The Devil Next Door

by Tim Curran

  “Don’t worry about it,” Louis told him.

  “Think about what I said, Louis.”

  “Is Louis leaving?”

  “Yes!”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “He’s got errands to run, goddammit!”

  “Earl gould, you quit that damn whispering and speak up like a man! You know I can’t hear so good!”

  “Shut up!”

  “What?”

  Louis saw it coming just as he’d seen it coming when Earl started talking about the inevitability of the town going insane, of rogue gene expression sacking civilization as we knew it. The darkness was there. Hiding in the cracks and crevices of his mind and now it was bleeding out like shadows when the sun went down.

  He turned to his wife. “I told you to shut the fuck up!”

  “What did you say?Quit whispering like a little girl for Godsake!”

  And that was it.

  Earl was talking about critical mass and catalysts and all the rest, well here it was for him. Critical mass had been reached and things were about to explode out of control. Race memory descended. He was a fine, gentle old man, but that all changed in an instant. He took two steps right over to Maureen and hit her in the face with everything he had. She went right down, blood splashing from her mouth right up to the bridge of her nose. Her dentures were hanging out like a set of wind-up chattery teeth.

  It happened that quick.

  Louis actually looked across the street toward the Maub’s house, the Soderbergs, to see if anyone had seen what he’d just seen.

  But there was no one around.

  “Earl!” he said. “ Jesus Christ, what do you think you’re doing?”

  But Earl did not hear him or care what he said.

  He walked right over to his wife and gave her a good kick in the side and she howled with pain, gagging and gasping and spitting drool and blood into the grass.

  Louis was about to intervene, but he heard Macy calling out to him. “Louis! Louis! Mr. Shears!”

  Louis suddenly forgot about what he had just witnessed. He turned on his heel and ran to the house. He could hear Macy crying out and whatever was going on, it was bad. Real bad. He jogged up the steps and went right through the front door and it wasn’t hard to follow her voice.

  She was in the kitchen, but she wasn’t alone.

  She was behind the kitchen table and facing her was Dick Starling from across the street. But not the Dick Louis knew. Not the same Dick that had taken a picture of him with Jillian Merchant over his shoulder, that same funny and wisecracking man that had helped Louis lay the slab for his garage out back or threw Sunday afternoon backyard barbecues during football season.

  No, this was not that Dick Starling.

  This Dick Starling was covered in mud and dirt, hair wild and matted, completely naked, his penis standing erect. And his eyes…God, cold and dark like undersea caves. A rank stench of blood, death, and moist black earth blew off him. And he had a bloody axe in his hands.

  “Hey, Louis,” he said in a clotted, dirty voice. “I’m gonna get me that little cunt and when I’m done, you can have what’s left. It’s only fair that I have some, don’t you think?”

  Dick Starling was a monster…

  31

  Inside Benny Shore’s head, there was a mirror maze like the kind you could find at a carnival. You looked into this one and you were a compressed little dwarf, into that one and you were a tall skeleton man. You looked here, there were ten of you, over there and there were fifty Benny Shores. Sometimes they were the principal of Greenlawn High School and sometimes they were little boys with frightened faces lost in the expressionistic tangle of their own jagged thoughts.

  Careful, careful, Benny, those thoughts will kill you.

  See how they glisten?

  See how the lights catch their razored edge?

  Yes, yes, easy now, because those thoughts will slit you right open, spill all your goodies out in coils of red, slopping things.

  After he ran over Billy Swanson, Shore drove home taking a most leisurely route to his house over on Tessler Avenue near the river. He was in absolutely no hurry. When that headache had finally found him, delivered him from the here and the now into some distant and possibly primeval place deep in the core of his being, it had done things to him. It had changed his needs and wants and ambitions.

  What had mattered before was now rendered meaningless.

  Everything was different.

  In his own way, perhaps he was still a scurrying insect, but the nature of the colony had certainly changed. It was like a shade had been drawn and the light was finally, thankfully shining in.

