The Neighbors

by Ahlborn, Ania

He lurched forward, dodging Red as he ran for the front door. His sockless feet felt loose in his shoes, as though his feet had shrunk by two sizes. His hands flew out in front of him like frightened birds, slamming against the front door. He fought with the lock, but in his panic, it wouldn’t open.

  Veering around with his back to the door, he stared at the man before him.

  “I just want you to know that I’m sorry,” Red told him, a strange sincerity crossing his face. “I’ve never done this before. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s—”

  “—gotta do,” Drew whispered.

  Red vaulted forward. Andrew swerved to the right, but Red guessed correctly and the blade bit into Drew’s shoulder. Stumbling away from the door, Andrew pressed the palm of his hand to his wound, the blood warm against his skin. He blinked in disbelief, perplexed that Red had actually gone through with it, that he actually cut him, that this was real. Instead of running, he stared at the man who had so cheerfully given him a job.

  And then the needle on the record skipped. Rosemary’s voice began to warble, the storm siren wailed outside—and reality finally hit him.

  Andrew watched blood flow down the length of his arm, detour into his palm, and drip in time with the record’s skip—the first drop devastating the perfection of the room, the second ravaging the idea of the wonderful life he wanted so badly to be a part of.

  How could they do this to him? They were supposed to be flawless—amid the flat Kansas landscape, this was supposed to be Oz.

  Red hesitated, as though considering his own treachery. For half a second, Andrew wondered whether he would change his mind, whether he’d realize that he was out of control. Red wasn’t genuinely intending to kill him, was he? No. That was impossible.

  But Red lurched forward again, and Drew was forced into motion. As he turned to run, his shin caught the edge of the coffee table. He tumbled, spilling Harlow’s candlescape onto the floor, taking a couple of issues of Good Housekeeping and the remote control with him. He groped at the rug with bloodied hands as Red bolted toward him. Frantic, Andrew searched for something to throw. Catching hold of one of the candles, he reeled back, ready to defend himself with little more than a pillar of scented wax, but it was startled from his hand when a deafening crack rang in his ears.

  Red froze in place, staring forward, before extending his arms as if in apology. And then, just as Andrew realized what that crack had been—a gunshot, a fucking gunshot—he was shoved aside from behind, and Harlow hurtled toward her dazed husband with a guttural scream.

  The gunshot made him twitch—an involuntary spasm of muscles before the pain set in. He rolled onto his stomach and exhaled an animal groan; strands of white hair tinged a gruesome scarlet; his nose, mouth, and chin coated in gore.

  Mickey Fitch had woken up, looking like he had eaten his captor alive.

  Harlow watched Andrew scurry toward the kitchen as she lunged ahead. Grabbing a metal candlestick off the mantel, she marched toward her bleeding husband, Red’s hand pressed over the bullet wound that had pierced his chest. Red was doing the same thing Drew was—using his legs to push himself away, his free hand keeping him upright, his expression a peculiar mix of terror and expectation. But there was no surprise on his face. She had warned him. He had to have known it would come to this.

  “So this is it?” Red asked, breathless. “After all this time, you just replace me? With him, Harlow? A kid?”

  Seeing the corner of the plastic bag peeking out from behind Red’s recliner, Harlow hesitated.

  “You think he’ll understand you the way I do?” Red asked her.

  But Harlow was distracted. Could it have been? Had Red really dismembered their long-faithful servant the way she’d asked? Her heart swelled at the thought of it. She pressed a palm to her chest.

  “Oh, Red,” she whispered, turning her eyes back to her husband. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with a shake of the head, her soft hair bobbing around her cheeks. “If you had just told me.” She would have shot him anyway. But it was nice to think that Red had a change of heart, that he had done away with Mickey to keep her secret safe.

  But the tenderness between them was fleeting, cut short by Andrew wobbling to his feet on the other side of the room. The sight of her injured beau pushed the affection for her husband from her heart, replacing it with a pang of indignation, of purest pitched hate.

  “Were you looking for extra credit, Red?”

  Despite his shortness of breath, he forced a smile.

  “Gold star, baby.” He closed his eyes, swaying where he sat.

  Andrew’s eyes went wide as the candlestick streaked through the air above Harlow’s head. It arced downward, its corner meeting the ridge of Red’s brow, sinking into the hollow of his eye socket, soft tissue muffling its strike. An elegant fan of blood sprayed outward, misting the carpet, the closest wall, and the woman who stood over him.

  And then, to Drew’s horror, she pried that candlestick out of the pulp and pulled back again. The wet thud of Red’s death rang in his ears. Too terrified to move, he watched Harlow demolish her husband’s skull, collapsing onto her knees as she hammered away, each swing accompanied by a strangled cry.

  Mickey’s shoulder hit the wall as he tried to gain his balance. His head throbbed like a pulsating star, each palpitation rattling his teeth, each beat assuring him that his brain was about to explode. He stumbled through the dim hallway, caught himself on the frame of Drew’s bedroom door, left a bloody handprint on the wall before pushing forward, stumbling headlong toward his room.

