The New Neighbor (29 page)

George stared at his son intensely for a long moment, then backed up slowly and lowered himself back into the chair. He leaned forward on the dining room table. His arms began to shake, just a little at first, but when he tried to speak they got worse.
 

"Well, whuh-what ... what do we, um ... wh-what're we supposed to ... I mean, what's –" He stopped suddenly, arms quaking so hard they rattled the table. He slapped a hand over his mouth, closed his eyes tightly and pressed his arms down on the table hard to stop the shaking. After sitting like that for a while with the others staring at him, he pulled his hand away and muttered, "What've we done?" Then, quickly: "I-I mean, no, no, I mean, what'll we
do
?"
 

Pastor Quillerman turned to Karen and, with nothing more than a tilt of his head and the look in his eye, asked her if she agreed.
 

She looked away from him, rubbed her cheek against the top of Monroe's head then made a movement that might have been a conciliatory shrug.
 

Jen frowned, then nodded slowly.
 

Quillerman already knew how Robby felt, so he didn't bother asking.
 

“First,” the pastor said, “you need each other. So whatever animosity you may feel toward each other right now, whatever feelings of anger or betrayal have been created by this situation – you need to let go of them. You need to forgive one another. And yourselves. She will use whatever she can to pull you apart. You've opened yourselves up to her and now she knows all she needs to know to finish her work in this house."
 

George asked hoarsely, “And ... what is that work?”
 

"Well, apparently she's already finished with the Garrys. And from the looks of things when I arrived here, she came close to finishing with you this morning. Murder and suicide are among the signatures of the succubus.”
 

"Then what?" Robby said.
 

"First, we have to gain the support of everyone on this street who has been seduced by Lorelle Dupree. That won't be easy, especially with all those reporters out there, but we'll do our best –" He turned to Robby. " – won't we?"
 

Robby nodded.
 

"I have to drive over to the church to pick something up," Quillerman said. "It won't take long, but should you need me, I’ll give you my cell number.”
 

"What are you getting?" Robby asked.
 

"Something to make it a little easier to talk to your neighbors. “

Robby followed Pastor Quillerman to the door, where the man turned to him.
 

"You seem to have the best handle on all of this, Robby,” he whispered. “Help them. They'll need it. I'll be right back."
 

He was gone.
 

Robby turned and started back toward the kitchen. The closer he got, the worse his feeling of dread became. What was he going to do? What could he say to them?
 

Karen was gone.
 

George was still seated at the table.
 

As Robby walked in, Jen started out.
 

"Where you going?" Robby whispered.
 

"My room. I-yum...I think I'll take a nap, maybe." She looked tired and a little confused as she left.
 

Robby went to the table, scooted a chair over and seated himself close to his dad. "You okay?" he asked.
 

He didn't answer for a while, then: "Yeah. Yeah, son, I'm fine."
 

"Where'd Mom go?"
 

"I don't know."
 

Robby stiffened before speaking again, bracing himself, knowing he might be making a mistake. "Don't you think maybe you should ... you know, go talk to her?"
 

George rubbed both hands over his face, slowly massaging his eyes, then stood. "Yeah. Maybe I should. Right now, though, I'm gonna do something about that hole in the bedroom wall." He walked away slowly as he muttered to himself: "Have to call a carpenter ... may be get that tarp outta the garage ... cover it with that for now ... “
 

Robby was alone.
 

* * * *

Outside, only a few of the reporters remained, and they were taking cover because the sky had become even darker and threatened more rain.
 

A thin, low mist permeated the neighborhood. It had appeared out of nowhere in seconds, swirling over the ground, seeping through shrubs, curling around the corners of houses and licking teasingly at the walls.
 

When the mist first moved in, a few dogs barked wildly up and down the street and a cat darted in several directions – from yard to yard, from one side of the street to the other – before going up a tree, as if to get away from the mist.
 

Other than the animals, however, no one paid the mist any attention ... so no one noticed its swirling movement just beneath Jen Pritchard's bedroom window.
 

* * * *

Jen took the straight-back chair away from her dressing table, turned it around and straddled the back, leaning her chin on her wrists. She'd opened a package of Pop Rocks and put a few of the little pebble-like candies in her mouth. They fizzed and popped. She felt like she had a
head
full of Pop Rocks. Her thoughts exploded before she could complete them, then a new one would begin, only to end abruptly before another began to take shape.
 

What had they gotten into? Was it too late to get out?
 

When she thought of the things she'd been doing, she felt sick with self-hatred, as if Pastor Quillerman's arrival had been a glass of ice water thrown in her face that had startled her into hyper consciousness.
 

She wanted to go back to the day before Lorelle Dupree's arrival and do something that might have prevented all that had happened afterward. But what could she have done? There had to be
something
she could have done or said that might have strengthened the connection between herself, her brother and their parents, something that would have enabled them to turn away from Lorelle.
 

She tossed the half-empty bag of Pop Rocks on the dressing table and pushed the chair away as she stood, turned and –
 

 
– she threw herself backward with a choking sound, nearly swallowing some of the tiny candies whole and she stumbled and fell backward into the chair because –
 

 
– Lorelle was peering at her through her bedroom window. She smiled at Jen, lifted a hand and gave her a friendly wave.
 

"Hello, Jen," she said, her voice muffled by the glass. "Is anything wrong in there? I noticed the reporters were paying a lot of attention to your house."
 

Jen hugged herself against a sudden chill. "Y-you know what's wrong," she said.
 

Lorelle frowned.
 

"Duh-don't...you?"
 

