Psycho Apartment Novels & Stories

APARTMENT 1B BULLET Monday, 3:24 PM Five blue. Seven red. Four yellow. He blinked the sleep from his eyes. Lifted his head from the mattress. Saw the shit hole on Eidolon Avenue he called home. The TV with the cracked screen sitting on the plastic crate. The yellowing walls with the rust colored streaks running from ceiling to floor. The scattered pizza boxes and cheeseburger wrappers. And his friends . . . five blue, seven red, four yellow

"Can you just imagine yourself on the 72nd floor of this 4019 square inch-" "Sorry, but I have this thing with heights." I cut her off. "No worries." We got to the next place, and it was Jasper who said he didn’t like it, and Cooper disapproved of the other apartment after that. “Now, we have this fully furnished 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath apartment, comes with a private parking space and access to a park across the road." "Fully furnished? Did someone die here?" Cooper asked. I gave him a look.

If she had paid much attention to his profile she would have noticed that gender as he/him and not a her/she. "I am not like those girls and this doesn't change anything. I can't share my apartment with you." she said firmly rising to her feet. "You'll have to look for some place else, sorry for wasting your time and that's final." she walked out of the cafe with her bag slung over her shoulder. She opened the app as she walked on the street, tapping on the for rent button. She heaved out a sigh, turning her head backwards to glance at the sky, the clouds were getting darker and heavier. Great it was going to rain and she was without a roommate.

Saint asked as he came up behind me. I nodded. Torn between tears and giggles, a watery snort escaped before I could calm myself down. Perfect copies of my apartment sat like some kind of building project a little kid put together. Rows upon rows, columns after columns of my apartment lined the street. And they weren't only covering the warehouse where Scarlet used to hide away. No, these apartments were running the length of the street in both directions. Stacked about five apartments high along the full length of it. The worst part was the fact that the wall that faced the street...huge walls of windows. Anyone walking down the street could see into them.

Plus Mike the office boy lived just a few floors up so at least she would have an acquaintance here. “As I was saying, Logan was kind enough to introduce me to this place last week and I’m telling you, Mrs Winters, you won’t be able to find a cheaper place than this,” Mike rambled on as he gave her a little tour around the apartment, not that there was anything much to see. Her unit was on the fourth floor and because the apartment was fairly new, the neighbouring units were empty, save for an old lady who lived next door. Pepper had hopped onto the bandwagon to view the place. She slid the window up, poked her head out and cupped her mouth shouting at no in particular, “Hello!” No one greet

Literally. “You know,” I teased, watching the smoke rise from the small steel drum, “you could’ve just deleted them.” “Not the same,” he said, tossing another envelope in. “This is therapy.” We moved into the apartment on 5th the following morning. It wasn’t perfect—there were leaky faucets and stubborn windows and a noisy dog upstairs that barked at shadows—but it was ours. The first night, we didn’t talk much. We lay in bed, his arm around me, the city humming just outside the window.

The quiet of a place that had decided long ago that noise was a form of bad manners. The apartment sat on the fourth floor of a building with a stone front and iron balconies, on a street so calm that I could hear my own breathing from the hallway. Two bedrooms. A kitchen with a window that looked onto a courtyard. A living room with a sofa that no one had ever argued on, a table that no one had ever cried at, and walls the color of milk. A room with no history.

"I just... I miss my room. My things. I want to be somewhere that feels like home." The three men exchanged glances, some silent communication passing between them. Finally, Lorenzo nodded. "Give us the address." --- The apartment was in Queens, a fourth-floor walkup in a building that had seen better days. As we climbed the stairs—no elevator, of course—I became increasingly self-conscious about what they were seeing. The hallway carpet was worn and stained. The walls needed a fresh coat of paint. You could hear arguments through doors, a baby crying somewhere above us, the smell of someone's cooking permeating everything.

Was I overthinking this? Still, something felt off, and I couldn't say why. I lived in apartment 601. Across the hall in apartment 603 was the guy who'd just texted in the group chat. He lived alone. The two of us were the only ones living on this floor. He had a short fuse and often complained that people in the building were too noisy, which made him rather annoying. Through the peephole, I saw the guy in 603 open his door. The officer was at the threshold, speaking to him. After a moment, the guy in 603 stepped back and let the officer inside.

A pair of rats scatter when my shoes hit the steps. I hesitate under the awning, not because I’m afraid, but because I need to be sure of what I’m doing. The list said apartment 4B. That’s all. No name, no phone number, just a debt that could drown a city block and one that I intended to exploit to my benefit. I push the door open. The hallway yawns before me, narrow, claustrophobic, walls damp with age. Somewhere a baby cries; somewhere else, a television murmurs to itself.