… And When the Full Moon Shines…

My face in the mirror looks back at me, bleary eyed at this time of the morning. I look terrible! Hey, what’s that mark on my neck? Looks like a kiss? It’s that woman upstairs again! How the hell did she get in here? I changed the locks on the door; I added bolts to the windows. I blocked the chimney with concrete. What else is there? Up the toilet pipe? And then she leans over and kisses me while she drinks my blood. I’m gonna fix this forever… 

Google will know. Google knows everything. Well, almost everything. There was a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer some years back. And it had a huge following. As far as I know fans still exist in small groups and call themselves ‘BTVs’ which are the first letters of the name of the movie. I’ll find the nearest group and hire them to do a removal job. Whatever it costs. No-one should have to live in fear of having their blood stolen in the depths of the night while they are asleep.

This woman, Ms. Savage, our upstairs neighbor, looks and behaves like a real lady whenever we meet in the pathway or the lobby. We greet each other. I look her up and down; I’m a normal male with normal male reactions and she is quite something to look at. She looks me up and down too; what for? Checking me out for the drinks section on tonight’s menu? She has to be a vampire…

She doesn’t conform to descriptions of vampires:  

‘A vampire is a creature that exists by feeding on the blood of the living. One can recognize a vampire by some tell-tale physical signs: pale skin, no reflection in mirrors, fangs and red glowing eyes.’ Now that I think of it, she is a little on the pale side. She is also small both in height and in body size, but there are lots of women around who match those statistics. All in all she has a great figure. But there is another factor that keeps me guessing: her carpet.

Her apartment, the one above mine, has a balcony. Around the edge of the balcony there is an open balustrade; just iron bars and an iron handrail along the top about 4 feet above the floor. Every morning when I go to my car, which is parked overnight in the street, I see the balcony with its balustrade and hanging over the balustrade there is a large colorful carpet. It is there every morning when I leave for the office at about 8. I never see the neighbor there, only the carpet. I suppose she comes out later to beat it and take it in.

Just a minute – that carpet looks about 15 feet square. How does she get it there? How does she lift it over the balcony? That carpet has to weigh 30 or 40 or 50 pounds. She can lift that and carry it? I’ve never seen her carrying the carpet in or out. The carpet became an obsession with me and I wanted to ask her, but I was afraid to. One morning we bumped in the lobby. She had a sleeveless dress on and my eyes went straight to her arms. I looked for muscles. Nothing. No bulging biceps or triceps. Just arms suitable for a 30 to 40 year old woman. But she knew what was in my mind; she looked at me and I saw her thinking, ‘come on mister, ask me about my carpet’.

So I did. “That’s a beautiful carpet you hang out to air every morning.”

“Oh yes. It is beautiful, isn’t it? It’s very old. A few hundred years. It came from Transylvania. That’s in Romania, you know. I air it and beat it every morning.”

That was as far as I dared.

My questions were answered some months later. It was the time after I had my cataracts attended to and I was following the doctor’s instructions - Wear sunglasses outside. That morning I forgot the sunglasses and after I had started the car and checked for the carpet, I switched off and went back to my place to get them. I walked back to the car, started it, gave it a couple of revs and looked up to see the carpet.

It wasn’t there!

And then I saw it, high in the sky and zooming down towards me. It came out of its dive about 20 feet above the ground, hovered in front of my car, turned this way and that. Then it stopped for a moment. There in the center sat my neighbor, legs crossed, arms folded and a huge smile on her face. She leaned to the left and then to the right tilting the carpet with her. Then she waved at me and shouted something that I didn’t hear because the car radio was playing a loud Mozart. A second later the carpet did a complete turn around and soared up into the sky. 

Tonight I’ll find out exactly who my magic carpet neighbor is. I’ll bend her over my knee if that’s what it takes. My blood is the fuel she needs to get that carpet up in the air? Or my blood is what turns her on and takes her back to her roots in ancient Europe, fangs and red glowing eyes and all? But that night never happened. I had a ticket for the Philharmonic.

But there’ll be a full moon tomorrow night, which means it’ll be my night for werewolf action. I’m going to be making a few visits and the first one will be upstairs. I tell you now, fair neighbor, be ready for a long and passionate night. It will start when you hear me howling at the moon. Soon after I’ll be at your balcony door, the one you never lock because you say no one can get in that way on the twelfth floor. Then I’ll be in your bedroom, hungry and ready to eat. So bare yourself; I like to start with the left one…