The Neighbor
London Clarke
Published by London Clarke, 2021.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE NEIGHBOR
First edition. March 16, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 London Clarke.
ISBN: 978-1393917694
Written by London Clarke.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Praise for Wildfell
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
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62
Author’s Note
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Further Reading: The Meadows
About the Author
To my family, who taught me to battle demons.
Praise for Wildfell
“Wildfell is modern-day Gothic suspense. The Gothic elements are fascinating and well-written with some genuinely creepy moments and characters...”
—InD’Tale Magazine
“...a cracking good read. This is a chilling tale, full of horrors you don’t even want to dream of and plenty of suspense. “
—Readers’ Favorite
“For those who like their gothic well-done.”
—Amazon Review
“Mysteriously delicious!”
—NetGalley Review
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?
Or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many supplications to you,
or will he speak to you soft words?
Will he make a covenant with you?
Will you take him for a servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
or will you bind him for your maidens?
Will the traders bargain over him?
Will they divide him among the merchants?
Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
or his head with fishing spears?
Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle; you will not do it again!
—Job 41:1-16
1
The man stands at the edge of the bar, his hand stroking the polished wood—much like he would touch me, I imagine, given a chance. “What’s your name?”
“Veronica.”
“Hi, Veronica. I’m AJ.”
AJ. A composite of two names. Wonder what they are? Alexander Jeffrey. Andrew James? He looks like he might be a product of some boarding school, without the accent. Blond hair, blue eyes, blue sweater that matches his eyes...
The music is loud. AJ leans in. “Do you live around here?”
“Just a couple of blocks down.”
He bobs his head in acknowledgment but also inadvertently in time with the music. “Me too. Just on K Street.”
I swivel on the barstool and cross my legs, waiting for him to ask me the next question. I’ll have an answer ready. I always do.
AJ scans the crowd of people all standing around the bar area, waiting to order their drinks, waiting for a table, waiting for their next opportunity.
“Do you work around here?”
I nod.
“What do you do?”
“I’m sort of a data analyst.”
“Wow. For which company? Or can you say?”
I shake my head. “A big one.”
He bites his bottom lip and slants his eyes away. He’s probably trying to figure out whether I work for the CIA or the FBI. He’s probably wondering what a data analyst is.
“So, you work right here in the thick of it?”
“Yep.”
“Does it ever bother you? Not being able to tell people who you work for, what you do exactly?”
“No.” I sniff and raise my chin. “I just watch the paychecks roll in.”
He takes a deep breath, and I notice his broad chest. “I guess that’s what I’d have to do too.”
“What do you do?”
His eyes wander the crowd again. “I’m... sort of between jobs right now. I just got my grad degree from GW Law.”
“Ah.” He must be telling the truth. Not many would admit to getting a law degree from George Washington University and being unemployed.
“It’ll probably take me a little time to find the right fit. I plan to be very specialized.”
“Of course.”
He motions to my empty glass sitting on the bar. “What are you drinking?”
“A cherry cosmopolitan.”
“To match your red hair.” He smiles. “Can I buy you another?”
“Sure.” Generous, considering he’s unemployed.
He orders our drinks from the bartender. How long will it take him to ask me to move the party somewhere else, or at least try to get my number? My average is about thirty minutes of conversation, an hour at the longest.
Tonight, this conquest is running a little on the long end. Forty-five minutes, two cherry cosmopolitans for me, and four beers later for him. AJ’s eyes swim with intoxication, and his words push at each other. “So, you want to go somewhere else?”
“Like where?”
“My place is within walking distance.” He laughs. “But maybe we should get an Uber.”
I glance over at the people standing behind him—a guy on the other side of the room waving his arms in the air, trying to get his friend’s attention. Everyone wants something—or someone.
“Or,” he chuckles again. “This is a hotel. There are rooms upstairs.”
Nearby, a couple seated at a high-top clinks their glasses together.
“Thanks, but I’m going to stay here. I have a long day tomorrow—you know, analyzing secret data.”
He almost seems relieved, but his smile slips a little. “Do you have a card?”
“I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone tonight.”
He digs into his pocket for his phone. “Let me give you my number, and I’ll get yours.”
I take his information and add it to my phone alongside the other unused names and numbers. Then I give him my digits—fake ones, of course. The phone numbers I give out are always a lie. Just like everything else I’ve told him.
2
Someone is trying to get into my house.
