The Devil Next Door

17

There had been a foul wind blowing through Greenlawn all day and it was only a matter of time before it reached the door of Kathleen Soames, settled there in a ghastly miasma of rot. She had been expecting it.

She had felt it inside herself more than once that afternoon, something boiling, something simmering, something making her think things and want to do others.

Alien things, awful things.

Things she was not capable of.

But it had been there, scratching away in her brain, a darkness and a dankness and an awfulness. A shadow that had fallen over the town was trying to fill her head with shades and unthinkable impulses. Sometimes she was sure it was her imagination and at other times she was sure it was not. For sometimes it was as palpable as cold hands ringing her throat or moldy breath in her face, a hot voice whispering in her ear.

She had told Steve about it twice now, but Steve was not interested.

Steve said it was her nerves. That she was just tired. She needed a good rest. Her nerves and the muggy heat of late August were brewing up a storm in her mind. She’d been working too hard again, trying to keep house and do her gardening and taking care of the kids and waiting hand and foot on Mother Soames upstairs. Christ, that crazy old woman was enough in herself to wear you to the bone. What she needed was a drink and nap. He’d take care of supper. When Ryan got home from his paper route, the two of them would make a nice supper while she slept.

And it was nice, really nice of Steve to offer.

During the whole of that long, listless, and somewhat upsetting day, it was the first thing that had made her smile. Maybe Steve was right. She’d been nervous all day…stomach upset, rolling in waves more often than not; hands shaking; face sweating. She kept screwing up the most simple tasks. Dropping things, knocking things off shelves. She’d tripped on the stairs twice that afternoon when she went up to look in on Mother Soames. She’d cut her fingers with a knife making the old lady’s lunch and bumped her head on the same cupboard door three times. Nothing was right. The town, the neighborhood, the house, and, yes, even Kathleen herself. Off kilter. Askew. Something.

Like a door, she was either open too wide or not wide enough.

And when she tried to sort it out, to make sense of it, all she got was confused. She’d tried to settle in with her soaps that afternoon while Ryan was still in school and Mother Soames was napping, but she couldn’t seem to concentrate. Couldn’t sit still. The TV was too loud or too soft and the pictures were too bright, too hard on her eyes. She looked, but none of it made sense. The storylines were as incomprehensible as hieroglyphics.

It was a hot day, but not so hot that even in the cool of the living room she should have sweated, felt dizzy, felt the need to vomit, been on her knees before the toilet some four times in one hour. Not that anything came of it: just wracking dry heaves that left her breathless and frightened, her head spinning and her temples pounding, her throat tight as braided rope and feeling as if it was coated in a fine, scratchy fuzz.

Kathleen had even taken Steve’s advice and stretched out in bed.

But all she did was toss and turn. There was no position that was comfortable. Her pillow felt warm and damp like some breathing, dormant thing that was waiting to wake. And the one time she’d almost drifted off, she thought she’d heard a voice from inside that pillow say, “Now, Kathleen. Do it now.” She’d come out of that sitting up, not remembering doing so. Sitting up with her knees drawn up to her breasts, her arms wrapped around her legs, sweat dripping from her brow, making her eyes sting.

No, she would not sleep.

Despite Steve’s protests she went right back to it, organizing cupboards already fastidiously organized; cleaning out drawers; wiping down shelves; sweeping and dusting and mopping because she dared not sit still, afraid that voice would speak to her again or she’d start thinking bad things. She had to keep busy, she had to keep moving, she had to beat it out of herself, wrench it from her mind and the only way to do that was with hard work. Thing was, she had become some mindless automaton, just repeating the same tasks over and over again until Steve had demanded to know what the hell was going on.

He’d come back from the garage that day complaining about the heat and the three rings jobs he’d had to perform and goddamn automatic transmissions and vacuum lines and his boss who was just pissing him off, pissing him off so much, he’d admitted, that he’d almost picked up a torque wrench and knocked his brains out.

Steve was calm and easy by nature, but not this day.