I think my grandfather might be a serial killer.

I don’t have the best memory of my childhood. Not that my childhood was bad, it wasn’t, but I just don’t remember that much of it compared to a lot of people. My grandfather always stood out to me, which was strange because he was never around very much. The few times that he came around for Christmas or some other family occasion, he seemed like a kind but serious man.

I remember him talking to me and showing me coin tricks, and I’d liked the sound of his deep, rumbling voice as he told me stories about far-off lands and fantastic creatures. I remembered liking him and feeling sorry for him because underneath it all, he seemed very sad and tired. I knew that my grandmother had died not long before I was born, so I always imagined that was a lot of why he was sad.

I say this all to explain that I had a limited but positive idea of my grandfather before a few days ago. Last month, my parents were killed in a car accident coming back from a movie. I live two states away, but as their only child and closest relative, I got the call. The next few hours were a haze of travel and crying and shock, but I know that when I got to the hospital, my grandfather was there.

Even as an adult, I was amazed at how large a man he was, and when he swept me up in his quiet hug, I cried against him for several minutes, welcoming the comfort. We did the funeral arrangements together and agreed that we would come back in a few weeks to go through all of their things and get the house ready to sell. He’d already made clear that, regardless of whether they had a will or not, he wanted everything to go to me, but he would be happy to help and get to know his grandson a little better.

The funerals went well, as far as those kinds of things go, and I went back to my life. Last week, I got a call from my grandfather, and we agreed to meet up this past weekend to start going through all of their belongings. I got to the house on Sunday morning, and the last couple of days have been a bit sad at times, but they’ve been a lot of fun as well.

My grandfather is much like I remember him, a serious but kind man that enjoys talking and telling stories, and he has actual conversations with you rather than just taking turns monologuing, which is a rare commodity in my experience with older people or people in general nowadays. He wanted to know about my work, if I had a girlfriend, if I liked the area I lived in. He told me some about his days in the army as a medic and then his time as a doctor.

I knew he had been a pretty famous surgeon at one point, but that mostly stopped after his wife died. He still had a small practice and would sometimes publish academic articles, but he had saved much of the money from his early career as a surgeon, so he was comfortable enough financially that he could do what he wanted for the most part. Much of our time was spent busy and in separate parts of the house or garage, so we would largely talk at meals and in the evening hours before bed.

By the second night, we were more comfortable with each other, and that’s when my grandfather started talking about his wife. Even now, some thirty years after her death, it was clear how much he loved her and missed her. He started off by telling a story that involved her only peripherally, but soon he was just telling things about her, the funny stories, tales that illustrated how smart or good she was, little sayings she used to have. It was sentimental, but it was so genuine and heartfelt that I wasn’t uncomfortable. Seeing how much he loved her made me love both of them more.

I had no sooner finished that thought when his expression turned darker, like a ship entering sudden storms. He started talking about how she was taken from him, how that man, that thing, had killed her. I just listened, but internally I was wondering where all this was coming from. As far as I knew, my grandmother had been killed by a drunk driver. While that was terrible, he was making it sound like it was something else, like she had been intentionally murdered in some way.

It was all pretty vague, but I could still see when he realized he was saying something more than he intended. He looked embarrassed and apologized for rambling on, making some passing remark about how he had become the old man at the mall that will talk for hours about nothing. I laughed and was going to reassure him that I was enjoying it, but he was already on his feet and looking at his watch.

He had to be going, he said. Had to run into town to take care of a couple of things before it got too late, but he’d see me in the morning. I found this so very strange for a couple of reasons. First, we had just gone to town earlier that day and bought supplies and groceries to last at least a couple more days. Second, it was nearing ten o’clock, and aside from a gas station or bar, I doubted much would be open in the closest town, which was relatively small and a good thirty minutes away.

Still, he was a grown man and my elder, and it was none of my business where he went or what he did. Maybe he just wanted to go off and be by himself after talking about his wife so much. In any case, I said goodnight, and he headed out. A minute later, I heard his giant SUV rumble to life outside and trundle its way out into the night.

I went to bed, but though I was tired, I had trouble falling asleep. Part of it was sleeping in a strange place. This house had not been our house when I was growing up, so for him visits, I had never slept here for long. Part of it was worrying about my grandfather. My bed was next to a window on the upper floor, so periodically I would peek out to see if I saw any sign of his return.

The moon wasn’t full but was still bright enough to shine off the lawn and the trees that grew thick as they became woods and then forest. It was beautiful, and I knew my parents had loved it here. Still, it was too remote for my taste, and if they hadn’t lived so far out of town, they probably wouldn’t have gotten killed coming back from a movie. The thought made me angry, so I pushed it aside.

Picking up my tablet, I started reading, and before I knew it, I was asleep. I’m not sure if it was the rumbling engine, the squeak of my grandfather’s driver’s side door, or some internal sense that something had changed, but I woke up sometime later and looked out the window again.

I saw my grandfather standing at the rear of his SUV, looking around for several seconds before opening the back hatch. At first, I couldn’t see anything due to the angle, but when he reached in and started pulling out the body, I saw more than I wanted. It was a woman, and as I watched, he pulled her out enough to pick her up in his arms and began carrying her into the trees.

I know it was nighttime and there was a distance of probably fifty yards, but I could see it all very clearly, and with her hanging arms and lolling head, it was also clear that the woman was either deeply unconscious or dead. I felt panic well up in my chest. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call 9-1-1? What if I had been mistaken or he was trying to help her? Maybe she was drunk. But if he was trying to help her, wouldn’t he either carry her to a hospital or at least brought her inside rather than carrying her into the woods?

It was also strange, and the longer he was gone out of sight, the less real it seemed. So I did nothing. I sat by the window looking out for a number of minutes, and then, just when I was about to give up, he came back into view empty-handed and picking his way between the trees as he approached the car. He shut the back hatch on the SUV with a shake of his head and then looked up right at where I sat in the window.

When I first saw the body, I had been careful to stay low and slightly back from the window, but time and shock had led to me paying less attention to how visible I was as I waited for him to return, and there was no doubt that he saw me now. As if to confirm it, he lifted his hand and gave a small wave. Feeling a strange combination of embarrassment and horror, I waved back.

As I’m writing this, it’s the next morning, and I’ve spent the last several hours deciding what to do or say to him while listening out for the slightest creak of the floor or turn of the knob. He may not know I saw the woman, and I guess there could be some benign explanation, though that seems unlikely at this point. Either way, I hear and smell him cooking breakfast, and he’s going to be knocking on my door soon.

I love my grandfather, but I don’t trust him. Not anymore. I think I’m going to try to talk to him, but at the first sign of trouble, I’m out the door. If I have more to report and am able to do so, I’ll write again soon.

I left off while I was still upstairs trying to decide what to do. I had to consider just waiting for my grandfather to come up and get me for breakfast, but the idea of him in the doorway of the only exit from the room made me very nervous. I wound up just getting dressed, putting my keys and wallet in one pocket and a small folding knife in the other, and heading downstairs.

He was still at the stove when I entered the kitchen, and despite my fear, I could feel my stomach grumble at the smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee that permeated the air. Not that I could trust eating any of it, but my stomach wasn’t concerned with trivial matters like rat poison and antifreeze. He turned and gave me a nod as I made my way to the table.

“Good morning. I was gonna come up and get you in a few minutes. Hope you’re hungry.”

“No, not too much,” I lied. “My stomach has been weird this morning, so I think I’m gonna have to wait. Smells great, though.”

I sat down in a chair where I could face him and reach the door outside or the living room quickly if things went south. He nodded his head and kept on poking at the eggs.

“Well, that’s a shame, but it’ll be here for you if you feel up to it a bit later.” He set the pan of eggs on an unlit burner and turned to face me, his expression slightly concerned. “Don’t think you’re getting sick, dear?”

I shook my head, weighing different lies and excuses, but finally I decided this was as good of an opportunity as I was going to get to broach the topic of what I had seen the night before.

“I… well, I’ve just been a bit worried since last night. I saw you when you came back last night.”

My grandfather was nodding already, but I pushed on. “I saw all of it, not just when you came back from the woods. I saw the woman you had.”

His expression didn’t change at first, but after turning off the stove and taking a seat across the table from me, I saw a mixture of worry and sadness on his face.

“I thought you most likely had, and I know how something like that must look. I didn’t want to frighten you by approaching you about it, and if I’m honest, I was hoping you had missed the first part. Not the way I wanted you to find out about all this.” He rubbed his mouth and gave a nervous smile. “Still, I was half afraid you’d be gone when I got up this morning or that there’d be police out there. I know you can’t trust me right now, but giving me the chance to explain means a lot to me.”

I nodded. His words were said in an even and reasonable tone, but I couldn’t help but feel a dull dread growing in my stomach. A part of me had hoped he would deny everything and convince me it was a dream or a mistake. Instead, he was confirming that it happened, and I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t intimidating. Even in his kindest moments, he was very intelligent and half a foot taller than me, and the last couple of days had been proof enough that age had slowed him very little. Last night, he had carried that woman without any signs of real effort, carried her lifeless body out into the dark.

“Come back to me. I know this is frightening. I can tell you that you have no reason to be afraid of me, but how much is that worth right now? Very little, I suspect. So let me explain as best I can. All I ask is that you listen to the entire thing, and if at the end of it, if you want to call the police or leave or whatever you think is best, I will fully cooperate. But I need you to hear the entire thing because some of it is going to sound very strange at first. Okay?”

I leaned back in my chair, my head pounding. This was the point where I had to make a decision: to give him a chance or not, whether to risk myself even more or not. On the one hand, I could run and call the cops. On the other, I could hear him out and, in theory, still do that if I didn’t like or believe what he told me.

“Still, where did we put the tape?”

When he raised an eyebrow, I shrugged. “I’ll hear you out, but I want you taped to that chair before we start. I can’t risk this being a trick or you deciding it’s not going your way and you want to attack me.”

I could see the hurt in his eyes, but I pushed past it. “I want to believe you, to trust you, but you know it’s the smart thing to do on my end.”

