GOOD NEIGHBOR By: Elizabeth L. Boutin
Sunday, July 12th, 2009“You know, somebody’s going to have to do something about that neighbor upstairs.”
Mike sat up in bed, looking over at his girlfriend, Sheila. He agreed of course, that the upstairs neighbor was a pain. He played loud music all times of the day and night. Sheila and Mike were the only other inhabitants of the duplex.
“I swear, if that kid plays November Rain one more time,” he said. Really, he’d been trying to ignore it, but Mike could still hear the guitar, even with Jimmy Kimmel blaring loudly from the television.
Sheila giggled. “You know what I love though? He always drops the same note. I can’t help myself, I wait for him to do it every time.”
“Well I wasn’t a music major like you, so I can’t tell.”
She rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t listen, that’s why you can’t tell.”
He wasn’t sure what detour the conversation had just taken, but he was sure it wasn’t a good one. Even half awake he could spot one of her verbal snares a mile away. Mike stretched and got up. He padded into the bathroom and turned on the light. He ran the tap, searching for his toothbrush.
Upstairs, the music stopped abruptly.
There was a loud boom that shook the apartment.
“What the….”
He dropped his toothbrush into the sink.
Before he could say anything there was another loud crash, which shook the building harder than before.
Sheila, spooked, had somehow made two jumps from the bedroom and was standing beside him in front of the bathroom sink. She glared at him with wide eyes. “Mike!” she yelled.
“Do something!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“ That guy can’t be more than nineteen. What if something happened to him?”
“What’s that got to do with me? Call the police if you want to. ”
“A good neighbor would go check. A real man could do it himself.”
“You know what Sheila? Fine. I’ll go check.” Anything to shut her up, he thought. He grabbed his baseball bat and went upstairs.
He pounded on the door. When there was no response, he leaned over to see if he could glimpse anything from the window.
The first thing that his eye caught was an overturned lamp laying on the floor. Then he saw an overturned chair.
The boy was hanging from a rope.
Mike tried breaking in through the door, but the lock wouldn’t give. He took his bat and broke the glass out of the window.
He climbed in, running on adrenaline. The boy’s hands were at his throat; he was trying to hold on but it was getting hard. He reached the boy and grabbed at his legs. After a moment he was able to loosen the noose. The boy fell. But he was alive, coughing, holding his throat. When he could speak, his voice was raspy.
“What?” Mike asked, breathing hard himself, shaking from the excitement.
“Thanks for coming out.”
“What did you say?”
The boy raised a finger. There was a movement in the shadows. Feral eyes glowed in the darkness.
The werewolf pounced on Mike. He never had a chance to scream.
***
Later, Sheila came upstairs.
“Son,” she said with a smile to the young man, “I heard you playing last night, I am so proud of you, you’ve mastered that piece. Didn’t drop a single note.”
“Mom,” he said, embarrassed, but happy she’d noticed.
She winked at him, acknowledging their little secret.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked.
“In the back, getting cleaned up.”
He walked out just then. Back in his human form, he smiled at his wife. There was still blood on his mouth, and she kissed him to enjoy the taste of it.
Their son cringed. They seemed to have forgotten he was in the room.
“I do hope you saved some for me,” she whispered intimately.
“Of course. We can’t have our huntress going hungry, now can we?”
Walking back into the bedroom, she closed the door and changed into her werewolf form, so she could enjoy the meal that used to be Mike.
—
© 2009 Elizabeth L. Boutin
