Sex and Murder Magazine

By James A. Ford

The people who lived upstairs were not normal.

They had inhabited the condo unit directly above mine for the last two months but it only took the first week for me to form my conclusion. It wasn’t any one thing that drew me to this realization but a combination of factors.

The condo complex where I lived was essentially a small self contained town. There were twelve four story buildings spread over three and a half acres of land—the largest building contained ten conjoined units, five semi-detached units on the bottom and five on the top. My building was the smallest with only four units. My place was the first two floors and my new neighbours occupied the second and third floor above me. The adjoined units beside us were vacant. Our building was also the most secluded. A small copse of trees separated us from the main grounds allowing a large degree of privacy.

My new neighbours kept to themselves.

I knew almost nothing about them but a few things I knew for certain. Within two days of their arrival I discovered they were heavy drinkers, very heavy—masses of empty liquor, wine and beer bottles suddenly appeared in the back of their old brown truck. From the sheer quantity I decided they must drink round the clock. As each week started bottles quickly built up, so much so that by the time they carted them away—usually Saturday afternoons—it often appeared that the truck was over-full and sagged on its shock absorbers.

There were at least two of them and possibly more.

One rainy afternoon I heard movement on the stairs and the door above mine slam shut. I stood back from my window and saw a woman and man climb into the truck and drive off in a cloud of dust, crates of beer empties rattling in the back like sleigh bells. From the glimpse I saw of the woman she was a good looking redhead about thirty. Though somewhat haggard in appearance—probably from the drinking—her pale skin seemed to shine in contrast with her red hair. The man was large and heavy, purple sacks of loose flesh hung from under his eyes. His long arms hung at his sides as he moved slow and unsteady toward the truck. He also had red hair but a darker shade then the woman’s. It stuck out at angles from his head. His face was covered in a thin sparse beard of reddish brown. I judged him at least a decade older then her. Besides sharing the same hair color there was little resemblance between them, but despite that, I came to think of them as brother and sister. With his wild red hair and beard, the man appeared like an old arthritic orangutan discarded by the zoo. I tried to picture them together but could not. The idea of that primate on top of her was disturbing. I didn’t want them to be, man and wife, or even worse—casual lovers.

After they left that day I was certain I’d heard someone else in the unit. There was a sound very much like a voice but muffled, also I heard a constant weak thumping on the floor. When the two returned an hour later the noises stopped.

I hadn’t seen them since.

Twice that day, going and coming but nothing since.

I did hear them however, and quite often, not that I was complaining—the sounds they made were not offensive. Sometimes I heard music, occasionally raised voices and a few times a loud thump but always at a reasonable hour. I could picture them up there—drinking, staring at the walls, or each other, sometimes arguing over nothing, listening to music, once in a while passing out on the floor when the booze hit them too hard.

Before they moved in, an older woman had lived in their unit. Her name was Mrs. Carty. An attractive widow, about forty five I guessed but she still appeared very attractive. We had spoken many times often meeting on the stairs or in the small parking court in front of the often. Right from the start there was something about her. Despite the age difference—I figured her ten years older then me—I found she still possessed a very alluring figure but even more intriguing was the sense of self she exuded.

She rarely ever spoke of herself. Once she mentioned her husband had died suddenly and when she spoke it seemed to cause her pain. I remembered at the time I’d quickly changed the subject.

One afternoon she met me on the stairs, dressed in her housecoat. She looked very good. I felt the blood pump hard through my body thinking that she was almost certainly naked underneath.

“Richard, I want you to have my key.” She’d said. I was taken aback. We had only known each other a short while. My blood sailed through my veins. I wanted that key though I let on otherwise.

“I shouldn’t, Mrs. Carty,” I sputtered, “I mean ... we don’t know each other that well.” “I trust you,” she’d said, “I know you well enough, and please from now on call me Michelle.”

I’d asked her why she wanted me to have the key. She’d said she needed me to look in on her from time to time.

“But why?” I asked. Pressing her, not feeling there was anything now to lose by hearing what she had to say, whether it was the whole true or not. Her face darkened, she offered some story of vague, recurring health problems and a lengthy stay in hospital. Sounded like bullshit. Then she’d looked up at me, “I understand if you don’t want to, I know it’s an inconvenience.” I was intrigued. I told her sure I would look in on her and took the key from her fingers.

