The apartment next door

 

     One night, I woke up to a strange noise.

     It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust, but soon I could make out the faint silhouettes of the edge of my bed, my night table with assorted junk that had collected on the surface of it over time. On the floor, random blobs of darkness were all that I could make out of the piles of hardly distinguishable articles of clothing, most of which were desperately in need of a wash, and finally, the small wooden reading desk against the far wall along with a faint trace of moonlight coming through the white lace shades. The apartment wasn’t large, but seeing as I was the only one living there, it didn’t really need to be much bigger.

   I groaned loudly and mashed the heels of my hands against my eyes and rubbed hard. I could hear the sound coming from somewhere close. It wasn’t necessarily loud, but just enough that it woke me up. I had always been a light sleeper, ever since I was seven and a man broke into our house. I had failed to wake up in time to protect myself and was knocked unconscious by the back end of a black crowbar. At seven, it was an understatement to call it traumatic. However, the sound that disturbed me from my sleep was not that a rusty piece of metal being jammed into apartment door, in fact, it sounded sort of methodic, almost like a song. I swung my legs out from under the soothing warmth of my bed covers and onto the cold hardwood floor. Realizing I was lacking the will to stand up, I rested my elbows against my bare knees and ran my hands through my thick hair. I breathed in deep, feeling the cold morning air flow through my lungs and nose as my chest rose and depressed. Somewhere off, the sound continued. I was curious enough, so I finally stood up and stepped into the middle of the room. I stretched my arms wide and became slightly lightheaded as they fell. I caught myself by putting my arm up against the wall then realized where the noise was coming from.

   Mr. Coray in the apartment next door was a middle aged man who worked as a cashier at the coffee shop a few blocks away, and was an extremely quiet man who kept to himself at all times of the day. Even at work, he hardly managed a “Hello.” or a “have a nice day.” He had a strict routine that hadn’t strayed one inch in the three years that I had known him. Every day, as I left for my job at the Chevy plant across town, I would see him leaving his room at precisely seven o’ clock every morning. I would see him at some spot either in the hallway or in the street below when I looked out over the railing of the apartment balcony. He worked every day at the same hours, even Sundays. In three years I can’t recall a single time he had taken a day off. The reclusive Mr. Coray had always been a point of interest for me, as he was a very peculiar neighbor. On one occasion, one of the few times I had the awkward pleasure of meeting him face to face, he had handed to me a fruitcake along with a card that had “welcome neighbor” scribbled hastily on the inside. This of course being the day I moved into the apartment and officially became his neighbor. The day was sometime in August, and amidst the sweltering heat the man wore a thick woolen sweater and slacks, also the fact that this event occurred during the summer made the act of his giving me a fruitcake even more strange. He handed it to me while standing at my door along with a quick bow. The man wore reading glasses and was for some reason kept looking down as if there were something terribly fascinating on the ground at his feet. I had offered the man a class of celebratory champagne that had been a gift from my sister. I was not much a drinker so I figured it would have been a waste. The man refused the generous glass of what I had originally believed to be a chardonnay it being the only form of champagne I had ever heard of; however, Mr. Coray instead told me that a merlot was not in his taste. He walked back to his apartment, closed the door, and that was that. I never spoke to him except on the odd occasion when he would ask to borrow a T.V. guide, or some other assorted good, at which time he would gratefully accept the item and return to his strange life of absolute solitude.

   And now a strange tune played from within his apartment. I put my ear to the cold wall, while doing my best to keep my bare skin from touching it. The tune was soothing, a violin concerto that I had heard somewhere before. I listened for a while, half to the melody, and half to any sign of Mr. Coray’s presence. After twenty minutes rolled by, Mr. Coray, hadn’t moved within the apartment, or otherwise wasn’t there. Also, the song that played was seemed to be set on repeat. It just played over and over again.

   Bored and tired of my late night investigation, I returned to my warm bed with a deep yawn and a lower back scratch. Though it had cooled slightly in my absence, my sheets were still comfortable and eased me into a deep sleep.

   I woke up the next day to my alarm clock beeping three times, then three times, then another three times. I slapped blindly at the snooze button in response. A few minutes later I convinced myself at the fact that it was Friday and the work day would be short and easy. After a quick shower, I quickly searched through the dense thicket of clothes on my floor for something decent to wear. It wasn’t until I was nearly out the door that I noticed something.

