Story code: ST-001105
Part 2: The Neighbor
The brass doorknob turned until it hit the hard stop of the internal locking mechanism. A sharp, heavy clack rang through the quiet hallway. The deadbolt held tight.
Arthur let out a shaky, involuntary breath. His index finger remained curled fiercely against the trigger of the 9mm. He was a fraction of an inch, a fraction of a second, away from sending a copper-jacketed hollow point directly through the center of his own front door.
On the glowing phone screen in his left hand, the massive man on the porch realized the handle wasn’t going to give. But he didn’t back away. Instead, he gripped the brass knob tighter, planted his muddy boots, and began to violently shake the entire heavy oak slab in its frame.
*Thump-thump-thump-thump.*
The door rattled fiercely against the jamb. The framed photographs lining the hallway wall danced on their metal hooks. One of them slipped, tumbling in the dark and crashing onto the hardwood floor. The glass shattered, the sharp noise loud enough to make Arthur flinch, but he forced his sights to remain locked dead-center on the brass deadbolt.
Outside, the man let go of the knob and took a frustrated step back. The relentless rain continued to wash over his broad shoulders, soaking his thick canvas coat. He lifted the heavy, plastic-wrapped rectangular object again, shoving it aggressively toward the camera lens.
Arthur squinted at the screen, a cold sweat stinging the corners of his eyes. The object was wrapped in thick, black industrial plastic, bound tight with erratic layers of clear packing tape. Through the fisheye distortion and the grainy night vision, it looked vaguely like a thick, rigid box. A lockbox? A car battery? A crude explosive? It was impossible to tell. But the way the man wielded it-like a weapon, or perhaps a piece of damning evidence-sent a freezing wave of dread through Arthur’s stomach.
The man shouted something again. The thick wood of the door muffled the words, reducing them to an aggressive, bass-heavy rumble. Arthur couldn’t make out the exact syllables, but the furious, desperate cadence was unmistakable. The man was making demands.
Arthur’s thumb hovered frantically over the phone screen. He needed to dial 911. He needed to back out of the security application and call the police, but if he minimized the camera feed, he would be completely blind to what the intruder was doing. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from the violent, unpredictable giant standing mere inches from his sanctuary.
On the screen, the man reached back into his coat. Not the same deep inside pocket where he had pulled the plastic-wrapped block. This time, he reached down toward his right hip.
Arthur’s breath hitched in his throat. *A gun. He’s pulling a gun.*
Arthur shifted his weight, adjusting his stance. He brought his left hand up, wrapping it tightly around his right, entirely abandoning the phone. He let the device slip from his fingers. It hit the carpeted runner with a muted thud, landing face-up, the glowing screen still broadcasting the nightmare from the floor. Arthur gripped the pistol with both hands, forming a perfect, rigid triangle with his arms. His heart hammered furiously against his ribs, beating so hard it physically ached.
He couldn’t see the screen anymore. He could only watch the door.
Through the frosted glass transom window above the doorframe, a sudden, blinding beam of intense white light slashed into the hallway. The man hadn’t pulled a gun; he had drawn a heavy-duty tactical flashlight. The brilliant beam swept wildly back and forth across the ceiling and the top of the walls, casting chaotic, sweeping shadows down the narrow corridor.
Arthur squinted against the piercing glare, refusing to break his aim.
The flashlight beam suddenly angled sharply downward, shining directly through the small glass peephole in the center of the door. A concentrated laser of white light hit Arthur squarely in the chest, illuminating his white t-shirt, his pale, sweating arms, and the black polymer frame of the pistol in his hands.
The man on the porch pressed his face right up against the outside of the door. He was trying to look through the peephole.
Arthur froze, every muscle in his body locking up. Did the peephole work in reverse with a light that bright? Could the man see him standing there, aiming a weapon at his face?
Arthur cast a desperate glance down at his phone on the floor. The man’s face was pushed so close to the camera lens that his features were grotesquely warped. But in the stark, intense illumination of the flashlight bouncing off the white doorframe, the camera’s night-vision feed shifted briefly from infrared green to full, washed-out color.
Arthur recognized the jagged, uneven scar cutting through the man’s overgrown beard, right along his jawline. It was a face he had seen from a distance on quiet Saturday mornings.
It was the neighbor. The massive, reclusive guy who lived three houses down at the dead end of the cul-de-sac. The one whose overgrown yard was surrounded by an imposing six-foot privacy fence, who never spoke to anyone, who was rumored to have been discharged from the military after some kind of violent incident. Arthur didn’t even know his first name.
Why was he here? Why was he trying to break in at three in the morning?
Before Arthur could process the horrifying revelation, a sharp, digital chime erupted from the floor at his feet.
When Arthur had dropped the phone, his thumb had grazed the glass screen. A small, red microphone icon was now pulsing at the bottom of the display. The two-way audio was active.
The phone’s tiny speaker crackled to life, and the neighbor’s raspy, frantic voice filled the dark hallway, perfectly clear, completely unfiltered by the solid oak door.
“I know you’re in there!” the neighbor’s voice snarled from the floor, echoing weirdly in stereo with the muffled shouting coming from outside. “I see the light under the crack of the door. Open up!”
Worse than hearing the neighbor’s voice, Arthur realized his own ragged, terrified breathing was being broadcast directly out to the porch speaker.
On the screen, the neighbor flinched. He stopped trying to peer through the peephole and stared down at the doorbell camera. He had heard Arthur panting. He had heard the glass frame shatter on the floor. He knew exactly where Arthur was standing.
“You think you can just take it?” the neighbor yelled into the camera, his voice blasting through Arthur’s phone speaker, dripping with absolute malice. The man held up the black, plastic-wrapped rectangle again, shaking it violently at the lens. “You think I wouldn’t track this down? I know it was you. Open the damn door, or I’m coming through it!”
Arthur’s mind raced in a frantic circle. *Take what? Track what down?* He hadn’t taken anything from this man. He had never even stepped foot on his property. It was a complete, terrifying delusion. The neighbor was entirely out of his mind.
“I’m armed!” Arthur screamed back, his voice cracking from the dry terror in his throat. He didn’t care about speaking into the phone; he just yelled straight at the heavy oak door, hoping his voice would carry. “I have a gun! Back away from the door!”
Outside, the neighbor went completely still.
The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds, broken only by the steady, rushing downpour of the rain hitting the tin porch roof.
Then, the neighbor took two deliberate steps backward. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t flee. He shoved the plastic-wrapped block deep into his coat pocket and raised his heavy, mud-caked work boot.
Arthur’s grip tightened until his forearm muscles cramped. He brought his focus entirely onto the front sight post of the pistol, letting the door blur slightly in the background.
The neighbor lunged forward, driving the thick rubber sole of his heavy boot squarely into the door, right next to the brass deadbolt.
The impact sounded like a bomb detonating in the confined space. The wood frame splintered with a deafening, catastrophic crack. A long, jagged shard of the painted doorjamb shot out into the hallway, clattering against the wall. The heavy oak door bowed violently inward, the brass deadbolt barely clinging to the fractured, splintering wood.
The massive man outside pulled his leg back for a second kick.