  Caked in blood and bits of flesh, the candlestick fell from Harlow’s hands and thumped against the carpet. Bent over the wreckage that was Red’s body, she wept into her hands. Her shoulders shook with each sob, each cry creeping closer to hysteria, each weep a veritable scream—her cries mimicking the screaming inside Andrew’s head.

  Drew turned away from the sight of her, the sight of him, laid out like some highway accident. He rushed into the kitchen, covering his mouth with a hand to keep himself from screaming, from vomiting, from exhaling a devastated wail. He nearly tripped over a spilled paper bag of groceries. Fruits and vegetables were scattered across the floor next to Harlow’s purse, a shopping list lying on the ground next to the gun she’d shot Red with. He blinked at the list, Harlow’s perfect script etched into the paper; her confidence that Andrew wasn’t planning to leave her, that they had a bright future together, was written out in careful loops.

  His eyes darted across the kitchen to the door leading into the garage. All he had to do was make a run for it. He’d bolt into the street and scream for help; he’d stumble onto the sidewalk before running as fast as he could, run until he was back on Cedar Street, standing in front of his disheveled childhood home—not perfect, but better than this.

  He stepped forward, grabbed the gun off the floor—and nearly screamed when Harlow caught him by the wrist, her bloodstained fingers slick on his skin. Reeling backward, he tore his arm from her grasp, tripping over his own feet as he stumbled along the cabinets, desperate to put distance between them.

  Harlow’s expression seesawed between devastation and resentment. And when he pointed the gun at her with a shaky hand, resentment bloomed into full-blown heartbreak.

  Harlow couldn’t believe it. The two of them had made a connection; Drew knew what she was going through. And yet there he stood, pointing her own gun at her, scared out of his mind. She had wanted him because they were both broken. He made her happy, made her feel like the girl she used to be. But the moment he saw how broken she really was, he turned on her. The boy she was sure she could love, who could potentially fix her, if only for a little while, was trembling in front of her like a leaf in the wind, utterly terrified.

  “Are you going to shoot me?” she asked, her words unsteady with emotion. “Me, Andy? You’re going to kill me?”

  She looked back to the living room, her eyes glistening with tears. She had made a mistake. Red had been the
one, and she’d killed him.

  Everything was ruined. Andrew had turned her against her husband. He had manipulated her. He had pretended he cared, won her heart, and tricked her into pushing Red away. And now, at the moment of reckoning, the moment he should have stepped up to the plate and taken her hand in understanding, he was going to shoot her instead.

  She narrowed her eyes at the kitchen counter, remembering all the meals she’d made for him, how sweet she’d been. He would have been dead days ago if she had wanted him to be, but she’d kept the little shit alive—and for what? He was just like Isaac. Spoiled. Unappreciative. Selfish. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of a carving knife, pulling it from its block.

  When the stormy light gleamed off the knife blade, Andrew’s heart came to a stop. Harlow’s white dress was spattered with red, like polka dots—the gory opposite of his mother’s church dress. Harlow’s typically buoyant hair hung limp around her face, wet and slick with crimson. The knife winked in the filtered sunlight, and in his panic, Drew could see specks of dust through the air like tiny stars. His dream had all but predicted this scene; all that was left was for that knife blade to plunge into his chest.

  She lunged at him.

  He exhaled a tortured yell, pulling the trigger. He felt a metallic click beneath the pressure of his grip, but there was no earsplitting gunshot. He pulled again, Harlow nearly on him now, but it didn’t shoot. The damn thing was empty. She had used the last bullet to save Andrew’s life—only to kill him herself.

  Drew scrambled backward, tripping over his feet. The gun slid across the floor while Harlow hovered over him, that knife held high over her head.

  And then, the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

  Mickey Fitch stood in the doorway leading to the basement.

  Andrew’s eyes widened. Mickey looked as though he’d torn out someone’s jugular with his teeth—a vampire rising from the basement of a house he didn’t belong in.

  Harlow veered around. “Mickey,” she said, Drew’s stomach turning at the relief in her tone. “Get busy. It’s time to work.”

  She dropped the knife in the sink and stepped to the side, exposing Andrew to the barrel of Mickey’s gun. Mick narrowed his eyes at the boy on the floor while Drew’s heart thudded in his throat.

  Andrew’s head spun. So that was it, then—they worked together. That was how Harlow had known so much; that was why Mickey didn’t seem to have a day job. Because he housed Harlow’s victims. He held on to them for her until she was ready to strike.

  “Don’t,” Drew said. “Mick, please.”

  “Shut up,” Harlow snapped, looking back to her employee. “What are you waiting for?”

  Mickey aimed the gun and fired.

  Drew threw his hands over his head, a garbled scream erupting from his throat. He waited for the pain, for the blood, for death to grasp him by the throat and choke the last breath from his body. But when the buckshot failed to bite into his flesh, he opened his eyes.

  Harlow swayed where she stood, staring at Mickey’s bloodied face, the tremor of the gunshot gently rocking her back and forth. Her eyes were wide, her expression dazzled.

  “You,” she said, her mouth curling up in a ghostly smile. “Don’t forget who your boss is.”

