She Lies Close Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Leave us a review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. Teenage Boys Descend Upon Me

  2. That Sac Was the Worst of Surprises

  3. Shrink This Woman

  4. The Skin Peeled Back

  5. A Game of Hedge-Clipper Tag

  6. Peace Be With Your Vagina

  7. Ferret Out the Asshole

  8. I Know More Than I Should

  9. House Burned to the Ground

  10. Twist the Handle on My Front Door

  11. We Don’t Bite

  12. Pussy Puss

  13. A Fucking Marble in the Mouth

  14. Oh, That Kind of Monster

  15. The Psychic Party

  16. Emptying a Bottle of Bleach on Them

  17. Exploding Head Syndrome

  18. Eat Someone’s Whole Head

  19. A Shitty Alternate Version of the Velveteen Rabbit

  20. Holed up in a Log Cabin off Grid

  21. Cross-Species Love

  22. And What Did You Do?

  23. A Starchy, Scratchy Grave

  24. Occasionally I Have a Hula Hoop Around My Neck

  25. This Won’t Hurt a Bit

  26. My Vagina Was Made in China

  27. A Crowbar, a Credit Card, and a Hammer

  28. Lead Glass, Chipped Bone, and a Splash of Antifreeze

  29. Fuck Lynyryd Skynyrd and Their “Free Bird” Nonsense

  30. His Fingernails Dug in

  31. The Shitfaced Toddler Has Fallen Asleep on a Pile of Stuffed Animals

  32. Brand New Tattoo Engraved in My Skin, Just Beginning to Bleed

  33. Ripped Open This Dimension to Ooze Blood Into My Car

  34. A Woman’s Voice Says to My Ass

  35. A Middle-Aged Monster

  36. Demons Sent From Underground Hell-Caves

  37. The Boy-Doped Silliness I Smoked

  38. You Broke My Nose

  39. Lose a Few Toes

  40. Play, Pause, Rewind, Play

  41. Copper and Iron and Animal

  42. Are My Socks Wet?

  43. Some Sort of Explosive Device

  44. The Porn Cop

  45. Filthy, Lazy Crybabies

  46. They Fed on Him

  47. I’ve Been Hiding My Penis

  48. Ripped From My Mother’s Womb

  49. Trap the Warm, Struggling Body Inside a Plastic Storage Bin and Fasten the Lid

  50. A Shadow Database

  51. When the Stovetop Is Flaming

  52. They Know Who Did It

  53. Fishbowl Glass Gems Go Flying

  54. Wiggling His Fingers Into Latex Gloves

  55. Hijacking Our Behavior

  56. Put on a Diaper and Head to the O.R.

  57. A Hysterical Bitch Who Had No Faith

  58. Judge, Jury, and Executioner

  59. Do. Not. Fall. Asleep.

  60. Her Vertebrae Were Yanked by a Hook

  61. A Twisted Scavenger Hunt

  62. Bring on the Drugs and Drag Racing

  63. Under My Skin

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  “Every curve, every twist takes you further down the rabbit hole. Sharon Doering has written a crackling debut that should be on your 2020 list!”

  SAMANTHA DOWNING

  “If you love Gillian Flynn, you will love this book”

  Manhattan Book Review

  “An explosive, darkly comedic thriller that belongs on every to-read list. Scrupulously plotted… She Lies Close is a live wire of a debut”

  MARY KUBICA

  “Grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let go. A fast-paced, taut, psychological mind-bender that hits all the right notes”

  D.J. PALMER

  “Dark, searing, and raw… A no-holds-barred debut that builds tension and suspicion, culminating in an ending that will shake you to your core”

  SAMANTHA M. BAILEY

  “A chilling twister of a thriller...

  Smart, compelling, and darkly funny”

  LISA UNGER

  “Packed with chills, and an unexpected ending that readers won’t see coming… A writer to watch”

  JOANNA SCHAFFHAUSEN

  “The perfect blend of dark writing, gripping characters and gasping twists that will keep you reading late into the night”

  SHERRI SMITH

  “A terrifying yet deeply affecting exploration of how far a mother will go to protect her children. Fascinating and unforgettable”

  SOPHIE LITTLEFIELD

  “A beautifully written debut thriller – vivid storytelling at a breath-taking pace”

  ALICE BLANCHARD

  “A gritty and engrossing thriller…

  You’ll be trying to both savor every word and turn the page as fast as possible!”

  JENEVA ROSE

  “A psychological thriller unlike any you’ve read before. A perfect mixture of chilling suspense and twisting family secrets”

  JAMIE FREVELETTI

  SHE

  LIES

  CLOSE

  SHE

  LIES

  CLOSE

  SHARON DOERING

  TITAN BOOKS

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  She Lies Close

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789094190

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094206

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First Titan edition: September 2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2020 Sharon Doering

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  TITAN BOOKS.COM

  For Marc,

  my muse

  For Jon, Sam, and Ed,

  my heroes

  PROLOGUE

  He’d brought a spade instead of a shovel. It had been a stupid, panicked mistake. There’d been a gang of dirt-breaking tools, all wood-handled and rusted, leaning against the wall in the garage, and he’d grabbed one without thinking.