He nodded. “It is. I’m proud of you for thinking of it. I just hate it comes to that, but that’s my fault, not yours. It’s in the living room, I think, on the table by the sofa.”

Standing up slowly, I backed into the living room and grabbed the tape, fearful for the five seconds he was out of sight. But he was waiting in the same spot when I came back in, and he sat still while I put layers of tape around his chest and arms, securing him firmly to the back of the wooden chair he sat in. Pausing for a moment to consider, I then wrapped the remaining tape around his ankles and the front chair legs, just to be safe.

The job done, I asked him if he was comfortable enough. When he said he was, I sat back down across from him, my hands sweaty and slightly shaking as I tried to give him a comforting smile.

“Sorry again, but I’m ready to hear everything you want to tell me.”

My grandfather looked off in the distance for a moment before focusing his dark blue eyes on me. “Your mama told you that my wife died in a car wreck, a drunk driver, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, she said she was killed going to visit you at the hospital. You had been working on a patient for hours, and she was bringing you some dinner.”

Dark anger flickered across his face, disappearing as he shook his head. “Well, the last part was right. I had been working on a girl who had been shot in a hunting accident since early afternoon. The girl wound up living, but my sweet girl, your grandmother, she didn’t get killed by a drunk driver. She was taken as she was getting out of her car at the hospital, brutalized and torn apart, with what was left of her being found in a field ten miles away.”

His voice grew rough and cracked with emotion as he spoke. “I didn’t even know anything was wrong at first, but someone found the covered dish she was bringing me in the parking lot, dropped and broken. They figured out it was her car, and then they came to me. I had just finished the surgery an hour earlier but still had another five hours on my shift, so I went to take a nap, thinking she would wake me up when she got there. Instead, it was one of the admins asking if I had seen my wife that evening.”

He spread his hands out on the table, long-fingered and steady even at his age, staring at them. He continued. “Your grandmother was a smart woman, a good woman. Sure, things were safer back then than they are now, but it wasn’t like no one ever got hurt, killed even, in a smaller town like we lived in. It happened. But she had no real enemies, and she was always careful when she traveled anywhere. My point is that no one would have easily gotten a jump on her.

“The police said it first, then it could just be a misunderstanding, or she could have just decided to leave, as stupid as that sounded. I spent all night looking for her, terrified and half out of my mind. By the next morning, the police were there with me. It was just before noon when they found her body in that field. I made the mistake of going to the scene. I told myself that I was used to blood, to everything a body could show, and then I owed it to her to see how she died.

“It was beyond anything I imagined. One arm and the opposite leg had been torn completely off, and her torso had been stretched to such a degree that… well, it didn’t look like a person at all. And that was actually better because it made it seem unreal. But then I saw her long, light brown hair. I’d always loved her hair so much, and even attached to the shattered ruin of her face, I knew it anywhere. It was remarkably clean compared to the rest, as though someone or something had taken great care not to mess up or soil that pretty hair. That thought is what broke me, I think.

“I don’t remember much for the few days that followed. I know I was at her funeral, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it. When I finally resurfaced from whatever stupor I was in, I was sitting at home with my brother and his wife. They were trying to keep me company. We were watching TV, I think. I wanted to scream at them, to yell and make them understand that this was all pointless now, that my life was over, that everything was over. So why were they trying to prolong things? Instead, I just told them that I appreciated their help and attention but that I knew they needed to be getting back home and I needed time to myself.

“They wasted little time in packing and heading out. I spent the next day or so weighing various methods of suicide. I really had no interest in living in a world without her. I believe in God, and I think suicide is a shame and likely a sin when done for such selfish reasons, but I was to a point that I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I went to hell for it. I felt like I deserved it for letting this happen to her. But this led me down the path of dwelling on what had happened to her and what had caused it, who had caused it.

“I set aside my idea of pills and ropes and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, got a shower and a shave, and I went down to the police station. Over the next few weeks, I continued to harass and harangue them, pushing them to do more while understanding there was little likely more they could do. They had looked for witnesses. There were none. They had looked for evidence of how the attack was committed and had only come up with injuries caused by indeterminant blunt and serrated objects. There were no cameras at the hospital until three years later, and this was before the age of cell phones.

“After bullying them with a threatened lawsuit, I obtained copies of all their photos and reports. I pored through them but found little more of note. The parking lot was paved, so there were no tire tracks to follow, and no tire or shoe tracks had been found near the field where she was killed. Something about the parking lot stuck out to me, but I wasn’t sure what it was at first. After two days of looking at everything, it hit me. The hospital had a separate parking lot for doctors and surgical staff that was blocked by a mechanical arm and a keypad. Rebecca had the passcode, so she had parked there when she was taken. The parking lot was on the far rear of the hospital, not visible from the road and without any hospital roads or paths that would make it a thoroughfare for a casual passerby.

“What were the odds that someone had just happened upon her as they went by or decided to wait in a relatively small and quiet parking lot for hours until they had a chance to snatch someone? I decided it seemed unlikely. In retrospect, I know it was certainly possible. I could have been wrong. But at the time, I needed answers, and I decided focusing on someone who worked in the hospital and/or had access to the parking lot like my wife was the best course of action.

“Among all the complaints I might have had about the investigation of Rebecca’s murder, I would never have made it farther without them. One of the detectives had pulled the tissue sample from under her fingernails and had sent it to be tested if they ever got something to compare it to. Understand, this was 1986, and DNA testing was brand new. It wasn’t even an option at the state crime labs at the time, and the likelihood of that sample ever being of use was small to none. But I still had to actually file a lawsuit to get the sample back so I could send it to Daniel Church, a friend of mine from med school that had gone on to work at one of the foremost labs for DNA in the country.

“He couldn’t do tests for me officially, but he knew what I was going through and agreed to help as much as he could in an unofficial capacity. The main thing that he needed was viable samples from a suspect for comparison. Fortunately, that was the easy part. Hospital policy required all operating room doctors and staff to have semiannual bloodwork, both as a check for any substance abuse issues as well as a screening mechanism for any potential infectious disease. After testing, the remainder of those samples were stored until the next round of tests six months later. The tests weren’t all done at once, of course, but at any given time there were twenty-three samples cooling in a fridge in the serology lab. So I pulled some from each of them and sent them to Church.

“He called me two days later, his tone grave. He asked where I’d gotten so many samples so quickly and what I was getting him into. I told him I wasn’t getting him into anything. At most, he was running some DNA tests with no indication of who was being tested or why, and if anyone ever asked me, I hadn’t seen or heard of him since we graduated fifteen years earlier. I could tell he was still troubled, but after a long silence, he agreed to run the tests.

“The next five weeks were excruciating. DNA testing was much slower back then, and I understood he was having to go slower than normal to do it in a clandestine manner. Still, every day I was constantly waiting for the phone to ring, and when it finally did, I could hardly hear Church over the frantic thudding of my own heart.

“I asked him to repeat what he had said. ‘Tissue your first sent is a match to sample seventeen. It’s from that person or their identical twin.’ I thanked him and hung up the phone. I had sent him numbers instead of names on the samples, but I knew whose was whose by heart at this point. Sample seventeen belonged to an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital, Marcus Salk. He was a chubby, middle-aged man that was always telling jokes and had a reputation as a good doctor. I didn’t know him well, but I had always gotten along with him fine.

“Why would he do this? My first urge was to find him and torture him until he told me why. I could feel my rage building as the information soaked in, my mind racing to dissect any interaction we had ever had, any scrap of knowledge I had about him. I thought that he had come to the hospital about five years earlier, was unmarried, had a cat, maybe. I realized how little I knew and how I needed to learn more before I committed to an act and either hurt the wrong person or gave them an unintentional means of escape.

“That’s when I began studying Marcus Salk. I weighed my options for learning more about Salk. Trying to become closer to him personally was too risky because if he was actually the man who killed your grandmother Rebecca, he would be looking at me closely for any signs that I suspected him. I was never an overly social person to begin with, so suddenly trying to buddy up to him would stand out, and I also didn’t want to be tied any closer to a person that may soon go missing because even at that early stage I was resolved that when I was sure who took Rebecca from me, I would kill them.

“In some ways, my lack of equivocation on that point made things easier to plan, but it also meant I had to be extra careful. For instance, using a private investigator to tail him was out. I couldn’t have a third party knowing about my interest in Salk, not even Daniel Church, at his name and his involvement was a necessary evil. Also, what if the PI saw Salk doing something illegal and called the police? I understand how that sounds, but you need to remember that I had no idea what his motive was. If he was the killer, was it an isolated incident or part of something more? The brutality and the transporting of the body to the field pointed towards someone who had possibly killed before, but the inherent risk in taking someone from the place you work, even in a small and isolated parking lot like that, made me wonder if he was either an amateur or at very least impulsive.

“Also, being honest, I didn’t want anyone between me and the person that took her away. That left watching him myself. While there was no expert, I knew I would need three basic things: opportunity, ability to observe, and concealment. For opportunity, I slowly shifted my work schedule at the hospital to mirror that of Salk. For the most part, this had to be done over the course of a month so I didn’t arouse suspicion. Even then, it wasn’t perfect, as I would be on-call at times and I couldn’t watch him constantly, and even in the best of circumstances, still I managed to develop a routine of watching him over forty hours a week, which was the best I could manage by myself.

“As far as ability to observe, I bought the best binoculars and parabolic mic I could afford along with some tools for getting into places if I needed to. Planning ahead, I also bought a .45 pistol, five bundles of rope, three rolls of tape, two knives, and a stun gun. I wasn’t planning to act yet, but I wanted to be prepared just in case. Obviously, I had to get these items over time and with concealment. Concealment was simpler but more expensive. I bought two older model cars that were cheap, reliable, and common. I had to look at a number of cars before I found two that had no distinctive damaged trim or color combination that also weren’t likely to break down on me. I then found four places to park them where they wouldn’t be towed so long as they didn’t stay in one spot more than a few days. As long as I rotated them a couple of times a week, everything was fine.

