The Neighbor: A terrifying tale of supernatural suspense

by London Clarke

  I step away. “I usually just buy the screw-top wines. This is why.”

  The cork squawks as he works it back and forth and then pops it out of the top. “They really make you work for it.” Steel carries the bottle back into the living room, and we sit on either end of the sofa, the middle cushion separating us.

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me.” I’m repeating myself, but I can’t think of anything else to say.

  “Please. You don’t have to keep thanking me. I was happy to do it. I’m new in the neighborhood. I want to be neighborly.”

  I laugh. “A rare trait in Northern Virginia. Some people live in a community for twenty years, and they’re lucky if they know one or two of their neighbors.”

  “Yeah, people here are busy and transient.” His eyes play over the room, pausing on the far wall. He squints, juts his head forward, and stands. “What’s that?” He strides across the room and stops in front of the antique dagger that hangs on the wall. Then he runs his finger down the leather sheath and quickly jerks it away.

  “Did you cut yourself?” I smile. “If you remove the leather case, the blade is actually super sharp.”

  He wipes his hand against his jeans and returns to the couch.

  “Originally, that belonged to my great, great grandfather on my father’s side.”

  He nods but doesn’t seem particularly impressed.

  “Anyway, my great, great grandfather—I mean, I never met him,” I giggle. “But as the story goes, that dagger was used to kill a man possessed by seven demons.”

  Steel gives a close-mouthed laugh. “Nice.”

  “I mean, I’m sure it’s just a legend, but...”

  “Yeah,” he nods. “Sounds like a bit of bullshit.”

  I’m surprised by the patronizing edge to his voice, especially since he’s interested in antiques with a story.

  Anyway,” he breathes in sharply. “Your place is nice. Minimalist. I like it.”

  I follow his lead and progress to the next topic of conversation. “Minimalist, yeah. My ex-husband didn’t keep anything in the house that wasn’t useful or practical. By the time he moved out, that didn’t leave much.”

  Steel smiles. “Well, you’ve seen my place. I’m still trying to unpack.” He stretches his arm across the back of the couch. “So, how long since the divorce?”

  “About a year. You ever been married?”

  “No.”

  I sit back, cross my legs. “I married too young, and I married the wrong man.”

  “The wrong man.” He rubs his hand along his stubbled jaw. “Was he ... abusive? Your husband?”

  I rock back on the couch. “Oh, no, nothing like that. He was just...” I search for the right word. “Gunnar was pretty rigid in his ways.”

  “Ah.” He flashes a grin. “Before I forget...” Raising his hips, he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out his wallet. Unfolding it, he whips a card from one of the folds and hands it to me. The letters PSN are embossed in red at the top, with Home Improvement printed below it.

  “We do a little bit of everything. Plumbing, heating, electrical, decks, gutters. I’ve got four crews, and I keep them busy.”

  “Wow. Impressive.”

  “So,” he sits forward. “If you want, I could rebuild your shed. It would take a couple days—maybe three depending on my workload.”

  I laugh. “Well, I’d love that, but money’s a little tight at the moment. I had to buy Gunnar out of this house, and I’m not working a full schedule at the clinic yet, and—”

  “I don’t mean you’d pay for it. I’d do it for free.”

  I stare at him. “Why would you do that? I mean, you’re running a business. You’d have to let me pay you—”

  “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “How’s that?”

  He runs his hand over his mouth. “Without saying too much, I like to stay busy.” His eyes darken. “I try to do stuff for other people. It’s . . . good to be philanthropic when you can. Balances out the scales and that.”

  Something deep inside of me, long-buried and covered in dust and barely recognizable, claws its way to the top of my cold, dormant heart. “You are the nicest guy.” I finish my glass and pour another. “But I can’t let you do it for free. I’d at least need to buy the materials. Pay you somehow.”

  He quirks his mouth. “We can talk about that.”

