The Neighbor: A terrifying tale of supernatural suspense

by London Clarke

  The picture shows Steel—younger, slightly thinner—holding up two containers the size of pencil boxes and smiling for the camera. I skim the first few lines of the article and skip down to Steel's quotes that detail the lengths he had to go to find the stash.

  “I had to travel to Aruba, to a small island near San Nicolas. There are these volcanic rock formations there and a natural pool. The waves are really high, and I had to swim out a ways, then do some rock climbing. It took me most of the day, but when I finally found it, the cache itself was wedged into the rocks, and my hands kept slipping off of it. But after a while, I was able to get it loose.”

  My vision blurs; the words swim.

  Dunn sits back, places his fingers together. “But by the following year, regular geocaching wasn’t enough for Mr. Nolan.” He slides another paper toward me. “Found this on the dark web.”

  I scan the page, focusing on words like “extreme treasure hunting,” “excavation of evil.”

  “This game—if you want to call it that—is known in some circles as extreme geocaching with an evil twist. The stashes Nolan was going after were objects used in tribal ceremonies, satanic rituals, murders.”

  “What?”

  “The practice was started by a man named Levi Athan, also known as Roy Malkin, back in the late 2000s.” He motions toward the paper. “If you read on, this Athan guy was a piece of work. Athan claimed that the game came about at the behest of a powerful demon that contacted him and told him where to find these objects that had been used in bizarre and vile ways, including murder. He traveled all over the world, attending all sorts of rituals and seeking out hidden treasures that were thousands of years old—supposedly.” He looks up, meets my eyes. “There’s also some discussion that Athan channeled the spirit of murderers—maybe even committed a murder or two himself.”

  My heart skips a beat. Steel’s shelves in his basement. His supposed “collection” was a mine of cursed objects? “Is this man still alive? This Athan?”

  “No. He died the same year as Nolan.”

  I sink against the back of my chair. I can’t believe this, but on the other hand, I knew Steel was too good to be true. It just never occurred to me the guy might be a conman and a murderer.

  Dunn eyes me. “Are you all right? You need some water?”

  Stunned, I slowly shake my head and return to perusing the information. “No. I’m fine.” In the middle of the page, my gaze rests on a URL—leviat.com.

  I tap my finger against the paper. “This is it. The website. The one I asked you to check out.”

  Dunn holds up a finger. “I was just getting to that. Yeah, after a time, Athan started bringing others in on his game, saying the demon told him to expand his territory. He set up a website and claimed that anyone accessing it would only see what the demon allowed them to see. Could be nothing—could be your worst fears, could be a ritual going down, or even a murder. Could be a traumatic incident from the past.”

  I look up at Dunn. “Did you try it—the website?”

  He doesn’t blink. “You asked me to check it out. I did.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “A black screen.”

  “Really? That’s all?”

  He nods. “Three minutes of nothing but a black screen. And then it kept crashing our system.”

  I fall back, feeling like all the air has been knocked out of me as I attempt to collect my thoughts.

  “But here’s the thing.” Dunn grinds his jaw. “As a kid, my worst fear was the dark. My father used to think it was funny to lock me in the basement. There was no light switch down there. Sometimes I’d be down there for hours.”

  “So, the black screen might have represented that? Your worst fear?”

  “Could be.” He looks up at me, his pupils full under the lamplight. “Anyway.” Dunn sniffs, runs his hand under his nose. “I gotta tell you what really spooked me about this website, and it’s something I simply cannot explain.” He places his hands palm-down on the desk. “It’s as though it doesn’t actually exist.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No discernible IP address.” He shakes his head. “There are lots of ways to discover a website’s IP address. Sometimes, cloud-based security or a DNS-based service makes it more difficult to get the actual IP. But this is like . . . like the website is set up on another planet. There’s simply no traceable origin.”

  I breathe out. What have I gotten myself into?