For the better part of six months I’d checked her at least once a week.

After work on Fridays I climbed the stairs to her apartment, knocking then letting myself in. Usually, she was lying asleep or watching her small television. I must confess that I tried never to stop by at the same time. I did this in the vague hope of perhaps catching her in a compromised situation. I envisioned her vacuuming in the nude or perhaps just coming out of the shower, hair still wet, body warm and livid from the hot water. These fantasies became more intense after each visit.

Each visit she’d made me tea.

I’d grown fond—no, obsessed with her. Looking forward to our little meetings over her kitchen table, sipping orange pekoe.

One night, the last night, I could almost taste the tea as I’d climbed the stairs. As always, first I’d knocked and then let myself in. I remember the darkness, and for some reason I didn’t flick on the light, thinking back now I must have felt something that told me not to. My first inclination was that she wasn’t home. I didn’t call out, just headed for her bedroom in the semi darkness.

I’d found her lying on her bed. Naked. At the time I’d assumed she was asleep as she gently writhed on the sheet, moaning, as if in the throes of an erotic dream. In a trance my clothes were soon off and I had climbed on top of her. Her eyes opened with my hand pressed firmly over her mouth. “Don’t make a sound.” I’d said. I remember the look in her eyes, she’d nodded her head not surprised to see me at all.

Then my thumb was in her mouth she’d sucked it and then placed my hand on her right breast, the nipple was hard.

“Suck my tits.”

I’d sucked so hard on the engorged nipple, it caused her to wince. A hand-full of her hair was in my fist pulling her head back. My other hand had traced down her stomach and between her legs. She was wet and moaned softly as I’d finger-fucked her. First two, then three fingers were inside her, she’d spread her legs wide for me. I remember the sensation as my cock, huge and throbbing, had rubbed against her thigh, leaking pre cum all over her skin.

“Fuck me, stick that hard thing up me.”

I’d moved on top of her and shoved home hard, she’d gasped and then grabbed my ass with her hands and forced me in deeper. She’d moved under me like none of the younger lays I could remember, bucking gently underneath me in time with my thrusts. I’d tried my best to hold off, to make it last but I was about to cum. She’d felt it too.

“On me,” she’d said.

“What?”

”Cum, on me. I want you to cum all over me.”

I’d slammed two more thrusts into her then could hold back no longer. As I’d pulled my cock out, a thick gout of cum had shot all over her tits and stomach, then another and another. Three heavy squirts. She had just lain there. Her breath gradually returning to normal then she’d held her hands to her stomach, palm up, to dam my dripping load sliding down her skin. I remember she was in the bathroom for what seemed a long time. When she’d finally reappeared she’d asked me if I wanted tea almost as if nothing had happened.

“You and I are very much alike,” she’d said, sipping her tea. “I can tell things about people, and I think we are very much alike.”

I haven’t seen her since that night.

The next day her place was empty, cleared out. See was gone. I spent an hour in her unit looking for some clue but there was nothing. See hadn’t had much in the unit to begin with and now I am hard pressed to remember any one possession that had stamped the place as hers.

The following week the red haired man and woman had moved in. At the time all I could think was that Mrs. Carty had sold her unit, moved away and didn’t have the heart to break it to me.

That was two months ago.

Now, as I looked out my window, a for sale sign hung in the front yard: No Trespassing. By App’t Only.

Friendly.

There was a phone number on the sign in bold black figures and a thick arrow, also black, pointing up the stairs indicating the upper unit.

Despite the clear directions on the sign several prospective buyers came knocking on my door. The first had been an elderly gentleman. I had tried to appear annoyed at his intrusion, looking pointedly at the crystalline sign directions. My sarcasm was wasted however, he still wanted me to point the way. He smiled and thanked me then headed up the stairs. About twenty minutes after he went up I heard a thumping sound. I told myself that someone moved a chair or slammed a door but I knew I was lying to myself. The thump was the body of an old man dropping to the floor. I waited for hours, listening closely but never heard the old man leave.