“I considered disguises, but I saw too many pitfalls. If I got pulled over, it would look suspicious. If Salk saw and recognized me in some getup, it would alert him right away when coincidence might explain us intersecting otherwise. I also wanted to keep up with any similar killings that might have occurred, and this was before the World Wide Web, so that meant newspapers. I got a dozen subscriptions from a roughly five-hundred-mile radius around and began pouring through them looking for murders and disappearances.

“By the time everything was in place, two months had passed from when I got the DNA results. The first night I set up down the street from Salk’s house, I felt the stir of excitement mixed with my constant sadness and rage. The preparations of the last few weeks had preoccupied my thoughts somewhat, but it had done nothing to ease my sorrow or cool my anger. Sitting in the shadows on that quiet neighborhood street, I strained at every sound and movement like a racehorse waiting for the gate to drop. Just let me have something to confirm what this man had done so I could set to tearing him apart. But of course, nothing happened that first night or the nights that followed.

“I would trail him from his home to the store to the movies to a coffee shop or a bored girl twenty years younger than him tried to gamely fend off his awkward flirtations. Between the binoculars and the mic, I could see and hear a surprising amount, and as time went on, I got better at positioning myself at the best angles while hopefully staying inconspicuous. Three weeks in and I felt like I knew Salk fairly well. He seemed to be a lonely but harmless man that did nothing out of the ordinary. But of course, that was outside. I needed to see what inside Salk looked like.

“I had explored the exterior of Salk’s house one day when I knew he wasn’t there a month ago, and the safest place to enter seemed to be the back door. I had ordered a pick set in the same model lock as he had, a cheap four-pin lock with no security pins. I had actually read a book on lock picking when I was a kid, but I had been reading more lately in preparation for this. I practiced on the duplicate lock for hours, mainly using a small tension tool at the bottom along with a rake pick to trigger the pins. I knew the real lock would be keyed differently, of course, but with practice I could unlock the dupe in less than thirty seconds.

“I picked a rare night that he was working and I was not, and then I went to his house, parking two streets over. I cut through backyards quietly, wincing at the bark of a nearby dog as I crept across his yard and onto his back porch. I had an image of him popping out of the door with a shotgun lowered at his chest. I shook off the thought and crouched down at the door to begin picking. Every scrap of metal sounded enormous in the still night air, and I soaked my shirt with sweat in the two minutes it took me to open the lock.

“Without hesitating, I swung open the door and eased inside. The air inside was stale and cool, with a faint smell of cleaning agents and paint. The only notable room as I was entering through the kitchen, which was very clean but also completely bare. No food, no furniture, not even appliances aside from an oven that looked rarely used. I knew the house should be unoccupied, but I still moved quietly and made sure that my small flashlight stayed well below any windows.

“Moving farther into the house, I found empty room after empty room. No furniture or boxes or decorations. Then I reached what I supposed was Salk’s bedroom. There was a bare mattress on the floor and a tall standing mirror in one corner. The closet contained a handful of clothes that were the same things I saw him wearing every day. I saw something on the mirror, and I went back to it. It was a picture of Salk ten years younger and fifty pounds lighter. He was at the beach with a woman, and they weren’t in some kind of joking volleyball jock pose. He looked like he was really happy in the picture, and it lit his eyes.

“I heard the front door click and froze. It was unlikely it could be anyone other than him, and regardless, I didn’t need to be caught in his house. I went to the second closet in the room, fearing I would find it full with items he regularly used. Thankfully, it was empty, and I eased the door closed a moment before he entered. I could see some through the louvered closet door, the wooden slats providing the little slashes of vision as he moved around.

“My heart pounded as he opened the other closet and hung up his jacket before changing clothes. I found out later he had asked for a half shift at the last minute, which explained how he was home six hours early. Apparently he had decided to make the most of his evening because he was dressing to go back out in blue jeans and a t-shirt. He looked almost normal except for when you saw his face. It was completely devoid of expression as he silently moved around the room.

“After putting on different shoes, he stood in front of the mirror, regarding himself motionless for several minutes. His stillness was almost mesmerizing. When he finally moved, I almost jumped. He was reaching for the picture, holding it closer and studying it before studying his own face again. His eyes went back and forth, back and forth, as a facsimile of the smile in the picture took form on his face. Watching the expression’s slow birth across his lips was weirdly grotesque, but worse was the realization that came with it. He was practicing. He was practicing how he should look when he smiled.

“As I watched Salk study himself in the mirror, I kept waiting for some sign he knew I was there, a glance in my direction or some indication he was preparing for a fight, but there was none. He continued to practice smiling for a few more moments, and then he replaced the photo on the mirror and left the room. When I heard the front door open and shut again, I assumed he’d left, but even after I strained and heard what sounded like his car cranking up and driving off outside, I waited a couple of minutes before easing open the closet door.

“I was tight and with tension, with every creak of the floor sounding like a gunshot in my ears. I crept to the back door, constantly looking around for some sign that Salk had silently doubled back to trick me into thinking he had left. But no, he seemed to truly be gone. Peeking out the back door window, I made my way out onto the back porch and across his yard. When I was back to my car, I drove around to a street and Salk’s car was gone.

“I had no way of knowing where he had went, but I decided that was okay. While I didn’t have definitive evidence he was a killer yet, the strangeness I had observed that night made the idea a lot more credible. Tired, I went home and tried to get sleep with little luck. Two days later, I received one of my distant newspaper deliveries. A twenty-year-old girl had gone missing the night I had been in Salk’s house and he had left for parts unknown. It was nearly two hundred miles away from here, but based on the timeline of when she was last seen, he would have had plenty of time to get there if it was him.

“Even not knowing if he were to blame, I felt terrible, responsible. If I had done better, been smarter, I could have stopped him already or at least tracked him so I would know if he had gone to the girl’s town or not. As it was, I was left with continuing to observe Salk and trying to find out more about Marcus Salk from his past.

“I pulled his file in the admin office at the hospital and found that prior to coming to our town, he had been at a hospital outside of Olathe, Kansas, for a number of years. Not much other information, but his curriculum vitae, which contained nothing out of the ordinary for an orthopedic surgeon, still gave me a jumping-off point. I called the hospital in Kansas and worked my way to someone in Human Resources, telling them that I was with a large medical practice in Seattle that was considering extending an offer to a former doctor there and was checking through his references as part of the potential hiring process.

“The woman on the phone was friendly from the start, but I could tell there was a brief hesitation and change of tone when I mentioned the person in question was Dr. Salk.

“‘Well, I can put you in touch with the chief of staff if you want. He was chief back when Marcus was here too, so he can talk more about what kind of doctor he was, but I… well, I shouldn’t say anything.’ Her desire to gossip was almost palpable.

“‘I understand, and I’m not trying to put you in a bad spot, but I don’t want to make the wrong choice on the guy either. So anything you could tell me would be off the record, but it’d be a big help if you could give me any insight you have in him.’

“There was a moment of contemplative silence, and then she went on. ‘It’s just… Marcus was a nice guy when he first came here, right? Joked around a lot, patients loved him. He had a sweet wife, and he fit right in. Then him and his wife go on vacation to Europe one summer, this was six or seven years ago now, and when they got back, he was different somehow.’

“‘Different how?’ I asked, trying to keep the intense curiosity out of my voice. I was supposed to be a mildly interested businessman, not an obsessed stalker. I could almost hear her shrug over the phone.

“‘I don’t know how to describe it. He was still nice and would joke some, but it seemed forced. He was off from how he had been before. Within a few months, him and his wife were divorced, and he had moved away.’

“‘I guess he’s on the move again.’

“‘Yeah, we’ll see. You’ve given me a lot of food for thought. Hey, was his wife okay? I mean, did everything turn out okay for her?’

“I could sense her hesitating again, and I was worried I may have pushed for more than she’d give. Luckily, the gossip won out as she let out a small sigh. ‘Yeah, I guess so, bless her heart. She still lives around here, so I see her from time to time. She doesn’t look happy, though. I think Alicia really loved him, and whatever came between them, I think it hurt her a lot.’

“I could feel the rage building in me again as she spoke. ‘Yes, losing someone you love like that, it kind of destroys you. Hey, thank you. Thank you for your help. You’ve given me a lot to go on. Don’t want to talk to the chief?’

“I gave a small laugh I didn’t feel. ‘No, I think I got what I needed right here. Thank you again.’

“When I hung up the phone, I sat with my head in my hands for some time. My thoughts were swimming in the blackness of my mind like pale, blind cave fish. I would catch glimpses of their pallid scales and hear the occasional ripple or splash as they stirred the water, but these ghost impressions left me with little in the way of a solid idea or plan. The things that felt most real to me were my pain and my anger, and it was getting harder to hold them in check.

“Still, I had to be sure. I took a few days off and drove to Olathe to try and track down Salk’s ex-wife. She wasn’t going by her married name any longer, so the phone directory was of little use. I called the Kansas Medical Board and got a residential mailing address that he had never changed. This led me to a nice brick home in a small suburban neighborhood not far from Salk’s former hospital.

“As I went up to the front door, I could see that the paint around the door and on the shutters was peeling, and the air of disuse and being unoccupied grew so strong as I approached that I felt sure I was knocking at the door of an empty house. But only seconds after I knocked, a woman in her forties opened the door. She looked at me warily as I fought down the urge to tell her that I knew her in a way. It was true. She was the girl from Salk’s picture.

“Swallowing, I pushed forward with my story. ‘Hi, ma’am. My name is Peter Elliot. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about your former husband.’ I tried to smile and seem non-threatening, but I could see her running the mental calculus of the likelihood I was a thief or rapist. After studying me further, she nodded and stepped aside.

“‘Come on in. Now, I guess Marcus is in some kind of trouble?’

“We stepped into a foyer cluttered with stacks of books and magazines, and as we spoke, she led me down a path to a living room that was even more filled with row after row of books. I gestured around. ‘You’ve got quite the collection.’

