Neighborly

By R. R. Coleman

He should have never been born.

Nobody wanted him.

When redemption is out of the question, what's left?

Soaked in a loveless childhood filled with alcohol, abuse, and poverty, he learned to fend for himself and dominate the weak. Women were easy prey. They thought he played the part of the "bad boy" perfectly.

Remy wasn't playing.

When he joined the military to become a killing machine, his passion for his job frightened all those around him, even his superiors. That career didn't last long, and the way the army forced him out left a bad taste in his mouth.

Should he just drop out of society?

On a little piece of land, which Remy believed would be his salvation, none was to be found. An old woman has gotten under his skin, and he just might need to do something about her.

She's not what he thinks.

You'll love this psychological thriller, because these twists are really twisted, and in an epic struggle of evil vs. more evil, the ending will leave you breathless.

Get it now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wind Lark Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985669206

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I’m going to have to kill him.

The statement left her cold. Even though the room was overly warm, and her legs were sticking together from the humidity, she felt an iceberg form in her stomach. He wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t playing freaking Sicilian, pretending his heritage made him something he wasn’t. He was dead serious. He was seriously considering killing the guy.

I’ll end up in jail before this thing is over. He looked at her. She could see his nostrils flaring slightly as the moon lit his face. She waited quietly. I just don’t know what else to do.

They lay next to each other, not speaking. He reached for her hand, and she held his tightly. The minutes passed. The dog got up and paced nervously, his toenails clicking on the laminate floor. Eventually, her husband’s breathing became a steady rhythm, and he began snoring lightly. The dog settled again on the floor next to his master, and he, too, began to snore. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling wondering when the whole thing was going to blow.

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

Billy chased the ball, laughing gleefully. The sun warmed the top of his brown hair and his skin had already begun to turn a deep tan. His fat little legs pumped up and down as he ran after the red and white polka dot ball. His senses barely registered the sweet smell of the roses and lavender from his mother’s garden. The ball kept bouncing steadily down the little hill, and he kept chasing it. It rolled closer and closer to the edge of the yard, the forbidden territory, the place where Mommy and Daddy told him he could never go. He stopped and curiously watched as the ball crossed the imaginary line and rolled to a stop near an old maple tree. It rested in some tall grass next to some pretty blue wildflowers. He stuck a finger in his mouth, took it out again and looked at it with some interest. It tasted kind of weird. Dirty and salty. He shrugged and put the finger back in forgetting all about the worm he had played with earlier that morning. The worm that had stretched longer and longer as he carried it about and finally stopped moving. His mommy made him put that worm under a leaf so it could rest. But he had forgotten all about that slimy stretchy worm as he continued to suck on his finger and stare at his ball.

Remy Crowder watched out the window. He could feel the little ball of anger beginning to grow inside him. It always started out as a tiny, hard tumor, white hot. Sometimes it grew larger and larger until it shattered in his brain making him see red spots and do bad things. Today, it grew a little and smoldered. That nasty little kid with those fat little legs was thinking about stepping foot on his property. His property. It was his GODDAMN property. Remy peered at the boy, considering the creases in his plump legs. Not stringy like Remy’s had been when he was two, but fat and bouncy, and fucking happy. The kid had fucking happy legs, and they were going to step on his goddamn property. His daddy left him that property.

His daddy left him.

That property was all his daddy had, and when he died, Remy got to have it. This was as it should be. After all, Remy was the only one in the family that understood the value of that property. He knew that with property came power. Ownership was power, and this property was his on account that his father had died and left it to him.

Remy pressed closer to the window, impatiently shoving the curtain aside.

Come on you little bastard. Step on it. Go get your skanky red ball. Go ahead and step on my goddamn property, he muttered. He squinted and waited. He knew it was just a matter of time before the little runt did it. He couldn’t help it. Kids just couldn’t help it. Remy took a swig of his beer. The child moved sideways along the property line, still staring at his ball. Here he goes. Here he fucking goes. Billy kept creeping sideways, not getting any closer, but trying to figure out a way to get the ball without crossing that imaginary boundary. Goddamn it. Goddamn the damn tree. Remy slammed the beer down on the counter. The child was no longer in view. An oak tree had obscured Remy’s line of vision. Son of a bitch, where is the little runt?

