Unit 9C Must Stay Dark

Priya Halloran, 34, is a contract elevator inspector sent to certify the lifts in Calloway House, a fourteen-storey council block in Leeds scheduled for demolition. Only eleven residents remain. Every one of them obeys a rule taped inside the lift in faded marker: after 2:10 a.m., no light may show under the door of 9C, the flat nobody has lived in since 1998. On her first night, Priya hears a child crying behind that door. She does one decent thing. She slips a battery torch through the letterbox. By morning the lift stops at floors that do not exist. The night porter, Desmond Achebe, 67, gentle and evasive, finds his late wife's slippers waiting outside his flat. One by one, residents begin waking with the memories of people who died in the building. The housing officer, Fen Moraes, wants the block emptied and sealed before the story spreads, even if that means forcing frightened pensioners out. Priya has nine nights before demolition. She must learn what the darkness in 9C was holding in place and take back the light she gave. If she fails, whatever is behind that door will walk out with the residents when the building comes down.