“She had moved a stack of newspapers off a worn-looking sofa and gestured for me to sit down. She shrugged, looking disconsolate. ‘I think I slipped from being a collector into a hoarder about two years ago. I need to clear all this junk out.’

“She looked used up and small in her pale blue bathrobe as she sat down in an old recliner. Her sad eyes looked thoughtfully distant for a moment before coming back to me.

“‘So, is he in trouble?’

“I smiled. ‘I don’t know yet, honestly. I’m just looking for him for an interested party, and my understanding is that the two of you were together for years.’

“A brief look of pain crossed her face. ‘Yeah, we were childhood sweethearts, if you can believe it. I thought we’d always be together.’

“I leaned forward. ‘If you don’t feel it’s too personal, can you tell me what changed? Did Marcus change?’

“She picked at some dried skin on her lip nervously. She suddenly seemed very uncertain. ‘I… to hell with it. Yes, he did. He changed all of a sudden.’

“‘Do you know when or why?’

“She nodded, her eyes focusing on me as anger lit the edges of her face. ‘I know exactly when. We’d just come back from a trip to Europe, something we had wanted to do since high school. I had a great time, too. We had landed in Atlanta and were waiting for our connecting flight to Topeka. That’s when he got sick.’

“‘Got sick? Sick how?’

“She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He had gone to the bathroom near the terminal, and when he came back, he said he didn’t feel well. His head and neck were hurting a lot. He felt nauseous. By the time we landed in Kansas, he said that it had passed, but…’ She sighed. ‘This is pointless. You won’t believe anything I’m gonna tell you anyway.’

“My grimace slightly. ‘I will. Please. I can’t go into detail, but this is really important, and I’ll listen to anything you tell me with an open mind.’

“She looked at me for several minutes again, weighing. Finally, she nodded and went on. ‘He was different from that on. At first, I thought he was just sick and jet-lagged. Then I thought he was stressed or having a midlife crisis. But those were all just excuses really because I was thinking it from the night we got home from the airport, thinking what? That it wasn’t Marcus anymore.’

“She held up a hand. ‘I know how that sounds, believe me. But I knew that man. I had known him and loved him since I was ten. It was like whatever happened between us landing in Atlanta and taking back off, it swallowed him up. He still sounded like Marcus, and I could see him trying to act like him, but it was wrong somehow. False. It felt like someone who knew a lot about Marcus was trying to impersonate him.’

“She gave a hoarse laugh. ‘I swear to God, he even smelled different. I told my mother that, and she set me up with a therapist right away. I didn’t know what to do with all this. What she was saying was incredible in the literal sense of the word, but I found myself believing her. Even if she was wrong, I didn’t think she was lying to me.

“‘So what are you saying? You don’t think it was him anymore? What does that mean?’

“‘I don’t know, believe me. I’ve spent years wondering about it, and I still don’t know the answer. But something changed, and it’s not in the normal old people change way. He was not right. I would see him sometimes when he didn’t know I was around, and he was entirely different. His face would be slack, his eyes would be dead. He looked like some kind of terrible doll.’

“I thought about the night in the closet and suppressed a shudder. ‘Was he ever violent or abusive towards you?’

“She shook her head. ‘No, never. Never said a harsh word to me, actually. Had less of a temper than he had before, but he’d always been sweet. Back when he was himself, too.’ She rubbed her eyes for a moment before continuing. ‘But it didn’t matter. I tried talking to him about it, and at first tried to see if I could help, but when I finally accepted that it wasn’t him anymore, I found myself just getting more and more withdrawn, more and more afraid of him.’

“‘What made you afraid of him?’

“She stood up, jamming her hands in her pockets of her robe as she began to pace around the open patches of floor in the room. ‘Have you ever been to an aquarium with sharks?’

“I nodded.

“‘You know how they’ll swim by looking at you all calm and placid, but you know that behind that black eye they aren’t calm or placid? They’re just not ready to eat you yet, and they know there’s glass in the way? That’s the way I came to feel when Marcus was here. He would glide around me silently in the mornings and at night, his eyes seeing and not seeing me at the same time, and he was always calm, always grinning his fake shark grin. And maybe it was my imagination, but I felt like whatever hunger he had, it was growing, and the glass holding him back was getting thinner.’

“I realized I had been holding my breath, and I let it out.

“‘So you divorced him?’

“She gave a small, sad smile as she sat back down. ‘Yes. It was very easy. I told him I wanted a divorce. He said that sounded just fine, and he moved out the same day. Aside from signing papers in a lawyer’s office, I never saw him again.’

“‘Okay, but why did you stay here? Stay in the same house? Weren’t you worried he might come back?’

“Her smile grew slightly. ‘Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? On the one hand, yes, I’m scared of seeing Marcus showing back up one day. But what if it was the real Marcus that came back? What if I had moved, changed my name, made sure he couldn’t find me, and then it was the real Marcus somehow? Him back as randomly as he was taken away, and he came looking for me? What if he couldn’t find me?’

“Her voice grew thick at the end, and I reached out to grasp her shoulder. I didn’t have any real words of comfort or wisdom for her, and being around her pain just reminded me of my own. Standing, I looked down at the girl that had once been Alicia Salk. It made me hate Marcus even more to see what he had done to her.

“‘I don’t have any easy answers for you, Alicia. I just… I don’t think that Marcus, your Marcus, is coming back. I don’t know if that helps or hurts you, but maybe it’ll make it easier for you to move on.’

“She looked up, her expression bitter. ‘It doesn’t help, and I know you mean well, but I’d like you to leave.’

“I nodded and headed outside. I turned to say goodbye, but the door was already closed behind me.

“When I got back home the following morning, I found a follow-up article on the missing girl. She had been found behind a middle school a few miles away from where she was abducted, and she had been torn apart.

“Sound travels farther in cold weather. It’s called refraction. Essentially, the sound waves that are in the higher, warmer air that is farther from cold ground move faster through the more excited air molecules and get pushed back downward, so sound gets amplified closer to the ground. I knew that at the time, though I didn’t learn the science behind it until later.

“That night, I was just wondering how far away the screams of the little boy were coming from. It had been five weeks since I’d returned from Olathe, and in that time I had found out little new beyond some information about the last girl who had been killed, a pretty blonde girl in her sophomore year of college. She had two parents and a brother that the newspapers bled for grief and drama for a couple of weeks before moving on to the next tragedy. But it wasn’t over for them. It would never be over for any of us.

“It would have been an easy thing to add their imagined pain to my own and use it all as the justification I needed to end this now, to end him now. But for all my circumstantial evidence, I had nothing definitive. Even the DNA from your grandmother’s nails, while compelling, didn’t eliminate any other explanation. And given what I intended on doing to him, I needed to be sure.

“I had stayed busy in the intervening weeks, both in surveilling Salk and my work as well as in more fully preparing for when I finally took him, if it came to that. I purchased, again slowly and with great discretion, a variety of medical supplies and tools. I found an old moving truck from a defunct company that I got cheap with cash. The container body of that truck is where I set up Salk’s room. I bolted a table to the floor and attached straps and chains to it. I attached lights to the interior corners of the container and added a row of shelves and a chair to one side. I even welded an IV stand to the wall so I could keep him fed with whatever cocktail of saline and drugs I needed to keep him alive.

“I planned on torturing him for a long time, and I didn’t want him dying from shock or infection. I told myself I was going to do all these things to get information, to get answers to the hows and whys of what he had done. But that was only partially true. In my heart of hearts, I knew I was going to do it whether he gave me answers or not. I hated that part of myself, but if I was going to control it, I had to accept it. So I prepared the room Salk would slowly die in while soothing my conscience with the knowledge that I was being thorough and fair before I took him.

“Of course, that’s not how things played out. One night, the night of the screams and so much more, I was watching Salk’s house with the dull-eyed enthusiasm of a sentry who always guards the same post. I had been there for close to eight hours and was close to packing it up to go get some rest when Salk suddenly came out of his house and got in his car. This was strange for him. It was nearly eight in the evening, and he never left the house after six o’clock except for the time I had been in the closet the night the girl was taken.

“Feeling my pulse pounding in my head, I waited until he was almost out of sight and then I pulled out and began to follow him. We drove for well over an hour, and despite the darkness of the hour and the other cars on the road, I couldn’t help but feel conspicuous. I hung back as much as I dared, but I couldn’t risk losing him again.

“After going through town and traveling up the interstate over eighty miles, he got off at an exit full of run-down shopping centers and closed restaurants. At first, I thought he had a particular place he was headed, but he just turned into the first large parking lot and began cruising through it at a low speed, even circling around the backside of what looked to be a defunct electronics store and a couple of clothing outlets. After he had made a complete circuit, he moved on to the next one, and then the next.

“Once I understood what he was doing, it made it easier for me to hang back and observe. I would stay up near the street and park, waiting for him to finish looking for whatever or whoever he was looking for before easing back behind him and into the next lot. It was nearly ten now, and many of the places were closed, but there were still enough cars around that I should have been hard to notice at such a distance. That distance was a mistake.

“We were in the fourth parking lot, and as I waited for him to come back around from driving the backside of the grocery store and smaller stores that made up this latest decaying shopping center, I realized I was taking too long. I put the car back in drive and eased around to the back, mimicking the direction he had gone. As I turned the corner, in the distance I saw him shoving a boy of around ten into the car.

“I began to speed up, but he was fast and far away by the time I reached where the boy had been taken. Salk was already pulling out onto some back road that led away from the lot. I followed, abandoning any pretense of stealth now. I worried that me chasing him could cause him to hurt the boy sooner rather than later, but I had to take the chance. If Salk got away, the boy was going to die.

“The road we were taking was small and winding, leading through a neighborhood and then farther away from buildings and lights. My little spy car, while reliable, was not equipped with the best headlights or any great speed, and it took all my concentration to keep to the road while not losing ground as I pursued them. We were ten miles out of town now, fields of lightly frosted farmland reflecting the ghost glow of winter moonlight as we threaded our way through the darkness.

