City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) Read Free Page A

didn’t bring any feeling of relief. The silence
afterward was worse than the screams.
    Not only was the woman’s door next to mine in the
hallway, but her window shared the fire escape with my busted living room
window. If whatever it was came out onto the fire escape instead of taking the
door, we would have nothing between us but the blackout curtains, some flimsy boards,
and Stella. Even though Stella was smelling quite putrid at that point, I
preferred the solid door with the three deadbolts as my first line of defense.
    Beth and I crouched in my living room, not moving,
barely breathing. I felt that if I moved the smallest bit, the floor would
creak and give us away.
    We still didn’t know what was in the apartment next
door: human or vampire. Neither of us had a watch so I don’t know how long we
sat there. It felt like a million years.
    I started to wonder why the sun hadn’t come up. My
back was aching and my hands were starting to cramp from clutching my stake so
tightly.
    Finally, I thought I heard a shuffling noise next
door. Then I heard some floorboards creak as whatever it was started moving. It
sounded like it was moving toward the door.
    I heard the door open and almost sighed with relief,
but kept quiet. Then I thought I heard it sniffing around. The door closed, but
instead of hearing footsteps go down the hall to the stairwell, I heard steps
go back into the living room.
    I felt tears in my eyes, not out of sadness for the
woman next door, but out of complete terror. I tried to calm myself. It was the
middle of the night so it was probably a vampire, and it sounded like a loner.
    We had dealt with a vampire before, Stella could
attest to that. As far as I knew vampires didn’t have guns or other weapons and
that gave us a fair chance.
    That was an odd moment that still stands out in my
mind. That was when I realized I felt more comfortable believing there was a
vampire next door rather than a person.
    The thing walked over toward the window and I heard
the fire escape creak. Why hadn’t I heard the window open, or glass break? Had
the window already been broken? Surely my neighbor hadn’t been stupid enough to
leave the window open. Or maybe she hadn’t been my neighbor at all, maybe she
crawled in from the escape. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was
the creaking fire escape.
    I knew that whatever was lurking out there, it had to
go past our window to get to the ladder and climb down. I held my breath and waited.
I felt like I would explode. Part of me wanted it to climb in so we could jump
it and let out all the tension and fear that had been churning inside of us as
we sat there listening to it tear into the woman next door.
    The fire escape creaked, then was still. It sounded
like it stopped. Again, I heard the sniffing noise. I didn’t know if it was
investigating Stella or trying to figure out whether fresh blood was waiting
inside. After a few minutes it sounded as if it was climbing down the ladder.
    I can’t describe how I felt: relieved it had moved
past us and yet slightly disappointed it hadn’t come inside so we could kill
it. Then at least we would know it was gone for good. What if I had been mistaken
about the noises I heard? Maybe it was still out there. Maybe it knew we were
inside and would come back with more of its kind.
    Neither Beth nor I slept for the rest of the night. We
stayed in the foyer where we could watch both the fire escape and the door. We
could also see the hallway that led to the bedroom and kitchen.
    I had visions of those things scaling five stories of
brick wall and climbing in through the kitchen or bedroom windows. It seems a
little silly now, but back then I had no idea what they were capable of. I was
going off what I had seen in movies.
    I even got the crazy idea to sprinkle some old Papa
John’s garlic sauce from the now defunct fridge, onto the windowsill where
Stella was...just in case the rotting flesh didn’t reek enough.
    The one