Noise Complaint (The Last Party)

Gladys sighed angrily when she heard the thumping of bass music coming through the apartment above her and her husband’s. At 68 years of age she felt like she deserved a full night of sleep.

“Hank! Call the cops! That damn girl is having another party up there,” Gladys barked angrily at her husband.

“What good will that do, dear? The cops have been here twice already and told us not to call again unless it was a real emergency,” he answered back.

Gladys was fuming. She began to pen out another passive-aggressive letter to slip under the woman’s door, letting her know full well that her social life was not appreciated in the least. Upon completion, Gladys slowly made her way up the staircase to the second floor and down the hall of the 4-story apartment building. She glared at the loud music coming out of the woman’s apartment and dropped the letter to the ground. With a quick kick she sent the letter under the door and made her way back down to her ground floor apartment.

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The morning sun peeked through the blinds and gently stirred Daphne out of her sleep. She sat up and rolled over to sit on the edge of her bed. As she stretched she smiled thinking about last night. The party had been pretty laid back, with about fifteen of her friends coming over to hang out and just enjoy Friday night. Her boyfriend had left around one in the morning, but the party had died out around midnight anyway, which was most certainly an early night in her world.

Daphne was wearing a small t-shirt and a pair of boy shorts she wore to bed most nights. Yesterday’s makeup greeted her when she looked into the mirror while brushing her teeth. She shrugged and put her hair up in a messy ponytail and headed out to the kitchen area. Her bare feet stepped on what felt like a piece of paper. She groaned when she realized what it was upon looking down beyond her dark purple toenail polish. This was the fourth time her grumpy downstairs neighbor had left a nasty letter about the noise she was making. The old hag had even called the cops on her, but they left when they realized she was doing nothing too out of control.

Daphne read the letter, rolled her eyes, and tossed it into the trash. Screw coffee she decided, figuring once she was done dealing with the old woman downstairs she might as well hit up Starbucks, because right now was the time to finally give that woman a piece of her mind. She slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops next to the door, grabbed her purse with her phone and keys in it and locked the door behind her.

Her red flip-flops echoed throughout the hall as Daphne made her way around the corner and down into the basement level. The old couple had the only unit in this area, as the rest of the basement floor was nothing more than an exit to the trash area and a maintenance room that never seemed to be used. She sent her phone back to sleep mode as the old woman’s door started opening in response to her knocking on it. Daphne was greeted by Gladys’s scowling face as the door opened a crack.

“Yes?” Gladys said.

“Look, I don’t know what your problem is, lady, but I’m sick of getting your goddamn letters under my door,” Daphne said.

“Well, girly, I’m sick of your late night ruckus always keeping me up!” Gladys shot back.

“We were done before it was all that late!” Daphne screamed.

Gladys shut her door, unlatched the chain, and then swung it open as fast as her old bones would allow. Daphne chuckled as Gladys slowly walked her way to the edge of the door frame to yell back. The two kept the dramatics up for a few more minutes before Daphne decided she had her fill of the old woman for the rest of the year.

“You know what? You’re ridiculous. I haven’t even had my coffee yet, and I can’t deal with this anymore. Quit leaving notes under my door and quit calling the police on me, got it?” Daphne said.

Gladys frowned, and without thinking, grabbed a large paperweight on the small table next to the front door. A weak right hook caught Daphne by surprise as she looked up from her phone’s screen. The blow wouldn't have done much if Gladys wasn't clutching that paperweight. Even still, the blow wasn't a knockout, but it threw Daphne off her balance. Her right flip-flop caught the small lip of the door, bending the flip-flop awkwardly and causing Daphne to fall forward into Gladys’s apartment. Something came in contact with Daphne’s forehead, and in doing so, sent her into unconsciousness.

Her phone went sliding across the living room floor as Daphne’s now limp body lay nearly all the way inside of Gladys’s apartment, with only her feet poking out into the basement’s hallway.

“Hank, get over here and help me!” Gladys said.

Hank made his way over to his wife and looked over Daphne’s body, as if he just found out they had been fighting.