“We passed a home that was brightly lit with twinkling colored lights and molded plastic reindeer, and it occurred to me that Christmas had been the week before and I hadn’t noticed. Farmland began to give way to woods, and I noticed with rising panic that I was running low on gas, enough to get back to town to get the boy help, but just barely. This needed to end now.

“I stomped the pedal as far down as it would go, and the car jumped forward with a protesting whine. I wasn’t sure how long I could maintain this speed without wrecking or the engine blowing up, but I didn’t need long. Gripping the wheel tightly, I readied myself as the nose of my car reached within a foot of Salk’s back bumper. At the next curve, I moved into the left lane long enough to gain half a length more, then swung the front fender of my car into his back tire.

“The effect was immediate. He began to spin out, but then so did I. I tried to regain control of the car, but it was too late. I jumped the shallow ditch on the right side of the road, and then everything went dark.

“When I woke up, my car was somehow still running, its hood crumpled from going head-on into a medium-sized maple tree. Judging by the car clock, only a few minutes had passed, but that was more than enough time for Salk to get away. I tried to look out my window, but it was fogged up beyond any visibility, so I just opened the door and slowly got out.

“My head was swimmy, and I had a small gash where I’d hit my head on the steering wheel, but otherwise I seemed okay. Steadying myself against the car, I looked around and saw Salk’s car wrecked in the far deeper left ditch fifty feet down the road. The front doors to the car were open, and there was no sign of anyone.

“I started making my way up the road to the car, and it didn’t take long before I saw the drag marks leading away into the woods. I patted my pockets. I had my gun and a folding knife on me, and that would have to do. Following the path wasn’t hard at first, with the moonlight throwing the thick ravines of ice, snow, and dirt into sharp relief. As I got deeper into the woods, however, the shadows and undergrowth began to slow my progress.

“That’s when the boy began screaming. I picked up my pace again, moving at a low, limping, unsteady run as I tried to gauge direction through a combination of sight and sound. The boy’s cries were becoming louder, but they were also becoming more shrill and frantic as they moved from fear into terror. I pushed through a last thick stand of pines, and then I saw why.

“The boy was screaming. This is where I have to ask for your patience more than anything that’s come before. I understand I’m giving you a great deal of detail to explain everything fully, but despite the strangeness of much of it, I don’t know that anything so far has fallen entirely outside of what you understand as possible. This next part, I will do my best to describe it, but you need to understand that I will fail to really do it justice, and it will sound unbelievable. Just try to bear with me as best you can.

“I pushed through those trees and stumbled into a small clearing, the cold white moonlight shining down like a spotlight over the scene. The boy, he looked closer to eight now that I was closer, was down on his back and trying to scramble away from the thing towering over him. Salk was nowhere to be seen.

“As for the thing itself, it stood on two legs and was half again as big as a man. From behind, I could see its legs were digitigrade, like the legs of a dog or cat, though they reminded me more of rat legs. It had no tail I could see, but just relatively small hips that swiftly expanded into a large, muscular torso. The back of the torso was largely covered with matted gray hair, though it became patchy and seemed to transition into some kind of black chitin as it moved towards the head.

“I took all this in quickly and while still moving forward slowly. Then it turned to face me. Its head was a strange mix of a reptile and insect, reminding me of a cross between a large beetle and a snake. A hard black shell hooded a long face set with burning yellow eyes and a mouth full of long, curved teeth. The strangest thing about it was its arms. They were different from each other. One was heavy and thick, made out of that same black material and shaped like some kind of savage club that tapered to a spiky lump at the end. The other was a slender, furry hand with fingers that were long and almost graceful looking, each tip punctuated by a hooked claw.

“As it regarded me, I involuntarily took a step back. My mind was having trouble reconciling what it was seeing. How was I supposed to deal with something like this? Still, I had to try. I fumbled and pulled the gun from my coat pocket, leveled it at the creature, and fired.

“I saw the round strike just before hearing the wet thudding sound it made. The creature seemed unfazed. I fired again and again. I emptied thirteen rounds into that thing, and it didn’t stagger, didn’t bleed. It just took it without complaint.

“Then I realized it was making a sound after all. It was low at first, and I couldn’t identify it. When I did, I felt my bowels loosen. It was laughing. The sound was terrible, like wet meat and rocks being tumbled in an old dryer, but I could tell that’s what it was. Whatever this thing was, it was laughing at me.

“I looked back to the child, who had been transfixed by all of this, and I yelled for him to run. I still don’t know if that is what killed him, and I try to tell myself he was going to die regardless, but as I yelled, the creature turned back to him and brought its massive clubbed arm down on his stomach. The boy… well, he burst open. The arm was brought down a second and a third time, but he was well dead before then, the force from the blow shattering his bones and sending jets of blood and ruined flesh shooting off in streams from the point of impact.

“The thing turned back to me, still laughing its awful laugh, and I swear I could see that mouth of knives smiling at me. So I ran. My mind was half gone at this point, and I can’t say that I was even headed back towards the road. Over the sound of blood in my ears, I could hear the terrible thudding crash of the monster pursuing me. I tried to go faster, but my vision was beginning to swim, and I found myself struggling to keep my feet.

“I felt more than heard its hot, ragged breath on my back, and I was turning to try to fight it off, but suddenly I was flying through the air. Pain flared through my neck and shoulders as I struck something hard, and then I was out again.

“When I came to, I was in a room of some kind. It looked like a basement with cinderblock walls and the musty air of disuse. The room was fairly large, stretching out into a darkness that was not illuminated by the single pool of light the overhead bulb afforded. I was tied in a chair, ropes at my wrists and ankles, bungee cord around my chest. I tried to rock the chair, but it was either very heavy or secured somehow because it didn’t budge.

“Next, I tried to listen for any sign of noise, any clue as to where I was or who might be around. Nothing. Finally, I went back to studying my surroundings, peering into the dark for any further information I could find. That’s when I saw his eyes.

“Salk’s eyes were reflecting the light from the overhead bulb, and as I stared into the blackness, I could slowly make out his still form. He said nothing, but after another few seconds of studying me, he stepped forward into the light, his eyes still fixed upon me. He was smiling, and it looked very genuine.

“‘The reason you’re alive, in case you were wondering, is I need to know what you know and who you’ve told.’ Salk’s voice had lost any forced jocularity that I was used to hearing. The times we intersected at the hospital, he stood in front of me, hands on his waist, and the unpleasant smile still on his lips, as though he was getting ready to punish an unruly child and savored the idea.

“‘I understand you can lie, and I understand that torture is not foolproof, but I have to try, don’t I?’

“I looked up at him, fear and rage warring in my heart. ‘I know you’re a murderer. I know you killed Rebecca.’

“Salk gave me a fake wince as I said her name. ‘Yeah, that was not my best choice. I knew that taking someone from where I worked was risky, but I needed someone, and she was just there like a gift. It was easy at the time. But hindsight is a bitch. If I had known you were going to be a super sleuth, I would have tried to hold off.’

“He smiled again, and I was reminded of Alicia comparing him to a shark. It was apt.

“‘But let’s move past that. What do you really know?’

“I felt my jaw clenching with anger. ‘One thing that’s important. The expression fell off Salk’s face like rotten meat off a bone. Dead-eyed and silent, he bent down and began pulling off my right shoe. I tried to struggle briefly, but I didn’t budge. I needed to save my energy for when I could make it count. My left wrist seemed to be slightly looser.

“Salk reached back into the pool of darkness surrounding us, and I heard the sound of metal being dragged across concrete a moment before the hammer came into view. He brought the hammer up to my face for a moment, but he didn’t ask another question. Instead, he brought the head of the hammer down on my right pinky toe with enough force to burst the flesh and pulverize the bone.

“I know I screamed, but I don’t remember it. I was too concerned with the bomb going off in my head as the pain reached my brain. I felt myself slip towards blackness and then back out again. My head was spinning as I gasped for breath, and I realized I was flailing involuntarily, as though my body had decided it was time to escape regardless of any plan I might have. With great effort, I slowed my breathing and movement. It was hard to think about anything but the pain, but I had to try and hold on.

“I couldn’t see my foot, but I could tell from the force and the spray of blood that had shot across the floor into the dark that the toe was crushed, if not torn off completely. That meant I would be slow if I had to run, but it might possibly make my foot easier to slip free if I didn’t black out. Of course, that was always assuming he ever left me alone long enough for me to try before he had broken me too badly for it to matter.

“Salk was snapping his fingers in front of my face, his expression still blank but his voice cold and angry. ‘Pay attention. This is your next chance. What else do you know?’

“I knew I needed to cooperate at least partially to minimize any damage and slow things down. Through clenched teeth, I muttered, ‘I know you give things to that monster to kill, or you are a monster. I don’t see how you could be, but who knows? That’s what else I know.’

“He nodded. ‘So you don’t know much, it sounds like. If you’re telling the truth, which you probably aren’t. But still, a good start.’

“He suddenly slammed the hammer down again on my foot, a bit farther in. My world exploded into red and black, and this time I heard myself screaming for a moment before I blacked out.

“When I came to, Salk was just standing there, arms by his side, bloody hammer in his left hand. His eyes rolled towards me when I opened mine, but he didn’t move yet, just stood there statue-like, watching me for a while as I tried to get my thoughts together.

“When he spoke, his voice was still flat but sounded lighter, as though he was happier than he had been before. ‘Glad to see you’re back. You’re down three toes now, I’m afraid. In my expert opinion, they’re beyond saving.’ His gaze flicked down to my feet for a moment. ‘Two of them are pretty much not there anymore, if I’m honest. But hopefully this is making my point. This is how much I hurt you if you cooperate. Imagine how much worse it’ll be if you don’t. I know how to break nearly every bone in your body without you dying from it quickly, and while I’m ill-equipped to keep you alive long-term here, I can certainly break you enough that the rot and infection that slowly kills you down in this hole will make this,’ he waved the hammer towards my feet like the scepter of a bored king, ‘seem like a pleasure.’

