The lady down the hall suggested I confront him, but what does she know? She may have been born during the war but that doesn’t give her any special powers of deduction. She doesn’t know him like I do, she doesn’t have to endure his nightly torture. I’ve banged on the paper-thin wall that separates our homes many times. I’ve screamed at the top of my lungs for silence. Still the incessant cacophony of slammed doors and of television channels turned too loud continued to haunt me. Yet these other forms of audio pandemonium paled in comparison to his infernal whistling. An off-key melody that feels familiar yet is impossible to place. When he isn’t screaming at the television set with wrong answers to quiz shows, his whistling is a constant. A piercing trill that travels through my ears and stabs like a dagger into my brain. The lady down the hall says he’s hard of hearing, that may be so, but I know he hears me. I know he knows his actions are driving me to the brink of insanity. I sense his malicious intent. I sense him plotting my demise.
The thought has crossed my mind, before you ask. Yet the fact that it has must mean that I’m not. I once heard that if you think you’re mad, you cannot be. That the insane have lost the faculty to notice their insanity. What the rational mind believes to be insanity, the insane know to be reality. It felt like the slow descent into madness, I was aware of that feeling. So at least I wasn’t completely gone yet. It felt close though, and I wasn’t sure how to go back to normality.
It had been another tough night. The din from my neighbour’s television thundered through my flat. I laid in bed with my eyes closed tight and wax plugs inserted into my ear canals. These did a little, yet not enough. The boom of each piece of dialogue shook the four walls of my bedroom. The piercing melody of his whistle cutting through the air and into my mind each time he walked to the bathroom. I’d been to the doctors that day, though I’m not sure why. I knew what the outcome would be.
“I’m going to prescribe you some tablets, Mr. Mellin.”
I took the prescription paper and threw it into the bin on my way out. I wanted to vent to someone who had to professionally withhold any judgement. I explained every detail, every feeling and thought that had occurred due to this onslaught of noise and sleep deprivation. Yet I hadn’t wanted a medical solution. Taking a pill was no solution at all. I wanted the noise to end, not to have my sense dulled into acceptance.
The noise would finally stop in the early hours of the morning, the amber glow of the dawn creeping through the curtains. I would sleep for an hour, two at most, before I had to get up for work. My productivity had slipped. Staff meetings where I was once sharp as a tack were now nothing more than an endurance test. Could I remain awake for the next thirty minutes? I’m sure the meetings were important, yet it was such a struggle to stay awake the words refused to settle in my brain. White noise. Everything had become white noise.
One night as the din finally subsided, I heard a voice.
“Hello, Simon.”
The voice sounded as if it was coming from inside of me. I asked who it was, though I believed the voice to be a figment of my imagination. An audio mirage brought on my weeks of sleepless nights.
“I’ve been with you since the beginning, Simon.”
The voice sounded like mine, yet much more ominous. It tried to sound soothing, but the malice oozed through. I asked again who it was.
“I can show you, Simon. Stand up and I will show you who I am.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Turn off all the lights.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Turn on the bedside lamp and stand in front of it.”
I obeyed the instructions of the voice.
“Now turn around.”
I turned and saw my room. Nothing different, nothing out of place. No extra body within the space, my shadow stood against the wall.
Then my shadow waved.
I checked my own hand, expecting to see it raised and waving. Yet it remained motionless at my side.
“Simon, we need to talk. I’ve never had to appear this way to you before, but now I need to.”
I shook my head and wiped my eyes, trying to dispel the visage before me. Still my shadow remained, now pacing along the wall, and waiting for me to accept this reality. I still clung to the fact that I felt as if I was going mad. I felt as if I was losing my sanity. If I felt that, then I must have still had at least one hand on the steering wheel of sanity.
“We need to end this problem. You’re not well, Simon. If you’re not well, then I’m at risk too. This situation with your neighbour must end now. We need to act. You need to act. He won’t listen to reason, so now is the time for something more… forceful.”
A rage exploded within me. I despised the man who lived next door, yet to take the step towards violence was not something I wanted to do.
“It’s a matter of survival, Simon. If you don’t end him, he will end you. This has been his game all along. A slow demise that no one could blame him for. He wants you to fall into madness, to get to the point where you can no longer go on. The person next door is not a man, but a parasite. He has chosen this building as his host, and he plans to spread out throughout. Once he has you out of the way, he’ll knock down the paper-thin wall and make your flat his own. He’ll continue to do this until he owns the entire building. This isn’t about you, Simon. It’s about everyone in this building. It’s about the lady down the hall. You need to be the hero. You need to end this virus.