  She tipped forward, didn’t extend her arms—and hit the ground.

  Mickey stepped over her body with an unsteady stride. He extended a hand to Andrew, but Drew scrambled away, terrified by the monster that stood before him. He jumped to his feet, backing away from this perversion of his childhood friend.

  He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but there were no words.

  Mickey attempted to speak, but all he managed to do was expel a river of blood down his already gory chin.

  “Oh God, Mick,” he said. “Oh Jesus, what...?”

  Mickey mutely shook his head, motioning for Drew to get out of there.

  “But you need help,” Drew insisted. “I can’t—”

  Mickey cut him off midsentence by cocking his gun and pointing it square at Andrew’s chest. He nodded to the door, and this time Drew didn’t hesitate. He backed up, his palms out in surrender, staring at his bloodied roommate for a second longer before turning around and running.

  Running straight for home as hard as he could.

  He didn’t stop, even when he heard the third gunshot explode behind him.

  He ran into the rain for an eternity, but the house on Cedar Street was finally in front of him. The steps sagged, the mailbox sat crookedly in the ground; the curtains on the front windows hung as limp as they ever did. Collapsing onto his hands and knees, Andrew wanted to weep grateful tears at its disarray. It was still there. It hadn’t disappeared, hadn’t been swallowed by a tornado the way he’d hoped so many times.

  Staggering up the front steps, he shoved the front door open and stepped into its murky dimness. The television flickered in hues of blue. The coffee table he’d overturned before he had left was clear—nothing but a couple of mugs dotting its otherwise pristine surface—but the uncharacteristic cleanliness of the living room hardly registered. His mother’s bare feet hung over the edge of the sofa, and for a moment he was sure she was dead.

  “Mom.” The word cracked the silence of the room as he lurched toward the couch. “Mom, I’m home.”

  His bloodied hands hit the arm of the sofa as he leaned forward, dizzy from his run, numbed by the gory images stamped onto his memory, weak with fear.

  Julie Morrison sat up with a start when her son crawled over the arm of the couch and into her arms. As soon as she moved, he curled into her the way he used to as a child, clinging to her as he hid his face against her shoulder.

  “My God,” she said, “Drew.” She pushed him away to get a better look at him. “Oh my God, Drew!” she repeated, seeing the wound on his shoulder. “What happened?” she asked, jumping to her feet.

  “Nothing,” he told her, only coming to realize that he was crying when his breath hitched in his throat.

  “What do you—Nothing? You need to go to the hospital.”

  Looking up at her from the couch, he saw nothing but deliverance. Her hair was disheveled, her cheek crosshatched with an impression of the sofa’s upholstery—but this was his mother: broken but perfect.

  He reached out to her, but she turned away. His heart sank, sobs tearing themselves free from the depths of his soul. She was rejecting him; she didn’t want him back.

  “Andrew.” Her voice sounded far away. His shoulder stung when she shook him. He blinked past his tears, her slippered feet planted on the floor in front of him, the hem of a coat brushing the ankles of her sweats. “We have to go,” she said, catching him by the arm.

  “What?” He stumbled to his feet, confused.

  “We have to go,” she repeated. “You need help.”

  Guiding him to the front door, she hesitated as he wobbled onto the porch. He looked back at her, still unable to comprehend what was happening. Was she kicking him out? But rather than slamming the door in his face, Julie Morrison took a steadying breath and stepped over the threshold of her front door.

  He watched her push past her fear, astonished by the sight.

  “Everything is going to be OK,” she reassured him, catching his hand in hers.

  He didn’t know how true that was, but it didn’t matter. He nodded anyway. Following her down the porch steps, she looked back at him, bewildered.

  “Where’s your truck?”

  “I don’t—I left it...”

  But rather than going back inside, she squeezed his hand and pulled him toward the sidewalk, leading the way.

  This was an emergency.

  The neighbors would help.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As usual, many thanks go out to an army of people, without whom The Neighbors wouldn’t have been possible. To the folks at Amazon, you’re all amazing. Without you and your constant reassurance, I’d probably have died of a heart attack by now. To my agent, David, thanks fo
r reading my novel-length e-mails, for holding my hand in the streets of Manhattan, for introducing me to “the big boys,” and for making me feel like your favorite author and only client. I’m determined to overstep my nemesis and win all of your gushing shortly. To Tiffany, my superstar content editor, you’ve ruined me. Your direct uplink into my brain is a scary thing. How did I ever live without you? To my friends and family, thank you for the constant encouragement and unwavering confidence that this crazy writing thing is going to work out. To my husband, Will, without you, I would have never made it this far. I love you. And finally, to the readers who have cheered me on since the early days of Seed, you guys are awesome. Stories are nothing if they aren’t read and loved. Thank you for giving life to my work.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by Ania Ahlborn

  Born in Ciechanów, Poland, Ania Ahlborn is also the author of the supernatural thriller Seed, and is currently working on her third novel. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of New Mexico, enjoys gourmet cooking, baking, drawing, traveling, movies, and exploring the darkest depths of the human (and sometimes inhuman) condition. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband and two dogs.