The Ghoul Next Door

NANCY KILPATRICK

He’s a ghoul all right, but he ain’t the only freak in this neighborhood. That’s a fact. Take my word for it.

There’s hairy old Jack down the block, for instance. Raise the dander on anybody’s neck, though come to think of it I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him lately. And the Laveaus at the corner? Bunch of deadbeats, if you ask me. Him and the wife cement themselves to the front porch all night long every summer, guzzling some concoction she brews, staring off into space. How they manage the payments on their “crypt” as they call it, that’s the question. Lucinda Varney next door—face of an angel and that’s where the connection to heaven ends. Don’t get me wrong. I love that girl dearly, as if she was my own daughter—if I had a daughter, which I don’t—and I was her natural mother, but I’ve watched her suck in more than one fellow, wearing skirts up around her . . . But I guess you wanna hear about the ghoul.

He come to our neighborhood last year, ’round the time the lake swallowed up the Francis girl. Let me see . . . It was Halloween, All Saints’, some of them ’round here call it.

The ghoul—his name’s Henry, just so we all know who we’re talking about—didn’t bring much, only a heavy-looking flesh-colored backpack. No suitcases, boxes of pots and pans. You know, no household things. ’Course, it’s only a room he’s got, at Liz Nedrob’s. Lets the one at the back. Not much bigger than a broom closet, but he was alone, far as I could tell, though I’m just a wrinkly, so what do I know.

Anyway, this young fella moves in on my other side and that’s the last anybody sees of him till Thanksgiving, the day everybody stuffs themselves on bird flesh and lives to regret it.

I wouldn’t do it, and I’m one of the worst old fools you’re likely to meet. But I’m no tofu or whatever eater, so let’s get that straight.

I sit here most days and well into the night so I get a pretty accurate picture of the comings and goings—passes the time. Not that I’m a busybody, mind you. It’s just that I’m retired now—acted in the silent films, I did, and even a couple of early talkies, though they cut out most of my lines. I don’t get around much anymore so there’s plenty of hours to stare out the window. Though I couldn’t care less how people live their lives. Between them and their maker. ’Course, that’s how I first seen him eating raw flesh. The ghoul, that is.

It was after midnight and one of them bitter nights when what they call the wind chill factor puts you well into the deep freeze. Naturally there was nobody outdoors, man nor beast. I was watchin’ a bit of television—them housewives that are so desperate, they’re right on the money, ain’t they?—when I glanced out the window like you do. Well, it was dark and lonely out there, wind bashing trees, a touch o’ snow tornado-swirling like’n it’d drag you down to hell given half a chance. I was surprised to see old man Jack’s big furry wolf dog—also named Jack; don’t that beat all?—taking a stroll across the street. While one o’ my old rivals gnashed her teeth in a Polident commercial, I watched Jack head for the alley beside my house, probably following the scent of some foxy bitch.

Out o’ the corner of my eye I see something movin’, a shade within range of the streetlight. The hound’s at the mouth o’ the black alley between me and Liz’s when he stops dead in his tracks. Tail goes rigid. Ears and lips pull back. He lifts his muzzle then turns it this way and that, like he’s sniffing the air and catches a whiff of somethin’ he ain’t sure he likes.

A gust comes outta nowhere and whips branches every which way and knocks over a garbage can. But that old wolf-dog stands rooted to the spot like he’s froze. Suddenly his fur springs straight up from his body. I can’t hear him but I can see he’s howlin’ like he’s seen a ghost. Before I know what’s got him spooked, some dark shadow snakes outta the night and snatches Jack up.

Well, I couldn’t believe my eyes, which have deteriorated real bad, I’ll grant you, but they still do the job. I watched awhile, but there was nothing more to see. ’Course, I thought I imagined the whole thing. I was about to turn back and switch the channel in case they were showing one of my old black-and-whites when a car tears up the street. For a split second the beam of one headlight catches a pale thin face and a crazy red eye just where Jack was standin’. It was him, all right. Henry. Likely having hisself a feast of dog flesh.

Now that’s sickenin’, I’ll grant you, but the things I’ve seen in my time. And the young people of late. Bloodless wonders, shrouded head to toe in black cow hide, pasty faced, looking like they’d swallowed a gallon of embalming fluid for breakfast. . . .

