The Apartment - 2

The Apartment - 1

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I drove to the nursing home as soon I gathered myself. It was around 3:30 in the afternoon when I arrived, I barreled out of my car and kicked an extra step into my walk. I checked in with the nurses’ station and headed to where my grandmother was.

It was nice today, so the residents were allowed outside to enjoy the sunshine after the past few days of awful weather. I walked the cobblestone walkway to where she was sat on a bench and took my seat next to her. For a few moments we both gazed off into the distance, the world disappearing around me, grams did this often nowadays. Finally, I spoke up.

“Hello, Grandma. How have they been treating you?” I said, her eyes still set into the distance.

After a few moments she snapped out of it and looked at me, “Tommy? Oh. I have been well.” She muttered.

“That’s good, Grams. Listen do you remember the stories you used to tell Jeremy and me when we were kids?” I wasn’t banking on her digging that deep into her memory and I felt like an asshole trying to get her to think harder than she probably needed to be doing.

She sat there for a moment; her eyes fixated on the ground. Her lips trembled. She took my hand with her bony fingers and started to whimper. I fuckin’ broke my grandma I thought. I tried to back pedal my question, but she wasn’t having it. Her hands clasped over mine like a vice grip.

“You saw him, didn’t you?” she said softly her voice raspy. “He saw you, didn’t he?”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if it did or not. And I told her that. She had the look of disappointment written across her aged face. Her white thinning hair disheveled by the stress of losing one’s mind and being moved out of the home they knew for the last thirty years.

“Tommy, you must stay away from! It’s evil!” she exclaimed, her voice rising as she spoke. “It will take you and it will devour you. Don’t. Interact. With. IT! It will not stop!” she gripped my hand tightly, digging her nails in nearly drawing blood then released. I pulled my hand back from her and rubbed it, I was confused by this outcome and didn’t know what to think. Cycling back now, I remembered her stern lectures to Jeremy and me about staying up for the night visitor. I looked back at her and sighed.

I could tell she closed up shop inside her head and wasn't going to speak again. She continued staring off into the distance in an absent gaze millions of miles away.

I cleared my throat and told Grams I loved her, stood up, kissed her head and left. This went nowhere whatsoever except maybe worsening her condition. I got back into my car and sat there for a few minutes feeling my guilt come over me in waves It didn't stop my pondering though, as I could not wrap my head around what happened the past few nights. Shit, I didn’t have any clue where to even begin looking into this fuckin’ thing.

I broke from my mental lapse and opened my phone’s web browser. I went to a search engine and typed in some keywords including “pale skin” and “razor teeth.” All that came up were things regarding vampires which didn’t surprise me, but I wasn’t convinced that this was some creature of the night feeding on the blood of old people on the outskirts of a small town.

I wouldn’t figured old people blood tasted too good, but what the hell did I know about that?

I was at a loss here. I didn’t know what I was even looking for, so I decided to take a ride around the back-roads for a while. This helped me de-stress sometimes and I couldn’t figure it would hurt to do now. It was only ten after five now, so I had the time to burn. After I good therapy session my head was cleared, and I drove over to the library. Lucky for me they stayed open late.

My thinking was this thing had been around for a while dating back before grandma, so more than likely there had been other sightings; and possibly those sightings were reported to the local newspaper. That was what seemed like the most logical step to. Plus, I had seen my fair share of the horror films and that’s where they tend to get information.

As I studied through what seemed like ancient texts, I cam across a story that piqued my interest. It was now 6:30, so work was beginning to slowly approach. I had to be there by midnight, but really, I didn’t know if I was going to make it on time that day.

Back to the newspaper article.

It was dated November 12th, 1934. The headline was “Child Disappears During Torrential Rainstorm!” I began reading it, learning the boys name, Martin Wright, and that he was aged only eight when he disappeared. This particle edition didn’t have too many details, so I went to the next and then the next. Eventually, there was another article written in the side notes.

“Witness comes forward claiming 8-foot-tall man abducted the child! Young man tells of his harrowing encounter with kidnapper!” The witness goes on to describe nearly the same fucker that I have been seeing. Down to the T! Further reading goes on how he watched the thing lead the boy astray towards the Deering Cemetery to be never seen again. This could not be mere coincidence I thought.

Ironically that cemetery was close to where the apartments were. Not another odd coincidence whatsoever I thought sarcastically. I continued reading, learning the witnesses name, Johnny Whistler. That really was about all that was there about this thing at least in that year. Another article, this one dated August 2nd, 1941, was like a sore thumb to me.

The article detailed a father and son disappearing in the woods north of Deering Cemetery while camping. The remains of the father were found, but the child was never recovered. The man’s neck was missing a chunk out of it and had been twisted around unnaturally. This sent a shiver down my spine. It went on about a trail of blood leading to the cemetery, but there was no sign of anything.

Just like with my encounters. I sighed heavy and rubbed my eyes.

