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and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to them, anyway. A stray calico cat made the mistake of crossing his path on the way home from school. So he killed it. Twisted its neck with his bare hands, so hard the head nearly came off.
    Not that different from last night’s work, now that he thought about it.
    He shifted his load back to his left shoulder. How much farther? He checked the pedometer. Only about a tenth of a mile. Hell, he could do that standing on his head. Wasn’t any harder than…well, ripping the head off a kitten. Which as it turned out, he really enjoyed. He did it again and again, every time he saw one running loose, each time envisioning the face of someone from school, some kid. A teacher. His father.
    How many times had dear old dad popped him in the face, huh? And he’d never hit him back, never once. He was afraid to. How could they expect him to learn anything at school? Didn’t matter. He already knew more than those teachers, at least about the things that were really important, about the way the world really worked. He just ignored them. All of them. Taking his little pleasures where he could find them. The cats.
    Except one day, when he was out in the woods behind the McKinley place doing a black and white Maine coon, that damned meddling Suzie Connery saw him. She threatened to tell everyone.
    So he did to her what he did to the cats. Or tried, anyway. She managed to get a few screams out and one of Old Man McKinley’s wives came running, screaming her head off, and he had to run. Not long after that, the police found the trash dump where he’d been leaving the cats, more than fifty of them. The police grabbed him and told him he was a “nasty boy” and had “violent urges” and that they were going to beat them out of him. They pounded him pretty good, too, until he got one smack in the nose and made a run for it. Never went back. Never saw his father again. Always wondered if the cop lost his sense of smell. Seemed only fair.
    He was fourteen then and he’d been on his own ever since. He’d done pretty damn well for himself, all things considered. But he never forgot the cats. He never forgot what it felt like to hold someone’s life in his hands. He still did a cat every now and again, or a puny little poodle. He dreamed of greater things. But he never knew how to fulfill those dreams, how to make them a reality. He never had an excuse—no, a reason—to use his God-given talents. To do what he did best. He had nothing to live for. Until, at long last, by means he never could have anticipated, his destiny was revealed unto him.
    Now he could do all the things he had always wanted to do without guilt or penalty. Even better, he could sleep soundly with the knowledge that he was doing something good, something that was meant to be. That he was doing it for love.
    At long last he arrived. Exactly twenty-one miles from the epicenter, the central axis point. 0,0. He slid the headless corpse off his shoulder and fell back against the brick wall of the alleyway, breathing heavily. The body was bundled in painters’ sheet wrap, but it wouldn’t be long before it was discovered by a homeless person or wino or vagrant. Fine. He wanted the body to be discovered.
    He was still tired, even with his burden lightened, but he had to move on. Couldn’t risk discovery. At home, he could sleep. A carefree, dreamless sleep.
    Until tomorrow night. When, thanks to the magic of the calendar, he would have the blessed opportunity to exercise his God-given talents once again.
     
     
     

5
     
     
    “I SPOONED ANOTHER helping of the marvelously creamy and undoubtedly fattening frozen custard into my mouth. “Have you tried it yet, Darcy?”
    “I—I—”
    “Try it, Darcy.”
    “But, today is Thursday, and on Thursday, I—”
    “Yes, I know. You have Praline Lovers’ Delight on Tuesdays and Vanilla Toffee on Wednesdays and Strawberry Mash on Thursday, unless there’s a