"I'm afraid not. Other than what happened down the street – those poor people, isn't that horrible? No, I don't know what's wrong. I’m worried about you."
 

Jen frowned, blinked. Could Robby have been wrong? Even Pastor Quillerman? Could it be that they'd just gotten involved with a disturbed woman who'd moved in across the street? When she thought about it now, what she'd done with Robby seemed like nothing more than a dark and fading dream. Had she really wandered around the house half-naked? Had she really touched her father's erection just that morning? The more she thought about it, the farther away it all seemed and the more she doubted Robby's and Pastor Quillerman's story that Lorelle was some kind of demon.
 

But she still wasn't certain.
 

"I knocked on the door," Lorelle said, "but no one answered. I began to wonder if everything was all right. By the way, what's that thing on your front door, that circle with three names in it?"
 

"You ... don't know?"
 

She shook her head. "It's not very attractive, if you want my opinion. You ought to wash it off."
 

Maybe she 'd like that
, Jen thought.
 

"Why don't you come to the front door, Jen? It would be easier to talk."
 

"Well, I...I'm busy."
 

"You don't look busy. Come on, I'll meet you at the front door. You can come walk the dogs with me."
 

"I can't."
 

"Sure you can." She grinned.
 

"I-I don't think so."
 

Her grin melted. "Why, Jen? Are you ... embarrassed maybe? Embarrassed about what happened between you and Robby?"
 

Jen gasped.
 

Real ... it happened ... it was real.
 

"You shouldn't be embarrassed, Jen. You certainly enjoyed it at the time ... didn't you? It can happen again, you know. It can happen again if you'll just meet me at the front door. We can wash away those silly names, then you and Robby can come over to my place –" The grin returned. " – and play."
 

Jen shuddered as she stood, moved behind the chair and latched a white-knuckle grip on its back.
 

"Wouldn't you like that, Jen?" Lorelle asked, moving her face closer to the glass.
 

Trembling, Jen closed her eyes and thought of Robby ... and her parents ...
 

* * * *

The staple gun made loud, sharp snapping noises as George stapled a dark green plastic tarpaulin over the hole in the bedroom wall. He felt weak and sluggish and worked slowly, pulling the plastic taut before each snap of the gun.
 

Before starting, he'd knocked on the door of the guest room assuming that was where Karen had gone. He'd knocked a second time before getting a response.
 

"Yes?"
 

"Uh ... are you, um, all right, Karen?" he'd asked.
 

A long silence, then: "Yes. I just want to be alone for a while."
 

He'd stood there for a long time, staring at the doorknob, tempted to try it and maybe go in and talk with her, but she didn't sound like she
wanted
to talk. And for a brief moment, that made him furious. His teeth ground together and he wanted to put his fist through the door, felt angry and strong enough to be able to poke his hand through the wood as if it were paper, then go into that bedroom and do the same thing to Karen, but –
 

 
– he'd caught himself and moved back away from the door, slowly relaxing his clenched fists and taking deep breaths. Then he'd gone to work in the bedroom.
 

The next time he squeezed the gun, he got a hollow
clack
. It was empty. He released the tarpaulin, leaned down for the box of staples on the floor, and removed another strip. Once he'd reloaded the staple gun, he stood up straight and reached for the drooping flap of plastic, but –
 

 
– George jerked his hand back as if it had been bitten and dropped the staple gun as his shock came out in a dry cough, because –
 

 
– Lorelle peered in through the opening left by the unstapled section of the tarpaulin and purred, "I could use a handyman, George." She wore a black leather teddy with perfectly round holes over her breasts through which her dark nipples stood erect. She wore no panties above her black fishnet stockings. "Would you like to be my handyman for a while, George?"
 

His mouth was suddenly filled with moist cotton. "Guh-get away ... from me," he breathed.
 

"That's not nice, George. Not after all the good times we've had. What do you say we do your favorite? You fuck me up the ass while I use the vibrator on my pussy. How does that sound, huh?"
 

"Nun ... no. No."
 

"No? I'm shocked, George. I'm
hurt
. Why
no
, all of a sudden? Have you ... ah, yes, I bet you've found someone else to do those things for you. Who could it be? Hmmm ... Karen? No, not Karen. She doesn't like cocks. She told me that, George. She said they were ugly. Even yours. All lumpy and stiff and stubby." She wrinkled her nose and went through a mock shudder. "Ooooh, no. Karen doesn't like that at
all
. She told me herself. No, Karen prefers ... other things."

George began to feel sick, partly because of what Lorelle was saying to him, and partly because, in spite of her words and in spite of what he knew about her – or
thought
he knew about her – he was getting an erection.
 

"So if it's not Karen who's replacing me, maybe it's ... Jen? She's young but ... very imaginative. Maybe Robby wasn't enough for her. Maybe his cock wasn't big enough. After all, father knows best, right?" She laughed as she licked a fingertip and ran it around one nipple, then squeezed. "But somehow, I don't think so. I think you still want me, George. You know nobody will give it to you like I did. You
know
that. And so does whatever's standing up beneath your robe." She laughed again, licked her finger Again and buried it for a moment in the patch of red hair between her legs as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back with pleasure. Then she lifted her hand to her face and ran the glistening finger back and forth beneath her nose. "Mrnmm, George," she said as she held her hand out toward him. "Want to smell? Want to taste? Nectar, George ...
nectar
. Smell it ... lick it ... suck it off my finger, George."
 

His lungs felt empty and his knees weak, and the pounding between his legs became more and more insistent until it drowned the throb of his head and he was about to step forward just one step, a short step, and take that finger in his mouth so he could suck off that sparkling fluid, but –