The Devil Next Door

“Just take it easy, honey.”

“C’mon, Mr. She-Louis. Look around, there’s nothing. There’s not even somebody walking a frigging dog,” she said, alarm bells chiming just beneath her words. “It looks like a ghost town and it feels like one, too. Where are they?”

Louis tried to swallow.

She had a very good point, of course. They had seen life in other parts of town-along with a great deal of wreckage-but here it was simply dead. His window was unrolled and he no longer heard sirens or anything else, just the sound of the Dodge’s engine, its wheels rolling on the pavement, a slight breeze in the trees overhead. But not a damn thing else. It was like in the last five or ten minutes, somebody had thrown a switch, shut everything off.

“They must be inside,” he said.

“Why? Why would they be doing that?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is freaking me out.”

It was an almost comical statement considering things, but he did not laugh. Main Street was a graveyard by all intents and purposes. Not a thing moved or stirred. There wasn’t even a bird singing or a cat sunning itself on the sidewalk. Just a great, empty nothing. Yet, deep inside, Louis was certain that those houses and buildings were not empty, that there were people in them or things like people, things with eyes that watched the Dodge slowly roll past, waiting until it stopped, waiting until the man and girl got out and then, and then they would “There’s the Farm Bureau building,” Macy said.

Louis saw it, his heart thudding in his chest now.

It was on the corner, set back a bit with a parking lot out front. The building was red brick, kind of looked like one of those old school houses you’d see in the country sometimes. Even had a little belfry on top, but no bell. Louis remembered that it had been the post office when he was a kid, before they moved it to the end of Main. There were a couple cars parked in the lot, but none of them were Michelle’s. Still, he had to look.

He pulled the Dodge to a stop and just sat there, getting a feel for Main as it, he thought, got a feel for him, too. He could smell flowers and grass, the heat boiling from the blacktop. He was feeling those eyes again, watching. There were people nearby and he knew it. They were hiding behind locked doors, in closets and cellars, peering from behind curtains and Venetian blinds. Just watching. Like a group of people waiting to yell, “SURPRISE!” when birthday boy walked in.

Louis figured that’s not what they would say to him, though. It would be something unpleasant and dire…right before they slit his throat ear to ear.

“Well?” Macy said.

He stepped out and breathed in Main Street, felt it in his face. It was hot and still with a dark, sweet smell that he could not recognize, but knew did not belong. He listened for someone, anyone, even the sound of a car, but there was nothing but a flag flapping on the pole above Farm Bureau and wind chimes coming from an antique store down the way.

Oh, they’re here, all right, Louis. All of them. They’re playing the oldest game in the book. Maybe you remember it: hide-and-seek. They know where you are and if you get close enough, they’ll jump out and tag you. Maybe with their hands, but probably with their teeth.

He came around the side of the car, noticing with some unease that the shadows were starting to grow long. It would be dark soon. The wind was hissing through the treetops and along the roofs with the sound of someone exhaling. He walked across the parking lot, the fear building in him, unsettling him. It was growing, getting big and unmanageable. He had no reason to be afraid, yet he pulled the lockblade knife out of his pocket and knew that he would use it if he had to.

He found himself looking around Main Street like he was seeing it for the first time. The tight rows of buildings, the alleyways cut between, all the little cul-de-sacs and stairways and shadowy recesses, the overhanging roofs…all the places someone might conceivably be hiding. He was looking at these things the way a soldier might as he edged into enemy territory.

“Louis,” Macy said and her voice was heavy, breathless. “Look.”

She was at his side, but as he had been scoping out the threat factor, she was only looking at the Farm Bureau building ahead of them. She was pointing at the whitewashed doorway with its gleaming brass knob. There was something on the door. A smear of something dark which he knew instinctively was blood. There was more of it on the doorknob. A few flies were investigating it. Swallowing, Louis unsnapped his lockblade and reached out for the door.

It was unlocked and whispered in without so much as a creak.

He stepped inside, into the chill air conditioning which made goosebumps break out along his arms. Quiet. It was dead quiet in there, but he felt that it was not unoccupied. Somebody had been here. Somebody who had left a vague trace of something dark, something evil.