This is a true story. Honest to god. There aren’t many promises I can make to you, through that flickering computer screen of yours, but this is one of them. And if you don’t believe me, then, well, tough shit.

He had a pointed face, a jaw like the blade of a plow and eyes that spoke in ancient tongues. They were yellow. I kid you not, lemon yellow. He lived in the apartment across the hall from me and I think he was in a band. The racket he made at night was incredible.

He had this girlfriend, a tiny redhead thing he would escort to and from his apartment. She was pretty but she had this dead face on all the time. Slack, expressionless, unseeing. And I’m sure she was a junkie, track marks all up and down her arm. I never once saw her on her own. Always he was with her, long arm thrown around her shoulder, guiding her like she didn’t know where she was. Never saw her speak, either. Face like a mask.

Anyway, this guy, his name was Max. I knew because it was on his mailbox. We’d spoken one or two times in the hall, me with groceries in my arms, him with his keys hanging and jangling from his finger. Just small talk. I can’t even remember what the hell I said to him. I must’ve been charming enough though because he’d laughed each time we met.

I can’t say I was ever attracted to him. Sure, he did look and act like a rock star, tight black pants, leather jacket and shaggy black hair. But I never thought about trying to ask him out or anything. He was my neighbor after all. And inter-apartment relationships were always a bad idea.

But still.

He fucked his girlfriend almost nightly. I’d hear him practicing guitar until about 10 p.m. and then abruptly he’d stop. A few minutes’ silence and then they’d start. A gentle pounding through the walls at first, almost subliminal. And then the pounding would grow, banging and shaking the whole goddamn building. And then she’d start gasping, “Oh, oh!” She was loud, his girlfriend. A real screamer. She was as loud in bed as she was quiet everywhere else. Her voice was real shrill. Hard to listen to, really.

This would go on for sometime. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes and then he’d cum. I could tell because she’d scream so loud it hurt my ears and the pounding would become all erratic and convulsive and then it would just stop. Ten minutes of silence and it was all start up over again. Usually two, sometimes three times every night. This shit drove me nuts.

Most of the time, anyway. One or two times, I’d be in bed, touching myself and then they’d start up. I didn’t mind then, timing my climax with theirs’. A strangely symbiotic moment. Very neighborly. And then round two would start up and I’d think, hell, why not?

He’d hit her sometimes, too, loud enough for me to hear it through both our doors. She wouldn’t scream or anything. Just a loud slap or two and then low whimpering. When she’d leave, either late that night or early the next day, I couldn’t see a thing on her, though. But I suppose he didn’t necessarily have to hit her where bruises would show.

I thought about calling the cops. Thought about it just about every time I heard him do it. But I never did. Whether it was cowardice on my part or paralysis, remembering Dan and his clenched fists standing over me, blood gushing from by broken nose, I can’t really be sure.

I knew I should’ve cared more, considering what had happened to me, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t let myself. I’d let it play out in the background and turn my stereo up several notches.

…

One day, though, around Christmas, it stopped. The guitar, the fucking, the fighting. It was silence, blissful silence, for one whole week. Then the smell took its place. This heavy, syrupy, rotting smell, worse than garbage, worse than mayonnaise left out in the sun. It slithered out from underneath his door and crept straight into my apartment.

Out in the hall, out of the range of our apartments, the smell was barely there, a twinge, a ghost maybe, but nothing like the thing lurking in my apartment. I thought it was something of mine, like an animal had crawled into my walls and died, but I followed the smell right to their door, breathed deep and nearly puked right then and there in the hall.

At first I held out, hoping Max would come back and take care of the problem himself. After two days when he didn’t show up, I tried calling my landlord. He didn’t answer and on his messages he said he was on vacation and wouldn’t be back to the office for another week. So fuck it, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I spent about an hour looking up how to pick a lock before heading over to his door and finding it was open anyway. I swore under my breath, shaking my head and then I opened his apartment up.

It was like Pandora’s box. The smell was overpowering. It hit me like a physical force and I staggered. I was prepared, though. I pulled a bandanna out of my back pocket it tied it around my face, blanketing the smell just enough for me to go on.

His apartment was hot and dark. The shades were drawn on every window and the setting sun filled each room with fiery red light, lighting up the dust motes, turning them into embers. His things were piled everywhere, dirty dishes and clothes—both his and his girl’s—porno mags and music mags, CDs and grease soaked pizza boxes. In the corner of the room his TV flickered, muted, casting blue light across his threadbare furniture.

Besides the scraps of food across various plates and bowls, there was nothing obviously rotting. I moved on to the bathroom. More of the same. A scummy sink and a scummy bathtub, crumpled towels on the floor and stubble everywhere. Nothing offensive enough to be causing that smell. So I turned to the bedroom.

