Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29458657-20160808110436

This is a revision I made of my story. Please tell me if I can post it.

As time passes, I start feeling more lonely. The set of apartments I live in has never been a nice place to stay. Actually, it is the perfect place for ghosts to haunt. The lights on the hallways are dim and when one goes out, it takes months before anyone comes to repair it. There are also carvings in the walls which make out words. However, the worst part of this block are some of the residents. At night, the best thing to do is to lock yourself in your flat and stay with a bat near your bed, in case anyone decides to give you a visit. Of course, nobody would kill you, but they would still cause you harm. However, this changed.

Some used to say it is actually fun to live here, but this only before they left. I still remember when one drunk man jumped in my apartment with a knife, wanting to steal something or even worse but, thankfully, my father put him down. I still remember his malevolent smile and his mad eyes. I think I was eleven when that happened. The man wasn't taken by the police. He still lived in the block up until the bottles got the best of him and, as he got drunker than usual, he felt on the stairs and broke his head, dying.

Yesterday, an old woman was found dead in the elevator. It has been proven that she has been strangled to death, but no prints remained. We swore to not use the elevator ever again, except for one guy who left not long after hearing about the murder. As I said, I'm getting more and more lonely in here. Even that insignificant happy feeling this block used to give me when I was a kid is now and forever gone.

At this moment, there are just seven apartments in this block where people live: mine, Gregory's, Joseph's, Gina's and Clara's (they live together), Michael's, Lissa's and of an idiot who would rather leave, really. His name is Bruce and he tries to make life horrible for everyone, but no one suspects him for the murders because he is so weak and absent to the point that he just couldn't kill someone and hide it.

Gregory lives next to my apartment, on the seventh floor. He is one of the most friendly people in the entire neighbourhood. Greg links the murder of this woman to the disappearance of the little girl a week ago (which caused her parents to leave) and to the death of Lerry, who was found dead at the entrance with his eyes gouged out. To this day, Gregory remains my only good company in here. I should leave and take him with me, but I just can't afford to rent a new flat in another part of the city and Gregory says that he gets a morbid feeling whenever he tries to leave. That always seemed strange to me. Let's get to the present now...

I sit with Gregory in his welcoming flat and we discuss about the major problems we face. Of course, there is no bigger problem than the murderer who moves freely around our lifetime home. He always points out to the vague similarities between the murders. The people are always strangled in some way, no matter if this is the cause of death or not and that always there are no prints of the killer found. Greg has a notebook that he claims to be full of notes regarding the murders, but he never lets me see it. I ask him about a local musician and he doesn't even finnish his sentence, as there is knocking on the entrance door. Gregory gets up and goes to the entrance to open the door. I raise and go to the entrance and find Lissa. She says that Joseph invited me to go to his flat for us to talk. As this guy usually doesn't want to talk to me, I started going to his apartment in a hurry as this had to be interesting. I found him in the living room, dressed in his usual dusty suit and looking at a photo of his dead friend.

"Henry, what do you think is going on in here?" he asks.

"I don’t know, sir. Do you?"

"Look, Henry, the policeman who I called yesterday said he needs more evidence to find this damn murderer. Now look, I know you dislike me in the same way as I disliked you since you were just a kid randomly running around here with your big-mouthed parents. But if we want to survive and make justice, we must be united. Now, first I would like us to visit the two girls that live at the last floor. I just can't handle them by myself."

I knew what he meant. These girls were always agitated and unserious. I agree to go with him, we shake hands and go to see Gina and Clara. I observe that he slowly changes his behaviour as the situation worsens. We go up the stairs, over rivers of dirt and I ask myself again: how did my parents get in this hellhole? They say it was better in the past, but it just couldn't get so bad.

When we arrive at their apartment and knock, Clara opens the door, welcoming us with her cute, but uncaring smile and dressed as if she was going to a party. Joseph begins to talk and asks about Gina. She says her "sister" left to get a gun so they could defend themselves if the killer would attack. The laughing tone she had made us question where her girlfriend really was. After we convinced her that we aren’t the murderers, she let us enter. We didn't even make ourselves comfortable and Joseph already started putting her questions.

The "interview" we took her didn't lead anywhere and I'm dead serious that she is hiding something, although I don't think she's a serial killer. Maybe she's an accomplice? I'm quite sure she fooled Joseph. It looks like me and my friend will solve the mess. I hope.

I go back to my apartment and think about the situation. There are just eight people in here. I count myself and Gregory out. Six people. One of them must be the murderer. It just can't be someone from the outside. Or maybe Gregory wasn't right and we aren't dealing with just one killer. Living in this hellhole can make anyone go insane.

While meditating, I realize that I don't have a gun. I must be careful and get out of the block to buy one. A powerful knocking makes me wince. I take a look around my house, trying to find anything I could use as a weapon.