  For some time, Benny Shore felt in touch with the world at large, with the community, with nature itself. No, none of that silly nonsense of budgets and meetings and planning boards…what the hell was that about anyway? No, what he felt was deeper, bigger, more fluid. Like some psychic channel to his fellow man had been opened and he was tuning in. With what they were and had always been and what they all soon would be. It was marvelous. So marvelous, in fact, that Shore was almost offended by the vehicle he drove. He wanted nothing better than to strip his clothes off and run mad through the streets.

  At least, that’s how it was for a time.

  Then, suddenly as it had come upon him, it began to desert him.

  What had been warm and inviting and peaceful became cold and awful, a December wind blowing through his skull and turning everything inside him into white ice. And that voice, that terrible goddamned voice began to say things, things that reminded Shore of who and what he was and that was not a good thing. Benny…Benny, just what have you done? it kept saying. What in God’s name has happened to you? What do you think you are doing here? You just ran over a kid at the school, goddamn Billy Swanson…you ran him over and kept running him over…that’s murder, you crazy sonofabitch! Don’t you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve committed MURDER!

  And, God in heaven, why didn’t that voice just leave him alone?

  Why didn’t it go away? Because that voice was cruel, inflexible authority and Shore did not want to be part of that world of board meetings and budgets and committees. He wanted to run free with his nose to the ground. He wanted to lift his leg and piss on trees. He wanted to find a female and mount her. He wanted to hunt prey and bring it down with his hands. He wanted to feel the meat beneath his teeth and the blood on his tongue.

  He wanted, needed, these things.

  Alive and vital and free, stripped of boring authority and meaningless purpose.

  But the voice reasserted itself and it began to speak to him like he spoke to kids at school, kids that cut class and smoked in the bathrooms and got into fights. It kept at him and at him, cutting and sharp. Murder, murder, murder. And that’s when the mirror maze opened in his head, showing him as he now was-shaking and sweating and shocked, streaks of white in his hair-and as he had been-demented and giggling and kill-happy-and as he would soon be-a mad thing hunting through fields and woods.

  No, please, no, no, no…

  Yes, the mirror maze was open and it didn’t even cost a dime for admittance and Shore was lost in its corridors, seeing himself, reflections of who and what he was and who he would never be again. Yes, Benny, Benny, Benny. And not just himself, but high windy gallows and cold graveyards and rising tombstones with open, waiting graves. It was all there in the mirrors, all the insidious things that had been set loose inside him, they were all showing themselves. Dirty, monstrous, crawling things.

  And they all looked like him.

  Distorted, narrow and blown-up and slinking, jumping and dancing. But him.

  Oh, dear God.

  He tried to squeeze his eyes shut so he would not see those faces, those Benny Shores sticking out their tongues at him, laughing and drooling and jibbering. Would not see himself running over a boy named Billy Swanson and giggly madly at the very idea.

  Yes, slowly, painfully, it all began to fade. />
  Even the mirrors were dissipating like morning mist. The last things he saw in their smoky, polished surfaces were all those deranged Benny Shores running away from him, hating who he was becoming again, hating his authority and his look and his smell and his touch that was sterile as fresh bandages. Yes, Benny, Benny, Benny, childhood Benny and teenage Benny and adult Benny and Principal Benny running and running with a flurry of night-echoing footsteps. And then it was all gone, not even a reflection of the heat and perfection of that other simpler, baser world he had known and loved even as it now repelled him.

  Now there was just…Benny Shore, the principal of Greenlawn High School. Just Mr. Shore and his stern voice and disapproving glare. No running in the halls! Where’s your hall pass? Don’t throw food in the cafeteria! What’s wrong with you kids? What are you, animals? Savages? Do you think this school is somewhere to run free and wild? Is that it?

  A block away from his house, Shore stopped his Jeep and jerked at the reflection of himself. That silly, sweating, trembling middle aged man who was broken, shattered, reduced to pieces like Humpty fucking Dumpty. He had to think, he had to reason.

  Yes, he had to get home.

  To Phyllis and little Stevie and Melody. Yes, he had to get to them and gather them up, get them out of town before the madness got them, too, and they did something truly horrible. He would not let his family be sullied like that. He could not and would not allow it.

