The New Neighbor

Chapter 18

Into Temptation

For a while that morning, bars of sunlight had managed to pierce the blanket of clouds overhead. It had even looked, briefly, like the clouds were going to break up and give way to blue sky. But it wasn't long before the sunlight was swallowed up and the sky was once again a low ceiling of grimy steel.

The street was thick with reporters from all the local television stations and some from Sacramento and San Francisco, even a couple of networks – CNN and MSNBC.

Although it was the reason they had all come to the neighborhood, there was very little activity at the Garry house. A police officer had arrived earlier that morning with a man and woman – presumably relatives, because they looked grief-stricken, but they wouldn't speak to any of the reporters – and had taken them through the house. Then they'd gone, leaving the house dark and empty once again.

But the Pritchard house had captured their interest. They all knew it was the home of Robby Pritchard, who had discovered the carnage down the street, and who had been the killer's best friend. But there was more.

There was all the angry shouting that had been taking place there, and that gaping hole in the side of the Pritchard house that had seemed to be as much a mystery to Mr. Pritchard that morning as it was to all of them. And those three strange words written in the circle on the front door. What language was that? Or were they names, perhaps? And what significance did they have on the front door? Who was that man who'd limped into the house without knocking earlier? And what about all the screaming they'd heard in there just a little while ago? Was there some connection between the Garry killings and the Pritchard family? Were the killings cult-related, perhaps? Were the boys involved in devil worship?

The reporters had caught the scent of a story they could milk, and they weren’t going anywhere until they got some answers. They'd moved their cars and vans up the street and parked them in front of the Pritchard house, where they waited for someone to come out and talk to them, or for something to happen, anything at all.

When the front door opened, they rushed forward.

It was that limping man again. He came out onto the sidewalk and waved at them, smiling as they came forward. Before the barrage of questions could begin, he spoke.

"I'd like to have a word with all of you, if I might. It'll just take a moment.”

They moved in close and waited for him to go on.

"I am Jeremy Quillerman, the Pritchards' pastor. Needless to say, they're very upset about what has happened to their friends. In fact, the entire neighborhood is grieving today. I encourage you to keep that in mind. I know it is your business to report the news, but… there is no news here, I'm afraid. Only tragedy. The writing on the front door is simply vandalism. The nasty hole over there is best dealt with by a carpenter, not reporters. So, please folks…until something else comes up, why don't you go back to your places of employment and write your stories. The people here have suffered a great loss and a great shock. They're in no condition to answer questions now." He smiled again, nodded with a finality and said, "Thank you for your time." Then he turned and headed back into the house.

The reporters fired questions like bullets, shouting to be heard. He didn't even slow his limping pace. He went inside, closed the door and locked it.

They grumbled to one another as they turned and went back to their cars and vans.

While Pastor Quillerman was outside, no one in the house moved from where they were when he left.

George was sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands, eyes hidden from the dull, glaring light that shined in through the sliding glass door behind him.

Karen was leaning against the lip of the kitchen counter with Monroe in her arms, stroking the agitated cat and making soft, soothing noises.

Robby and Jen stood quietly in the living room, staring out at the reporters.

A bit earlier, Pastor Quillerman had explained to the family everything Robby already knew about Lorelle Dupree and, once again, Robby had been surprised that the pastor knew everything Ronald Prosky had known. Quillerman seemed to take it all in stride, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. Of course, it didn't. It couldn't. But Robby couldn't shake the feeling that it happened more often than he wanted to imagine and that more people were aware of creatures like Lorelle Dupree than he wanted to know.

According to the material Prosky had given Robby, Lilith had given birth to as many as a hundred infants an hour… but for how many hours? How many were out there? The possibilities made Robby feel very small and vulnerable.

As Quillerman headed back up the walk, Robby whispered, "I told him everything, you know."

Jen's head snapped toward him. "You mean… about us? Everything?"

"Everything."

