This story was sent in by Mark D. from the Northeastern United States.
I’ve always kept odd hours because of my job. I’m a copyeditor for a small online publication, which sounds more glamorous than it is, but mostly it means I’m working through the night when the rest of my building is asleep. By two or three in the morning, everything in my apartment complex turns silent except for the occasional radiator clank or someone’s distant TV hum through the walls. My floor especially is full of people who are up early for work, so late at night the hallway feels like a dead zone.
That’s why, the first time my doorbell rang at around two in the morning, I jumped out of my chair. It wasn’t a single press either—it was this slow, deliberate ring that echoed through the whole apartment. I thought maybe it was a delivery at the wrong door or a drunk neighbor mixing up units. But when I opened the door, the hallway was empty, and the stairwell door at the end of the corridor wasn’t moving.
I remember leaning out, barefoot, still half in work mode, expecting someone to pop out and apologize. Nothing. Just that stale apartment-hall smell and a flickering light above the elevator.
It became easy to shrug off. Every building has quirks. Maybe the wiring was bad. Maybe someone hit the wrong button and hurried off.
But then it happened again the next night. And the night after that.
Always between two and three in the morning. Always the same slow, spaced-out rings—almost like whoever was doing it wanted to draw out the feeling that someone was right on the other side of the door.
The early unsettling detail came on the fourth night. When the bell rang, I was already on edge, so I moved quietly toward the door instead of rushing. I pressed my eye to the peephole.
That’s when I heard something I’d never heard before—a faint scraping, almost like someone dragging a dull key along the metal of the door. It was only for a second, and then it stopped, followed by one final ring.
I opened the door quickly. Again, no one.
I told myself it could’ve been a neighbor’s kid messing around or maybe the pipes vibrating weirdly. I even googled whether old doorbells could “self-ring” because of electrical issues. They can, apparently, but not in such a specific pattern. And not while something scratched my door.
Still, I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Every strange sound at three in the morning feels sinister when you’re overtired.
By the sixth night, I couldn’t take the uncertainty anymore. I set my phone to record audio and left it by the door before I went back to my desk. Sure enough, around 2:40 a.m., the ringing started.
Listening to the recording the next morning made my stomach twist. It wasn’t just a ring. It was a slow press, hold, release. Pause. Another press. All of it steady, like someone testing how long they could push the button before it stuck.
And right before the last ring, on the recording there was this tiny shuffling sound—close. Too close. Like fabric brushing against my door.
I talked to my neighbors that day. No one had heard a thing. One guy on my floor had been awake with his newborn and swore he didn’t hear any doorbells, let alone someone walking down the hall.
I changed my locks that afternoon and installed a little adhesive camera above my peephole. I figured that would be the end of it. But that night, at almost the exact same time, the doorbell rang again—three slow presses.
My camera didn’t catch anyone. The hallway stayed empty the whole time.
That’s when the threat finally felt real. Not supernatural or anything like that. Just the idea that someone knew exactly when I was awake, exactly when to press the bell, and exactly how to avoid being seen.
The next morning, the building manager knocked on my door. He wasn’t usually around that early, so I knew something was off. He told me he’d been doing a routine walk-through and noticed marks around my door frame. When I opened the door to check, I saw them immediately—thin scratches along the paint near the latch, like someone had run a key or a screwdriver around the edge.
The manager asked if I’d tried to pry the door open myself. When I told him about the doorbell, he got quiet and just said he’d keep an eye out. That didn’t comfort me at all.
That night I stayed up, sitting on the couch with the lights off, staring at the door. I wasn’t waiting to confront anyone; I just didn’t want to be caught off guard again.
At around 2:20 a.m., before the bell even rang, I heard the softest noise from the hallway—like someone shifting their weight, trying not to let the floor creak. My stomach dropped. I moved silently to the door and looked through the peephole.
Nothing. Just the same dim hallway.
But then the bell rang from right underneath my eye. It sounded so loud, so close, like the button was being pushed from inside the apartment rather than outside. My whole body tensed.
I didn’t open the door. I backed toward the living room, grabbed my keys, and slipped out my balcony exit, which connects to the fire escape. I climbed down two floors and waited in the alley behind the building until I felt brave enough to come back up.
By the time I returned, everything was silent. No scratches, no footsteps, no lingering presence—just the same old hallway. But I didn’t sleep at all that night.
The ringing never stopped completely. It still happens once every few weeks, sometimes at different times, sometimes right on schedule. My camera never catches anything. My neighbors still say they don’t hear it.
Whatever the explanation is, I don’t open my door past midnight anymore. I keep my phone recording every night, and I sleep with the balcony door unlocked—not because it feels safer, but because it gives me another way out.
And on the nights when the doorbell rings in that slow, deliberate rhythm, I sit perfectly still, listening to how close it sounds. Close enough that sometimes I honestly can’t tell whether the ringing is coming from the hallway… or just a little too deep inside the walls of my own apartment.