The next visitor was an elderly lady who vaguely reminded me of an older version of Mrs. Carty. She too came to my door, we spoke briefly and I directed her to the top unit. I listened as she slowly climbed the stairs; I heard her knock and the door open. I listened the rest of that afternoon and evening but I did not hear her come down.

Something was happening up there.

I was going to find out what. For the last few weeks an odour, not yet a stench, had permeated the complex, growing stronger with each passing day. The last few days it had become noticeable throughout the grounds of the complex, especially when the wind was calm. I still had Mrs. Carty’s key. As long as the redheads hadn’t changed the locks it would be an easy task to get in and have a quick look around, or so I thought.

I was going up. There hadn’t been a sound for days. They must have left, during the night. I peaked out behind the curtain—the truck was gone. This was my chance. I had to see what was going on up there. I had to see if my suspicions were true. I open my door and make sure there is no one around. The coast—as they say—was clear. I walk up the stairs trying to give the appearance to any surreptitious onlookers that I was doing nothing out of the ordinary.

The key turns in the lock and I open the door. A gust of noxious air swirled about me and on reflex my hand covers my nose and mouth. In that instant my suspicions were confirmed—my neighbours were murders and from the smell they had left the bodies, or parts of them, in their unit to rot. I felt an urgent rush of relief and satisfaction. I was right: they were guilty.

I entered and shut the door behind me. The unit was cast in gloom. I fought the urge to turn on a light, pull back the curtains and open the windows wide. I knew this would alert anyone outside that someone was inside, I couldn’t risk it. It was a sunny day and enough light snuck in to allow me to see.

The unit setup was exactly the same as mine; I made my way to the kitchen I knew where everything was.

When I turned the hallway corner into the kitchen I gagged into my hand—the stench was appalling. Something was on the floor and my mind couldn’t make sense of it. I could resist no longer and flicked on the overhead light.

They were dead.

Both the man and the woman, the same ones I’d last seen climb into their truck two months before were now laid out slaughtered on their kitchen floor.

I knew it was them though they now appeared quite different.

Their red hair lay in neat piles beside them shorn tight to their heads, streaks of blood had dried on their skulls where the razor, or whatever instrument, used for the cutting had scraped them. They were naked and their skin had turned a light gray. Palm sized patches of blue fungus had grown on various parts of their exposed skin. Their throats lay exposed and ravaged by some weapon. The cuts were jagged; the torn open flesh exposed the spine underneath. One large pool of their mixed blood had dried forming a glassy dark surface between them, reflecting the rays of the kitchen light.

The woman’s legs were spread wide in some hideous mockery of seduction.

My eye caught movement. Something, some insect was crawling through her dark patch of pubic hair. I watched mesmerized. The bug crawled out of the thick hair and along the inside of her thigh toward her knee then turned back toward her crotch. It lingered a moment at her anus not moving, I tried hard to look away but couldn’t, the bug started to move again and gradually disappeared, squeezing itself into her dead asshole.

I felt ill but could not take my eyes off the horrific slaughter.

All my vague suspicions lay in taters just as did my new neighbours. What had happened? They hadn’t done this to themselves. I had no idea but somehow none of this surprised me. I knew I should call the authorities but first some perverse need pushed me forward, I wanted to see what else this house of horrors held. An explanation must exist. Some clue would allow me to piece it together. My head was aching from the stench. I retched into my hand, then let it go all over the hallway linoleum. I stood for a moment and decided to pushed on.

In the bedroom I found more horror.

The two elderly prospective buyers I’d directed upstairs last week were stretched out on the bed. Pools of dried blood lie beneath them, soaked and darkening the blankets and spilled onto the beige carpet. Their throats were open ear to ear. Beside them on the floor was the body of a woman, the face badly damaged. I knew who she was despite that—Mrs. Carty. The room seemed to spin for a moment and I pushed my back against the bedroom wall not daring to take my eyes off the carnage lest the moment I turned back the dead would be up an animated, arms outstretched, moving towards me, calling my name.

I went to the telephone, it was time to call the police. I picked up the receiver and started to punch in 911...then I stopped.

What would I say: “Sure officer, I just happen to have a key to a home where four people where murdered.” Guess who suspect numero uno would be. I put the phone back in its cradle. I went down to my unit and thought about my next move. I’d get stuck with this, they’d pin it on the most convenient suspect—me. I had a key for Christ sake, there was no forced entry not even a broken window as far as I’d seen. What to do. The place would reek in another week. Someone would find it.

