The Apartment, Part 3

Links to Parts 1 & 2 are to the left. -m


Red Cravat Guy and White Cravat Guy were in the bedroom, tossing things against the walls and rapping their knuckles against the drywall. I figured they were listening for a hollow spot full of "stuff".

The leather chair I was sitting in was facing the front door, though, so any time I wanted to see what they were doing I had to peek my face around the side of the chair and look behind me. My breathing was quick and shallow and every time I moved the chair squeaked like a horror movie front door. I sat this way for a minute or two, waiting for them to move into the bedroom closet, which was completely out of view of the door.

With my face pressed into the side of the leather I stretched out my leg so I could pull my phone out of my pocket. I fumbled with it once I'd gotten it out and it thumped lightly on the seat. Who knows how or if he heard it, but White Cravat Guy flew out of the bedroom and clonked me in the forehead with his gun.

"Ow!" I could feel a new indentation and a fresh bruise forming just above my eye.

"What're you doin' in here?" he asked. I gulped.

"Nothing! Sitting!"

"Good!" He tapped my forehead again, in the same spot, and turned to go. I faced the front door again, and he used that moment to return to my chair. He was crouched on the carpet this time, as close to the chair as he could get. With one hand he casually rested the gun on the armrest, pointed oh-so-nonchalantly in the direction of my very vital organs. The other hand he placed behind my head, tangled in my hair.

"Don't get no ideas," he whispered in my ear. I wrinkled my nose; he smelled like cigar smoke and permanently unbrushed teeth. Before that moment I had almost liked the smell of cigars. Nevermore. "Wouldn't want to hurt you." I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to think of something to say. I wanted to say, "Yeah? Well get outa my house! You smell funny and your brain is too small!" But, you know, it's quite likely that things like that have little to no effect on mobsters. At least, the lame insult at the end wouldn't do much except get me another bruise. And it probably would be more painful, too.

"I'm just sitting," I said, feeling pathetic for not standing up to him.

For an answer he chuckled in my ear, kissed my cheek, and yanked on my hair when he stood up. I waited a full 93 seconds before turning around and letting myself check on where they were. Closet. Good. Who knows why they were just leaving me in the living room? Whatever. It was better than actually watching them break my stuff; it was bad enough listening to it happen.

I re-settled myself in the chair and pushed my hair out of my eyes. I imagined I looked just fantastic, with damp hair and no makeup. My face felt dry and I licked my lips as I reached for my phone. I barely had it in my hand when it began to vibrate.

That's a good reason to have your phone on vibrate, by the way. If Italian mafia minions break into your apartment looking for loot, they won't hear your phone if it goes off, so they won't be able to take it away from you. Brilliant. Of course, the vibrating phone will probably scare the living crap out of you, like it did me, and I didn't even know I had any living crap in me. I pushed the button to unlock the screen and saw that I had a text message. Breathing a sigh of relief and glancing behind to make sure the Cravat Brothers were having fun out of view, I opened the message.

"Don't move."

Of course I moved, but only my head. The boys were still out of sight. It scared me to think that they had my number, but hey, they'd gotten into my apartment so anything was possible. I decided not to answer, so that they'd think I didn't have my phone on me. Dropping it back onto the seat, I leaned back and closed my eyes, trying to create a happy place involving kettle corn and rain and fireplaces.

My phone vibrated again, scaring me out of my happy place and tossing me onto the concrete floor of the present.

"Stop moving. They're there, right? In the closet."

I ducked in my chair. If the fancy Cravat Brothers were trying to freak me out, it was definitely working. But a tiny part of me spoke up just before I put the phone down again, and it said, "Hey, wait. This person could be a good guy." Stupid voice. I rolled my eyes, completely unable to agree with what my fingers were doing yet equally unable to stop it.

I typed, "Yes. Who is this?" and held my breath -- literally -- and ducked down, waiting to be shot in the back of the head. I could just see the back of my skull ricocheting off of the opposite wall, bright Tarantino blood spewing onto the new carpet...

It took forever for the guy to respond, giving me the nerve-numbing confidence that I really was about to die. The Italian Whoever They Weres had my phone number and were tricking me out of my last true hope for life. And then the text message came and I couldn't read it fast enough.

