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killer. He had been the core for a government project. An experiment in the field, so to speak.
    In Vietnam he had earned the nickname "Chaingang," hunting freely as a self-contained hunter-killer unit. He had foreseen danger to himself with the spike team during its covert operation, somehow sensing the betrayal that doomed the rest of his team members to destruction up in Quang Tri province, and he had deserted the unit shortly before it was destroyed by friendly fire.
    For a time he had prowled the lowlands of Quang Tri's Echo Sector, growing less sane as he began to cannibalize his freshly slaughtered targets. Finally, at the breaking point, he'd summoned powerful inner reserves and managed to pull himself back.
    He had been able to keep his grasp on whatever semblance of sanity remained and forced himself to begin the long and arduous return to the more civilized world. Eventually, through a brilliantly executed escape plan, he had been able to return, making his way first to Hawaii, finally back to the North American mainland.
    He'd begun killing again shortly after his return to the urban landscape, although nowhere near the scale of his Southeast Asian activities, and he sometimes longed for the good old days, back when victims were a dime a dozen.
    Everything about him, from his appetite for food to his proclivity for violence, was irregular and extreme. His body was a storehouse of odd tolerances and unusual metabolism. He warped every curve, deviated from every chart. Mentally abnormal, emotionally anomalous, he was that rare human called the physical precognitive, regularly experiencing biochemical phenomena that transcended the mechanistic laws of kinesiology and kinetics. Stir that in with his psychological imbalance and gigantic size and strength, and you had a human killing machine without equal.

Edith Emaline Lynch

    E vening was the end of a day of physical catharsis. Lee Anne with hands washed, sitting at the table rather studiously avoiding her veggies and making neat, geometric segments of dinner in preparation for the evening meal.
    Edie remembered how absurdly prosaic it seemed, whenever she thought of Ed, how he hated food that wasn't neatly divided on the plate. Some over-reaction to military chow, she supposed. Ed even ate in little sculpted layers and she could still visualize him scraping each edge of the ice cream or the mashed potatoes in meticulous, draftsman perfect lines.
    It had been a Saturday that would not go down in history as far as she was concerned. A day of hard work done with a vengeance, a day of heavy clouds of depression and sorrow that followed her every move, refusing to go away even as she attacked tiny footprints, waxy build-up, and the assorted detritus that littered the kitchen floor, just Edith and her old pal Mr. Clean. A long Saturday that still wasn't over.
    "Let's eat!" Lee Anne was ready to pounce on dinner.
    "Would you like to say grace tonight?"
    "God is good god is great thank you [mumble] on this plate. Amen."
    "Dear Heavenly Father," Edie said, taking a deep breath and feeling the return of a killer headache, "thanks for giving us this food. Many will go hungry tonight.
    "Lord, thank you for letting us have each other to love. Even though we are sad for those we miss, we know our loved ones are with you and are at peace now, Heavenly Father, and many will be lonely tonight. We have much to be thankful for.
    "Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of life, and we ask you to guide us and be with us always, and help us to do more Thy way. We ask these things in Jesus's name. Amen."
    "Amen let's eat."
    "Amen."
    "Mom, why isn't there any blue food?" Lee Anne asked, attacking her hot dog.
    "Well, perhaps when the Lord made blueberries and blue potatoes, He decided that was enough blue food. And he thought it would be nice to have something green and yellow and orange, which is why you have those mixed vegetables on your plate that you're going to enjoy so much."
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