“Woah, what happened here, honey? Should we call an ambulance?” Hank asked.  

“Forget an ambulance, just help me drag this hussy inside so I can close the damn door,” Gladys barked.

With that, Hank and Gladys each grabbed an arm and dragged Daphne fully into the apartment. Gladys mumbled to herself as she went out to the hall to retrieve Daphne's flip-flop that still lay in the doorframe. As she closed the door she noticed her husband starting back to his spot on the couch.

“Hey! Hank, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

“Well, I’m fixing to watch some more of this program, dear,” he said.

“No! I need you to get all the belts we have in our dresser and closet from the bedroom now!” Gladys demanded.

“Wait, why do you need all of those?” he asked.

“If the cops won’t take care of things, then I’ll do it my damn self! Now get me those belts, and I’ll get what we have for duct tape,” Gladys said.

Since Hank was a simple, quiet man that hated conflict, he obeyed his wife and dutifully gathered a fair amount of dress, bathrobe, and everyday wear belts from the bedroom. Next, the husband and wife duo worked pretty hard to drag Daphne into the unused guest room in the back of their apartment. After catching her breath, Gladys opened the closet door in the guestroom and motioned Hank to move Daphne into it.

Once inside, Gladys sent her husband away to watch TV while she moved as fast as she could to secure Daphne before she woke up. Belts were wrapped and tightened around Daphne’s ankles, thighs, and above and below her knees. Gladys kept scowling as she wrapped duct tape around the connected section of each belt, just for added security of course. Daphne was moaning softly but still out as belts found their way around her arms and wrists, restraining them behind her back. This time Gladys did her best to  wrap the entire belt with a layer of tape to ensure Daphne’s arm and wrist restraints wouldn’t budge. Finally, Gladys taped the fingers on each of Daphne’s hands together in a duct tape cocoon, as well as a couple of wraps around Daphne’s bare feet to lock them together.

A kitchen rag found itself shoved into Daphne’s mouth, followed by a terry cloth bathrobe belt tied around her head to hold it in place. To complete the gag, Gladys gleefully plastered about five pieces of duct tape over Daphne’s stuffed and cleave gagged mouth. For the first time since Daphne had moved in Gladys cracked a smile and let out a laugh as she wrapped a long wash towel around Daphne’s eyes to blindfold her. Gladys rose and rubbed her aching lower back and looked over Daphne.

“That should keep things quiet, you hussy,” she sneered as she left the closet.

She made her way out to the living room area and picked up Daphne’s iPhone from the floor. After turning it off, she handed it over to Hank by dropping it on the couch next to her.

“Hank, next time you bring the trash out please throw this in it,” she said as she made her way back to Daphne’s purse. She dumped the contents into the trash.

“I think I can mail this to our daughter for Christmas, don’t you, Hank? I bet she’d like that,” Gladys said with no response from her husband - as usual.

Gladys hummed and got back to her cross-stitching for the first time in months. She felt like a weight had been lifted off her back.

“What would you like for dinner, dear?” she asked Hank sweetly.

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Daphne began to wake up just as the closet door slammed shut, leaving her utterly helpless in the darkness. Her head throbbed and she could feel a welt on her forehead as she tried to stand up. Her senses began to come back and she realized she was tightly bound and heavily gagged. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what had happened before she fell asleep. She traced her steps back to brushing her teeth, checking her texts, and going downstairs to confront her awful neighbor… but then, something must have happened.

A few more minutes and she recalled the paperweight blow and her subsequent fall. She must be in the old hag’s house still, right? She panicked at the thought as she slammed her bound bare feet on the closet floor as hard as she could, only to remember no one was below her since this was the only basement unit. In fact, no one was above her either since that was her apartment! Daphne started sweating as she desperately twisted in her bondage with a million questions about what was going to happen to her racing through her mind.

The day turned into night, and soon Gladys and Hank retired for the evening around eight for what would be a full night of sleep. Meanwhile the bound and gagged woman in the closet continued her struggling and muffled screaming well into the early morning.