The New Neighbor

by Ray Garton

  “The succubus, in human form, was irresistibly beautiful and had the ability to prey on each victim's most secret weaknesses. She returned night after night, using her beauty and charms to convince her victim that there was nothing wrong with their lurid relationship, all the while stripping the unsuspecting man or woman of all humanity and reducing him or her to little more than a wild animal, until she reached her ultimate goal: to consign the victim's soul to eternal damnation.

  "Working in league with Satan's minions, the immortal succubi are said, in legend, to roam the earth to this day. If that were true, then it is indeed safe – but sad – to say that in today's society of low moral standards and self-centered lifestyles, a succubus in human form could quite likely lead a normal life, carrying out her evil deeds nightly without ever raising suspicion."

  Robby slapped the pages onto the bed and sighed. It all sounded like some kind of pornographic fairytale. In fact, it was probably too ridiculous to work as a fairytale.

  But it fit. It fit so well, it made Robby's blood run cold.

  He had the rest of the pages, but they were just more of the same, all of which confirmed that Lorelle had left out an important part of the story, a part that she apparently felt was too revealing – although Robby knew that, had she told him the whole thing, it wouldn't have crossed his mind in a million years that she was a demon.

  Robby sat up on his bed and stared at his shoes for a long time, knowing it was going to be a long wait till nine o'clock. The house was silent and Robby craved the sound of another voice. He needed to talk to someone, particularly about the crazy thoughts he was having. He knew Dylan had stayed home from school and hoped he was not too sick to talk. Robby had to get out of the house and didn't want to be alone.

  With his coat on, he started down the hall. A door opened behind him.

  "Robby?" Jen whispered.

  His back stiffened.

  "Robby? Where you going?"

  He walked faster and rounded the corner.

  The living room curtains were closed and the room was dark. His mom sat before the television looking thin and weary, the glow of the television turning her face a soft electric blue.

  Outside, Robby hurried down the street, never looking at Lorelle's house, hoping she wouldn't see him and call him over.

  Mr. and Mrs. Garry's cars were both in the driveway. It wasn't unusual for Mr. Garry to be home – he was a carpenter and his work schedule was sporadic – but Mrs. Garry was a telephone operator, worked five days a week and seldom took a day off. As he neared the house, Robby heard Ozzy Osborne playing so loud that the bass was rattling the front window. That was even more odd than Mrs. Garry staying home from work. Dylan's parents insisted that he listen to his rock music on headphones so they couldn't hear it.

  Robby knocked hard, but knew they would never hear him above the music, so he opened the door a crack and called, "Hello?"

  Somewhere beneath the thunder of the music, Robby could hear the television playing.

  "Hello? Dylan? Mrs. Garry?"

  No response. He went inside and closed the door, wincing at the music's volume. Rounding the corner of the entry way, he saw Mr. Garry's slippered feet from behind, propped up on the ottoman in front of his plush, overstuffed chair.

  "Mr. Garry?" Robby said. "Is Dylan around?"

  The feet didn't move.

  He got a whiff of what smelled like shit and wondered if he'd stepped in something on his way over.

  Stepping forward, he tried again: "Um, Mr. Garry? I was just wondering if -"

  Robby stopped when he noticed that someone had spilled something on the carpet and splashed the television screen. Judge Judy was on and dark fluid speckled Judy Sheindlin’s face.

  “Mi-Mi-Mister…Garry?" Robby's voice was lost beneath the music.

  Keeping a distance from the chair, he walked around it, saw Mr. Garry's bare calves, saw his bathrobe lying open in front, his right hand lying palm up on the armrest. What looked like chocolate pudding clung to the front of the terrycloth robe, except… it wasn't exactly the color of chocolate.

  Mr. Garry's mouth was open.

  So were his eyes.

  So was his forehead.

  In fact, most of the top of his skull was gone and the pudding-like substance had dribbled over the edge of the opening, into his eyes and down his cheeks like thick dirty tears and onto his robe.