BILLY, GET BACK FROM THERE! Jenny called for her only child, fear tightening in her chest. Billy was too close to the property line. She saw his new red ball resting near the trunk of the huge maple. Billy, don’t worry about the ball, we’ll get a new one. Come on back and play with Riley. He’s lonely. Billy’s fat legs turned around, dejected. He plodded his way back to his mommy and the old yellow lab. Riley thumped his tail against the porch, welcoming his little pal. Billy slumped down on the step and pulled on the dog’s ear absentmindedly. Riley tolerated the abuse with a sloppy doggy smile.

The sun moved slowly across the sky as Riley and Billy spent the afternoon playing in the yard. Jenny patiently weeded her coveted garden. Billy surreptitiously glanced at his new ball, lying patiently in the grass, waiting to be played with. Even Riley looked at it longingly, even though if he touched it he would be a bad dog. Maybe when Daddy came home it would be alright. Maybe Daddy could get his ball. Daddy didn’t seem to be afraid of the bad man. The bad man just made Daddy mad. Mommy was afraid of the bad man, though. That confused Billy because Mommy was never afraid of anything. That time when they were camping and that dirty, nasty, snarling dog came up to their campfire and scared Billy, Mommy ran at it screaming and waving the cook pot. She banged on it with a wooden spoon and the nasty dog snarled at her. Mommy didn’t back down, she just kept screaming at it until it turned and ran away. Mommy was very brave. Even Daddy thought so, but Mommy wasn’t brave about the bad man. If she was, she would have gotten his nice new ball. Instead, she just left it there and made vague promises about getting a new one.

The sound of tires crunching in the driveway broke Billy’s thoughts. He looked up and a smile of pure glee spread across his face making his chubby cheeks pop out. Jenny glanced up and saw her adorable cherub smiling. Daddy was home, and Billy would cheer up. Billy was David’s life. David never expected to have children. The doctor’s said it would be next to impossible, but there he was, the little miracle baby, and David’s reason for living, working, and just plain old getting up in the morning. David opened the car door and unfolded his lanky frame from the seat. He grabbed his lunchbox and coffee mug and started up the driveway. Little Billy’s chubby legs pumped their way to Daddy. Riley struggled to get up and followed the boy, his tail slowly wagging. Remy watched from the window, draining the last of the twelve-pack, the little fire ball growing.

CHAPTER TWO

Remy Crowder was born twenty-four years ago to the day. He wasn’t wanted. He was the very last thing his father wanted. His mother didn’t know what she wanted, and she didn’t have time to think about it because she died three minutes before he was born. The doctors said it was a miracle that they were able to save the child, and they were sorry about the loss of the mother. His father just grunted and turned the baby over to his ten-year-old sister, Delia. She was not equipped to raise the baby, but she did the best that she could. Remy grew, despite the lack of proper nutrition and sanitary conditions, but he grew slightly twisted, in every way imaginable. When his sister brought the baby bunny home to try to raise herself, Remy ran over it with his second-hand big wheel, breaking the bunny’s back. When Delia was sixteen, she ran away from home with her boyfriend Buck, but not before six-year-old Remy set fire to the backseat of Buck’s car. Buck got ahold of him and beat the little kid within an inch of his life. Remy remembered not to piss off the strong ones, but you could certainly fuck with the weak.