Quillerman came inside and beckoned Jen and Robby to follow him into the kitchen.

"I spoke to them," he said, "but I doubt it will do any good. Once they’ve found a story, reporters are a little like ants and roaches – impossible to get rid of, because if one goes, there's always another to replace it. So, I guess we'll just have to do this in front of them."

Until that moment, Quillerman had gotten virtually no reaction from the family. There had been a few monosyllabic responses and odd facial expressions, but mostly they'd avoided his gaze and remained silent. But then:

"Do, uh…do what in front of them?" George asked from the table, lifting his head slowly. His face looked heavy, the skin sagged and drooped beneath his eyes and along his jawline.

"Deal with this problem we've been talking about here," Quillerman replied.

George stood. "Well, we haven't exactly been talking. You've been talking. And we've listened to your, um… your story. Now I think you should go."

Quillerman's eye moved from George to Jen to Robby to Karen and back to George again. "You know," he said quietly, "you've been coming to church all these years and I've never been here to your house. I've never invited you to my house. I know pastors of other churches who know each and every member of their congregations well. They see them socially. They are considered friends of the family. Unfortunately, I am not made of the same cloth. Of my many faults, I'm afraid my greatest is the distance I tend to keep between myself and the members of my congregation. If I were closer to my congregation, perhaps I would have seen this coming. I might have been able to prevent your involvement. “

“Mr. Pritchard, what’s happening here is not something you can dismiss. It will eat you alive if you let it. You've already allowed it into your home, then into your mind, and the next step is -"

"Pastor," Karen said, still cradling Monroe in her arms, "we appreciate your concern, but the idea of Lorelle Dupree being a… a demon is -"

"Crazy? I suppose it does sound crazy. But the world is full of things that sound crazy. That doesn’t make them any less real. But we have protected ourselves from them, shut them out so we aren’t exposed to them. So much of what we do is just an effort to shut out all the things that seem crazy… or scary. We’ve created religion, ritual, tradition… even the family is a protective measure, a way of insulating ourselves from the frightening darkness beyond the glow of our fires. I, of course, play a part in that insulation. Religion is one of the things people turn to for comfort and reassurance when they get a glimpse of the unknown. In the end, all we really have is each other. And that’s why I’m here. Your neighbor knows this. She is pitting you against each other right now, and you will – “

”Get the fuck out of my house!" George roared, taking a couple of steps toward Quillerman.

Dead silence fell over the room as the pastor stared at him, a look of satisfaction on his face, then: "You see?" he whispered. "This is not how you normally behave, George.” He looked around at all of them. “This is not how any of you behave. Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?”

George's fists were clenched and trembling at his sides. He opened his mouth to shout something again, but Robby spoke up quickly.

"Dad, you know it's true! She tore a hole in your bedroom wall. She flew through your bedroom wall! She chased me! She's not human, Dad, and you know it." He looked at Karen and Jen, too. "We all know it. So why don't we admit it and stop letting her do this to us!"

George stared at his son intensely for a long moment, then backed up slowly and lowered himself back into the chair. He leaned forward on the dining room table. His arms began to shake, just a little at first, but when he tried to speak they got worse.

"Well, whuh-what… what do we, um… wh-what're we supposed to… I mean, what's -" He stopped suddenly, arms quaking so hard they rattled the table. He slapped a hand over his mouth, closed his eyes tightly and pressed his arms down on the table hard to stop the shaking. After sitting like that for a while with the others staring at him, he pulled his hand away and muttered, "What've we done?" Then, quickly: "I-I mean, no, no, I mean, what'll we do?"

Pastor Quillerman turned to Karen and, with nothing more than a tilt of his head and the look in his eye, asked her if she agreed.

She looked away from him, rubbed her cheek against the top of Monroe's head then made a movement that might have been a conciliatory shrug.

Jen frowned, then nodded slowly.

Quillerman already knew how Robby felt, so he didn't bother asking.

