The Devil Next Door

“ Oh, that’s too bad. You were in the back bedroom, weren’t you? It’s creepy in there.”

It’s even worse now.

“ Well,” he said, “Jillian’s gone. We’ll just have to wait for her. Maybe we should go to my house. Michelle should be home soon. Then we can figure out what we’re going to do.”

“ Okay.”

Macy was easy with it and Louis had to wonder why.

Was it just the paranoia about what was going on in Greenlawn or was it something more? Was she feeling the badness in her own house just as he was? Good God, his mind was all mixed-up and he did not know what to do. Sometimes he stressed so easily. This time, it was understandable. He needed Michelle home. She would know what to do. She always knew what to do. What scared him most was the idea that she would never be coming home. That she was dead somewhere, perhaps swinging from a rafter like Jillian.

But that was just paranoia.

They crossed through the Merchant’s sideyard and climbed up on to Louis’ porch. Michelle’s car was still not in the driveway. Maybe that meant nothing, but he was beginning to think otherwise.

“ When will she be home?” Macy asked.

But Louis could only shake his head. “I wish to God I knew…”

21

The smell of raw meat was overwhelming.

Mike Hack knew that he and his brother were supposed to find some nice young gee-gee, but the meat…oh God…such a wonderful odor. He had smelled it down the alley and traced it here. To this yard. Nothing had ever smelled this good before. He would have the meat. He must have the meat.

But wait.

Careful.

Remember what Mr. Chalmers said.

This is war.

This is survival.

Those other neighborhoods, they’re gonna try and take what we got, so we got to hit them first. We gotta take what they got. Their women, their food, their weapons.

Yes, caution was advisable. Next to him, sweating and grinding his teeth and breathing hard, Matt could barely contain himself. He wanted the meat, too. Mike put a hand on him, stayed him from diving over the hedges and taking what was offered.

Mike held a finger to his lips.

He saw A plate of raw meat slabs sitting on the picnic table. Raw, ready for grilling. He could smell the juice, the fat, the blood pooling on the plate.

The meat was unattended, except for a few flies. No one was around. On all fours, down low, smelling the earth and feeling he was part of it now like a worm tunneling through mulch, he crept forward into the yard. Matt was behind him. Still grinding his teeth. Still breathing hard.

Mike sniffed the air.

He scented the raw meat.

But something else, too, something that made him alert for danger: the scent trail of others. People were near. Hunters like him, perhaps. Yes, he thought they must be. He could smell their passage in the yard as a wolf can smell a game trail: a gamey, vile musk.

It excited him.

Still on his hands and knees, fighting the very simple need to roll in the grass and scent himself, Mike crept forward. Past a kid’s pool. Around a swingset and a row of decorative peony trees. The meat was close now. Just a matter of reaching out for it.

Careful.

With Matt at his back, he sidled up to a little potting shed, lost himself in the cool fragrance of cedars. But the fragrance was not so strong that he did not scent the others and know they were near. Very near. He could smell their sweat, their heat, almost hear the thudding of their hearts and the rush of blood in their veins.

Where were they?

Matt made a moaning sound in his throat and jumped out of the shadowy protection of the cedars. He ran to the picnic table and grabbed a raw meat cutlet, shoving it in his mouth. He chewed and slurped, pink juice running down his chin. He made a squealing sound in his throat that was nearly orgasmic.

But then A woman and two naked girls came rushing out of the potting shed where they’d been waiting all along. Mad things with wild hair and grime-streaked faces. Their eyes were huge and staring, lips pulled back from teeth.

And Mike, his brain reeling and misfiring, recognized them.

Or who they had once been.

Kylie…Elissa…those girls are Kylie and Elissa Sinclair. And that’s their mom…Maddie, Maddie Sinclair.

This passed through his mind like a dying echo, but had no true substance and quickly faded.

Matt turned and kicked out at the woman, driving her back. But as he did so, one of the girls took a long-tined meat fork and stabbed him in the side. He let out a yelp of pain and turned to fight and the other girl slashed him across the throat with a knife.

No!

Mike jumped in, diving on the woman, trying to thumb out her eyes and get his teeth to her throat, but she threw him off. Threw him down. Kicked him and kicked him again until he rolled away, panting and stunned and breathless. She left him there and joined the two girls in goring Matt, taking him down, hunters to prey, slashing and cutting and stabbing him until he was a coiled up thing on the ground, raw and red-stained.

Mike crawled off towards the hedges.

One of the girls came after him.