   That same tune played from beyond the thin plaster walls that separated the two apartments. I was baffled. Mr. Coray had never done anything within his physical apartment to prove that he even lived there. Well, actually I had thought I heard him cough one time, but it could’ve been anything. I wanted to get to the bottom of Mr. Coray’s odd behavior, I have for years. However, now was not the time.

   Work went as usual. My boss, Mr. Morgan was an alcoholic who usually stayed in the backroom and came out occasionally to yell at someone to get back to work. The thousands of possible activities that Morgan preformed in that backroom served as endless entertainment to me and the other guys.

   “I guarantee he’s got a playboy, a packet of cigarettes, and a bottle of whiskey.” Tom said.

   “I’ll bet on a … penthouse, umm, girlfriend’s phone number next to his wife’s, and I want to say a Jack Daniels.” Dan would say.

    This conversation would be followed by roars of laughter and cheering, followed in turn by Mr. Morgan shouting over it all for everybody to get back to work. And through all the laughing, I still found my mind wandering to Mr. Cory, the strange neighbor who had begun playing strange music in his strange apartment.

   When I got home that afternoon, I walked up to the fifth floor, past Mr. Coray’s door to my own. Stuck the key in the lock and cracked open the door. The sun had just begun its last lengths to the horizon and the sky was streaked with bright bursts of orange.

   As I walked in and flung myself onto the dirty sofa and moved for the remote, but as soon as my mind calmed down, I began to hear that tune again. That violin tune was beginning to get stuck in my head. I turned on the T.V. and drowned the music out.

   That tune played when I went to bed that night. It played when I woke up the next morning. When I left for the store, and when I came home.

   I decided to go to that coffee shop that Mr. Coray worked at. Hopefully he would be there or otherwise on vacation. Neither of which seemed logical given Mr. Coray’s insanely repetitive nature that bordered insanity.

  When I entered the coffee shop, Mr. Coray was nowhere to be seen. I ordered a caramel latte just to be casual and asked the pretty girl behind the counter if she had any idea where Mr. Coray was.

   “He never talks to anybody when he’s here, he just comes in, does his hours, and leaves.”

   Yeah, that sounded like him.

   “But he hasn’t shown up in a few days, we were kind of getting worried. I mean, he was a creepy guy, but as far as we knew he was just sort of lonely.”

   That didn’t. Mr. Coray couldn’t have just disappeared could he? The only explanation was that he had left and had left his computer on playing that song. But that couldn’t be it, who would be so careless? and besides, the computer would probably turn off on its own after that long of a time. I needed some time to think.

   I left that coffee shop twenty minutes later with a renewed sense of curious determination and the pretty shop girl’s phone number written in black sharpie on my forearm.

 

   A week passed. That violin tune continued to play.

  It kept me awake longer and longer. At night I simply stared at the ceiling and listened to it play, over and over again. On Friday night I had a date with the coffee shop girl. It was nice, went out to dinner, ordered some shrimp linguini alfredo. I walked her home, got a smooth peck on the cheek at her doorstep and made my way back to my apartment. When I walked in, the tune was still playing and I realized something. The more I listened to that tune, the sadder it seemed. I was growing so used to that tune that it hardly fazed me anymore. However, as I sat in bed that night, my eyes cracked open at full alert, as if my mind refused to be taken off guard in the presence of this eerie melody.

   That night I had a dream. I don’t exactly remember what it was about, but I do remember that tune was playing the entire time. It was taking over my mind. I woke up in a cold sweat, whatever that dream was, it wasn’t good. I took some Tylenol for the headache and sat down on the couch. I watched T.V., but I didn’t actually watch it. My mind was somewhere else. On that strange tune that for some reason, no matter how high I turned the volume up, I could always hear it.

   I enjoyed my Saturday afternoon as much as I could but that tune was starting to dig into my mind. I was starting to see things, hear things, and even smell things that weren’t actually there.

   I was starting to go insane.

   I talked to the coffee shop girl on the phone and set up a date for next Friday. I needed it, something to keep me sane. I knew that staying around that apartment was bad for me, but some innate sense of curiosity flooded me every time I thought of those violins playing and was drawn to it.

   I didn’t sleep at all that night. Sunday morning at dawn, my eyes were red and weak from lack of sleep. I showered as usual and went shopping as I had forgotten to do it the day before. I walked back up the stairs to the fifth floor once again carrying two large brown bags in each hand filled with food like milk, cereal, and a container of that chocolate powder that you put in the milk. I was almost at my door when I stopped. I looked to my left.

   Mr. Coray . . . What’s going on? I stood there, staring at his door for ten minutes. Finally, something happened to me that I never believed would.

