The New Neighbor

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.

Chapter 16

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.'

Leaving the key in the ignition in case they needed to get away quickly, Prosky opened his door and got out. A moment later, Robby did the same.

Looking down Deerfield, Prosky felt a chill. It looked like a dark alley. Mist hovered around the two streetlights. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp. A soft bone-chilling wind blew some soggy leaves onto the wet street and into the messy gutter. A cat shot through a clump of shrubbery and crossed the street, dragging its left hind leg limply as it disappeared into a darkened front yard. On the whole street, only one house was lighted; the porch light shined and a dull glow came from behind the closed curtains of one window, while a candle flickered in another.

Lorelle's house.

'She's awake,' Prosky whispered, taking the bag from Robby and checking the contents: fist-sized chunks of fire-blackened wood. He handed the bag back to Robby and said, 'We'll have to be careful. Stay away from the streetlights, okay?'

As they started down the street, the rubber tip of Prosky's cane kissing the wet sidewalk with soft smacks, he watched Robby shuffle slowly beside him, hands in his jacket pockets, and Prosky began to worry. The boy's mind was – quite understandably – on other things, and he didn't appear capable of being careful. Prosky stopped, faced him and whispered urgently, firmly, 'Listen to me, Robby, I know what you're feeling right now, but what happened to your friend and his family only proves that things are getting worse fast. So we have to do this, and we can't afford to be caught or interrupted. We've got to be very careful and very quiet. You can't shuffle your feet like that and you've got to pay attention to what you're doing. Otherwise, more people will die.'

Robby seemed to think that over as he turned his eyes toward Lorelle's house.

'You can grieve later,' Prosky said. 'Right now, you've got to forget about it, cold as that sounds, and concentrate only on what we’re doing here.”