The New Neighbor

What if he got pulled over? With all the broken glass, the chances were good.

License and registration, please.

Urn, here's my license, officer, but… I don't know where the registration is. This isn 't my car.

Whose car is it?

Belongs to a friend of mine.

And where is your friend now?

He's lying dead on the floor of his room at the Motel 6. He was killed by a succubus, officer.

'Wouldn't sound good,' Robby muttered with a chuckle. 'Wouldn't sound good at all.' His chuckling became laughter as he stammered, 'Nuh-no, uh-uh, nosiree!' And as he drove across town his laughter dissolved into deep, quaking sobs and his vision was blurred by tears. He began to feel dizzy, light headed, as if he were slipping down in the seat, further and further, until -

– he reached his destination. The right front tire of his car bumped over the curb and stopped on a strip of grass that ran along the sidewalk. He turned off the ignition, got out and staggered across the lawn in front of a small modest house. There were no lights on inside or out.

Robby fell heavily against the wall beside the door and pressed a thumb to the doorbell. He pressed it again and again, knocked several times, then pressed down on the button so the bell rang over and over.

'Yes!' a voice called inside. 'Coming! I'm coming!'

Footsteps thumped over the wood floor inside.

The porch light came on. Locks clicked and the door opened.

Robby pushed himself away from the wall and swayed before the open door.

'Robby? Robby Pritchard?'

'Pastor… Quiller… man… '

Robby fell into the pastor's arms and lost consciousness.

Chapter 17

A Domestic Squabble

Moments after a senseless and infuriating dream about Karen, George awoke clenching his teeth in anger as hot knives twisted in his eye sockets, and in his mind he heard himself scream, Awww, hell, I might as well just break her fucking neck and get it over with before she wakes up!

He sat up, blinked his sticky eyes, and tried to massage the throbbing from his temples, thinking, My God, what's wrong with me, what am I thinking, what's happening to me?

Then: A dream…just a dream…

Pain rippled through his stiff body as he tried to pull himself from his stubbornly oppressive sleep. He was cold, chilled to the bone, and he realized, finally, that he was on the floor beside the bed.

Slowly, he rose and sat on the edge of the bed, still feeling irritated, close to anger. Looking across the room, he muttered, 'What… in… the hell,' when he saw that the window was gone. Not broken… gone.

George groaned and scrubbed his face, searching for some memory that would explain the gaping hole in his bedroom wall, but could remember nothing. Except… Lorelle… soft flesh and graceful shoulders… taut back muscles moving urgently… rhythmically… sighs and moans and then -

– George's hands jerked away from his face and he gasped at the memory.

An explosion of movement, something black shooting up toward him through two bloodless slits that had split open in Lorelle's back like misplaced vaginas and then -

– nothing. Not even dreams.

He walked naked to the torn-out window, puzzled by the absence of broken glass on the floor until he saw the window scattered in pieces on the grass outside.

It had been broken out, not in.

'Excuse me, sir,' a sharply-dressed blonde woman called out, hurrying across the lawn from the sidewalk. She held a microphone attached to a cord that disappeared into the bulky black leather bag at her side. 'Could I ask you a few questions?'

There were others behind her, another woman and three men, as well as two cameramen. They jogged across the lawn, microphones clutched, rattling cameras perched on their shoulders.

George stepped back, overwhelmed by a rush of paranoia that rivaled the worst of his pot-smoking days.

The questions came all at once:

'Do you know Ronald Prosky?'

'What happened to your window, Mr. Pritchard?'

'Can you explain the symbol on your front door?'

'Is there any truth to the rumors that Dylan Garry killed his parents in a satanic ritual?'

Prosky? Symbol? Satanic ritual? What were they talking about? George felt dizzy, disoriented, as if he'd awakened in the wrong house – the wrong life.

'Mr. Pritchard?' the blonde woman called. 'Sir? Would you care to comment on any connection there might be between -'

'Please,' George said hoarsely, moving toward the hole in the wall, 'please, I answered questions yesterday. I'd rather not -'

'Do you know if your son had any interest in Satanism, Mr. Pritchard?'

A bubble of anger began to grow in George's stomach and he clenched his fists at his sides.

'Does your son listen to heavy metal? Ozzy Osbourne or Metal -'

'Is there any connection between the disappearance of Ronald Prosky and -'

'Is the symbol on your front door a Satanic -'

'Were you shocked to hear of the murder of -'

'Get off my lawn,' George said, just loud enough to rise above their voices.

The blond woman stepped forward. 'Mr. Pritchard, if you could just -'

'Get off my fucking lawn, lady,' he shouted as he went to the large hole that had replaced his bedroom window. His knuckles turned white as he clutched its splintered edge, leaned out and, through clenched teeth, shouted even louder, 'Get off my fucking lawn, do you understand? All of you! Get off my lawn!'

Their rapid-fire questions came to a staggering halt and they stared at him, mouths open, caught in mid- sentence.

The inside of George's skull felt… red. A bright, flaming red. He spotted others – two men, one wearing a suit and holding a microphone and the other with a television camera – scrambling out of a van with KCPM-24 painted on the side and he roared at them, 'All of you! Stay away from my fucking house!'

The two men stopped, then backed away.

George wanted to slam the window shut and the fact that he couldn't made him even angrier. Instead, he turned and stalked across the bedroom for his robe but stopped, glanced down and found his penis jutting rigidly before him. He reached down to touch it and stopped when he saw the splinters of wood protruding from his palms and fingers, their tips embedded just beneath his skin.

Reporters, for God's sake, he thought, staring at his hands as he gritted his teeth together. I wake up and my fucking window's gone – just gone – and then I've gotta deal with reporters closing in like fucking scavengers and I get two handfuls of splinters and I'm sick on top of that, probably the damned flu everybody else in the house has given me, and she's sound asleep! Like a fucking baby! George stared at his wife, her head buried in her pillow, then looked at his hands