Next Door Page 2

quiet was like a graveyard. He hated it.

  On the upper landing Kat paused. It would be kind of nice, he reflected, if something were anticipating his return.

  Hunched on his bed, Kat brooded about the humiliating day. Eventually the poor fellow, the beleaguered brunt of ridicule, heard voices — Dad griping about the bike blocking the garage; Mom defending that the car didn’t need to go in the garage when it was going to The Hardwarehouse — and felt less alone, yet largely detached.

  He joined his parents for a quick supper of canned ravioli. The grownups discussed dream vacations, traveling the globe. They loved exotic locales, thrived on fantasy treks to remote cities the frugal down-to-earth folks would never cough up the dough to visit. These fictional jaunts were less fuss, more convenient.

  Kat, blissfully, was not a participant. They had their life, their system. He was a fringe element, a temporary component.

  “How was school?” his mother perfunctorily quizzed. As if just greeting her son.

  “The same.” His usual comment.

  They cheerily departed. He almost asked them to remain.

  Solitude. A reprieve. Simultaneously traumatic.

  He roamed to the den. “Wish I had some candy,” the adolescent grumbled.

  Mom didn’t buy any. “You’re unwilling to give it out. And you’re not in the Halloween spirit. Besides, it gets caught in your braces.”

  For once he had a craving, was motivated to search cupboards and cabinets in vain. Everyone else had candy. For once he yearned to be a regular kid.

  What was happening to him? Was he transforming like a vampire? Contorting and reshaping like a werewolf? He rubbed his forehead. The skin was warm. No fever. No clammy undead chill of a corpse. Why the sudden voracious appetite for Halloween treats?

  “There has to be a piece somewhere!” he ranted as he rummaged behind sofa cushions, extracting coins, a triple-A battery, the new wristwatch he misplaced. Emotionally (out of character for him), Kat tossed the items back and reburied them.

  An idea glimmered. He desperately sank to the rug.

  With depraved persistence, the wretch found himself pawing a dark crevice. What folly had he succumbed to? What disreputable indulgence had led to this condition? It was loathsome, deplorable. But he couldn’t refrain, couldn’t abstain. The nit was enthralled by a sugar frenzy.

  In triumph, slouched on the couch, he gnawed a stiff braid of licorice dredged under the sofa and flipped television channels. Nothing scary.

  As if Hollywood Special Effects could affect him! He was immune, impervious to the drama, theatrics, and buckets of red goop.

  Kat glumly wished he were like Chester, but couldn’t help that he considered the medium of video games vapid and repetitive.

  He didn’t see the point.

  Silence was audible, a sinister presence. Bored, queasy from his snack, the teen wandered to his room. Neat and tidy. Four bare walls, minus the clutter of posters and traffic signs that dominated the sanctums of normal kids.

  A laptop computer on a desk was the exclusive defining factor.

  A mere tool from the perspective of his parents. An instrument of justice according to Angela.

  She registered the ghost account as a joke, using a fake identity. Her plan was to E-mail anonymous tips — partially-true boldly-exaggerated fibs about classmates who wronged them — over the grapevine, the student directory.

  When she developed a conscience and abandoned the scheme, then abandoned him by moving away, he resurrected The Tattler in her honor.

  It was something to do.

  A shame there was no-one to punish. Unless he wanted to mock the whole school. They deserved it, he sulked, for laughing at his expense. But the task would require too much effort and frankly wasn’t worth it. Why should he be bothered by what a bunch of punkers and snobs thought, anyway?

  An ear-rending squall.

  “Them again.” He focused toward the window. What went on in that house?

  He had assumed for a while the sounds were harmless. All babies howled. No-one truly imagined the people next door could be capable of terrible deeds, no matter how inconsiderate, how unneighborly. Some of the shrieks were prolonged, distressing. He mentioned them to his mother. She acted perplexed.

  The squeals, worse than a cat brawl, ceased.

  A dead calm resumed.

  To erase the void, and ironically drown further screams, Kat selected a Screaming Meemies tune on his laptop. The Alt Rockers made him feel close to Angela, who worshipped the band.

  She was a force that swept blithely in and out of Kat’s world. After Angela, he and Chester (buddies since Kindergarten) rarely hung out.

  It wasn’t her fault, Kat stubbornly maintained. It was inevitable. They had little in common. A history of being together for no particular reason.