"It's the guy who died. :) "

There is a ghost in my phone, I thought. But I didn't have time to send my follow-up message of "Cassidy?" because suddenly there was another message, and it had the little camera symbol over the envelope. I opened it and my jaw dropped. It was a live video feed of me, sitting in the leather chair, watching myself watch myself on my phone. Creepy, but I kept my eye on it for a few seconds, trying to get a handle of where the camera is. According to the angle, I assumed that it was high above me, maybe near the ceiling.

When I turned I could see it, a little khaki cube attached to the side of a cabinet. I had the queasy feeling that it was winking at me, and my phone vibrated again.

"Stay silent and still."

Suddenly there was a crash from the bedroom, some sailor-worthy cursing, and the sound of angry Italian leather shoes in the hallway. I dropped the phone into the crevice between the seat cushion and the armrest just before the mobsters presented themselves before me. They looked... dissatisfied.

"We know it's here," Red Cravat Guy said. He took a moment to fix a loose cuff link, then looked at me with one eyebrow raised. "You hid it?" In a random act of insanity I decided to take the dead guy's advice and I stayed silent, staring at their shoes. They were very shiny and black.

"I'll make 'er--" began White Cravat Guy. His brother interrupted him.

"Nah," he said. "We'll come back." Before I knew it I was glancing up into his face, because there was something in his tone that made me want to pee my pants like a small child and it made me curious. I regretted it instantly, because the happy anticipation I saw in his sparkling eyes reminded me of the raptors in Jurassic Park. Hunted, meet the hunter. Oh, crapola.

And then, suddenly, they were gone. One moment I was holding back pleas for peace and life, the next I was feeling a tiny breeze as the front door opened quickly and shut almost silently.

The Apartment, Part 2

I'd suggest you check out the link to Part 1, over to the left, if you haven't already. -m

When I heard the bathroom door click, adrenaline rushed into my veins so fast I thought I was going to pass out. My heart was beating like a drum line. Of course my first instinct wasn't to call 911 or to scream for help or something; it was to stare, silent and open-mouthed, at the closed door.

Someone was in there. And they were making noises.

I mean, like, they were dropping things and moving things around. Like they were looking for something as quietly as possible. I took a step toward the door. I took another. I was within reach of the knob when I heard a crash and a muffled curse or three. My hand had been about to turn the handle and I jerked it away, expecting at any moment that it would open itself and a zombified Mr. Cassidy would lurch out into the hall, eat my gooey innards, and take a nap in his leather chair.

And then I heard a sound that really confused me: the shower. Then, a symphony of metallic ringing as the shower curtain was pulled aside. That same sound, again. I realized that I was standing like a puppy with my head to one side. Zombified Mr. Cassidy was taking a shower? What? I felt like busting open the door and confronting him, but a naked, sopping wet zombie was not exactly on the top of my list of Must-Sees. Maybe if he was... nevermind.

The shower stopped and I couldn't help it, I gasped and jumped back from the door, slamming into the corner of the wall. THUMP. The sounds of movement stopped in the bathroom and I could practically see the guy, frozen, staring back at me through the opaque door. I stepped backwards, back around the corner, and then suddenly the door was open and I was staring into the face of a guy with black eyes and thick black eyebrows.

He was naked. Well, he had the towel wrapped around his waist, but that didn't really connect in my brain for a few seconds. All I could really process at that moment was, "He's in my bathroom. He's naked. He's staring at me. Am I naked?" I looked down, quickly, just to make sure that I was still wearing my shorts and t-shirt. Oh, good. They were still there.

"Um," I said. He glared at me and slammed the door shut. "Oh, OK. Bye." I didn't have a chance to decide to do anything besides stand there like a stupid lawn ornament because in ten seconds the door slammed open again and the guy was glaring at me, this time in a black suit and a silk cravat. A white silk cravat.

"You live here," he said. He had a classic Italian accent that I'm not even going to try to replicate here. Believe me it was lovely, in that Oh God I'm Gonna Get Shot sort of way.

"Yes?" I asked, even though I had meant for it to be a statement.