The door was shut and the moment I opened it, I knew I’d found the source. It was a punch to the face, even with the protection of my bandanna. “Jesus,” I muttered and flicked on the light.

I froze, saw what was inside and then screamed.

The girl, his girl, was lying spread-eagle on the top of his bed, red hair spread around like she was underwater. She was completely naked save a pair of black panties. Her eyes were open and glazed over, a huge, clean gash running across her throat from ear to ear. Chunky, brown-black blood was coagulated everywhere, pooled and soaked into the sheets.

Shaking, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I was in the middle of dialing 911 when, of course, with my luck, I heard the front door slam.

Suddenly, I was in a movie. I knew this scene and I knew exactly what to do. Trying to stay as quiet as possible, I flicked off the bedroom light and snuck into his closet, heart pounding, trying my damndest not to burst out into tears. So I bit my lip and waited.

In the living room, I heard the jangle of keys. “Kay!” It was Max’s voice. “Kay, you up?” Footsteps across the living room. Pause in the doorway. “Kay?” Silence. “Christ.”

I could see him through the closet slats. He walked up to the body and dropped his arms at his side. “Goddamn it.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I told you to get up and clean this mess while I was out of town.”

I felt my eyes grow wide.

He lifted a foot and prodded her in the side. “C’mon. Cut the shit. Get your ass out of bed.”

He was insane, I thought. Completely and utterly out of his fucking mind. This was some Silence of the Lambs shit and I felt like I was about to pee my goddamn pants. I stifled a whimper and was about to close my eyes, when I saw it.

Something came writhing out of the girl’s—Kay’s throat, wriggling like the ends of innumerable worms. Only for a second, only for a single moment. And then the worms wound and wrapped around themselves and became fingers. Human fingers. They grabbed at either end of the gash in the girls’ throat, pulled them together. And then she was whole again.

She gasped suddenly, sat up and rubbed the spot where the cut had been only moments before. “’Bout time,” Max muttered. “C’mon,” he said. “I’m starving. Let’s order a pizza.” Kay nodded, hand still on her neck and, together, they left the room.

“Christ, it stinks.” I heard Max say. “Open a fucking window, why don’t you?”

Slowly, I sank to the floor. In the next few hours, I honestly can’t say I remember what I did. I was somewhere else entirely, unable to think, unable to feel anything. Time to time, I’d hear Max laughing from the other room at something dumb on TV, but that was it. Otherwise sweet oblivion.

And then they came back into the bedroom. Kay first, now fully dressed. Max was kissing her passionately, backing her up to the edge of the bed. Then he fell on top of her, writhing on her, slobbering all over her, making huge wet kissing sounds. He threw off his jacket and sat up. From his pocket he pulled out a hunting knife, a four-inch blade glinting reddishly in the low light of the bedroom. He grabbed the collar of her t-shirt and brought the knife to it, slicing through it like it was nothing. With a huge tearing sound, he brought the knife down the full length of the shirt, cutting it open, exposing her bare torso. Kay was breathing quickly, nearly hyperventilating.

He leaned over and, slowly, lovingly, he kissed her on the neck, and then on the collarbone, and then the breast, the nipple, the ribs, centering down to the navel and finally just at the top of her jeans. He paused, casting a wicked glance at her face, and then plunged the knife deep into her belly. She screamed, but he put his hand over her mouth, muffling her. With the same love and slowness, he began to drag the knife up her body, cutting through the skin and thick muscle. He must’ve been tremendously strong because he did so without sawing, without pause. Just steady pressure and the wet sound of tearing meat.

I swear I saw his yellow eyes glow in that low light.

Kay spasmed under his grip, her arms windmilling around, legs twitching like a frog that’s woken up on the dissection tray. There was less blood than I would have thought, but it still welled up over the wound, soaking him and soaking her.

By the time Max reached her ribs, she was still and her eyes were glassy once more. A stink rose up out of her body and I realized Max must’ve pierced her stomach and intestines. I suppressed the urge to retch, knowing if I made a single sound, I’d end up no better off than Kay—but I was too terrified to shut my eyes, too scared to move.

Panting, Max got off her and stood at the foot of the bed, admiring his handiwork. He wiped his nose on his blood-soaked arm and snorted, a grin playing across his handsome face. He let the knife fall to the carpeted floor with a muted thud and then walked into the kitchen. I heard the tap running and he came back with a glass of water. He downed it and slammed it on the dresser by the door.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m ready. You can come out, now.”

A moment of silence. “Don’t be shy,” he said, grinning wolfishly. “I know you’re in there.”

