In 1997, in a quiet town outside Pittsburgh, a couple named Mark and Eliza moved into a century-old Victorian home they bought at auction. It was a fixer-upper, but the price was too good to pass up. The previous owner, an elderly woman, had mysteriously disappeared and was declared legally dead, though no body was ever found.
The basement was the one part of the house they refused to touch. It had a damp, rotting smell that never seemed to go away, no matter how much bleach they poured down the stone steps. They kept the door locked, mostly out of unease.
One night, about two months after they moved in, Eliza woke up to a sound—scraping, like something being dragged along concrete. Mark was asleep. She followed the noise and found the basement door unlocked and slightly ajar.
Against her better judgment, she went down, flashlight in hand. At the bottom, she saw it: a woman, thin and translucent, in a tattered white nightgown, dragging what looked like a large sack behind her. The woman's head slowly turned toward Eliza—but instead of eyes, there were two deep black pits, like holes burned into her face.
The air grew ice-cold. Eliza froze in terror as the figure opened its mouth and whispered:
"She never left."
Eliza ran upstairs and slammed the door. Mark woke to her screams and tried to calm her down. But when they checked the basement together—there was no one there. Just a dark stain on the floor and an old iron hook embedded in the wall.
The house has changed hands multiple times since. But neighbors still say they see a pale woman staring out from the basement window some nights.