My Neighbor Gave Me Dead Skin, So I Made Her Regret It

1: 1

The first day I moved into my new place, a strange mark showed up on my doormat.

I wiped it away without thinking, but the next day it was back.

Through the security-camera feed, I watched the old woman next door standing on my doormat, scraping dead skin off her feet.

And her dog was peeing right on it.

I couldn't stand it and rushed out to have it out with her, but she brushed me off.

"Don't be so ungrateful. Dead skin off a long-lived person carries longevity bacteria."

"My Baby is a pedigree dog. Her pee is a gift, the greatest good luck you'll ever get!"

I always pay a grudge back, and ten seconds feels too slow.

You've dumped it on me. Your reckoning has come.

I turned right around and posted screenshots of the security footage to the residents' group chat, flagging it for the property manager.

"Unknown person casing the area outside my door. Property management, please come up immediately to assist with an investigation."

A few minutes later the chat was buzzing.

"What unknown person? That's Hope from 301!"

"Young lady, you don't even know your own neighbors?"

"They say a close neighbor beats a distant relative. Kids these days have no respect for anyone."

"What's my neighbor doing outside my door?"

I played dumb.

"I checked the footage. She comes by twenty or thirty times a day."

"And brings a vicious dog to pee here too. Has to be a thief casing the place and marking it."

"I'm warning all of you, be careful!"

I dropped the warning into the group chat.

"What is property management even doing, letting people like this into the community!"

"You don't want your management fees anymore, is that it?!"

The same people who'd just called me disrespectful flipped their tune on the spot.

The second their own interests were on the line, their true colors came out.

For a while property management said nothing, and I frowned in spite of myself.

Was the property management on a new place really this useless?

"Knock, knock, knock!"

Someone was at the door.

"Ms. Lawrence, it's property management, Asher Finch. Are you home?"

So instead of replying to the message, they'd come straight up.

Pretty fast response time, actually.

I hurried over and opened the door.

"Ms. Lawrence, you're the one who posted in the residents' group, right?"

"That's right. I reported the situation."

Before I could finish, Asher cut me off.

"That old Mrs. Chavez next door fainted, thanks to you. Passed out cold."

"The ambulance is on its way. You'll be covering all the costs."

"And the two of you will still have to work out compensation afterward."

"What? Fainted?"

"So you're not here to help me deal with the problem. You're here to hit me up for compensation."

I let out a cold laugh, pushed out the door, and started shouting.

"How did she suddenly faint?!"

A few gawkers had already gathered outside the door next door.

I elbowed through the crowd and looked.

Old Mrs. Chavez was slumped against a property staffer with her eyes shut.

"Ms. Lawrence, there you are, finally."

"Auntie Chavez called us and said you were cursing her out in the residents' group."

"The more she talked, the more worked up she got, then she let out a cry and went quiet."

"We rushed over and there she was, lying right here by the door."

"This whole thing started because of you. You have to answer for this old woman!"

The guilty party crying first, and putting on an act for me.

You came for me first, so don't blame me for being ruthless.

"Oh dear, has she really fainted?"

"I studied Chinese acupressure for a while. Let me try."

I crouched down, reached out, and gave a hard twist right at her waist.

Her left eye flickered, just a little.

Now I knew.

I kept pressing hard on the pressure point while playing it up.

"You know, I've heard that when an old person fakes illness, the sickness demon latches right onto them!"

"They don't have long left to live!"

"And their children get struck by bloody disaster!"

"Oh, of course, I don't mean you, Auntie Chavez!"

"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey." I spat three times with a smile.

The one on the floor slowly opened her eyes.

"Ohh, what happened to me"

"Auntie Chavez, you're awake! The acupressure worked!"

The property staff gently helped old Mrs. Chavez sit up.

"You gave us all such a scare."

"Since she's come around, there's no need for the ambulance."

I signaled to Asher.

Hope Chavez lifted her eyes and glared at me, vicious.

"You little tramp! You've been here a few days and you're already causing trouble! Posting my photo in the residents' group!"

"I, Hope Chavez, am the only ten-star civilized resident in this whole community!"

"Open your beady dog eyes and take a good look!"

She jabbed a finger at the plaque beside her doorframe, black letters on a red background.

"Ten-Star Civilized Resident."

"Would I ever be a thief?"

