The House That Waited



When the old Rehman House finally went up for sale, nobody in the village expected anyone to buy it. The place had been abandoned for decades, its windows sealed with wooden planks, its garden swallowed by wild thorns and crooked trees. Children dared each other to run up and touch the rusted gate, but no one ever stayed near it after sunset. People said it wasn’t just haunted—it was patient. It waited.

But Samir Khan didn’t believe in ghost stories. He was twenty-eight, newly married, and desperate to find a cheaper place to live near his workshop. So when he heard the house was being offered for half the usual price, he convinced his wife, Zainab, that they should take it.

“Stories can’t hurt us,” he told her, holding her hand as they approached the gate for the first time.

But Zainab wasn’t so sure. “Stories come from somewhere,” she whispered.

The inside of the house was worse than Samir expected. The wallpaper peeled off in long strips, the floorboards groaned like something alive, and a sick, damp smell floated through every corridor. Still, Samir was practical—he saw a fixer-upper, not a warning. They moved in the following week.

The first night was quiet.

The second night was not.

Around midnight, Zainab shook Samir awake. “Did you hear that?”

Samir listened. Nothing.

But then, slowly, a faint tapping echoed from somewhere deep inside the house. Tap… tap… tap.

“It’s an old house,” Samir muttered. “Wood expands at night.”

But Zainab’s eyes stayed wide open until dawn.

On the third night, the tapping grew louder, more deliberate. Samir finally got out of bed with a flashlight. The sound came from downstairs, near the basement door—a door he didn’t recall seeing before.

It was a narrow wooden door covered in dust. No doorknob. No lock. Just wood.

Tap… tap… tap.

From inside.

Samir stepped back. The flashlight flickered.

In the morning, the door was gone.

“Maybe you were half asleep,” Zainab said, though she didn’t sound convinced.

That afternoon, Samir called a local carpenter to check the house for hidden rooms or unstable flooring. The carpenter, an old man with trembling hands, only needed one look at the hallway before stepping back.

“Was this door always here?” he asked.

“What door?”

The old man pointed. Right beside the kitchen—another narrow wooden door. No handle. No lock.

Samir felt cold.

“That wasn’t here yesterday.”

The carpenter didn’t step inside. “I can’t help you,” he said quietly. “This house… it shifts.”

That night, Samir pushed a heavy chair in front of the new door. Just in case.

Around 2 a.m., they woke to the sound of wood grinding, pushing, dragging. The chair scraped across the floor on its own.

Tap… tap… tap.

This time the tapping was frantic. Angry. From inside the door.

Zainab screamed and grabbed Samir’s arm. The door rattled violently, as if something inside wanted out.

“Samir, we need to leave!”

He grabbed her hand and rushed toward the front door—but the hallway stretched longer, impossibly long, each step pulling them deeper instead of forward. The walls closed in. Doors multiplied along the corridor, appearing one by one, some small, some tall, all without handles.

Tap… tap… tap.

From every side.

The house was waking up.

When Samir finally reached the front door and pulled it open, a blast of cold air hit them. They stumbled outside, breathless, running until they reached the road. Behind them, the house stood silent, still, innocent-looking.

The next morning, Samir returned with the police. They searched every room. No strange doors. No basement. No signs of forced entry.

“Old houses make noises,” the officer said dismissively. “Maybe you had a nightmare.”

But Samir knew what he had seen. What he had heard.

They packed and left the same day.

For weeks, Samir had nightmares about the tapping. Sometimes he woke up at night thinking he heard it again. But they moved to a new apartment, and slowly life returned to normal.

Then one evening, while unpacking boxes, Zainab froze in the hallway.

“Samir…” Her voice trembled. “Come here.”

He rushed to her side.

There, at the very end of their new hallway, was a narrow wooden door.

No doorknob. No lock.

Samir’s blood turned to ice.

Tap… tap… tap.

Very soft. Very patient.

The house had waited long enough.