The Devil Next Door (16 page)

“That’s it,” Warren said, studying his pink-stained hands. “That’s it.”

“Now what?” Shaw said to him, his fat face beaded with sweat.

Kojozian smeared blood over his chest.

A crowd had gathered to watch—men, women and even children—and they pressed in close as they dared, not really amused or horrified or suffused with any other emotion you would readily expect. Others had came, sure, but they got out of there right away when they saw what was going on and maybe when they saw how that crowd looked, what was in their eyes and, more importantly, what
wasn’t.
Their eyes were dead, distant moons that looked and watched, but did not seem to see. Some of the men pulled off cigarettes and a few of the women held babies. Many were naked. Many had painted arcane symbols on their chests. They admired the X on Kojozian’s face. One old lady had brought her knitting. A little boy had a sucker in his mouth that he slurped on.

“Our uniforms are a mess,” Shaw said. “They smell.”

Warren scratched his head, wondering why that mattered. They were cops. They had to keep the uniforms on, especially the shiny badges. People would know them by these things. Symbols of office, of authority.

Kojozian said, “What do we do with this kid? We just gonna wheel him around all day?”

“Why don’t you dig a hole,” one of the crowd said.

“Sure,” said another. “A hole is where something like that belongs.”

“Plant flowers on top so it looks nice,” said the old lady with the knitting.

But Warren explained to them that this was police business, official business, and you just couldn’t go burying a dead kid anywhere you wanted. There were rules and regulations to be followed. Rituals. Yes,
rituals
that must be observed. They just didn’t understand.

“I say we find out where he lives and bring him over there,” Kojozian suggested.

Warren shrugged. “Yeah, that might be the thing to do. Whoever he belongs to will like that, don’t you think?”

Kojozian grinned. “It’s the least we can do.”

The kid who was working the sucker stepped forward. “That’s Ryan Soames. He delivers our paper. I know where he lives. It’s just a block over.”

“Okay, kid,” Warren said, “lead the way.”

Kojozian pushed the wheelbarrow down the sidewalk, the kid out in front, marching like he was in a parade. Behind them, the crowd plodded along. They were all excited to get to the kid’s house. This was really gonna be something…

23

After Ray Hansel and Paul Mackabee of the State Police CSI left Greenlawn High School and Principal Bejamin Shore and the crime scene in general, they drove through the town, trying to get a feel for it. And what amazed them most was that they couldn’t.

The town felt…what?

Hansel wasn’t sure exactly, but almost blank, empty, deserted. The way a ghost town would feel, the sense that it was unoccupied. That you were the only thing in it. And that didn’t make much sense because he saw people out in the streets walking, washing their cars, shopping, women pushing baby strollers and men leaning on the backs of pickup trucks, chatting, as men will do. There was life, there were people, but why could he not
feel
them? Although it made absolutely no sense on the surface, Greenlawn was like a town peopled by mannequins, dummies. Things that looked like people, pretended to be people, but were not people.

You be careful with that,
Hansel told himself,
you be real careful. There’s something wrong here and you know it. If all goes to hell as you are suspecting it will, there’s going to be need of a few clear, clean heads that can do some thinking.

“
Don’t know about you, Ray,” Mackabee said, “but I’m getting a chill right up my spine.”

“
Me, too.”

They listened silently to the squawk coming over the radio and it did not allay their fears much. There were a couple of old houses burning on Water Street on the north side. A couple kids had drowned in the Green. Lots of domestic disturbances. A couple of assaults. A child had gone missing after school. And there had been no less than three reported suicides within the hour. All this in Greenlawn. Whatever this was, it was building, gaining momentum.

Maybe if it had just been here and not the rest of the country they might have felt a little relieved. But it was everywhere and that scared the shit out of both men.

Hansel thought:
Nowhere to run. No matter how bad it gets here, there’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No safe harbor. One town will be just as insane as the next.

Jesus.

He drove downtown and pulled up before the police station, a tall and narrow slab of pale brick. He stood there on the sidewalk, sensing things that he did not like.

An old man walked past and his eyes were filled with murder.

A woman walked by holding a little girl’s hand and there was something almost synthetic about the expressions on their faces.

“
I’m gonna go grab a cup of coffee across the street,” Mackabee said and from the way he said it, the idea of that disturbed him.

Hansel nodded. “Keep your eyes open. Watch yourself. I’m gonna go see Bobby. See what he has to say.”

Sighing, Hansel went directly upstairs to Bobby Moreland’s office. Moreland was the chief of the city police. He was a fat, funny man who seemed to know just about everyone in town on sight. Some said he would advance soon into politics.

Hansel found him sitting behind his desk, sipping coffee. He was still large, but there was no humor in those eyes and certainly no laughter wanting to come out of that dour mouth.

“
Ray” he said.

Hansel sat down. “What’s going on?”

