The Apartment Upstairs

****

One day, on an utterly ordinary and unremarkable day, I was lying on my couch at home, watching TV, puffing on a cigarette and holding a can of cold beer in my hand. My wife was at work until six, the kids were at kindergarten. I had a day off and decided to relax from the morning on—I got up, washed up, went to the store, and now I was lying there, enjoying my rest to the fullest. On TV they were showing a replay of a football championship match, Russia versus the Czech Republic. And there I was, stretched out on the couch, relaxed, bothering no one, when suddenly I heard footsteps on the floor above, in the neighbors’ apartment.

Don’t think I panicked or got scared because of some stupid footsteps. At that moment, they made me angry. I was exhausted after what felt like endless days working on a rotational shift and I just wanted to unwind. Naturally, any extraneous noises irritated me. But was I really going to go to the neighbors over that? That’s what I decided then, and I kept watching the match, trying not to pay attention to the stomping upstairs. I lay there, trying to focus on the football, but the more I tried to ignore those sounds, the clearer I heard them, and the more they irritated me. Now, precisely because I didn’t want to hear the thuds, the bangs—whatever it was—I heard nothing but them.

I nervously stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray, hastily brushing ash from my hands, and put the beer on the small desk in front of the couch, where a bag of chips was lying. Stomping loudly with my heels on the floor in anger, I went into the kitchen and couldn’t think of anything smarter than grabbing an aluminum spoon.

I went back into the living room, the spoon clenched in my hand. Then I went over to the radiators and started banging on them with the spoon as hard as I could. I can imagine what a racket it must have made in the neighbors’ apartment—but they deserved it! Let them understand what it’s like to hear their loud stomping first thing in the morning. After banging for about a minute, I stopped.

The footsteps ceased. Apparently, the hint had been understood. I grabbed my beer and flopped back onto the couch.

What a farce—less than a minute later, someone upstairs began not just walking, but jumping. The noise was as if three big guys, stuffed with fast food, were jumping with all their might. It seemed my actions had only made them angrier. I sat there for a minute, waiting for them to stop this childish nonsense. As far as I remembered, a young family with a newborn lived up there.

I decided not to bang anymore. “They’ll get it out of their system, calm down, and stop,” I thought, and once again tried to bury myself in the TV. I even managed it for about a minute, until the sounds from above became utterly unbearable. Now it felt like the whole building was shaking in places; even plaster was crumbling. Apparently, I’d given them a good idea with the radiators, because now the banging on the pipes was so loud it felt as if someone were tap-dancing on my brain. My ears were ringing, and at that point I wouldn’t have been able to hear not only the TV, but even my own voice if I’d shouted. That was when my patience snapped. “I’ll show those bastards!” I thought, grinding my teeth in rage as I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt. I practically flew out into the stairwell, not even closing the door behind me.

A minute later I was standing in front of the brown metal door of the neighbors’ apartment, with its beautiful carved handle. I started pounding on it relentlessly. There was no answer. I knocked and knocked until I got tired of it.

“Hiding, cowards,” I thought, and pressed my ear to the door.

Strangely enough, I heard nothing. Behind the door was deathly silence. “They’re lying low,” I thought, and started knocking again. When I was thoroughly fed up and heard nothing but that dead silence behind the door, I went back down to my apartment. I locked the door and went to the bathroom, thinking along the way about what kind of nonsense had happened with my neighbors—seemed like such a decent family…

Sitting on the toilet and finishing my business, I was about to open the door and go out when suddenly I heard something that made my heart turn to ice.

Footsteps.

But they were in my apartment. I could clearly hear someone pacing steadily around my room. “They must have come in while I was out—I didn’t lock the door,” I thought, and was about to open the door, but then I changed my mind.

Even though I hadn’t locked the front door when I left, it definitely couldn’t be my neighbors. I hadn’t been on the landing long, and I didn’t see anyone coming down from the upper floor. That meant it was someone else, not the neighbors. Maybe a burglar? I was genuinely frightened.

I stood there hesitating, holding the bathroom door handle, while outside, in my room—the very room where I’d been sitting just minutes before—someone was walking back and forth. And those footsteps, whoever they belonged to, echoed in my heart. But the worst was yet to come.

Between the bathroom door and the wall there’s a small gap through which you can see part of the hallway. I bent down and looked through it, and at that moment a terrible bang sounded directly on the bathroom door. Startled, I jumped back, not managing to see anything. I painfully banged my leg against the toilet. The door shook violently—someone on the other side was pulling at it. I heard heavy breathing behind the door, the kind that makes your hair stand on end. My heart nearly dropped into my heels; I felt a sharp metallic taste of fear in my mouth. And then a thought struck me: it could be a maniac. At that time, a serial killer was operating in our city, murdering people—entire families—in their own apartments. And now it was my turn. I would die a painful death, and then, when my family came home in the evening, he would kill them too…

“Who are you?” I asked, and even to me my voice sounded pathetic and helpless. “Leave, or I’ll call the police!” I said, realizing the absurdity of my words. First, I was locked in the bathroom; second, of course I didn’t have my phone with me. But I desperately wanted to hear at least some answer, something human, not that dead silence that made my body seize with animal terror.