"That's right, Grandma Chavez was voted a civilized resident by the community!"

"Nobody's ever seen this girl before, and she's making trouble the moment she moves in. She's no good!"

The gawking crowd couldn't tell right from wrong.

"Oh dear, then I've made a mistake. I didn't see clearly who it was."

I pretended to apologize, then turned and asked sharply.

"So kindly explain this for me."

"Yesterday at five in the morning, you wiped the soles of your shoes on my doormat."

"After six, when you got back from grocery shopping, you scraped the mud off your cart tires on my doormat."

"At six thirteen in the evening, you let your dog pee on my mat."

"And at nine twenty at night, you scraped the dead skin off your feet on it!"

I counted off, one by one, every disgusting thing she'd done these past few days.

As I did, I pulled out my phone.

"Let's call the police and ask them what exactly you'd call this behavior."

2: 2

"Ms. Lawrence, don't call the police." Asher reached out to stop me.

I turned away. The call was already going through.

He kept at it in my ear.

"That ten-star civilized resident award is a badge for this whole complex. Property values here are a good bit higher because of it."

"You put an incident on record with the police, it hurts next year's selection, and that hurts everyone's interests.

"Yours included, doesn't it?"

The second they heard property values, the people around me turned too.

"You want to make a scene, don't drag the rest of us into it."

"Selfish witch!"

The line connected.

"I've already called! Who's right and who's wrong will be sorted out on its own."

A few minutes later the officers from the station arrived.

Hope Chavez was still wailing to the heavens, calling me heartless.

The officer said nothing and logged straight into the security-cam account.

After a while, he looked up at me.

"This is a civil dispute. Nothing illegal here."

"You hear that! Not illegal!"

Hope perked right up and scrambled to her feet.

"However, this behavior of throwing trash and letting a dog urinate at a neighbor's door."

The officer cleared his throat, a warning in his voice.

"More than three times, that's disorderly harassment and public defamation!"

"What?!" Just like that, all the bluster drained out of Hope.

"You'll compensate for the damage and apologize publicly." The officer's face was stern.

"Just wash the doormat and give it back to me clean," I said.

"But the important thing is that today she stood here with all these people and turned the truth on its head.

"She apologizes to me in front of every single one of them!"

I looked Hope dead in the eye, and I wasn't backing down.

"Refuse mediation and you come down to the station with us for administrative penalty proceedings."

Seeing Hope hesitate, the officer laid out the second option.

She looked mutinous, but she didn't want to get fined either.

"I'm. Sorry." The three words ground out from between her teeth.

"And next time?" the officer pressed.

"I promise there won't be a next time"

Hope rolled her eyes.

"All right, that settles it. Wash the woman's mat.

"Everybody clear out!"

The officer switched off his body cam and declared the matter closed.

The crowd drifted off, sulky.

The moment Hope saw the officer gone, she slammed her door shut.

I turned and went back inside, hoping she really meant there'd be no next time.

The next morning I left for work on schedule.

The doormat at my door still hadn't come back.

The second I walked into the company tower, people around me caught sight of me and started pointing.

I made out a snatch of it.

"Look at her, doesn't she look like the woman in that video?"

What woman?

"Director Lawrence is here! Morning, Director Lawrence!"

The moment I stepped onto our office floor, the girl at the front desk called out to me, loud.

The sliding door pulled open, and inside a knot of employees were clustered around one computer.

So absorbed they hadn't noticed me at all.

"You guys really think this is"

"I think it's her! So much like her!"

"Never would've guessed she was that kind of person"

I stood behind them and leaned in for a look.

A headline glaring across the screen.

Heartbreaking! Elderly Woman Nearly Passes Out After Cruel Neighbor's Rage!

My face wasn't even blurred in the video.

There I was, shoving Hope over, snarling like a monster.

The AI tells were obvious.

The comment stream was nothing but abuse.

"My heart breaks for that grandma!"

"Expose her!"

"Boycott bad neighbors!"

A video some old woman put together, and it spread this fast.

"Lucas Hull! Where is he! Get over here!" I was livid.

The employees in front of me flinched.

The screen went black in an instant.

"Director Lawrence"

"This video's been topping our site all morning.

"We were just curious"

"No need to explain. Back to work, all of you!" I waved them off.

Lucas came over to me, nerves showing.

I pointed at the computer.