  Robby staggered backward, hit the end table by the sofa and fell on his ass, gagging. He rolled over and tried to scramble to his feet, but his stomach convulsed and bile burned his throat.

  "Dylan!" he gurgled, wiping his mouth and gasping as he climbed the sofa to his feet. "Duh-duh-Dylaaaan!"

  He ran down the hall toward Dylan's room, the source of the music that was pounding through the walls. He tripped over a shoe and fell face-down to the floor. Except he didn't land on the floor. He landed on something soft and wet.

  Mixed with the odor of feces that he'd smelled in the living room was the rosy smell of Mrs. Garry's perfume.

  Robby propped himself up on his arms and realized that the shoe he'd glimpsed before tripping over it had not been empty. Mrs. Garry was wearing it and she lay beneath him, face up, arms spread at her sides. Her left eye was closed as if she were asleep, but the right half of her face was no more than bits of shattered bone and bloody shreds of flesh. Robby babbled as he tried to get off of her, slipping twice before -

  – her left eye opened, blinked, and she hissed a wet parody of his name: "Aaww-eeee? Aaww-eeee?"

  With a childlike whimper, Robby crawled clumsily down the hall, trying to stand, until he saw the hammer on the floor. He'd seen it before. It belonged to Mr. Garry. The clawed end looked as if it had been caked in mud, but he knew it was not mud that filled the gap in the forked claw. He stared at it, motionless for a moment, then carefully stood, staying close to the wall as he passed the hammer.

  "Dylan?" he called, only a few steps from Dylan's closed bedroom. His voice was hoarse and broken. "Dylan? Please? Are you there?"

  Dylan did not reply, but as Robby went farther down the hall he heard something… a voice… it sounded like Dylan's voice… high and shrill… singing along with the loud music.

  He looked back at Mrs. Garry. Her fingers twitched like the legs of a dying spider, tensed, then became limp. Robby took the remaining steps to Dylan's room and put his hand on the doorknob. He clenched his eyes shut before opening the door.

  The music hit him like a wall and he opened his eyes to see -

  – nothing more than the mess that was Dylan's bedroom.

  "Dylan?" he called, knowing there would be no response.

  He backed out, closed the door and heard the voice again, singing along like a small child. It was coming from the bathroom.

  Robby called his friend's name again as he ran to the bathroom and thunked the half-open door with his palm.

  Dylan was slumped, naked and pale as snow, in the bathtub, his head leaning against the tub’s edge, eyes closed, lips moving slightly as he tried to sing, arms lolling in a foot of dark-red water. His bloodstained clothes were crumpled on the floor.

  Robby dropped to his knees beside the tub and rasped, "Dylan! Dylan, what's ha-happened?"

  Dylan's eyes opened slowly and he tried to lift his head, but failed.

  "They… won't let… me go… " he breathed.

  "Go where?"

  "Her house."

  "Whose house?" Robby asked, but he already knew.

  "Luuuhh…Lorelle's." Dylan smiled weakly. "Jealous?"

  So he killed them, Robby thought, and took a bath to wash off the blood. Jesus Christ, it's already started…

  Dylan lifted first one hand, then the other, out of the bloody water slowly and made playful little splashes, like a small boy playing in his bath, and Robby saw the long vertical slashes in his wrists. They were small chasms from which black-red blood flowed to darken the water.

  "Jesus Christ, Dylan!" Robby screamed, looking around the tu
b until he spotted the razor blade on the edge beside Dylan's head. "Jesus, why did you do this?"

  "Dint… wanna… go… to jail."

  Robby stood and dashed around the bathroom, searching for some sort of bandage and murmuring, "Oh god, oh god, oh god… " He found nothing and returned to the bathtub. "Listen to me, Dylan, okay? Stay awake! I'm gonna call an ambulance. Okay? Dylan?"

  Dylan's eyes were closed and his head was turned away from Robby. He was not singing anymore.

  Chapter 16

  Succubus Interruptus

  Karen woke slowly, thinking the sensation of teeth and lips on her nipple was only part of a dream. But as she rose closer to the surface of her sleep, she heard breathing… felt hot breath on her skin… the weight of a naked body on top of her own.

