The Devil Next Door

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…