Nightmare Magazine, Issue 100 (January 2021) by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams [John Joseph Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adamant Press
Published: 2020-12-29T21:27:56+00:00

The building I lived in that year was a 1970s-era tower of furnished bachelor and one-bedroom rental suites, the best I could afford until I got my CPA certification. The elevators broke down a lot and the stairwells stank. I learned to recognize people by their faces, even if I never knew their names—the gaunt, too-young hooker I sometimes passed down on the street at night, loitering next to the Neighborhood Watch sign in nothing but a Maple Leafs jersey and short-shorts; a flannel-jacketed guy, black beard so thick you could barely see his mouth; a heavyset lady with a Jamaican accent I only ever met coming out of the mail-room, who always told me exactly the same three stories about her grandkids. I was counting days and dollars towards a telecommuting job I’d already interviewed for and a different apartment, so I kept my head down, nodding politely at anyone who approached me.

The basement laundry suite was technically closed after nine p.m., but the lock had been broken since I’d moved in and nobody cared if you ran loads at night, which was useful to an insomniac whose days were spent cramming tax law. More often than not, I found it easier by far to fall asleep to the washer-dryer’s rhythmic susurration than I ever could in bed. I was drifting off that night, head down on my arms, when the door suddenly slammed open: Blackbeard stood there, mouth working as though he was chewing taffy, staring just past me (the closest he ever got to eye contact with anybody).

Excuse me? I think I thought about saying; my own mouth might have opened, at least part-way. But it was already too late.

“You’re . . . very rude,” he blurted, before I could. “It’s not right to be—like that, you don’t have to . . . You don’t feel, don’t want—it’s fine, that’s fine, it’s okay. But you don’t, you don’t just get to—fucking IGNORE people!”

No warning at all before that last shouted word or the punch he slammed past my ear, right into the cement wall behind. Any potential scream choked off short, a hoarse gurgle; my gut spasmed like a full-body standing crunch, as Blackbeard shook his bloodied fist in my face. “You shouldn’t get to—you don’t. Get to do that.”

Oh, Jesus, I remember thinking, through a buzzy, electrical blur. This isn’t supposed to happen. I’m moving out in five weeks . . . four? I don’t, I don’t, I can’t—

Mimicking his own words without thinking as if he’d actually managed to hit me, so hard he’d gotten inside my head. And then, and then: the light fuzzed out as Blackbeard pushed in, eyes still averted but his other hand lashing out, anything but gentle. I felt his fingers grip my jaw and twist, thumb digging into the hinge; felt the muscle spark, my scalp heave upwards, like it was tensing to jump off my skull. Followed by pain—not the kind you’re expecting, though. Or me, either.

From within,

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