“Bria! Did you change the laundry yet?”
“Oops! I’m on it,” she replied, closing her eyes in annoyance.
Shit.
Bria had been living in the three-bedroom apartment in the affordable, but barely secure Madison Arms for about nine months now. And yet, she still wasn’t used to Nancy. The woman was one of her four roommates’, and she was sort of infamous for lurking.
Truly, Nancy was like the villain in a B horror movie with the way she popped up in the weirdest places. And completely out of nowhere, too. Even worse was her rigorous chore schedule she insisted on meting out to the entire group of them.
Always on a deadline, Bria had to admit, she was slacking when it came to organization. But she’d set an alarm this time. Maybe Nancy was wrong. Sighing, she looked up from the article she was typing.
Damn it.
She really was late getting to the laundry room. The neon numbers on the microwave clock didn’t lie. She should have switched machines ten minutes ago, and that was bad. It could mean the difference between heaven and hell for their poor bath towels.
Lurking in the depths of the hallways was the villainous, the heinous, the always nosy Mrs. Garcia. She lived on the second floor but roamed all of them daily in her quest to write the most complaints a single person could have, to the company who owned the building. She complained about everything. Litter on the floors, inappropriate door decorations, and worst offense of all, clothes left in either the washer or dryer.
Mrs. Garcia was like the Madison Arms Apartment Complex’s own laundry room police. The woman was a freaking nuisance. No one liked her. Well, except for Nancy. The tiny blonde was tapping her shoe and glaring at her smart watch as Bria clicked save on her document. She stood up, noticing with a perverse amount of pleasure the way Nancy winced as the chair scraped on the linoleum floor.
“Well?” the blonde asked.
“I’m on it, Nancy,” Bria replied, smile and all.
Dashing across the room, Bria grabbed her cell phone and keys before running out of the apartment towards the elevators. The laundry room was located in the basement of the older building. They were fighting to keep their costs under the same rent control laws that had been established back when the original owners erected the place close to seventy years ago.
Of course, in New York City, nothing was as it seemed. And the new landlords were pushing for increases that neither she nor her roommates could afford. One of them was based on the grounds that they couldn’t possibly keep the place secure without renovations to security systems, new doors, and windows that were somewhere in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“I already took out your towels, Ms. Grotto. Tsk, ten minutes ago. You know you are not the only one who needs to use the washers today,” Mrs. Garcia snapped.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Garcia,” Bria said with a tense smile plastered to her face.
She was raised to be polite to her elders, but the smile dropped as soon as the older woman shook her head and walked away. Of course, Mrs. Garcia didn’t put the towels in the dryer or even in the cart.
Nope.
She’d dumped the entire load right on the grimy floor, meaning Bria would have to wash the bottom two at least one more time. And now, she’d have to wait to do that.
Ugh.
Sighing, she loaded the dryer and left the two soiled towels on top of the machine with a note to Mrs. Garcia that she would rewash them. But, just to make sure she didn’t miss the next cycle, Bria decided to work from the laundry room.
Ugh.
How could anyone be so rude? She lamented the loss of her comfy seat cushion and opened the old metal folding chair that rested against the wall. A few minutes later, Jess, another one of her roommates, came bounding in with Bria’s laptop, its charger, and a mug of hot coffee.
“Oh my God, Jess, I swear I am gonna name my firstborn after you,” Bria sighed and took a sip of the good stuff.
Jess was a new addition to the place, but she was sweet and nice. And she didn’t take any shit, which made her like Bria’s idol. Even better, the woman had just gotten a promotion and was already leaving their little place for one of her own. Quite the feat in this city.
“Your firstborn? Bria, you need to get you a man first,” Jess replied, shaking her head.
Bria shook hers back and gulped. Trying to date the opposite sex was a study of disappointment in her tried and true experience. She’d have better luck finding proof that the supernatural existed, which was the entire basis of her vlog.
Her website, Lost and Found: Proof of the Supernatural in the City, was ranked pretty high especially for such a niche audience. Her fan base was mostly American, and though she was small time, she still managed to eke out a living.
Checking the analytics tab, Bria grinned when she saw she had six hundred and fifty thousand likes on her latest video. That would score her even more paid ads. If this kept up, maybe she could leave her roommate worries behind.
“Gotta go, roomie,” Jess said. “And don’t let Nancy give you shit for taking long with the towels. That heifer waited all day to take her smelly ass garbage out after she made all that fish for her lunches this week too.”
“I won’t. Did I mention how much I am going to miss you?”
“Yep. But I am still going.”
“Fine. Have a good day,” Bria replied.
“Mmm hmm.”
Jess shook her head and walked to the elevator, presumably to head to work. She was with the child protection services, and Bria admired her every day. It took a woman of certain strength, compassion, and grit to do that job.
The video in question had been sent in by an anonymous source and, from what Bria could tell, seemed pretty damn real.