"Where's the stuff?" And then I was staring at his tattoo, which I was shocked to have missed in the past seconds of pseudo-nakedness, and trying to figure out how the heck I had missed it before. The claw of a jungle cat was permanently attached to the space just below his Adam's apple, and I was sure the body of the cat was either on his shoulder or around the back of his neck.

I shook my head as I remembered that he was questioning me. Stuff?

"The stuff," he said again. He shook his head at my stupidity and heaves a sigh. Reaching slowly into his suit pocket, the man pulled out a long, black... whistle? I felt my body relax just before he lifted the whistle to his lips and blew a low, sharp blast.

He put it back, nodded and smiled at me, and leaned back into the closed bathroom door with his huge forearms crossed over his bulging pec muscles. I began to open my mouth to say something, but he lifted his finger, waved it side to side, and then pressed it up against his lips. Two seconds later someone knocked on the door, which opened to reveal a guy who could easily have been this guy's twin, except for the red silk cravat.

"Sit down," the first guy said. It occurred to me at this moment that neither of these men were Mr. Cassidy. They weren't exactly acting like the undead, and as far as I knew, Cassidy wasn't an Italian surname. I know now that I wasn't wrong.

Red Cravat Guy pushed towards me, sticking his arm out across my shoulders and throwing me backwards into the leather chair on his way into the back of the apartment.

"Hey!" I said. Finally, I seemed to be getting my thoughts and reactions in order.

"Shut up," White Cravat Guy said, waving a gun topped with a silencer in my face. Remember all that progress I had made with my thoughts and reactions? Yeah, totally gone. Totally and completely.

What followed was a very thorough, though messy, search of everything in the apartment. White Cravat Guy had already been through the bathroom, obviously, so the two of them moved on to the living room and the kitchen. In a matter of minutes everything -- and I do mean everything -- was out of every cabinet, closet, box, and whatever else could contain stuff. But they weren't finding the "stuff" that they were hoping for. I know this because every few seconds they would suddenly appear at my shoulder, stick the gun into the tender space under my jaw, and demand to know where the "stuff" was.

Each time I could do nothing but stammer that I had no idea what they were talking about, but you know Italian mobsters, they never believe you when you say things like that. So they'd throw some more stuff across the room, stomp on some fragile things, and otherwise make a terrible mess.

They were in my bedroom when I suddenly remembered that my phone was in my pocket.

The Apartment, Part 1

This is why you don't get an apartment on the fourth floor: someday, sometime, you will have to walk up all of those steps carrying 50-pound boxes of books and clothing.

Luckily, I wasn't the only one moving boxes. My entire family had decided to show up to help. Plus Leandra and Jeremiah and Phoebe. And each and every one of us had a lovely, salty wet swath of nasty sweatness down the middle of our backs. Whenever possible we would walk around with our arms up in the air, trying to dry out our underarms. It almost worked. Almost.

When the last piece of furniture was in place and the living room and bedroom were full of boxes and loaded laundry baskets and just plain random stuff, everyone else suddenly found something else to do. Leandra was having dinner with Jeremiah, Phoebe had a Skype date with William, and my sisters had "cool things" to do, whatever that means. Suddenly everyone was gone, and I was left alone in the apartment, reveling in the air conditioning and trying to slow my breathing.

It was so quiet. I lifted my damp hair off of my neck and turned slowly, taking in the damage. Not bad. This was do-able. I decided to take a shower before tackling any other projects.

With wet hair hanging in my eyes and making drip marks on my old t-shirt, I first made sure that the fridge was in order. Then I pulled all of my kitchen-y stuff onto the tile and set to work loading up the cabinets. But the first door I opened, the one furthest to the left, already had things in it. I put down the shoebox of spices I'd been about to organize inside and stared at the contents of the cabinet with my hands on my hips. Spices, all in cute tin boxes labeled by hand with what had probably been a Sharpie. I smiled, thinking that my sister must have done that. Reorganizing that stuff wasn't sounding so good, so I moved on to the next cabinet.