Something in Kay’s open cavity twitched. “There you are,” he said. Her organs parted with the sound of someone stirring wet pasta and a pair of hands formed and reached through the piles of purple and red flesh. The hands were raw, almost unskinned and slick with blood. They were slender, delicate, almost translucent. The same hands I’d seen in her throat.

Trailing that followed a pair of arms, two shoulders and then the top of a head. Thick black hair, slick with blood and fluid plastered the side of its face. It was not Kay’s face. I couldn’t even say it was a woman, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. The kind of beautiful artists and poets aspire towards. Angelic, pristine.

The hands took root on either side of Kay’s body, pushing itself out of her. Soon there was a whole second torso trailing out of Kay’s slit belly. The torso was long, almost snake-like and vibrant red. It was made of thousands of cords, like the flesh of an orange and I could see tiny pulses in the individual capsules. The thing inside Kay touched its rigid, mask-like face with its slender hands and wiped the fluid from its eyes.

I began to cry, silently, both of my hands glued tightly around my mouth.

“I missed you,” Max whispered, running his hand along its delicate jaw. With his other hand he undid his belt. “Did you miss me, too?”

Silently, a thin cavity opened up at the base of creature, just where it and Kay met. The hole was mucusy and fibrous and I was immediately reminded of the gash that had been in Kay’s throat earlier that night.

I heard the sound of Max unzip his pants and finally I managed to turn away.

The sounds the two of them made. It, screaming, endlessly, shrilly. And the animal grunts and groans coming from Max.

When he came inside it I had to cover my ears, digging my fingernails deep into the skin on either side of my skull.

And then silence. 

By the time I looked back, the creature’s fingers were disappearing back inside Kay. Max was beside her, his pants around his ankles, shirt off, his diminishing erection throbbing away on his stomach. He lay there for sometime, and I watched his breathing slow. I hoped, fucking prayed that he would fall asleep. Pass out just long enough for me to slip out, pack my things and never come back to this building again. Hell, maybe I’d just burn the whole fucking thing to the ground. Torch it like a wasp nest.

Just as I thought he might drift off, Max turned to Kay. He looked at her for a long time. Finally, he got to his feet, staggering, exhausted, and picked up the knife again. He walked over to her body, the knife dangling from his fingers, his dick grown hard again, and began to trace the edge of the blade along her thighs. “Wakey wakey,” he muttered. “Time to get up, little Kay.”

The fingers reappeared inside Kay and grabbed either end of her belly, pulling her back together. She gasped as her lungs started working again.

“Ready for round two?” Max said, playing with the knife.

I couldn’t take it, not again. I turned around and began to rummage through the closet.

There was a pause outside. “Do you hear that?”

I pushed back as far as I could go, hands scrambling.

Footsteps towards the closet. “What the fuck?” 

My hands closed around what felt like a boot.

The doors flung open, light flooding my dark little corner. I felt like a cornered roach, trapped, ready to be trampled upon. But I didn’t hesitate, not even for a fraction of a second.

With a scream, I leapt to my feet. In my hand was an ice skate. A moment, just a single moment of Max, his eyes wide with fear and then I brought the blade down on his head.

He didn’t even have time to shout or swear before his body dropped to the ground, a massive ragged gash running across his forehead. I could see the glint of skull as he hit the carpet, before the blood washed over it all.

Panting, I looked up. Kay was staring at me, wide eyed, her arms wrapped around her body as if to hide herself from me.

We stood there for a long time, not moving, not blinking. Finally something in my head clicked and I snapped back to reality. “Call the police and you’re dead,” I said, dropping the ice skate beside Max. Kay nodded, slowly.

And then, without waiting for a word, I stepped over Max and ran my ass back over to my apartment. It was a rush job, but I managed to gather most my things in ten minutes flat. Then I called my parents and told them I’d be staying with them for a couple weeks while I found a new place to live.

On the way out, I saw Kay, her pale, heart-shaped face staring at me through a crack in the door. I locked eyes with her as I walked briskly past, not breaking my stride. I tried to give her a look that I thought would be scary, but I knew I looked terrified. She just looked shy, alien.

Not a word was spoken between us in that brief instant, but I could’ve sworn I heard her say just after I passed her,

“Thank you.”

… 

I never returned to that building. I broke my contract with my land lord over the phone, told him, yes, he could throw any of my left over shit out in the dumpster and yes I’d pay any fines he could throw my way. Soon after I found a new place, on the opposite end of town. It’s nice, but a little quiet for my tastes. 

For weeks after I kept an eye on the news, but I never heard a thing about Max. 

Although I think I saw Kay at the grocery store a few days ago. It was from a distance, so I could be wrong. But if it was her, her track marks were gone and she was smiling quietly to herself. And I can’t blame her.

Because she was thankfully, blissfully alone. 

- Jamie Kinn

Max, Across the Hall by Jamie Kinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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