  Mud made for stubborn digging, and the spade would only stretch the work. As he thrust the square blade into sludge, his back muscles twitched and his pulse thumped in his neck. Rain dripped into his eyes, stinging.


  He’d been crazed and incoherent an hour ago, his throat still felt clawed from screaming, but now his mind felt strangely calm. Hollow.

  He wanted to pull the blanket away.

  Don’t.

  The night was cold enough for his breath to cloud the air, and his clothes clung heavy with rain, yet his skin itched with heat. Inside his gardening gloves, his hands sweat.

  Don’t look.

  Here among the trees, the rotting stench of detritus was thick in the back of his tender throat. And he was hearing too much: the sizzling, frying-oil sputter of rain; chirping crickets; and his own breathing, heavy and animal.

  Don’t look under the blanket.

  Tilting the spade and pitching mud into a pile, he felt something come loose from the back pocket of his jeans. He reached back, trying to catch it, a muscle memory reaction from always carrying his phone in his pocket, but missed. It hit the forest floor with a subtle thump.

  What had he dropped?

  Blue moonlight filtered through the leaves of scrappy young trees. He wiped sweat and rain from his eyes with his shirt sleeve and squinted.

  A small slip-on shoe, red and sparkly.

  1

  TEENAGE BOYS DESCEND UPON ME

  My mind is a snow globe in the hands of a toddler who’s shitfaced on apple juice. I keep waiting for the white flakes to settle, but they remain a perpetual, furious blizzard.

  * * *

  Exhausted and wired, I sprint through muggy darkness. Baby monitor in one hand, cell phone in the other. My cheap foam sneakers pound cement sidewalk, and my unsupported arches stretch and twinge. I suck the humid stink of late-summer compost deep into my aging lungs. Why does life smell so bad?

  I corner the block, and the white-noise static of the baby monitor zaps to silence.

  Out of range.

  I run faster. If I push it, I can run an eleven-minute mile. That’s one lap around my block. My heart bangs against its cage, and salty tears slip onto my tongue. Crying is part of my routine too.

  My neighborhood, Saint’s Crossing, was built quick and dirty thirty years ago. At least that is what a plumber told me when I hired him to fix the second-floor-bathtub-leaking-onto-my-kitchen-table problem.

  Houses on my block are modest and cozy. Or small and ugly. Depends on your perspective and mood. In daylight, their colors are typical midwestern drab: tan, sage green, and pale yellow. Trees dotting small lawns and parkways are too large and too many. Tricycles and coffee tables are occasionally left on curbs, offered for second-hand use. Saint’s Crossing is a neighborhood of families, young and old, but most of all it seems down-to-earth and safe.

  Or so I thought when I moved in several months ago.

  I reach the furthest point away from my house. This is when fear and guilt sink their nails into the back of my neck because I’ve left my sleeping children home alone.

  Well, Hulk is with them. She’s a Boston Terrier. Think tiny dog with pointed, upright ears and bug eyes. Of course she has no thumbs to dial 911, but she would get in a few good barks if an intruder broke a window. Before he offered her food.

  This is when I worry my three-year-old has woken up and is wandering the house, rubbing her chubby little thumb along her square-foot blanket, tears streaking her irresistible cheeks.

  This is when I agonize most over Leland Ernest, my next-door neighbor.

  A mosquito buzzes my ear, and I smack it.

  A towering lamppost casts shadows of trees onto the sidewalk. A slight breeze gives the leaves breath and shapes the branches into yawning monsters. My shadow, a twelve-foot giant, tramples these sidewalk beasts.

  Leaving the lamp’s glow in my wake, I run toward a long stretch of houses whose owners zealously oppose porch lights.

  A low branch whips my chest and spikes my pulse. I didn’t see it coming. These late-night sprints around the block are a rush. I never know what’s going to smack me in the face or if an uneven sidewalk crack will snag my shoe and take me down.

  Homestretch—exactly fourteen houses away—I pump my legs harder.

  Strides ahead, an obese pine tree overruns the sidewalk.

  As I sidestep the pine, a black shadow erupts from high in the tree and, swooping down, claws at my neck.

  The impact throws me off balance. I fall onto dewy grass, and I piss my shorts. Sounds of static and clicking scatter into divergent points of noise overhead.

  What the hell hit me?

  Felt substantial, like a squirrel.

  But that makes no sense.

  Bees. Had to be bees.

  Bees make sense because pin-prick points along my neck and shoulder sting and burn. My fingers search my neck for stingers, but only slide along wetness. Sweat. Maybe blood?

