NANOWRIMO 2020

11.10 My Neighbor is Nice

Alan was waiting for the family across from his apartment complex to get home. He wanted to see the kids running around and enjoying the company of their parents. He wanted them to sit all together in the living room and put on some family friendly TV program like they always did at half past 6.

He checked his watch. His neighbors were late.

Normally he wouldn't care, but...

They were never late to the 7 o'clock viewing of the weekly family jeopardy show. It was tradition.

Alan got up from his stool facing the open window and paced around his studio apartment. He ran into leaflets and newspapers scattered across the floor and hit his shin against his small, brown coffee table piled high with magazines and reference books. He kicked his sleeping bag into a corner and marched across his dirty laundry and empty take-out containers to get to his fridge.

He passed by his double locked door and checked the chain and locks.

He managed to rip open the fridge door and peered in to contemplate the cucumber and half empty Arizona iced tea left on the shelf.

Alan shrugged and grabbed both, making his way back to his perch on the stool.

They still had 10 minutes before start time, but Alan was getting nervous. He shouldn't have been nervous. In all honesty, this would encourage him to go out and get food or maybe clean up his apartment but.

That family across the way was like clockwork. The kids started drifting in between 2-5. They always gathered to have a dinner together at 6. They always watched mindless television from 7 until each family member broke off to do their own thing, leaving the father in his leather recliner, snoring. Alan imagined he could hear the kids giggling about their dad asleep on the couch and plotting jokes to play on him while he was sleeping or when he woke up.

The mother would be in the kitchen, meandering around with the dishes and wiping down counters from left to right, and with what Alan assumed was a powerful disinfectant.

Sometimes the oldest daughter would be at the cleared dinner table and scribbling out notes or homework or maybe it was a love note?

Alan took a nibble out of his cucumber.

Where were they?

No lights were on. The TV was still off.

Alan brought binoculars up to his eyes and adjusted the focus to get a better look of their apartment.

If he looked just beyond the kitchen counter, he could see the entry door, with hooks and shoes leading out. The kitchen was barren, but looked lived in. The dining table had all 5 chairs pushed in carefully with placemats dotting each person's seat. The counters were spotless, appliances tucked into corners and the fridge had a child's crayon drawing and a grocery list and a report card.

Alan continued to gaze into the apartment across from him and took a sip of Arizona tea. It was bitter and tasted like fish, and maybe something he had had last week from Osiris' Chinese Restaurant.

He almost gagged. It tasted terrible, but something had also caught his eye.

The living room, where Alan had watched the family of 5 happily entertain each other and by extent him, had an adjoining room that was slightly ajar. That door was never open. Alan assumed that it was the parent's room, and they wanted to keep their personal, sexual matters separate from their children and kept it locked always.

In fact, thinking back on it, Alan couldn't remember a time where anyone in the family had gone into that room. It was just...there. Closed.

At least, that's what he thought since he didn't spend every waking hour watching them. Just their nightly ritual. That was all. That's what he would watch. That was fine.

That room...why was it open? And what was inside?

Alan set down his drink and wiped his fingers on his shirt and leaned more out of his window to get a better look.

Door slightly ajar. Vague outlines of a bed and a nightstand and an unlit lamp. Dark, inky blackness licking at the edge of the shapes to blur them out of reality.

And a mask.

It looked like a mask.

On the ground, right under the bed, turned towards him just slightly.

It was a face mask, the kind that kids would wear on Halloween or sport on a cultural festival during the new year.

What a weird thing to have under the bed, Alan thought. Maybe it had fallen and was kicked under. Maybe it was some roleplay the parents had planned. Maybe it was a surprise for the kids—

The mask disappeared and Alan dropped his binoculars. He fumbled at the strap and got them up in time to see the door closing and the mask staring at him from the door frame.

He checked his watch and his pulse. 7:03. 110.

Maybe he wouldn't watch the family across from his apartment tonight.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK THUD.

Alan scrambled off his stool and hunkered down in the farthest corner from his door. Barely breathing.

He was thankful that his lights were perpetually off and that he always double locked his door and triple checked it every time he passed it.

There was no way it would be open, and besides who would be knocking on his door this late at night? He didn't talk to the neighbors. He was quiet and kept to himself, never a nuisance.

He'd just wait them out and check the door later when he calmed down and put his binoculars away and turned on all his lights and—

The slow rasp of his door leaving its frame froze Alan's heart.