Murder On The 3rd Floor

Murder On The 3rd Floor

The couple had been arguing for the past few months. It was either about the rent being late or some utility not getting paid on time. Since the walls were so paper thin, Shawn could hear every single word they said. This particular night was no different.
“You asshole . . . you need to get off your ass and get a job.” Silence then the guy would answer, usually with his own heated words, “Bitch, if you wouldn’t be out fucking every dick that walked by you, maybe I would!”
Shawn slammed his newspaper down onto the night table next to him, a growl coming up inside his throat.
He looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see straight through it. He grit his teeth as the fighting continued. It seemed to get louder and more obscene with each word.
Shaking his head, Shawn opened up his door, and took a peek outside. It was nighttime. The sun had gone down hours ago, leaving behind only a few stray stars in the sky. A full moon sat out, shining down onto the paved streets below. It cast an eerie glow upon the streets, lighting up what the streetlights could not.
Above him, the fighting still raged on. Suddenly, there was a loud crash.
Tell me again why I chose to live below people in their twenties he thought as he went up the stairs to the couple’s apartment. Knocking loudly so he could be heard, he waited.
After a few moments, the door opened. A guy stood in the doorway wearing a black Aerosmith T-shirt and black jeans. Despite his five-foot eight stature, he was built lanky. His hair was greasy looking, as if the guy had gone quite awhile without washing it. His eyes were blood shot. They reminded Shawn of someone that was in the early stages of becoming an alcoholic. Briefly forgetting what he came there for, he stood still trying to think of something to say.
“Well . . . wha the fuck do youu want?” Yeah, the guy was drunk. Shawn could smell the alcohol on him.
It sure as hell wasn’t the expensive kind. It was the kind that got you good and drunk in less than twenty minutes.
Finally, finding the words, Shawn said, “I just wanted to tell you that I’m downstairs from you and I’m busy doing some things in my office, I- -”
“Loo-kk man, what you-u do in your apartment is your business,” slurred the guy.
Shawn had a good mind to punch the hell out of the creep, but instead, he balled his fists into the pockets of his shorts.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Shawn repeated, drawing a deep breath to calm himself down, “that I’m busy working on some things for work, I have to have them done tomorrow afternoon and I can’t concentrate with all the noise that’s going on up here.” Shawn knew he wasn’t really working on anything at the moment. He was going to, but the sports section of the newspaper had distracted him.
The man narrowed his eyes at Shawn. Looking him up and down as if he were looking at a mutt, the guy sneered at Shawn and slammed the door in his face.
Well hello and fuck you too man Shawn thought as he went back downstairs and into his apartment.
Sitting down on the couch, Shawn turned on the television, intent on watching another re-run of Star Trek. Ten minutes of watching it, he turned the television off. He couldn’t get into the show. He kept thinking back to the man upstairs. That’s one guy that won’t make it to forty he thought as he switched off the lamp beside him. After he made sure everything was locked up, he went to bed.


In the morning, he pulled back the curtains on his windows. Blinding sunlight flowed in, causing the entire bedroom to be washed in yellow. Remembering the work that had been left undone the previous night, he grabbed his glasses from the night table and walked to the living room, putting his laptop in his lap.
After the laptop had completely loaded, he clicked on the folder that contained the file that he needed. With surprise, he found the folder empty.
“What the fuck?” He went into the search documents and tried to find the file. No luck.
Going into the command prompt, he typed in the directory file name and clicked OK. After a few minutes, the search told him that there was no such file.
Rubbing his eyes, he continued to search for the file. After a full hour of looking in every folder that existed in his laptop’s hard drive, he gave up, leaning back in his office chair cursing.
Logging into his AIM program, he decided that he would search in a few minutes when he was calmer.
A message popped up, the letters displaying in bright red letters.
“Server’s down over here. Help dude.” It was his friend Michael.
Looking at the message, he typed back, “Can’t help you. The file that I need isn’t here.”
“What do you mean the file isn’t there? Didn’t you save it on your hard drive last night?”
Great, now I’m being accused of being a moron Shawn thought as he considered what to say next.
With hesitation, he typed back, “What do you expect me to do? The file isn’t here. Can’t do nothing about it except to start over from scratch . . .”
“Dammit Shawn . . .” came the reply.
Yeah, Bobby thought he was a moron alright.
“Great just fucking great,” Shawn mumbled, looking at the flashing reply screen.
Typing that he had to go for a few, Shawn logged out of AIM. In the quietness of the room, the squeaking of his computer chair was rather loud. Putting the laptop on the table, Shawn got up and went into the kitchen to get something to eat. Opening the refrigerator, he found a sandwich still wrapped in wax paper, a gallon of milk, a case of beer, and a few slices of pepperoni pizza in a Ziploc bag.
Grabbing the Ziploc bag and a can of beer, he went to walk back to the living room when a sudden thud made him stop in his tracks. With each thud, the cabinets’ doors shook.
Closing his eyes and putting the food down onto the kitchen table, he looked up at the ceiling.
“First they argue, now they’re trying to fuck each other’s brains out . . . wonderful.”
Then the noise stopped as soon as it started. Shawn looked around, as if expecting it to start up again at any second. When nothing else stirred, Shawn heated his pizza in the microwave, cracking open the can of beer and downing half of it in one single swig. After taking the pizza out of the microwave, he went back to the living room.
Sitting back down into his office chair, he was met with the flashing of the laptop’s reply screen.
“You got it fixed yet?”
“Shawn . . . you there?”
“Yeah, I’m working on it. It’s going to take awhile though,” Shawn typed back.
Leaning back in his chair, he stared at the screen as the cursor blinked back at him. Shawn spent the next four hours working on the non-existent file. At 4:50, the file that had mysteriously vanished was now in front of him more than halfway finished. Saving the document, he closed the laptop and went out to get some groceries.
After coming back and having both arms full of food, he pressed his foot up against the door and gave it a push. It came open, slamming against the back wall. Setting the food down on the kitchen table, he started putting the food away.
At 10:45 p.m. his cellphone beeped. Sighing, he flipped it open, and was surprised to find a text message from his friend Cheryl.
“U working hard?” A smiley face appeared next to the question.
Smiling, he hit the reply button.
“As always, but it would be nice if you were the one I was working on.”
He hit send. A few seconds later, the cellphone beeped again. Damn, she texts fast Shawn thought as he read the text message.
“LOL,” came the reply, “same here”.
He was tempted to tell her about the noise upstairs, but he knew that would get her to start making cracks about him, and as entertaining as that usually was, he didn’t want to have that start up this late.
Texting back that he would call later if she was still up; he flipped the cellphone closed and focused on the task in front of him. Taking his glasses off, he rubbed his tired eyes.

To Be Continued . . .