“The landlord grins but will not tell

  Why echoes rise from basement wells.

  The tenants come, the tenants go,

  Yet some are lost to rooms below.”

  The graffiti on the walls between apartments 317A and 319A stuck in the Handyman’s mind all night. It had taken hours to scrub off what those strangely verbose vandals left behind, and in his dreams he continued to scrub over that verse.

  Twice he rose before dawn. First to get a glass of water. Then to deal with the consequences thereof.

  Vexed by the pain lingering in his hands from the day’s work, he wished all manner of curses on whatever teenagers had dared deface The Building.

  The unrelenting hum of a buzzing tablet woke Tom Gates from his restless bed at 7 A.M. The notification’s glow illuminated his small, perpetually dim bedroom of his apartment. The morning always seemed to come too soon.

  After a scalding hot shower, Tom dressed for the day and left his room. The moment he opened the door, he heard the metallic crash of a monster truck crushing cars under its tires. Edgar Willoughby, his roommate, sat cross-legged on the couch, wrapped in a bathrobe that had seen better days. The television screen displayed a rerun of Turbo Titan Destruction Derby IV. Rather than pump his fist or cheer like so many other fans of shows about enormous vehicles squashing smaller ones, the former professor of literature stroked his chin and squinted at the screen.

  "You ever notice," Edgar mused, gesturing with a half-eaten breakfast sandwich, "that the monster truck rally is akin to the concept of Valhalla?”

  Tom shrugged. “I mean, I noticed they play their music sometimes, but I never gave it that much thought.”

  Edgar gave a confused expression. “Whose music?”

  “Van Halen,” said Tom, rubbing his eyes.

  Edgar chuckled. “No, my dear friend, not Van Halen, Valhalla. In Norse mythology, Odin chose the bravest of the brave and the strongest of the strong to live forever with him in the Halls of Valhalla. Every day, they’d go out to wage war against the forces of evil, and every night they would return to drink mead in Odin’s halls, their wounds magically healed. In the same way, these monster trucks go out to do battle for the audience’s amusement, in the process they are damaged, and then they are repaired so that they can do it again. It’s a cyclical tragedy. Rather poetic, don’t you think?”

  Tom sighed. "It’s too early for this, Edgar. Maybe let the… poetry wait ‘til coffee?"

  "Ah, yes. Coffee will sharpen my insights."

  Tom grunted and pulled on his work coveralls. His tablet buzzed again and he raised it to his squinting eyes. Repair Request: Apartment 517R. Subject: Malfunctioning Sink.

  517R…

  Tom’s heart warmed. “Looks Like Zoe needs my help.”

  Edgar smirked. “Ah, the engaging lady of domicile 517R. Will you finally confess your undying admiration for her impeccable taste in band posters and recreational herbs?”

  Tom failed to stifle a nervous laugh. “I’ll be fixing her sink. That’s it.”

  “Yes, yes. And Cyrano was merely offering unsolicited script revisions.”

  Tom’s face screwed up in a baffled expression. “What?”

  The former professor sighed and rubbed his forehead. “You know, when we first became roommates, I agreed to try the things you enjoy, even though I’d never had any interest in them before. Monster trucks, sitcoms, professional wrestling, hockey… None of these were, as you say, ‘My thing’ until recently. You might try reciprocating that. I’d be happy to lend you any number of my books for a good read.”

  Images of the stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes in Edgar’s room rushed back to Tom’s memory. It had been agony to move them all in, and Edgar still hadn’t bought shelves for them.

  Tom was never much of a reader, at least when it came to anything other than user manuals. Even so, he decided to humor his old friend. “Sure, Edgar. Dig out a book you’d like me to read and put it on the counter. When I get back, I’ll give it a look.”

  The apartment complex, officially named “The Summit Residences,” but more commonly referred to simply as “The Building,” often proved difficult for new residents to navigate. It seemed almost every day that someone in those labyrinthian halls flanked by identical doors would stop Tom and ask him for directions. It didn’t help that The Building had 200 floors, and each floor was so vast that the apartments had both a three-to-six-digit number and a letter.

  Tom was headed to apartment 517R, which he knew meant there were apartments 517A through 517Q as well.

  The upside of living in such an enormous and byzantine structure was that everything one could possibly need was within its walls: grocery stores, restaurants, gyms, arcades, even an artificial park on the 25th floor and a garden on the roof.

  As he made his way through the maze, taking paths he knew all too well, the buzzing of tiny propellors alerted him to the approach of a drone. He stepped aside even before it announced in a deep, mechanical voice, “Please stand aside. A food delivery is underway.” The whirring drone passed him, a parcel hanging from its metallic arms. Once it reached the door of apartment 503R, it lowered the package onto the welcome rug and extended an appendage to ring the doorbell. “Delivery complete.”

  Mere seconds after the drone had turned to leave, the door opened and the resident therein, clad in sweatpants and a stained t-shirt, emerged, took the parcel, and pulled the door shut once more.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fetterman,” said Tom. Like so many others in The Building, Mr. Fetterman worked from home. The man never actually left his apartment, as far as Tom could tell.

  The internet’s made total recluses out of so many of us. It used to be most people had to go down to the second floor to work.

  Tom resolved not to think too much on it. He had a job to do at Apartment 517R. He’d worry about Mr. Fetterman if and when the man ever needed work done.

  "Hey, Handyman," Zoe drawled as she opened her door. She leaned against the frame, her hoodie half-zipped over a tank top with a faded psychedelic sunburst. Her hair, an artful mess of violet waves, smelled faintly of lavender, which off-set the smells of burnt peanuts and skunk that her choice of smokeables had created. “Come to rescue me from the horrors of indoor plumbing?”

  Tom scratched the back of his neck. “That’s the goal. Heard your sink’s acting up.”

  “With the sounds it’s making? I’m pretty sure it’s possessed.” She led him into the kitchen, where the faucet gave an ominous gurgle. “I tried talking to it, you know, but it refuses to repent of its evil ways. I wanted to call in Father Holden from the chapel on the seventh floor, but the Super insisted that I call you first.”

  Tom raised a hand to his chest. “The Super keeps us.”

  “The Super keeps us,” said Zoe with a slight bow of her head.

  Tom approached the sink and turned the faucet on. As Zoe said, the sound from inside was something out of a B-grade horror movie. He crouched, twisting the valve beneath the counter. “Could be a pressure issue. Maybe air trapped in the pipes. Happens sometimes.”

  “Or,” she countered, crouching beside him, “it’s ghosts. You ever think about that? Like, what if this whole building is haunted?”

  Tom smirked. “If you encounter any spirits, I say charge them rent. Everyone should earn their keep around here.”

  “What if they’re vengeful?” Zoe asked.

  “Then offer them one of your herbal cigarettes,” said Tom as he crawled under the sink to get a better look at the pipes. “Or I could try an exorcism right now.”

  “Would you?” she asked. He couldn’t tell if her tone was serious or joking.

  “Sure.” Tom shut off the water and started his work, all the while chanting, “Baloney retro, infestus mundi! Flibberus, flabberus, jabberus tonka shambri! Vamoosium, caput in zebra elephantium!”

  Zoe laughed. “I don’t think that’s real Latin.”

  “I live with a professor of literature,” said Tom. “I know Latin. If the noises stop, then I’m either a great Handyman or an excellent exorcist.”

  “Or maybe both?”

  “Maybe.” Tom found what seemed to be the issue: a worn washer. Once he replaced it and put everything back the way it was, he turned the water back on and tested the faucet. “There, you see? All evil spirits have been cast back into Hell.”

  “I’ll sleep better tonight,” said Zoe. “Thank you, Tom. It’s good having you around.”

  Heat rushed to Tom’s ears. “Maybe we can hang out at the Meeka Mocha some time. Have coffee and a few laughs.”

  Zoe winced. “Oh, not coffee. That stuff is terrible! Caffeine stays in your system for days, and it prevents you from getting any real sleep. People can die from a lack of dreams, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Tom.

  “Dreams are the only thing that can appease the human spirit. You’re getting enough sleep at night to dream, right?”

  “I assume so,” said Tom. “Otherwise I really did show up at a barbecue without my pants last night, and a bunch of dwarves pointed and laughed as I ran away in shame.”

  “I’d pay to see that,” said Zoe with a smirk.

  Once again, heat rushed to Tom’s face. They remained silent for a moment, with Tom struggling to figure out what move to make next in their verbal chess game. Before he could find the right words, his tablet buzzed, indicating that another resident needed repairs.

  Repair Request: Apartment 627R. Subject:_______________________.

  Oh, Morris…

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Duty calls,” he said, giving an apologetic shrug.

  In Room 627R lived Morris Kent, The Building’s resident conspiracy theorist. Tom praised social media for the creation of such entertaining lunatics as Morris.

  The mad recluse inhabited a cluttered unit. When he allowed entry into his abode, Tom carefully maneuvered around stacks of handwritten notes, printouts of obscure websites, and books on secret societies. Once, Morris had covered the entire eastern wall of his apartment with photographs, index cards, and strings of red yarn to connect them. In the past year, Morris proved himself an over-achiever, as conspiracy theorists go, by connecting the yarn on that wall to pictures on the adjacent wall, ceiling, and the refrigerator.

  The first time Tom had to navigate the spider’s web of yarn to make his way in, Morris offered the excuse, “The investigation has taken on new dimensions.” Tom had waited for him to say more, but soon discovered that Morris considered this to be explanation enough for turning his living space into an obstacle course.

  Once the Handyman made it past Morris’ maze, the paranoid resident rushed to close his front door and lock three extra deadbolts he’d clearly installed himself.

  Should I offer to fix those?

  “Tom! Thank Ormuzd you’re here!”

  The repairman stifled a laugh at the reference to whatever new deity the conspiracy theorist had discovered.

  “Were you followed?” asked Morris.

  The first time Morris asked him this, Tom joked about two little girls beckoning him to play with them at the end of the hallway. The resulting panic had taught him that such humor wasn’t worth the resulting hassle.

  “No, I was discreet.”

  “How discreet could you have been?” asked Morris. “I heard your footsteps coming down the hall.”

  “It’s called ‘hiding in plain sight,’ bud.” Tom feigned a suspicious glance toward the door. “If I walked softly someone might see me and wonder why I don’t want to be heard. So, I walk like I have nothing to hide. Fools ‘em.”

  “Sounds reckless,” said Morris. “Especially given what we know.”

  “Right,” said Tom with a shrug. “The ‘Watchers in the Walls’ and all that.”

  “Oh, that was just the tip of the iceberg, Tom!” said Morris. “But I can tell you all about my new discoveries later. Right now, I need you to fix something.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Morris led him past the clutter and the curtains pulled closed in front of the apartment’s only window, into his bedroom. Morris’ mattress, a twin, sat nestled into the corner of the room. A claw hammer lay on the floor within arm’s reach of his pillow. The expanse of rug between the messy sleeping space and Morris’ computer desk was littered with white powder and bits of drywall, a trail that led right to the grapefruit-sized hole Morris had surely made himself.

  A long sigh escaped the back of Tom’s throat. The employee manual said that such destruction must be reported to the Super. Further, all lease agreements said that any residents who willfully damaged any part of their apartments would be relocated to a sub-basement apartment. There, the walls were made of concrete. While this was more merciful a remedy than the dreaded Eviction, he hated the idea of doing that to anyone, let alone Morris.

  Tom folded his arms and turned his head away from the resident. “What was it this time?”

  “I heard them, Tom!” said Morris. “Watchers in the walls. Heard them thumping and scratching away.”

  “It might not always be them,” said Tom, trying to meet his delusions half-way. Over the years, he’d found it easier to connect with the man if they conversed on his level. “Parts of The Building are older than others. My grandpa used to say, ‘her old bones make strange sounds, but she’s got a lot of life left in her.’”

  “I know what I heard,” said Morris. “This time it wasn’t just tapping, it was rhythmic, like footsteps. And there was that scratching sound in the walls. Awful!” He clutched his fingers to both temples, shaking his head. “And I knew that if I hoped to survive it, I’d have to strike first. So, I took the hammer and…”

  “I’m going to have to stop you there,” said Tom. “Plausible deniability and all that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tom scratched under his chin. “If I get interrogated, I shouldn’t know the whole story. Keeps us both safe that way.”

  “Ah. Good thinking!” Morris pointed at him. “See? This is why you’re the perfect outside contact for me. You know how to get by undetected in this mad place!”

  Tom smiled that Morris had described “social graces” like an alien culture. He recalled a time when he and his older brother, Neil, climbed up to the roof after dark and exchanged stories about cities on other planets and what strange customs they might have. As Tom looked Morris over, he wondered if paranoia could be redeemed as a sense of wonder.

  Illuminating the gap with his flashlight, he confirmed his own suspicions. The holes behind the drywall bore all the signs of the passage of mice. Simple rodents had poor Morris worked up into fits.

  “Morris, I hate to tell you this, but you don’t have Watchers. These are Gawper droppings.”

  “Gawpers?” Morris frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nasty little things,” said Tom. “I hear they only live in this building. They look and act like other animals, but they’re really just going around… gawping at… people they think are cool.”

  Morris’ frown deepened. “Tom, don’t patronize me.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  “There’s no way even these ‘Gawpers’ think I’m cool.”

  “You caught me,” said Tom. “They’re little gossipmongers, and they make fun of people in their secret Gawper hideouts.”

  Morris rubbed his temples and mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, “Right. Right.”

  “At least, that’s what my Grandpa used to say.” Tom shrugged. “Point is, I know how to get rid of ‘em. Need to buy some supplies from the second floor, though. You’re paying.”

  “Why me?”

  Tom’s teeth clenched. “Because if the Super has to pay for it, that means he gets to know about it too.”

  “Oh!” said Morris. “Yeah, we don’t want that kind of paper trail.”

  Tom gave a glance back over his shoulder at the documents littering Morris’ apartment. He gave no comment.

  They covered the hole with duct tape, and Tom made a list of the supplies he needed and what he estimated they’d cost. As always, Morris paid in Nexu$ coin (“It’s just called Nexu$!” he’d correct him).

  When Tom returned with the materials, he set to work filling the gaps with steel wool doused in peppermint oils. Just the first of many barriers he would install to keep the critters out (and then traps in every room of the apartment).

  As he worked, Morris stood nearby to hand him whatever he needed. Though the resident’s hands were as soft as his sanity, he had memorized the name of every tool Tom ever showed him.

  At the end of a long pause, Morris whispered, “They’re watching us.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Tom. “Because it seems that whenever I start to feel just a little hungry I hear some ad about a sandwich place on the tenth floor or something. They know the time is right to sell me sandwiches.”

  “That’s just it, though,” said Morris. “Ever get ads for a sandwich place that’s not in the building?”

  “Can’t say I do,” said Tom as he stuffed pest poison into the gaps.

  “Why’s that, you think?” said Morris.

  “Because my tablet knows I spend all my time in The Building. So, why recommend I travel any further than here for what I need when it can all be found closer? That’s just capitalism, man.”

  “What if it’s because there is no outside world?” asked Morris.

  Tom groaned, brushed off his hands on his coveralls, and rose to his feet. “Here. That’s got to dry, so let me show you something.”

  On the way out of the bedroom, Morris picked up his claw hammer.

  Tom led him to his window and put a hand on the curtain.

  “Wait!” Morris raised a hand to stop him.

  “If they’re in the walls like you think, then what’s an exposed window anymore?” Tom drew back the curtains, revealing the pure blue skies over the city’s horizon. Apartment rooftops stretched out in every direction, every structure dwarfed in The Building’s sight. “Now, we can close this in a second but take a good look at that. That is the outside world. It exists. Alright?”

  “Yeah, take a look!” Morris’ face erupted with fury. He launched himself at the window, beating it with his clawhammer.

  “Stop that!” Tom pushed him away and took the clawhammer from his hand.

  “Look at it!” Morris pointed at the pristine glass. Neither chip nor crack marred the pane. “The windows don’t open, and they’re unbreakable!”

  Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve the pressure building behind his eyes. “Look, Morris, like I said, some parts of this building are older than others. When I was a kid there was this one summer when they’d sound the hailstorm sirens every other week, and we’d take cover because the storm would shatter windows. My dad was the Handyman for this sector back then, and he spent a lot of time away, fixing the neighbors’ windows. Finally, one day, he got the other Handymen talking and they all agreed that it would be better to just install some indestructible glass.”

  Tom rapped his knuckles on the pane. “It’s unbreakable so it can keep residents safe.”

  “When’s the last time you went outside?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” said Tom, looking over the pale recluse. “I went up to the roof for Glen Markus’ barbecue oh… five weeks ago.”

  “That’s not outside!” Morris yanked the curtains from Tom’s grasp and pulled them shut.

  “It rained on us,” said Tom. “I’d call that pretty ‘outside,’ wouldn’t you?”

  “But that’s not the ‘outside’ I mean!” Morris scratched at his temples. “Ever tried to walk out the front door of the building?”

  “Why leave?”

  “You once told me you’ve lived here all your life,” said Morris.

  “That’s right.”

  “Did your dad ever take you to any other buildings in the city?”

  Tom shrugged. “Like where?”

  “The zoo?”

  Tom pointed down, toward a lower floor. “We have an aquarium in The Building.”

  “A baseball game?”

  Again, the Handyman shrugged, this time pointing upward. “We got that hockey rink on the eighth floor.”

  “A relative’s house?”

  Tom’s lips clamped shut.

  Morris leaned in closer. “Last night,” he whispered, “I left my apartment at about two a.m., and you know what I did?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tom, striding over to his toolbox. “And it’s probably better I don’t. In case I get interrogated, or they have mind-probes or something. I better finish sealing up that hole, so the Gawpers don’t get in anymore.”

  It took a little more convincing, but Tom finally got Morris to agree to let him work in silence.

  By the time Tom got back to his apartment, Edgar was watching As the World Burns (a parody of a famous soap opera). He pursed his lips and spread out his books, fingers tracing over lines from Shakespeare plays, holy texts, and scholarly journals.

  “You’re back later than expected.” The former professor paused his show. “That’s why the roast is already cold, you see. No matter. I should have sent a text to ask when you’d be back, but I’ve just been so absorbed in this program.”

  “No problem, Ed,” said Tom. “I’ll just nuke it.”

  “Mhmm.” Edgar lowered his glasses and gave him a wry smirk. “So, how is Zoe? Still oh so lovely and mysterious?”

  “I tried to invite her out for coffee, but she doesn’t like caffeine. I don’t think she’s picking up what I’m putting down.”

  “Then you have to make sure she knows you put it down,” said Edgar. “Be more direct with her.”

  “Of course,” said Tom, certain he’d never heard a more frightening idea. “And you’re the expert on love?”

  The professor raised his chin in a smug expression. “I don’t pursue it myself, but I observe others’ efforts. There’s much you can learn from being, as you say, ‘a third wheel.’”

  Tom served himself a plate of cold leftovers. Into the microwave they went, to reheat under an atomic glow. As the SwiftCook? gave its radioactive hum, bringing Tom’s meal up to an acceptable temperature for consumption, the Handyman returned to his roommate’s side.

  “Edgar, do you have a sec?”

  The professor paused his show once more and turned to Tom. “What’s on your mind?”

  Tom wrestled with his thoughts until one showed more courage than the others. “What was the name of that college you used to teach at?”

  “That would be Blackwood University,” said Edgar with a grin.

  “And that was outside of The Building, right?”

  Edgar’s face screwed up in curiosity. “Well, that is a most peculiar question. Yes, Blackwood University is far from The Summit Residences.”

  “What state?” asked Tom.

  “This one,” said Edgar. “Upstate, though. Past Bernwich and up the Open Maw highway. Why do you ask?”

  The microwave beeped, indicating that it had irradiated his food for long enough for him to enjoy it. He partook of the meal with a short, muttered prayer. After swallowing his first bite, he said, “It was just something Morris said to me.”

  Edgar’s eyes grew wide, and he clenched his teeth. “Oh, I would be careful about letting that man get into your head. In my experience, that’s how mass hysterias begin. One person who’s out of his mind makes seemingly genuine connections, convinces one or two other people, and soon enough you have a community that shoves its phones in college professors’ faces and asks them questions about secret cabals, lost civilizations, and alien technology.”

  Tom cringed at the thought.

  Edgar closed his eyes and shook his head. “It used to drive me crazy every time a student asked me if the Holy Grail was actually a cup that contained the ghosts of every man who was ever wrongfully executed, and that anyone who drank from that cup would become the living embodiment of their justice to destroy all tyrants round the world. Some madness he found online, no doubt! And how am I supposed to know if that’s true? Because I know the Arthurian legends? They’re legends! They change! No, you cannot ask me another question about the lost continent of Mu. I’ve had quite enough of telling you that it is just a myth, ‘Mr. Veritas!’ If. That. Is. In. Fact. Your. REAL. NAME!”

  At some point in the conversation, Edgar’s gaze passed Tom to become a piercing glare that seemed determined to burn a hole in the far wall. The former professor’s nostrils flared, and his eyes went bloodshot.

  “Well, you sure told him!” said Tom.

  “No,” said Edgar with a sigh. “I wish I had the nerve to say it back then, but I didn’t. I kept my cool, because I still believed I’d have a future at that school.”

  Tom took a seat in the chair beside the couch. “Yeah, well, we are where we are, and The Building has everything we need.”

  “Veritably,” said the professor with a grin.

  Tom savored the meal his roommate had made for him, which was cold and hot in the same mouthful. “Why go anywhere else?”

  “So,” said the professor. “Let’s see if we can think of something for you and Miss Zoe to do together.”