Glasses. They were plain, simple, and completely random. Pom juice glasses, plastic Disney cups, jelly jars... I was significantly confused at this point. If my sister had filled my cabinets, everything would have matched perfectly and been ridiculously cute and awesome. This was the work of someone else. On a whim, I opened every other cabinet in the row, and all I could do was laugh when I saw that every single space was already occupied with pasta, canned foods, and cereal etc. Sweet. Thank you, previous owner, for leaving me all of your crap.

It was too much to handle; I left everything on the kitchen tiles and went into my bedroom. There were boxes everywhere, and I hoisted them all up onto my bed. It was only after I did all that lifting that I caught site of the dressers in my peripherals and froze. Two dressers. I pushed my hair out of my face and faced the dressers. One was mine, I knew that. The other one was black, probably spray painted, with square black drawer pulls. I spun and looked around the room. The dresser had a little brother -- a bedside bureau -- and there was also a desk in the corner. I was slack jawed, of course. Why hadn't anyone bothered to mention everything that was still there? They just dropped it in and walked away? Come on!

I walked up to the dresser and tapped it with my fingernails. It smelled like cologne. Wait. I mentally checked myself after that thought. Cologne? The top drawer was open in a second and I was staring at the extremely organized contents of a man's junk drawer. I understand that "junk" connotes, well, junk. Mess. Craziness. But this was...wow. I thought I was OCD. This guy had built little ridges into the bottom of the drawer so that things would stay in their compartments.

The cologne was in the middle, laying down. I picked it up and sniffed it. Who knows what it was made of, but that stuff was yummy. I looked at the bottle curiously, and jumped. Prada's snazzy suave seal was on the front of the glass, topped with the coat of arms, all emblazoned in silver. The bottle went back into its little area, and I opened the next drawer, and then next.

What followed could only be described as a flurry. I went through the dresser, the desk, the closet, the bathroom. And everything was filled with organized, clean possessions. I even found a collection of cool beer bottles in the top of the front closet. There were clean extra sheets with the linens and vacuum, and it wasn't until I went back to the bedroom to decide what to do that I realized that my family had simply dropped my mattress on top of the old mattress, which still had its black comforter on.

Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe the apartment I was moving into was already occupied; as in, the previous owner wasn't actually previous at all.

"Oh shi-oooooot," I said out loud. I scrabbled for my phone, found the landlord's phone number on the emergency instruction sheet on the front door, and waited while it rang.

"Hullo," a tired woman's voice said.

"Hi, are you the person I talk to about problems with my apartment?"

"Sure," she said.

"Oh. OK. Well this is Meli Lyons, in 407, and I just wanted to know when the previous renter was going to pick up his stuff?"

"What stuff, hon?"

"Well, there's still a bunch of kitchen things, and the bedroom set in particular," I said as I sat in a recliner I suddenly recognized as not being my own. It was super comfy.

"What 'partment you in?"

"Four-oh-seven."

"Uh-huh. Jus' a sec'," she said. Faint sounds of keyboard tapping made me confident that she was at least pretending to help me. Then she sighed, and it was not a good sigh.

"What?" I asked.

"Nahthin'. Jus' someone was s'posed tuh pick it up. Guess they di'n't. Poor Mr. Cassidy," she said, like she wanted me to inquire further. The leather of the chair squeaked a little as I leaned into it, groaning to myself, not believing my day.

"Cassidy?" I asked.

"Oh, last guy in 407. Poor guy," she said again.

"What happened?" I was starting to feel curious.

"He died," she said.

"Died," I repeated after her.

"Terrible accident," she said. "Girlfriend walked in tuh find 'im with a bullet in his head."

"Gaa," I said. A horrible mental image flashed in my brain: a girl walks in the apartment door holding a bottle of wine. She's stylish and short, and she reaches out to flick on the lights. And then she screams because the love of her life is in the chair with a single bullet hole between the eyes. Shaking the image out of my mind proves just a tad impossible.

"Right between thuh eyes, i' was," the woman says, like she's enjoying the story. This random confirmation of my rampant brain creativity makes it even harder not to think about. And then I think, "This is his chair. I'll bet he was...oh. Oh no. Oh man." I launch myself out of the chair, almost dropping my phone in the process.

Mr. Cassidy had died in the chair I had just been sitting in; I know this because there's a large block of duct tape covering the headrest of the black leather. It's hard to see because the leather and the tape are so similar in color and sheen. But there's no doubt about it, he died there. I know it.