  Drive, you idiot.

  He made Tessler and saw people standing on the street, looking either lost or mad and maybe they were both. Some woman was laughing uncontrollably on the sidewalk. Just beside herself. And as Shore passed he saw why. There was a little hill that led down through the grass to the river. And in the water, maybe ten feet out, was a baby stroller bobbing…something small and pink bobbing next to it. She had pushed it down the hill, laughing maniacally as it bumped its way to the river and went into the drink.

  Shore sped up.

  They were all crazy just as he had been. Down the block from his own house a girl was getting raped by a couple men, right there on the lawn of a house. And like the crazy mother, she was not only laughing, but crying out with mad ecstasy. Yes, this was the world, the new and not so shiny world of Greenlawn.

  Shore pulled into his driveway and ran up to the porch.

  He could smell supper cooking as he entered the door…spices and herbs. Phyllis was preparing the evening meal, humming as she always did. He could hear her chopping things and dicing things on the cutting board. Water was boiling and steam made the air in the house heavier than it already was. Shore mopped perspiration from his face.

  “Phyllis!” he called out. “Phyllis!”

  She kept humming and he darted into the kitchen. There were carrots and celery and potatoes chopped on the table. Two big pots of water boiling on the stove. The oven preheating. Jesus, the heat in there was unbearable, just stagnant and consuming like midday in a tropical jungle. The windows above the sink were steamed white. Water was dripping.

  “Phyllis!” he called again.

  “What is it, Benny?” her voice said, coming from the doorway that led into the pantry.

  “We have to leave! We have to get out of town!” he said, pulling off his coat and loosening his tie. “C’mon, something’s happening out there! We have to get out of here right now! Get the kids and your Aunt Una! We have to go right now!”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, dear,” Phyllis said. “You’re overreacting. We’ll have supper and talk about it.”

  “Goddammit, we’re leaving! We’re leaving right now!”

  Before he could make the pantry door, Phyllis came walking out, completely naked, her body moist with a sheen of sweat. Her eyes glittered like jewels, shining and glimmering, an odd almost reddish tint to them.

  And her head was shaven completely bald.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Shore said, even though something in his belly already knew the answer to that one.

  “I’m making supper,” she said, her eyes wide and staring.

  He kept shaking his head. “But your hair…Phyllis, listen to me, we’re leaving-”

  “Oh, no we’re not,” she said and came right at him, was on him well before he could do anything about it. “We’re staying, Benny, we’re all staying, staying, staying…”

  And as she spoke, the gleaming butcher knife kept coming down, finding Shore’s throat, his eyes, his chest, his belly, until he fell at her feet and still the knife came and kept coming until the hairless, insane thing that had been his wife was spattered with drops of blood…

  32

  Mike Hack had the girl roped-up and he dragged her down the alley, kicking her when she wouldn’t move. He had caught her digging through an overturned garbage can and jumped on her, beating her senseless. Like him, she was naked. A scavenger. Once she was unconscious, he dragged her into the Sinclair’s backyard. Then he cut some clothesline from their clothes poles and tied her up.

  Bring me some gee-gee, some nice young gee-gee and don’t come back without it.

  That’s what Mr. Chalmers had said.

  He would be pleased with what Mike brought him.

  “Move piggy!” Mike told the girl, yanking her along. “Move, piggy, piggy, piggy!”

  The girl snarled at him. She was naked, streaked with dirt, her hair hanging over her face, stinking like the garbage she had been feeding on. Mike did not know who she was. He had never seen her before. He figured she was from some other neighborhood, come raiding, stealing what was theirs.

  Those other neighborhoods, they’re gonna try and take what we got, so we got to hit them first. We gotta take what they got. Their women, their food, their weapons.

  Oh yes, Mr. Chalmers was going to be pleased that Mike captured one of them. And a young one, too. Female. When she was out cold, Mike had fondled her pert, upturned breasts and the wetness between her legs. It was the smell of this more than anything that had intrigued him.