"Why is a video like this on our site?

"Nobody vets whether it's real or fake?!

"Take it down now! Look into it! Who approved putting it up!

"Send the video for forensic authentication. Get all the evidence together.

"Don't tip anyone off."

Finished giving the orders, I turned to head down to the garage for my car, ready to go back and have it out with Hope Chavez.

But I'd barely reached the garage.

Splat! A sticky layer smeared across my eyes.

Everything went to a blur, my footing gave out, and I dropped down onto the floor.

A sharp, rotten stench drove straight up my nose.

I was about to blow up.

My phone rang. It was Lucas.

"Director, I've got it all figured out."

3: 3

I scrubbed hard at the sticky, stinking egg film in the corner of my eye.

"Talk. What happened."

Figures slipped through the garage, furtive, keeping to the shadows.

I hadn't even had time to process what Lucas said on the phone. I limped toward my car, fighting the sharp pain in my ankle.

When I looked up, my car was wrecked.

The windshield was smeared all over with egg.

Across the body, in red paint, someone had scrawled "slut" and "evil bitch."

The moment I got in, a rsum came through from Lucas.

Theodore Gray. About my age, by the look of him.

I drew in a breath and called the building's property office at once.

Handed the garage footage over to Legal.

I drove home in one of the company's spare cars.

The third floor was exactly what I'd expected.

My doorway looked just like the car.

A wall of red paint, rotten eggs, wilted vegetable leaves, funeral wreaths.

The doormat was back too.

Filthier and more disgusting than before, not washed at all.

A creak. Next door, Hope Chavez's door opened.

"Thank you all for caring. There really are more good people than bad in this world!"

The old hag's shrill voice bored straight into my ears.

She was holding the hands of two young people, seeing them off.

The moment the two saw me, their smiles dropped.

"Grandma Chavez, is this the trashy woman who bullies the old and weak?"

The old hag put on a mournful face and sniffled. "That's her!"

A hand came flying at my face.

I caught it and flung it away, hard.

"Ah, quite the grip!"

One of them staggered from the throw.

"Did you ever go to school? You can't even tell right from wrong!"

"You're the ones who did this to my doorway, aren't you!"

"Try that again and I'm calling the police. I'm recording all of this!" I pointed at the security camera and barked it out.

The instant she heard "police" again, Hope threw out a hand to hold the trolls back.

"Don't get hurt over me, dear. It's not worth it."

"Forget it, forget it."

"You can't beat her anyway."

I couldn't be bothered with her act. I grabbed the doormat and threw it in the trash.

I'm never buying another mat. Let's see where you smear your filth now.

No sooner had I stepped inside than Hope was screeching again in the residents' group chat.

"Somebody here the eyes of the people see clearly!"

"Don't think you're something just because you sic the police on me!"

"I've booked you an appointment with the psych ward at the hospital. Go get yourself checked!"

Impotent rage. I didn't bother answering her.

Once I had all the evidence in order, I'd sue her and this whole pack of trolls who couldn't tell right from wrong.

The old hag went quiet for two days.

Then she actually laid a brand-new doormat down at my door.

By evening she'd smeared it filthy all over again.

I don't know if she's got some kind of fetish, this compulsion to smear things at a neighbor's door.

That day, the moment I walked through the building's entrance, a message came in from Legal.

The evidence on Theodore Gray's bribery and the trolls' property damage was all there.

All it needed was my signature to file suit right away.

Time to bring this to a close.

I looked at the message, thoroughly satisfied.

Then I looked up. Was that a huge payment-demand notice posted inside the elevator?

I looked closer. The person being dunned was me!

"Ms. Lawrence of 302 owes Hope Chavez of 301 the full sum of ten thousand dollars for a doormat purchase.

Please pay by midnight today. Overdue accounts will be pursued through legal proceedings."

Dated today.

My phone buzzed again.

Hope, chasing the debt in the residents' group chat.

"Lawrence."

"You used the doormat I bought for days without a word, and you still won't pay!"

"Settle it by midnight tonight!"

"Ten thousand dollars!"

She dropped in a payment screenshot from some livestream shop where the mat was bought.

Then, right after, she dropped in a payment QR code.

So this was the trap all along.

Buys it for me on her own initiative, keeps smearing it once it's bought, and still wants me to pay?

I was about to argue back when I looked hard at it.