Remy grew up despite the lack of care and an alcoholic, non-existent father. He learned to make bologna cups in the microwave. He figured out that if you microwave a slice of bologna just right, it curls up into a cup shape that can be filled with ketchup. With this knowledge he knew he could survive. His father was addicted to alcohol, Captain Crunch cereal and bologna, American cheese, and mayonnaise sandwiches. Remy could always count on those things being in the house. On good days his father came home from work at the plant with a bucket of Kentucky Fried chicken. They would sit together on the porch, and his father would tell Remy that the land was the most important thing. They owned land. A landowner was a king, and they were kings of their property. A king never let anyone poach on their land. Poachers would be killed. His father told him that this land would belong to his sister and Remy someday, and they would be a king and a queen, too. Remy had other plans, and they did not include a queen.

On bad days, Remy learned quickly to climb the old oak tree in the corner. When he heard the car door slam at 6:30 in the evening and recognized the stumbling footsteps of an inebriated father, Remy hightailed it to the tree. Out of sight was out of mind, and he could escape a thrashing.

Remy made it through elementary school sticking to his philosophy to avoid the strong and dominate the weak. His teachers tried to get him the help he needed, but it never seemed to work out for him. Remy was not really one for the nurturer. High school helped him hone his skill at father avoidance, domination of the lesser built, and a new joy; screwing women. Most girls found him fascinating. He was not unattractive, and he had that bad boy aura plastered all over him. The girls were quickly smitten with him, but they learned their mistake the hard way. Remy’s favorite game was to make sweet lovin’ to them, and at the young lady’s climatic moment he would take great pleasure in hurting her exquisitely. He never went far enough for them to tell, for in their embarrassment was secrecy. That was the other thing that Remy learned. Embarrassment is a powerful tool.

After high school, Remy joined the Army. He figured he would be highly successful at becoming a well-oiled killing machine. He imagined himself a sniper, but the thought of a clean kill didn’t appeal to him. The Army had a dim view of Remy. He actually scared them, so they found a discreet way of removing him from the armed forces.

Remy returned to the homestead to find that the land next to his beloved property had been sold, and houses had been built up around it. Instead of the pristine kingdom he had envisioned himself ruling, he now lived on a patch of land in the midst of a fucking subdivision, or ant farm as his father had called it. He found his father spending his retirement sitting on the porch, staring at the house going up across the way. His father was drunk, of course. But this time it was different. His father wasn’t a mean drunk. His father was a pathetic drunk. It sickened Remy. A couple of months after Remy returned, his father died. Apparently his father was drunk and had fallen in the shower. It seemed that his father had hit his head on the tub faucet, and the blow killed him. If the truth be known, his father hit his head repeatedly on the tub faucet until it killed him. Either way, father was dead, and Remy was satisfied.

Now it was Remy’s turn to sit on the porch and watch the damn famdamily across the way in their new subdivision house. They were in his sight constantly, mocking him, poaching on his goddamn land. It was beginning to annoy Remy. The worst part was he had to go to work during the day, and he couldn’t watch over his domain. His father’s boss at the plant gave Remy his father’s place on the line. Oh, flippin’ happy day. But at least he could afford beer and bologna and on a good day, some Kentucky Fried chicken. Tonight was a Kentucky Fried Chicken night. He settled on the porch with his bucket and a brew and watched the little scene unfold in front of him.

The bitch had on white short shorts and a pink polo shirt. She was barefoot. Her tanned legs were smooth and very shapely. He grew hard thinking of giving it to her then hurting her when he was finished. The fat legged little boy was squishing play dough on the deck while his mom was grilling what looked and smelled like steak. Goddamn rich bitch could afford steak. She’ll probably cook it well done and ruin a perfectly good piece of meat. He knew bitches like that. They ruin everything. Her long blonde hair caught the evening sun and glinted like gold. He hated her. The back door swung open and her husband came out onto the deck. He was carrying plates, and he began to set the table while his wife cooked. What a fucking weakling, doing the woman’s work. He ought to punch that man until he was hamburger.

Remy started on his second piece of chicken and another beer. The family across the way moved to sit down to dinner. He sucked the grease off the end of the leg bone watching the family intently. The faggot looked up from his dinner and saw Remy watching. A