“First,” the pastor said, “you need each other. So whatever animosity you may feel toward each other right now, whatever feelings of anger or betrayal have been created by this situation – you need to let go of them. You need to forgive one another. And yourselves. She will use whatever she can to pull you apart. You've opened yourselves up to her and now she knows all she needs to know to finish her work in this house."

George asked hoarsely, “And… what is that work?”

"Well, apparently she's already finished with the Garrys. And from the looks of things when I arrived here, she came close to finishing with you this morning. Murder and suicide are among the signatures of the succubus.”

"Then what?" Robby said.

"First, we have to gain the support of everyone on this street who has been seduced by Lorelle Dupree. That won't be easy, especially with all those reporters out there, but we'll do our best -" He turned to Robby. " – won't we?"

Robby nodded.

"I have to drive over to the church to pick something up," Quillerman said. "It won't take long, but should you need me, I’ll give you my cell number.”

"What are you getting?" Robby asked.

"Something to make it a little easier to talk to your neighbors. “

Robby followed Pastor Quillerman to the door, where the man turned to him.

"You seem to have the best handle on all of this, Robby,” he whispered. “Help them. They'll need it. I'll be right back."

He was gone.

Robby turned and started back toward the kitchen. The closer he got, the worse his feeling of dread became. What was he going to do? What could he say to them?

Karen was gone.

George was still seated at the table.

As Robby walked in, Jen started out.

"Where you going?" Robby whispered.

"My room. I-yum…I think I'll take a nap, maybe." She looked tired and a little confused as she left.

Robby went to the table, scooted a chair over and seated himself close to his dad. "You okay?" he asked.

He didn't answer for a while, then: "Yeah. Yeah, son, I'm fine."

"Where'd Mom go?"

"I don't know."

Robby stiffened before speaking again, bracing himself, knowing he might be making a mistake. "Don't you think maybe you should… you know, go talk to her?"

George rubbed both hands over his face, slowly massaging his eyes, then stood. "Yeah. Maybe I should. Right now, though, I'm gonna do something about that hole in the bedroom wall." He walked away slowly as he muttered to himself: "Have to call a carpenter… may be get that tarp outta the garage… cover it with that for now… “

Robby was alone.

Outside, only a few of the reporters remained, and they were taking cover because the sky had become even darker and threatened more rain.

A thin, low mist permeated the neighborhood. It had appeared out of nowhere in seconds, swirling over the ground, seeping through shrubs, curling around the corners of houses and licking teasingly at the walls.

When the mist first moved in, a few dogs barked wildly up and down the street and a cat darted in several directions – from yard to yard, from one side of the street to the other – before going up a tree, as if to get away from the mist.

Other than the animals, however, no one paid the mist any attention… so no one noticed its swirling movement just beneath Jen Pritchard's bedroom window.

Jen took the straight-back chair away from her dressing table, turned it around and straddled the back, leaning her chin on her wrists. She'd opened a package of Pop Rocks and put a few of the little pebble-like candies in her mouth. They fizzed and popped. She felt like she had a head full of Pop Rocks. Her thoughts exploded before she could complete them, then a new one would begin, only to end abruptly before another began to take shape.

What had they gotten into? Was it too late to get out?

When she thought of the things she'd been doing, she felt sick with self-hatred, as if Pastor Quillerman's arrival had been a glass of ice water thrown in her face that had startled her into hyper consciousness.

She wanted to go back to the day before Lorelle Dupree's arrival and do something that might have prevented all that had happened afterward. But what could she have done? There had to be something she could have done or said that might have strengthened the connection between herself, her brother and their parents, something that would have enabled them to turn away from Lorelle.

She tossed the half-empty bag of Pop Rocks on the dressing table and pushed the chair away as she stood, turned and -

– she threw herself backward with a choking sound, nearly swallowing some of the tiny candies whole and she stumbled and fell backward into the chair because -

– Lorelle was peering at her through her bedroom window. She smiled at Jen, lifted a hand and gave her a friendly wave.

