The Devil Next Door

1

Friday the Thirteenth…

Greenlawn, Indiana. The high, hot outer edge of summer. Louis Shears breathed in deep, let that pure green heady aroma fill him to bursting. He could smell freshly cut grass, azaleas in full glowing bloom, hot dogs sizzling on backyard grills… and then something else that stopped him, disturbed him, passed through his mind like an ugly dark cloud: blood. Just a momentary psychic whiff of it, but one so strong he could feel it churning down in his guts. Blood. The blood of the town. A blood that was rich and vibrant, almost seductive.

Then it was gone.

He just shook his head as people will do, dismissing it.

And dismissing it mainly because he did not know what was about to happen. That good old Greenlawn, Indiana—like the rest of the world that was old but not nearly so good—was poised at the brink of a pit of absolute yawning blackness.

But back to summer.

Back to clean air and green grass and cars sudsed in driveways and kids on skateboards and the long tanned legs of young ladies pumping away in short shorts. Little pink houses for you and me, smiling children and happy faces, clean fresh-scrubbed places. The American dream. Condensed.

Louis had the afternoon off and the weekend was stretched out before him fat and slothful like a plump tabby sunning itself. He’d landed two new accounts over at CSS, the steel vendor he was a sales rep at. All seemed right with the world. He was looking forward to a lazy Saturday morning of yard work followed by an afternoon nap, maybe brunch with Michelle over at Navarro’s on Sunday. And tonight? Well, they were celebrating.

In the backseat of his little Dodge were two nice seasoned porterhouse steaks, a couple baked potatoes, a bottle of Asti Spumante.

After the meal, Louis figured, maybe they’d jump in the hot tub, have a glass of wine or two, and get naked.

These were the things going through Louis’ mind in a happy rhythm as he turned the Dodge onto Tessler Avenue, saw a couple walking hand in hand down the sidewalk beneath the spreading oak branches. It was a warm, muggy day as late August always was in those parts and he had his window open, his arm hanging out. He could smell the thick green odor of clotted vegetation on the riverbank. In the powder blue sky he saw a couple gulls winging past, a kite skimming against the fluffy white clouds. It was just the sort of day to be alive and to be happy. The sort of day you wanted to wave and smile at people.

He saw Angie Preen pass on the walk pushing a baby carriage. Her sapphire eyes sparkled in the sunlight, long autumn chestnut hair swept back in a ponytail. It swished from shoulder to shoulder, keeping time with the admirable jiggle of her bosom. She waved. Louis waved. Angie. Single-mother, but proudly so. Independent, strong, reliable. Came from good stock, as they liked to say in Greenlawn at baked bean suppers and church socials when the lives of anyone and everyone were examined like rare old pottery, checked fastidiously for inconsistencies and flaws.

Ah, Angie. Louis had always thought that if he hadn’t hooked up with Michelle, then Angie and he might—

Then reality as he remembered the envelope sitting on the seat next to him.

The check for the car insurance. Michelle had given it to him two days before to mail and as was his way, he’d simply forgotten. Forgotten the way he sometimes forgot things.

He spotted a blue iron mailbox up Tessler and pulled to a stop. He got out, whistling under his breath, and dropped the letter in.

Then he glanced down the street.

A primer gray sedan pulled to a stop and two men with baseball bats hopped out. There was a teenage boy standing there, a paperboy, his sack dangling limply over his shoulder by a neon orange strap. The men spoke with him, laughed, and the boy followed suit. A perfectly ordinary exchange, it seemed, but Louis was suddenly disturbed. The sky suddenly seemed not blue but iron gray and there was a chill on the breeze. He could still smell the freshly-cut grass and river bottoms, but now they did not smell of life and growing things, but of rank sun-washed death.

Blood.

He smelled it again.

Louis stood there, something expanding in his chest.

The two men laughed again and swung their bats at the kid.

He went down with a strangled moaning sound. They’d caught him in the belly and the hip. For one split second they stood over him and then they started swinging again. Suddenly, the air was split with the meaty sounds of wood impacting flesh and the kid’s wavering screams. The bats kept coming down and Louis plainly heard the splintering of bones.

It all happened in the span of ten seconds.

And like anyone faced with random, extreme violence, Louis’ initial reaction was one of disbelief and even skepticism. This was not happening. These two guys— perfectly ordinary-looking guys—were not beating the shit out of a paperboy with Louisville Sluggers. It was a gag, a joke. Surely there was a camera rolling nearby. Some director would shout, “CUT!” and the two guys would help the kid up, all of them laughing about it.

But that did not happen and the screams coming from the kid’s mouth were surely not play-acting. The men stood there looking at the kid, the ends of their bats stained red. They were laughing.

They just beat the fuck out of that kid and now they’re laughing.

Laughing.

It was at this impossible juncture that something shattered inside Louis because he realized that this was the real thing. Then he was running, running as fast as he could towards the kid and the two men. He had no idea what it was he thought he was going to do when faced with two psychos with baseball bats, but something inside compelled him to intervene.