There, plain as day across the payment QR code, were two big words: Theodore Gray.

4: 4

Before I could say a word, Hope was screeching in the group again.

"You think you can stiff an old woman out of her money?"

"Everybody come judge for yourselves!"

"Lily, poor Hope fainted from how much you upset her, and she didn't even make you pay for it. She did you a kindness buying you that doormat, and refusing to pay is just not right!"

The old man from downstairs stepped in to uphold justice again.

"Who'd have thought someone so young would turn out to be a deadbeat!"

The group started piling on.

"Ms. Lawrence, you can't drag your feet paying an elderly person!"

Asher from property management jumped in too.

"If she won't, we can just take it out of the maintenance fees she paid. Ms. Lawrence, you can pay the fees again in a few days!"

"That won't cover it. I've got a whole stack of packages she never picked up here at the parcel station, take those to settle the difference!"

A whole crowd, making my decisions for me. Laughable.

"The name on this payment code is wrong. Can I even pay it?"

"Who's Theodore Gray?" I asked, playing dumb.

"That's my son! I'm old, I don't know how to work all this stuff!"

"My son bought the doormat, so just send the money to him."

Son.

Theodore Gray was Hope Chavez's son.

No wonder an old woman like her could make videos.

No wonder she'd come up with a nasty little scheme this clean, one stone for two birds.

And no wonder he'd dared to pull this. A team lead who'd just landed at headquarters, not even senior enough to get a meeting with me, a director.

The student surpasses the teacher. Turns out it ran in the family.

An idea came to me.

Without a word, I paid the ten thousand.

I dropped the payment screenshot into the residents' group.

Then I forwarded the livestream order record, Theodore's payment code, and my payment screenshot to Lucas.

"Verify this. Keep it for evidence."

A minute later.

"Director Lawrence, we've confirmed it. This livestream is one of the accounts Theodore paid off."

"The item's actual price is five dollars."

Five dollars, and she'd charged me ten thousand. A clean two-thousand-fold markup.

"My son says he got the money!"

"Lily, this is for your own good. You like things clean, so it's best to swap the doormat out every day."

"You saw it yourself, I didn't make a single cent!"

"You young people are too busy with work to have the time, so from now on I'll change it out fresh for you every day."

"Sure!" I agreed without hesitation.

Seeing that I'd actually said yes, Hope changed her tune at once.

"Then it's settled! Same price, and we'll settle up once a week."

I forwarded the screenshots of the conversation to Lucas to keep on file.

He called me right back.

"Ms. Lawrence, this is plainly highway robbery!"

"We can sue her! We already have enough evidence!"

"No. For someone like this, ten thousand isn't enough."

"I remember there's a client in Baypoint who handed us an artwork worth five million for an online auction promotion."

"Yes, Ms. Lawrence. It's a felt painting by a Turkish artist from the last century."

"Give it to Theodore, and have him take it home to keep it safe."

"Tell him that if he takes good care of it, I've promised to promote him to head of operations at the next round of transfers."

"This... Ms. Lawrence..." The confusion on the other end was obvious.

"Package it up nicely. On the packaging, write 'art doormat.'"

"To him, just say it's to prevent theft."

"Understood, Ms. Lawrence."

Lucas had been around long enough. One word and he got it.

Early the next morning, Lucas reported back to me.

Everything was arranged, and he'd made a point of telling Theodore.

"This is critically important to the company, so it's best not to keep it at your own place.

"After all, you're a team lead in the company's operations department. You're an easy target for the competition."

"Best to leave it at your parents' place, and keep it from them too."

"Handle this well, and the director is sure to promote you!"

According to Lucas, Theodore was beside himself with excitement and swore on the spot.

"Consider it done, sir. You can count on me!"

That same night, I messaged Hope privately.

"I've got an important guest coming to my place tomorrow."

"Swap out my doormat for something with artistic taste."

"Price is no problem, here's a hundred thousand up front."

I sent the transfer screenshot straight over.

She agreed to everything.

She had it laid out for me that very night.

By the evening of the next day, I looked at the felt artwork, now covered in mud and urine stains, and smiled.

"Lucas, have Theodore bring the artwork back to the company right away."

Half an hour later, a man's roar came from outside my door.

"Mom!"

"Mom, where did you put the thing I brought home yesterday?"