by Rob Zombie
Chapter Eight
She refilled Steve’s water and poured him a bowl of kibble. He immediately began wolfing it down. She dumped the used coffee filter out and put in a new one, filled it with fresh grounds.
After starting the machine dripping, she stayed leaning against the counter a moment, listening to the sound of Steve crunching up his food. Her head felt like it had been filled with wet sand. No more drinking, she promised herself again, but knew that as the day went on she’d take it back. Powerless.
She sighed and went to get the paper. When she opened the door it wasn’t on the mat and for a moment she thought it hadn’t been delivered. She stepped out and peered down the long drab hall and there it was, halfway between her door and the next one. Would it kill him to put it on my mat? she wondered. Sighing, she made her barefoot way out into the hall to grab it.
She’d just bent down and picked it up when she felt the air out in the hall shift and change. She had the sudden feeling that she was being observed. She looked up and saw that the door to the apartment at the far end of the hall was ajar now, though she hadn’t heard it open. The apartment had been unoccupied as long as she’d been in the house, and it was a surprise to think that the landlady had finally managed to rent it. Maybe they’d left it open because they were in the process of moving in. Or maybe the apartment wasn’t rented after all and the door had simply come unlocked for some reason, had been left open when someone had walked through it looking at it or when a repairman had come.
For a moment she considered walking down and closing the door but as she straightened up she realized that there was something strange about the doorway. The darkness wasn’t consistent within it.
As she peered closer, she realized with a start that there was a man standing there, motionless. He wore dark clothing, was mostly hidden in shadow, but he was there. And he was watching her.
“God,” she said. “You startled me.”
The man didn’t say anything. Didn’t even move. Just remained standing there with his arms crossed, just within the apartment. Weird, thought Heidi. Fuck him.
But maybe there was an explanation. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. Or maybe he was just shy. She decided to make an effort to be neighborly and try again.
“Hello,” she said, moving a step closer. “Are you the new tenant?”
Still he did not answer, did not even move. Was there really someone there? Was it some sort of optical illusion and she was seeing things? No, she could see him, could even, if she paid very close attention, tell that he was breathing.
“I live here in number two,” she said, her voice losing its friendliness now. “My name is—”
Before she could finish, the door slammed shut. The man had moved so quickly she had hardly seen him. It was as if one moment he was there and the next not; one moment the door was open and the next closed. She stared at it in astonishment. So much for the new neighbor.
Shaking her head she returned to the apartment and poured herself a cup of coffee. What an asshole. If Lacy was going to rent it to someone like that, it would have been better if number five had remained empty.
She took a sip of the coffee and groaned. God, it was good. Maybe she could survive her hangover after all.
She’d have to call her mother, she thought, taking another sip. It had been a while since they talked, and she’d be worried, and ever since her dad had died, she didn’t have anyone to talk to.
She sat down at the table and opened the Salem News. She’d always found the little icon of a witch riding a broom past the moon on the paper’s masthead ridiculous. Why would a town cling so tightly to an awful history of witches and murder? If she had to bet, she’d say the majority of women executed in the Salem witch trials hadn’t done anything at all, had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But being on-air at a radio station in Salem meant that she had to play along with the witch business in the same way that so many of the businesses around here did.
Even less going on around town than usual, if the paper was to be believed. She sighed and took another sip of her coffee and her thoughts turned back to toying with the idea of a fix. She shook her head and steered them away. She thought about the man in apartment five. His face had been difficult to read, expressionless as it was, and she had a hard time knowing why he’d reacted as he had. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten a good look at his face. But now it was difficult for her even to imagine what he had looked like. Was he some sort of recluse? Or a mute, maybe? She’d have to ask her landlady about him.
She took another sip of coffee, yawned, and looked at the clock. Steve was already standing near the door, staring at it. Was it that time already?
“Buddy,” she said, “I don’t want to go to work today.”
Steve gave a halfhearted wag of his tail but didn’t turn away from the door. After a moment he began to whine.
“Hold your horses,” she said, and took another sip. “Why can’t you learn to use a toilet like those dogs on TV?”
Steve was silent for a moment, and then began to whine again.
“Come on, man,” she begged. “Let me get half a cup down before we hit the streets.”
Chapter Nine
She had thrown on her faux fur coat, a cute scarf she’d “borrowed” from the lost-and-found bin at the station, and black tworing, knee-high boots. When she went out and bounced down the hall stairs with Steve, she ran into Lacy.
Lacy was a cute woman in her late fifties, still well-preserved. She was wearing a batik dress, a kind of hippie wraparound that Heidi had always suspected could be tied in different ways to become a shirt or a skirt instead, or even left untied and used as a shawl. Her manner was relaxed and easy. She had blond hair streaked through with gray that she left down and let go wild. She was standing in the entrance near the mailboxes, sorting through her mail. She looked up briefly and smiled when she saw Heidi, absently nodded.
“Hey, Lacy,” said Heidi.
“Hello,” said Lacy slowly. She was half-distracted, still thumbing through her mail. She gave Heidi only the smallest glance.