The thought wakes me in the middle of the night, and I sit upright, stare into the darkness, and listen. Instincti
vely, I reach for my husband to wake him. But then I remember—he’s not here. Hasn’t been here for over a year.
Dropping my feet to the floor, the cool air brushes my ankles as the noise begins again. Banging, pounding on my front door. The door chimes like an out-of-tune handbell solo, playing the same note over and over again.
“Mom?” One of my girls calls into my bedroom.
I turn on the bedside lamp. Gretchen, my twelve-year-old, stands in her flannel nightgown, rubbing bleary eyes.
“Mom, someone’s at the door.”
I push myself out of bed, my heart stuttering into action. “I know, honey.” I grab my sweatshirt from the chair and pull it over my head. Then I pick up my cellphone. “You stay up here, okay?”
Gretchen lingers on the landing as I make my way down the stairs, flipping the switch that lights up the chandelier hanging in the high-ceilinged foyer. When the chandelier is lit, the whole neighborhood can see inside my house, which offers me the tiniest bit of comfort right now.
The banging and ringing continue, and as I draw closer to the door, I pass by the antique dagger hanging on the wall. In a pinch, it could be useful.
“Get out here, you asshole!” A woman’s voice. Her command is punctuated by a blow to the door, probably from her foot. “Face me! Face me, you bastard!”
Upstairs, my girls are whispering. When I look up, four heads pop into view over the railing, their hair hanging down as they watch what’s happening below.
“Stay up there, girls,” I direct them.
My pulse thumps in my temples as I stand to the side of the front door and turn on the porch light, carefully avoiding the decorative glass. I place a hand on the wall. “Who is it?”
Intense quiet follows—a break in the siege.
Moving to the dining room, I pull back the curtain and peer through the window. A woman I’ve never seen before stands in front of the door, her hands on her hips. Her face is streaked with what looks like dirt or mascara.
“You need to leave now,” I call out.
“Who are you?” Her voice shrills. “Where’s Patrick?”
Patrick? The woman is either drunk, crazy, or she’s got the wrong house. “There’s no one here by that name,” I shout. “Now, please leave.”
The door jolts again as she delivers another kick. “I know he’s in there. You make him come out here and face me.”
“Stop kicking the door!” I yell.
“Mommy, who is it?” Paris, my youngest, whispers from the top of the stairs.
I look up at her and put a finger to my lips.
The woman’s tirade continues. “You tell that shithead to come out and talk to me.” Then she rips out a scream that causes the breath to catch in my throat. “Patrick!”
“I’m going to call the police.” I’m pretty sure at least one of my neighbors already has. “You need to get out of here now. I’m not kidding.”
“You’re not special, you know?” Her voice breaks. “He’ll do the same to you. You’ll end up just like me.”
I peep out the window again. The woman is sitting on my front step, her back to me, her shoulders rising and falling with sobs.
“He’ll shatter your life too,” she moans. “I can’t get away from them. They follow me everywhere.” Another glass-cracking scream rattles the inside of my ears. “Patrick! You’ve ruined my life!”
“Mommy?” Paris’s voice echoes through the foyer. “I’m scared.”
My cellphone buzzes against my palm, and I look down at the screen. It’s a text from Genevieve, my neighbor from across the street.
What is going on? Are you okay?
I don’t text her back. I call 911. Then I wait, my hand against the door, rising on my toes and peering out of the decorative glass every few seconds to check on the woman. She finally moves to the middle of the street, where she sits cross-legged and rocks back and forth. The girls all gather around me, and the taller ones take turns standing on tiptoe and looking out the glass. Paris and Bridget go to the window in the dining room.
“Girls, stay away from the window.”
“Who is she, Mom? Why is she screaming? What does she want?”
“I don’t know.”
I hold my breath as the police arrive. The cruisers stop just short of the woman, who now seems to be in some kind of trance. She’s lucky they didn’t run over her.
One of the officers manages to get her to stand and escorts her to the sidewalk. Now that she’s a safe distance away, I walk out onto my front steps. A tall, capable-looking officer gives me a wave as he approaches.
“Do you know her?” His voice is deep, commanding.
“Nope. I have no idea who she is. I just woke up to banging and shouting. She seems confused.”
He stands with one foot on the bottom step. “She says she knows some guy who lives in this house.”
“There are no men in this house. Not anymore.”
He nods and glances over his shoulder at the woman, who now answers questions from another officer. Her eyes meet mine, and she twitches, glares.
“She’s intoxicated,” the officer says. “Probably has the wrong house.”