The banging stopped. I sat on the toilet, breathing loudly, trying to calm down. I sat and sat, losing all sense of time. I listened carefully. The footsteps were gone. Had I lost my mind? Maybe it was all a trick of my imagination, and there had been no footsteps at all? I cautiously opened the bathroom door and peeked into the hallway. No one. I dashed to the nightstand, to the saving phone. Thank God it was cordless—I grabbed it on the run without even looking into the living room and flew out into the stairwell. I called the police and waited for them there. Going back into the apartment was terrifying.

After some time, two police officers entered the stairwell. They immediately asked what had happened and went into my apartment. No one was there. In the living room, the beer was still standing on the table. I saw the policemen exchange glances, and I understood that look. A moment later, as if to confirm my fears, one of them said:

“How much have you had to drink, young man?”

“I swear to you, someone was here. I didn’t even finish one mug before all that running around upstairs started.”

The policemen still looked at each other skeptically.

“Well, let’s go visit your neighbors…”

And so once again I was standing in front of the brown door, not doubting for a second that no one would open it. I didn’t really see the point of bothering the neighbors—I was sure none of them had seen anything. But bothering those jumpers one more time was still satisfying.

The younger policeman rang the doorbell (I hadn’t noticed it before). Silence. No answer. He rang again, adding several loud knocks on the door. Silence again.

“They’re not home,” the policeman stated, glancing at me.

Now it seemed they were looking at me like a hardened alcoholic in the throes of delirium tremens—and who knows, maybe a minute later I’d have been sitting in their UAZ—if not for a quiet scratching sound coming from inside the neighbors’ apartment. It was very quiet, but distinct. It immediately caught the policemen’s attention, and both of them began knocking on the door.

“If you can hear us, open the door! This is the police!” said the second officer, continuing to knock.

No one opened, but the sound continued and even grew louder—it now seemed as if someone inside was deliberately teasing us. And suddenly we froze in surprise. Someone behind the door rasped, “Help,” and there was so much despair in that voice that the policemen, without further hesitation, called for locksmiths.

After about half an hour (they work so slowly), a thin locksmith arrived and got to work. All that time we listened at the door, but we heard no more sounds or words. Only oppressive, dead silence.

When the door was opened, a sickly sweet stench hit us in the face. I almost vomited from it, but I went inside with the others. What I saw is etched in my memory forever.

The entire apartment was flooded with blood. I had never seen so much blood before, and I threw up at the sight of it.

“Mother of God…” muttered the older policeman, who was walking ahead of us and entered the room first.

In the living room we saw two corpses, though at first it seemed to me there were at least five. The bodies were dismembered; the smell was foul and putrid. They had already begun to decompose. The locksmith staggered in horror and ran out into the stairwell. The policemen stood frozen, not knowing what to do. Their faces were pale.

The younger one was the first to snap out of it. He ran into the stairwell, and I heard him shouting as he spoke on the phone with the dispatcher. I also went out, unable to look at it all, and then a thought struck me, which I immediately voiced to the other policeman:

“There has to be someone alive—we all heard the voice…” And after a moment’s thought, I added: “…and the footsteps. I heard footsteps!”

The policeman looked at me and said:

“We need to check the other rooms.”

But I had neither the strength nor the desire to go back inside, so I stayed in the stairwell with the locksmith. A minute later, the second policeman came out of the apartment carrying a bundle in his arms. I stood up, and when I saw a living baby, I was stunned.

“The baby’s alive, just hungry,” the policeman said, rocking the child in his arms.

I stood there in absolute shock. The rest of the day passed as if in a fog. I only remember that people came—lots of people in uniform; investigators swarmed the stairwell, questioning the neighbors. Reporters arrived in search of a sensation; an ambulance took the baby away… I just sat in one place, and no one bothered me. I kept thinking, haunted by one thought: “Who was making all that noise if everyone except the helpless baby had been dead for at least two days? And who was in my apartment?” I sat there, understanding nothing.

Then one of the policemen—the older one—came up to me and led me aside.

“Don’t tell anyone about the voice behind the door,” he said seriously.

“Why?” I asked, not really surprised by such a request.

“It won’t make it into the case files, and they’ll question your sanity. You understand, kid—no one would believe us. I myself doubt that I heard anything,” he sighed heavily, and I understood that I wasn’t the only one struggling to comprehend what had happened. I agreed to keep quiet.

A month later, the killer was found and locked up for a very long time. And I was given a letter of thanks for saving a life. Thanks to me, the baby was saved—but I often ask myself: “Was it really thanks to me?” Someone or something wanted that child to live. I never believed in higher powers, but after that incident I realized that we are merely pawns in some vast and incomprehensible game, the rules of which humans will never understand.