The Devil Next Door Read online

  And the reason for that was Macy herself.

  She was, sadly, shy and introverted and much-ignored. Much as she fantasized about being a great wolf of the courtroom, the fact was that she found it nearly impossible to give even a three-minute oral report before the class or to even speak up unless directly called on. These things, she well knew, were something she would need to work on.

  On her way into Mass Media, she steered her way through the mulling bodies in the hallway and slipped into her seat. No one noticed her outside and nobody noticed her inside. She was simply a fixture in the minds of the other students, much like a chair or a desk. She sat up in front, arranging her materials, trying to shut out all the gossip and bitching that was going on around her. Sometimes it all seemed so terribly juvenile she could barely stomach it.

  “—and if he doesn’t call tonight, that’s it—”

  “—thinks she’s got me wrapped, dude, but she’s in for a surprise—”

  “—so they blamed me, can you believe it? It’s just a little dent—”

  “—that top cost me fifty bucks, so the dumb bitch puts it in the dryer—”

  “—he told us to hand it in tomorrow, like I have the time—”

  “—if that’s what he thinks of me, he can kiss my ass—”

  And on and on and on.

  Macy could hear Shannon Kittery and her pop squad discussing something almost breathlessly and she figured it probably had something to do with hair color or shoes or something else equally as revelatory.

  “All right, all right, pipe down!” Mr. Benz said as he waltzed into class, chewing a big wad of bubble gum as usual. “Everybody in their seats or I’ll get my whip out.”

  He opened his briefcase and snapped his gum. Everyone took their seats and the commotion died to a low murmur.

  “You’re not supposed to chew gum unless you have enough to share,” Shannon Kittery giggled. A few stifled laughs broke out, mainly from her group.

  Benz strode over to her, grinning. “All I’ve got is this piece,” he said, pulling the blob of wet gum from his mouth and sticking it about an inch from the end of her nose. “But you’re welcome to it. Go ahead.”

  Shannon made a disgusted sound and shut up.

  “Anybody else want it? No? Heck with ya.” He shoved it back in his mouth and went up to the board. He ran his fingers across the bald pate atop his head and said, “My hair look okay?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Good. My hair is my life.” He sorted through some papers on his desk. “Today, I want all of you to break up into twos with your assigned study buddy and get to work on your reports. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s only the third day of school, but those reports are still due next Friday. Any questions?”

  A few hands shot up.

  “Good. Get to work.”

  Benz sat down at his desk and read a newspaper, ignoring everyone.

  Macy felt a slow painful groan well up inside her for this was the moment she dreaded most of all. For some ungodly reason, Benz had teamed her up with Chelsea Paris, one of Shannon’s ratpack. Chelsea was a varsity cheerleader and after Shannon herself, the reigning queen of the hive. Chelsea had no use for Macy and that undying love went both ways. Chelsea came over, looking like she was approaching a septic tank, and sat down at the desk nearest Macy. She crossed her arms over her impressive bosom, rolled her eyes and proceeded to look very bored.

  “I don’t like this any more than you do,” Macy told her, surprised that she had even said it.

  “Oh, spare me, you little nit,” Chelsea said, examining her lustrous auburn hair for split ends. “Spacey Macy. I’m so sure.”

  “I was just saying—”

  Chelsea held a hand up, palm towards her study buddy. “Yeah, yeah. Whatev.”

  “Knock it off,” Macy said, something hot bubbling inside her. “Bitch.”

  Chelsea looked like she’d been slapped. “What did you say?”

  Macy just licked her lips.

  She couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

  Not that it was uncalled for, really, but she wasn’t like that, she never spoke up…but suddenly it just felt right. For years now she’d wanted to tell Chelsea and Shannon and the rest of the bimbo bunch exactly what she thought of them. And now, she had. It was amazing and more than a little shocking for both girls.

