The Noxious Neighbors Part 2
He raps his knuckles against the door and immediately everything is quiet and still. The light is no longer pulsing from under the door. There is no low hum coming through the walls and there are no screams. He raises his hand to knock again but pauses, concerned that what he heard was just a television that has now turned off. He will look a fool in his first meeting with the neighbors. The droplets of red liquid that still sit on the stairs leading up to the landing confirm the strangeness of the night and the sudden silence makes the fear creep up his skin and catch in his throat.
He retreats back to his own apartment and locks the door. It’s cold in the room and he’s sweating. He goes into the kitchen and grabs his phone off the coffee table, the only piece of furniture he owns. The fear lingers and it has him handling his phone and contemplating calling the police. What would he say? There were some screams. Could it have been a television? Yes. I just moved in you see but I have a feeling, a feeling that something evil is going on in the next room.
He places the phone back on the coffee table and returns himself to the mattress where he takes down a gulp of tequila straight from the bottle before settling back down. He doesn’t rest but when the sun is finally coming up through the window he is asleep.
The next morning he makes some coffee on the stove and after drinking it he realizes he has no choice but to approach the neighbors again. The sounds from the night before are haunting him. The memory of the screaming sits in his ears.
He goes out into the hall and the red liquid has disappeared. The stairs are clean, cleaner than they were the day before. He almost second guesses himself again but forces his hand up and the knuckles against the door. A moment is passing but he can hear the footfalls inside the neighbor’s apartment as someone approaches the door. It swings open and a girl stands in the doorway.
She’s a pretty girl but her face is a bit too full and her eyes are weighed down by the eyelids which make her look dull. The skin on her face is very pale and she looks tired and washed out. Her hair is brown and limply surrounds the round face.
“What?” she says.
“I’m your new neighbor,” PB replies.
She nods.
“Did you happen to hear anything kind of weird last night?” he asks.
“Like what?”
“Kind of like screaming. And a washing machine.”
“I don’t think so.”
Her dull face is a blank and it makes him feel stupid. He steps back towards his own door and awkwardly waves to her.
“Well, sorry. Have a good day.”
He closes the door on the dull face. Some people you connect with and some you don’t he supposes. He begins to dig through the boxes looking for something to eat and there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and is surprised to find the girl standing there, still dull. She walks by him into the apartment and stands in the middle of the studio among the boxes and the mattress.
“You heard screaming last night?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t at home. I was at work.”
She looks down at PB’s scattered processions and sees the tequila bottle lying by itself next to the mattress, three quarters empty.
“Can I have some of that?” she asks.
He digs the other shot glass out of the box and pours one for her as well as himself.
“I was working but my boyfriend was here,” she says and sips her shot.
“Does he scream at night?”
“I don’t know. He has been acting weird though.”
“How?”
“Just weird. I work at the senior home at night and I sleep during the day and sometimes I’ll wake up and he’s just sitting there, not saying anything.”
PB doesn’t know the boyfriend so he doesn’t know if that’s weird or not.
“What’s his name?” he asks.
“Owen.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ellie.”
PB can’t really think of anything to say beyond that.
“The apartment smells strange too,” she says.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, just kind of weird. Like sulfur or something but really salty.”
Her description of the smell is disturbing. PB can’t think of what would create a smell like that.
“Have you talked to him about this? About the smell and how he acts?”
She shakes her head.
“Is there anything I can do? To help I mean,” he asks and immediately feels stupid.
She takes what he says and seems to weigh it for a moment before downing the rest of her shot and placing the empty glass on the carpet.
“Thanks but I think I just wanted someone to talk to about it. Welcome to the building.”
She goes out the door and PB watches her leave.
That night he sleeps on the mattress and dreams of the apartment next door and it is horrifying. The main room and the kitchen are just like his but the walls are covered in blood. There is a wide variety of snakes and potato bugs crawling through the carpet and on the linoleum. Ellie is in the kitchen and she is naked but it’s not sexy or erotic, it’s disturbing. She is acting processed, dancing madly around the kitchen and stepping on the insects.
The dream shatters. The walls are humming and the sound has woken him up again. This time he jumps up and gets dressed immediately, rushing around half blind. He gets to the door and the humming stops. He stands perfectly still, waiting.
He hears the door across the hall unlock and open and he looks through the peephole and sees who he assumes is Owen make his way out and with a backpack strapped to him. He’s a little shorter than PB and his hair is cut short with a scraggly beard of grown out peach fuzz that lines his jaw line. Owen makes his way down the stairs and out the gate. For a reason that he can't give at that moment, PB slips out his own door and down the stairs in pursuit.
To be continued in Part 3.
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