Ray Garton - The New Neighbor

Mr. Garry's mouth was open.

So were his eyes.

So was his forehead.

In fact, most of the top of his skull was gone and the pudding-like substance had dribbled over the edge of the opening, into his eyes and down his cheeks like thick dirty tears and onto his robe.

Robby staggered backward, hit the end table by the sofa and fell on his ass, gagging. He rolled over and tried to scramble to his feet, but his stomach convulsed and bile burned his throat.

"Dylan!" he gurgled, wiping his mouth and gasping as he climbed the sofa to his feet. "Duh-duh -Dylaaaan !"

He ran down the hall toward Dylan's room, the source of the music that was pounding through the walls. He tripped over a shoe and fell face-down to the floor. Except he didn't land on the floor. He landed on something soft and wet.

Mixed with the odor of feces that he'd smelled in the living room was the rosy smell of Mrs. Garry's perfume.

Robby propped himself up on his arms and realized that the shoe he'd glimpsed before tripping over it had not been empty. Mrs. Garry was wearing it and she lay beneath him, face up, arms spread at her sides. Her left eye was closed as if she were asleep, but the right half of her face was no more than bits of shattered bone and bloody shreds of flesh. Robby babbled as he tried to get off of her, slipping twice before -

– her left eye opened, blinked, and she hissed a wet parody of his name: "Aaww-eeee? Aaww-eeee ?"

With a childlike whimper, Robby crawled clumsily down the hall, trying to stand, until he saw the hammer on the floor. He'd seen it before. It belonged to Mr. Garry. The clawed end looked as if it had been caked in mud, but he knew it was not mud that filled the gap in the forked claw. He stared at it, motionless for a moment, then carefully stood, staying close to the wall as he passed the hammer.

"Dylan?" he called, only a few steps from Dylan's closed bedroom. His voice was hoarse and broken. "Dylan? Please? Are you there?"

Dylan did not reply, but as Robby went farther down the hall he heard something… a voice… it sounded like Dylan's voice… high and shrill… singing along with the loud music.

He looked back at Mrs. Garry. Her fingers twitched like the legs of a dying spider, tensed, then became limp. Robby took the remaining steps to Dylan's room and put his hand on the doorknob. He clenched his eyes shut before opening the door.

The music hit him like a wall and he opened his eyes to see -

– nothing more than the mess that was Dylan's bedroom.

"Dylan?" he called, knowing there would be no response.

He backed out, closed the door and heard the voice again, singing along like a small child. It was coming from the bathroom.

Robby called his friend's name again as he ran to the bathroom and thunked the half-open door with his palm.

Dylan was slumped, naked and pale as snow, in the bathtub, his head leaning against the tub’s edge, eyes closed, lips moving slightly as he tried to sing, arms lolling in a foot of dark-red water. His bloodstained clothes were crumpled on the floor.

Robby dropped to his knees beside the tub and rasped, "Dylan! Dylan, what's ha-happened?"

Dylan's eyes opened slowly and he tried to lift his head, but failed.

"They… won't let… me go… " he breathed.

"Go where ?"

"Her house."

" Whose house?" Robby asked, but he already knew.

"Luuuhh…Lorelle's." Dylan smiled weakly. "Jealous?"

So he killed them , Robby thought, and took a bath to wash off the blood. Jesus Christ, it's already started…

Dylan lifted first one hand, then the other, out of the bloody water slowly and made playful little splashes, like a small boy playing in his bath, and Robby saw the long vertical slashes in his wrists. They were small chasms from which black-red blood flowed to darken the water.

"Jesus Christ, Dylan!" Robby screamed, looking around the tub until he spotted the razor blade on the edge beside Dylan's head. "Jesus, why did you do this?"

"Dint… wanna… go… to jail."

Robby stood and dashed around the bathroom, searching for some sort of bandage and murmuring, "Oh god, oh god, oh god… " He found nothing and returned to the bathtub. "Listen to me, Dylan, okay? Stay awake! I'm gonna call an ambulance. Okay? Dylan ?"

Dylan's eyes were closed and his head was turned away from Robby. He was not singing anymore.

Succubus Interruptus

Karen woke slowly, thinking the sensation of teeth and lips on her nipple was only part of a dream. But as she rose closer to the surface of her sleep, she heard breathing… felt hot breath on her skin… the weight of a naked body on top of her own.

She reached down and felt soft, warm flesh, silk-smooth hair, and opened her eyes to see Lorelle, whose mouth curled into a slow smile filled with promise.

Karen jerked upright and turned to George who lay beside her, still as the onyx statue in Lorelle's house, his breathing so shallow it was almost invisible.

Sensing her panic, Lorelle reached up and touched her fingertips to Karen's cheek, brushing them over her lips, then crawled down her body and nestled her face between Karen's legs. Her tongue snaked through curls of hair, teased the lips of Karen's pussy, delicately separated the folds and traveled slowly up and down the crevice between them.

Karen turned once more to her husband. When he didn't move or make a sound, she allowed the tension to flow from her, feeling her body relax more and more with each sweep of Lorelle's tongue. She moaned softly, and before long, she was squirming, then writhing with pleasure that continued to build. Karen slapped a hand over her mouth to contain the cries she felt rising from her chest.

Karen reached up and closed a fist on a handful of Lorelle's thick hair as the first orgasm came, then another, and a third, each one battering her more than the last, until -

– Karen couldn't breathe and she was certain her heart had stopped beating and then -

– there was nothing. Not even dreams.

"I saw it on the news," Prosky said, as Robby got into the car with a brown paper bag and a towel. "I'm sorry. Very sorry. Are you all right?" But even as he asked the question, Prosky knew the answer. The dark patches of skin beneath the boy's eyes and his deeply sunken cheeks made him look malnourished. He moved with the sluggishness of someone deeply depressed and spoke in a low, hoarse voice that Prosky had to strain to hear.

"No," Robby said. "I'm not all right."

"Believe me, Robby, I know how you feel, and I'm sure you're not in the mood for this right now. But we have to do it."

He nodded indifferently, staring out of the window. Then he chuckled.

"What are you laughing at, Robby?"

"The news. That bitch on the news tonight. She said Dylan was listening to Ozzy Osborne when he did it. And… he was . But she interviewed some clown – some psychologist or something, I don't know – who said it was the music… the secret Satanic messages in the music… that made Dylan snap. Isn't that funny?"

“Yes," Prosky whispered, his gut wrenching for the boy, "unfortunately, it is.”

Neither said anything for a while, just stared down Deerfield.

"They all went to bed about half an hour ago." Robby sighed finally. "I almost did, too. I'm exhausted."

"No. You can't do that, and you know it. Let's go. We don't want to wait too long."

"Better be careful. There might still be some reporters hanging around. They've been circling like vultures all day."

"Right. And remember, Robby, the dogs… whatever they are, they aren't dogs. If they see or hear us, so does she ."