The Devil Next Door

49

Louis kept expecting the dead people in the café to move.

He kept expecting them to wink at him or to call him by name, perhaps take hold of him in their cold, sticky red fists and show him exactly what had gone through their minds when they pressed that serrated steel to their throats, demand that he do the same.

For it was better than the alternative and he knew it.

There was a rustle of cloth and he spun around, his eyes wide and his mouth hooked in a terrible grimace. One of the men at the counter slid from his seat and fell to the floor. The little girl at the table fell forward, striking the plate before her face-first. The fat lady trembled and rolled out of the booth, coming down hard, her bloody knife clattering across the floor and stopping at Louis’ feet.

For one split second, he did nothing. His mind was filled with a roaring, whooshing sound and he was certain that they were coming alive around him, waking up. That they would look upon him with dead, yellowing eyes and reach out for him with blood-encrusted hands. And then everything in him went loose and he almost fell down, then tightened up stiff as a plank. A scream came out of his mouth, but it was dry and scratchy and barely more than a hissing sound.

The dead were just dead.

But the idea of three of them coincidentally moving, falling over or sliding out of their seats, was just too much and Louis could not accept it. His heart hammering and his breath coming very fast, he forced himself to move. To step over the body of the fallen man. He expected them to move again, to reach out or whisper his name, but they were just dead. And to prove this to himself, he went right over to the state cop—avoiding the reflection of his grinning, staring face in the mirror— and pulled the gun from his holster. It was a 9mm. And soon as Louis pulled it out, the cop’s corpse fell over like a tree.

Louis stepped around him, the gun in his hand.

Outside, he heard something that made him go white: the high, joyous peals of laughing children. Just for a moment, but it had been there. Something passed before the window of the café and Louis turned, bringing up the gun and pulling the trigger. But nothing happened. His hands shaking so badly that he almost dropped the gun, he found the safety and clicked it off.

He heard running feet.

He ran to the window, the gun out before him. Out there, the streets were empty. Completely empty. His entire body shook and his bladder felt very full. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it would blow out of his chest. He could see his Dodge from where he was, see it very well.

And the doors were wide open.

Behind him, something moved…