Bathtub Ants
I had a creepy feeling about the building the first day I saw it, but we were short on cash and the landlord had made me a hell of a deal over the phone. The day I moved in I met Frank, the guy down the hall, who told me about the history of the place.
I was climbing the stairs to our apartment on the second floor when he burst through the landing door and almost knocked me on my ass.
"Oh geez, sorry 'bout that, man, let me help you with that," he said, taking the other end of the box I was carrying.
"Thanks, I appreciate it. My girlfriend will be here in a few days, until then, it's just me trying to move all this shit in."
"You have more downstairs? I'm not doing anything for the next coupla hours, if ya need some help," he maneuvered the door, propping it open with his shoulder, and then inched through it with his end of the box. There was a surgical bandage across his ear.
"I'm not gonna say no to help, it's the one at the far end of the hall, on the right," I gestured with my head.
We sat the box in front of the door while I felt for my keys.
"Frank," he said, sticking out his hand.
"Nick," I said, switching keys from one hand to the other so I could shake his. "What happened to your head?"
"Oh that," he touched the bandage, "nothing, banged my head against a door. I was partying pretty hard."
Frank and I spent the next hour or so moving boxes and a few crappy pieces of furniture. When we were done he asked me if I wanted to stop in at his place for a beer. I almost didn't, since it was my drinking that had made the decision that Missy and I should start over somewhere else, but hey, the guy had just helped me-a complete stranger- move all my stuff two flights up. The least I could do was be friendly, besides, he was my new neighbor; on the same floor, three doors down.
"This is a great building," Frank said, as he sat on an old couch. I took a seat across from him and we both put our beer on a cable spool that had been turned into a coffee table. His apartment looked like all the crash pads that I had woken up in after an all nighter.
"Can't beat the price, hey, thanks again for helping me," I looked around, "can I smoke in here?"
"Sure, you can do whatever you want in here," Frank said as he went into the kitchen. He came back with a chipped saucer. "It's not the price of the apartments, it's the ghosts."
"The ghosts," I said as I lit a cigarette.
"Oh yeah," Frank reached for the pack I had thrown on the table, "mind?"
"Go ahead."
Frank shook a cigarette out and lit it with one hand, flipping one match out and sliding it along the back of the book. I liked this guy.
"Well," he said, exhaling and tilting his head to drink his beer, "the building was set on a hill overlooking the bay, as you can see, and used to be the first hospital in the area. The morgue was in the basement. Later it was a mental institution and all sorts of experiments were done on the patients in what is now the basement laundry room. If you tried to stay down there late at night, you could hear bumping and whispering."
"Bullshit."
"Oh yeah, happened to me a coupla times," Frank said. "One night I was down there-it was late- and I'm putting my laundry, you know, from the washer to the dryer, and I hear this scratching coming from inside the walls."
"Probably rats," I said.
"That was my first thought. So I go over and bang on the wall, right? And I expect to hear a squeak," Frank crumpled his beer can and motioned to me, "want another?"
