A Creature on the Stair Landing

It was 13.15 p.m. when shrilling quaver of doorbell destroyed the blissful silence of the night. That time I lived alone in a three-bedroom flat. Lifting my head slightly, I froze, trying to understand whether that sound had appeared in my dreams or the doorbell had actually rung.  

After a while the doorbell rang again. Cursing and mumbling some words, I got up and headed toward the door. In a sleepy state, with my brain on autopilot, I reached out for handle with one hand and to lock with another hand to open the door. 

The fact that it was a pitchy night outside, and someone was ringing my doorbell was already suspicious, but I wanted to back to sleep so badly that it didn’t get my attention. Suddenly, I heard something, I stopped dead. It was a neighbor opening his doors.  

I decided that he finally got home. I had turned and shuffled back to my bed when I caught a sound of wild howl behind the door. I knew it was that neighbor.  

I finally woke up by his blood curdling scream. The scream ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Fear and curiosity - they invaded me during that seconds. I sneaked to my door on toes, as a spy, and got closer to the peephole.  

On the stair landing three meters away my neighbor with convulsively twitch limbs laid. A creature was sitting on him – a woman in white dirty rags. Red untressed hair swayed as her head when she was hastily picking the poor fellow’s face. 

The creature suddenly turned short. You know, as a dog bares its teeth when someone’s trying to take his food away. It turned its head to my door. With her mouth distorted she gave a joyful, pretasting groan; as if she had sniffed that behind my door there was another, daintier dish.  

I subsided. Subsided and fixing my eyes on the door began to crawl away till I came to the wall. 

Knocking pealed, doorhandle began to tremble, then the whole door. I was just sitting and gazing.  

I came to my senses when it was morning. Someone was obstinately ringing my doorbell. Hardly I had head the ringing I felt as aghast as in the night, but then I understood that people had found my neighbor’s body and called the police.  

Before I opened the door, I asked them many questions to make sure it was people.  

Nobody believed my version of what had happened. They have searched the psychopath who attacked the poor wretch till the present. 

Be careful.