5A Story Contest

     The neighbor across the hall moved in about a month ago. August 8th in fact. I remember the date because after listening to the couple noisily move their furniture, they began to fight and I wondered whether I should call the police. I don’t make a habit out of spying through my peephole, but I had to look to make sure the girl wasn’t in danger. The way the man yelled at her and the few thuds I heard from somewhere out of peep-hole sight made me consider taking my shotgun out of the closet. But I didn’t. The girl ran out and I haven’t seen her since. But the guy is still there, in apartment 5C.

     Since he moved in, I have awakened almost every night to music thumping through the walls. The third time this happened, I pounded on his door to ask him to turn the volume down. I’m not doing that again. He answered the door smelling like beer and weed. His knuckles were scabbed over and bruised. At my politely phrased request, he rolled his eyes and slammed the door. The noise continued unabated, and I didn’t have the nerve to pound on his door again. I leaned my shotgun against the frame of the front door, just in case he ever decided to pay me a visit. As a woman alone, I can’t be too careful.

     At least my other neighbor, directly across from me in 5A, is always quiet. I’ve only seen him once, from the back. I’m not even sure what he looks like. But I’ve never heard him make a sound, and that makes him my favorite neighbor ever.

     “Thud. Thud. THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD BOOM THUD.”

     The books and pictures on my shelves shook with the beats of the music. I woke and sat up with a rush of adrenaline, the sudden movement making me dizzy. I looked at the clock, forcing my eyes to focus on the fuzzy green numbers. 2:00 a.m. Goddammit. I felt my face flush hot with impotent rage. Then I heard the soft creek of a door opening, and the whisper of the door brushing against carpet. The walls of my building are very thin and in the brief beats of silence between the thumps of 5C’s subwoofers, I could tell from the sound that the door was the one directly across the hall from mine: Apartment 5A.

     Now I couldn’t resist – I had to look through the peephole and see if my neighbor in 5A was going to finally take on the man in 5C. In my bare feet, I padded to my front door and peered through the hole. Like all peepholes, mine is too small to see anything useful, and almost too dirty to see anything at all. Through the grime I made out the slim gray shape of the man from 5A standing in front of the door of 5C.

     He knocked three times in a slow, even rhythm. Not the hurried pounding of someone annoyed, but methodical tapping. He knocked three more times. When the door to 5C opened, the music became too loud for me to hear the conversation. After a few minutes of deep voiced murmurs, the conversation was punctuated by “FUCK YOU, man.” And the door slammed.

     I thought that would end the confrontation, but my neighbor from 5A knocked again. The thug in 5C opened the door, already starting to spout profanities and balling his right hand into a fist.

     What happened next was a blur. The man from 5A had a hand around the other man’s throat and lifted him off of the ground, holding him up against the door frame. The guy from 5C was large with muscles the size of grapefruits and I couldn’t figure out how he had been overpowered. I heard gurgling and sputtering sounds come from his throat. His captor stared at him intently. From my angle I could see the choking man’s face. His eyes bulged and the blood drained from his face in terror. I breathed in sharply. The man from 5A dropped him in an instant and spun around towards my door. In that second, I saw what the other man had seen: A pale face with black eyes that burned like dry ice. And two long, very sharp teeth.

     The still sputtering resident of 5C scuttled into his apartment and locked the door. The music went off. The man from 5A and I were locked in a stare as if he could see through the peephole, through the door, and into my eyes. I couldn’t break his gaze and I was too panicked to move. I took shallow, quiet breaths and wondered if he could hear my heart pounding through the paper-thin walls. I slowly reached for my shotgun, glancing down as I unhooked the bungee cord from around the barrel.

     “Tap. Tap.”

     I jumped when I heard the staccato rapping on my door. I knew what he was, and I had a pretty good idea of what he was capable of, which probably included snapping the door off of its hinges if I didn’t respond. I joined the two halves of my shotgun with a click and slid two shells into the chambers. He could kill me any time he wants to, I thought to myself. I hadn’t even seen him move when he pinned the other man against the wall, it was like trying to see details on a hummingbird’s wing while it’s in flight. I decided that my best chance was to be polite, and armed.

     I opened the door with my shotgun pointed unsubtly at his chest.

     “Hello Ma’am. I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest,” said the vampire with a placid smile. No teeth showing now. My eyes flicked up to meet his and I thought I saw the edges of his eyes crinkle in amusement. He didn’t even glance at my gun. He wasn’t at all concerned.

     “I was already up.” I replied, trying to match the calm of his voice.

     “I’m sure you were. That guy was making enough noise to wake the dead.”

     And with that, the vampire chuckled. He turned around still laughing to himself, opened the door to apartment 5A, and went inside.

Tags: Apartment 5A, Lauren Van Mullem

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.