Then it struck me—no one knew I had a key except a dead woman.

No one needed to know I had already been in there. I would have to leave the scene as if I had not discovered it. If I didn’t have a key to get in I couldn’t have found the bodies. But then the door could have been left unlocked by the killer. I had to think all scenario’s through carefully. It did make sense that I would be the first to alert the authorities; after all, I lived just beneath a unit full of stinking corpses.

It was a shame really—if I had found only one or two bodies I could’ve dealt with them easily—bag them and dump them in the woods down old trim road by the lake. No one would ever find them.

As I mulled over these thoughts I heard movement from above me.

Someone was walking around up there. It wasn’t one of the stiffs, their strolling days were over. The killer, who else but the killer.

I opened my junk drawer. I had a hammer in there and I rummaged around until I found it. It felt good in my hand. Before I left my unit I stuffed the hammer down the front of my pants under my shirt, synching the belt one notch tighter to keep the hammer in place. The steel was cold. It took half a minute for the weapon to warm against my stomach.

I slowly climbed up the stairs. On the landing in front of the neighbour’s I paused listening, straining hard for any sound. I used the key Mrs. Carty had given me, quickly and silently, shutting the door and locking it behind me. My plan was to find out who was up there. I hadn’t really thought it out past that. If they were obviously guilty I could hold them and call the cops, putting me in the clear. In any event I needed to know what the hell was happening up there. I turned the corner into the kitchen.

“Hello lover,” a voice whispered from the dark.

“Fuck!” I yelled, just about shitting my pants. “You almost gave me a heart attack, you bitch.” My heart machine-gunned behind my ribs.

Mrs. Carty stepped out of the shadows.

“I thought you were fucking dead.” I said, gripping the kitchen counter.

“Dead?” she said, pulling a face.

“The woman on the floor of the bedroom.” I pointed in the direction of the bedroom with my chin.

“Oh no, you thought she was me?” She laughed, looking down at the ripening corpses.

“Have you been creeping around up her since they moved in?”

“Yeah,” she smiled and shrugged. “Off and on. These top floor units actually have a small storage room in the attic. No one nowadays uses the attic do they.” I shook my head at her simple guile. She was one for the books, liked to stay close to her victims, watching them almost part of their lives before she killed. Me on the other hand...

“You could have told me you were up here.”

“Ohh, did you miss me?” She pouted her lips and batted an eye at me. I broke into a smile, I couldn’t help myself. I guess I’d missed her, even though I hadn’t known that she was just like me.

Perfect.

“So you were here when I did the two buyers.” I asked.

“Oh yes, I watched it all. Delicious, I almost came out of the attic for that one,” She pointed at the ceiling, “I can see anywhere in the house through little holes in the boards.”

“So you did the rest.” I asked, still looking at the ceiling.

“Yes, after seeing your performance I could hold back no longer. I killed the Davis sibs and then some woman—whose body apparently resembles mine - who came to see the unit. That for sale sign is just excellent. People call and we agree to a time and you can feel the anticipation build as the clock ticks down.”

“So the red heads are brother and sister.”

“Yes, Eugene and Susan Davis, did you notice how much they drank.” I nodded and smiled, so I was right about them - brother and sister.

“They shared more thena fondness for the bottle - they were quite fond of each other,” she added and winked, “if you get my meaning.” My smile faded. She looked down at them,

“They had the misfortune of buying the house from me. One night when they’d passed out drunk, well... I couldn’t resist.” She looked at me,”you know what I mean?.”I didn’t respond but I knew exactly what she meant.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“Well lover, I suggest we go up into the attic. It is quite comfy up there and... there is a bed.”

“Perhaps we should go down to my place.” I suggested.” You are probably getting tired of the attic

“True. Which ever, but we shouldn’t dawdle lover.”

“Why?”

“Oh that’s right I forgot to tell you...” she started, then changed direction, “...Oh, that reminds me we had better open the windows and air the place out a bit.”

“Forgot to tell me what; why do we need to air it out?

“Well we have a showing at 3pm. A Mr. and Mrs Tompkins. ” I smiled and helped her with the windows.