  Dunn raises his shoulders and lets them drop. “From what I can tell, Steel Nolan became heavily involved with this—extreme pastime. He traveled all over the world, finding these objects, sure that he was receiving some sort of power from them. In the end, it seems like his power ran out.”

  I look up at Dunn. “Except he’s not dead.”

  “I can only tell you what my research reveals.” He thumbs three more pieces of paper from the file and turns them flat against the desk. “Here’s the last thing I want to tell you—and it may be the most important piece of information pertaining to Steel Nolan that I’ve come across. At least, as far as you’re concerned.” He flips over a printed-out photo of a young girl. It looks like a school photograph. “I told you about Grace Castille. Found dead at the site. This is her.”

  I sweep my arm across my stomach. The girl has red hair, looks a little like Annalen.

  The next picture shows a woman with brown hair and bright blue eyes smiling for the camera. The photograph only reveals her from the waist up, but she wears a button-down shirt and a blazer—most likely a photo taken for professional purposes.

  “This is Joanna Smythe. Mr. Nolan dated her for a little under a month in 2009. About three weeks after they stopped seeing each other, she disappeared.”

  “She disappeared too?” My worst fears are being confirmed, one right after the other.

  He allows the final document to flutter face-up on top of the other. Two more women. Their faces barely register.

  Dunn places his finger next to the woman on the left. “Sunny White dated Steel for the first three months of 2012. She died of a massive heart attack six months later.” He points to the girl on the right—a blurry photo and hard to make out. “Rita Pressman. Suicide 2013. While they were still dating.”

  My brain swirls with images of Steel and the dead and missing girls.

  Dunn’s chair creaks as he stands. “Bottom line, Claire, if this guy is still alive, you should watch your step.”

  “If he comes near my children, I’ll kill him,” I say through clenched teeth. But what if I’m next? Am I to leave them without a mother? “So, what you’re telling me is . . . all the women who came in contact with Steel have died or disappeared?”

  “Well, not quite all.” Dunn removes another sheet from the file. “I found one that’s still alive. Her name is Tina Turner.” He holds up a hand. “Yes, like the singer, but not the performer, obviously.”

  “Where is she? Is she local?” A burning desire to talk to the woman sweeps through me. “Do you know how I can find her?”

  “From what I understand, Tina has been at a psychiatric facility for the past month.”

  46

  I know Spring Hall Recovery Center well. More than one of my patients has spent time at the facility, so on some level, it doesn’t even feel strange to be here.

  A familiar receptionist directs me to Tina’s room. I find her sitting in front of a television, an oversized crossword in her lap.

  “Tina?”

  She looks up at me. It’s difficult to tell her age, but her leathery, wrinkled skin makes her look at least fifty.

  “Yes?”

  I step into the room. “Hi, my name is Claire Vogel. I’m a licensed clinical social worker. Do you mind if I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Tina motions to the vinyl chair in the room, and I sit.

  She looks down at her puzzle. “What’s a word for a chemical element with the symbol P, ten letters.”

  “Phosphorous?”


  She raises thin eyebrows and nods. “That’s a hard one. I’d never have gotten that.” She writes in the letters and looks up at me. “You know I already had therapy today.” Her voice croaks—she probably was or is a smoker.

  “Well, I’m not here for that. I’m actually here for personal reasons.”

  Her thin brows knit together. “Personal reasons?”

  “About a mutual acquaintance. Patrick Steel Nolan.”

  She immediately drops the pen, and her dark eyes widen. “They tell me he’s dead.”

  And then it hits me. I know her. She’s the woman that was outside my house over a month ago—the one who banged on my door by mistake.

  “I know.” I want to tread carefully here, not upset her. “I’ve heard that too. Do you know how long he’s been gone?”

  She hangs her head and covers her eyes with her left hand. She appears to be thinking. “Do you mean how long has he been gone or how long since he’s been dead?”

  Regardless of what she believes, I only want to determine when she last saw him. “Either one.”

  “The doctors tell me it’s been three years since he died.” She drops her hand and levels her gaze. “But he’s still not gone. Up until a month ago, until I came here, he visited me—all the time...” Her voice trails off, quavering.