“I was barely listening to what he was saying. I was too focused on trying not to look at his bloody finger. I had been watching him closely since I first woke here, and I hadn’t seen any signs of him being faster or stronger than I would expect. If he typically hid some preternatural strength or agility, it seemed unlikely he would hide it now, particularly when he was trying so hard to frighten me. But it wasn’t much hope by itself. Even normal Marcus Salk was perfectly capable of torturing and killing me as he was, to say nothing of that monster I had seen, whether it was tied to Salk or somehow sprang from the man himself.

“But then, when I woke up as he gave his best intimidating monologue and waved his hammer around, I saw it. His right index finger was bleeding. That was the hand he was using to hold my foot when he hit it. That told me two things. First, he wasn’t especially coordinated. Second, he could still be hurt.

“‘Ready to answer my next question?’

“His voice remained lifeless, but it still had that lighter, almost merry edge to it. He was enjoying himself. I nodded, making a point of moving slower and more warily than I felt.

“‘Yes. Water, please.’

“I rested my voice as much as I could, which wasn’t hard in my current condition. It was hard to see what Salk was thinking. His face an emotionless mask as he seemed to consider my request. I felt my heart sinking as several seconds seemed to pass. Then his eyes shifted up, and what might have been a look of exasperation.

“‘Fine. Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.’

“He turned around and moved into the dark. A door opened, and a light came on in the adjoining room. I could see much more of the basement now, including stairs at the far end that he had not taken. That meant there was water down here, and he would soon be back. I frantically began tugging at my left arm, ignoring the pain in protest of my wrist as I yanked and twisted with all my strength. I had been right. The rope on my left wrist had some play in it, but I wasn’t sure it was enough.

“I started sawing the rope back and forth across my wrist quickly instead, and within a few seconds I saw blood beginning to well around the rope. At the same time, I was aware of the light turning back off in the adjacent room as Salk returned. After a frantic motion to smear the blood more thoroughly on the rope, I gave a last pull to free my wrists. I felt something pop in it, but the blood had provided enough lubrication that it had slipped free just as Salk stepped back into the light.

“‘Good. And just in time, seriously.’

“His voice was still too strangely flat to convey sarcasm well, but he punctuated it by throwing the glass of water he had brought in my face. He sat the glass itself down on the floor and then bent forward, gripping my left arm roughly with his left hand as he began undoing the rope around the chair arm with his right.

“This is what I was waiting for. I knew he favored his left hand, and that he would favor it more with his right one injured. He could have come at me from the side and been totally safe, but he was arrogant, and he thought I was secure. Less so. And the stupid bastard had tied my chest with a bungee cord.

“An adult human male can bite down with over two hundred pounds of pressure. Given the proper placement and force, it’s more than enough to rip out the left internal and external carotid arteries in one bite. I had thought of the best angle if I got the chance, but I couldn’t waste time trying to be perfect. In one movement, I leaned forward and down and then shot my face up into his neck, my mouth as wide as I could make it.

“Distracted with my arm in the rope, he couldn’t react in time. I clamped down, grinding my teeth together as I felt skin, muscle, and then tendons give way. I shook my head as I pulled him towards me, and I felt the arteries begin to shred as new volumes of blood sprayed down my throat and out into the room around my lips. I still didn’t let go, but I realized that Salk had been squealing, not really struggling or fighting back, just squealing like a dying animal. I didn’t even hear it until it started to fade away as his body went limp.

“The weight of it did the rest of the work for me, and with a wet snap, I was left with a mouthful of the man’s throat as the rest of him crumpled to the floor. I spat it out and began working to get free. Even with my injured wrist, it didn’t take long. I kept an eye on Salk the entire time. He had lost more blood than any person can lose and live, but I had seen too much already that night.

“When I was free, I took the hammer and beat his head until there was very little left. When there was no question about him coming back, I began to explore the basement. The room next door was actually a full living space with a cot, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. I found some bandages and antiseptic, doing the best I could to protect my foot in the short term. Salk had been telling the truth. The last two toes on my right foot were gone.

“After I was done with first aid, I began looking for any information that Salk could have left behind, any clues about what was actually going on, what that creature was. But there was nothing that I could find. I felt my strength waning as the adrenaline started to wear off, so I got to work getting out of there.

“I quickly pilfered his pockets and found his keys as well as my own. Moving up the basement stairs, I found the door at the top was locked, but after a tense moment, I found the key on Salk’s keyring. I tried to move quietly as I went upstairs, images of that terrible creature in the woods filling my head as I hobbled along.

“I was in a small ranch house, and when I opened the exterior door, I saw my battered little spy car outside. Apparently Salk had been forced to take it when his was wrecked, and by some miracle it actually made it this far. I hoped it could make it a bit farther.

“Standing in the doorway looking out, I saw I was out in the middle of nowhere. There was a dirt road leading away into the distance, but no sign of other lights from houses or cars. I could tell that the sky was starting to lighten as dawn approached, but it was of little comfort at this moment. Aside from the terrible pain, I also felt exposed in this strange place where anything could be lurking about.

“I quickly went back inside to spread around the contents of a gas can I had found in the basement, making sure to saturate anywhere I had traveled in Salk’s body as I went. Going back outside, I tried my car, and it cranked up with a groaning whine. So far, so good.

“I had actually forgotten to find something to light the gasoline in my addled state, but the cigarette lighter from the car and a scrounged piece of paper from my floorboard did the trick, and in a few minutes I was driving away. Having no clue where I was, I saw the tracks on the dirt road seemed to show Salk had come from the right, so that’s the direction I headed back in.

“Driving was awkward as the car had no cruise control and I couldn’t use my right foot to accelerate. Thankfully, it was an automatic, and while it wasn’t comfortable, that inconvenience was the least of my worries. More troublesome was my consciousness, which was dipping in and out as I drove. Gritting my teeth, I bumped my right foot against the interior of the car lightly, the surge of pain making me groan but bringing me back for the moment.

“I had a panicked thought and looked down at the gas gauge, remembering how low I had been before the wreck. Apparently Salk had to stop and get gas to get me all the way out here because now there was over half a tank. I had the unerotic thought that it was a lucky break, and then I started crying. Not just a little, but blinding, body-wracking sobs to the point that I had to pull over.

“I sat there in my dingy little spy car for some time, weeping. Part of it was the physical and emotional toll of the last few hours, but most of it was because it was over. Salk was finally dead, and that night as I sat tied to his chair and said that him killing Rebecca was the only thing that was important, I had meant it. The monster, the mystery, none of that mattered. He had taken my life from me, my sweet, wonderful baby, and now I had ended him.

“But while that was a relief in one way, it terrified me in another. For months, I had been preoccupied with studying Salk, with preparing my revenge. Now that it was done, I found myself standing at the edge of my black despair, the ground weakening under my feet as the new reality set in. I had nothing left to do, nothing left to live for.

“Salk had taken my gun and knife, but there was still a box cutter in the glove compartment. I took it out and held it for a while, testing its feel in my palm and the accompanying idea in my mind. It was tempting, but I kept thinking of what Rebecca would want me to do and of that terrified little boy in the moments before he died. I hadn’t done enough. I couldn’t even say whether or not killing Salk had killed the monster or if it was still out there, and I hadn’t come this far to quit on any of it, myself included.

“I cranked back up and drove on, hitting pavement and in a small town with a hospital nearly three hours from home. When I pulled up, I said, cutting my grandfather off mid-sentence, ‘Just stop.’

“He frowned and nodded. We had been sitting here for over two hours, and as the old man talked, I had felt my anxiety grow into a kind of strange, angry fear. I stood up and began pacing to try to rid myself of some of the nervous energy I had been accumulating.

“So to summarize, you killed this guy Salk who killed your wife, and he either was this terrible beetle-rat monster thing or he was working with him. Is that the short version?”

“I realized I was yelling, but I didn’t care. My grandfather opened his mouth to respond, but I talked over him.

“‘Okay, aside from the fact of how batshit crazy that is, let’s just go with it for now. Let’s even say that you did kill this Salk guy, who clearly couldn’t be a monster because they don’t exist, but that you were justified because he really did kill grandma.’ I paused to take a breath, and seeing the abject sadness on his face, I forced a calmer tone. ‘How does any of that explain what I saw last night? What you did to that woman?’

“I was getting to it. There’s a lot you still don’t understand.”

“I shook my head. ‘No. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I get that you’ve been through a lot, I do, and maybe you can’t see how crazy some of this stuff is, but if you really believe all this stuff, you need help. But I can’t know what kind of help you need until I know what you’ve done.’

“I tried to prepare myself for the question I had been dreading asking all morning.

“‘Grandpa, did you kill that woman?’

“He met my gaze solemnly, looking older in that moment than I had ever seen him.

“‘I did. But again, there’s more to it.’

“I raised my hand. ‘Sure. Aside from Salk and that woman, have you killed other people?’

“He nodded, not even trying to explain further at that point.

“‘How many?’

“His eyes didn’t leave mine.

“‘That woman makes eighty-seven.’

“I felt my knees going as I stumbled back against the kitchen counter.

“‘What? How? Why?’

“He looked dejected. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you why. It’s not an easy or quick thing to explain.’

“I dug into my pocket as he was talking. ‘Yeah, I guess not.’ Pulling my phone out, I tapped out 9-1-1 and hit call. After a moment of silence, I heard it ring, and then a woman’s voice was on the line.

“‘9-1-1, what’s your emergency?’

“My throat was suddenly dry as a bone. My grandfather sat silently staring at me from the table without protest, just watching. I finally managed to croak out, ‘I think there’s been a murder out here. I think my grandfather killed someone.’

“The 911 operator wanted me to stay on the line, but I told her I needed to go, that I would be looking out for the patrol cars. Hanging up my phone, I stuffed it back into my pocket and looked again at my grandfather, who still sat silently staring at me.

“‘Okay. This is your last chance. For real. They’re on their way. You need to tell me what’s going on right now before they get here. We can still fix this, or at least help it. I need to understand what you’ve done.’

