The Discovery Apartments

by A.S. Morrison

  Chapter 2

  Late in the night Royden woke up. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. A noise met his ears. He listened but couldn’t figure out what it was. It went Hmmmm. It sounded very close.

  Royden got out of bed and tried to find the source. It might have been in the walls. Old buildings make all sorts of strange noises.

  It got louder. It wasn’t coming from the walls but the window. It was outside. And it was moving. What could be moving that high off the ground?

  A bright light shined into the window. Royden jumped back and covered his eyes. It lasted for several seconds and then disappeared very quickly. Royden blinked several times until he could see properly again and looked back out the window. A small red blinking light rose higher near the outside of the building. Occasionally the bright light flashed on into the other apartments and then disappeared again.

  The more Royden watched this thing the more he realized that it was actually an object of some kind. The red blinking light was on the bottom. It looked to be the size of at least a large car.

  Royden went to his door and opened it very slowly. He didn’t know if his parents had seen the light or not. Their door was still closed so he guessed not.

  The apartment was very dark. The only light came from under the door where the light from the hall came in. Royden quietly put his shoes on without socks and opened the front door. The light from the hall seemed very bright that late at night. He slipped out and quietly shut the door behind him.

  It looked like his wish had come true already. He didn’t know what was going on but it sure looked exciting.

  He didn’t know where to go first. None of the halls had windows so he wouldn’t be able to track the object from inside. He went to the elevator and pressed the button for it to come. While he waited he wondered if it would be a good idea to go outside so late. He got in the elevator and pressed the button for the seventeenth floor. It was the highest he could go without a key.

  From the seventeenth floor he went to the stairs. The staircase was always semi dark. The strange lighting gave the place a greenish tint. Every footstep echoed loudly. Royden always felt uncomfortable in there and didn’t like taking the stairs unless he had to.

  He pushed the door to the stairs open very carefully because it was always loud no matter which floor you were on. He went up as high as he could. The stairs went past the penthouse level to the roof. A ladder went to a door in the ceiling. It required a key.

  Royden turned around and jumped in shock. A man was standing right behind him, staring up at the locket entrance to the roof. The man looked to be in his early twenties and had a large floppy hat on.

  Royden couldn’t figure out where he came from. There was no way he climbed the stairs behind him, Royden would have heard. The only way that could have happened is if he had appeared there or floated up the stairs.

  “Any idea how to get up there?” The man asked, staring up.

  “What?” Royden mumbled, still surprised to see anyone else up there so late.

  The man looked down. Royden saw his eyes and gasped. The man’s eyes were the strangest color. Actually they weren’t just one color.

  All sorts of colors swirled through his eyes. The man quickly pulled glasses out of his pocket and put them on.

  “Sorry about that.” With the glasses on his eyes looked brown and normal. “So, any ideas where the key is?”

  “Uh, probably in the manager’s office on the first floor.” Royden said.

  “Great, lead the way.”

  Royden didn’t particularly want to go all the way down there with a stranger, especially with one so strange, but this was shaping up to be an adventure and he loved reading about adventures. Getting a chance to be a part of one was probably twice as fun.

  He led the way back down to the seventeenth floor. The man’s footsteps were just as loud as his own now. On the seventeenth floor they got in the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.

  “The name’s Bill.” The man said.

  “My name is Royden.”

  Bill looked Royden over curiously. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I go to school.” Royden said, wondering why anyone would ask a kid what their job was.

  “Oh.” He nodded.

  When they made it to the first floor Royden went to the manager’s office. It was near the main entrance. A guard was asleep at the front desk.

  “This is it.” Royden whispered.

  “Ah, lovely. This lock is much simpler than the one to the roof.”

  Royden watched the sleeping guard to make sure he stayed asleep. The door opened.

  “How did you do that?” Royden asked, shocked that the door opened so easily.

  “Oh, I’m a magician in my off hours.” Bill said nervously. “Now let’s get that key.”