  Macy sat there, staring at Chelsea, and it was crazy, but it was almost like there was a voice in her head, telling her what to do, egging her on. But not a thought voice, but an actual voice, one that was deep and confident. Haven’t you taken enough shit? it seemed to be saying to her. Haven’t you given these insufferable, vacuous, superficial little bitches every chance? You’ve been pushed and pushed and pushed and each time you’ve been kind, each time you turned the other cheek, they rewarded you with treachery. It’s high time you gave a little back, don’t you think?

  Macy smiled. “Bitch,” she said. “Rotten slutty fucking cheerleader bitch.”

  Chelsea looked like she was going to cry. “You, you can’t talk to me like that, you little—”

  “I’ll talk to a little cunt like you any way I want.”

  Both girls stood up now, facing each other.

  Everyone was waiting, anticipating bloodshed.

  Chelsea was taller, athletic, but inside she was weak and frightened like the rest of her ratpack. Terrified of rejection, of the curse of unpopularity. Afraid to be told the truth and particularly by a socially inferior nit like Macy Merchant. And Macy? For the first time in her life, there was no fear, no indecision. She stood there, smiling, her eyes the flat gray of tombstone marble. She wanted to hurt Chelsea, she wanted to draw blood and make the little cheerleading whore beg for mercy.

  The animal in her was hungry.

  “Cunt,” she said.

  “Ah, girls…” Benz said.

  Chelsea’s eyes narrowed to slits and she slapped Macy across the face.

  There were muted cheers from the ratpack.

  Macy grabbed Chelsea by the throat, yanking her right over the desk and bouncing her face over its top not once, but twice. Chelsea made a strangled sound, eyes bulging, blood running from her nose. And before anyone could intervene or hope to, Macy yanked Chelsea’s head up by a handful of hair, grabbed a sharpened No. 2 pencil off the desk, and buried it in her left cheek. A few gasps rose up as Chelsea stumbled back, a look of horror on her face, the freshly sharpened No. 2 Ticonderoga jutting from her cheek, a wet trail of blood running down her jaw. Whatever sort of shock had gripped her, it now faded, and she opened her mouth to scream. Opened it wide enough that Macy could see that the tip of the pencil had impaled her tongue, gone right through it in fact.

  “Yahhhggg,” Chelsea gagged, blood gushing from her mouth now and right down the front of her pink Old Navy tee. “Gaaahhhlllggg…”

  It was not a pleasant sound.

  Macy could smell the blood.

  It made her mouth water…

  7

  And, at the moment Macy Merchant lost control, upstairs in Mr. Cummings 5th hour BioLab, Billy Swanson waited.

  Waited.

  Because even the best plans were really a matter of timing and stealth. The new Billy knew this even if the old one was too goddamn stupid to realize such basic laws. So he waited until Cummings paired them up for their lab assignment. He waited until Cummings asked for a volunteer to pass out the dead frogs for dissection.

  “I’ll do it,” Billy offered, grinning pleasantly.

  Cummings looked surprised, but shrugged. “Go to it,” he said.

  Tommy Sidel laughed as he passed by. “Think you can handle it, dip shit?”

  Billy kept smiling. “I can handle anything, douchebag. Didn’t you know that?” He leaned in closer. “You still going out with Shannon Kittery, Tommy? Lucky boy. I think I’m going to fuck that bitch in the mouth.”

  Tommy tensed. “You’re fucking dead,” he said.

  “We’re all dead, Tommy. Take my word for it.”


  Tommy looked like he was ready to piss nails and Billy knew that after school, old Tommy star-running-back-scumbucket-pencil-dick was going to be thinking payback and it would be the worst decision his little pea brain had ever come up with. But then, everyone knew that Tommy Stick-Up-His-Ass-Sidel had all the cunning of a box of petrified camel dung and all the charm of an open sore. Yeah, he’d come looking for payback and Billy would give him a little treat he’d never forget. And when he was done cutting on him, he’d do something to that uppity prick’s corpse that would make his own mother puke.

  They were all assholes.

  They all deserved to die.

