The Neighbor: A terrifying tale of supernatural suspense

by London Clarke

  I call Linda back while I sit in the idling car. “Is Gen home yet?”

  A long pause follows. “Claire, the baby died.”

  My foot slips onto the accelerator, and the engine roars. I’m sure I haven’t heard her right. “What?”

  “She died.”

  I can’t draw a full breath. “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “Trey couldn’t really tell me. He was a wreck, as you can imagine. He just said that the baby was dead upon delivery. There was nothing they could do.”

  I can’t speak. It’s too much to take in.

  “Are you still there?” Linda asks.

  I grasp the wheel of the rental SUV and watch droplets of rain form on the windshield. “Yeah, yeah, I’m here. I’m just—in shock.”

  “I know.” Linda’s voice shakes a little. “When the kids woke up this morning, they were so excited. They were all asking when they could see their new sister.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them they needed to speak to their dad. Claire, I didn’t know what else to say. Did I say the right thing?”

  A heaviness settles over me, and I drop my head against the steering wheel. “You did the right thing. Are you still with the kids?”

  “No. Trey asked me to take them to their grandparents’ house for tonight. He’s bringing Gen home this afternoon.”

  Right before Thanksgiving. They thought they’d be celebrating the holiday with a new baby, but instead, they’ll be planning a funeral. “I’ll order a rotisserie chicken and some sides, and I’ll take it over later.”

  “Trey says Gen doesn’t want to see anyone. He says she’s practically catatonic.”

  “How could she not be?”

  I PICK UP THE CHICKEN on my way home. My plan is to leave the bag by the door and call to let them know it’s there, but as I deposit the food on the front stoop, the door opens.

  Gray-faced and watery-eyed, Trey’s stooped form fills the doorway.

  “Oh, Trey, I was going to leave this for you guys. It’s just some rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes and beans and stuff.”

  He nods. “Thank you.”

  I start to back away. “I’m so sorry, Trey. I don’t know what to say.”

  He holds the door open. “Do you want to come in?”

  It’s the last thing I expect him to say, but grief does strange things to people. Behind him, I see an open beer can on the table in their foyer.

  “No, no. I don’t want to intrude, I just—”

  “Gen won’t see anyone.”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t expect her to.”

  Trey stares across the street as though he’s looking down the length of a football field. “I just can’t believe it, you know? Everything seemed so normal, right up to the delivery.”

  “Do the doctors know what happened?”

  Trey shakes his head, plugs his hands into his pocket. “The room was totally silent, you know. Totally silent.” He exhales a shuddering breath and raises his hand to his forehead.

  The yeasty smell of beer reaches my nostrils. “Trey, I’m just so, so sorry.” I want to start backing away, leave him to grieve in solitude, but he keeps talking.

  “Gen’s been having nightmares about this. Yeah, night after night. She’d wake up and tell me she dreamed about this cartoon character of a headless horseman ripping the baby from her stomach.”

  A shiver rolls through me. “How long has she been having those dreams?”

  “A few weeks.” He shrugs. “I just thought it was late pregnancy fears. She worried about all kinds of stuff with Amelia. So, I kept telling her it was just nerves. But she said—it’s so real. I can feel him clawing at me. And the strange thing was,” he continues, “she had these scratches across her stomach. Like, long claw marks almost.” He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just thought she’d scratched herself by accident in the night.” He coughs out a laugh. “I’m sure that’s all it was anyway. I’m just—you know, looking for a reason.”

  48

  The night before Thanksgiving, Michael Dunn calls to update me, but his news unsettles me even more than I already am.

  “I put trackers on Nolan’s truck,” he says, “for surveillance purposes.”

  As I’ve been doing for days now, I drift to the window and stare out at Steel’s house. The driveway is empty. “Great. I haven’t seen him in days. I mean, I’m happy he’s not here. But if I don’t know where he is, I can’t monitor him.”