  I’VE LOST TRACK OF time and the number of glasses of wine I’ve consumed. All I know is that I feel really good. Too good. Like I haven’t felt in years.

  At some point in our conversation, Steel has scooted to the couch's middle cushion, closer to me. I pour the last few ounces of wine into his glass and wonder if I should open another.

  “So.” He grins. “When I met you the other night—at the club, you said you were crashing the party, but you never really told me why. What were you doing there?”

  I feel the heat rush into my face. I hoped he’d forget about that, and maybe I wouldn’t have to explain myself.

  He cocks his head to the side. “Do you crash parties often?”

  “I’m not a regular party crasher, no. In college, I liked to go out, pretend I was someone else for a little while.” I think I may be slurring my words.

  “Why?”

  I set my glass on the coffee table. “Haven’t you ever wanted to be someone else?”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Sure.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Did you do that when you were married too?”

  “No way.” I sit forward. “Never. Not once. I was faithful.”

  He holds up his hands, nods. “Okay, I believe you. So, why now?”

  I’ve never told anyone about this before. Not about doing it, not about why. “The divorce was hard, and I spend most days listening to other people’s problems. And now, as a single parent, I have a lot more responsibility. So sometimes, when the girls aren’t with me, I just . . . want to get away from it all. I guess I’m the antithesis of what a therapist should be, right? I should be facing all my fears and responsibilities and tackling them head-on.”

  “You’re human.”

  I smile. “And a mother of four.”

  “Did you want four kids?”

  “Not really. But Gunnar wanted a large family.”

  “So, you did it for him.”

  “I guess.”

  He scratches his jaw and leans toward me, his voice dipping. “Something tells me you haven’t done much for yourself in a long time.”

  He’s right, but I don’t allow myself to think about that—not when I have other lives to worry about. “Not really.”

  Steel stands, reaches out a hand. “Show me the rest of your house.”

  “It’s pretty much the same as yours.” I let him pull me to my feet. My balance is unsteady.

  Steel seems to notice and grasps my elbow. “You okay?”

  I shake it off. “Yep. Stood up too fast.”

  We make the rounds of the main floor, the kitchen, the family room, the dining room. I sense an impatience in him as I hover by the staircase. I won’t show him the upstairs. It doesn’t feel right. There’s nothing up there but the master bedroom and the girls’ bedrooms. I take him to the basement.

  We clomp down the stairs, and I run my hand along the wall, allowing it to skirt underneath the framed portraits of the girls at every age—babies to teenagers—wearing frilly dresses, soccer uniforms, school play costumes.

  Steel stops midway down and stares at the photos. “What are their names?”

  I point to a photo of Annalen at her eighth-grade dance with a boy who was a friend. “That’s Annalen. She’s almost fifteen.” I run through the other girls and their ages, pointing at photos as we progress to the bottom of the steps.

  “When are your girls back?”

  “Sunday. Their dad usually brings them home in the afternoon.”

  “How do you feel about that? Being here alone while the girls visit him?
”

  “There’s not much I can do about it,” I say absently. “He is their father. They have a right to see him, and he has a right to see them.” I stand in the middle of the room and stretch out my arms. “This is the basement.”

  He scans the sectional sofa, the table, the new carpeting. “It’s nice.”

  “We hardly use it. The girls sometimes come down here to watch TV, play games.” When I turn, he’s standing inches away, his eyes fixed on me.

  My breath catches. I jerk my head, and my gaze shoots to a square-cut opening in the ceiling. “Some workmen had to cut a hole to fix some pipes when we had a leak last year. I haven’t gotten the ceiling repaired yet.” My voice shakes a little.

  Now he’s even closer and whispers hoarsely, “I can help you with that.”

  “Steel, no, you can’t—”

  Then his mouth covers mine.

  I try to step back, but his arm locks around my waist, and I realize I don’t want him to stop. Not really. Except I feel obligated to stop him.

