The Devil Next Door (18 page)

He unrolled his window the rest of the way and stared up at the school.

Two stories of red brick that had been standing since 1903, right on the spot where the old schoolhouse—tall and narrow, whitewashed clapboard with a rising belfry—had been until it burned to the ground in the winter of ’01. He thought of all the classes that had passed through those high, arched doors, the class pictures that had been taken out in the grassy courtyard. All the football games and track meets that had been held in the athletic field behind. He could almost hear the cheering and laughter, the boom of drums and thunder of the high school band. Yes, he could smell autumn in the air, leaves and bonfires and apples.

That’s what it was all about, he suddenly knew.

Tradition.

It was all about
tradition.

And those goddamn kids in Biolab had taken that all away.

Not just from Shore himself, but from the whole goddamn town and the generations that had yet to set foot in the school. Those kids had tarnished that and it would never be the same again. For the next hundred years, maybe, if the school stood that long and the world was still turning, kids would be telling stories of that terrible day. Horror stories. That was the ultimate legacy of this day, this Friday the 13
^th
, grist for horror stories.

Shore felt the headache building in his skull.
Fucking kids,
he thought.
What the hell were they thinking? What the hell came over them? How dare they do something like this, turn my school into a goddamn sideshow!

The headache amplified and Shore actually cried out, pressing his hands to his temples. The cigarette fell from his lips and landed on the seat between his legs, burning a hole there, but he neither noticed nor cared. The pain passed and he swore under his breath. He was actually hoping that none of those little shitting monsters from 5
^th
hour Biolab was ever found. He hoped they did the right thing and threw themselves into the deepest, darkest hole they could find and pulled the dirt in after them. Hell, yes. Let the evil of this day die with them and then nobody would point their fingers at Greenlawn High, they’d just speculate and speculate and finally accept the fact that those kids were all fucked-up on drugs.

Shore smiled at the idea.

He started the Jeep and threw it in reverse, then drive, coasting it slowly through the parking lot. He lit another cigarette and brushed the burning one on the seat to the floor. He pulled around behind the building, taking the circle drive, so he could take a good long look at
his
school.

He liked to see it.

It made him feel good inside, important maybe.

Necessary.

This was his territory.

His.

As he came around the corner, passing through the faculty lot, he decided he had better not see any of those damn dirtbags smoking cigarettes or necking in the trees behind the lot. If he did…well, if he did, he was going to come down on them like never before. He’d bust their heads open. He’d bust their goddamn heads right open.

But he saw no one.

At least until he came around the back of the school and then he saw a kid standing there, right in the middle of the road. Some dumb kid staring at the oncoming Jeep like he had no idea what a moving vehicle was. Shore grimaced and hit the horn a couple times. The sound made his head throb.

Dumb kid…what the hell was he doing?

Then Shore got a good look at him.

No, just not any kid. That was Billy Swanson. Goddamn
Billy Swanson
from 5
^th
hour Biolab.

“Billy,” Shore said under his breath. “Well, well, well.”

He knew Billy fairly well.

A little nothing shit, an outsider dwelling in a world of fantasy. He didn’t try out for sports, volunteer for any of the clubs. He did absolutely nothing and like any kid that did not fit in, he took the standard ration of shit. Shore had disciplined kids like Tommy Sidel—another 5
^th
hour Biolab monster—for picking on Billy, for shoving him in the halls or punching him in gym class or tripping him up outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It had fallen on Shore as it always fucking fell on Shore. But right then? Had he been able to go back, he would have picked on that little shitting mama’s boy himself. Knocked his ass to the floor and kicked his fucking
Star Trek
paperbacks away, wiped his ass with them.

Kind of shit was that for a growing boy to be reading anyhow?

Feeling it rising in him, the anger, the rage, the frustration, Shore slammed on the brakes about ten feet from Billy. He hopped out. “Billy! Get your ass over here, I want to talk with you! You hear me?”

Billy just looked at him, his eyes dead and flat and somehow defiant.

Shore did not like how the kid looked at him, because not only was there defiance there, but an absolute lack of fear. Shore did not like that in the least. Billy should have been cowering, hanging his head, but he was not. He was glaring. Shore glared right back at him, his lips peeling back from his teeth. It occurred to him that they were facing off like two dogs disputing territory, which had the right to piss on a given tree. But he dismissed that, for suddenly things like metaphors made no sense to him.

“Billy…” he said.

The kid just smiled.

Smiled and spit at his feet, made sure Shore watched him do it, too. Why, the defiant little shit. He had no idea what he was stepping in this time. Benny Shore did not take crap from losers like Billy Swanson. He stepped on them. He crushed them. And Billy was about to find out all about that.

But Billy had no interest.

He turned and walked off at a very leisurely pace, again indicating no fear.

Shore reddened, fumed.
“Billeeeee…”

He thought he heard the kid laugh, was almost sure of it.

Billy was now moving off at a casual jog, the sort of jog that said, you couldn’t catch me anyway, you stupid fuck.