  For like Macy Merchant, something inside had suddenly changed. Whoever and whatever Billy Swanson had been all those years was gone. The worming caterpillar named Billy had crawled into its cocoon and emerged as a pissed-off butterfly with a brand new attitude, one that looked down in disgust at the mess the old Billy had made out of his life.

  There came a time, the new Billy assured him, when enough was enough. When you stopped chewing other peoples’ shit and asking for seconds.

  And that time was now.

  Because the old passive shit-eating Billy days were all over. History.

  He’d been picked on, put down, and shit upon…but no more. That was for the weak. And Billy was no longer weak.

  The supply room in which the frogs were stored was in a large, bulky stainless steel refrigerator reached by a door at the back of the classroom. The storeroom had another adjoining door which led to the chemistry classroom. It was closed, the room on the other side empty. The storeroom was where the chemicals and lab glassware and utensils were stored.

  It was also where Cummings and a few other science teachers stored their lunch bags and coats.

  Billy saw Cummings’ red Thermos.

  He smiled.

  There was a yellow metal cabinet on the other wall which read DANGER HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS! in brilliant red letters. As always, the key was in the lock. Calmly, purposefully, Billy opened it and removed the jug of sulfuric acid. He slipped on the elbow-length protective rubber gloves and did what had to be done. Afterwards, he got the frogs out. They were in heavy plastic bags. He passed one out to each lab team and placed them unceremoniously on the wax-lined dissection trays.

  It was simple.

  All things truly wonderful usually were.

  Then he took his seat. His lab partner was Lisa Korn, another much put upon student who always looked a bit ragged. She was jittery and prone to fits of crying and sudden fainting spells. She had all the earmarks of a future neurotic, a condition that was in many ways fostered and encouraged by the incompetence and blind eyes of the public school system. Billy always felt sorry for her, because he knew what her life was like. The abuse the other students handed out to her which the faculty simply preferred to ignore. By the nastier students and uppity bastards like Tommy Sidel and his posse, Lisa was known simply as Lovely Lisa Korn-Hole.

  She looked nervous as always, afraid maybe that she had done something wrong or would say something wrong if she dared open her mouth.

  “Don’t worry, Lisa,” Billy told her. “It’s all about to change.”

  She just looked at him and he smiled.

  He could smell the sex between her legs. It made him giddy.

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Taking the scalpel, he slit open the frog’s belly like it was something he’d done a thousand times. While Lisa turned an amusing shade of green, he pinned back the frog’s skin with tiny dissection needles and got to work.

  And waited for the shit to hit the fan.

  He did not wait long.

  Mr. Cummings went into the supply room and came out with his Thermos, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He made it all the way to his desk before he took his first gulp. Like he always contended, he was nothing without his caffeine and today was the day when he would finally get his fill. He raised the cup to his lips, scanning the lab teams with disinterest, and swallowed a big gulp.

  No one was really paying any attention to him at that moment.

  No one but Billy Swanson.

  Cummings drew the cup away from his lips with dawning horror. What was at first a scowl of distaste soon became a twisted rictus of agony. The coffee cup slid from his trembling fingers and shattered at his feet.

  And then everyone was suddenly paying attention.

  Cummings was staggering around and shuddering, clawing at his throat as gouts of steam wafted from his mouth like cigarette smoke. No one said a word in that split second of realization that something was very wrong with him. His glasses flew off, his eyes bulging, his face the color of Wisconsin cherries. Rivers of sweat coursed down his brow.

  “What’s he doing?” Tommy Sidel said.

  Cummings fell back against his desk, overturning a stack of graded test papers. His fingers were hooked into claws, thrashing and tearing at himself and everything in sight. “Ggggghhhhlll,” he gagged, blood running from his mouth in dark ribbons.

  “Mr. Cummings?” Tommy Sidel said, the first one on his feet. “Mr. Cummings! Are you all…right…”

  Cummings collapsed to the floor, his fingers tearing open his shirt, cutting deep red welts in his corded throat. A high, inhuman wailing came from him. He thrashed around, thumping his fists and moaning just moments before he began to vomit out great clots of steaming, bloody tissue.

