The Devil Next Door

Louis Shears stood there with the golf club in hand, looking at Macy Merchant. She was standing by the porch steps of her house, battered and terrified, her forehead gashed open. She was wearing baggy cargo shorts and an oversized T-shirt that she practically swam in. Both were streaked with dirt.

“ Macy,” he said. “Macy…it’s okay, it’s me, Louis.”

But Macy was not buying his line. She looked around, wondering maybe if she could get away from him before that golf club came down. “Please,” she said. “Just go away…”

Louis lowered the golf club. She seemed all right. After his experience with the beaten kid, those cops, and then Lem Karnigan…well, he was a little on edge. He’d been standing there by the door, peering outside, waiting for he did not know what, that awful paranoia brewing inside him. When he saw Macy come running across the street, he knew he had to go to her. She was either crazy or just scared. And he had to prove to himself which it was for his own state of mind.

Thing was, she was looking at him as if maybe he was the crazy one.

“ Macy, it’s okay, really it is. I’m not nuts.”

She sighed, but didn’t look convinced. She just kept staring.

Then Louis remembered the blood on him, how he must look. “I had a run in with a…with a crazy man,” he explained. “I haven’t changed my shirt yet.”

She sighed again and lowered herself to the steps. She buried her face in her hands and wept.

“ Macy…what happened? Did somebody do something to you?”

Macy looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. Her shirt was torn, her arms and face bruised, crusted blood smeared on her forehead. She nodded, sniffed. “The Hack twins…I babysit them. They were throwing rocks at a car. I told them to stop and they pelted me…”

She told him it all, including what Mr. Chalmers had said. How they were not to kill her on his territory. Louis could just about imagine what was going through her mind. The unreality and disbelief of her own experience. He’d felt that way telling his story to the cops and then to Michelle on the phone.

When she was done, he just shook his head. He knew Mr. Chalmers and you couldn’t hope to meet a nicer guy. The image of him whipping out his business and showing the kids how to piss to mark your territory was not only ridiculous and disturbing, it was actually kind of funny in a mad sort of way. Had anyone told him this yesterday or even this morning, he supposed he would have laughed.

But he wasn’t laughing now.

And certainly not when Macy told him about Mr. Kenning and Libby.

Shit.

“ There’s been weird things happening all over town, honey. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“ At the school, too. A bunch of kids went nuts and killed a teacher. At least, that’s what I heard.”

It’s building, Louis thought. Whatever’s happening, is building now. It’s not even slowing down.

He wanted to get out of town with Michelle…but he’d had the TV on before and this crazy shit was happening everywhere. Did he dare tell Macy that the whole country was unraveling? No, he couldn’t freak out, not in front of the girl. She did not need that. He was an adult and he had to act like one. Give her some reassurance that the whole world had not just been shoved into the pit. That’s what he had to do.

“ What’s going on?” she asked him. “It wasn’t like this this morning.”

“ No, it doesn’t make sense. But a lot of people in this town have just went off the deep end.”

“ I’ve been hearing sirens all the way home from school.”

“ Yeah, I think we’ll be hearing them for awhile. Until this stops.”

Macy just nodded, staring down at her feet.

Louis wanted to say something to her that would make it better, make her not worry or be afraid. He figured that’s what adults were supposed to do with kids, but the problem was he couldn’t think of anything. He had been looking for something that would make himself feel better, too, but he hadn’t been able to find it. Maybe if he had been a parent, he could have. Maybe he’d be well-practiced in the art of clever, consoling bullshit. But he had no kids. Michelle couldn’t have any and he’d just accepted that, as she had. And as a result, he was simply no good at this.

Macy looked up at him. “What if this doesn’t stop?”

“ Well, it has to.”

“ Why?”

Well, there was a good one. The simple logic of it floored him. “Because…because it has to, that’s why. I mean, the entire town hasn’t gone crazy, just some people. I’m not nuts, though I probably look it, and you aren’t either. I don’t imagine everyone at school was or you wouldn’t be here. Am I right?”

She nodded. “I guess. But what about everywhere else?”

“ Let’s just worry about Greenlawn for now.”

Louis went and sat beside her.