On-screen, a man in a black hood was discussing his time as a hit man for the Mafia.
“You indicated you used a shotgun,” said the interviewer from somewhere off-camera.
When the hit man responded, it was in a digitally distorted voice, unnaturally deep, almost demonic. “Not just any shotgun, a sawed-off,” he said. “He was at a red light and I pulled up alongside him and fired both barrels. He never saw the green. I wasn’t expecting the blast to tear his head off.”
And then, for just a moment, the screen seemed to shift as she watched, flashing strangely, giving her a glimpse of something else. In the place of the hit man she had a brief glimpse of a human skeleton, several holes broken through its skull.
She blinked and it was gone, the shadowed hit man in its place.
She groped for the remote, but couldn’t find it. She closed her eyes, tried to trick herself into sleep but it wasn’t working. She heard, from the TV, in that same distorted voice: “I expected them to die… But I didn’t realize I would grow to enjoy the killings.”
She opened her eyes and looked at the TV, but instead of the hooded hit man, she saw a filthy room. Hanging from the ceiling was a wrought-iron cage, crudely made. A chicken had been crammed into it. The creature filled the cage so fully that it was unable to move or turn around. Its feathers bowed against the cage’s bars or poked out. Only its head and neck could move. Its head darted desperately around, its movements shaky, its eye darting about. And then suddenly there was a rapid movement, a flash on the screen and the chicken was gone, the cage bent and torn open and half gone, with blood dripping slow down the bars.
Did I change the channel? she wondered. But the voice that was speaking over the image of the cage was that of the interviewer, rambling on. Maybe something was wrong with the TV.
Or maybe something was wrong with her.
And then the camera angle slowly shifted to reveal a strange face very close to the lens. It didn’t look quite human. It was oddly colored, almost brick red. Maybe a trick of the light, she thought, and then thought, What the hell is this? The face smiled and the teeth the open mouth revealed were long and sharp, filed. No, definitely not human. Some sort of network problem where two signals had gotten crossed.
“After a while,” said the distorted voice—and strangely enough the demonic mouth on the screen seemed to be moving in time with it, as if it were actually the one saying the words—“I started taking a few liberties. I wasn’t killing just for hire. I did that, but I’d also just drive around until I found someone and if it was safe, well, I had my sawed-off handy.”
The eyes were red and glowing like two coals. The whole time the voice was talking, these eyes seemed to be staring straight at her. Like they saw her through the TV. It felt like they were trying to suck her in.
Fuck, she thought, what’s wrong with me? She groaned, searched again for the remote. When she didn’t find it, she rolled over and reached for a glass of water on the bedside table. She drank from it, but there was almost nothing in it, just a half a swallow.
“Fuck,” she said. Still thirsty, she got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, turning the TV off on the way.
The bathroom light nearly blinded her. She stayed still, blinking and staring down, letting her vision adjust, then moved to the sink. She filled her water glass and took a long drink. Forgot to call my mom, she realized as she drank. She filled the glass a second time and then exited the bathroom.
But on the way back to the bed, something felt wrong. The space felt different. It was different. There was something different that she couldn’t quite put her finger on for a moment and then she realized what it was: no dog smell, no dog noises, nobody rubbing up against her leg and asking to be petted when she was on the way back to the bed. Where was Steve?
She whistled but Steve didn’t come. She looked around the bedroom and then wandered out into the front part of the apartment. But Steve didn’t seem to be there either. And the apartment door was open.
“Aw, man, what the fuck?” she said.
Just to make sure, she went through the apartment again, whispering his name. But he wasn’t there. So she threw her faux fur coat over her pajamas and stepped out into the hallway.
Steve was there. He had gotten out somehow, or maybe the door hadn’t latched all the way when Whitey had left. He was at the end of the hall, scratching at the door to apartment five.
She leaned out in the hall and hissed at him. “Steve,” she whispered, “get over here… Get over here!”
But Steve ignored her. He just kept scratching at the door.
She tried a few more times and then gave up, began tiptoeing down the hall toward her dog.
“What the fuck, man?” she whispered to him once she was there. “You’re scratching up the wood. Lacy’s going to kill me.”
Steve whined and tucked his tail down but wouldn’t look away from the door. She bent down next to him and grabbed him by his collar.
“Buddy, how did you get out? Let’s go back to bed.”
She tugged on his collar and slowly pulled him away from the door. He didn’t seem to want to go, and at first braced his legs. But after a while she got him moving. He kept whining, though, all the way back to the apartment.
She was just reaching her own door when she heard something behind her, a slow creaking sound. She turned to see the door to apartment five slowly sliding ajar, finally falling fully open. Was there someone in there after all? Yes, there was definitely a light, dim but there, and pulsating a little, and reddish as well. She couldn’t see the source of the light exactly, just the throwback of its glow. The source of the light itself was somewhere deep within the apartment, out of sight.
She stayed staring at the open door for a long while, wondering what to do. After a moment she realized she was still half bent over, still gripping Steve’s collar. Steve, though, she realized, was no longer whining. Instead, tail between his legs, he was shivering.
“It’s okay, boy,” she said. Quickly she opened up her apartment and thrust him inside, closing the door after him. Immediately, once he was in, he began to scratch at the door and whine. Heidi ignored him, instead turned to face apartment five.
Yes, a reddish glow, but the glow somehow didn’t seem to illuminate the apartment. She could see the light, but somehow it didn’t make it easier to see anything in the apartment. It was almost like darkness, a reddish darkness that hid things rather than revealed them.
Heidi took a step forward. Then another. She found herself drawn toward the apartment on the one hand, and repelled by it on the other. She hesitated, but felt one foot, almost in spite of herself, slowly lift from the floor and slide forward, dragging her closer. And then again.
As she neared the apartment, the red glow grew stronger. I shouldn’t do this, she told herself. I should go back into my apartment and wait for morning to come, then talk to Lacy. But she was too curious to know what the light was to be able to stop now.
As she came closer she slowed down, barely moving now, staying close to one wall. The glow was still there and now she could see a little of the apartment in it. What she could see of it was bare, empty. She came closer, and then slowly leaned around the door frame and peered in.
The glow wasn’t even coming from the apartment, she realized, but from a window in the back corner of the apartment, from something behind the window that was partly covered by ragged curtains.