Julie Palmer, a bright-eyed, beauty in cutoff jeans and a University of Iowa t-shirt, balanced precariously on a stool in the tub scrubbing the reddish brown stain trailing down the dingy bathtub wall.

Julie stopped to examine the stain’s source, an antique heating vent near the ceiling. The faint metallic rattle of chains and muffled voices drifted up from the vent. She peered closer.

“Hello?”

Silence. Bemused, Julie resumed working. The harder she rubbed the more the stain seeped through the paint like a sticky, fresh wound.

“Ewww. That’s just frigin’ foul.”

Julie threw the scrub brush into the tub in disgust. She was almost out the bathroom door when the faint rattle of chains and muffled voices returned. Julie froze and stared back at the vent. Her skin tingled with goose bumps. 

Why had she ever agreed to move into this apartment?

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: The New Moon