  “Earlier today, I followed him to the construction site behind your house.” Dunn clears his throat. “But then... I’ll be damned if he didn’t find the trackers.”

  “What?”

  “I’m pretty sure he saw me too. He looked right at me, right before he pulled the tracker from underneath the truck.”

  My heart thunders. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, first time that’s happened to me.”

  Either Michael Dunn is completely incompetent or Steel is accustomed to being watched and is far too savvy about all the methods.

  “So now what?”

  “I’ll try a different tactic. And I’ll be back in touch as soon as I have something.”

  My finger shakes as I disconnect the call. His news combined with Tina’s words from earlier have ignited a burning fear inside me.

  One thing I know. Steel is not dead. As much as I don’t want to relive it, I felt his flesh against mine, and he was very much alive. All sorts of crazy ideas enter my brain aside from a faked death. A twin brother? A double who has assumed his identity? A clone?

  He’s also a liar, a child molester, and possibly involved in the murder and disappearance of several women. With this information, I’m more eager than ever to have my house blessed. But now, the minister is out of the office for the rest of the Thanksgiving holidays.

  LINDA INVITES ME TO her house for Thanksgiving, and even though I’d looked forward to a day of sitting in front of the television and watching Hallmark Christmas movies, I accept. Abby will have Thanksgiving with Jax’s family, and the girls begged to stay with Gunnar and Martina since they’re getting a new puppy.

  “So . . . we don’t usually have turkey for Thanksgiving,” Linda warns me. “I mean, before Hyo came to live with us, I sometimes made it, but Jay always celebrated Chuseok with his family, so now we just eat the traditional foods. They may seem weird to you.”

  I shrug. “Honestly, Linda, nothing could be weirder than what’s happening to me right now. If you served chocolate-covered ants, I probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash.” Although the memory of the wormy chocolate has not left me.

  “We only eat chocolate-covered ants for dessert,” Linda says with a straight face. Then she smiles and bumps me with her shoulder. “I’m kidding. No, but we will have songpyeon filled with red bean paste, so I hope you’re ready.”

  “Bring it on.”

  During the meal, Hyo serves me dish after dish, prompting me to eat and then have more. Mandoo soup, skewers of beef, plates of whole fish, fruit, jujubes.

  “You are so thin.” Hyo pushes a plate of pink, yellow, and white crescent-shaped dumplings toward me. “Have more.”

  I hold up a hand. “Thank you, Hyo. But I am so full. I really couldn’t eat another bite.”

  She turns to Jay and speaks to him in Korean.

  Jay raises his chin in the direction of his mother and responds. Even though I don’t understand the words, I know he’s telling her to back off.

  “She is a feeder,” he says with a smile. “That’s why I was so overweight when I was in middle school.”

  “Really? You’d never know it now.”

  Jay jogs up and down our road all the time. He’s slim and toned, and it’s hard to imagine him as an overweight kid.

  “Yeah. Kids called me Jumbo Jay.”

  I make a face. “That’s awful.”

  “I was a little too fond of these.” He holds up a rice cake coated in a sugary glaze before dro
pping it onto his plate and wiping his hands on his jeans. “So, what will you do now, Claire? Linda tells me you think your house is haunted?”

  I sip my wine. His sideways smirk tells me he is not a believer. “Well, it’s a long story, Jay.”

  Hyo again says something to him in Korean.

  Jay shakes his head, rubs the back of his neck. “My mother is superstitious too.”

  I lean forward, knit my fingers together. “How is she superstitious?”

  “Oh, she has all sorts of fears about everything,” he says loudly. “Our son couldn’t come for Thanksgiving this year. He got snowed in at his college. My mother thinks he was prevented from coming”—he holds up his hands and turns his gaze to the ceiling—“by a supernatural force, to keep something bad from happening to him.” Jay yawns. “I’m not superstitious.”

  Linda frowns and waves her husband away. “Jay, go somewhere else. Go watch your football and leave us alone.”

  He sighs and pushes up from the table.