So that was the game he wanted to play? All right, all right.

Shore jumped behind the wheel of the Jeep and threw it in drive.

He squealed out and rocketed right at Billy Swanson. Although he was not aware of it, something had finally and ultimately burst in his head like a sore, filling his mind with pus and diseased drainage. All he knew is that Billy Swanson had really stepped in it this time. Really and truly. He accelerated, gripping the wheel and the very act felt so good, so liberating, so very right. The Jeep came speeding up behind Billy at almost forty miles an hour and the stupid kid just didn’t have the sense to get out of the way. He tried to dart to the left at the last possible moment, but no dice. Shore struck him and the impact tossed him up onto the hood. He rolled off and tumbled into the parking lot.

Shore squealed to a stop and spun the Jeep around.

Billy got up.

He was young and the impact had hurt him, but he was hardly down for the count. He glared at Shore with wild eyes and then limped off like a wounded animal. But Shore wasn’t having that. He gunned the Jeep and swung the wheel when Billy hobbled up over the curb. He almost got away, but then the Jeep hit him again and Shore cackled. Billy was thrown face down and the Jeep rolled right over him.

In the rearview, Shore saw him back there, broken and bleeding. But still no fear. Billy was scowling and snapping his teeth. Shore threw the Jeep in reverse and rolled over him again. This time he clearly heard the sound of bones snapping. It was a good sound, one that Shore had wanted desperately to hear.

But it wasn’t enough.

So he drove over Billy again.

And again.

And again…

28

Ray Hansel was just leaving Bob Moreland’s office at the Greenlawn Police Station when he saw the woman coming up the stairs. Under ordinary circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have paid much attention. It was a police station, after all, and people tended to come and go at such places. Particularly today where there was a constant stream of visitors…some were out of their heads and went straight to lock up; most were just normal, or nearly, normal and scared and worried. They came in to report assaults and arson and even a few murders, but mostly it was just to report missing family and friends or neighbors that were just acting a bit off.

But the woman Hansel saw was not one of them.

He shut the door to Moreland’s office—where they had just decided that it might be a good idea to call together an emergency meeting of the city council because what they were looking at was civil unrest—and he saw her step into the corridor. What drew his attention to her was the fact that she was wearing only a bathrobe, a ratty old terricloth thing that was dirty and dusty with strings of cobwebs stuck to the collar and sleeves like maybe she’d been hiding out in an attic. Her face was pale, terribly pale, her hair teased into a great rat’s nest. And her eyes were like black holes burned into her face.

“Ma’am?” Hansel said, his hand instinctively going for the butt of the bluesteel Beretta 9mm in his holster. It did this automatically without any help from him. “Can I help you?”

She took two steps forward, moving with an odd mechanical cadence, not seeming to see or hear Hansel. Her attention was focused on Moreland’s door with such intensity that it was almost scary.

Hansel stepped in her path. “Ma’am?” he said.

She turned and looked at him and snarled like she’d been scalded.

Her hand came out of the deep pocket of her gown and there was a seven-inch carving knife in it. Without hesitation, she slashed at Hansel with it, going right for his throat. He ducked away and grabbed her arm before she had a chance to repeat the maneuver. She screamed and fought, but he got her off balance and tripped her up. She dropped the knife and immediately went after him.

“Need some help out here!”
he called out as she scratched and kicked at him.

Two cops came running from an office down the corridor and took hold of her, pulling her off Hansel and throwing her to the floor. She landed with a thud, rolling over, and coming up on all fours like a dog ready to bite. Her bathrobe was wide open, her pasty white breasts on display. Her teeth were clenched, a rope of saliva hanging off her chin, black and leering eyes darting from man to man.

“Okay, lady,” Hansel said. “Just take it easy, we’re not going to hurt you.”

She made a hissing sound, blowing air through her teeth. Her face was contorted, deranged, and there was no getting around the fact that she needed to be put in restraints. There was something blatantly vicious about her and Hansel was certain she would have sunk her teeth in his throat given the chance.

One of the cops took out his Mace and she charged him.

He never even got his finger on the button.

He was a big boy, outweighing her by an easy hundred pounds, yet she struck him with such force that all he had time to do was cry out as she slammed into him, knocking him flat. His partner grabbed her around the throat with an armlock and she came alive in a loose, writhing mass, head whipping from side to side, spit spraying from her mouth. She jumped up in his grip, kicking back with both feet and catching him in the shins, her splintered nails laying his arm open. He released her with a gasp and she seized his arm and sank her teeth right into it. He screamed a high and whining sound and Hansel saw the blood well from where her mouth was attached to his arm.

Then she turned on Hansel himself.

Her teeth snapping, her chin smeared red, she came right at him and he brought down his gun, butt-first, catching her right between the eyes. The impact knocked her back and she spun around in a crazy circle, hissing and shrieking, and then just collapsed, out cold.

“Holy shit,” Hansel said.