The Devil Next Door

40

Louis knew that the smart thing to do was to turn the car around and head right out of town. He was guessing there were only about a thousand voices in his head screaming for him to do this very thing… voices of instinct, survival, and self-continuation. But these voices knew nothing of love and devotion and duty. These were vague concepts to the voices, bigger and civilized things and they could not have cared less. All they cared about was living, was continuance, about saving the bacon of one Louis Shears who was preparing to jump right into the frying pan, fat side down.

So Louis ignored them.

He pulled over a little hill and entered Main Street from its far eastern edge, seeing all the familiar sights and familiar places that should have been calming, but now filled him with a mounting anxiety. He took it all in, trying to swallow and finding that he simply could not.

“We’ll… we’ll go over to Michelle’s work, see if she’s around. Then we’ll go over to the police station,” he told Macy and he thought it sounded pretty good, pretty reasonable considering the situation.

Macy was tense next to him. “Okay,” she said.

Unlike many towns where the main drag was perfectly linear or seemed that way, Main Street in Greenlawn was a winding, serpentine affair and you could never reach a point where you could see more than a block ahead or behind you. They passed blank storefronts and little cafes, gas stations and bowling alleys, hardware stores and banks. It all looked perfectly fine. All except for one thing.

“Where is everyone?” Macy said. “There should be people around on a Friday night.”

“Just take it easy, honey.”

“C’mon, Mr. She—Louis. Look around, there’s nothing. There’s not even somebody walking a frigging dog,” she said, alarm bells chiming just beneath her words. “It looks like a ghost town and it feels like one, too. Where are they?”

Louis tried to swallow.

She had a very good point, of course. They had seen life in other parts of town—along with a great deal of wreckage—but here it was simply dead. His window was unrolled and he no longer heard sirens or anything else, just the sound of the Dodge’s engine, its wheels rolling on the pavement, a slight breeze in the trees overhead. But not a damn thing else. It was like in the last five or ten minutes, somebody had thrown a switch, shut everything off.

“They must be inside,” he said.

“Why? Why would they be doing that?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is freaking me out.”

It was an almost comical statement considering things, but he did not laugh. Main Street was a graveyard by all intents and purposes. Not a thing moved or stirred. There wasn’t even a bird singing or a cat sunning itself on the sidewalk. Just a great, empty nothing. Yet, deep inside, Louis was certain that those houses and buildings were not empty, that there were people in them or things like people, things with eyes that watched the Dodge slowly roll past, waiting until it stopped, waiting until the man and girl got out and then, and then they would—

“There’s the Farm Bureau building,” Macy said.

Louis saw it, his heart thudding in his chest now.

It was on the corner, set back a bit with a parking lot out front. The building was red brick, kind of looked like one of those old school houses you’d see in the country sometimes. Even had a little belfry on top, but no bell. Louis remembered that it had been the post office when he was a kid, before they moved it to the end of Main. There were a couple cars parked in the lot, but none of them were Michelle’s. Still, he had to look.

He pulled the Dodge to a stop and just sat there, getting a feel for Main as it, he thought, got a feel for him, too. He could smell flowers and grass, the heat boiling from the blacktop. He was feeling those eyes again, watching. There were people nearby and he knew it. They were hiding behind locked doors, in closets and cellars, peering from behind curtains and Venetian blinds. Just watching. Like a group of people waiting to yell, “SURPRISE!” when birthday boy walked in.

Louis figured that’s not what they would say to him, though. It would be something unpleasant and dire… right before they slit his throat ear to ear.

“Well?” Macy said.

He stepped out and breathed in Main Street, felt it in his face. It was hot and still with a dark, sweet smell that he could not recognize, but knew did not belong. He listened for someone, anyone, even the sound of a car, but there was nothing but a flag flapping on the pole above Farm Bureau and wind chimes coming from an antique store down the way.

Oh, they’re here, all right, Louis. All of them. They’re playing the oldest game in the book. Maybe you remember it: hide-and-seek. They know where you are and if you get close enough, they’ll jump out and tag you. Maybe with their hands, but probably with their teeth.

He came around the side of the car, noticing with some unease that the shadows were starting to grow long. It would be dark soon. The wind was hissing through the treetops and along the roofs with the sound of someone exhaling. He walked across the parking lot, the fear building in him, unsettling him. It was growing, getting big and unmanageable. He had no reason to be afraid, yet he pulled the lockblade knife out of his pocket and knew that he would use it if he had to.

He found himself looking around Main Street like he was seeing it for the first time. The tight rows of buildings, the alleyways cut between, all the little cul-de-sacs and stairways and shadowy recesses, the overhanging roofs… all the places someone might conceivably be hiding. He was looking at these things the way a soldier might as he edged into enemy territory.

“Louis,” Macy said and her voice was heavy, breathless. “Look.”