  “How can he visit you if he’s dead?”

  Tina places her hand to her chest. “I met him”—her eyes scan the ceiling—“probably about three and a half years ago when I was a receptionist at my brother’s landscaping company. Patrick came in, wanted to hire some guys to help him out with a few jobs he had going on.” Her hand shakes as she pushes a wiry clump of hair out of her face. “Good-looking guy. Way younger than me. I didn’t think anything of it, you know. Didn’t think he’d be interested in me.”

  She exhales, and I notice that one of her side molars is missing. Her cheeks sink into her face in that skullish way that plagues too-thin people.

  “He said he was from New Jersey.”

  My lips pucker. “New Jersey? Wait a minute. No, he was from Holland.”

  Her maple-colored eyes meet mine with a brain-deep weariness. “Patrick Nolan was from anywhere you wanted him to be.” She waves a hand. “My whole family is from New Jersey. So was his, he said. ‘No shit,’ I said. I mean, we talked about the local hardware stores, the industrial parks, the hot dog stand downtown where we both used to get chili dogs. It was like we’d had the same upbringing.”

  I immediately piece it together—my Dutch family. He somehow knew that before I told him and used it to his advantage.

  “But then,” she continues, “he started calling the office. I thought he just wanted to talk to me because I was his original point of contact or something.” A croupy laugh crackles out of her. “But then, he asks me out—on a date. Me? I mean, can you imagine? Good-looking guy like that. I thought he was shitting me. Tells me his name is Patrick Nolan. We start seeing each other. He takes me out, wines and dines me—you know how that goes.”

  I do. All too well.

  “At first, I was just flattered. ’Cause I had a daughter, you know, and this guy wanted to stay at my house all the time, wanted sex all the time. But then . . . I don’t know. I guess I thought I was in love with him or something.” She rubs under her nose. “He sort of took over my life. But then, he changed. Like they all do, I guess. He wasn’t the first man that’s knocked me around a few times.”

  I cringe. Steel asked me once if my husband had been abusive—now I see he was trying to gauge how damaged I was, what I would put up with. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, but this was something else. It was like, he became someone else. His eyes looked different, his voice sounded different, and I really think he wanted to kill me. Like, he talked about eating my flesh, chewing on my ribs when he was finished.” She stops, looks away, shudders. “And he became incredibly strong. He could throw me across the room with one hand.”

  I try to slip into therapist mode—impartial, unemotional—but it’s hard, knowing Tina is talking about Steel.

  “I think he was possessed,” she concludes with a decisive nod. “’Cause you know he was all into demons and shit. Lit candles, did rituals, said they talked to him. Then an hour later, he’d be fine. Sweet as pie. Kept me reeling for months.” Her face darkens, and the hollows in her cheeks deepen. “Then I caught him trying to get into my daughter’s room one night.”

  My jaw tightens. “How old was your daughter?”

  “She was thirteen then.” She sniffs violently as if trying to clear her nasal passages. “He’d opened the door, was getting ready to walk right in. I asked him what the hell he was doing, and then he left. Never saw him again. But he took stuff from our house that night. A bracelet my father gave me, and a shirt of my daughter’s.”

  Souvenirs that are probably in that trunk. I press her. “How did you find out about that? That he was the one who took those things?”

  “Well, no one else had been in our house that night.” She goggles her eyes. “It was weird. Why would he take that stuff? I figured he was some kind of a pedophile or something. Trying to sneak into my daughter’s room like that. I could’ve killed him myself.”

  I know the feeling.

  Tina’s face straightens. “But I didn’t have to. He died the next day. Struck by lightning.”

  At least, that’s what he wants people to believe—most likely because he thought he’d be facing charges. “Tina, I think he may have faked his death.”

  She looks up at me, her forehead lined. “Faked his death? No, he’s dead all right. But like I said, he ain’t gone.”

  “What do you mean when you say that?”