  I picture a swarm of bees crashing into me, fleeing their hive because some old guy pesticide-bombed the co-op they’d built near his front door.

  But… do bees screech?

  As I sit in my piss-shorts in the grass and breathe in an effort to prevent hyperventilation, two teenage boys descend upon me, touching my damp back and shoulders with their nicotine-rubbed fingers.

  “Dude, are you alright?” His voice is part hilarity, part grave concern. Oh please, call me anything but “dude”. Have I lost all markers of femininity? My eyes work to make out his face and shape. He is teenage-skinny, has a boy’s crew cut, and strikes me as military-confident. “That was sick. Way sick,” he says.

  His friend, wearing a baseball hat over shoulder-length hair which feathers beautifully, shakes his head silently, mind blown.

  I run my fingers through cool, wet grass, searching for my belongings. Beyond their cigarette-smoked clothes, fabric softener laces the air. Someone is running their dryer.

  “I’m OK. I’m not sure what happened,” I say, embarrassed at the extent of my disorientation and glad for darkness. Even if they catch a faint whiff of urine, they can’t see my wet shorts. “I think I got stung by bees.”

  “Dude, those were bats. Like, twenty little fuckers. They came out of nowhere. Swoosh. Went that way.” He points across the street as if it matters, as if we could see anything in this darkness. As if the bats were waiting on cue for an encore.

  Bats? Is he kidding?

  If there is one thing I can’t stomach at this moment in my life, it is to be fucked with.

  I consider the situation. Whatever hit me had bulk. I consider the quality and tone of the screeching. Maybe I heard flapping. I can’t remember, it happened too fast.

  I gaze up at him, checking if his lips curl up at their corners.

  No curl. His lips are parted. He’s out of breath too.

  Not fucking with you. It was a pack of bats. Pack? Roost? Colony?

  His quiet friend with feathered hair is still shaking his head, no sign of stopping.

  “I didn’t know bats sounded like radio static,” Crew Cut says. “Can we call someone for you?”

  “I’m OK. Really. I live a few houses away.”

  Getting knocked over by small flying things while pursuing physical fitness is embarrassing. I feel geriatric and uncoordinated and smelly, and desperately want to slither into darkness. I stand and take a few rubbery steps, then shift into a jog.

  His voice already a house behind me, he calls, “If you get a craving for blood, you know why.”

  I swallow, but my throat is dry, and it doesn’t take. Hot wind blows at the scratches along my neck, drawing a sting.

  Shit. Bats carry rabies.

  2

  THAT SAC WAS THE WORST OF SURPRISES

  Hulk is thrilled by my pee-shorts. As if someone finally understands her disgusting compulsions.

  I shower and pull on yoga pants and a T-shirt. Wet hair dripping down the back of my shirt, I grab my laptop and google, “attacked by bats”.

  Five minutes online and I’m bleary-eyed, brainstorming my eulogy. Without immediate treatment, rabies is fatal nearly one hundred percent of the time, and, for some cracked reason, the upscale neighborho
od north of mine currently has a bat problem. The flying, pug-nosed vermin have been found inside homes, and sixteen bats have tested positive for rabies this summer.

  I’m about to call my mom, but stop. It’s hours past her bedtime. I mentally scroll through a short list of friends. Liz lives thirty minutes away. Too much to ask. As for the others, I haven’t seen or talked to them in how long? Weeks? Months? I tell myself not to worry, not to question friendships. All these women are busy juggling work, children, cooking, and cleaning and have neglected their friendships, their sex lives, and, occasionally, their basic hygiene.

  Valerie is only fifteen minutes away and never misses a text.

  -Valerie! I know it’s super late, but I need you to watch my kids for 30 min.

  -Booty call?

  -Funny, no. Bats. I need a rabies shot.

  -You’re joking.

  -No. Need go to ER asap.

  -Seriously?

  In lieu of response, I send her a photo of my neck.

  -Be there in 20. Need to find glasses.

  Valerie arrives at my door wearing her glasses slightly crooked upon her nose, flannel PJ bottoms, and flip-flops. Her threadbare Eminem T-shirt stretched tight over her belly and breasts reveals she hasn’t bothered with a bra. One nipple lands a solid inch lower than the other. I am all too familiar with this boob asymmetry, and it makes me love her more.

  “I’m sorry to pull you away from Dan on a Saturday night,” I say.

  Bugging out her eyes, she makes a raspberry noise with her lips, and a sphere of spit lands on my arm. “Oh please,” she says. “He’s eating hummus from a spoon in his boxers, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm reruns. I’m not into any of those things.”

  “Thank you.”

  See, your friendship hasn’t missed a beat.

  She makes another raspberry noise. “Seriously, it’s nothing. Let me see your bite.”

  “They’re scratches, I think.” I bend my neck so she can see. “I need to get the vaccine just in case.”

  “Wait! Are they in your house? The bats?”

  “No, no. I was outside. I was jogging.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “You left the kids home alone?”