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The original was posted on /r/truescarystories by /u/Looki_CS on 2025-06-14 01:09:15+00:00.

This happened when I was in my early 20s and living in a small flat with my brother.

At this point in my life I was studying at the Uni, so my sleep schedule wasn’t the best. This specific Sunday I had slept until around 11, waking up to near silence.

That in itself isn’t an unusual thing. We lived in the suburbs of the city in the second story, so most of the time, we had a quiet living situation. But that day I could already tell something was off. Maybe it was the utter extent of that silence.

The feeling only grew stronger when I opened the window and looked across the street. Usually, you would have the occasional jogger or car pass. But that day, even though I stood there for a few minutes, no one was to be seen at all.

At this point, I was already having an eerie feeling. For some reason, my mind wandered straight to me waking up to a zombie apocalypse.Just as I thought that, I could hear something. A shuffling sound, coming from outside our flat. Now, what you will have to know is that there is no reason for anyone to come up to our door. Even if it was a neighbor of us, they would have went to their own door below our story and not venture up to ours. But whoever was behind that door now did.

I, gulping and pushing aside my fears, approached the door and slowly, very slowly opened it, trying not to make a noise. What I saw then made me slam the door shut in a second.

Right on the upper end of the stairs leading to our door stood a woman. Her upper body bent down, she let her hands sway from left to right. In my mind, I was already convinced she must have been a zombie. So seeing her like that, not even noticing me, scared the crap out of me.

Having a few seconds to collect myself, I suddenly understood.

There was no zombie apocalypse.

It was just the cleaning lady trying to clean the stairs. On a Sunday, which was unusual, but not unheard of. The swaying was her using a cloth to wipe them.

So that was how I mistook a poor lady for a zombie.