Mary Zoeller’s Spooky Halloween Story

By Mary Zoeller

I found it on my front door when I came back from a short shopping run to the corner grocery.  A plain old yellow stickie that said, “C u at 217”.  It puzzled me. I left it there while I went inside to put away the few items I’d picked up.  I hadn’t really needed groceries. Sometimes I just needed an excuse to get out and be with people.

I lived in a five-story brick apartment building on a quieter street in this mid-size, midwestern city.  The building wasn’t fancy, but it was solid and well-tended.  That fact and the empty lot between my building and the one next door had sold me on the apartment.  My windows even looked out on that lot. 

Given the narrowness of that lot, it should have just been scrubby grass but somehow three lovely large maple trees were thriving there.  The kids from our building played there often while adults visited on the carefully placed benches in the trees’ shade.  The veil of leaves outside my second-story windows gave me a great deal of comfort. 

Today was Saturday, October 30^th, and since Halloween had always been one of my favorite holidays, I was making a few preparations. Decorations and a bowl of chocolate bars later, I was ready.  I hadn’t lived here for very long, so had no idea whether there would be trick-or-treaters, but I had hopes.

About 11:13 a.m. I heard a noise at the door and decided to check. There was a new note in the same pale yellow paper, but this time it said, “C u at 217!”  The same but with emphasis.

I didn’t want to waste time on this silliness but, of course, I did exactly that. Maybe 217 wasn’t a time?  Was it a place?  Maybe I wasn’t reading the scribbled note correctly?  I decided I’d knock on a few of my neighbors' doors to see if they had left the note or seen any strangers.  I’d make sure I was back by 2:17. There were three other apartments on my floor and two of the other tenants were home.  They didn’t know anything about the note, nor had they seen anything unusual. 

2:17 pm was approaching as I climbed the stairs from the basement with a load of laundry. While I’d waited for the washing to finish, I’d managed to meet even more fellow tenants on the first floor as I’d asked about the odd note.  It had been a delightful experience to get to know the people who lived all around me. Many of them were fellow lovers of Halloween and I’d even gotten an invite to join a third-floor couple for spiced cider that afternoon. They’d been visiting downstairs.  

2:17 was a bust.  No one showed. Not a peep. I was putting away my fresh clothes when I remembered that I’d promised to have a visit with the tenants on the third floor for cider.  When I was locking the door, there was another note: orange this time with the message, “C U AT 217!!!!”. Emphatic yelling now, hmmph.

On the third floor I enjoyed my visit.  Some of the other third-floor tenants had even dropped in to meet me. I felt very welcome. I was nursing a warm glow until I saw my front door.  There, in a tidy line, were three now-orange notes, all with the same message, “C u at 217”.  Well, at least no more yelling, so that was good? My neighbor from 207 came in towing his two kids but said he hadn’t seen a thing, but did agree the notes were odd.

I spent the evening catching up with some things from work and watched one of my favorite Halloween movies. Afterward, I realized I’d met more people in the building on this one day than I had in the two months I’d lived there.  With that thought I fell pleasantly asleep.

Sunday, early,  I was leaving for a morning walk. When I opened the door, I was met with a curtain of the same orange notes.  All the notes were taped to strings that hung from the top of the door to the floor.  All the notes with the same, “C u at 217!!”. Alas, the yelling was back.  I left the notes hanging and left.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  This felt like harassment, but it was on such a benign level there was no point in reaching out to anyone.  I decided to go home and talk to more neighbors. Surely one of them had to know something about the mysterious notes.

I was wrong, though; no one from the fourth floor knew anything. When I got back to my apartment, the curtain of notes was gone. In its place a single orange note with “C u at 217. Please”. I chuckled at the switch to politeness. I left the note there,   had lunch and then decided to tackle the unvisited fifth floor.  

It was very quiet as I made my way up the stairs. Usually, the weekends here were full of children and families making their way to events, outside to play or to catch up with some gossip in our little park.  The silence felt weird. I began to hear a rumble as I went up. It sounded like a low-pitched hive of bees murmuring to each other on a sultry summer day.  The sound stopped when I reached the fifth floor.  This floor was different.  There was a short hall when I opened the door from the stairs.  At the end of the hall was a single door. Nothing obscured the number on the door as so many of the other doors downstairs did.  The number said, of course, 217.

I knocked and when the door was opened, I was greeted by cheers of “Welcome!” “Happy Halloween” and even “It’s about time”.  I stood in a room full of people who would become life-long friends.  In the center of it all was the owner of the building.  They apologized for the notes, with a twinkle in their eye, but said everyone had noticed my reticence to ‘bother them’ so together they had hatched this odd plan.  I’ve been grateful ever since.