Dark Windows by Bryce Walton — Read

_Sooner or later it would happen, and after that he wouldn't ever have to worry again. He'd be dead, or worse, one of the silent living dead._

I was suddenly wide awake and listening. A gray light the color of wet charcoal lay over the chilled room. There it was again. Plain and sharp through the thin wall separating my room from that of old man Donnicker, the shoe-maker.