"Let's remember Grandma..."

Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly fine in my head, I don't suffer from hallucinations or obsessive thoughts. But I think I recently had a conversation with evil spirits. I just can't explain what happened as anything other than mysticism...

We live on the top floor of a high-rise building, which is creepy even during the day, especially if you're alone. Our landing is divided into two "pockets": one to the left, one to the right. Between them is a riser with elevators. Shura, a lonely elderly woman, lived in the left section. Through the wall we shared, we could sometimes hear her walking around and coughing, rattling dishes, or talking on the phone.

Her brothers-in-law, distant relatives scattered throughout the provinces, visited her once every hundred years. But for some time now, a stranger named Rita had been hanging around her, calling herself her niece and renting a corner in another house.

Last summer, when my husband and son went to Ryazan to visit my mother-in-law, I was sitting alone one Friday night, watching a horror movie. The house was asleep, and all around was silence, except for the sound of the television. There was a tense scene in the movie, and I held my breath. And then, at the most poignant moment, there was a dull knock on the front door.

I tensed: who had come here? There was an intercom downstairs, so strangers couldn't get in. And why were they knocking if there was a doorbell?

The knocking became insistent. The guest clearly had no intention of leaving, and I became afraid. I approached the door.

"Who's there?" I asked cautiously. The answer was:

"It's me, Aunt Shura. Open up!" — a voice like hers. I look through the peephole: indeed, there stands Shura herself, in the flesh, so to speak.

I think something must have happened. I open the door, and she's standing there, smiling strangely.

"Are you okay, Aunt Shura?" I ask, but I have a feeling something's wrong.

"Can I come in?" Shura asks in an ingratiating voice she's never had before.

And she continues to smile unctuously, which is completely unlike her. And anyway, it's not like her: homebody Shura hanging around the building at night! And then she says something completely incomprehensible:

"Let's talk about Grandma?" she demands again. "Let me come in!"

At this point, I feel completely terrified. What Grandma! I quickly close the door in her face and shout:

"Go to bed already, Shura!"

 She quickly turned off the TV and lay down, leaving the light on in the hallway. There was no more knocking, but for a long time Shura kept hearing sounds, like someone moving something, laughing, and coughing...

That night left a very unpleasant feeling, with a terrifying aftertaste. I thought I'd figure it out the next day, ask her why she was so obsessed with banging on someone else's door at night. But no one answered Shura's door. I didn't see her the next day either, and soon something came to light that still makes my hair stand on end...

Not even a month had passed when I saw some belongings brought out onto the landing. Shurin's apartment was wide open, and they were busy cleaning it. I peeked in and saw my "niece," in rolled-up sweatpants and a headscarf, rummaging around as if she were at home, peeling off the wallpaper.

"What is this, renovations?"

 "Yes, that's what she was up to!" replies the businesslike Rita.

"And where's Shura?"

"Well, Aunt Shurochka died! Forty days ago," she says, wiping away a "bitter" tear.

As I thought, this Rita signed a life annuity agreement with Shura. But Shura didn't live long afterward. She died somewhere in the village, at someone else's dacha. Whether her "niece" helped her escape to the next world, or whether Shura died on her own, she took that secret with her to the grave. Rita and her daughter now live in the apartment; we barely communicate.

But now I realize with horror: whoever came to me that night posing as Shura and then snooped around her apartment, it definitely wasn't her. And I'm even afraid to think what might have happened if I had let that night visitor in.