The flowers died on Monday
That should have been Asha’s first sign, but she wrote it off as carelessness. It’d barely been a week since she moved in, so it made sense that she didn’t have time for plants like before…right?
Asha stared at the sad, yellow thing sitting limp in a cracked flowerpot. It irked her, like an itch she couldn’t scratch
How had she not noticed? She was usually very observant, but it seemed like the flowers just died suddenly
It was Wednesday, she hadn’t thrown it out yet
A sharp rap on her front door brought her out of her meditation. She turned around to answer, the wilting plant forgotten.
“I’m coming!“ Asha yelled opening the door. It was Garbert, her next door neighbor.
“Could you keep the reconstruction down a bit?”
Asha’s brows furrowed in confusion “What?”
Garbert ignored the question. “It’s hard to concentrate on anything when there’s so much noise coming from one house, so if you could tell your crew to turn it down a notch, that’d be great”
Asha put out a hand to stop him before he turned around “What are you talking about?”
He stared at her like she was an idiot.
“How are you not bothered by this noise? Are you deaf?” He scoffed
“What noise?” Asha asked. She was tired of the backhanded insults. It was 10 in the morning and she wasn’t in the mood for the dark cloud she had as a neighbor.
Garbert shrugged, like it was obvious. “That noise”
“I don’t hear anything”
His eyes nearly popped out their sockets. “You don’t hear anything?! I guess you really are deaf”
“I didn’t hire a reconstruction crew, Garbert. You’re hearing things” She bit back.
He looked around for the first time, noting that there was no sign of construction activity anywhere. There were no tools scattered across the patio, no van with the company name plastered across the sides, no smell of sweaty workmen assaulting innocent nostrils.
Asha was telling the truth
Garbert chuckled lowly, running a hand through his thick brown hair. He was good looking for such a big jerk.
“I don’t know what joke you’re playing Asha, but it’s not funny”
Before Asha could snap back at him, he stomped back to his house. She walked back into her modest little home and shut the door.
Asha smiled, remembering the day she moved in. She had been guiding the movers on where to drop her furniture when someone knocked on the front door.
She ignored it because who could it possibly be? Only when the second knock threatened to bring down her door did she run to answer it.
The person standing on the other side took Asha’s breath away. He was tall, well over 6 feet with deep brown hair and matching eyes. Asha’s eyes raked over his body, taking in what seemed to be very solid muscles under a baggy shirt…then she met his hard, unsmiling eyes.
“New here?” he asked, deep voice resonating in Asha’s head.
She raised a brow at him
“What gave you that idea?”
“Oh she has a smart mouth. That’ll be interesting. I’m Garbert. I don’t like noise.”
With that helpful bit of information, he was walking back down the porch steps.
“I’m Asha. Nice to meet you!”
He didn’t respond, simply kept walking till he reached his house–the next one on the left
The memory stuck with her ever since, and it turns out, Garbert DID hear when she yelled her name at him because when he came over to complain about something, he used it.
The grin on Asha’s face vanished-she heard a drawer shutting in the guest room
She froze, a cold chill running down her spine. What was that? She dropped the box in her hand, moving closer to investigate
She picked up a mop lying haphazardly on the floor, gripped the stick in both hands and raised it to her shoulders-ready to strike as she entered the room
Nothing.
“This is ridiculous” Asha laughed nervously, as she left to resume unpacking in the living room, oblivious to the thing standing in the corner watching her leave.
