The Devil Next Door

What had been warm and inviting and peaceful became cold and awful, a December wind blowing through his skull and turning everything inside him into white ice. And that voice, that terrible goddamned voice began to say things, things that reminded Shore of who and what he was and that was not a good thing. Benny…Benny, just what have you done? it kept saying. What in God’s name has happened to you? What do you think you are doing here? You just ran over a kid at the school, goddamn Billy Swanson…you ran him over and kept running him over…that’s murder, you crazy sonofabitch! Don’t you realize what you’ve just done? You’ve committed MURDER!

And, God in heaven, why didn’t that voice just leave him alone?

Why didn’t it go away? Because that voice was cruel, inflexible authority and Shore did not want to be part of that world of board meetings and budgets and committees. He wanted to run free with his nose to the ground. He wanted to lift his leg and piss on trees. He wanted to find a female and mount her. He wanted to hunt prey and bring it down with his hands. He wanted to feel the meat beneath his teeth and the blood on his tongue.

He wanted, needed, these things.

Alive and vital and free, stripped of boring authority and meaningless purpose.

But the voice reasserted itself and it began to speak to him like he spoke to kids at school, kids that cut class and smoked in the bathrooms and got into fights. It kept at him and at him, cutting and sharp. Murder, murder, murder. And that’s when the mirror maze opened in his head, showing him as he now was-shaking and sweating and shocked, streaks of white in his hair-and as he had been-demented and giggling and kill-happy-and as he would soon be-a mad thing hunting through fields and woods.

No, please, no, no, no…

Yes, the mirror maze was open and it didn’t even cost a dime for admittance and Shore was lost in its corridors, seeing himself, reflections of who and what he was and who he would never be again. Yes, Benny, Benny, Benny. And not just himself, but high windy gallows and cold graveyards and rising tombstones with open, waiting graves. It was all there in the mirrors, all the insidious things that had been set loose inside him, they were all showing themselves. Dirty, monstrous, crawling things.

And they all looked like him.

Distorted, narrow and blown-up and slinking, jumping and dancing. But him.

Oh, dear God.

He tried to squeeze his eyes shut so he would not see those faces, those Benny Shores sticking out their tongues at him, laughing and drooling and jibbering. Would not see himself running over a boy named Billy Swanson and giggly madly at the very idea.

Yes, slowly, painfully, it all began to fade.

Even the mirrors were dissipating like morning mist. The last things he saw in their smoky, polished surfaces were all those deranged Benny Shores running away from him, hating who he was becoming again, hating his authority and his look and his smell and his touch that was sterile as fresh bandages. Yes, Benny, Benny, Benny, childhood Benny and teenage Benny and adult Benny and Principal Benny running and running with a flurry of night-echoing footsteps. And then it was all gone, not even a reflection of the heat and perfection of that other simpler, baser world he had known and loved even as it now repelled him.

Now there was just…Benny Shore, the principal of Greenlawn High School. Just Mr. Shore and his stern voice and disapproving glare. No running in the halls! Where’s your hall pass? Don’t throw food in the cafeteria! What’s wrong with you kids? What are you, animals? Savages? Do you think this school is somewhere to run free and wild? Is that it?

A block away from his house, Shore stopped his Jeep and jerked at the reflection of himself. That silly, sweating, trembling middle aged man who was broken, shattered, reduced to pieces like Humpty fucking Dumpty. He had to think, he had to reason.

Yes, he had to get home.

To Phyllis and little Stevie and Melody. Yes, he had to get to them and gather them up, get them out of town before the madness got them, too, and they did something truly horrible. He would not let his family be sullied like that. He could not and would not allow it.

Drive, you idiot.

He made Tessler and saw people standing on the street, looking either lost or mad and maybe they were both. Some woman was laughing uncontrollably on the sidewalk. Just beside herself. And as Shore passed he saw why. There was a little hill that led down through the grass to the river. And in the water, maybe ten feet out, was a baby stroller bobbing…something small and pink bobbing next to it. She had pushed it down the hill, laughing maniacally as it bumped its way to the river and went into the drink.

Shore sped up.