  “Mr. Cummings,” Tommy said, at first trying to get a hold of him, but now backing away in disgust as gore sprayed in the air. “Mr. Cummings! Goddammit, somebody get an ambulance, a fucking doctor! He’s dying or something…”

  And he was.

  His mouth opened in a terrible continuous scream, his teeth snapping and gnashing, tearing his lips to shreds. His face was a contorted red fright mask, his tongue dangling from his lips until his teeth literally bit it in half. All the students were gathered now in a tight circle to watch his agony. He was like some nightmare cartoon run in fast motion. An evil caricature of someone possessed by a demon, hopping and flopping and moving with epileptic speed and at such impossible angles that they could hear his tendons popping and bones dislocating.

  Nobody rushed out for help.

  Not a one.

  Something was happening to them, something they did not understand or really even question. It passed from one to the other like cold germs and when it was done, the students of 5th hour Biolab were not who they had been a few moments before. They were altered, changed. They looked down at Mr. Cummings and there was not a single twinge of remorse or sympathy in them. What they felt was rage, a stupid and insane rage that consumed them. And one that needed to be voided on something, someone.

  Billy stood behind them with Lisa Korn at his side. “Watch, Lisa,” he said. “Now you’re going to see what they really are down deep.”

  Lisa just stood there, speechless, her eyes unblinking, her mouth pulled into a straight colorless line.

  Billy was smiling, smelling the raw stink of atavism coming from the crowd.

  It was delicious.

  For maybe twenty or thirty seconds, the students ringed around Cummings did not move. They stood in mock surprise at what had happened, at the dying thing at their feet. Then they began to move. Slowly, inexorably, like some machine cycling up, they started to move as one. Cummings was barely moving, but that didn’t stop them. You could see what was coming in their eyes, in the grim set of their mouths.

  There was a sudden flurry of voices that combined into a steady, flat droning:

  “—gave me a C on that report—”

  “—wouldn’t have gotten kicked off the team if it wasn’t for you—”

  “—coulda let me slide, you rotten fuck—”

  “—just had to tell my old man you saw me smoking—”

  “—always making fun of me—”

  “—flunked me—”

  “—narced on me for changing grades—”

  It all kept rolling, the petty h
atreds and accusations and suspicions until it became a sort of mindless chant, building inside each and everyone of them to a pulsing, deadly crescendo and the very air was roiling with heat and malevolence.

  And it was then that first true incident of mass insanity in Greenlawn struck. The students went after Mr. Cummings, kicking and scratching and punching and biting him. They went after him like animals with sheer bloodlust and brutality. Something inside them needed voiding and that something needed a common enemy and in their dying teacher, they found it. They crowded in, beating him to a pulp, trying to twist his limbs off and stomping his guts to sauce. They did not even slow down until their fingers were red, their mouths drooling, their clothes spattered with blood.

  And the only thing that really slapped them out of it was a voice that cried: “What in the name of hell is going on here?”

  The voice belonged to Howard Sullivan, the head custodian. Known as “Sully” to faculty and students alike, he was much loved and had been at Greenlawn High since the days of the Kennedy administration, was only a year shy of retirement, in fact. Anger was a rare commodity for Sully; he liked the kids, year after year, he honestly liked the kids. Liked their fads and music and devil-may-care attitudes. He said they made him feel young and custodian at the high school was the only job he could land where he never really had to grow up.

  But today, Sully was mad.

  He was shocked and sickened and beyond words. He waded right into the mass of students, pulling them away from Mr. Cummings, actually shoving them out of his path.

  When he got a good look at Cummings’ corpse, he looked at the circle of students around him. He saw their vacant eyes, their grinning mouths, all that blood on them…smeared, splashed, dripping. Tears rolled from his eyes. “Kids…Jesus Christ, what…what the hell are you doing here? What have you done? What the fuck have you done?”

  The students pressed in closer.

  Sully looked from face to face, saw what was coming, tried to get away, but it was just too late.

  They fell on him.

  Like lions falling on a gazelle.