Of course I’ve been inside your rooms. I’m here all the time. And I’ve found a hiding place, Walter, a place to jump out from, a place from which to scare you to death…

BANG BANG!

She was knocking on the door.

“Mrs. Doris!” Kamp called. “Are you okay?”

“That’s what I came to ask you, Walter. Are you okay?”

“Me?”

“I heard you scream. Were you having a nightmare?”

Kamp reached a hand to his throat, as if he’d find evidence of a scream.

Had he cried out? He’d certainly been having a bad dream.

He swung his legs over the side of his Plexiglas bed and planted his huge feet on the cool wood floor. Awake again. And how long had it been since he was waxing history with Mrs. Doris next door? He looked to the clocks.

Three twenty-five a.m. meant that he’d somehow slept through an alarm.

Lord knows one of those many alarms is about to go off.

Mrs. Doris had said that. Not in his weird dream, but when he was leaving her apartment, only hours ago.

Had he screamed?

“No…no…I’m fine,” he called. “I mean, yes…I had a nightmare. Thank you, Mrs. Doris. Thank you. Good night!”

He imagined her out in the hall, pocketing the key to his rooms.

Had she been in here? Was it so easy for someone, anyone, to get in?

Kamp rose and moved quickly to the door. Getting on all fours, he looked through the ankle-high peephole he’d installed himself two weeks ago to the day.

He saw a pair of dark naked feet slowly stepping out of view.

“Ah!”

Kamp recoiled and fell onto his ass, facing the bolted door.

Who was that? WHO WAS THAT!

“Waaaaalter?”

Mrs. Doris again. Out in the hall.

“Mrs. Doris! Go to your rooms! There’s something out there in the hall with you!”

Quiet. As if she was checking. Or as if the thing with dark naked feet had silenced her.

Kamp, breathing very hard, waited for her to say something, anything. Then he got on all fours again and scurried to the peephole.

Only a pair of yellow slippers.

“There’s nobody out here, Walter. Nobody but me.”

The name Blackwater crossed Kamp’s mind. Those dark naked feet had strength to them. The strength of a man who lived off the land, who didn’t need shoes at all.

“You’re losing your mind,” Kamp said.

“What, Walter?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Doris! I had a bad dream! I’m sorry. Must’ve been the wine.”

Mrs. Doris sighed beyond the door.

He saw it through the peephole when she turned and vanished deeper down the hall. He stayed that way, looking, waiting for any sign of naked feet.

Then he smiled and a laugh escaped him, a hearty bellowing laugh that sounded like a replication of Judy Kamp holding court.