I’d heard enough. I went into the kitchen, yet my shadow didn’t follow. He remained projected against the paper-thin wall of my bedroom. I took the largest knife from the drawer and returned, my shadow waiting for me. Without a word I drove the knife into my shadow, into the paper-thin wall. My shadow split in two and vanished, leaving behind a large tear in the wall where the knife had struck. I removed the knife and peered through the hole. I could see into my neighbour’s flat, yet he was nowhere I could see. His flat was almost empty. The only visible items the television that had caused me so much pain, and a large fleshy pod in the middle of the room. I stared at the pink cocoon, what looked like veins seemed to run across it like a road map. It pulsated, as if it were breathing. No, not like breath. It was more like the throbbing of a heart. I was so disturbed by this thing before me, yet I couldn’t look away. A small tear opened in the flesh cocoon and that’s when I felt a terror like nothing before. That familiar whistle crept out from inside the cocoon. A single red eye appeared in the opening and stared at me.
I covered the tear in my wall with tape. It wasn’t the best solution, yet it was the quickest I had to hand. The following night there was silence. No noise from the other side of the paper-thin wall, no slamming of doors or blaring of voices from the television. No off-key whistle. I should have been happy, yet the silence disturbed be more. Sleep soon took me, the adrenaline of anxiety only able to stay at its zenith for so long. I woke in the darkness, disturbed by the sound of scratching against the paper-thin wall. As the tape covering the tear broke, a slither of light broke into my room. I saw a long finger searching around the wound in my wall.
Then I heard it. The death rattle whistle. That god-awful shrill song once again stinging my ears. The finger returned to my neighbour’s side of the wall, but the whistling remained. The thin slit of light disappeared, and my room was once again blanketed in darkness. I stared at the spot where I thought the tear in the wall was. A sense of dread brewed inside of me.
The red eye appeared in the opening and stared at me once again.
I flung my body over and covered my head with the quilt. I prayed for sleep, for this dread to end, yet when morning arrived, I was still filled with fear. I checked the hole in the wall, and it was once again sealed with tape.
The shadow came again the following night. The usual noises had all ended, except for the whistle. This was now constant, an eternal loop that stung my mind with each rotation.
“You see now, Simon. You see why you must end this.”
I nodded.
“Take the knife you tried to stab me with. Take it and kill this parasite.”
There was still a lingering worry in my mind that this was all projections of my decaying sanity. Yet either way, I felt I had to act. Either way, this was the only option. If I was insane, then this would be the alarm bell that would let the world know. They would throw me into a room where I couldn’t hurt anyone. If I was insane, that would be for the best. If I wasn’t, and this was real, then the same outcome could occur. If they couldn’t explain the monster next door, they might convince the world I was mad. That way there would be no questions. Yet even if locked away, I would have done something good with my life. The old lady down the hall was irritating but she didn’t deserve to the horror of this parasite.
I took the knife and plunged it once again into the wall, creating another small tear next to the first. I continued this until the paper-thin wall was nothing but slits. If I’d have known how flimsy these walls were, I would have complained. But my mind had more pressing issues to focus on. I pressed my back against the door of my bedroom, facing the wall head on. I charged towards it. Though I felt a harsh pain as my shoulder connected, the wall fell through on the first attempt.
The moonlight shone through the windows. My shadow to appeared against the walls of the monster’s flat.
“Don’t doubt yourself now, Simon. This needs to end.”
The flesh cocoon was still in the middle of the room, still pulsating. The whistling grew louder the closer I moved towards the pod. When I was inches away the noise was so painful it became difficult to continue. I covered my ears and took the last steps towards it.
Then it stopped.
No more whistling.
The only noise a deep bass hum. Was this noise from the flesh cocoon? Was it the aftermath of the damage caused by the whistle to my hearing? I wasn’t sure but I let that mystery fall to the wayside and focussed on what was before me. I plunged the knife into the flesh cocoon and the pod let out an ungodly cry. The pod writhed in pain. It never moved from its spot, yet its upper half swung violently around in anguish.
I stabbed it again.
And again.
I continued to stab until the flesh began to fall away. It fell to the floor and dissolved. It bubbled like acid yet left no mark on the wooden floorboards. When all the flesh had fallen, I realised what I had done. Sat in a chair facing the television was my neighbour. Not a monstrous parasite, but a man. Now the flesh cocoon had gone, only the man remained. My knife was still inside of him. I began to panic. I turned to my shadow projected on the wall and asked for clarification. Yet my shadow did not respond. I pulled my knife from my neighbour and threw it to the floor. Shaking him with both hands I screamed for him to wake. There was no sign of life. I realised then that I was mad. That the last vestiges of my sanity had crumbled away, and I was left only with the realisation of my madness. I picked the knife from the floor and wiped the blood onto my shirt. There was no point in trying to hide what I’d done. I didn’t want that. I deserved to be locked away forever. That was the only way. I began to walk back towards my own flat, through the broken wall, and to the comfort of my bed. Though I would be drowning in my madness, perhaps I could now find some quiet. Perhaps now I could find some peace. Perhaps now I could sleep.
Then I heard him whistle.
The same off-key melody started up again and I walked away. I tightened my grip around the knife and turned to face my neighbour. He was stood now, though his body still appeared limp. He looked more like a puppet held up by strings than a man. A single eye was open, the burning red of its iris staring at me.
Was I mad?
I’d come this far already. If I was already past the point of no return, then what harm could a few more steps have?
I raised the knife and ran towards the creature.