The Tenant
A small sound caught Danny’s attention. He glanced around the darkened bedroom, his gaze finally coming to rest on the closet door. It’s nothing. Probably one of my suits slipped off the hanger; that’s happened before. Or maybe something fell off the shelf.
Resisting the urge to turn on the bedside lamp, he listened to the silence a moment longer, then rolled over onto his right side and concentrated on making his muscles relax. He’d been on edge ever since Mrs. Sydney in 12B had mentioned that the previous tenant had misplaced his twelve-foot pet python just before moving out. How the hell do you misplace something twelve feet long? he wondered.
Danny was terrified of snakes. He couldn’t even look at a picture of one without screaming. The building superintendent denied any knowledge of the reptile when Danny confronted him. An extermination crew had gone through the apartment, but they failed to find anything, not even a cockroach.
Except for the disappearance of Olivia and Jasper Browne’s yappy poodle next door, nothing unusual had occurred since he’d moved into the building two months ago. Everyone agreed that Precious, an accomplished escape artist, had most likely slipped out of the building unnoticed and gotten lost on the city streets.
Relax! There’s nothing in the apartment that shouldn’t be here. Remember what Dr. Pritchett said: Take a deep breath and count to ten before giving in to panic. He held his breath and listened intently. Nothing. He focused his attention on his muscles, tightening and relaxing each muscle as Dr. Pritchett had taught him.
He finally slipped into an uneasy dream. He was in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, his eyes riveted on a patch of blackness hovering just above the water. Seagulls circled overhead, their raucous cries setting his teeth on edge. As he watched, the menacing blackness formed itself into an old-fashioned radiator, and in the floor behind the radiator, completely hidden from view, was a hole. A sudden wave flowed out of the hole and moved toward him. The boat began to rock.
Danny woke with a start. It took him a few seconds to realize the waterbed was sloshing back and forth. A heavy weight slid across his chest. Danny’s last coherent thought was what Dr. Pritchett could do with his advice.