Day 612

There's a strange sound been heard all about the town.
Something like a wail and a whale, this long anguished moan from something.
At first people put it down to the wind through the new apartment towers.
They were still being built at that point, little more than concrete shells.
It made sense.

What didn't make sense was how it continued long after they'd been built and occupied.
Residents denied hearing the sound any louder than the rest of us but we knew they were lying.
See, some of us set up microphones at different levels of the tower.
From this we guessed the noise to be coming from below the building.
Namely in the loading bay for the ground floor shop.

It took months for someone to go anywhere near there, too freaked out by how loud it got.
The police were called a few times for local noise complaints, apparently checked the bay too.
Funny though, no reports were made, they never talked about it either.
All they'd say was that the loading bay was clear and ordinary, if a little musty.
The residents were ordered to clean it thoroughly and that was all.

I was just as frustrated as everyone else by this lack of information until a vacancy came up.
About four months ago I received an email about an apartment on the floor just above the shop.
It was cheap, good view and clean -just what I wanted really.
I never told anybody about it at first, they'd only use it as an excuse to hang around and listen.
Strangely enough when word got out that I was there nobody batted an eyelid.

A guy approached me on the street, gave no name and said he wished me all the luck in the world.
Gave me some kind of good luck charm and said to keep it in my left shoe at all times.
Of course I did it, even wore the damn thing in a sock on my left foot at night.
Anything to make the noise die down again and make the walls stop rattling when it cries.
As a resident I'm allowed everywhere around - I admit I've stood by the loading doors for hours.

The noise, whoever or whatever it may be, is definitely coming from there.
I have yet to actually see anything but I swear there's something moving in the vents at night.
The noise happens at random, there's no pattern or rhythm just that cry...
I can feel the door rattle when it happens and the pigeons that roost there scream with it.
Didn't think they could shriek like that... didn't think...