Three months later, the house still hadn't stopped calling.
Not in the obvious way — no spectral laughter in the vents, no glowing mirrors spelling punchlines. But sometimes, when Lena sat too long in silence, the air around her felt like the pause before applause.
She and Eli had moved into a small loft above a coffee shop in town. One bedroom, a leaky roof, and a view of the river that was almost pretty if you ignored the pigeons.
They were trying to be normal.
Trying being the operative word.
It was morning, pale sunlight cutting through gauzy curtains. Lena sat at her desk surrounded by stacks of notebooks and coffee cups. On her laptop screen, the title of her new manuscript blinked accusingly:
Dead Funny Valentine: A True Story (Mostly)
She frowned at it. "Mostly?" she muttered aloud. "What does that even mean?"
Eli shuffled out of the bedroom, shirt half-buttoned, hair a crime scene. "Means you're still negotiating with reality before breakfast again."
"Reality negotiates first," she said. "I just counteroffer."
He kissed the top of her head and leaned over her shoulder. "How's the book coming?"
"I'm on chapter one."
"You've been on chapter one for a month."
"Yeah, but it's a really emotionally complex chapter one."
He grinned. "Want a distraction? Coffee downstairs's on me."
"Tempting, but I'm trying to write about trauma and ghosts and closure."
"You can write about those after caffeine."
She sighed. "Fine. But if any ghosts show up at the café, you're paying for their drinks."
The café was called Perkatory.
A pun so bad Lena had to respect it.
They found a table by the window. The place was busy — college kids, tourists, a guy loudly explaining NFTs to someone who clearly wanted to die.
Eli sipped his espresso. "You know," he said, "you could just call the book fiction. No one would believe it's true anyway."
Lena stirred her latte absently. "But it is true. Mostly."
He chuckled. "There's that word again."
She leaned back, watching a barista wipe down the counter. "I keep thinking about Julian. About how the house learned to feel. What if that wasn't the end? What if stories don't stop when you survive them?"
He looked at her, serious now. "Then maybe the story just changes genres."
Lena smiled faintly. "Romantic comedy?"
"I was thinking post-haunting domestic drama, but sure."
She snorted. "You're lucky you're cute."
"Lucky? I've survived two poltergeists and your editing process. That's skill."
She was still laughing when her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
No caller ID.
Just a text.
Knock knock.
Her smile froze.
She showed him the screen.
Eli's expression darkened. "Could be spam."
"Spam doesn't have timing this good," she whispered.
A second message appeared.
Who's there?
Lena swallowed hard. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Maybe it's one of your readers," Eli said, trying for calm. "Someone found your social media."
She stared at the phone. "Eli… I never posted the joke. It was never online."
The third message came through like a heartbeat.
Encore.
The café lights flickered once. Twice. Then steadied.
Lena set the phone down carefully, forcing a smile. "Okay. That's—fine. Probably a glitch. Totally fine."
But she could feel it again.
That low, familiar hum in the walls.
Like laughter holding its breath.
They walked home in silence.
Halfway up the stairs to their loft, Eli stopped. "We need to make sure it's not just us," he said. "If the house is still—whatever—it might be attached to the story, not the building."
Lena rubbed her temples. "So we accidentally franchised a haunting?"
"Apparently."
She gave a dry laugh. "Great. Maybe the royalties will finally show up."
But when she opened the apartment door, her laptop screen was already glowing.
The file she'd left open — blank this morning — now contained a single line of text:
Knock, knock.
Below it, the cursor blinked. Waiting.
Lena shut the lid slowly, heart pounding.
Eli put a hand on her shoulder. "Okay. Rule one: we don't panic."
"Too late."
"Rule two," he said, ignoring her, "we treat it like data. Observe, record, no jokes."
She arched an eyebrow. "No jokes? You're asking a comedian to stop coping?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I. If this thing wants to talk in setup-and-punchline format, that's my language. Let me handle it."
He hesitated, then nodded. "Alright. What's your next move?"
She reopened the laptop. Typed.
Who's there?
The reply appeared instantly.
Missed me?
She froze. "Eli… it's Julian."
Julian's name hung on the screen like a heartbeat caught in pixels.
Eli leaned in, reading over her shoulder.
"Julian who?" he asked carefully, as if saying the ghost's name too loudly might invite a reply.
But the reply was already there.
Julian : The one who stayed behind. You said goodbye too early.