"Hello, Jen," she said, her voice muffled by the glass. "Is anything wrong in there? I noticed the reporters were paying a lot of attention to your house."

Jen hugged herself against a sudden chill. "Y-you know what's wrong," she said.

Lorelle frowned.

"Duh-don't…you?"

"I'm afraid not. Other than what happened down the street – those poor people, isn't that horrible? No, I don't know what's wrong. I’m worried about you."

Jen frowned, blinked. Could Robby have been wrong? Even Pastor Quillerman? Could it be that they'd just gotten involved with a disturbed woman who'd moved in across the street? When she thought about it now, what she'd done with Robby seemed like nothing more than a dark and fading dream. Had she really wandered around the house half-naked? Had she really touched her father's erection just that morning? The more she thought about it, the farther away it all seemed and the more she doubted Robby's and Pastor Quillerman's story that Lorelle was some kind of demon.

But she still wasn't certain.

"I knocked on the door," Lorelle said, "but no one answered. I began to wonder if everything was all right. By the way, what's that thing on your front door, that circle with three names in it?"

"You… don't know?"

She shook her head. "It's not very attractive, if you want my opinion. You ought to wash it off."

Maybe she 'd like that, Jen thought.

"Why don't you come to the front door, Jen? It would be easier to talk."

"Well, I…I'm busy."

"You don't look busy. Come on, I'll meet you at the front door. You can come walk the dogs with me."

"I can't."

"Sure you can." She grinned.

"I-I don't think so."

Her grin melted. "Why, Jen? Are you… embarrassed maybe? Embarrassed about what happened between you and Robby?"

Jen gasped.

Real… it happened… it was real.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed, Jen. You certainly enjoyed it at the time… didn't you? It can happen again, you know. It can happen again if you'll just meet me at the front door. We can wash away those silly names, then you and Robby can come over to my place -" The grin returned. " – and play."

Jen shuddered as she stood, moved behind the chair and latched a white-knuckle grip on its back.

"Wouldn't you like that, Jen?" Lorelle asked, moving her face closer to the glass.

Trembling, Jen closed her eyes and thought of Robby… and her parents…

The staple gun made loud, sharp snapping noises as George stapled a dark green plastic tarpaulin over the hole in the bedroom wall. He felt weak and sluggish and worked slowly, pulling the plastic taut before each snap of the gun.

Before starting, he'd knocked on the door of the guest room assuming that was where Karen had gone. He'd knocked a second time before getting a response.

"Yes?"

"Uh… are you, um, all right, Karen?" he'd asked.

A long silence, then: "Yes. I just want to be alone for a while."

He'd stood there for a long time, staring at the doorknob, tempted to try it and maybe go in and talk with her, but she didn't sound like she wanted to talk. And for a brief moment, that made him furious. His teeth ground together and he wanted to put his fist through the door, felt angry and strong enough to be able to poke his hand through the wood as if it were paper, then go into that bedroom and do the same thing to Karen, but -

– he'd caught himself and moved back away from the door, slowly relaxing his clenched fists and taking deep breaths. Then he'd gone to work in the bedroom.

The next time he squeezed the gun, he got a hollow clack. It was empty. He released the tarpaulin, leaned down for the box of staples on the floor, and removed another strip. Once he'd reloaded the staple gun, he stood up straight and reached for the drooping flap of plastic, but -

– George jerked his hand back as if it had been bitten and dropped the staple gun as his shock came out in a dry cough, because -

– Lorelle peered in through the opening left by the unstapled section of the tarpaulin and purred, "I could use a handyman, George." She wore a black leather teddy with perfectly round holes over her breasts through which her dark nipples stood erect. She wore no panties above her black fishnet stockings. "Would you like to be my handyman for a while, George?"

His mouth was suddenly filled with moist cotton. "Guh-get away… from me," he breathed.

