A few more months passed, and life continued for Sam. He had been seeing a psychiatrist twice a week for the last two months, but as is usually the case, it did him little good.

He had hopped that the shrink could help him jar his forgotten memories loose, but the guy seemed to only fixate on his relationship with Linda. Sam eventually grew annoyed at this, until one day he blacked out during a session only to find himself back home with a sore fist. The shrink refused to see him after that.

He turned once again to the bottle for solace. The bottle kept him calm, and if he could stay calm, then he could stop hurting people. Or so he hoped.

And then one day someone new moved in upstairs. Strangely, Sam never saw the moving trucks. One day it was quiet upstairs, and the next day he was alarmed to hear loud stomping above his head. He thought for a moment that it might be an angry ghost come to haunt him.

As the days went by, it was hard for Sam to disprove his theory about the angry ghost because he never actually saw his new neighbor, only heard him stomping around in the night. The only evidence to the contrary had been the existence of a BMW in his neighbor’s assigned spot. Sam had to assume that a vengeful spirit probably wouldn’t need a car to travel between hauntings.

Sam rarely left his own apartment anymore for fear of going psycho on someone and finally ending up in jail, where he felt he probably belonged. His only outings were to work and to the grocery store. Other than that, he kept himself locked away in his apartment.

Stolen novel; please report.

His new neighbor, which he had taken to calling Mr. Stompy, had an erratic schedule. Sam couldn’t decide if he was unemployed or self-employed. The BMW he owned was certainly nice, so the guy probably had a nice job of some sort.

Sam would often stare up at the ceiling and daydream about Mr. Stompy. He pictured him as a giant ogre, stomping around relentlessly. He had a hunched back and arms so long that his knuckles drug along the floor as he walked.

Sam always knew when Mr. Stompy was home. The door would slam, and stairs would rattle and squeal as the huge bulk of Mr. Stompy pounded up them. Then it would be more stomping for a good hour, punctuated by random thumps from unknown items falling to the floor.

Sometimes he would hear Mr. Stompy spontaneously cheer, other times he would hear him let loose a stream of obscenities. However, he never heard Mr. Stompy’s television, his music, or any signs of him having any company or any sort of normal life. All Sam knew was that he was the most annoying man alive. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Always with the stomping. It was driving him mad.

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months turned to years. And still, Sam was haunted by Mr. Stompy. And still, he had yet to actually see him. Well, not his face at least. Only the back of his head. He hated the back of his head. He wanted to smash it in with a brick.

Whenever Sam heard Mr. Stompy banging his way down the stairs, he would run over to the door and peer intently out of the peephole, only to see the back of Mr. Stompy’s head as he walked to his car. The peephole was foggy and distorted, so he could discern little else, other than Mr. Stompy had a buzz cut much like himself, and looked to be rather small and skinny, which made no sense at all.