The Devil Next Door

Earl gave him a quick example. In France, in the Rhone valley, beavers made their dams and lodges for centuries, right back to-and before-antiquity same as beavers did everywhere. But then with the coming of the European fur trade, the beavers were hunted to near-extinction. Only a few remained. For several hundred years, no dams, no lodges. Then the French government extended protection to the small beaver population in the Rhone valley. Their numbers swelled over a period of decades. Then, for the first time in several hundred years, the beavers began building dams and lodges in the tributaries of the Rhone River. Building dams and lodges is a very complex, communal effort…yet, no one had to teach the beavers how to do it, they knew. And those dams in the Rhone were perfectly identical to those built by American and Canadian beavers. Cultural instinct at work.

“And our friends out there, Louis. Nobody has to teach them what their ancestors knew. It’s race memory. They know how to survive. How to kill, how to make weapons, how to dress a carcass and peel a hide. Cultural instinct.”

While Earl was gone, Louis found Mike Soderberg’s gun cabinet. He broke the glass with his hammer and sorted around in the moonlight. He wasn’t much of a shooter himself, so he grabbed a weapon that he was familiar with: A bolt-action Winchester Featherweight. 30-06. His father had had one. He’d shot it plenty of times as a boy. He loaded the magazine with Springfield cartridges, stuffed more in his pockets.

“We better get the hell out of here, Earl,” he said when the older man came back.

“Where to?”

“Just out of here for now.”

They stepped out on the porch together. The streets were quiet. But right away Louis got a bad feeling in his stomach and it did not answer to such trifling things as reason or logic. This was an ancient sense. A sense of impending doom.

“I don’t think we’re alone out here,” Earl said.

Something moved in the hedges and Louis did not even hesitate: he brought up the rifle, worked the bolt, and fired. There was nothing but the echo of his shot. No movement.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

Holding the rifle high, he led Earl away out to the sidewalk. He knew it wasn’t safe to stay in the house and it was no more safe out here. They were near and he could smell them: the stink of oily hides and wet dogs. Something moved across the street. Louis hesitated. Something moved behind a parked car. He fired, taking out the windshield. Earl turned to him, mouth opened to say something…but then he grunted and stumbled forward. There was a sharpened spear shaft jutting from his lower back. Blood filled his mouth and he made a gurgling sound and went to his knees.

Louis fired a shot.

He heard a whooshing sound.

He turned, made ready to fire again and his head exploded with stars. The rifle fell from his hands. When he opened his eyes he was flat on his back on the sidewalk. He could hear Earl gasping. But he paid no attention to that. Because somebody was standing over him. They smelled of urine, meat, and shit.

At first he thought it was a monster. Some horrible, walking cadaver that had forced its way out of a muddy grave. But it wasn’t that. It was a woman…or something like one with huge breasts and an axe in her hands. Her flesh was clotted, lumpy, white as bone, glistening. That’s when he knew that she had covered herself in slimy white clay or maybe ash. She had coated herself with it and slicked back her hair, giving her the appearance of a bloodless wraith. Bright red diagonal bands at the mouth and eyes contrasted this. He could see the yellow of her teeth which had been filed sharp, the shining orbs of her eyes. She wore a necklace of fur which he soon realized were maybe a dozen human scalps sewn into a garment.

The stench of her.

The absolute obscenity.

He tried to move, but his head was spinning. Two other women-younger, thinner, breasts like small cones-stepped out of the gloom. They were smeared with ghostly white ash, too. One carried a sling which had propelled the rock into Louis’ head. The other stepped over to Earl, planted her foot in the center of his back and yanked out the spear. Earl screamed and she stabbed him three times in the throat.

I’m next…they’re gonna kill me next.

This is what Louis thought as he hovered at the edge of unconsciousness. They gathered around him for the killing. The older woman crouched down by him, running her hands over him. When one of the younger girls groped at his crotch, she slapped her hand away and hissed at her like a snake.

“Mine,” she said. “Mine…”

73

The Baron was scalping his prey.