"That's not nice, George. Not after all the good times we've had. What do you say we do your favorite? You fuck me up the ass while I use the vibrator on my pussy. How does that sound, huh?"

"Nun… no. No."

"No? I'm shocked, George. I'm hurt. Why no, all of a sudden? Have you… ah, yes, I bet you've found someone else to do those things for you. Who could it be? Hmmm… Karen? No, not Karen. She doesn't like cocks. She told me that, George. She said they were ugly. Even yours. All lumpy and stiff and stubby." She wrinkled her nose and went through a mock shudder. "Ooooh, no. Karen doesn't like that at all. She told me herself. No, Karen prefers… other things."

George began to feel sick, partly because of what Lorelle was saying to him, and partly because, in spite of her words and in spite of what he knew about her – or thought he knew about her – he was getting an erection.

"So if it's not Karen who's replacing me, maybe it's… Jen? She's young but… very imaginative. Maybe Robby wasn't enough for her. Maybe his cock wasn't big enough. After all, father knows best, right?" She laughed as she licked a fingertip and ran it around one nipple, then squeezed. "But somehow, I don't think so. I think you still want me, George. You know nobody will give it to you like I did. You know that. And so does whatever's standing up beneath your robe." She laughed again, licked her finger Again and buried it for a moment in the patch of red hair between her legs as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back with pleasure. Then she lifted her hand to her face and ran the glistening finger back and forth beneath her nose. "Mrnmm, George," she said as she held her hand out toward him. "Want to smell? Want to taste? Nectar, George… nectar. Smell it… lick it… suck it off my finger, George."

His lungs felt empty and his knees weak, and the pounding between his legs became more and more insistent until it drowned the throb of his head and he was about to step forward just one step, a short step, and take that finger in his mouth so he could suck off that sparkling fluid, but -

– he growled through clenched teeth, "No, I won't. Not again. I won't!" He swept the staple gun off the floor, slammed the loose section of the tarpaulin against the wall, and began stapling hard and fast as -

– Lorelle, just outside, continued to say softly, "Lick it, George, taste it again, come out and taste it, George -"

" – No, dammit," George rasped as he stapled.

“Come out and put your tongue in it, George… put your tongue in it and roll it around… put your cock in it, George, just slide it in… “

He thought of Karen… of Robby and Jen… of Christmases and Thanksgivings… school plays and recitals… of Robby’s birth… he even thought of Laura.

Lorelle giggled as she dragged her fingernails slowly down the other side of the plastic.

Karen lay on the bed in the guest room with the door closed and locked, stroking Monroe gently. The cat was curled up on her stomach, purring like an idling engine, as if he hadn't been less than an inch from bloody injury and most likely death only a short time ago.

"What am I going to do, Monroe?" Karen whispered.

The cat didn't even stir.

"What… am I going… to -"

There were three short taps on the window pane.

Karen's head jerked to the right and looked up at the rectangular window. The white shade was down and the light-blue curtains were half drawn.

Three more staccato taps.

She felt her heartbeat in her fingertips.

Monroe protested with a half-hearted meow when Karen sat up and lifted him off her. She swung her legs off the bed, stood and stared at the window.

More gentle tapping.

Karen could see a hazy, dark shape through the white shade. She stepped forward, reached out a trembling hand and almost jerked it back and hurried out of the room. Instead, she tugged on the shade. It snapped up with a clatter and -

– Karen stumbled backward with a gasp and whispered, "Lorelle!"

She was naked beneath a sheer black cloak that fluttered around her gracefully in the breeze. Her hands rested between her breasts where she held the cloak together. Lorelle's voice was dulled by the pane of glass, but Karen still heard her.

"I thought you were coming over, Karen," she said.

"Well, I… I-I… "

"I've been waiting for you."

Karen inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, then said in a trembling voice, "I'm suh-sorry, but I had to stay with… I, um, I need to stay with my family."