  She reached down and felt soft, warm flesh, silk-smooth hair, and opened her eyes to see Lorelle, whose mouth curled into a slow smile filled with promise.

  Karen jerked upright and turned to George who lay beside her, still as the onyx statue in Lorelle's house, his breathing so shallow it was almost invisible.

  Sensing her panic, Lorelle reached up and touched her fingertips to Karen's cheek, brushing them over her lips, then crawled down her body and nestled her face between Karen's legs. Her tongue snaked through curls of hair, teased the lips of Karen's pussy, delicately separated the folds and traveled slowly up and down the crevice between them.

  Karen turned once more to her husband. When he didn't move or make a sound, she allowed the tension to flow from her, feeling her body relax more and more with each sweep of Lorelle's tongue. She moaned softly, and before long, she was squirming, then writhing with pleasure that continued to build. Karen slapped a hand over her mouth to contain the cries she felt rising from her chest.

  Karen reached up and closed a fist on a handful of Lorelle's thick hair as the first orgasm came, then another, and a third, each one battering her more than the last, until -

  – Karen couldn't breathe and she was certain her heart had stopped beating and then -

  – there was nothing. Not even dreams.

  * * * *

  "I saw it on the news," Prosky said, as Robby got into the car with a brown paper bag and a towel. "I'm sorry. Very sorry. Are you all right?" But even as he asked the question, Prosky knew the answer. The dark patches of skin beneath the boy's eyes and his deeply sunken cheeks made him look malnourished. He moved with the sluggishness of someone deeply depressed and spoke in a low, hoarse voice that Prosky had to strain to hear.

  "No," Robby said. "I'm not all right."

  "Believe me, Robby, I know how you feel, and I'm sure you're not in the mood for this right now. But we have to do it."

  He nodded indifferently, staring out of the window. Then he chuckled.

  "What are you laughing at, Robby?"

  "The news. That bitch on the news tonight. She said Dylan was listening to Ozzy Osborne when he did it. And… he was. But she interviewed some clown – some psychologist or something, I don't know – who said it was the music… the secret Satanic messages in the music… that made Dylan snap. Isn't that funny?"

  “Yes," Prosky whispered, his gut wrenching for the boy, "unfortunately, it is.”

  Neither said anything for a while, just stared down Deerfield.

  "They all went to bed about half an hour ago." Robby sighed finally. "I almost did, too. I'm exhausted."

  "No. You can't do that, and you know it. Let's go. We don't want to wait too long."

  "Better be careful. There might still be some reporters hanging around. They've been circling like vultures all day."

  "Right. And remember, Robby, the dogs… whatever they are, they aren't dogs. If they see or hear us, so does she."

  Leaving the key in the ignition in case they needed to get away quickly, Prosky opened his door and got out. A moment later, Robby did the same.

  Looking down Deerfield, Prosky felt a chill. It looked like a dark alley. Mist hovered around the two streetlights. The rain had stopped, but the air was still damp. A soft bone-chilling wind blew some soggy leaves onto the wet street and into the messy gutter. A cat shot through a clump of shrubbery and crossed the street, dragging its left hind leg limply as it disappeared into a darkened front yard. On the whole street, only one house was lighted; the porch light shined and a dull glow came from behind the closed curtains of one window, while a candle flickered in another.

  Lorelle's house.

  "She's awake," Prosky whispered, taking the bag from Robby and checking the contents: fist-sized chunks of fire-blackened wood. He handed the bag back to Robby and said, "We'll have to be careful. Stay away from the streetlights, okay?"

  As they started down the street, the rubber tip of Prosky's cane kissing the wet sidewalk with soft smacks, he watched Robby shuffle slowly beside him, hands in his jacket pockets, and Prosky began to worry. The boy's mind was – quite understandably – on other things, and he didn't appear capable of being careful. Prosky stopped, faced him and whispered urgently, firmly, "Listen to me, Robby, I know what you're feeling right now, but what happened to your friend and his family only proves that things are getting worse fast. So we have to do this, and we can't afford to be caught or interrupted. We've got to be very careful and very quiet. You can't shuffle your feet like that and you've got to pay attention to what you're doing. Otherwise, more people will die."