She was at his side, but as he had been scoping out the threat factor, she was only looking at the Farm Bureau building ahead of them. She was pointing at the whitewashed doorway with its gleaming brass knob. There was something on the door. A smear of something dark which he knew instinctively was blood. There was more of it on the doorknob. A few flies were investigating it. Swallowing, Louis unsnapped his lockblade and reached out for the door.

It was unlocked and whispered in without so much as a creak.

He stepped inside, into the chill air conditioning which made goosebumps break out along his arms. Quiet. It was dead quiet in there, but he felt that it was not unoccupied. Somebody had been here. Somebody who had left a vague trace of something dark, something evil.

The receptionist’s desk was empty, as was the first office. Both were neat, undisturbed. There was more blood smeared along the walls and several handprints of varying sizes that must have belonged to several different people. Whatever had happened, it had been a group effort.

“I think we should leave,” Macy said.

“In a minute.”

The next office was Michelle’s and as he rounded the doorway, he thought his heart would explode in his chest it was beating so hard. Because he was expecting to see her in there, slit open and covered in flies.

But this room was empty, too.

Her papers were neatly organized, a few potted plants on the desk, pictures from their wedding and others from Cancun last year that made him want to weep openly. File cabinet, computer, coat rack, impressionist painting on the wall… but nothing to indicate violence or anything out of the ordinary.

But something had happened here.

And as he got out into the corridor, Macy so close behind him that she bumped into him every time he so much as paused, he was certain of it. Even without the bloody handprints on the walls, he could smell the badness here. This place was infected like a sore and you could smell the evil oozing from the walls in a stark miasma.

“Louis…”

“Just another minute,” he said.

Macy was right, of course. What they needed to do was get out of here before whoever or whatever that made those grisly prints returned. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Something was pulling him forward down that corridor and demanding that he look at what was waiting down there. Because there was an aura of menace here and he had to know what it was coming from, had to understand it and look it in the eye. At the end of the corridor there was another door, blood streaked all over it.

Louis could feel Macy tense up behind him.

He took hold of the door and threw it in. This was the office of Dave Winkowski, an adjuster. Louis stepped in there and the smell of blood was so strong he wanted to retch.

“Oh God,” Macy said, turning away.

A woman’s naked body was sprawled over the desk, drying blood splashed all over it. Louis knew who it was. It was Carol, the same woman he’d spoke to on the phone and not that long ago.

Her throat had been slit, blood splattered around everywhere. But worse, her skirt was pulled up around her waist and it looked like somebody had used a knife on her, flaying open her vulva and carving up her thighs with grisly abandon. It was not a crude hacking, but something almost surgical that had taken time.

Macy had only seen the body. Thank God she had not looked too close.

Louis grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down the corridor. “Let’s go.”

They left quite a bit faster than they’d come in. Out in the parking lot, the sun felt nice. The coolness of the insurance building left them and for a few minutes they just stood in the parking lot, at a loss for words.

“We better go,” Macy said.

“Yes.”

“I mean, somebody did that, Louis. Somebody who was insane. I don’t want to be here when they show.”

Louis followed her back to the car and just sat behind the wheel, not knowing what to do or what to say for the longest time. Most people went through their lives without having to find a corpse. But today, he had found two. Carol’s butchered body and Jillian, of course. As he sat there he found the words leaping into his mouth, the words he knew he would have to say to Macy sooner or later: sorry, kid, but your mother’s dead. She’s hanging in your basement. Tough luck. And they almost came out, but he swallowed them back down in the nick of time.

“What?” Macy said, picking up on it. “Were you going to say something?”

But he just shook his head. “No, nothing.”

“What now?”

He shook his head again. He pulled out his cellphone and called home in case Michelle was there. He let it ring until the machine kicked in. Then he broke the connection and tried again. Nothing. She wasn’t home. She wasn’t at work. Where in the hell was she?

“Who are you calling?” Macy asked.

“The police. This is fucking ridiculous.”

He dialed the station house and then dialed it again because he thought he’d punched in the wrong number. But there was no answer. That was not a good sign at all.

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“Try 911.”

Breathing deeply, Louis did. The number rang. There was a clicking on the other end. He could hear someone breathing over the line and it made gooseflesh swarm over his forearms.

“Is somebody there?” he said.

“Hey, looks like I got a live one,” a man’s voice said.

“Who is this?” Louis demanded.

“Who do you want it to be?”

Louis swallowed. His throat was dry as ash. “Listen to me. I’m calling from Greenlawn. We have an emergency here. We need help, okay.”

“Where are you?”

Louis almost told him, then he thought better of it.

“Where are you?” the voice wanted to know. “You tell me… I’ll send somebody to get you.”

Louis broke the connection. He was pale and sweating.

“There, too,” Macy said, fighting back a sob. “There’s no way out of this.”

“We’re going to the police station,” he said, trying to sound confident.

But even then he knew he was making an awful mistake…