"Why?"

Karen's eyes snapped open. "What?"

"What's holding you to your family, Karen? The children are old enough to take care of themselves. Robby's not even yours. And your husband… well, things will never be the same with him, will they? He’ll never do for you what a woman can do… what I can do."

“Please stop," Karen said, turning her back to the window and crossing the room.

"He'll never make you feel the way you felt with me."

"Don't." Karen put her face in her hands, fighting the urge to turn and look at Lorelle, to drink her in with her eyes. "Please don't do this to me," Karen whispered.

"I'm not doing anything to you. But I want to. Look."

Karen didn't move.

"Please, Karen. Look."

She turned cautiously.

Lorelle had pulled the cloak away from her left breast and was fingering the small silver earring that hung from her pierced nipple.

"I wore it for you," she said as she placed a hand on the glass and moved closer, closer, until the earring chattered against the pane, until her breasts were pressed flat to the glass.

"Please… go away," Karen breathed.

"You don't want me to go away. You want me to touch you… "

"No, please… "

"… and lick you… "

"… go away… "

"… but I can't do any of those things until you come to me, Karen. Do you hear me?"

Karen closed her eyes.

"Come to me, Karen… come to me… "

Karen covered her face with her hands again and cried.

Robby had not left the dining room table. He sat with his back to the sliding glass door, unaware of the mist blanketing the back lawn. He'd eaten nothing for breakfast or lunch and was beginning to feel a few pangs of hunger, but he couldn't bring himself to eat. Not yet. Somehow, the idea of food was not appealing, no matter how hungry he felt.

He didn't know how long it had been since Pastor Quillerman had left, but he wished the man would get back soon. How long would it be before Lorelle began trying to lure them over to her house again? To what lengths would she go? And what would she do to him?

Robby had seen her with her guard down, as she really was. He knew the truth about her and, unlike Ronald Prosky, he was still alive to share it with others.

What would she -

"Robby?"

He jumped to his feet so suddenly, he knocked the chair over. When he spun around, he saw Lorelle outside the glass door. She stood naked in a mist that surrounded her ankles and curled up the back of her body, its tendrils caressing her calves, hips and back.

She smiled and said, "Are you glad to see me?" Her eyes moved slowly down his body, then: "Or is that a gerbil in you pants?"

He looked down at himself and was surprised to see that he did, indeed, have an erection. He'd been too frightened to feel it growing. When he looked at her again, her fingers were snaking through the hair between her legs.

"Come on over, Robby," she said. "We'll have some fun."

He tried to speak but couldn't, so he just shook his head.

"Why not?"

"You know why not."

"Aaww, c'mon." She rattled four fingernails against the glass.

Her skin looked so smooth. The very sight of her stirred vivid memories – more like actual sensations – of the things they'd done together.

Her nails rattled, her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth, her hand continued to move as she lifted one leg slightly. "Come over, Robby. Come over and play… “

Robby spun around, eyes wide, placed both palms flat on the tabletop and breathed, "It won’t work. I know what you are… what you really are.”

The glare from the clouded sky outside was swallowed up suddenly by a shadow that rose up from behind Robby.

The sound of Lorelle's nails tapping against the glass lost its delicacy and became loud and sharp, sounding dangerously close to breaking the glass.

A familiar voice – wet, thick and inhuman – said "Raaaawww-beee." The nails scratched over the glass with a horrible, shrill sound… a grinding sound…

“Go away!” he shouted, eyes tightly shut. “You’re not here! We know what you are!”

"I'll suck your cock, Raaww-beee."

“Go away!”

“I'll suck your cock out by the roots, Raaww-beee."

The glare from outside returned. The shadow was gone. So was the horrible scratching against the glass. Robby opened his eyes and spun around. Lorelle had disappeared.

Walking unsteadily and taking deep, tremulous breaths, Robby went down the hall to help his dad cover the hole in the bedroom wall…