  Linda rolls her eyes at me. “See? I told you, Claire. You’re so lucky to be single again.” She pours me another glass of chardonnay. “So, what will you do?”

  The warmth creeps into my cheeks.

  I look at her and smile sadly. “Honestly, Linda, I’m so depressed about everything.” I slosh the wine around in the glass. “I’m supposed to have a minister bless the house, and I’ve got a realtor on standby. I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel like Gunnar and his new wife are trying to turn the girls against me. Then this asshole.” I hold my glass in the direction of Steel’s house.

  “Oh yeah, what about that guy—that Steel guy? You were all freaked out—”

  “I hired a private investigator.”

  Linda’s eyes widen. “You did?”

  “Yeah, and it’s just like I thought—he’s...” I shudder. “Evil. Into dark, dark shit.”

  “Like, whips and chains and nipple rings?”

  “No, I mean dark spiritual, satanic stuff.”

  She rears back, curls her upper lip. “Ew.”

  “Yeah. So, no. I can’t ever have the girls anywhere near him.” I put down my wine glass and lower my voice. “I’m pretty sure he faked his own death.”

  “What?”

  I tell her what I learned through the private investigator and Tina. “I mean, the woman is in a psychiatric facility because of him. She thinks he’s dead, and his spirit is haunting her.”

  Linda makes a face. “Weird.”

  “As much as I don’t want to believe it, Linda—and I don’t want to scare you—but I know my house is haunted, and I think I’ve brought some bad element into Dawn’s house too.” I exhale through my nostrils. “And I can’t help but think that my relationship with Steel Nolan is the cause of all of this.”

  I’m not sure if Linda believes me or not. She pours more wine in her glass, a line forming between her brows.

  I feel eyes on me and glance over my shoulder.

  Hyo sits in the corner, silently staring. “It’s the holes in the ground,” she says. “The property behind your house has holes in the ground. Your yard has holes too.”

  I consider what Eli Chewning told me about why they’d had to stop construction. “You mean the sinkholes?”

  “Hm...” Hyo moves her hand in a circular gesture, seemingly searching for the right words in English. “More than that.” She turns to Linda and speaks in her native language.

  Linda nods and turns back to me to translate. “Hyo says the holes are not ordinary. She says they are...” Her eyes slant to the ceiling, searching for the right word. “Openings to the other side.”

  As Hyo adds more, speaking directly to Linda, I watch her hands. She presses her palms together and opens them again.

  Linda wrinkles her nose. “Hyo says there are holes all around the property. They were closed, but recently, they have opened again.”

  Hyo joins in. “Spirits are coming in and out. On your land. Bad spirits—they travel through the holes.”

  “How do you know this, Hyo?” I ask.

  Hyo’s face tightens, and she folds her hands together. “Because the other night, a man comes to me and tells me that he is...” She lapses back into Korean. Then she shoos her hands at Linda and points at me. “Tell her.”

  Linda sucks in a long breath. “So, she says the man told her he is from the other side, and as the construction workers dig around that lot behind your house, they disturb the earth, and all kinds of entities are flooding into the neighborhood.”

  My mouth drops open. “Why? Why are they here?”

  Hyo looks directly at me. “They are here to take more souls.”

  49

  Hyo’s words plague me. Holes in the ground expelling spirits? Is that how these things came into my house? The news gets worse and worse.

  When I get back to Dawn’s, the house echoes with emptiness. Abby is spending Thanksgiving with Jax’s family.

  So this is what Thanksgiving alone feels like.

  I take a shower, pour myself another glass of wine, and tuck myself into bed. I may be a little tipsy since I feel like crying as I call Gunnar’s house.

  His voice is frosty when he answers, but I get to speak briefly with each of the girls, although my words slur slightly. I concentrate on pronouncing my consonants.

  Paris says she wants to come home. Gretchen says she’ll need to talk to her father about it. As much as I miss them, I decide not to push—right now, they’re safer with him. As I hang up with Bridget, I swipe the tears from my cheeks.