“He glanced at the clock up on the wall and then back at me. ‘It’s better we wait, actually. It shouldn’t take them more than ten minutes to get here. Likely less. I wouldn’t get very far in that amount of time, and you need to hear everything for you to understand. In any event,’ he smiled at me, ‘we’ll just wait till they’ve left, and we can continue if you want.’

“I was confused and frustrated. ‘Grandpa, if they come here and find that body, they’re going to be taking you when they leave. There won’t be any more story time. Maybe you need to go with them if what you’re saying is the truth, but I’m trying to help you. Talk to me before you have to talk to them.’

“He gave a laugh. ‘I know you’re doing what you think is best, Jason. I appreciate it. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably do the same thing. But don’t worry about me. Everything is going to work out just fine.’

“I wanted to protest more, but what was the point? Instead, I just stood by the counter, my gaze roaming between the window and the floor. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I felt myself feeling more and more guilty and disquieted by his reaction to me calling the police, and I tried to stop second-guessing myself. I had done the reasonable thing after listening to hours of his insanity, and I needed to remember that.

“‘There they are.’

“I looked up to see my grandfather looking out the window, and as I followed his gaze, I saw three sheriff’s deputy cars pulling up outside. I went to the back door in the kitchen and opened it, calling for them to come around that way.

“They asked me to step outside and tell them what was going on, which I did, focusing most on the large, mustached man who was doing most of the talking.

“‘Hey, thanks for coming. I… well, my grandfather. I saw him last night moving a woman’s body out of his car and carrying it into the woods. I talked to him about it this morning, and he was telling me all kinds of crazy stuff, and he admitted to killing that woman. I don’t know what really happened, but I’m worried he’s had some kind of break. He’s close to eighty, and he’s still real sharp, but I…’ I broke off as the lead deputy raised his hand.

“‘Hold up, son. Is this Dr. Barron we’re talking about? He’s your grandfather?’

“I nodded. ‘Yeah, he is. He’s…’

“He cut me off again. ‘Okay, where is he now?’

“I wasn’t sure what to make of his reaction, but I turned and pointed to the house. ‘He’s in there. I’ve got him tied to a chair in the kitchen.’

“When I turned back, the two backup deputies had guns drawn on me. Deputy Mustache pointed a finger in my face.

“‘You stay here. Anyone else in there with him?’

“I shook my head in stunned silence. Glowering at me, he pulled his own gun and moved towards the door, going into the kitchen. The two deputies outside guarded me like I was Hannibal Lecter, their eyes flicking nervously to each other as they waited.

“After several minutes, I heard footsteps and turned to see my grandfather coming out of the house in front of the deputy. He was smiling and talking with the other man in low tones. My stomach clenched as I noticed the deputy had put away his gun.

“‘What was going on?’

“Mustache gestured to the other two deputies. ‘You can stow your guns for now, boys, but keep them ready. We’ve still got some things to sort out.’ He turned to me, his expression hard.

“‘So your grandfather explained that he gave you a prescription for…’ He pulled a brown pill bottle out of his pocket to read the label. ‘Clonazepam. Just ten pills because you were having a lot of stress and trouble sleeping what with being back at your deceased parents’ and all, which is understandable.’ He had handed the bottle to my grandfather and now had his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. ‘What is less understandable is how come you tied him up all morning and are making up these crazy tales.’

“I started to respond, but he raised his hand. ‘Pardon, but the less you say right now the better. You listen instead. Your grandpa is a good man, a respected doctor. Ever since your parents moved to the area, he’s made a point of coming around and helping out this community as he could, even though he lives hours away. And that’s good for you,’ he said, pointing his finger at me again, ‘because he’s convinced me to not lock you up today if you act right. He tells me that what was that word?’

“My grandfather smiled helpfully. ‘Benzodiazepines.’

“Mustache nodded. ‘Yeah, that. That it can sometimes cause nightmares or hallucinations. Your grandpa believes you had some dream about him hurting someone that you think is real.’ He paused, looking hard at me to accentuate his point. ‘So how does that sound to you? Does that sound better than you just went crazy and tied him up for no reason?’

“I tried to keep myself from yelling. ‘No, that doesn’t sound good. I haven’t taken any pills. He’s lying. Deputy, I know what I saw. He carried a woman out into the woods. He admitted to me that he killed her.’

“My grandfather stepped forward and headed off the deputy’s angry response. ‘Look, it might help him accept that it was just the drug if you go ahead and look in the woods. Show him there’s nothing there. I know it’s a hassle, but…’

“Mustache was already nodding, smiling at him. ‘No, no, Doctor, it’s fine. You feel up to coming with us?’

“‘Sure thing, Jason. You want to lead the way?’

“My grandfather grinned and tipped me a wink.

“I led the deputies in the direction he had carried the woman, walking as far from my grandfather as I could. I kept imagining him suddenly attacking one of the deputies and getting his gun or bolting off into the woods, but he strolled along as calm and pleasant as if we were on a midday stroll. I could tell the deputies were barely looking around, but honestly, there was very little to see. To their credit, they went along with me for close to two hours before I gave up. I didn’t think he could have carried her out farther than we went in the time he was gone the night before, and there was no trace of anything.

“As we headed back towards the house, my grandfather was suddenly beside me, patting me on the shoulder with his big, strong hand. I stifled a yelp and tried not to flinch away. Acting more crazy wasn’t going to help anything at this point.

“‘See?’ he whispered to me. ‘I told you it would all be okay.’

“Ten minutes later, the deputies were gone after making my grandfather promise he would call them if there was any more trouble. Any more trouble from me, the crazy druggie.

“As soon as they were out of sight, I turned on him. ‘How did you do that with the pills?’

“He looked a little sheepish, his hands in his trouser pockets as he shrugged. ‘It wasn’t hard. I came up the day before you did. When I went into town, I ran across that woman at a gas station. From that encounter, I knew I would be hunting while I was here, so I went ahead and called in the prescription for you on the night voicemail of the pharmacy so it wouldn’t be filled until the day you arrived. When we went by the grocery store, I picked up the prescription and kept it tucked away in case I needed it. After last night, I moved it to a kitchen drawer so it’d be ready.’

“‘Ready for what? Why did you get the pills in the first place?’

“Now he looked slightly disappointed. ‘Well, for this. What we just did.’ He gestured around to where the deputies had been moments before. ‘It was a calculated risk that you might see or hear something if I took that woman while we were here, and I needed a way of explaining what you saw if you called the police. A bad dream from drug side effects seemed a good solution.’

“I began to pace, my fists clenched at my side. ‘Yeah, so you make me look crazy by planting drugs in the house.’

“‘Not crazy, just stressed and taking a legally prescribed medication that didn’t sit well with you. Better than them thinking I’m some kind of serial killer.’

“I stopped, turning to scream at him. ‘But you are! You are a serial killer! Eighty-seven people! What do you think you are?’

“He shook his head. ‘I don’t think it needs a name, really. I look at it like hunting, and the people I hunt hardly deserve to be counted as human. When I kill them, they’re not even entirely human biologically, and they are certainly far removed from any moral or spiritual definition of the word. But serial killer? No. That term carries way too much baggage, and while technically correct in some ways, I think looking at me as a hunter is far more apt.

“‘Look at it this way. In some parts of the world, sometimes you have a lion or bear go bad. They get a taste for people, and they become a threat.’ He chuckled. ‘Well, a bigger threat than a normal lion or bear. So the local people have to get together and hunt the bad animal down because that animal is an anomaly. It’s not natural. And by killing him, the people aren’t just saving themselves, they’re restoring balance.’

“He gestured towards the woods where he had carried the woman. ‘These people might look like people, but they aren’t really people anymore. There’s a lot more I need to explain to you, but the short answer is they are unnatural, and they are tied to things terrible beyond your wildest dreams. Looking up at the sky, he took a deep breath.

“‘Jason, I know this is all hard to believe, and I know you don’t know me as well as you should. That’s my fault. I tried to be a good father, but your mother was grown when Rebecca died, and to my shame I was selfish in my grief. I isolated myself much of the time from her and your father, and from you. If I hadn’t, you’d likely trust me more now.’ He looked back at me, his eyes glistening. ‘But I was trying to do good. I still am trying to do good. And my hope is you’ll come to see the value in the end, if you can be patient and listen to all I have to say and see what I have to show you.’

“I felt so tired. I wanted to believe him, but how could I? I didn’t know what to say anymore. Finally, I muttered, ‘What are you gonna show me? Where you hid that poor woman’s body?’

“He shook his head, smiling ruefully. ‘Oh no. That woman’s body doesn’t exist anymore. Literally. If she’s not here.’ Noticing my confused expression, he waved his hand. ‘Sorry, getting ahead of things. Let me tell you about that woman. But after that, if you’re willing, I need you to go with me on a little trip.’

“The afternoon sun was high in the sky and shining down through the trees overhead. It left my grandfather dappled in shifting patches of light and shadow. He looked strange in the penumbra, both young and old, menacing and beneficent at the same time. I could see him grinning at me when he spoke.

“‘To where I study them. Like I was telling you outside, I first ran into that woman you saw me toting into the woods at a gas station in town. That was the afternoon before you got here. Bear in mind, I’m trying to focus in on the past few days and wait to tell you all the rest when I can show you things as well, but there are some things I need to explain as we go so it will make more sense. For instance, how I can tell an outsider, that’s what I call them, for reasons that will be clear in time, from a normal person.

“‘When I bit out Salk’s throat, I must have swallowed close to a quart of his blood in the process. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it’s the best explanation I have for what happened next. I went for nearly two months after killing him without reading about any strange murders or having any indication that the creature I had seen was still out in the world. I was starting to think that it was either truly over and some things would just remain a mystery, or at the very least my ability to intervene had ended with my lead on Salk.

“‘Then one day I was walking down a hallway at the hospital when I passed an old man. He appeared to be there visiting someone and was coming out from the downstairs cafeteria as I was about to go in. There was nothing remarkable about him at all, and as our eyes met at a distance, he gave me a polite nod and kept moving forward. But within two more steps of him, I was hit with a painful wave of nausea. My first thought was that I was just sick and the first symptoms were hitting me, but then moments later I felt fine again, and I looked to see the man had moved past me by little more than the distance that we had been when I first felt sick.