  Robby seemed to think that over as he turned his eyes toward Lorelle's house.

  "You can grieve later," Prosky said. "Right now, you've got to forget about it, cold as that sounds, and concentrate only on what we’re doing here.”

  Robby changed slowly. His sagging shoulders lifted and his back straightened. He took his hands from his pockets and turned to Prosky, taking a deep breath. Unfallen tears were pooled in his eyes.

  "Yeah, you’re right," he whispered. “Let's go."

  * * * *

  George woke from a sweaty dream about Lorelle to find her kneeling beside his bed, silently sucking his cock. Her right hand was tucked beneath his ass and her middle finger was pressed hard against his rectum.

  Her eyes met his, glistening in the soft light bleeding through the curtains and she lifted her head and laughed.

  "Hello," she said.

  Until she spoke, George thought he might still be dreaming, but her voice broke through the bedroom's silence like a rock through a windowpane and he sat up suddenly, still heavy from sleep, hissing, "Ssshhh!"

  She only laughed again.

  "You've got to stop this," he breathed. "I don't know how you keep getting in here, but it's got to stop. Things are bad enough around here without my wife waking up to find -"

  "She's not going to wake up. She's dead to the world."

  George turned to Karen and watched her sleep. She was perfectly still; George could not even hear or see her breathing.

  Lorelle wrapped her fingers around his cock again and led him off the bed with a gentle tug until he was on his knees. She hunkered down before him and continued sucking.

  George's discomfort left him quickly and, as before, he forgot there was a third person in the room.

  She licked his belly and whispered, "Fuck me like a dog, George. Hard." She turned around and squeezed him hard in her fist as she eased him into her,

  slamming her ass backward against him. Grabbing his wrists, she wrapped his arms around her and pressed his hands over her breasts.

  "Ahhh," George moaned, moving faster inside her as he smiled in the dark. But his smile faltered a moment later and he winced as images of pain began to flash on the backs of his eyelids -

  – teeth being knocked from a bloodied mouth with a rock -

  – changing with each thrust of his hips -

  – erect nipples being snipped off with garden shears -

  – and he began to move faster -

  – sleeping eyes being pierced with fish hooks -

  – and faster, until his smile slowly returned.

  * * * *
<
br />   Standing on Robby's porch, Prosky took the towel Robby had brought and carefully wiped the dampness from the front door, whispering, "Let's hope it doesn't rain now."

  "Dad's gonna be pissed when he sees this," Robby said. He reached into the bag for a piece of the wood, handed it to Prosky and asked, "What do I tell him when he sees it?”

  “Tell him the truth.”

  "Are you serious?"

  Lifting the wood, Prosky began to write on the door. "Yes. Tell him. All of it. Tell him everything."

  "He'll think I'm crazy. And with the mood he's been in lately -"

  "Just tell him." He finished the first name, Sanvi. "He might not believe you at first, but when he sees her reaction to it, he'll think twice." The second name, Sansanvi. "If you can convince him, maybe he'll spread the word." The third name, Semangelaf. "It might be the best thing that could happen." Then Prosky drew a circle around the three names and -

  * * * *

  – George was seconds away from an explosive orgasm, digging his fingers into Lorelle's round ass, when she craned her head back and released a scream that made his scrotum shrivel like a raisin and filled the room with the smell of rotting meat and shit and -

  – the bare skin of her back split open, revealing glistening blackness, and something shot upward, hit George in the face and knocked him back and -

  – he hit the side of the bed and lost consciousness before he slid to the floor.

  * * * *

  Prosky dropped the piece of burnt wood leaving the circle unfinished as the scream tore the night in half. It did not seem to come from just a single person – it was a sound that might have come from the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps, the combined screams of dying cultists in the jungles of Guyana; the cries of the unsuspecting outside Chernobyl as the air they breathed turned to fire and flesh and muscle began to peel away from bones.