In The Shadows

Chapter Nine: In The Tunnels

Sleep didn't arrive for a while and Elowen spent hours staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning. Many times she had reached for her phone to call Ivy or her mom only to remember it was somewhere behind the complex, probably dead and busted. She didn't want it back anyway. And even if she called them, she wasn't about to confide in them what had happened.

When she finally did fall asleep, she woke only a couple of hours later clammy and head pounding. The nightmare she had been having was stuck behind her eyelids and sat in the darkness of the room whenever she blinked. Blood splatters and needle-point teeth. Mr. Lensky crying for help even though he'd been dead already when Elowen had found them.

When the sun started to rise, a small weight lifted off her chest. The thought of Julian telling her to stay inside and out of the dark had stuck in the back of her mind like gum but now that it was light outside, she felt some semblance of security with the world waking around her. All the murders kept happening at night, in the cover of darkness. A fragile sense of security in the daylight settled around her and she managed to drift back off to sleep as the sun was shining through the window above her bed.

It was noon when she opened her eyes again and someone was knocking on the door. There were few important people that it could've been and Elowen lay there, hoping they would go away whoever they might be. If it was a salesman or religious missionary, he would have to give up sooner or later. But the knocking still continued, so she got up and staggered to the door. A police officer stood on the other side.

Elowen's heart plummeted but her face remained blank. Although, whether that was because she was a good actor or still mostly asleep, she wasn't sure. It was likely the latter.

The man gave her a friendly smile, his brown skin dimpling below his left eye. "Morning. I'm Officer Smith with NYPD. Do you have a moment, Miss Clarke?" he asked.

Elowen wanted to say no and slam the door. The prospect of going back to bed and pretending she had no clue what the officer could even want to speak to her about sounded more appealing but that would be the worst possible thing she could do so she nodded. Opening the door wider for him to come in and offering him coffee crossed her mind but it might've prompted him to stay longer so she kept mum, only leading him as far as the door to the kitchen.

"When was the last time you saw your upstairs neighbor Mr. Lensky?" The officer produced a notepad from inside his coat pocket and clicked the ballpoint pen attached to it. His eyes took in what he could see of her apartment, lingering longer on some things more than others. The realization that her bloody clothes were in the bathroom trash and probably had traces of Mr. Lensky's blood on them made her heart skip a beat. She tried to keep the stoic expression on her face even though the sick feeling her stomach from the night before returned. Did they think she had something to do with his death? Would this guy search her apartment?

It was hard not to stutter. She had told Julian and Henry that she wouldn't say anything about what had happened but she had never lied to a police officer before and wasn't planning to start now. "He never really comes out of his apartment. I've only seen him once or twice since I moved in. I've never even spoken to him." From what she had heard from the young couple who lived downstairs, he didn't speak English very well. That was about the extent she knew of the man. That, and he had his chest cavity ripped open by some feral girl the night before. Bile rose in the back of Elowen's throat.

The officer nodded and jotted something in the notepad. "Have you noticed anyone strange going into his apartment or lurking around the area?"

"I never go up to his floor," Elowen said, a little too quickly. The words came off with a bit of a bite. "I mean, he's two floors up. Shouldn't you ask someone who lives on that floor?" She belatedly heard how defensive the words came off when the officer squinted his eyes and noted more down. Curses at herself rang in her head.