  They looked all over the small office. An old sepia picture on the wall showed a house near a beach. An old woman stood in the doorway sweeping. Papers littered a small desk. A drawer had several keys in it. Royden showed them to Bill.

  “None of these are right.”

  “How do you know? Let’s take them up and see.”

  “Trust me,” Bill said, “I can tell.”

  The right key wasn’t in the office, at least according to Bill. Royden tried to think where the right one might be when he heard footsteps coming toward the office. He flipped around. The guard stood in the doorway.

  “Quick.” Royden suddenly exclaimed. “Danger on the roof.”

  The guard looked at Royden angrily. Bill walked casually up to the guard and put his hand on the guard’s forehead. The guard closed his eyes and fell to the floor. Royden couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “I don’t know why we didn’t just start with the guard.” Bill said, getting down and checking the guard’s keys. “Here it is. Alright, let’s go.”

  Royden looked from Bill to the guard. “How?”

  “You coming, Royden? I’ve got to get to the roof.”

  Royden still didn’t move. Bill came over, took Royden’s hand, and pulled him out of the office and back to the elevator.

  Bill tried out the key on the hatch in the ceiling and it worked. He threw the door back and climbed onto the roof. Royden followed.

  The roof was covered in gravel and had several large contraptions of some kind. The flying object that Royden had seen floated a couple of inches off the ground nearby.

  It was oval shaped and had a blinking light on the top and bottom. It was eight feet tall and was as wide as a large car. When Bill went up to it a door opened and two people stepped out. They had light blue hair and the same color changing eyes as Bill.

  Royden hoped that the object was a UFO but the people inside looked like regular humans, except for the eyes and hair of course.

  Bill and these two new people stood and stared at each other. Occasionally one would smile or nod.

  Royden thought it strange that they would just stand there and not say anything.

  After a few minutes Bill turned to Royden. “Oh, these are my parents. They say hi.”

  “They didn’t say anything.” Royden pointed out.

  “They did, you just can’t hear them.”

  Royden looked at Bill’s parents. They smiled. Royden moved a little closer to the flying object.

  “What is this thing?”

  “It’s a—well—I guess I should tell you that we’re not from around here.”

  “Where are you from?” Royden asked as he made his way around the object.

  “We’re aliens.”

  “Different country aliens.”

  “More like different planet aliens.”

  Royden looked at Bill curiously. “You can’t be an alien. You look like a human, well almost like a human. Are you really an alien?”

  “Yes. I came to Earth to go to college. I want to be an Earth historian one day and I fig
ured this was the best way to do it. And thanks for helping me tonight.”

  “I really didn’t do anything.”

  “Oh yeah, but I greatly enjoyed your company. Now if you’ll excuse us. I’m going to spend a week on my home planet. My parents have to declare when they’re coming with your government but they forgot this time. That’s why I was sneaking around.”

  Royden couldn’t believe it. He loved the idea of living in the same building as an alien.

  As if he knew what he was thinking, Bill turned to Royden. “You can’t tell anyone of your friends that I live here. If word got out it would be very hard to come and go. And that goes for everyone who lives here.”

  Royden nodded. “I won’t tell anyone, Bill.”

  “Oh, and Bill is my Earth name. My real name is: Bil-ach-tun-flo-tun-zim-zi.”

  Royden decided to stick with Bill.

  “I have to go now.” Bill said.

  “Thanks for letting me in on your secret.” Royden said. “It’s so cool that I get to live near an alien.”

  “You think that’s cool? You should see your other neighbors.”

  Bill and his parents got into the UFO and the door closed. The space ship took off into the sky and disappeared almost instantly.

  Royden went back down through the hole, caught the elevator to the fifth floor, and snuck back into his room without anyone seeing him. Right before he entered his apartment he saw a shadow on the wall. Royden stared at it. There was nothing in the hall that could cast a shadow on the wall. Royden shrugged and continued inside.

  He stared at the ceiling in his room late at night and only had one thought. What were the other neighbors like?