SHUDDERVILLE by Mia Zabrisky Page B

only way to get rid of the bears was to shoot them full of tranquilizers and transport them up north in a truck.
    Sophie shuddered, thinking there wasn’t a parent in the world who would want a bunch of polar bears lumbering past their children. Cuddly as they looked from a distance, they were 1500-pound carnivores. A child was like a Pop-Tart to them.
    Midway through the show, somebody knocked vigorously on the door. Bang-bang-bang . Sophie muted the TV and sat very still.
    “Hello?” Tobias Mandelbaum bellowed from the hallway. “Anybody home? What—you moved away? Vacationing in Hawaii, maybe?”
    She held her breath until he gave up and walked away. She breathed a sigh of relief and celebrated her near miss by opening a bottle of wine. She let a sip slide over her tongue before swallowing. The wine tasted mellow and warm in her stomach. She watched a show about sharks, and another show about jungle cats. The sharks were slow-moving Buicks in a blue fog. The big cats made lightning quick turns and killed their prey with a single swipe of their enormous paws. Most animal species stuck together in packs or schools, flocks or herds. But human beings separated themselves and sat behind locked doors. They drank themselves sick and pretended not to be home.
    Sophie fell asleep, and when she woke up, it was past midnight. Outside, a fierce wind blew, buffeting the trees and tossing the leaves like hot kernels inside a popcorn machine. Feeling enormously lonely, she went into the kitchen, took a glass out of the dishwasher and rested it against the wall.
    This time, she could hear a sweet piano melody. She listened for a long time. Once in a while, the goateed man would sing along with the music. His voice was nasal and low-pitched, but she became mesmerized by the sound of it.
    The music stopped abruptly, and it took her a moment to realize that the power had failed and she was standing in the dark. She groped along the wall and felt her way back into the kitchen, where she rummaged under the counter for a flashlight.
    Somebody knocked on the door.
    “Who is it?” she said, waving her flashlight beam over the dirty clothes on the floor as she made her way into the foyer.
    “Er… um. I just moved in next door.”
    “Oh!” She opened the door and aimed her flashlight at the goateed man. He squinted and winced until she lowered the beam. He was carrying a tall white candle. “Hi there, neighbor,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but do you have any candle holders I could borrow?”
    “I must have some around here someplace,” she said. “Come on in.”
    He walked past her carrying the lit candle like a ghost. “Wow. Listen to that wind.”
    She rummaged through the kitchen cabinets and pulled out three candleholders and two stunted red candles. She handed him one of the candleholders, and then screwed the stunted candles into the two remaining brass holders and set them on the table where she ate her meals alone.
    “I’ve got some matches around here someplace,” she said.
    “Allow me.” He lit the two stunted candles with his tall white candle.
    “Thanks,” she said.
    “You’re welcome.” He had evenly spaced teeth. His irises were so black that the candle’s reflection was like a single torch inside a gigantic cave. “I hope my music doesn’t bother you.”
    “What?”
    “My music. I play it loud sometimes.”
    “Oh. I hardly noticed.” The flashlight dangled in her hand, its yellow beam circling the kitchen floor. Rain thrummed against the roof, and the wind whistled through open places.
    “You watch TV pretty late,” he said, and it shocked her to realize he might’ve been listening. “I can hear it sometimes. Your TV.”
    “Really? I’m sorry. I’ll turn it down.”
    “No, it doesn’t bother me, I just meant…” They slowly wandered back into the living room, where he lingered in front of the sofa, clearly not wanting to leave, but she wasn’t going to invite him to sit down. His