Who Lives In Apartment 48

Chapter 6: Who Lives In Apartment 48.

I managed to get signal last night. Desperately, I crawled down my bed and placed my phone in the windowsill above my bed. I'm getting weaker with each day that passes.

The rot is spreading down my arm, I can see the black ooze filling in the blue of my veins and I've began to it spit it up as well with each cough. Napkins full of black spit surround my bed which I fear may also become my coffin. My mind isn't right anymore. I cannot tell you the day, the month, the year. I don't know my apartment number anymore. I don't remember my moms name or my fathers name. I worry that this rot is corrupting my memories, as each time I close my eyes I'm terrorized with images of death.

Death, mutilations, suffocations and rot fill my brain as if its a cup with hot tea being poured inside. I can no longer control my thoughts anymore.

Also, I am fearing more and more for Noodles safety.

The food is getting more scarce, and I'm beginning to not be able to control my hunger. My desire for something with a bit more crunch too it. Today, I contemplated killing Noodles and eating him. I had never concerned myself with how a cat might taste, but now I'm beginning to wonder about it more and more. As the cans dwindle down between his food and my own, the idea becomes more and more appeasing.

The moment my phone got signal last night, I made the call. One desperate call for help. To get my beloved cat, the only thing I know for sure is real to safety.

I heard the dispatchers voice come over the line, she was scared of me. I could tell it in her voice. I almost didn't know what to say, I contemplated hanging up and accepting my fate.

But, just as I was about to touch the screen to hang up. I looked over at Noodles who with his almond eyes starring into my own, pleaded with me a silent desperation. A desperation to survive that only a cat owner knew with just one look. So for him I muttered a few words. I don't even remember what I said or when I hung up.

Something changed in my brain after I spoke, I couldn't control it. He just looked so appetizing sitting there, and I couldn't resist. I lunged off the bed as if I too were a cat, and I chased him on all fours gnashing at him with my teeth and clawing at him with my fingernails. He escaped me at every turn, getting out of my reach as he managed to trick me into opening the door to my room that led out into the hallway. Noodles darted for the door, and disappeared into the blackness that filled the hallway. I stood there frozen.

In the darkness were faces and silhouettes of people who I didn't recognize. They all had the same look in their eyes :Hunger. They were waiting for me this entire time, to open the door and let them inside.

They were no longer human and remind me of the hag. Each of them have rotting skin that peels off in flakes, gobs of matted hair and maggots pooling in the openings of their eye sockets. Their faces twisted into sinister smiles, as they tilt their heads in my direction. Some are old and some are young.

They rushed toward me at once, and I didn't have the strength to close the door. I could feel their teeth sinking into my skin, eating me alive as if I was a buffet. I tried to fight back, tried to crawl away. But, I couldn't escape them as they feasted on me for the entire night.

I crawled back into bed when I woke this morning. The knocking is gone. The screaming has ceased. I am dying. The dispatcher pounds on my door vigorously, and I can hear Noodles meowing at the door. He will be rescued, he will be spared, which is all I wanted.

I'm open the vent now, the large one big enough for me to fit inside. I'm leaving this journal for you, the next renter of Apartment 48. It will be in only safe space in this apartment, the vent behind your bed. I'll be there too, just further back out of reach.

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I sat frozen in fear as I stared at the walls of the apartment around me. Thick black dirt is oozing from the vents, and now I know what happened to the girl who made the call to me that night.

The one who called for help, for her beloved cat Noodles. He lives with his new brother Tiger, with my sister. Far away from this place, and now he is safe. My sister thought I was crazy, but I had to rent this place, to look for clues.

I had to know what happened to her. I found her body in the ventilation shaft this morning, after I called the police and given that I use to be a Dispatcher they arrived here promptly at my request. Once they arrived, they uncovered more bodies everywhere.

Bags of rotten organs were tapped underneath the couch cushions, bones were found in the furnace and fingerbones were found inside the water pipes. Human hairs were found inside of the mattress of the bed, and underneath the bed reveal bags of bones, and rotting corpses.

I suppose the worst horror of all, was the landlord of Cranesnest Apartments. I'd uncovered her watching me from the vents last night, while feasting on the bones of the poor girl inside that had made the call. She got arrested early this morning, and they plan to condemn this apartment within the next week. She'd been tricking people, killing them and eating them. Some bones were found to date back to 20 years ago when the first call came in to the police department.

I found her journal this morning, and now I fear the hag she refers too is the landlord that tortured her and eventually killed her.

With each day that passes, I too am uncovering more secrets here. I've started this journal of my own as well, to document my discoveries and the secrets I find.

I only have a week to uncover more evidence, and to turn it into the police station. No one believes the journal I found. They think the person who wrote it was suffering from a psychosis, but I believe them.

Because the strangest thing happened tonight.

When I walked to the door; ready to leave I was shocked to find that the entire door itself had vanished.

Now, I'm trapped inside Apartment 48 with only the dead to keep me company.