Well, I won’t go on. Let’s just say there’s plenty of stories if you wanna hear ’em.

Anyways, the second time I seen the ghoul at his trade was just after Christmas. Come to think of it, maybe he only gets hungry on bona fide holidays. Pigs out like the rest of the human race.

This time there was snow on the ground, oh, six inches or so. You know how bright it looks around Christmas? The holiday lights plus the white covering everything? A little like daytime so things is pretty clear.

What I’m getting at is, if I had my doubts, now I was sure.

Sure as I am that there’s a condo of sorts waiting down at the cemetery with my name chiseled on the mailbox.

He come out of Liz’s wearing a brown fur coat and scarf up around his face, so he stood out real nice against the crystal snow. I watched him hunch his shoulders against the cold, then head on down the street. All of a sudden he stops. I look to where he’s staring across the road. It’s the Laveaus’ youngest.

All bundled in a new peppermint-striped snowsuit, cute as that youngster can be, building a snow-something in front o’ the house.

I can’t for the life of me remember if it’s a boy or girl.

They give the kid one of them names so’s you’re never sure. Pat, it was, now that I think on it. Anyway, when I look back at Henry to see what he’s up to, he’s nowhere to be seen. Naturally this makes me uneasy. Mary Laveau’s flat-featured face appears at her window, checking on the little one, then she’s gone. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the tyke turns its head, then starts toddling toward the burned-out garage next to the Laveaus’. Well, I was fit to be tied. I waited a bit but when the kid didn’t come out I got on the horn to Mary. Damn line was busy and I know she’s got call-waitin’. People talk too much on the phone, that’s what’s wrong with the world today.

Anyway, before I could get through to her, I checked the street again. I was at a bad angle but it looked to me like a fat candy cane jutting out from the charred doorway. I took a gander through my field glasses and, sure enough. But by then Mary’s on the sidewalk, searching all over hell and gone for her young ’un. Never seen that woman so animated. Wasn’t long before she spotted the snowsuit.

The police came. An ambulance. Wasn’t enough left to cart off to the morgue, I’ll tell you. All the neighbors were out there giving statements. I would’ve told what I knew but nobody asked. They never do. And every time I tried the Laveaus’, the damn phone was busy or the answering message machine thing came on, and I ain’t about to talk into one of them squawking monsters. I didn’t feel right, but I was starting to wonder just what I did see, and I figured the cops knew what they were doing. It was up to them to finger the ghoul. At least, that’s how I explained it to myself back then.

Well, time passed, as it does, and everything died down so much it just kinda faded, if you know what I mean. I didn’t see Henry so I didn’t know if they’d caught him or he’d moved on or what. Until tonight. Valentine’s Day. Right on schedule.

Just after sunset, as per usual, saucy Lucinda comes flying down her front steps, all painted up for a night on the town. I swear that girl lives in another world. She grins up at the moon, which is full and clear, then starts down the walk, but she don’t get two steps, though, when I see young Henry appear from between the hawthorn hedges. It’s like he’s been stalking her. Biding his time.

Now Lucinda’s a pretty thing, tiny, a bit too thin, but she takes after her folks. And modern, you might say. Of the “me instead of you” generation. I was good friends with her mom and dad before they were killed one morning by some maniac. Streets aren’t safe, I tell you. Anyway, she inherited a pile and she’s independent in other ways, too, but they made me a godmother of sorts and I promised the Varneys years ago if anything happened to them, I’d keep an eye on their girl. I was already feeling a bit guilty about Mary’s offspring, so naturally when I spot Henry I start to worry.

Before Lucinda gets a chance to say or do anything he walks right up to her, bold as brass, takes her by the arm like they’d knowed each other a lifetime, and leads her back into the house.

Now Lucinda ain’t the brightest female. She not only don’t put up a fuss, she licks her lips and practically yanks Henry up the steps. They disappear inside lickety-split.

I’m no prude. I was young once. I remember what it’s like to be hungry. But that Varney girl, she’s starving. Had to have been to go with Henry.

Well, I consider what to do. I try phonin’ Lucinda. Her voice on her blasted voice mail sounds like some disembodied spirit. There ain’t but one thing left and that’s to pick myself up and get on over there.

Moving’s not as easy at it once was for me. The old joints squeak a bit. Ticker’s winding down. Took me a while to drag myself down my steps and up hers. I knock. Nobody answers. I let myself in.

