Vampire Stories

I live next to a vampire.

His name is Fred and he doesn’t look anything like Edward Cullen. Instead, he looks like a big fart stain. I wish I never met him, but he came into my life about a year ago. My friend was in town visiting from New York and we were hanging out at my place with my husband Matt, drinking and catching up. We were having a good time, when I hear a loud knock on my door. I initially freeze up, thinking it’s the cops and we just got busted. Then I came to my senses and realized the narcotics I had sprawled out on my dinner table were well deserved after a hard days work, and at least half legal (thanks grandma!)
　
The cop knocks again. “I know you‘re in there! I can hear you!”. Matt opens the door and the dude standing in front of us is definitely not a cop, but a 98 pound balding guy with pale skin and a less than intimidating scowl. “It’s 3:00 in the morning and I just got home from work!” cried out the little man. “Can you guys keep it down a little?” Fred attempted to put on his strongest “tough guy“ face. One might have actually bought it if he wasn’t wearing such tight, girl shorts. I could have sworn he had the words “juicy” on his ass.

“What kind of work do you do?” I slurred (I was pretty wasted at the time). “It‘s a night business…that‘s all you have to know.” I wasn’t going to ask anymore questions after that. "Sure, no problem man. Sorry about the inconvenience.” Matt closes the door and we’re sure that is the end of the situation.

A few weeks go by and there is no word of Fred. In fact, we don’t see him at all. I’m pretty sure I made him up in my head except for the fact that there is a basket of fresh red roses constantly decorating his balcony. One Saturday afternoon I go to close our bedroom door when I hear something thump my wall. It completely freaks me out, so I open the door to see if a rat committed suicide in our room. I don’t see any corpses, so I close the door again. Once again, there’s a thump.

“Matt! Our crazy neighbor Fred is totally punching our wall right now!” I open the bedroom door again, only this time I slam it shut. That must have pissed off our neighbor because the thump was way more aggressive this time. I start kicking the wall with all my might and was about to throw a hammer into it when Matt yanks it out of my hand and tells me to stop.
Matt walks over to my nemeses’ door and knocks on it. There is no answer. “Don’t worry, we’ll be back!” I shout at the door. Later on, we knock on his door again and this time he answers. “Hey Matt. Hey Ashley. I was hearing a strange noise this morning so I decided to knock on the wall to experiment and see what was causing it.” By this point I am seeing red.

“Listen Fred. I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s 11:30 on a Saturday and you don’t live in a cottage in the middle of the woods. YOU’RE GOING TO HEAR NOISE!”

Fred turns his head slowly and I swear it’s going to start spinning. “You know, Ashley…I can hear everything. Sometimes when I come home from my “night business” I can hear when you and Matt have relations.”

I almost throw up my egg salad. “That’s enough dude. You are being completely inappropriate right now.” Matt closes the door on him and we can hear his scary vampire laugh behind it.

A few weeks (and many awkward nights) go by and we decide to put flooring into our apartment. I begged and pleaded for the guys to be quiet and not to wake the slumber of the pale beast, but as soon as they brought out their jackhammer, I knew we would be hearing from him. And just like that, as soon as that jackhammer touched our floor, Fred was knocking on our door. “Jesus, you’re KIDDING me!” I open the door and there’s that familiar fucked up face.

“Hey guys, this is totally inappropriate for you to be doing on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve been keeping track of how loud you have been and it hasn’t been good. Last weekend I was sick and you guys kept me up ALL DAY, with your shouting and strange conversations!”

At this point, all hopes of being a civil and decent human being have been erased. I am no longer Ashley Hobbes, but Lucifer, the wild Draconian. I got so mad that a clump of my hair came out. I don’t even remember what exactly happened here, but I do remember clawing at Fred’s face and making fun of his lame pants. Matt pushed me out of the way and closed the door. He tried reasoning with Fred and told him to calm down and that’s when I hear him say: “I should have done what I wanted to do a long time ago, called the fucking cops!” Of course when I hear this I charge outside like I’m Andre the fucking Giant. “CALLTHEFUCKINGCOPS,YOU PSYCHO!I’DLOVETOHEARTHEMLAUGHATYOURSORRYASS WHENYOUGIVEANOISECOMPLAINTATNOONONASATURDAY!CALLTHEMRIGHTNOW!” When I was done my lung collapsed and Matt once again pushes me back into the apartment. “I’m sorry, but I hate your wife” I hear Fred tell Matt as the door is closing…

A few days later, I went to the manager of our condo and told him the situation we had with Fred. And do you know what I was told? Not only is his bedroom nowhere near ours, but our good buddy Fred rents month to month! I’m guessing he spoke with him because the next day we received a typed up note taped on our door. It read:

Matt and Ashley,
I wanted to let you know I did not initiate a complaint with the building about the noise in your apartment on Saturday. The reason I feel I have to mention this is that I received a phone call from management today apologizing for the noise. I wanted you to know that after we discussed it, I did not complain (though later the noise was so excessive I left my apartment for several hours).

I haven’t seen Fred since. I know he’s still here; I can see his blood roses blooming on his balcony, and if I listen really close I can hear the faint sound of videogames being played. I know our vampire neighbor is out there, but hopefully he has found a new victim to destroy. I’m sure this isn’t the last of Fred, so I will keep you all posted about our next endeavor!