   I cracked.

   I unlocked my door and walked in, not bothering to close the door behind me. I couldn’t hear the music anymore. I figured it was because I had finally lost it, that the music had finally become an absolute part of my being. I smiled as I set the groceries down on the counter. I whistled that tune as I walked out of the apartment, again, not bothering to close the door behind me.

   His door was right there. The green paint was starting to peel off in places and the sign that read “4702”  was covered in dirt, dust and god only knows what else. So much so that it was hardly legible anymore. A brass knocker rested overtop a tiny peephole.

   I knocked once out of common courtesy I gripped the brass knocker and gave it one go against the wood. It made a dull click as it landed. I waited for a few minutes and heard no answer. I looked left, then right down the hallway.

   There was nobody in sight.

   I looked hard at the door, then with all the force I could muster, I broke down the door with one swift kick. The hinges cracked and splintered as easily as if they were made out of cardboard. The door cracked apart in a similar manner. The whole thing landed on the floor of Mr. Coray’s apartment with a loud thud on the tiled floor.

    Hmm, my floor wasn’t tiled. Why the hell was that? I stepped over the door and walked into the apartment. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, in that it was completely normal. I was expecting Mr. Coray to have clothes hanging from lines on the ceiling, or exotic plants that excreted poison or something out of the ordinary, but no. His apartment was a mirror image of mine and furnished nearly identically as well. A beat up leather sofa against the wall facing a T.V., a few plates and dishes stuck out of the sink, the door to the bedroom was in the hallway on the far side of the living room. It was positioned directly opposite my bedroom. I entered through the white plastic doorway.

   This room was again, not what I expected, only this time it was because I thought it would be normal.

   The room was a mess, like someone had a professional wrestling match right in the middle of the floor. A bookshelf rested on the floor with the books scattered around it. A guitar laid next to it, broken in half. The bed frame was at an angle to the wall as if it had been moved accidentally, and the mattress hung halfway off it.  A plant in the corner was out of the pot and the pot was smashed to pieces, dirt spread out from the pot like a wake.

   I looked at all of it with my jaw dropped, taking it all in. Against the wall, on a desk that tilted and an angle as one of the legs was snapped in half, a computer flickered feebly.

   The screen was impossible to read, but the speakers were still emitting static. A closer inspection told me that amongst the static, I quiet tune played. Barely audible at first, but Once I realized it was there, it grew louder. This was the tune that I had been hearing for the last two weeks. However, that was not the biggest shock. Near the computer on the ground, was a keyboard. It was covered in blood.

   Now that I looked closer, tiny drops of blood clung like a spray to many of the scattered objects in the room. I stumbled backwards, out of the room. I was breathing hard, my pulse quickening, my heart racing. What was this?

   A ring in my pocket made me jump, but I realized it was my phone. I took it out and answered with a shaky hello. The voice that responded was the coffee shop girl.

   “Hello? Oh thank god I got you. You know Mr. Coray? They found him dead in a ditch ten miles from town, can you believe that? He was all bloody and they suspect murder, they actually said he was dead weeks ago. I was so scared when I found out. They told us first because we worked with him, he didn’t have any family or friends, at least none that they can find. But the craziest thing was his will! They found it in his shirt pocket saying that he left everything he owned to you! Isn’t that crazy? There still investigating everything, but wouldn’t that be crazy if you ended up getting his apartment? Anyways, are we still on for Friday?”

   “Yeah.” I croaked. I hung up and wandered outside of the apartment. I thought about going back inside my own apartment but then I stopped and looked back at the Mr. Coray’s front door, still smashed to pieces on his living room floor. I sighed. I didn’t want this apartment. The reason it was entrusted to me is beyond I had to go on. He could have been a C.I.A. agent or a spy for some foreign country, but it didn’t matter anymore. After all, he was dead and I just wanted to wipe my hands clean of this whole thing.  Anyways, I left the door in its sad state and returned to my own place.

   I flopped down on my worn leather couch and stared at the ceiling. I sat for what seemed like an eternity. It was quiet, and in the last few minutes until the clock hit six, I started to whistle a strange tune.

Reviews

[The Analog Kid]

I like it. Even though they were virtual strangers, the old man still cared enough to leave everything to him. Nice on the music repeating motif.

Pat

[Joe]

I like this story. You have a great descriptive narration here.

There are some corrections that should probably be made in the upper half of the story, but besides that it was pretty cool.

Great job! Keep it up!