  I pull my mouth from his. “Steel,” I laugh a little, “I can’t do this.”

  His gaze intensifies, and he moves his hands to my cheeks. “Why not?”

  “I barely know you—I mean, really, we just met.”

  “You know me. We started this the other night, remember? I happen to know you like to walk on the wild side. Pretend we just met in a club.” He kisses me again and then slides his mouth down my neck.

  “I don’t go home with men I meet in clubs. I don’t usually even kiss them. It was just that you were . . . my neighbor.”

  “See? You know me.” He tightens his grip. “You deserve something for yourself, Claire.” His words vibrate against my skin. “Just let go.”

  The phrase appears to be magical because with an exhalation of air, I do. He tugs at the button of my jeans, and all manner of thoughts race through my head—my sagging gut and scar from a C-section with Paris, my shriveled breasts—the fact that the only man I’ve ever been with is Gunnar.

  But I find myself stripping his shirt from his shoulders, brushing my hands down his chest as he kisses me harder, pushes me onto the couch, and breathes against my throat, “You need this, and so do I.”

  11

  I feel him slip away sometime during the night. He gently slides his arm out from under my neck and covers me with the throw from the back of the couch. I pretend to sleep through it all. Mainly because I’m mortified. My head is heavy. I need water, but I don’t want to move.

  The stairs groan as he ascends them. Then the ceiling creaks as he walks overhead. When I hear the beep of the front door opening and closing, I sit, clutching the throw to my chest as I draw my knees up. How did that happen?

  A bottle of wine and then we came down here, and . . . I just let him—so easily. Persuaded myself that I was owed a night with a man. Or maybe he convinced me.

  The digital display on the cable box across the room reads 2:50 a.m. I place my feet on the carpet. My legs don’t feel strong enough to support me, but it’s cold down here—so cold. I want to go upstairs to my own bedroom—the one I used to share with Gunnar.

  Can I pretend this never happened? Or rewind my life four or five hours to the part where I push him away, tell him I’m flattered, but he really needs to go, and then walk him to the door?

  Wrapping the quilt around me, I push off the couch and sway a little as I make my way down the dark hall, flipping on lights as I go, squinting against the glare, the harsh truth. I’m one of those women now.

  My throat thickens, and I feel like crying as I reach the base of the staircase.

  “Claire.”

  I turn, my skin chilling. Who’s there? It’s a definitive voice, and for a moment, I have to remind myself that Steel isn’t here. I cast a glance back down the hallway. I haven’t turned off any of the lights, and from where I stand, I can still see the couch where the deed was committed. The sectional sofa we bought for the girls. I’ll have to have it cleaned.

  On the other side of the sofa, a shadow slides along the wall. I blink wildly. It must be my vision, blurry from sleep and dried out from too much wine. But the formation keeps gliding along—like a slow-moving boat on the water. The shadow is long and dark and almost looks like a person. It skates toward the sliding glass door and then moves out of my line of sight.

  I shiver out an exhalation and dart up the stairs, desperate to crest the landing. At the top, I spin around and peer down, my breath huffing in and out. Satisfied that my ears and eyes are as hungover as the rest of me, I switch off the light and shut the basement door.

  The front door is unlocked, reminding me again that Steel just left. I shift the bolt and shuffle into the kitchen. From the refrigerator, I grab the glass container of cold water and do what I tell the girls never to do—put the lip of it to my mouth and guzzle.

  Leaning against the kitchen sink, I stare out the window and fix my gaze on Steel’s house. Upstairs, a light flares in one room and then the next. Then both lights go out. I feel him watching me, even though I know that’s not the case—and even a bit paranoid of me. Still, I drift away from the window, out of the light of the kitchen.

  I trudge upstairs a flight and climb into the shower. Standing under the watery darts, I bend my arms and tuck my hands under my chin as though trying to cover myself from watching eyes.

  12

  Before I hear the knock, his blurry silhouette appears through the window on the back door.

