The New Neighbor

by Ray Garton

  Robby had run when his dad told him to, but not all the way back to the house. He stopped in the street by the white pickup where Pastor Quillerman was pulling himself laboriously, painfully to his feet. Robby turned and faced Lorelle's house, walking backward the last few feet as he watched the crowd. He spotted his dad and Jen and kept his eyes locked on them.

  "Whuh-what's happening?" Pastor Quillerman croaked. His face was dark with blood, his mustache caked with it, and the flesh around his glass eye was swollen and dark. But he seemed to have little interest in his own injuries.

  Robby wasn't sure what to say at first, then answered as simply and accurately as he could; "They've all gone crazy."

  "Yes," Quillerman said. "That’s what she wanted."

  Robby watched his dad drag his sister away from the house and through the crowd, but his attention was caught by the kerosene lantern that was thrown into the air. He cried out when the flames went up.

  For a moment the air caught fire and -

  – bodies flew with arms and legs splayed and -

  – Robby was running before he even realized he'd moved, screaming for Dad before he knew he'd made a sound, because Dad had fallen to the ground with his face and shoulder in flames.

  Jen knelt beside him, screaming, trying to help but too confused to do any good.

  Robby tore his jacket off as he ran to Dad with the jacket held out before him. In seconds, he'd smothered the flames, but he could not smother the nauseating, clinging stench of burning flesh. He made shrill, childlike sounds as he snuffed out the fire. When he was finished, he was afraid to lift the jacket away from his dad's face.

  Jen screamed, "Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy," over and over again, but stopped when Robby pulled his jacket away and revealed what was left of their dad's face. His right eye was open wide, but the left was buried in blackened, glistening meat.

  Robby lifted his head to shout for help and tell someone to call an ambulance, but his throat was hot and sore and his voice was nothing but a hoarse croak… Sobbing, he turned toward Lorelle's house.

  It was an inferno. Bodies were scattered on the lawn, some burning, some smoking, while some were up and about; others simply lay there on the grass. Voices screamed and shouted hysterically and at least one rose in maniacal laughter.

  The house had been swallowed by roaring flames. Robby stared at it, feeling sick. His mother had been in there. Worse yet, she'd chosen to be in there.

  The roar of the flames grew louder suddenly, and for a moment the fire grew brighter. With a sound like thunder, flames gathered and shot high into the air, writhing and expanding to take the shape of a flaming head and the form of a female body of fire and -

  – there was a low rumbling sound that Robby could feel in the ground beneath him and the head lifted and a mouth opened and -

  – it was gone in a pillar of black smoke and the fire burned as before.

  "She'll go somewhere else."

  Robby looked around to see Pastor Quillerman standing over him, staring at the fire.

  "She'll go somewhere else and do it all over again. Just like all the others like her. And it gets easier for them every day." He knelt between Robby and Jen, whose face was buried in her hands as she cried. He frowned at George. "He needs to get to a hospital. I called 911. The ambulances will be here soon." He looked at Robby and Jen and asked softly, "Are you two all right? You aren't hurt, are you?"

  Robby shook his head.

  Jen sobbed into her palms. "Is he dead?"

  Quillerman put an arm around her. "No, sweetheart, he's not dead."

  She pulled her hands away. "He'll be scarred. Bad."

  Squeezing her to him, Quillerman said, "All of us will be.”

  Robby spread his jacket over his trembling father as the screams and cries went on in the glow of the roaring fire.

  Ray Garton

  ***

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