Free Good Neighbors by Ryan David Jahn Page B

window he sees a woman, a man, and a small child, maybe six years old, all standing together like in a family portrait.
     
     
    Larry’s telling Diane that he’s tired and he just wants to go to bed, can’t they talk about it in the morning – the evasive son of a bitch – when the screams come, and Diane momentarily forgets the fight and turns toward the window, and then walks to it for a better view.
    The lights in the courtyard make it possible to see out fairly well even though it’s night, but Diane doesn’t see anything, just empty space. Four benches, some flower beds, and concrete.
    A moment later, Larry is standing beside her.
    ‘What is it?’ he says.
    ‘I don’t know.’
     
     
    ‘Sounded like screams.’
    ‘Or a dog yelping.’
    ‘It sounded human.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I think it sounded like a dog yelping.’
    Thomas and Christopher both walk toward the living-room window, closer and closer, until their reflections and the reflection of the living room surrounding them disappear, and they can see the courtyard clearly, without having to look through themselves.
    ‘Maybe we should turn off the light,’ Christopher says. But neither of them move to do so.
     
     
    ‘I’m gonna go see if Ron and Anne heard anything,’ Bettie says, turning away from the window and looking at Peter, who seems bemused, who is simply sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into the ether.
    ‘Okay,’ he says without looking up at her.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    He nods.
    ‘You sure?’
    He looks up at her and smiles.
    ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’m sure.’
    ‘All right,’ she says, stroking his face. ‘I’m gonna go see.’
    ‘Okay. I’ll be out in a minute.’
    She walks to the door, pulls it open, and then walks through it.
    In the living room, Anne, Peter’s wife, who Bettie thinks is a sweetheart, and Ron, Bettie’s husband, stand in front of the living-room window. Both of them are motionless as statues; they simply stand there, looking out.
    Bettie says, ‘Did you guys hear that?’
    ‘Sounded like screaming,’ Ron says, turning to look her as she walks up to him and puts an arm around his waist. His body is warm against hers, and a bit sticky, and he smells of sex. The entire living room smells of sex. Bettie glances at Anne, who is wearing a thin pink robe, and then she looks out the window.
    ‘Have you guys seen anything?’
    Anne shakes her head.
    ‘Not yet,’ she says. ‘Oh, wait, there.’
    She points.
    ‘I think I see something too,’ Bettie says.
    Peter walks out of the hallway in a pair of wrinkled slacks, his pale belly shirtless.
    ‘What is it?’ he asks.

13
    Kat crawls out of the night shadows that have laid themselves across the street-side of the apartment complex and makes her way into the lamplit courtyard. She is pulling herself forward on her arms, which scrape and bleed against the concrete beneath her. But she doesn’t care about the pain in her arms; she just wants to get away from the man with the knife.
    She just wants to get away.
    Her shoulder itches. She thinks he stabbed her. There’s a burning sensation inside her, behind her armpit, and she thinks he stabbed her.
    She struggles to her feet, first getting them flat on the ground beneath her body and then using her arms to push herself up. She looks over her shoulder into the darkness but does not see the man with the knife nor the glimmer of the blade.
    Maybe he left. Maybe the lights in the courtyard scared him. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen and he left. She would be okay then. She would be okay if he just left. Someone could fix her up, make her stop hurting, and she would be okay.
    She looks around the courtyard. It’s about thirty feet wide and fifty feet deep and concrete except for a round flower garden in the middle and a few half-circle flower gardens along the edges where the concrete meets each of the four buildings that make up the complex. There are four benches surrounding