Popcorn

Detective McConaughey was the first to arrive on the scene. An elderly woman had called the operator and reported a scream coming from her neighbours' apartment. With his gun on hand he broke down the door. The furniture inside was covered in now brown sheets, with dust component in the air so high that he started coughing immediately after entering. On the walls and floor there was so much dirt that it seemed like the apartment had not been touched for years and the lack of sunlight made the apartment damp and musty. For some strange reason the curtains had not been taken down and were closed.

He looked around leaving his foot prints in the filth with a strange gut feeling that he had never had before but found no evidence of the apartment seeing any recent activity apart from his own. He talked to the old lady who was in a wheelchair easing her that there was nothing to be worried about as well as that it was just an empty apartment. She however insisted that she heard a shrill scream from the flat.

McConaughey gave in and said “Ma’am I realise it’s, 3:30 in the morning and you’re scared. Don’t worry I’ll have the unit sealed off.” Back at the station he met his partner detective Jenkins whom he had asked to look into the apartment.

Jenkins informed him that this wasn’t the first case regarding the home unit. “There have been other cases of disturbances like screams, thudding sounds, loud pops ‘as if someone was making large amounts of popcorn and accompanied by buttery smells’ from that particular apartment over the span of 40 years. There have always been missing persons cases associated with it but they are all cold cases. There were no leads ever found. It has been searched multiple times but nothing turned up. Apparently, it had been abandoned after the last next-door neighbours went missing. Every time the apartment has been found untouched. There are about 7 I found right now. Currently the next-door unit is used by one Asia Layton.”

“Just like today” McConaughey replied. “There was no evidence of any recent activity in the apartment”.

After a moment of thinking McConaughey said “There has to be something, I’ll ask the uniformed officers to check in with Miss Layton and the superintendent in the morning. Let’s head home, it’s been a long day. Check for more cases when you come back today.”

Thereafter a few hours around 10 McConaughey received word from the officers that Miss Layton was missing. No one had heard from her in three days and she hadn’t reported to work either. The superintendent had been ill and on bed rest for seven days who informed that only the old lady and Asia lived on that floor, the other two apartments have not been in use longer than he had worked there. Concerned he asked a CSU sweep of the unit and Asia's unit as well.

CSU too was unable to find any useful evidence. For the next couple of days there were missing fliers posted all over town and the local news and radio stations broadcasted the news asking for any information on miss Layton, word was spread over the internet about the missing case of Layton but all their efforts seemed to be in vain. No evidence of any form had been found.

One day McConaughey's friend Sarah came to him in need of urgent help. She needed a place to stay. He remembered the second unused unit in Asia’s complex. He told her about it and Sarah was seemingly so desperate for a lodging that she immediately agreed with the proposition.

After settling in Sarah threw a house warming party with McConaughey in attendance late at night. An hour into the party McConaughey heard the popping of the popcorn with a buttery smell. He looked around but found none. He then remembered what Jenkins had told him about the apartment that the old lady had reported. He went in to investigate to find the curtains now open and a shadow of a wheelchair looming in the moonlight.

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Jenkins hurried over to Sarah's new lodging looking for McConaughey. Not finding him in the apartment Sarah and Jenkins barged into her new neighbouring unit only to find it empty and untouched exactly as McConaughey had found it on day one.