  Steel waves. There’s no way I can avoid him, although I’ve done a pretty good job of it all day. I spent hours shopping. First, the nursery in search of a new container for my fairy garden, and then the grocery store to refill my empty cupboards. I even stopped by TJ Maxx and bought each of the girls a new outfit.

  I’m back now, and here he is—standing on my deck in the late afternoon shadows as the sun plummets behind him. He holds up a bottle of wine.

  “No,” I groan, tramping toward the door.

  “Hey.” His eyes are a living reminder of last night. “This morning, I realized I didn’t have your phone number, so I couldn’t text or call or anything.” He arches an eyebrow. “But I do know where you live.”

  I study his face, and a flash of it hovering over me on the couch flickers through my mind. I feel myself blush.

  He holds up the bottle again. “I remembered that your kids were gone all weekend, so I thought you might want some company.”

  My teeth clack together. Does he really think I’ll just be here waiting for him to come over and have sex every time my girls are gone?

  His smile slips a little, and he lowers the bottle. “Is it a bad time?”

  I don’t know what to say, so I step out of the doorway. Steel appears to take that as an invitation, and I’m not entirely sure that it isn’t. But now he’s in my house again.

  “I was out today. All day.”

  “Yeah, I noticed your car was gone when I left early this morning.”

  Has he been watching the house?

  Steel puts the wine on the kitchen counter and picks up the opener—still sitting in the same place he left it last night amidst curls of foil. He expertly uses the wine key’s blade to cut the foil from the bottle and then presses the corkscrew into the top, twists it.

  “Do you want a glass?”

  “No, thanks,” I say mechanically.

  He glances up at me. “Hungover?”

  I nod once.

  “I wondered how you were feeling today.”

  Heat burns through me as I watch his hands work the cork off of the wine key, remembering what it felt like to have them on me as they trailed up my hips.

  He points at the bottle. “Do you mind if I have a glass?”

  “No, of course not.”

  I take a glass from the cabinet and put it on the counter in front of him.

  He pours the wine while I stare at the label. Afterglow. Fitting name. Then he leans against the counter, crosses one foot over the other, smiles cl
ose-lipped.

  I’ve never been here before—standing awkwardly in the presence of a man with whom I’ve had sex—a man who isn’t Gunnar.

  “Last night was great,” Steel says.

  I want to die of embarrassment.

  “Or—” he stops. “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t . . . for you, I mean.”

  My hand flies to my face, and the emotion hits me. I sink onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table and press my fingertips against my eyes.

  Steel’s glass clinks as he sets it on the counter. “Oh, hey, are you all right?”

  The chair creaks as he sits, and the warmth of his hand radiates across my wrist. Do I explain, or is that too much information? I rake my fingers down my face. “I’m sorry, I just...” What I’m about to say sounds so cliché. It’s not you; it’s me.

  “It’s okay,” he says.

  Something about his confusion, the gentleness of his voice brings actual tears to my eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “I appreciate everything you did for me yesterday.” Ugh. That sounds awful. “With the shed and everything,” I rush to add.

  “I meant what I said about helping you rebuild. If you still want me to.”

  Swallowing hard, I wipe at my eyes with the backs of my hands. “But all the rest of it. I’m just not ready for any of that, Steel.” Laughing a little, I hold out my hands and let them fall palm up on my knees. “Obviously.”

  “I understand.” He’s still touching my arm, and I’m not sure I want him to pull away. I summon the will to look him in the eye. “I need some time.”

  He nods. Then he stands, goes to the counter and drains the rest of his wine, puts the glass in the sink. “I guess I should apologize for last night.”

  “No, I—”

  “I made an assumption that I shouldn’t have. It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

  His words silence me. My mouth drops open. Gunnar would never have apologized. For anything. In some weird way, I feel like I should apologize to Steel for starting all of this by kissing him on the floor of The Destiny Room, for going back to his house with him. I let my control slip.