For a moment Heidi started to edge past her landlady, and then she remembered the man in the door.
“I see you finally rented number five,” she said.
Lacy looked up momentarily, a strange expression flitting across her face. “I wish, babe. I wish,” she said. “For some reason that apartment is a total dog.” She stopped long enough to bend over and address Steve. “No offense, Steve,” she said. Steve wagged his tail. She looked back at Heidi. “Nobody wants it,” she said. “I don’t get it. I’ve looked around town. I know the price is right.”
What? thought Heidi. Then who was the man she had seen? When she spoke again it was hesitantly, in a confused voice. “But I just saw someone, like, ten minutes ago standing in the doorway,” she said. “Strange guy.”
But Lacy had found the piece of mail she’d been looking for and had begun to tear it open. “Finally, took long enough,” she said. “Of course when they owe you money it takes forever.” Abruptly she stopped opening it, having realized that she’d been ignoring Heidi. “Huh? What were you saying, dear?”
“I was talking about the person in apartment five.”
“Apartment five?”
Heidi nodded.
Lacy shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I hate to break it to you, but there is no person in apartment five.”
Heidi looked at her. Nobody in apartment five? But she had seen someone; she was sure of it. Was she wrong or was Lacy being cagey? Maybe Lacy was just confused by the question. Or maybe she herself was more hungover than she realized.
“Anything wrong, sweetie?” asked Lacy.
“Well, I definitely saw someone in there,” said Heidi. “But when I said hi, he slammed the door right in my face.”
Now it was Lacy’s turn to give her a long look.
“You sure?” she asked. “Honey, nobody’s even asked to see the place in a week.
”
Steve, feeling it was past time for his walk, whined.
“I think so,” Heidi said. “Maybe…,” she started, but unable to figure out how to go on with it, she let the sentence trail off unfinished.
“It doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll check it out if it’ll make you feel better.”
Heidi nodded. “Thanks,” she said.
Steve barked, rubbing up against Lacy’s leg. Bending down, Lacy patted him on the back and addressed him in a baby voice.
“Good morning, handsome boy. How are you today? Did you get a good sleep last night?”
Heidi rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Time to walk this handsome boy before he does some ugly business right here on the porch. Bye.”
Lacy smiled. “Have a good one.”
They started off but hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Steve wanted to stop and sniff the bushes. Heidi glanced back to see Lacy there, frozen in the act of locking her mailbox. She was staring up the stairs. There was something strange about the way she held herself. Then Lacy finished closing her mailbox and hurried into her apartment.
Chapter Ten
What is it I feel, Sister?” asked the first nun.
“It is the same that I feel,” said the second. “The time is coming.” She made a gesture as if to cross herself, but the symbol she made was different and more complex: the cross was there, but once she had made it, she topped it with an upward-curving semicircle and drew a downward curving semicircle through its base as well. So, a cross, but not a cross. A cross perverted into something else.
The other sister made the same gesture.
They knelt together in the back pew in the deserted Saint Peter’s church, in the darkest part. The nuns were both quite old. The portion of their heads and faces not hidden by the cowls of their habits seemed as wrinkled as dried apples, almost sexless. Their hands, resting against the backs of the pews in front of them, were bony and liver spotted and nearly translucent, quavering slightly.
“The time comes at last,” said the first nun. “And we shall embrace it.”
“Yes, we shall,” said the second nun. “The promised time has come and Salem shall be reclaimed.”
After a long moment, the first began to pray, a slow chant in what seemed at first nonsense. “Nema,” she said. “Reve rof d’na won sruoy…” The other nun joined in. “Era ylorg eh-t d’na…”
Had anyone been listening, it would only slowly have dawned on them that it was not nonsense after all but some language, even if an unfamiliar one. Someone paying very close attention might have eventually realized it was not an unfamiliar language at all but a familiar one turned on its head and running in reverse. From there it would be only a matter of time before they deciphered that what the nuns were doing was reciting the Lord’s Prayer backward.
They were interrupted by the appearance of a young priest beside them. He stood there with his hands clasped, smiling.
“Father,” said the first nun in a voice that was flat and neutral, nodding her head.
“Father,” said the second, imitating the tone of the first exactly.
“Sisters,” said the priest. “I don’t believe I’ve met either of you before. Am I mistaken? Are you newly arrived? Have you just been transferred to join us?”
“Not exactly,” said the first nun.
“We are from another… parish,” said the second nun.
“We are just passing through,” said the first. “A little traveling.”
The priest nodded. “You are most welcome,” he said. “If I can be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to call upon me.”
Both nuns nodded. The priest stood there a little longer, waiting for them to speak, then after a moment wandered away. They watched him go, following him with narrowed eyes down the aisle. Once he was out of earshot, they began to pray again, continuing their act of desecration.
“I feel him,” said the first nun.
“Who?” said the second nun. “Mather?”
“Hawthorne,” said the first. “Though he has been dead these many years, I feel him.”
“It is not he whom you feel,” said the second, “but his kin. His blood.”
