Ray Garton - The New Neighbor

Tara said, "Mom wants us out of the house for the day. She's… in a bad mood."

"So's Dad," Dana snapped.

Robby hesitated, not wanting to sound nosy, then asked, "How come?"

"I think they're sick, too," Tara said. "But mostly, I think they're fighting."

He wanted to ask why, but the bus rumbled off of Victor Avenue and slowed to a stop at the curb and the children climbed aboard.

Robby stood alone on the corner hugging his books -

– The flu? Is that what you've got ? -

– feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the weather -

– Yeah, that's what we thought it was. But I know better now -

– and listening to the sound of his own bus in the distance -

– Because I don't think the flu would make my wife take a chainsaw to her son. Or to me -

– as it neared the corner. It would stop, the doors would hiss open, and the driver would wait for Robby to get on, then it would take him to school, where he would be expected to forget the deeply disturbing feeling of wrongness that he felt now, and concentrate, for six hours, on teachers and books. He spun around and hopped over the small shrubs that ran along the front of the Holcombs' yard, then ducked behind the fence that faced Mistletoe until the bus came. It slowed at the abandoned corner, then picked up speed and rolled on down the lane.

Robby left the Holcombs' yard and started down Mistletoe. Although he wasn’t going to school that day, he couldn't go back home, either. There was something else he had to do.

When the telephone rang Ronald Prosky was lying in bed in his room at the Motel 6 on Hilltop Drive, thinking about sleep.

That was about the best he could do these days – think about sleep. For nearly a year after the loss of his wife and son, there had been no nightmares. In spite of his grief, he had other things to think about, like the surgical reconstruction of his face (for all the good it had done) and adjusting to his prosthetic arm. Then, after his life settled down a bit, Marie and Gordon had come back to haunt his sleep. Each time he drifted off, he saw them naked in bed together… and then he saw them bloody and dead. He heard his son's screams and smelled the gasoline vapors from the buzzing chainsaw, felt his own warm blood on his face and tasted it in his mouth and he saw his right arm lying on the bedroom floor. And worst of all, he saw her , again and again.

Now he couldn't even fall asleep long enough to have a nightmare. He was afraid to sleep, not because he would relive his family's death, but because he knew she was near.

She was working differently now. The people who lived on Deerfield had changed in a matter of days. It usually took months before the changes in her victims became visible, then a couple of months after that before they became violent. In less than a week, the Pritchard boy had taken on the gaunt, pale look that usually overcame one of her victims after three months or so of seductive teasing and careful priming.

She was working much faster now, as if driven by something to finish here in Redding and move onto the next neighborhood… or apartment building… or mobile home complex… anyplace where families lived in reasonable contentment and safety.

It could begin at any moment, the torture and killing, and there was nothing Prosky could do to stop her. Unless -

The phone rang.

Prosky sat up on the bed, hoping it was the Pritchard boy; that he'd decided, for whatever reason, to help Prosky.

"Hello."

"Um… hi. It's me. The guy you talked to yesterday? At school? My name's Robby."

Prosky shot to his feet and a broad smile of relief twisted the scarred flesh of his cheek. "Yes, Robby?"

"I… I'm scared." His voice broke and dropped to a whisper. "I'm really scared and I think I need help."

The Stranger's Story

The man picked Robby up at the Shell station on the corner of Mistletoe and Hilltop. He said his name was Ronald Prosky and although Robby tried to conceal his nervousness – actually, it was more like fear – and to avoid looking at Ron's face, he knew it was obvious because Prosky tried immediately to put Robby at ease.

They went to the International House of Pancakes just a couple of blocks away and got a booth in the back, where they each had a cup of coffee.

"Please don't be nervous, Robby," Prosky said quietly. "I know that my appearance is off – putting and I'm a stranger to you, but if we can just talk a while, I think you'll feel better. "

Robby fidgeted, wondering if he'd made a mistake – maybe this guy was just a streetwalking lunatic who ate out of trash bins and lived in his clothes.

"Okay," Robby said hesitantly, "so what do you want to talk about?"

"Your new neighbor."

"What about her? I mean, yesterday, you seemed to think you knew everything about her, so what do you want me to tell you?"

"What has she done?"

"She hasn't done anything."

Prosky stared into his coffee for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Okay. Maybe it'll be easier if I tell you what I know about her. Then you can talk." He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Five years ago, I was a reasonably successful investigative journalist. I had a wife and a sixteen-year-old son. We lived in a suburb of Chicago, a nice friendly neighborhood. A lot like your neighborhood, Robby. Then Lily moved in. At least, that's the name she was using then." He took a long sip of coffee before continuing. "She was a beautiful woman. Very nice. Friendly. Generous. It was the kind of neighborhood that welcomed new neighbors, so everyone started to get to know her. I really got to know her.

“My wife and I had been married for nearly nineteen years by then. It wasn't a bad marriage, but… well… " He looked away from Robby and winced, as if someone had stuck him with a needle. "I guess I'd gotten… bored. And I didn't even know it at the time. At least, not until Lily let me know that I was -" he cleared his throat abruptly, " – welcome in, uh, her bed any time. She was… god , she was gorgeous. Women like that do not proposition men like me every day. So I took her up on it. She assured me it would be discreet and just between us.

"So, I was having an affair . And what an affair it was. I mean, she was the kind of lover men only dream of having. But as the months passed, something happened. I began to change. I noticed I wasn't as coordinated as usual, I wasn't as strong. I was always tired, couldn't get enough sleep. And when I did sleep, I had these dreams. Incredibly vivid. I dreamed that Lily came to my room and we made love on the bedroom floor or on the bed beside Marie while she slept, and she never woke, no matter how noisy we got. I didn't think much of it, until it got worse – the fatigue and the dreams – and then I woke one night and she was there. On top of me. In my bed . It wasn't a dream, she was really there, and I didn't know how she got in. I didn't know how she got out, either, because I lost consciousness at the end. I always did with her. I asked later, but of course she wouldn't tell me."

The inside of Robby's mouth had turned to soggy felt and he gulped his ice water down quickly, then sucked on some crushed ice. The glass clattered against the tabletop when he set it down because his hand was trembling. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear any more.

"Then I noticed something,” Prosky continued. “It had been happening gradually, right in front of me, I just hadn't noticed. I wasn't the only one not feeling well. My son and wife were tired all the time, pale and sickly. They didn't talk much. None of us did. And if we did, it was bad, you know, we… we fought, said hurtful things to each other. That just wasn't like us. Things had changed, and they were changing still.