"Um, thanks," I say into the phone after I notice that I'm still holding it up to my ear. I punch the red phone button and absentmindedly stick the phone in my front pocket. I'm staring at Mr. Cassidy's chair and feeling significantly creeped out.

And that's when the hall bathroom door opened and closed with the tiniest of clicks.

Morinne's dreams

for zoe

Once upon a time a little girl woke up and discovered that during the night all of her dreams had come true. In fact, they were all lined up at the foot of her bed, which was especially awkward for the Cyborg Mermaid, who simply could not find a place to put her tail. The dreams all held their breaths as they watched the little girl's eyes flutter open with all the soft quickness of butterfly wings.

The girl, whose name was Morinne, stared up at the ceiling for two seconds as she dwelt on that funny 'I'm being watched' feeling. The dreams held their breaths even harder, if that's possible. And then, oh-so-slowly, Morinne lifted her head. The Prince and his Trusty Steed stood tall, grinning charmingly. Morinne hid back under her covers with a little squeal. The dreams all looked at one another, worried.

They didn't know what to do. I mean, what would you do? You suddenly find yourself out of someone else's head, and they just scream at you. It's quite the dumbfounding experience, no joke about it. Happily for the dreams, Morinne didn't make any more high-pitched sounds. She even pulled the blankets down a bit so that they could see her watermelon-sized wide blue eyes. Morinne looked back at the beginning of the row of dreams, at the Prince. He winked at her, and Morinne couldn't help but smile shyly back. Next was the Phase-Shifting Bunny, who actually never spent any time as a bunny anymore, not since he figured out that he could be a Stapler. There was just something so fascinating about being a stapler.

Morinne smiled at the Stapler, and moved on to look at the Cyborg Mermaid, who was still very busy trying to figure out where to put her tail. Aladdin, who was next in line, cleared his throat and threw his elbow sharply into the mermaid's metallic side. It clanged like an ancient bell, and the Mermaid's head shot up. Her cheeks turned pink, though one of the pinks was produced by the mechanical color screen that covered most of her left cheekbone. Morinne tilted her head. She couldn't remember dreaming about this Mermaid. The little girl continued staring, frowning a little while she tried to remember the dream. But the more she thought about it, the more uncomfortable the Mermaid looked.

Morinne began to feel a little guilty about obviously making the Mermaid sad, so she glanced at Aladdin, who opened his mouth as if he was singing. But no sound came out. Aladdin opened and closed his mouth several times, and he clasped his neck with his fingers, horror spreading over his face. He clutched at the other dreams, who all rolled their eyes at him and tried to move away. Morinne tried not to smile, and while she did she looked at them all and tried to remember each of their stories.

She remembered the Prince and his Trusty Steed well enough, but by the time she finished thinking about the Prince and began to focus on Stapler, Morinne's brain felt fuzzy and unsettled. She rubbed her tired eyes with her tiny hands and then looked at all her dreams again, determined to remember the Mermaid's story. But the Mermaid was staring in terror at the Stapler, who was staring at Aladdin. Morinne hadn't noticed, but the instant she had begun thinking about the Prince's story, everyone had started to fade. The Mermaid was watching the Stapler turn fuzzy like a badly focused photograph, and the Stapler was watching Aladdin, whose arms had disappeared before the rest of his body had got any sort of chance to fade.

Morinne gasped. No! she wanted to yell, but her mouth, like Aladdin's, produced no sound. She looked wildly around the room. All the dreams were disappearing, right down the line. The Mermaid sighed and let her shoulders slump. It never failed. Every time she broke through someone's dream barrier, they went along and tried to remember her story. Ridiculous humans. Morinne couldn't stop it now; the dreams faded and were gone in a matter of ten or eleven seconds. She sat up suddenly in bed, looking around her suddenly bland and empty room.

And then she was asleep again. Morinne's head hit the pillow with a happy little thump, and her eyes closed tightly against the real world. In her dreams, which were once again safe inside her head, a grumpy and uncomfortable Cyborg Mermaid tried to take over the world by turning everyone into staplers.

the end.