Haven’t been here since old Varney invited me over one night to admire his collection. Photographs, it was. Ancient tombstones, mausoleums of the past, cemeteries in general. He was an oddball, all right. Anyway, looks like a century since anybody’s bothered cleaning, judging by the cobwebs. Lucinda doesn’t take the care with her home that she does with her appearance, that’s clear.

I hear a sound in the basement and figure that’s where he’s got her. No use hollering, that’d just scare him off. I head on down the twenty-five cellar steps—counted each one. Took my mind off the agony.

The cellar’s windowless, dingy concrete, with a big oil furnace stationed in the middle and shadows clinging to all the corners. It’s in the same musty state as the rest of the house. I spot a door and hear a thump behind it. Might as well open it. I come this far and wouldn’t want to waste my energy.

Well, I’ll be damned. If it ain’t Lucinda and Henry, curled up together on an old cot, tight as triffids. She’s got those pearly whites sunk into his neck and he’s gnawing away happily on her inner thigh.

“Lucinda!” I growl, in the deep tone I was famous for in my movies. I thought they’d both hit the ceiling.

She blinks a couple times, recognizes me. If looks could kill. To her credit, she thinks the better of expressing that and instead gets embarrassed. She opens her mouth but before there’s a chance of anything coming out I tell her, “Get on upstairs. I wanna talk to this fella. Go on, now!”

Like I say, Lucinda’s long on looks and short on brains, but she’s got enough sense to disappear.

Henry stares up at me, half defiant, half terrified, about to bolt or attack. “Calm down, son,” I say. “We gotta talk.”

That doesn’t put him at ease any. My bones are tired from all that climbing so I sit myself on the edge of the bed. The kid scuttles away like I’m some human-sized insect. “Now look here,” I begin. “I been watchin’ you.”

His eyes get big. The thought never occurred to him.

“Saw you the night old Jack disappeared. And the Laveau kid. And now with Lucinda.”

He seems kinda haunted by bad memories but stands up for himself. “I wasn’t gonna hurt her.”

“And I wasn’t born yesterday. I seen what you were doin’.”

His mouth twists into that petulant look kids get that makes the rest of us wanna swat ’em. “She’s no angel,” he says. True, but a right poor defense, in my books.

“Lucinda may not be innocent, but she’s one of us and you ain’t.”

Well, saying that hurts him and that makes me feel guilty. After all, I guess in my heart of hearts I don’t believe he’s all that different. Only, you know, a bit ghoulish. “Son, you just can’t move into a tight-knit community like this and upload—is that what you kids say?—your peculiar ways on everybody. The neighbors won’t stand for it. We got our rules, like everybody else, and when folks choose to live together they gotta cooperate and learn to get along. You can’t go preying on your neighbors. It just ain’t done.”

Well, that appears to be a new thought to him. He considers it and nods a bit. I figure I’m getting through.

“Now you and Lucinda,” I say. “What’re your intentions there?”

The kid shifts a bit but thinks it over before answering. “I love her,” he blurts. “A lot. We have things in common.”

Yeah, I think, me and Frankenstein got things in common, too. Both of us could use a face-lift.

“We’re getting married.”

Well, this is news. “When’d you two decide that?”

“Tonight. Lucinda wants you at the wedding. After all, you’re like a mother to her.”

I grunt. Truth is, it’d solve quite a few problems. The kid will have to grow up, take responsibility. Learn to fit into the community. They’ll live next door so I can keep an eye on things. And if there’s one female capable of settling somebody like him down, it’s probably Lucinda. Whether or not he can settle her down’s another matter.

Maybe I’m getting mushy in my dotage but the idea of a wedding seems right. He’s a ghoul, a young ghoul to be sure and, yes, he’d made a few mistakes, but haven’t we all.

We’ve never had a flesh eater living among us and it’ll take some getting used to, no doubt about that. Hell, when I first moved here it caused quite a stir. But the more I think about it, the more I realize he’ll fit right in, once everybody gets over their fear of the unknown.

Well, the wedding’s set for the night of Mother’s Day, as kind of a thank-you to me. You know the way kids in love think—if I’d turned Henry in right off, they wouldn’t’ve met. Or, as Lucinda put it, “Mummy, we owe it all to you.”