Suburban Hell - Softcover

Kilmer, Maureen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593422376 ISBN 13: 9780593422373

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

A Chicago cul-de-sac is about to get a new neighbor...of the demonic kind.

    Amy Foster considers herself lucky. After she left the city and moved to the suburbs, she found her place quickly with neighbors Liz, Jess, and Melissa, snarking together from the outskirts of the PTA crowd. One night during their monthly wine get-together, the crew concoct a plan for a clubhouse She Shed in Liz’s backyard—a space for just them, no spouses or kids allowed.
 
    But the night after they christen the She Shed, things start to feel . . . off. They didn’t expect Liz’s little home-improvement project to release a demonic force that turns their quiet enclave into something out of a nightmare. And that’s before the homeowners’ association gets wind of it.
 
    Even the calmest moms can’t justify the strange burn marks, self-moving dolls, and horrible smells surrounding their possessed friend, Liz. Together, Amy, Jess, and Melissa must fight the evil spirit to save Liz and the neighborhood . . . before the suburbs go completely to hell.
 

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Maureen Kilmer graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and three children. She does not have a She Shed, and thankfully has not had to battle the forces of darkness (unless going to Costco on a Saturday counts). Suburban Hell is her horror debut.
 

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Chapter 1


None of this would have happened if it weren't for the She Shed. We thought it would be a place to have our ladies' nights in peace-away from the children waking up at midnight, away from the husbands giving a cursory wave before heading upstairs to watch sports in the dark, away from the dirty dishes piled in the sink. All we wanted was a place to call our own. To have something that belonged to us. What we got was our lives and homes ripped into bloody shreds.

It was the She Shed that started it all, a blissfully ignorant idea that transformed our cheery suburban enclave into something demonic.

The suburbs were hell...literally.

It all began in June, when we gathered at Liz Kowalski's house for our monthly movie night. Well, we called it "movie night" but it was really just an excuse to get together on a semiregular basis. Something to look forward to during the monotony.

***

My next-door neighbor, Jess, and I arrived at Liz's house around the corner at the same time, each of us taking a different route on Maple Leaf Drive.

"Yo, Amy, I did wind sprints out of my house tonight. Shit, I need a night out more than anything." Jess wore white workout shorts and a tight tank top and held a bottle of tequila above her head as she walked up the pathway to Liz's house. Her blond hair flowed freely down her back, and in the dark, her six-foot frame stretched a long shadow in the automatic lights on either side of Liz's door. Jess's husband, Del, worked for a liquor distributor and always had high-end bottles of alcohol on hand, which made her very popular at parties.

"You do know this is a wine night, not spring break in Cancún, right?" I said as I eyed her bottle of tequila while hitching my sauvignon blanc into my armpit. I had found it on sale in an endcap at Target. I grabbed it out of impulse as I sped through, trying to buy the ingredients for dinner and new water shoes for my two kids before someone had a meltdown.

Jess frowned as we reached Liz's door. "It's George Clooney's tequila, not Jose Cuervo. And Del told me that tequila has less sugar than any other alcohol."

"Yes, I obviously attend these nights to watch my weight," I said as she pushed open Liz's door.

"Well, I have CrossFit at eight tomorrow morning, and I can't be hungover. Hey, do you want to join? It's Bring-a-Friend Day."

"Sorry, Jess. I always appreciate the invite, but my answer is still going to be no. Always," I said as I followed her inside the house. I never understood why Jess would willingly work out in a building without air-conditioning, doing exercises that mirrored the worst days of gym class. Most of the other moms in Winchester took barre classes, running around town after their workouts in high-waisted Lululemon leggings and tank tops with built-in bras while drinking kombucha.

Jess opened her mouth to espouse the wonders of CrossFit just before Liz rushed forward, arms outstretched.

"There you guys are!" She looked down at our shoes, and we quickly added them to the pile next to the front door. Liz's entire first floor had white carpeting, impressive since she had two energetic boys: Carson, who was seven, and Luke-their oops baby-who had just turned two.