I tried to organize my thoughts in my baffled brain before leaving the library. I formulated a plan, but didn’t think it through, which I did not realize until after it was executed…

Before I did anything, I called into work. I had sick days so spending one wouldn’t hurt me then drove over to my friend Phillips house. On the way I could not help but to wonder if Whistler was still alive. Phil was a big gun advocate, so I am sure you can figure what I was fixing to do. I called him up and told him I had a problem, and I might need some protection. I made some bullshit story up because I figured he would think the true story itself was bullshit. Although Phil was a believer in some wild conspiracy theories, so he probably wouldn’t have questioned me at all.

I arrived and shed the white lie and told him what had been happening. The look on Phil’s face wasn’t surprising, he was a strong believer in the supernatural and he didn’t think it was out of the realm of possibility. We walked to his man cave where his gun cabinets were. He grabbed a rifle and handed it to me with a box of bullets.

“Here, this should do the trick.” He said with a smirk. He took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.

He walked around me towards the door and continued, “seems like to me, you’re dealing with a Cryptid of some sort. You know, like Bigfoot, Mothman or Sasquatch.”

“I can assure you it’s not Bigfoot or Sasquatch, Phil. Nor is it a giant moth... man.” I retorted.

We reentered the living room where he plopped down on the old brown couch. I slung the rifle sling over my shoulder and held the box of ammo in my hand. I could tell Phil’s interest was growing in whatever this monstrosity was. He took a big drag and let out a puff of smoke, it sat in the air for a moment before dissipating into nothing.

“Could be the Boogeyman.” He said with a straight face.

I chuckled at the thought, “doesn’t the Boogeyman live inside kids closets?”

“Ehh. Not always, man. Those things will do whatever they do.” He put the cigarette out in the ashtray, leaned forward. “Seems this thing has been feeding ‘round here for decades though. People probably got lost in their technology and fast-movin’ life and up and forgot about’em. So, in turn he said fuck’em, I will just wander out in the open, in the dead of night and it eat your fuckin’ faces.”

I did not dispute that one because it strangely made a lot of sense to me. This thing had been wandering out and about for decades it seemed from what little research I had done.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s gonna meet the end of that high-caliber rifle if it shows up, ehh?” Phil asked.

I just stood and nodded in agreement.

I returned home around 9PM and had a few hours to kill. I wasn’t too worried about the gunshots going off here because most of the residents had hearing problems in these apartments. It was exceptionally dark outside without the moon hanging in the sky, it was a bit unsettling. I was reasonably tired, so I thought it would be best to rest up before the time came to. I grabbed my work headlight and sat it next to the couch. Then set the alarm on my phone and placed the rifle on the ground next to me and eventually dozed off for a few hours.

I awoke to pounding on my front door, it startled me. My phone alarm continued to go off as I had slept through it. I turned it off and crawled to the floor. My heart was racing as I grabbed the rifle and headlight. I forgot to load the rifle, so I had to scramble across the floor to grab the box from the table. I grabbed a few bullets from the box and with my trembling hands I struggled to load them into the clip.

Knock. Knock. KNOCK!

The bullets fumbled from my fingers and hit the floor. I thought, why did I not do this earlier? I attributed that to the lack of sleep the last few days. Finally, after struggling, I loaded a few rounds in and inserted the clip into the gun. I readied the firearm and for live fire and gathered my courage.

I took to my feet and slipped on my shoes, gradually making my way to the door. My hands trembled and I felt like I was about to piss myself.

I stood inches from the door and grabbed the doorknob. I peeped out the peephole and could see the shape of this monstrosity just standing at the door. Then gently I turned the knob and pulled the door ever so slightly. I took a few steps back until I met the wall and pulled up the rifle aim at the center of the mass. Sweat poured from the pores of my forehead, most of it caught by the band of the headlamp, while I waited for what seemed like an eternity.

Knock. Knock. kno...

The door slowly crept open. It inched closer and closer to being fully opened my heart pumped rapidly throughout my ears in dreadful anticipation. I slightly shifted to my left a bit to get a better angle then flipped the light on that was strapped to my head.

What. The. Fuck!?

I aimed the rifle and took a shot at the cloaked brute, its large insipid hands flopped like a rag-doll at its side as it flew back into the gravel from the powerful blast. My breathing steady a bit as I took a step forward. Various dogs began to bark from different apartments within the complex and I seen a few lights coming on. I snapped back and looked down where the creature laid or where it should have been laying. I was shocked to see it wasn’t there and the ground wasn’t disturbed whatsoever. I stepped outside and dropped the rifle to my side. My head quickly shifted from left to right to try to make more sense of this shit. I saw nothing.

I moved back into my apartment quickly, closed and locked the door. I put my back against the door and slid down against it to the ground. I turned off my light and just sat there for an hour or so, I can't really recall. The lights from a squad car faintly revolved through the curtain. I stayed quiet as I could hear faint, muffled voices outside the door.

Eventually they left and darkness enveloped the landscape again. I mustered the will to stand and walked to the bedroom. My head wasn’t handling what was happening well. I stood in the doorway for a moment before I placed the rifle and headlamp in my computer chair. I took my seat at the end of my bed and just stared into the darkness.

My brain was as vacant as a morgue without the bodies.