pass out completely. I throw the only thing left next to the mattress that is sitting on the floor, my shoe. The noise stops and I start to fall asleep again. Again, the pitter-patter starts before I’m asleep. Screw it, I’ll just take a flash light to the closet and see for sure if it is a door to a crawl space or whatever it might lead to. The door is actually not a door at all. It’s just a piece of plywood screwed to the wall at the end of the closet where the ceiling descends to the height of about 3 feet. I take the screwdriver out and start undoing the piece of wood while sitting Indian style under my hanging clothes. There’s nothing behind it. No hole of any sort, just wall. I start to stare at it for a while trying to figure out why the piece of wood was there in the first place, but I just don’t get it. I don’t hear the pitter patter anymore and the only imperfection to this wall is the eight holes where the screws were. I start to feel the wall to see if perhaps there had been a hole there before. Maybe it was just patched with dry wall and then the plywood was added for extra precaution and security. But again, there is no imperfection to the wall. Why or more importantly, who would put a piece of plywood over a perfectly fine piece of wall? I simply just stare at the wall. I look down at the piece of plywood. I feel a vibrating but distant whisper, “Don’t stop looking at the wall.”The closet door slams. I try to stop it with my hand but my wrist snaps back. I hear feet pitter-pattering as screws drill into the wall next to the closet. I am being locked into my closet. Who is in my apartment? I start kicking the door but it’s too late. The door is screwed in tight. What the hell is happening? Where is my cell phone, can I call for help? Should I scream? Would my neighbors hear me? Is it my neighbors attacking me? Are these people just robbing me? I’d rather they take my life than my stuff. I keep kicking at the door. Maybe I can break through, not that I would be able to do anything when I am free after kicking like a maniac. But maybe I’ll be able to run. The pitter-patter of feet is no longer there. Are they done? Have I been left here? I hear my cell phone ringing by my bed. Maybe someone will get worried when I don’t answer. Who am I kidding? I never answer my phone. I hear the pitter-patter come running by the closet. I hear something smash on the floor. I think it’s my cell phone. They threw my cell phone on the ground to break it. Great, I have no chance of calling anyone even if I do break out of here. The pitter-patter comes up to the closet door and all I can hear is breathing. The breathing gets extremely heavy. There is a loud pound on the door and I screech.”What do you want?”The pitter-patter goes leaves the room with no response to my question. They are just waiting for me to die here. Who is out there? I wait a good while trying to figure out what to do. Could I break through the wall and into the other room? I still have my flashlight on but I fear the battery will run out so I turn it off. I start banging on the three walls around me but it’s pretty obvious I can’t break through. I start banging on the wall where the piece of plywood had been screwed on, nothing is budging. I try to start scratching with my fairly strong fingernails to see if I can get a hole started. The plaster was kind of soft where the plywood had been covered and I make a bit of progress. I have about an inch deep of plaster and my nails are stinging and filling with white plaster. I hit wood and my middle fingernail bends back and breaks off.The pitter-patter comes racing back at the closet again. Again all I hear is breathing that just gets heavier and heavier and then a loud bang on the top of the door. This time I don’t screech, I just flinch quietly to myself, and then the pitter-patter races off out of the room. The pitter-patter running into the room, breathing, pounding on the door, and running happens about 8 more times in the course of the night. Each pound would come a little longer than the last one. Finally, after waiting for what felt like hours, I tried yelling. The pitter-patter came back, breathed heavy, pounded on the door, and ran away. I tried lying down and slowing my breathing in hopes of eventually passing out. There was no way to survive this. If I broke free I would sure enough be killed by whatever evil was out there. So after hours of panic, screams, endless terrified tears, I drift off to sleep.I wake up and realize that I am still here, in this closet of death under dresses and shirts mocking me with their indifference of my freedom. I decide to yell. Nothing happens. I make a light kick to the door. Nothing happens. I start frantically kicking at the door and the closet breaks open. I sit there for a minute to see if anything happens. Nothing. I finally get out of the closet and I look at my bedroom. There is nothing missing, just my cell phone shattered on the ground. I go to the next room, nothing looks different from before. Everything looks perfectly fine other than my broken closet door. I check out the bathroom, the curtain rod has fallen again but I don’t dare try to fix it. I call my parents to tell them what happened.”I’ll be there in 2 hours. Get outside of the apartment and call the police.”The police are concerned but tell me there is nothing they can do because there is no sign of breaking and entering. My father says he will take care of me. What’s the use? I had no idea what happened. My wrist is broken and my fingernail is gone. I just wanted to live on my own. I wanted to prove I could be on my own. Now I fear I never will.