  Again, she covers her eyes with her hand. “It wasn’t long after that I started having terrible nightmares—I still can’t get them out of my head.”

  “Like what?”

  “Scenes from my childhood. My mother’s boyfriend ... back when I was a teenager. I’d put it all out of my mind, but then it started to come back. It was like I had to relive it.”

  “Like an amateur filmmaker’s movie?”

  “Yeah, just like that. But it’s more than that, you know? They’re . . . memories.”

  I nod. “Did you ever go to a website, leviat.com?”

  Her eyebrows raise, and she sits forward in her chair. “Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah, Patrick had me go to that website. That’s when it all started—the memories and all the other shit.” She squints up at me. “You had that happen to you too?”

  I nod again. “Yeah, I did. I went to the website too. Something like that happened to me too.”

  Tina shifts her gaze, shakes her head. “And then the voices, and the shadows, and the bruises. I started drinking pretty heavy, trying to drown it all out, you know. Sometimes I’d hang out at The Destiny Room—this bar in Amber Mills.”

  “I know it,” I say mechanically.

  “There was this woman I met at The Destiny Room. We hit it off, had a lot in common.” She holds up her pointer finger. “Including that we found out we were both seeing Patrick. She was there every night. Drank the same drink, sat in the same place. We talked like we’d known each other forever.” Another chuckle turns to a cough. “Her name was Whitney.” She looks up at the ceiling. “Can’t remember her last name now.”

  I stiffen. “Whitney? What—what did she look like?”

  “Tall, thin, beautiful, black hair, green eyes. Way more like what I would’ve thought Patrick would date.”

  No, it can’t be. If this was three years ago, Whitney only started seeing Steel recently.

  “But I confided in her, you know,” Tina continues. “Told her how I was falling apart because of him.” Her chair creaks as she sits back. “Well, here’s the thing. She stopped coming to The Destiny Room. I tried to call her and couldn’t reach her. It was like she disappeared off the planet. Broke my heart. She was like a bestie for a while.” Tina twists her mouth. “I had a few days there when I
was sure I wasn’t going to make it. Drinking, drugging, hearing voices, contemplating suicide. And then, I started seeing him again—everywhere—in the grocery store, outside my house—standing there, smoking his cigarette.” Tina shudders visibly. “Trying to torture me. He got off on it. He called me on the phone, sent me texts, showed up in my room at night. Once, he raped me.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe in slowly. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Tina, and he’s going to have to pay for his crimes. But surely, what you’re telling me is proof that the man is a sick and twisted individual who is not dead.”

  Her face changes, and for a moment, all of her wrinkles dissipate. “Don’t you know the devil can take a thousand forms? Man, woman, child, or animal—the devil and his minions can mimic any form—of a person dead or living. Patrick Nolan had the devil in him when he was alive, and now the devil commandeers his body. He exists to steal, kill, and destroy.”

  I shake my head. I’m not getting anywhere with Tina, and I don’t want to traumatize her any more than she’s already been. “Do you still see him—Patrick?”

  She sits back, bangs her fist against the arm of her chair. “Almost every day. He keeps me alive to torment me. He’ll never stop. Not ’til I’m dead.”

  47

  Patrick Steel Nolan is not dead.

  With the car still running, I sit in the psychiatric center’s parking lot and process. Tina and Whitney knew each other. But I’m perplexed at the timing. If they met three years ago, Whitney wasn’t seeing Steel then—at least she said she wasn’t. But even if Tina and Whitney met only a month ago, wouldn’t Tina have mentioned to Whitney that her ex-boyfriend was dead? It doesn’t make sense.

  On top of it all, Tina insinuated Steel tried to molest her daughter. Maybe my vision of Annalen in the truck with him wasn’t that far off. Could it have been some sort of premonition? A warning?

  My cellphone buzzes. Message from Linda.

  Call me when you get home.

  She probably wants to tell me that Gen had the baby. I’ll pick up food to take over. Once she comes home, Gen and Trey will struggle to deal with the kids and an infant.