Deadline Is Death

The key turned in the lock.

I pressed my back hard against the door, the fruit knife trembling in my hand.

Half a minute earlier, someone in the work group chat had shared another news article. It said the killer would dismember me.

Was he really going to do it?

Click.

The lock opened.

A violent force slammed into the door. I went down with it, door and body crashing backward together.

The instant the back of my head hit the floor, I saw him step inside. He was wearing the same gray pajamas as me. Without a word, he reached straight for my throat.

I was hauled up off the ground. His other hand lifted as well.

What he was holding came clearly into view. It was a semi-transparent supermarket plastic bag, stretched out of shape by the weight inside.

Dark liquid had pooled at the bottom, dripping down in slow drops, splashing onto my slippers.

My eyes widened. There were chunks of flesh inside.

The flesh had wrinkled, aged skin. Strands of gray-white hair stuck to shattered bone and dark red tissue. A veined hand dangled limply from the opening of the bag, a faded gold ring on the ring finger.

Was it Mrs. Calder from next door?

I didn’t dare confirm it. I shut my eyes instead.

"How is it? Not bad, right!" He forced me to look at his "work".

Just for that instant, I used the last of my strength and stabbed upward, not at him but at the plastic bag.

The knife tip punctured the plastic and plunged into the flesh inside. Warm liquid sprayed out, soaking his hand and splattering across my face.

He froze, then abruptly let go.

I collapsed to the floor, gasping for air, my throat burning with pain.

He stood in front of me, lowering his head to look at his blood-smeared hand.

"Ugh…" Then he turned and walked out, even pulling the door closed behind him. His footsteps faded down the hallway.

I lay there for at least five minutes before crawling toward the door.

I looked out through the peephole to see that the corridor was empty.

On the floor outside my door was a small puddle of filth of blood mixed with bits of tissue and half of a severed finger that was wearing a faded gold ring.

I rushed into the bathroom and vomited.

When there was nothing left but bile and acid, I turned on the tap and scrubbed my face desperately.

When I looked up again, the person in the mirror was dripping with water, eyes bloodshot, and deep purple fingerprints clearly visible around the neck.

But alive.

I… hadn’t died?

With shaking hands, I dialed 911 and incoherently reported the dismembered body parts.

The police arrived quickly. Two young officers listened as I spoke, examined the injuries on my neck, and grew serious.

They went to knock on the door of Unit 703. There was no response, so they contacted the landlord and used a spare key to open it.

I stood in my doorway, watching them go in.

A few minutes later, Officer Lucas Ward came back out, his face pale. He spoke into his radio, requesting backup and a forensic team.

Then he looked at me. His expression was complicated.

"You…" He chose his words carefully. "Did you have any conflict with her?"

"No!" My voice was hoarse. "Someone broke into my apartment! Attacked me! And then carried—"

"We reviewed the hallway surveillance," the other officer, Officer Nathan Cross, said as he walked over, holding his body cam footage up for me to see.

In the black-and-white video, at 3:02 a.m., the door to Unit 703 opened.

Mrs. Calder, who was still in her nightie, came out holding an empty milk carton, as if heading out to take the trash down.

She walked to my door and then stopped. Then she began slamming her head against it seven or eight times.

After that, she turned and walked away. She did not go back to Unit 703, but toward the stairwell.

"What happened next?" I asked.

"There are no cameras in the stairwell," Officer Ward said. "But three minutes later, your door opened."

No.

That wasn’t me.

3:17 a.m.

"That’s when my apartment was broken into!" I grabbed Officer Ward’s arm. "Someone was impersonating me! He attacked me, and he killed—"

"Mr. Vale." Officer Ward gently freed his arm. "We’ve checked your apartment. There are no signs of forced entry. Doors and windows are intact. Inside, there are only your fingerprints and hair. No one else’s.

"There are biological remains on the floor," he continued, "and they match what was found in Unit 703."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Officer Cross said heavily, "Based on the surveillance footage and the evidence we currently have, the last person to have contact with the deceased, and the one who carried… body parts into a public area, was you."