The Men Upstairs by Tim Waggoner Read Free Book Online

beneath the covers and snoring softly. I sit up in bed, awake but disoriented. Did I have a nightmare of something? I can’t remember—
    I hear a loud crash from the other room.
    I throw back the covers and jump out of bed. Liana rolls over, but she doesn’t wake. I stand there, shivering from a combination of being naked in the cold air and from the adrenaline surging through my system. I listen, motionless, straining to hear something over the triphammer thrum of my pulse.
    Another crash.
    I left a pair of sweatpants lying on the floor next to the bed. I grab them, slip them on, and head out into the hall. I close the bedroom door behind me gently, so as not to wake Liana, which is crazy, really. I mean, if two loud crashes haven’t pulled her out of sleep, why would the sound of a door shutting? But I do it anyway, then I flick the hallway light switch. If someone’s broken into the apartment, I want to be able to see them.
    Of course, this means they’ll be able to see me as well.
    I head into the living room, wishing that I was in the kitchen instead. I’d really like to be holding a sharp butcher knife right now. The hallway light provides enough illumination that I can see no one’s there. I’m confused. I know I heard the crashes come from out here. Was I only half awake when I heard them and still partially dreaming?
    I get an answer a second later when I hear three foot-stomps above me—halting, erratic—followed by another crash. The impact is so forceful that objects in my apartment—knickknacks on shelves, pictures hanging on the walls—rattle, and I feel the vibrations through the soles of my bare feet.
    Silence for several moments, and then more foot-stomps, four this time, followed by another crash.
    What the fuck?
    Another interval of silence, longer this time, then foot-stomps and a crash.
    I try to picture what’s going on upstairs. It sounds like someone carrying something heavy, hurling it forcibly to the ground, then picking it up and starting the process all over again. After listening to a few more rounds of this, I revise my image to that of a drunk who staggers a few steps before collapsing to the floor, lying in a stupor for several moments before rising unsteadily and trying to walk once again with the same unfortunate results.
    I think about the one Spindlekin , the drunk who came to the patio. Did Mr. Mustache continue drinking the rest of the night until he reached a dangerous level of inebriation? If so, why aren’t the other two doing anything about it? Surely they can’t sleep through this racket.
    Then again, Liana is.
    And maybe Mr. Mustache didn’t drown his sorrows by himself tonight. Maybe the other two are sleeping it off while their companion staggers around the apartment falling on his drunk-ass face over and over.
    I stand there while this bizarre cycle continues to repeat above me, trying to decide what to do. If the asshole upstairs really is falling down that hard, he’s bound to hurt himself. Part of me thinks that it serves the sonofabitch right for being dumb enough to get that drunk. But part of me thinks maybe I should call the cops. If the guy’s that drunk, he might need to go to the hospital. He might have alcohol poisoning. If nothing else, he’ll have injuries that’ll need tending to. A busted nose, maybe, or a broken arm. He’s hitting the floor damned hard.
    But another part of me—a darker, less charitable part—wants to call the police for an entirely different reason. Liana hasn’t come out and told me that these three men are the ones she escaped, but I’ve seen how she’s reacted to their presence, watched her talking to Gray-Hair, heard Mr. Mustache say that he and his Spindlekin are upset over losing something important to them. I’ve watched, and I’ve seen .
    All three of them can’t be the same men Liana told me about tonight. The older two, maybe, but the third would’ve been too young when Liana was a teenager. Maybe over the