By the time he got near enough to see the kid and the red pool expanding around him, the two men had already hopped into their car. It passed Louis at a casual speed—a primer gray sedan with a wired-up front bumper and a shattered rear window, a UNION YES! sticker on the trunk—and the two men smiled at him and waved, kept on driving like they were just on their way to the store to grab a six-pack and had not just viciously beaten a paperboy with baseball bats.

Louis thought of chasing the car, but instead he memorized the plate number, and went to the kid.

“Oh Christ,” he said when he got a good look at him.

He was curled up like a dying snake, the femur of his right leg poking through his pant leg. His left knee was shattered, the leg twisted off at a crazy angle. His right arm was like some lumpy purple contusion and his face was swelling to the point that it was nearly impossible to make out his features. His head looked like some garish, knobby Halloween pumpkin capped by spiky tufts of blonde hair.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Louis heard his own voice say.

There was blood everywhere… soaked into the kid’s clothes, spreading onto the sidewalk, running from his mouth and ears and eyes. Louis saw a bunch of white things on the walk and realized they were the kid’s teeth.

“Don’t move,” Louis told him, caught between the need to cry and the need to throw up. “I’ll… I’ll get an ambulance.”

But as he turned to run back to the Dodge for his cell, the kid grabbed his ankle with a bloody hand, the pinkie of which was broken and nearly turned right around in its socket. He lifted his head up and vomited out a spray of blood and bile, his entire body jerking, making a sucking, sticky sound as it convulsed in its own pool of blood. Louis just looked down at him, disgusted and afraid and too many other things he was not even aware of. The top of the kid’s head was shattered, plates of bone sticking up like shards of glass. You could see his brain in there, lots of blood. A trickle of clear fluid ran down his face.

Intercranial fluid. Jesus, that’s intercranial fluid.

“Please… just don’t move,” he said.

But the kid was moving.

He was holding onto Louis’ ankle tightly, very tightly, convulsing and squirming. Louis bent down, had to put his hands on the kid and the warm, fleshy wetness of that made waves of nausea roll through him.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Louis said, sobbing now, looking wildly around and wondering why no one else was seeing this.

And that’s when madness became horror.

The kid let go of his ankle and threw himself at him.

He was so badly broken and injured he should have been capable of little more than moaning, but he suddenly was filled with life, a demented and diabolic life. His fists came up and wrapped around Louis’ throat with a grip that was vital and strong. He gagged and spit blood, but he hung on, things inside him snapping and popping. His eyes were black and intense, his mouth hooked in a ragged sneer, toothless and hanging with ribbons of blood.

Louis screamed.

None of this could have happened in the first place and surely not this. Mortally wounded kids did not react like this… with rage and ferocity. But that’s what was happening. The kid had him by the throat and it was definitely not some weak half-hearted gesture born of brain trauma. This was something else. The hands were strong, immoveable, crushing Louis’ windpipe with a strength that was frightening. Louis grabbed those moist hands and tried to pry them loose… first gently, not wanting to further hurt the kid, and then with a manic desperation born of utter terror.

Because the kid’s face… it just wasn’t right.

He was insane, possessed, something. Those black eyes were flat and relentless; the swollen face bulging with exertion; the mouth contorted into a bloody blow hole, jagged teeth jutting from his gums.

Louis began to see black dots before his eyes as the pressure increased and his air was shut down. What he did next, he did without thought, out of pure instinct. He lashed out blindly, punching the kid in the face with two or three heavy shots that snapped his head back. It was like punching a bag filled with moist bread dough… his fists literally sank into it. But it worked. The kid fell away, rolled onto his back, shuddered for a moment or two, then went still. Blood still ran from him and that fluid oozed from his smashed head, but that was the only movement.

He was dead.

A couple bluebottle flies seemed to know this, for they lit on his face. A third settling onto his left eyeball, rubbing its forelegs together.

Panting, dizzy, half out of his mind, Louis pulled himself away from the wreckage of the kid. His white short-sleeved dress shirt was untucked, several buttons gone, the front muddled with brilliant red stains. He put a trembling hand to his throat and felt the slick, greasy blood there from the kid’s fingers. The world canted this way, then that. He thought he’d go out cold.

But he didn’t.

Sweat ran down his face, a cold sour-smelling sweat, and he was finally aware of the sidewalk beneath him and the birds singing in the trees and the sun in the sky.

That didn’t just happen, a voice kept saying in his head. Dear God, tell me none of that just happened. Tell me I wasn’t attacked by a dying kid and that I had to punch him out to get him off me.

But it had happened and the realization settled into him with a weight that almost pressed him to the concrete. He breathed in and out, blinked his eyes, looked around. Same late summer day. Butterflies winging through the grass and flowerbeds. Bees buzzing. Sun hot and yellow in that endless blue sky. Same smell of cut grass and roasting hot dogs, kids laughing and shouting in the distance.

It was the same. It was all the same.

Yet, down deep where the worst intuitions brooded, he knew it was not. Something was wrong. Something had changed. A shadow had fallen over the streets.

A cry twisting in his throat, Louis ran for the Dodge and his cellphone…