It was late night, and the old apartment complex down the street had just had it's lights turned off. Vanna, a young woman, stepped out of her home in this very dead of the night. She had just recently tasted how it felt like to be independent and on your own after she had moved to this place, but her two days here had been spent among boxes and rubbish bags. Finally, a sense of community and longing for human company overcame her, and she decided it was not too late to greet her neighbours.
She stepped to the door of the first flat, just beside hers, knocked at the slightly old door, and waited, deciding that whoever it would be, they would be on good terms with her no matter what, if she could help it.
The door creaked open slowly. She braced herselves, and began-
"Hello, nice to meet you, I'm-"
The full sight of who- or what- was inside stopped her dead in her tracks. It was a man wearing an old T-shirt and breathing heavily, a huge grin plastered on his face. The grin was too sinister and too creepy to be labelled as friendly, and Vanna felt herself shudder at the ghastly sight.
The man kept smiling in the same terrifying manner, turned his head to the side and kept his eyes so wide she wondered if his eyeballs might pop out. Her words were completely stuck in her throat, and the door closed, leaving her bewildered.
Two weeks passed. Vanna had been in her flat for two weeks, and still didn't feel home. It wasn't just homesickness or strangeness of a new place. It was also the sounds that came from the strange neighbour next door. Drills, hammers, as if something was being built. But most of all, a chainsaw. She wondered what might he be using chainsaws for, how strange.
Today again, as she cooked, the sound came. The chainsaw was digging in the most inner recesses of her brain, and she accidentally spilled hot gravy over her counter. That's it, that's enough, she thought. She flung off her apron, and went out her apartment, landing straight in front of the neighbour's old door. Today, she soliloquised mentally, today I talk to him about it.
She hesitated as her hand went towards the door. The leering grin and unnerving stare that had met her on her third day here had not escaped her. She tried not to think of it. It sent shudders down her spine, as if spiders were crawling on her.
Her eye dwindled to the doors around, and for a moment, she wondered why no one else had ever bothered to talk to him about it. Had they all just gotten used to it? She was here just two weeks, surely they must know more. And yet, in all her friendly neighbourly visits, during the gossips, not one person had mentioned the strange grinning man in flat number 4A with the drills and chainsaws.
Still, she knocked. No reply.
Again a knock. None. Just a light sound of falling of nails and hammering.
"Hello?" she raised her voice, "I know someone's in there. Please, I want to talk about something."
When her knock went unanswered for the third time, she grew frustrated, and turned her heel to see the landlord finally, before she heard the door knob click.
"Finally!" she murmured to herself. A good night's sleep without the sound of machinery is worth any amount of leery grins and creepy eyes, she thought.
But perhaps she spoke too soon. The door creaked open, and she met the face again, but this time, it wasn't just creepy and strange. The face was ghastly, unnatural, shuddering to look at, the grin plastered with more intensity, the eyes open wider, insanity rushing through them. In his hand was a chainsaw, stained red, likewise the seams of his pants.
He twisted his neck all the way to the side, snapping it, and pulled the chain of his saw.
Without thinking of it, Vanna ran. Ran and ran and ran. All the way down the street, never looking back. She burst through the glass doors of the police station, breathless and dishevelled, startling the young policeman at the table.
"Mam!" he stood up, "Please, calm down! What is the matter?"
"Please, please, help me!" she spoke with a raspy, shaking voice, out of breath, "I think my neighbour is going to harm me!"
Half an hour passed. Vanna was standing in the hallway of her floor, staring grimly at the old door she dreaded to thus open. After she had calmed down, the policeman had accompanied her back home, and to ensure if what she was saying is true, decided to go inside the same dark flat.
Ten minutes had passed since he'd gone in. Still, she heard the shuffling of his feet and rummaging of drawers, and she took a deep sigh of relief, believing she did the right thing. She heard him phone someone, probably his fellow officers? The man would be caught. She would be safe.
The policeman came out, but he looked frustrated and tired.
"Officer!" she looked up at him, "did you find him? Where is he? He must have something dangerous in there."
"Mam, I think you're mistaken," he shook his head, "this complex had an eviction notice on the back of its door. I phoned the landlord, and he said that there was no tenant for this flat at the moment."
The blood rushed out of her face. "B-but there must be something! Or he might be a thief!"
"Yes, I considered that, and asked the landlord of it, " the officer nodded, "But the security guard would have known, wouldn't he? He sits all day at the CCTV screen."
Vanna trembled and grew pale. The officer held her shoulder, "It's okay, Madame, I believe you have been watching too many horror films, or maybe you need rest." He smiled, "if you need any other help, please tell the landlord."
Saying that, he left the woman trembling and staring at the old door. Inside was no one. Nothing.
She gulped, took a deep breath, and decided that she couldn't stay here. Something was wrong. Haunted, even. For what she saw was real, not an illusion.
She opened her apartment door and went inside, and her ears caught a sound.
The sound of a chainsaw.
(This is a story I wrote a year or two back. It's not the best or too scary but I still wanted to share it ^^)