Liz placed our bottles on the kitchen island, next to a collection of air plants in a raffia basket that she had gotten on sale at HomeGoods. The island was covered in an almost embarrassing amount of food for four people. If nothing else, no one would ever go hungry at her house, although I knew she overprepared out of anxiety rather than hospitality. Once, she'd run out of toilet paper during a party and nearly had a meltdown.

Jess poured herself a tequila on the rocks as she scrolled through her phone for a playlist. She made a new one each month for our get-togethers, titled "Suburban Lady Jams," and filled it with whatever new songs had just been released.

Liz turned to me, her brunette topknot making her seem taller than her five feet. "I have wine open already." She pointed to her fridge, and I opened the white door and saw a box of pink wine on the shelf, spigot waiting.

I could already feel the pounding headache from the liquefied candy inside the box, but I didn't want to turn her down. Liz was a sensitive soul who'd worked as a pediatric nurse before she had kids, and her feelings would be hurt if I declined. I gritted my teeth as I stuck a goblet large enough to double as a vase under the spigot and watched as bright pink liquid sloshed into it. I smiled at her over the glass before I took a sip. The sugar immediately went into every groove of my teeth, straight to the nerves, like chewing on aluminum foil.

"Yum," I said as I forced a smile, and Liz beamed. I could see Jess smirk in my peripheral vision as she pulled a lemon out of her bag, halved it with one of the sharp kitchen knives from the block on the countertop, and squeezed it into her drink. We might both regret our decisions come the next morning, but me definitely more than her.

Liz gave me a motherly pat on the arm. "Guess what, ladies? Construction on the She Shed starts tomorrow." She clasped her hands together in prayer form.

My eyes widened. It had started as a joke a few months ago, that we should have a clubhouse. We sketched it out on the back of a field trip form. It had a wet bar, a wine fridge, a flat-screen television mounted on the wall, pink velvet couches, fiddle-leaf fig plants ("I think those are supposed to be kept in the house," I said, to which my friends waved their hands around. "The plant will be kept alive by witnessing our friendship," Jess responded.), jute rugs, fuzzy blankets, and himmeli on the wall. Basically, a living Instagram post that we would enjoy without any hint of irony.

The next week, Liz texted all of us: Ladies, the She Shed blueprints are safely in my care.

Before Jess or I could react to the news, we heard a thud and a bloodcurdling scream from upstairs. Liz gave an exasperated sigh, waiting a moment to see if her husband, Tim, would leave his home office to intervene. Through the door, we could hear his elevated lawyer-speak. When he didn't so much as peek his head out, she threw her hands up and ran up the stairs to investigate.

I felt the wine/gasoline course through my veins and exhaled loudly. It felt like the longest day of my life. My son, Jack, had had his last day of first grade. He ran out of Winchester Elementary, screaming, wearing a handmade Dr. Seuss hat covered in marker, to where his five-year-old sister, Emily, and I stood. We waited outside Door 1, politely chatting with the other moms, lamenting that I couldn't have volunteered more during the year due to my busy schedule job hunting for a social worker position.

I still hadn't found one.

After school, it had been ice cream, a playdate that left my couch covered in marker, another pizza dinner, and more ice cream to celebrate the last day of school. All the while waiting for my monthly movie night with my neighbor friends. It sometimes felt like these nights were my only true escape, among people who understood and accepted me.

Liz appeared back down the stairs, wearing old gray sweatpants instead of light-colored jeans.

"Sorry, ladies. Luke wanted another drink of water. It's his latest trick for stalling bedtime. Of course he spilled it all over me," she said. "Bedtime is just so hard."

I glanced at the clock. Nine fifteen p.m. "Where's Melissa? Is she still coming?"

We turned as we saw a flash of light, Melissa's giant Infiniti SUV pulling into the driveway.

"On cue," Jess said as she took another swig from her glass of tequila. "Only Melissa would drive two blocks instead of walking."

All four of us lived in the Whispering Farms subdivision, a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593422376
• ISBN 13: 9780593422373
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar