217 Babel Street | Apartment 8
Emma and James lifted their faces in the darkness, straining to hear. The noise seemed to have come from just beyond the kitchen, which gave way to the landing, which opened on to the living room. They crept forward, Emma's finger hooked tightly in James's belt loop. The dull light of November seeped through a crack in the curtains, and the flat-screen TV glowed like a silver lake in the dark. High overhead, the old filigree iron-work of an air vent gleamed.
"It came from the vent," whispered Emma. They stepped over a pile of DVDs and almost fell over the roll of her yoga mat. "This is silly. I'll turn on the lamp," she said, relinquishing her finger's grip.
"No, we'll hear better if we keep the lights off."
She sighed. It didn't seem the right moment to tell him he was being irrational again. He moved forward, stubbed his toe on the coffee table and swore gently.
"I dusted that thing for the first time yesterday," she mumbled.
"The table?"
"No, the vent. I must have cleared thirty years of dust from the grille. No wonder your asthma's been bad." But perhaps it had been a mistake to dust. They'd hardly noticed the vent before. Now it seemed like a dark, all-seeing eye. "Where does it lead?" she wondered. But he was concentrating, his ear trained on she-didn't-know-what. "Anyway, the noise has stopped now, James. It could have been anything. Really. Let's just -"
Bounce
Bounce