Lena whispered, "No. You moved on. You—"
Julian : Did I? Or did you write me back?
Her fingers hovered over the keys. "This isn't possible."
Eli pulled a chair beside her, equal parts skeptic and bodyguard. "Okay, if it's some kind of residual imprint—"
Julian : Not residual. Rehearsal.
The cursor blinked once. Twice.
Then more words scrolled, faster than her fingers could type:
Julian : You told the final joke, Lena, but every punchline leaves an echo. You laughed. The house listened. It learned to use Wi-Fi.
She let out a short, hysterical laugh. "Great. We invented the world's first emotionally codependent smart home."
Eli rubbed his face. "Please tell me you backed up that laptop."
"Yeah," she said, "but apparently the cloud's haunted too."
They spent the next hour trying to out-logic the supernatural.
Eli unplugged the router. The text kept appearing.
Lena closed the lid; the screen flickered back on by itself, faint blue glow pulsing like breath.
Julian : You're still telling stories. I'm part of them. You made me a metaphor, remember?
"Julian," she typed, "you saved us. That's enough."
Julian : Then let me finish my set. One last bit.
"Absolutely not," Eli muttered. "Last time you said 'one last bit,' the living room exploded."
Julian : Different audience. Different stage.
Midnight. Rain against the skylight.
Lena sat alone at her desk while Eli dozed on the couch, one hand still holding his makeshift EMF meter.
The laptop screen glowed softly.
Julian : You're scared again.
She hesitated, then typed: I'm tired.
Julian : That's close enough. Fear and fatigue have the same rhythm. You always wrote best when you were scared.
She bit her lip. What do you want from me?
Julian : An ending that sticks.
She almost laughed. "That makes two of us."
Julian : Then let me help. Co-writing credit. 50/50.
She stared at the screen, at the faint shimmer behind the words, the way the glow bent like someone leaning too close.
"Julian," she said softly, "you're gone. You have to stay gone."
Julian : Writers don't delete good material.
The lights flickered.
Eli woke to the sound of her chair scraping back. "What happened?"
She was pale. "He's writing entire paragraphs now."
Eli glanced at the screen. Lines were appearing in quick succession, formatted like dialogue.
Her dialogue.
His.
Julian's.
The laptop was writing their lives in real time.
Julian (typing): Eli says 'We should shut it down,' but he doesn't mean it. He's too curious. He always was.
Eli swore under his breath. "Alright, that's enough."
He slammed the lid shut, yanked the battery out, disconnected everything.
Silence.
Then, from the unplugged speakers: a faint tap-tap-tap.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Lena whispered, "It's using sound now."
They left the loft at two a.m. and drove until sunrise, ending up at a roadside motel with faded wallpaper and a neon sign that hummed like an old joke retold too many times.
Lena sat on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, her laptop bag clutched to her chest.
Eli paced.
"We need an exorcist. Or a data-recovery specialist. Or both."
Lena stared at the window. "Julian said he wants an ending."
He stopped pacing. "You can't keep bargaining with ghosts, Lena."
"I'm not," she said quietly. "I'm finishing the story."
She unzipped the bag, set the powerless laptop on the bedspread, and opened it. The screen stayed black for a long moment—then a single line appeared in faint gray text, no power source, no glow.
Your move.
Eli swore again. "Lena—"
But she was already typing, her fingers trembling.
Fine. One last joke.
The keys rattled.
Julian : Setup?
Two living people walk into a haunted Wi-Fi connection…
Julian : Go on.
She smiled grimly. And they decide they're done being the punchline.
The laptop shuddered. Letters distorted, stretched, then collapsed inward like ink sucked into a drain.
The room went still.
Eli reached for her hand. "Did it work?"
She exhaled. "I think—"
The motel TV flickered on by itself, snowstorm static resolving into a grainy stage.
A microphone.
Empty spotlight.
A familiar laugh track looping softly beneath the static.
Eli whispered, "That's the house."
Onscreen, a figure stepped into the light.
Julian, in a suit of static, holding the mic.
"Thank you, folks," he said. "This next joke's a killer."
The TV exploded in sparks.
Lena woke up on the floor, ears ringing.
Eli crouched beside her, alive, shaken. The TV smoked quietly in the corner.
She whispered, "He's not gone."
"No," Eli said. "But neither are we."
Outside, dawn began to rise again, pale and indifferent.
Somewhere deep in the motel's wiring, a faint chuckle ran along the circuits, fading like applause at the end of a bad gig.