I live in an apartment complex in a very populated suburb of Chicago. The town has a decent amount of crime mainly, because of the vast monetary class of people that the town holds. I feel safe here, but are really safe anywhere any more. Really, there are weirdos, criminals and desperate people everywhere now. There’s a guy that lives upstairs that gives me that icky feeling inside. You might why or how I have so much time to watch a complete stranger, I work late at night blogging for different sites and myself and during the day I watch my children. Plus, I’m a people watcher and I notice everything that everyone does. At least I thought I did.

From the time he moved in he seemed, well, strange. Yeah strange, that’s a good word for it. He moved in quickly with the help of an older gentlemen, maybe his father and a woman approximately his age. I had quick reservations about him when I saw him moving in, because I noticed him bringing a slew of acoustic and electric guitars. I remember telling my wife “great he’s a musician we’ll never get any sleep”. We haven’t heard him play once since he moved in. After he moved in I didn’t see him for a few days only seeing the old guy that helped him moved in. It’s been a long while now since I’ve seen that old guy.

He’s been here a few months now and I can count on one hand how many times I seen the actual tenant of that apartment. My wife and I here him all the time walking around. He lives right above and the floors here are super creaky. My wife swears though that she has heard a woman up there coughing or throwing up multiple times and at various hours in the day. We have never seen a woman ever go in or out of that floor since he had help from one when he moved in.

A couple weeks after he moved in he had a water heater break. It happened later in the evening and the apartment maintenance was working on it for hours, banging, walking, climbing up and down just making noise for hours while we were trying to sleep. The funny thing is that water heater was brand new, you see the complex we’re living in is under a multi-million dollar renovation of every apartment. His was just completed before he moved in. Then for the next few days all I hear during the day was banging, drilling and shifting of items. I thought it might be maintenance working on some things at first, but never seen any maintenance personnel come in or out since the water heater incident. All of that noise went on for a few days and it made me suspicious of what was going on. It sounded as if he was drilling into our apartment. I even checked a couple of the heat registers that are located on the ceiling for any hidden cameras that could peer into our apartment. Was he pervert, did he want to see my wife naked, me naked?

A couple months passed and most of the noise subsided we could hear people moving around, but my suspicion level went down a bit as I watched and listened for him less and less. Then came the day that the fire alarm went off. Our particular building wasn’t on fire, but it was the building that was attached next to it though. The police and fire fighters removed us from our building for precautionary measures. I know that day in fact, thirty seconds before that alarm went off I could hear people moving around up there. Everybody else who lived in the building had exited the police officer asked all the residents if we noticed anybody who had not yet come out. I told the officer I knew someone lived in the apartment above me, but I didn’t see him outside with us. The officer went upstairs to check on the situation, when he arrived on the third floor he found his apartment door to be open. He ventured inside calling out “Is anyone in here, we have to come outside just as a precaution.” he received no response. The officer did a quick walk through the apartment looking for the guy with no luck. When the officer came back outside he asked if I was sure I heard someone up there, I confirmed my previous statement. He did mention a funny smell in the apartment, but blew it off as something from the fire going on in the next building.

The fire came and went and we were allowed back into our apartments a couple hours later. Upon us entering our apartment the noises started again from upstairs. My wife made fun of my paranoia and told me he probably just exited out the back-door when the fire alarm went off. A couple days after the fire everything was back to normal we would here the occasional footsteps and creaking of the floor, but nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, I still never seen anyone come or go out of that apartment.

Then came last night, that lady, that lady that my wife claimed she heard before we both heard her this time. This time was different though, she sounded as if she was choking, crying and throwing up all at the same time. It went on for a good fifteen minutes. After several minutes of prodding my wife demanded I go up there and check on what was going on. I apprehensively took that one flight of stair walk to find the door to be open, just like the police officer found it. As I stuck my head into the door I could still hear the woman struggling, I called “Hello, hello, do you need some help”. I didn’t receive any response, I called out again “I live downstairs, you don’t sound to good”. This time I heard a faint struggled response “Help, please help me”. As I moved into the apartment I noticed the sliding door was wide open also and a horrible smell that made me gag. I moved quickly to the area I heard the plea coming from, the apartment was dark with wires strewn all over the floor. I entered what was suppose to be the master bedroom, but had no furniture only what looked like a bunch of televisions. As I walked through the door it slammed shut behind me, I quickly turned to find a woman pointing a gun at me. She asked me to sit on the one chair in the room and to shut my mouth or I wouldn’t see tomorrow. I was tied to the chair an gagged. She flipped the light switch on the wall which turned the group of televisions that sit in front of the chair I was strapped to. All of the televisions showed what was going on in my apartment. I saw my wife in the bathroom on the phone, I hoped it was with the police. On another set I noticed it was shooting our balcony and someone was climbing down onto it from the very apartment I was now trapped in. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t completely make him out. As I watched him get down onto the balcony and start to open our sliding glass door I struggled to free myself or scream. The woman pressed her gun against my head harder and threatened to kill me again. I continued to struggle, then she struck me over the head with her gun. the force knocked me and the chair over. I was dazed, but could still see the images on the screens. The force of me being knocked over scared my wife and she ran out of the bathroom. Right into, right into the arms of the police officer who was there the day of the fire. I didn’t understand, how did he, where did he? He grabbed her and placed his hand over her mouth, she struggled with him as he drug her out of the view of the camera.

As I laid there weeping, hoping for death a cell phone dropped in front of me and the woman said to me “that’s what you get for watching people to closely”. As she left the room, the phone rang and another woman’s voice replied “911 how may I help you.” I struggled to get out the word help through my gag. About twenty minutes later I heard a voice come from out in the main hall “Police anybody here” I kicked and screamed until they found me laying there. The freed me from my bonds and I broke into tears screaming my wife’s name.

Once I calmed down I was able to give the police my statement and description of my wife’s murderers. I was informed there were no officers matching the description I gave to them. As they walked me out, the criminal investigation unit was searching for clues when one opened the fridge. An odor overcame the room that nearly knocked everyone to the ground. With that odor a body fell out of the refrigerator. It was the guy who moved in that day, the freezer door was then opened and the head of the old man who helped the guy move in hit the floor with a bang. Just like the sounds I heard from that apartment all along.