Tim Curran - The Devil Next Door

“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.

The receptionist’s desk was empty, as was the first office. Both were neat, undisturbed. There was more blood smeared along the walls and several handprints of varying sizes that must have belonged to several different people. Whatever had happened, it had been a group effort.

“I think we should leave,” Macy said.

“In a minute.”

The next office was Michelle’s and as he rounded the doorway, he thought his heart would explode in his chest it was beating so hard. Because he was expecting to see her in there, slit open and covered in flies.

But this room was empty, too.

Her papers were neatly organized, a few potted plants on the desk, pictures from their wedding and others from Cancun last year that made him want to weep openly. File cabinet, computer, coat rack, impressionist painting on the wall…but nothing to indicate violence or anything out of the ordinary.

But something had happened here.

And as he got out into the corridor, Macy so close behind him that she bumped into him every time he so much as paused, he was certain of it. Even without the bloody handprints on the walls, he could smell the badness here. This place was infected like a sore and you could smell the evil oozing from the walls in a stark miasma.

“Louis…”

“Just another minute,” he said.

Macy was right, of course. What they needed to do was get out of here before whoever or what ever that made those grisly prints returned. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Something was pulling him forward down that corridor and demanding that he look at what was waiting down there. Because there was an aura of menace here and he had to know what it was coming from, had to understand it and look it in the eye. At the end of the corridor there was another door, blood streaked all over it.

Louis could feel Macy tense up behind him.

He took hold of the door and threw it in. This was the office of Dave Winkowski, an adjuster. Louis stepped in there and the smell of blood was so strong he wanted to retch.

“Oh God,” Macy said, turning away.

A woman’s naked body was sprawled over the desk, drying blood splashed all over it. Louis knew who it was. It was Carol, the same woman he’d spoke to on the phone and not that long ago.

Her throat had been slit, blood splattered around everywhere. But worse, her skirt was pulled up around her waist and it looked like somebody had used a knife on her, flaying open her vulva and carving up her thighs with grisly abandon. It was not a crude hacking, but something almost surgical that had taken time.

Macy had only seen the body. Thank God she had not looked too close.

Louis grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down the corridor. “Let’s go.”

They left quite a bit faster than they’d come in. Out in the parking lot, the sun felt nice. The coolness of the insurance building left them and for a few minutes they just stood in the parking lot, at a loss for words.

“We better go,” Macy said.

“Yes.”

“I mean, somebody did that, Louis. Somebody who was insane. I don’t want to be here when they show.”

Louis followed her back to the car and just sat behind the wheel, not knowing what to do or what to say for the longest time. Most people went through their lives without having to find a corpse. But today, he had found two. Carol’s butchered body and Jillian, of course. As he sat there he found the words leaping into his mouth, the words he knew he would have to say to Macy sooner or later: sorry, kid, but your mother’s dead. She’s hanging in your basement. Tough luck. And they almost came out, but he swallowed them back down in the nick of time.

“What?” Macy said, picking up on it. “Were you going to say something?”

But he just shook his head. “No, nothing.”

“What now?”

He shook his head again. He pulled out his cellphone and called home in case Michelle was there. He let it ring until the machine kicked in. Then he broke the connection and tried again. Nothing. She wasn’t home. She wasn’t at work. Where in the hell was she?

“Who are you calling?” Macy asked.

“The police. This is fucking ridiculous.”

He dialed the station house and then dialed it again because he thought he’d punched in the wrong number. But there was no answer. That was not a good sign at all.

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“Try 911.”

Breathing deeply, Louis did. The number rang. There was a clicking on the other end. He could hear someone breathing over the line and it made gooseflesh swarm over his forearms.

“Is somebody there?” he said.

“Hey, looks like I got a live one,” a man’s voice said.

“Who is this?” Louis demanded.

“Who do you want it to be?”

Louis swallowed. His throat was dry as ash. “Listen to me. I’m calling from Greenlawn. We have an emergency here. We need help, okay.”

“Where are you?”

Louis almost told him, then he thought better of it.

“Where are you?” the voice wanted to know. “You tell me…I’ll send somebody to get you.”

Louis broke the connection. He was pale and sweating.

“There, too,” Macy said, fighting back a sob. “There’s no way out of this.”

“We’re going to the police station,” he said, trying to sound confident.

But even then he knew he was making an awful mistake…

The Huntress waited behind the dusty glass of a second hand store.