Tim Curran - The Devil Next Door

Everything smelled moldy down there, like mothballs and rotting linen.

Louis moved down the rows of coats and dresses, brushing them with his fingers as he passed. He wasn’t even sure by that point why he was even bothering. All these clothes dangling around him, much of them in motion now from his brushing against them. Wild shadows creeping around.

“ Well, I suppose you’re not here, Jillian,” he said.

He pushed on to the end, stepping over cartons of Macy’s baby clothes, boxes of old toys, a stool, his hands parting clothes as he went. Denim and corduroy and twill…and then his fingers touched something cool and rubbery at the same moment that his eyes caught sight of a hulking shape that did not belong. Yes, right there, tucked between a couple coats.

Louis let out a cry and stumbled back, falling right over a carton of toys.

Jillian was here, after all.

She was hanging there amongst the coats. She was naked, her flesh pale, her head cocked to the side from the noose encircling her throat. Her face was livid like a bruise, her eyes open, and her tongue dangling out thickly.

“ Oh no,” Louis heard himself. “Oh, Jillian…not this…”

She’d tied clothesline rope around her throat?and very tightly by the looks of it?and tied off the rope around a roughhewn rafter above. Then she’d jumped off the stool and hanged herself, tucked neatly amongst the other hanging things.

Louis just stared up at her with a horror that was shocking and depthless, his eyes wide, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He wondered what it had been like, what had gone through her head. He was picturing her almost casually undressing, her mind filled with blackness. Maybe folding her clothes very carefully. Coming down here and tying off that rope, fastening it around her throat, maybe whistling the whole time.

Dear God.

But he would never know what she had done exactly or what she had thought and he was glad for this.

Jillian just hung there, swaying slightly from side to side, turning in a slow and lazy semicircle. What struck Louis the most was not her puffy and purple-blue face, but the fact that she was naked. Even in death, she was somehow sensual and well-proportioned like maybe wasn’t dead at all.

Louis did not look away from her.

For some reason, he did not dare.

The idea of taking his eyes off that hanging corpse was unthinkable. His belly rolling with nausea, his hand feeling oddly cold where he’d brushed hers, he backed away, finally finding his feet and dashing out of there.

“ Louis?” Macy called.

Good God, he’d forgotten about her.

Louis stood in the barroom, looking from the dangling hippie beads that were still moving to the steps leading upstairs. He could hear Macy coming down them. He started to sweat, to panic. Okay, buddy boy, are you going to let Macy see her mother like this or are you going to move? There was no real choice in the matter. He went over to the stairs and stopped her before she got down there and got any fool ideas about looking around herself.

“ She’s not down here,” he said, a little louder than he’d intended.

“ Okay,” Macy said. “Okay.”

Taking her hand, he led her up the stairs and didn’t relax any until the cellar door was shut, hiding its sins in its dark belly. He stood there a moment, just breathing. Macy was staring at him. She looked concerned.

“ Louis…you’re not… losing it, are you?”

He almost burst out laughing. “No, no, no.”

“ You had me worried,” she said. “You sure you’re all right? You look a little green or something.”

Sure, he was green. Who wouldn’t have been? His stomach kept trying to crawl up the back of his throat like it wanted out, wanted to jump out his mouth and pirouette on the floor. He touched his face and it was cool, clammy, moist with sweat.

“ Tell me what’s wrong,” Macy said. “Please.”

Louis thought quick because he had to. “Um…it’s just closed-in spaces. I get kind of claustrophobic sometimes. It’s nothing.”

“ 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…”

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.