last Friday I was watching Jersey Shore reruns with my dog Mila and a bag of peanut m&m’s on the couch. it was like 3:30 in the morning, and I heard a loud wailing.
for context, I just moved into this complex about a month ago, and i don’t really know any of my neighbors that well except for Mrs. Johnson to the left of me. She’s 82 and lonely, so when she offered for me to come over for tea at noon my second day here, i decided to make a habit of it, and she even gave me a key on Monday in case of emergencies.
to the right of me is a teen mom with 2 kids under 3. I hear her singing to them every night before bed. across the hall is a woman I assume to be in her mid 30s. Mrs. Johnson said her name’s Emily and that until about a week before I moved in, she was a very lively woman, always outside in the complex’s courtyard planting flowers and things in attempts to restore the beauty of the very old complex.
well now she never leaves her apartment, and I kind of figured she slept all day because the only time I ever see her is when she’s staring at me from her bedroom window when I get home from work (around 1 am) every night. I’ve never met her, and her garden is not in good shape.
well last weekend when I heard the wailing, I immediately checked on Mrs. Johnson. She was fine and asleep. I knocked on the girl next door’s door. Her name is Julie, and she heard it too. I got her phone number and told her I was going to check across the hall and that I’d text her if anything felt off.
the wailing had been going on for probably 15 minutes by this point. I went and knocked on the door across the hall. the wailing stopped, and I heard shuffling and then silence. like five minutes went by, and it stayed quiet so I knocked again. there was more shuffling and then three clicks. the woman opened her door up to the width of the chain of the top lock.
it was completely dark except for the vague outline of her frizzy hair and the glare of the hallway lights coming off of her eyes and gray finger tips gripping the door. she didn’t say anything. she didn’t blink. I asked her if she was alright. nothing. at this point I could hear Mila growling from my apartment.
after about a minute of me asking her a bunch of basic questions and getting no answers, I asked her why she always stared at me from her window at night. she snapped her hand back inside her apartment and finally blinked except instead of opening her eyes again, she opened her mouth. An awful smell, what I can only describe as rotten meat, came from it as she started wailing again.
I immediately backed up like three feet and grabbed my phone out of my pocket to shine the flashlight on her. the door shut the second the light hit her and then more shuffling. in shock, I fell to the ground the second I closed the door to my own apartment behind me and texted Julie what happened. we agreed that whatever was in that apartment was not human, at least not anymore.
it was quiet for the rest of the night. I’ve called off sick from work since. I can’t sleep or eat anything besides soup and peanut butter. I haven’t left my apartment except to see Mrs. Johnson for the usual hour or two at noon (which I am only still doing because it is the only time I forget about what happened). Mila refuses to leave our apartment at all. I’ve just mostly been listening and waiting.
I’ve left at least 20 voicemails for the manager and owner of the complex. they haven’t responded. about 4 days ago, I started to smell something awful (outside of the puppy pads I laid down for Mila). I know it’s Emily. I’ve mentioned it in the voicemails, but still no reply.
I’ve spoken to the security guard downstairs (Tom, 73, retired police officer, loves slim jims and long walks on the beach, deaf in one ear, does not shut the fuck up). he said he hasn’t heard or smelled anything and that there haven’t been any other complaints. he said he’d check on Emily, but of course he has not.
besides the smell, it’s been completely quiet until now. i hear it again, the wailing. it’s coming from Mrs. Johnson’s apartment this time, right outside my bedroom wall. I think I’m going to have to figure this out on my own.
wish me luck.