The Devil Next Door

4

Maddie Sinclair slid the knife out of her husband’s throat.

Cocking her head like a dog listening for its master’s approach, she studied the blood-streaked blade of the carving knife. She sniffed it. Then she tasted it. She made a bestial groaning noise in her throat.

She stiffened.

A sound.

She waited, gripping the knife, ready to fight, to pounce, to kill. Whatever it took to protect what was hers and hers alone. Footsteps. Slow, stealthy. Maddie’s lips pulled back in a snarl. She tensed. Sniffed the air. Waited. She could smell the musk of the others that were coming. It was an odor she recognized. The odor of female.

She brought the knife up.

Squatted in a killing stance, ready to leap.

Two girls came into the living room. Something in her chest jumped at the sight of them. There was recognition. A warmth that was quickly replaced by something cold, plotting, and atavistic. Maddie recognized them as her brood, her young, her daughters, but there was no emotion at this: the two bitches were not to be trusted. Not yet.

Hissing at them, Maddie sniffed the air they brought with them.

She smelled urine. Blood.

It was a satisfying odor, one that calmed her somewhat. They smelled of the hunt. Not like others out there, not soapy and repugnant. She waited to see if the bitches would challenge her kill, try to take it. But they did nothing but stare. They did not run. There was no fear on them. Just hesitation. They were both naked. They had taken needles and poked their breasts, stomachs, chests, and arms with them, creating a bleeding series of welts that ran in decorative, concentric patterns. The elaborate scarification was symbolic, tribal, and resembled the intricate cicatrisation of certain African bush clans.

Maddie liked it.

If these two bitches were to hunt as part of her band, she would decorate her flesh likewise.

The bitches moved in closer, intrigued.

Maddie let them, watching them. Like her, they were pale, streaked with grime and gore, leaves and sticks braided into their matted hair.

She hissed at them.

They did not make any threatening moves.

Maddie motioned them in with the knife. They squatted by the carcass with her. They laid fingertips upon the kill, touching, feeling, instinctively probing muscle mass and fat deposit, knowing which would be spitted first.

Maddie swallowed. “Down…” she said, her voice dry and scraping, the words difficult to pronounce. “Take the kill down… below…”

The bitches did not argue.

Each gripping an ankle, grunting and gasping, their young scarred bodies rippling with muscle, they dragged their father’s corpse away across the carpeting. Maddie watched them. She was pleased. Her kill was made and her clan established. It was good. Moaning some long-forgotten tribal melody deep in her throat, she retreated into the corner and defecated there on the plush sea-green nap. When she was done, she sniffed what she had produced.

She heard the bitches dragging the carcass below to the cellar.

Its head thumped on each step.

Sniffing the air for intruders and poachers, ever aware of danger, Maddie followed the scent trail of the carcass to the cellar door and below. When she got down in the cool, damp darkness, she schooled the bitches.

Together, they dressed out the carcass…