Moreland was staring at the screen of his laptop. “Things are going mad over in England. There’s a group of hundreds that are currently laying waste to central London…they’re murdering, raping, pillaging. Unbelievable. They’re practicing a scorched earth policy, Ray. Burning and destroying everything. They’re even killing the animals in the stockyards. Slaughtering them. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Hansel shrugged, considered it. “Sure. It’s going on in Washington and New York right now. The army is fighting a house-to-house guerilla war in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Baltimore is burning. So is St. Louis. Cleveland is a war zone. Dallas and New Orleans are so bad that they sent in the Marines. Except, from what I’m hearing, discipline has broken down and scattered bands of Marines are raiding at will. And did I mention that the governor of California ordered an airstrike on East LA?” Hansel just shook his head. “Civilization is crashing, Bobby. But to be honest, I don’t really give a shit about those other places. I’m mostly concerned with this state, this county, and Greenlawn in particular at the moment.”

“
Well, we have a little bit of everything, as you well know.” Moreland picked up his Styrofoam coffee cup, realized it was empty and set it back down. “I can’t keep a handle on it all. Between my boys, yours, and the county boys, we got our hands full. I keep hoping this is going to die down…but it’s not dying down, Ray. Can you tell me why that is?”

But Hansel just shook his head. “I don’t know. Something has this town, this country, this whole goddamn world, and it squeezing the guts out of it.”

Moreland looked defeated. “My wife…she’s a little soft on religion and all…she thinks…she thinks it’s the Devil. Devil come down to Earth. Armageddon, the Rapture, all that happy horseshit.”

Hansel did not laugh as he might have a week ago. “Well, Bobby, if it
was
the Devil, then at least we’d have an enemy to fight. Something to go after. But this…shit, there’s no rhyme nor reason. It’s coming down everywhere and there’s no fucking reason for it.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Wanna hear something funny?”

“
Sure, I could use a laugh.”

“
Oh, you won’t laugh, trust me.” Hansel got up and went to the window, peered through the Venetian blinds to the streets below. “I see people out there, going about their business, but I don’t
feel
‘em. Does that make sense? They’re there, but it’s like they’re not there at all.”

Moreland just nodded. “Town feels empty, don’t it? Things going on, more things than we can ever handle and a lot more we won’t know about for days and days, yet it’s quiet out there. You know? Just quiet.”

“
People you see don’t smile, Bobby. They don’t even talk. They just walk around like they’re lost, like they’re trying to find their bearings.”

“
Maybe they are.”

Hansel thought so, too. All of them out there were feeling it. Some had been affected by it, many in very devastating ways. But the majority were just confused, trying to make sense. Trying to understand why reality had been unplugged and they were about to fall headlong down a steep incline. One without a bottom.

“
I got units that aren’t reporting in,” Moreland said. “That scares me the worse. But what can I do? Call the governor and say that this town needs psychiatric help? How would that sound?”

“
Like you were cracking up,” Hansel told him.

“
I am.”

“
No, not yet you aren’t.”

Moreland studied his hands for a long time and when he spoke, he did not look up and meet the other man’s eyes. “You want to hear a confession, Ray? One that won’t sound so good at all.”

“
Sure.”

“
I’m scared,” Moreland admitted. “I’m scared like I’ve never been scared in my life. I’m scared for the world. But more than that, I’m scared for Greenlawn.”

But Hansel understood. For he was scared himself. He licked his dry lips, said, “Sad thing is, by the time this is over, Bobby, I’m afraid there won’t be anything left of civilization. Now how’s that for drama? People going crazy, people acting like animals. Six months from now we might be living the way our ancestors did. A world lit only by fire…”

24

When they got over to his house, Louis went upstairs and cleaned up, got a new shirt on. Then he came back down and took a belt of whiskey. It didn’t do him much good, but he figured he was better with it than without.

Michelle still wasn’t home.

She was not answering her cell and Louis was starting to worry. Mainly because when they’d been outside, he could smell smoke like maybe there was a house burning somewhere. Smell smoke and hear more sirens and all that told him that whatever was going on was far from finished. It was still rolling. Maybe gaining momentum.

He picked up his cell and called Farm Bureau Insurance.

The phone rang and rang over there, but nobody picked it up. It was after hours now. Well past closing time. Michelle was not there and neither was anyone else. That meant she was either on her way home or…

Well, he wasn’t going there.

Not yet.

“I wish I knew where my mom was,” Macy said, sitting there on the couch, tense and expectant.

Louis just swallowed. “She’s…she’s probably out shopping or visiting someone.”

“I guess.”

Louis could not look at her.

He walked over to the window by the door and watched the streets, wishing as he’d never wished before to see Michelle’s little Datsun come swinging down the block. But he was disappointed. Not only was Michelle not coming but no one else was either. It was Friday night. People should have been coming and going.

And what is that saying to you, Louis? What exactly do you think that means?

Honestly, he thought it was time for a good panic attack, but that would hardly solve anything. And he had to consider Macy. She was scared and he knew it. Maybe she was sixteen years old, but that was still a kid. He could not go to pieces on her. She needed him and for the first time in his life, Louis had a newfound sense of respect for parents. Because parenting was an awesome responsibility when you actually thought about it. He was worried sick about Michelle, but she was an adult and whatever was happening out there, she was better equipped to handle it than Macy was.

“Listen,” he said. “Do you have any relatives in town? Somewhere your mom might have gone?”

Macy shook her head. “Not really. They all live other places. There’s Aunt Eileen, but she’s way down in Greencastle. She sends a Christmas card every year, but her and mom don’t get along.”