The first nun nodded. “His blood still beats within her veins.”
“But the time is coming,” said the second.
“The time is coming,” the first agreed.
They traced once again the symbol over their chests, then stood and left the pew. Leaning against one another, they hobbled their way down the aisle and toward the doors of the church.
“I feel him,” whispered the first nun, angrily. “I feel him.”
“We shall have our revenge,” said the first. “And it shall be sweet.”
And then they were out of the church and in the morning sun. They stood on the steps, sniffing the air.
“There,” said the first nun. “There he is.”
“Yes,” said the second. “I can feel him. I can smell him.”
Halfway down the narrow, redbrick sidewalk was a woman in a faux fur coat, leading a large Labrador retriever. She had stopped to let the dog sniff a lamppost. She was looking idly around, her eyes wandering. After a moment she tugged on the leash, but the dog braced its paws. It wasn’t ready to be pulled away.
Her gaze was slowly drawn to the nuns. They stood there on the steps, motionless, their habits blowing in the wind.
“He sees us,” the first nun said.
“No,” the second nun said. “It is Hawthorne’s blood but it is not Hawthorne. It is a she. And she does not know what she sees.”
The first nun nodded. “She will not know what she sees until it is too late.”
Chapter Eleven
The large African American man stood on the front steps of the apartment trying to stop himself from pacing. He was dressed in a way that made him stand out from other residents of Salem, that made him seem like a throwback to the seventies. He wore glittering white Adidas shoes, a black-ribbed T-shirt, and a white-leather suit coat. His pants were white as well, tight-fitting slacks that looked like they’d been tailored to fit him. He was in his late fifties, but still relatively fit. He took a cigar out of his coat pocket, stared at it, then put it away again. A moment later he had it out again and had bitten off the ends and was lighting it.
Might as well enjoy myself if I have to wait, he thought, puffing on the cigar and turning it in the flame until the tip glowed evenly. Where is she? he wondered. Late again. He tried not to worry about Heidi. When he’d knocked on the door, nobody had answered and that’d made him a little anxious, but Steve hadn’t barked, which meant wherever she was she was out with Steve. Which meant the chances that she’d started using again and hadn’t come home the night before were slim to none. She was okay, he was pretty sure, but he couldn’t help but worry about her, because he’d seen how bad things had gotten for her last time. He didn’t ever want her to go through something like that again. But he also didn’t want to have to be the one to pull her out the next time; once was enough. He’d been happy to do it, happy to be there for her, but it’d been hard on both of them, and the way she’d cursed him out when she realized he was going to check her into the clinic, well, that just wasn’t something easy to forget. He’d put his own job on the line convincing the station to hire her back, which was why he made a point of picking her up and getting her to work on time, of making sure she didn’t start fucking up again.
He took a long draw on the cigar. He loved the way the smoke changed the inside of his mouth, numbed it just a little but also changed the texture of it almost.
The curtains behind one of the windows on the ground floor were pulled back and he caught a quick glimpse of a woman’s face before it quickly fell again. Landlady, he told himself. What was her name? Heidi had introduced her but he’d be damned if he could remember. Probably the old hippy chick didn’t approve of him smoking cigars on her steps, but if that were the case she’d have to come out and tell him to hi
s face. He knew that there were very few people willing to stand up to him, to Herman Jackson, and he suspected that she wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t a jerk—he’d stop smoking if she asked nicely and without being prissy—but as far as he was concerned he was outdoors with nobody else in smell range. He wasn’t bothering anybody. And if he was, they could let him know nicely or grin and bear it.
“Hey,” someone said.
He turned to see Heidi walking back toward the apartment building, leading Steve. Yeah, she was okay. He shouldn’t have worried. It made him a little ashamed that he had, a little angry at himself, but a little angry at her, too, for putting him in a position that made him feel like he had to. But no, that was stupid. She was a good kid, trying just like anyone else, and mostly doing all right.
She reached him, Steve wagging and trying to jump up on him. He pushed the dog away, but gently.
“Hey, Heidi,” he said.
“Did you pick up the new headshots?” Heidi asked.
“Headshots?” Herman said. He leaned over and scraped the coal off his cigar and then put it back into his pocket for later. “You’re worried about headshots?” he asked. “You got any concept of what time it might be, girl?”
Heidi straightened up, puckered her lips. When she spoke again it was with a bad French accent.
“What is this time? I have no understanding of this time of which you speak.”
Herman shook his head, keeping his face flat and trying not to smile. He looked at his watch. “Well then, Frenchie LaRue,” he said, “let me put it in straight-up boots-on-the-ground all-American speak. It’s half past get your fucking ass in the car.”
Heidi gave a wicked smile, but he could tell from her eyes that she was tired and in no mood for playing around. “Let me just grab my shit,” she said.
“Well, giddyap,” said Herman. “The meter on my chariot is running.”
She could mess around, Herman thought, but when she put her mind to something she got it done in good time. It had only taken her a minute to run Steve in and clamber into his car. He hadn’t even had time to think about the half-smoked cigar in his pocket and light it again.
