I am a night owl, a creature of nocturnal habits.
Nothing out of the ordinary though, it is just that I work as a waitress in a nightclub. I start around nine in the evening and I get back home around six in the morning. Usually I have a light breakfast and then straight to bed. Therefore I mostly live by night.
Talking about living, I live in a small three stories building in the outskirts of the city. There are two flats on each floor plus the two below street level. I live in one of those, Apt A; it doesn't get much light but I must confess that with my time table I do not really care.
Most of the flats are occupied and there is a really good relationship between the tenants, in this time and age, it is something rare enough to be appreciated.
Let's see, on the third floor to the right, you have the Martinez; not so recent immigrants from Mexico; the parents never managed to learn proper English. They're pretty nice though and Mrs. Martinez cooking is just amazing, almost as good as my old mama's. Their kid, on the other hand, hangs around with the wrong crowd. I really do not like the way he looks at me, although I am pretty sure he looks at all the Latinas that way. Across the hall you have Mrs. Danford, she is a middle aged Yoga teacher who works in one of those fancy, up tight Gyms downtown. She lives there with her dog, an old cocker that goes by the name of Ingrid.
On the second floor to the left, you have the Sterns; it is a pretty regular American family with two teenage daughters that should be finishing High school by the end of spring. The parents both work in real-estate. I guess they must not be so successful at it because if they were they wouldn't be living here. Across from them, the flat is occupied by three students, Jane, Jean and Josh. I know it is funny their three names start with the same letter but I am pretty sure that they didn't move in together because of that.
On the first floor to the right you have Tim Mathews. He writes movie scripts for the pornographic industry under the pseudonym of Dick Cruise. He's a bit secretive about it but after we went out for a few months last year, he told me. The flat across from his is occupied by Samantha, we used to work together but she wasn't made for the nocturnal life so she found a job as a secretary in an important law firm. At some point last year, she arranged for me to go work with her but I do love what I do and I had to decline the position.
The below street level flat across from mine was empty until this morning.
When I came back from work there was a white moving truck in the street unloading the usual furniture plus three very large crates that looked extremely heavy. Two of them were large cubes and the third looked like some sort of very large coffin. The new tenant wasn't around so I decided that I would drop by his place tonight before going to work, just to say hi.
My name is Marisol by the way.
***
1.
I knock on the door. No one answers. I look at my watch; it is already ten past eight.
I knock again, this time a little harder. Still no answer from inside. I am about to turn around when I finally hear a very faint voice.
"Come in," I believe I hear.
I knock and stick my ear to the door.
The voice again, a bit louder but still very weak: "Come in."
I push the door, it is open. The flat behind it, a perfect replica of my own, is plunged into darkness.
"Hello there I'm Marisol, your neighbor from across the hall. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to the building."
"Please, come in and close the door," the voice orders me.
I do not know why but I obey. I find myself surrounded by the most pitch black darkness. I feel the wall around the door in search of the switch and when I find it, I turn on the light. I look up to find the bulb, naked in my flat, covered here by a dark red piece of cloth. It bathes the room in sick bloody light. To my left, I spot the three large boxes. They're open. The oblong one is empty and the other two seem to be filled with what looks like dirt, grey and old dirt. The owner of the voice is nowhere to be seen.
"Please come into the room but don't turn on the light."
The voice is now more identifiable. It clearly belongs to a man, a pretty old man.
"Look sir," I answer, "I just dropped by to say hello; I have to go to work now."
"Please," this time the voice is weaker than ever before, "just come in here I need your help, it won't take much time, I promise."
I slowly walk to the room door and push it. In the half-light that pours from the living room I hardly manage to see a silhouette lying on the bed. The man is large, very very large, seven feet at least.
"Please," the giant says, "come closer, I need your help."
I move closer to the bed. I have the impression that the eyes of the man are burning through my skull in a dark red light.
"But that is impossible" I try to rationalize, "it's the cloth covering the bulb..."
For a moment I stop, thinking about the outside. The comforting and normal yellow light of the hallway is just a few feet away. I could turn around and the weak old giant on the bed could do nothing to stop me. I could walk away, could I?
"Please," he insists.
"What can I do for you? I really have to go to work."
"Come closer."
I come closer.
"Closer..."
Closer...
His face is a feet away from mine. Now, I am able to distinguish his features. He is old, so very old, older than anyone I have ever seen before. He is so old that his face is white, chalky white, and wrinkled, more wrinkled than a raisin, but his eyes are so intense, so powerful.
His hand suddenly leaves his side and wraps behind my head. I find myself immobilized. How a man so old could be both so strong and so fast? I do not have the time to wonder because he starts pulling me down, towards his face, towards his mouth.
"You will help me recover, youngling," he says to my ear before pressing his old and disgusting lips against my neck.
A terrible pain starting where the man has applied his mouth engulfs my head, my shoulder, my chest. It is as if I was crushed by a pair of oversized plyers. By the time it reaches my lips my scream becomes a faint sob. All I can hear is the old man sucking my neck in sickly slurping noises. I want to throw up. I try to push him away but his hand is still strongly wrapped around my head. I start to silently cry.
Finally, he releases me. I crawl back on my ass against the wall by the door trying to move away from him. Something warm and sticky is pouring down my neck into my cleavage, pouring down from where he sucked me... From where he bit me?
I look at his face. His mouth is covered with... blood; my blood. I want to scream, sincerely I really want to scream but I can't. This is too crazy. The old man doesn't look so old anymore, some life has gained his cheeks and chest, the wrinkles seem to have faded away, his hair is now ravening black. When, just a few moments ago, he looked a hundred and forty, now he only looks in his mid-forties.
"I'm sorry," he says wiping his mouth.
His voice is much more confident and strong now.
"I'm sorry," he says again, "I needed that so much."