  Chessman, the title Kat sarcastically dubbed his pal as a game fanatic, progressed to virtual obsession. Kat’s superiors (afraid they would have to spring for innumerable gizmos) labeled video games too violent. Kat was not permitted to play, even at Chester’s house. This might have doomed their tenuous bond, if Kat didn’t detest inane pursuits to begin with. And if a new friend, who also sneered at gamers, didn’t coercively demand he relinquish other ties.

  He had been overwhelmed by Angela’s bossiness. A guy of limited opinions could be swayed, manipulated, bullied by a girl. And not because he was weak, but because she was strong. She made him swear to be loyal. And then she left.

  A few brusque E-mails. Her most recent, typed hastily a year after the move, riddled with careless mistakes, confessed that she’d defected. She was popular, surrounded by friends with pleasant attitudes.

  “Evrythng dosn’t have to be negativ or bland.” He must’ve read the statement a thousand times.

  She wished him luck in locating his path. He hadn’t heard from her since.

  She was his best friend, but she wrote him off like he meant nothing.

  “I am nothing,” he intoned, staring glazedly at a mirror. “My parents don’t know me. My friends don’t like me. I can’t even see myself.”

  His features were blank, generic, unrecognizable.

  “I have nothing to live for, and I’m not even suicidal. That’s how apathetic I am.”

  He cranked the volume higher. Wincing, he jabbed the power switch.

  “Mom and Dad are right. I don’t like anything. I have no personality. I practically don’t exist.”

  Such was his dilemma. He was an outcast, a guy who didn’t connect with his relatives or his generation, yet conversely wanted to feel accepted. Just needed someone else to be there.

  He recalled the sign and ventured to the window, breath bated, a knot in his stomach. The display hadn’t altered. He exhaled in relief. “I did pester the fogies for a cobra, which was flat-out refused. Maybe this’ll be something they’d approve.”

  Thumping downstairs, he exited the house and skirted a row of shrubbery dividing properties.

  The teen strode swiftly to inspect a jumbo-sized pickle jar with holes punched in the lid. Cramming the interior was a dark serpent. “Cool, a black mamba!” It was too good to refuse.

  “What’s the catch?” He glanced at the eerie edifice, biting his bottom lip. Not a soul in sight.

  The gloam-drenched exterior had an unhealthy mildewed shade of decay, dingier than previously perceived.

  And why did it say pets plural? Was this the last one? Kat smirked with unexercised muscles. What fortune!

  Claiming the prize, he tucked it below an arm and dashed to the sidewalk, past the ragged hedge he was supposed to trim a month ago. A subliminal stirring provoked him to falter. He endeavored to descry the source, examining dense jungle. “Huh.” He shrugged and continued over his lawn.

  Giggling deviously, Kat slipped through a yawning doorway, trotted up the staircase, then sat on his bed to ogle the jar.

  He couldn’t f
athom his incredible serendipity. It was exactly what he wanted! He would stash the snake in the closet when his folks were around.

  What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. Angie’s Rule.

  “Mom said I needed a hobby. The question is not whether I can keep you, but how am I gonna feed you?” he murmured.

  Balancing the fragile container on the brink of his desk, the nerd descended whistling (awaking dormant tendons, honing a torpid skill) to raid the fridge for suitable snake chow. Jello, casserole, coffeecake, split-pea soup, a lump of cheese.

  Prying a sealed plastic bowl, Kat grimaced. “I’ll try this, whatever it is.”

  He bounded upstairs, unscrewed the cover cautiously and poured the snake’s mystery fodder. Or tried to. He tapped the dish to the rim, praying the serpent wouldn’t strike. A congealed wedge toppled. Kat twisted the lid tight.

  He sat on his bed, arms folded. His enthusiasm expired.

  Pinging the side of the jar he queried, “Hey, you alive?”

  The coiled pet abruptly plastered its upper torso to the clear wall of the vessel. Kat witnessed a row of suctioning mouths along its base and squawked, reflexively slapping the cylinder. It struck the edge of an iron shelf. Brittle glass fissured. Shards rained. An eelish creature plopped the floor and unraveled.

  “Gross, a giant leech monster!” Kat jumped onto his mattress. While specifically fond of snakes, he possessed an irrational phobia regarding slugs. This beast had to be at least a six-footer! He watched the mammoth worm squirm beneath his bed.

  Shivering, Kat lunged across the room, landed near the door. Yanking the portal,