“She must. As I said, I don’t know her, and there are no men here.” I wrap my arms around myself as a cold breeze cuts through my sweatshirt. “But I do have children in the house.”
He moves his foot off the step. “Don’t worry. We’ll deal with it. She’s not in a state to go anywhere on her own.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as I’m back inside, my cellphone buzzes with texts from Genevieve.
Who was that woman? We could hear her screaming. Do you know her?
I text back. Police have it under control. No idea who she is. Must have had the wrong house.
It takes a little doing to get the girls into bed, and I finally resettle in mine. But I’m wide awake, my heart pumping like crazy. The incident is unsettling—it reminds me that I’m the only one now who can protect my children while they’re in the house.
3
The teenagers make their second pass along the street in a moss-green wreck of a car. One of them hangs from the side, his feet on the passenger floorboard as he leans on the open door. The car zooms past, and the exhaust pipe coughs out puffs of black smoke as they shoot from the stop sign to the cul-de-sac. Thomas, the boy driving, lives next door. Most of the teenagers from this neighborhood have their own car—some of them really nice ones—but Thomas got the hand-me-down green clunker.
As the teens prepare to make their third pass down the road, Genevieve—Gen—my neighbor from across the street, calls out to them. Clutching the base of her pregnant belly with one hand, she waves the other high above her head.
“Stop! Stop right now!”
I cringe. She’ll call the police for sure. Our quiet little Stepford community has never seen so much action.
From my window perch, I have an aerial view of the street. Rich, Thomas’s father, strides out onto his front lawn. He shoots his hand into the air, signaling to Gen that he’s got this.
“Thomas!” he bellows. “It’s over. Get out of the car.”
The car slows. The boy hanging on the passenger door falls inside. Just as Rich reaches the driver’s door, the car jolts forward and leaves him standing in the middle of the street in a cloud of black smoke.
I raise the window a couple of inches and listen through the screen.
“Other people live in this neighborhood, Rich,” Gen squeals. “I know he’s your son, but this has got to stop. Children play out here. Those boys are going to kill someone.” Her pointer finger juts out to the side, to the ground, to the sky.
Rich stares at his feet, his forehead lined. He mumbles something, but I can’t hear him through the screen. Tommy was always a good kid until the last few months. He goes to school with my daughter, one grade above her. Adolescence hasn’t agreed with him.
Gen continues her scolding. “The next time I see anything like that, I am calling
the police.”
Rich bobs his head.
Gen’s face is fuchsia. She spins around and marches back into the house. I have a pretty good idea of what she’s doing now. Within seconds of entering, she’s probably squawking to Trey, her husband. A few minutes after that, she’s likely on the phone with Linda from next door.
These days, my life is on a different plane from my neighbors. I’m the only divorced, thirty-nine-year-old woman with four kids in the neighborhood whose husband left her because, in his words, “We married too early. We didn’t know who we were. And now, we’re just totally different people.” It didn’t seem to matter that I still loved him—even if we were different.
His departure was another nail in the coffin of my faith in humanity and in God. Gunnar always made me think divorce was out of the question for him. But he made up his own rules as he went along.
I check my phone for the sixth time in twenty minutes. No texts from Gunnar. No surprise. Mostly, we communicate through the kids. What used to be daily conversations about the minutiae of the girls’ schedules and getting the car serviced are now about which days of which week he has the kids. Tonight’s not one of his nights to have them, but it’s Bridget’s birthday, and he wants to take the girls to dinner. I am not invited.
So there’s no reason for him to call me. He’ll bring them home soon.
Turning back to the computer screen, I scroll through my work emails. I’m a licensed clinical social worker but still only working part-time at a private clinic. After Gunnar left, I didn’t want to put any more pressure on the girls than necessary, so I try to be at home when they’re home. I’ll reassess that arrangement in six months.
I move into the kitchen and pour half a glass of chardonnay. Without the girls here, there’s no one to scold me. Through the window, I can practically see into the house next door. I also have a view of the driveway.
A new neighbor moved in a little over a month ago. I’ve seen him a few times now. Gen says he’s single, but no one really knows anything else about him. He’s supposedly very good-looking, according to my neighbor Marcella, who says she’s seen him up close. But every time I catch a glimpse of him, he’s wearing a beanie pulled down low over his ears, pushing longish, dark hair over his collar. His eyes are usually covered with sunglasses, so it’s hard to make out what he actually looks like.
The Neighbor: A terrifying tale of supernatural suspense Page 1