  Wandering to the window, I glance across the street at Steel’s house. Steel’s truck is still gone even though there are several lights on inside.

  When the doorbell rings, I jump. For a few seconds, I consider ignoring it, but it could be Linda or Trey. I slump down the steps and don’t even have a chance to answer the door before the knocking begins.

  As I look out the side window, I spot a woman standing on the step wearing a long, heavy coat—the hood trimmed with faux fur shielding her face. As she turns, I recognize her profile. It’s Whitney. What is she doing here? How did she know where to find me?

  I open the door. “Whitney,” I breathe.

  “Hi,” she puffs out clouds of condensation. “Can I come in?”

  “Um...” I throw a glance over my shoulder. This is definitely crossing the line between therapist and client. “What’s going on?”

  “I thought I’d stop by and say Happy Thanksgiving.”

  I grimace. “Mm...”

  “Just for a minute.”

  I breathe in slowly. Then, I find myself stepping back, and Whitney whisks by me. There’s a smell about her like sour milk and body odor.

  I direct her into the living room, and we sit across from each other—I on the couch and Whitney on a high-backed antique chair. We’re positioned like we usually are in our sessions. She looks at me, and I fold my hands.

  She motions to my bandage. “What happened to your head?”

  I put my hand to the gauze. “Oh, a little fender bender. I’m fine.” As I say the words, I cast my mind back to a session ago. Whitney had a car accident too. She also had a head bandage, although now I notice her forehead is as smooth as silk. Not a sign of her injury from last week. Another strange coincidence that we both share. Something is very wrong with the whole situation. I have to cut ties with her.

  She smiles. “Funny that we both had a car accident that resulted in a bump on our heads.”

  I don’t smile. “Yeah, kind of funny.” I clear my throat. “I’m actually glad you came by. I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Great.” She runs a hand through her hair. “Go for it.”

  “First of all, how did you know where to find me?”

  Her smile widens. “Steel told me.”

  My lips part. I breathe out. She knows.

  “I was just spending Thanksgiving with him.” She flips her hair behind her ear. “We’re back together.”

  A f
lash of a blow-up doll with open lips replaces Whitney’s face in my mind, and I snap my head to the side to dispel it.

  “Are you okay?” she asks without an ounce of concern in her voice.

  I rub at my eye as though an eyelash has lodged there. “Yeah, must be something in my contact.” Even though I don’t wear contacts.

  Her green eyes are steady on mine. There’s a new light in her face—confidence—no sign of hesitation or nervousness. Her voice is lower, her chin higher. She’s not here to chat. I have to tell her now.

  I recompose myself. “Actually, what I need to talk to you about—it’s about Steel.”

  Whitney blinks. “Did I tell you he’s even mentioned the M-word?”

  “Whitney, look—”

  “Sometimes you just know when it’s right—when you’re in love.” Her eyes trail off to the left, the dreamy smile still fixed to her mouth. “I can’t really explain it. I feel like a teenager all over again. You know, butterflies, the whole thing.”

  “Sex is powerful,” I deadpan.

  She bites down on her bottom lip and waggles her head from side to side. “Is that how it was for you?”

  I freeze.

  Her smile fades.

  “I can’t treat you anymore, Whitney,” I blurt. “I’m sorry, but I think you already know there’s a huge conflict of interest here.”

  Her eyes dart back and forth, considering, mulling. “I wondered how long it would take you to fess up.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Long enough.”

  A muscle in my jaw pulses. “I didn’t know until you told me his name that we’d been dating the same person. I should have ended our professional relationship right then. It was a terrible decision on my part, unprofessional.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  I speak in measured phrases. “And I’ve known for a few days that something is not right about Steel, and I’ve wanted to tell you, but now I can. I am concerned for you.”

  She smirks. “I feel like you’re trying to bring me down. Should I just continue on, a miserable divorced woman like you?”