“No way, Jess. My last date was with a guy with a Frankenstein fetish who lived in his mom’s basement. Worst. Date. Ever. Anyway, I ditched him before I ended up spare parts in his freezer,” she replied with an exaggerated shiver.
“You do have lousy taste,” Jess concurred.
“Thanks, temporary roomie,” Bria replied, waving the brat away.
After an hour and a half of washing, waiting, drying, and finally, folding the first load of bath towels, Bria had only the two that she had to rewash left in the dryer. She was clicking on her email when she noticed an anonymous tipster had sent her a video file.
Dang it.
She hated it when they did that, since video clips were sometimes computer viruses in disguise. After running it through her security software, she deemed it safe to open.
“Let’s see,” she murmured and opened the file.
Her heart raced, eyes wide, Bria was shocked and awed by what she saw. A man- seemingly normal, though very tall, and very muscular in a gangly sort of way, was stepping outside of The Stripe Club.
A quick search told her the place was a high end strip bar, what used to be called a gentlemen’s club. It was located somewhere on the lower east side. Some actors, a few rock stars, and the occasional gangster were said to frequent the place.
But none of that was particularly interesting. Still, Bria continued to watch the video as it showed the stranger heading towards the alley. The amateur director was sure to take a shot of the full moon, and Bria frowned. That was weird. Then things got weirder.
The man fell. He was clutching his stomach as if he were in pain. Background traffic was loud, so she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard a scream. Then, the impossible happened.
Holy fucking shit.
Excitement raced through her veins, and she unknowingly missed her floor. Forgetting the laundry cart in the elevator, as she stepped out into the hallway. Her eyes were riveted to the footage. She wished it wasn’t so damn grainy, but she could not look away.
Bria squinted, frowning at the bad image. She clicked away at the keyboard, running the video through some software that had enhancement filters.
Then she watched it again.
And again.
And AGAIN.
“Ohmyfuckinggawd,” she squeaked. “He’s a Werewolf!”
A door slammed open, and she looked up.
What the fuck?
How did she end up back in the basement? And who the heck were those guys? A couple of strange men wearing all black had stepped through the door that opened up to the Madison Arms’ back entrance. They were tall, muscular, and a little hairy. Kind of like the dude in the video.
Gulp.
“Who’s a Werewolf?” one of the strange men asked.
“Um, no one?” she squeaked.
“Nah, this lady is too smart to believe in that nonsense. Ain’t ya?” another asked.
“So, what say you hand over the laptop and come with us, eh?” from a third.
“Um, actually, my mother told me to never leave my apartment building with three large strangers,” Bria said, closing her laptop and hugging it tight to her body.
“Really? Seems oddly specific from your average mom,” the tallest of the trio, stepped forward.
Shivers raced up and down Bria’s spine, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Those were exactly the warning signs she talked about on her vlog. Those tiny glimpses of a sixth sense that so many people felt when facing something unexplainable.
“Fuck, this is not good,” she whispered, backing up into the wall.
“You have no idea. Now, hand it over,” one of the men growled.
Like actually growled. Like a dog, or gulp, a Wolf.
“Um, listen---”
Just then, Mrs. Garcia, her oh so nosy - thank fuck for that - neighbor, came out of the elevator. The older woman zeroed in on Bria, and of course, jumped to the wrong conclusion, bless her ornery little heart.
“Ms. Grotto, this hallway is not approved for public parties, you know. I’m going to write to the landlord about this---”
“You are so right, Mrs. Garcia, thank you so much. I’ll just be going now,” Bria said, grabbing the older woman’s hand in a viselike grip. “You should come with me. We can go see him now!”
“What is this? What are you doing? Are these boys bothering you? Oh no, not on my watch! See here, you hooligans, you get the hell out of here or I’ll pepper spray you all,” the older woman announced.
“You little---”
But before the man could finish his threat, Mrs. Garcia had grabbed a can of the stuff from one of the large pockets of her well worn cardigan that for some reason smelled like mothballs, cat fur, and peppermints, and she let him have it right smack in his face. The man dropped to his knees, screaming, and clawing at his eyes, while his friends lunged for the two females. Bria sneezed, damn cat allergies, but she managed to pull the old woman back into the elevator before the doors closed.
The men screamed and yelled, punching and kicking at the closed doors, but it was no good. The Madison Arms had an old as fuck elevator system, and nothing was going to get those doors open.
“What is it? I could’ve handled them. Say, are you okay? You look pale. Gotta toughen up if you wanna live in the Big Apple, Bria Grotto.”
Mrs. Garcia shrugged nonchalantly, dropping her mace back into her pocket. The action caused some of the cat fur on her sweater to stir, and Bria sneezed again.
“Thanks, Mrs. Garcia. Um, I think it’s best if we get you back to your apartment. Then I think we should call the police.”
What the hell had just happened?