No one knew anything about the couple in apartment 240. They had moved in a month ago, bringing with them two suitcases and a huge trunk, but since that day, no one had seen the woman. Only the husband left the apartment at seven in the morning and returned in the evening. She seemed to have vanished into thin air.
I recalled the day I met the husband in the lift. Dressed in a smart, long-sleeved shirt and pressed trousers, he looked like an executive. He had aquiline features, chiseled nose and deep, blue eyes. However, a scar running down his cheek marred those beautiful features. He looked at me, eyes expressionless. Uncomfortable, I looked down, shuffling my feet the same time. Coincidentally, I noticed a few drops of blood on his white pants. Puzzled, I turned to ask him. Unfortunately, the lift door opened and he left in a haste.
Two nights before, I heard screams coming from the couple's home. Curiosity overcame me and I looked across to the couple's window. There was only complete darkness. However, the screams continued and they increased in decibel gradually. I stared into the couple's window, hoping to discover something. Suddenly, the lights were turned on. I saw a pair of wild eyes - the husband's. This was in sharp contrast to the pair of beautiful eyes I had seen in the lift. His hair was in a mess and he was screaming, screaming words that were not in my vocabulary. He shook his head vigorously and in its wake, his entire body trembled. To me, he was in a trance. I mumbled a prayer and went back to study. However for that entire night, that pair of fiery eyes seemed to be lingering in my mind.
There was something weird about the man. I thought . I remembered his trunk. It was a huge one. That day when the couple moved in, they carried it into their apartment. I managed to take a peek at that trunk. It was old and dusty, with rusty locks securing it. There were also some words, which I presumed was Arabic, inscribed on it. There was something more sinister about the trunk. It had an insignia of something evil. At that thought, I shuddered and shook that devilish thought away.
The man's wife had not come out of the apartment since they moved in. She did not even leave her shoes outside her door. There was only one pair - the man's. It was as if she did not exist. There were also no signs of any female clothing being hanged out. All this added to the enigma.
One day, I was waiting for the lift. I turned and looked at the neighbour's door. For six days, there was silence in the neighbourhood. The screams seemed to have stopped. I was quite thankful for that, for I was having my exams. Just then, the neighbour's door creaked opened. The man stepped out. He was breathing heavily. He dragged the trunk out. I presumed that it was quite heavy, as he seemed to be using a lot of effort. The door opened and he and I stepped into it. I looked hard at the trunk. It was the same as before. The locks were still there, the alien words still inscribed there. However, it smelled funny. There seemed to be something rotting in there. I covered my nose with my handkerchief as the smell was really intolerable.
After a minute, the lift reached the ground floor. I stepped out and the man left in a jiffy. He walked briskly to his car. However, he failed to notice a banana peel on the floor and slipped awkwardly on it. Everything was in slow motion - he flew into the air and landed head-down on a glass bottle. The trunk he was holding crashed open, revealing a grotesque sight. A badly decayed body with maggots wriggling about it was in the trunk. The body had long hair. I supposed it was his wife. I turned and looked at the man. He was lying in a pool of crimson blood.