I find a baseball bat. Not the best weapon, but it should be helpful. With the bat in my hands, I approch the entrance door and watch through the spyglass. It is Joseph. His eyes are full of fear. I open the door and he spills everything:

"Bruce is dead! I just saw him in the elevator!"

"Wait, what? He's dead?"

"Yes! He was fuckin' decapitated! I can't believe what's happening in this block!"

That's the moment when I observe that Joseph is holding a pistol. I feel the need to hide, but then he turns and leaves in a hurry. I took my head out of the apartment and looked after him. Joseph was going up the stairs. Against my better judgement, I decide to follow him. I run after him on the stairs. Suddenly, he stops. I wait. Then he points the gun at me. I raise my hands without letting the bat go.

"Where are you going?" I ask him.

"To see the bitches!"

He turns again and continues on his way. We reach the last floor and Joseph knocks on the girls' flat door furiously. Clara opens the door and Joseph busts in, scaring them. I walk to the entrance of their flatand sit there. Gina points her gun at him and then Joseph points his at her. I sit at the doorway and watch. Joseph requests Clara to leave the flat, without taking his eyes off her mate. She does and stops beside me, at the doorway. Joseph shouts:

"I know you did it."

"And what are you gonna do, huh? Hand me to the cops?"

"No. Before I do that, you might do a lot more. I will kill you right now."

"Who are you to judge me?"

I watch in silence, expecting the worst, but hoping that he'll just put the gun down. Suddenly, he pulls the trigger and the bullet penetrates her neck. Clara screams. Gina loses her hold on the gun, putting her hands around her neck, before hitting the floor, dead. Clara, trembling, runs to the stairs, starting to cry. I am getting terrified and as I turn, my face meets Joseph's, more angry than I've ever seen him. Frowning, he studies me. I think I might be also giving him an ugly look, but I try to control my expression and just show bewilderment. I ask him:

"Are you sure it was her?"

"Yes! That bitch is finally dead!"

He tries to calm down. He breathes hard while I watch him and wonder what really brought him to that conclusion. Then he looks me in the eyes and says:

"Do you know where Clara left?"

"I seriously don't know."

Now, my position changed. I am no longer Joseph's ally, I am supposed to stop him from killing us all while Clara calls the cops. He turns to leave, but I feel the need to do something, so I grab his shoulder and he points the pistol at me. I raise my hands and watch him, assuring that he is going insane.

"Please don't tell me you wanna kill her too."

Joseph smiles and fills me with fear. He turns again, but I just can't let him kill anymore. Before he gets too far, I catch his right foot and he starts sliding down. Quickly, I raise the bat and hit him in his head two times and then I grab his pistol. Now, I am in control of the situation.

"Calm down, Joseph. I don't want you to kill anybody. We do not have proof!"

"Then tell me, smartass, who did it?"

"I don't know, Joseph, but do you realise that you just fuckin' killed a person?"

Joseph stands up and looks at me. He studies me. Does he... think I am the killer? I wait for him to turn, but he doesn't.

"Do you think I'm gonna show you my back while you have a gun pointed at me?"

He's right, but I am right too to keep the gun pointed at him.

"And what are you gonna do?"

"I'll wait before the cops come here and find you pointing a gun at me."

Son of a bitch!

"I'll throw the gun, but please turn and leave after that"

"All right. But do not throw it at your feet and let me take the bat."

It couldn't get any better, really.

"All right. You take the bat, but then step back. I'll throw the gun, but don't try to look after it, sir."

I raise my left hand to give him the bat. He just looks at me for a few seconds, then he yanks the bat from my hand and carefully steps back. I start wondering if this is really a good idea. I look at him and he looks back at me without any expression on his face. I throw the pistol on my right and it hits a wall. Now Joseph starts smiling and he turns, going to the stairs in a hurry.

A day has passed. Joseph is in jail for killing two women. I am in my bedroom with Gregory who is too afraid to live on his own from now on and it looks like he'll move to my apartment as it is bigger. I sit on a chair and read something on my computer. I hear him going in the hallway. Then he opens the door to the entrance and I hear a deafening shriek. I am so scared that for the moment I just can't move. After my paralysation ceases, I quickly hide under my bed. I try to be quiet and look for the intruder.

The bedroom door is open, whoever passes by the door also passes by my sight. The lights in the hallway turn off. Then someone steps in front of the door. It's a human shape, but not one that I recognise. Whoever he is, he seems to have a problem with breathing because he uses his mouth to do so. Then he steps in the room and I see that he is naked. Then he... lowers and faces me. He's a man, but one who should be long dead. He looks like a person of about 150 years old. He crawls near me with his mouth agape and looks me in the eyes. I never met him before, but a thought races my mind: that he is the personification of this disturbance that has plagued my block for a very long time. The disturbance that made everyone here mad and it's now reaching a climax.

We were cursed. 