  But he was hungry.

  God, how hungry he was.

  He had been thinking of meat ever since Matt and he had tried to steal the meat in that yard and were ambushed. Now Matt was dead. The others had gotten him. Mike felt no remorse over this. His simple reptile brain had inserted its practical impulses: feed, fight, flee, find shelter.

  The girl hissed at him and Mike kicked her, being careful never to get in too close so she could use her nails or teeth on him.

  Up until five or six hours before, her name had been Leslie Towers. She was an honor roll student, a member of the Key Club and president of the freshman student body. That was five or six hours before. Now who and what she was was really anyone’s guess.

  Mike kicked her again and paused.

  He was smelling meat again. Savory, juicy meat. But not raw. Cooked. A pleasant, mouth-watering odor of smoked meat. Delicious. He forgot about Mr. Chalmers momentarily and followed the meat smell. He dragged the girl along down the alley until he reached the Kenning’s yard.

  Oh, the meat.

  A carcass of dog was spitted over a low fire, the air redolent with the fine, juicy smells of its dripping shanks. Mr. Kenning was squatting there, slowly turning it over the flames with absolute patience and absolute rapture. His primitive mind was fascinated by the cooking meat, the flickering flames.

  Mike knew he had to have some of that meat.

  One way or another.

  But the girl snarled again and Mr. Kenning turned. He had a knife in one hand. He rose from the fire, his body greasy with yellow dog fat he had smeared over it and slicked his hair back with.

  “ Are you hungry, boy?” he said.

  Mike nodded.

  “ I have a nice dog here. It’s very tasty. I will share it with you if you will share what you have with me.”

  Mike’s simple brain tried to reason it out, but reasoning was getting harder and harder. Mr. Chalmers would be angry if he didn’t bring the female to him. But Mike did not care. He wanted
the meat. And he could have it without a fight, just by sharing. Simple animal desire quickly overcame reasoning.

  “ What do you bring me?” Mr. Kenning asked. “What do you offer?”

  “ This,” Mike said, yanking on the clothesline that snared the girl’s wrists and dumping her into the grass.

  Mr. Kenning appraised her. “Lay it at my feet.”

  Mike dragged the girl over to him and Mr. Kenning kicked her until she stopped thrashing. He sniffed her length, licked her throat, slid a finger into her. He nodded. The offering was pleasing to him.

  Using his knife, he cut a greasy slab of meat from the dog and handed it to Mike. It was hot, sizzling, but Mike tore at it with his teeth, filling himself with its salty richness.

  Together, wordless, they ate.

  When they were done, Mr. Kenning raped the girl. Then he showed Mike how to do the same…

  33

  “Listen to me, Dick,” Louis said to the mud-covered man with the axe, the man who had once been Dick Starling. “Just listen to me, Dick. We’ve been friends for years, you and I. Just please put down that axe, all right?”

  “Friends?” Dick said, as if he were trying to make sense of that word.

  “Yes, Dick. We’re friends. I trust you and you trust me.”

  Dick cocked his head like a confused animal and grunted. A low guttural sound that was completely unnerving. Filthy with mud and blood, dry leaves and sticks clinging to him, he looked like some primeval savage.

  “Dick? Do you understand?”

  Dick Starling just stood there, darkness filling his eyes and looking like it wanted to spill out like tears. His mouth was hooked in a contorted grin and he was breathing very fast, his chest rising and falling. He looked from Macy to Louis, couldn’t seem to make up his mind what he wanted to do.

  But he was thinking.

  You could almost hear the primitive machinery of his mind whirring. And Louis was pretty much thinking that it was a very simple mind that Dick Starling now possessed. Gone were all the things that had made Dick, Dick. Whatever powered that brain, it cared not about the NFL or swimsuit calendars or basketball pools or sports betting. It had lost interest in the ’66 Camaro kept under the tarp in the garage, the one the old Dick babied, buffed and polished and tuned, taking it out only for vintage car shows. Things like that meant nothing to the new and improved Dick Starling. He didn’t even give a shit about his wife or his two daughters.