“‘I pondered it for a moment and then decided to follow him. He had entered into the nearby gift shop to peruse the handful of magazines and crossword puzzle books on offer amid the stuffed animals and overpriced snacks. I waited a few seconds and then entered behind him, careful to stay out of his line of sight. I edged closer again. When I got within about five feet of him, I was struck with nausea, not nearly as strong this time but very distinct and unpleasant. I tested it several times, moving back and forth out of the invisible demarcation between well and unwell. It was as regular and reliable as flipping a switch.

“‘Something in Salk’s blood had stayed with me and become a huge asset in my work. Whenever I get close to one of those things, these outsiders, I feel that same familiar sick feeling. The range varies, but it’s definitely grown over time to an average of about twenty feet. The first time is always bad, though I’ve grown accustomed to it enough that it isn’t incapacitating. After the first time I make contact with one of them, from then on it’s much weaker, though it never goes away entirely. And the feeling is unique to that particular outsider. Every first encounter with a new one is always strong.

“‘So going back to the other day, when I encountered the woman, I was picking up some candy in the gas station, debating on whether I wanted to just eat junk food that night or actually get some kind of substantial dinner, and that woman walked past me on the next aisle over. I knew right away what the feeling I got was, and the store was empty enough it was easy to tell where it was coming from.

“‘Of course, I didn’t react in any way. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I learned years ago to be careful. You never tip your hand to one of them. Surprise is one of the few advantages we have, so it should never be squandered. Instead, I waited and listened. When she went up to the counter to pay for some kind of soft drink and chips, I heard the conversation between her and the cashier. They knew each other, apparently went to church together. That meant she was local, so she would be easier to find later.

“‘As I pretended to look at a bag of chocolate-covered peanuts, I looked out the window to the only other customer car in the parking lot. It was a gold-colored sedan with some kind of back window decal I couldn’t make out from that angle. I waited, hearing the cashier call the woman Suzy as she said goodbye. Putting down the candy, I picked up another brand and made a show of studying the nutritional information on the back, which was a horror in and of itself.

“‘Suzy was slow pulling away, but when she finally did, I saw two more things. The window decal was for Mid Creek Community College, which was only twenty miles away from here, and she had an educator tag on her car. Smartphones, as disturbing as they can be in some regards, are wonderful tools for the things I do. Obviously any internet research or phone calls I make in connection with hunting is done with what they call burner phones, but they have come a long way, haven’t they?

“‘Before I left the gas station, I had already found her picture and all. Suzy Ives, associate professor of economics at Mid Creek Community College. A couple of more searches and I had her home address.

“‘When I went out last night, I went to her home first, but no one was there. Next I drove by the college, but there was no sign of her car there either. Then, as I was coming back through town, I saw the gold sedan at that late-night diner near the interstate. Slowing down, I could see her inside at a booth eating some kind of waffle as she sat by herself.

“‘That is the hardest part, and Jason, you see these people, these things, living their public lives, showing their external face. If you’re doing it right, they don’t even know you’re watching them, and they seem vulnerable, mundane, human. It is easy to forget that the woman sitting alone in the dingy diner morosely gnawing on a waffle late at night, well, she isn’t really a person. Not entirely. At best, that’s only part of the truth, and the only part. Well, believe me, if you ever let yourself forget the other part, you’re liable to wind up dead.

“‘So you have to close yourself off from feeling sorry for them or seeing mercy as some kind of virtue. That kind of thinking almost killed me twice early on in all this, and while it’s the hardest lesson to learn, it’s also one of the most important. I parked across the road from the diner in the shadow of a run-down pawn shop that had gone belly-up years earlier from the look of it. I watched her eat her food, pay her bill, and get in her car. I followed her, and soon it was clear she was most likely going home based on her route. It was an educated guess, but worth the risk to get the jump on her.

“‘I turned off to take a different, slower route, making up the time and distance with speed and getting to her house three minutes before she did. From all signs, she lived alone, and I had unscrewed her porch light before she pulled up. As she was reaching into her purse for her house keys, I stepped out, slamming the syringe into her neck and pushing in the mixture it contained all within a couple of seconds. She made a small noise of surprise and flailed around for a couple of seconds, but she was already lost.

“‘The cocktail I give them contains a mixture of sedative and paralytic, and for the most part they are on the ground within ten seconds. The trick is managing the dosage and judging how much time you have. The right dose is enough to put a normal person into a coma or respiratory failure, but an outsider will push through it and come to in around an hour. As much as they share human frailties when you catch them by surprise, if you aren’t done moving them and dealing with them before the time runs out, well, you better be ready with another dose or you have a major problem.

“‘But with her, everything went smoothly enough. I loaded her into the back of my SUV, brought her back here, and I had her in the woods all within forty-five minutes. Then I just had to finish her off.

“‘I know that sounds cold. It felt very cold to me the first few times I thought about it in those terms. But when you see the things they do, it’s not all brutal killings like Salk would do. Many of them are far more clever and insidious. When you face the realities of that kind of evil, your sensibilities start to change quite a bit. Your willingness to do harm, your tolerance for cruelty, it slowly becomes palatable at the best and worst of times. It becomes righteous.



“‘And that’s one of the dangers too. You have to understand these things to kill them, but you have to keep yourself separate too. When I perform a surgery, I want the patient to live very badly, but I can’t let myself care about them or worry at a personal level. That emotion would get in the way, making me hesitate or make a mistake. It’s the same thing with this. You cannot do this out of a sense of revenge, and you can’t let yourself become like the thing you’re hunting.

“‘In any case, the best and cleanest way to kill an outsider is to destroy what I call the seed. All of them, when they are alive and for a short while after they are dead, have this small black… well, it looks like a pebble, and usually it’s stuck to just beneath the left hippocampus. Most of the time, the hippocampus, as you may know, is part of the temporal lobe of the brain and is tied to creating memories as well as complex emotions. I have a theory that’s why the seed is so close by. It makes it easier for it to influence the outsider’s perceptions and reactions to things. That’s also why when the pretense is not needed, such as when I was in Salk’s closet or when he had me tied up, they are quick to revert to an almost emotionless default state.

“‘But we can talk more about all that later. For now, back to the point. If you drill into the left side of their skull, just in front of and about halfway up the height of the ear, you will often hit the seed. It may take three or four tries, but a moderately powerful cordless drill works just fine with some weight applied to pushing it in, and assuming you have a long enough drill bit, of course. The seed itself is fairly fragile, and when the bit hits it, it will shatter.

“‘Then something remarkable happens. There’s a low vibration that you can feel in the air. It reminds me of the rumble hum you feel in a subway station sometimes, and then the body is just gone. More accurately, it collapses in on itself like some kind of dying star, but it is too fast to see with the naked eye. I’ve managed to catch some evidence of it on special cameras, but for reasons that will be explained, that’s a difficult process in and of itself. But when it goes, it all goes. The body, the clothing I was wearing, and anything else that is inorganic and on it or inside of it.

“‘I’ve taken to leaving the drill in when I hit the seed as it removes the need for me to dispose of a bloody tool later. Even the blood from the drilling, if it is physically connected to the body, we’ll all go away. That’s why I make sure to drill through a folded-up towel. If I keep pressure on and do it quickly enough, I can finish with no trace of the person ever being there at all.

“‘That being said,’ my grandfather stopped, his face looking concerned and angry as he looked out the window. We were in the living room now, and as I turned to look outside, I saw a pickup truck flying up the road to the house. It was hard to see in that distance and speed, but it looked like several people were in the bed of the truck, all of them wearing hoodies and masks.

“‘[ __ ].’

“My grandfather was standing up, his face hard. ‘Apparently someone at the sheriff’s office is part of the house and figured out who you were talking about when you said I had a woman last night.’

“‘The house? What?’

“My grandfather shook his head. ‘The House of the Claw. It’s a cult. They’re human, but very deadly. No time to explain now. We running or killing? Your call.’

“I could barely breathe. ‘Running.’

“He nodded, reaching under the chair he had been sitting in to pull out a semi-automatic pistol. ‘Fair enough. Stay close to me and don’t stop unless I say so. We’re going for the truck now. Go.’

“We headed to the kitchen, my grandfather gesturing for me to keep low. Flinging open the exterior door, he glanced outside and then beckoned for me to follow. We weren’t very far from his SUV, but we still had to round the corner of the house, and I could hear the pickup sliding to a halt in the front yard.

“We moved to the corner of the house and stopped, my grandfather turning to whisper to me. ‘Here’s the key fob. When I say go, you do three things. First, you unlock the doors with the fob. Second, you count to two. Third, you run to the passenger side and get in and down. Got it?’

“I nodded, my hands trembling as I took the fob from him.

“‘Good. Go.’

“I unlocked the car, wincing internally at the loud honk it gave as the locks disengaged, but then I realized no one was going to pay much attention to it with my grandfather shooting at them. It occurred to me that I wasn’t counting, so I bolted after what felt like two seconds and made it around to the passenger side. I felt a moment of sharp panic as my hand fumbled at the door latch before getting the door open. Once inside, I tried to ball into the floorboard as much as possible.

“I had just enough time to take in the smells of the SUV, a mixture of my grandfather, some kind of oil, and a metallic scent, before he was opening the driver’s door and getting in. Without saying anything, he punched the ignition button and threw the SUV into gear. I heard two more gunshots, and something made a loud pinging on the outside of the car, but we kept going, and as I eased up into the seat, I saw that we were clear of the yard and headed down the road.

“Looking back, I saw three of the four men clustered around a fourth that was on the ground but still moving. My grandfather looked over at me. ‘You hurt?’

“I shook my head. ‘I’m fine. What about you? What happened?’

“‘No, I’m fine. I think I got a couple of pellets of buckshot in my leg, but it was from a ricochet. Nothing major.’ He gave me a tight smile. ‘As for what happened, I shot two of them, one in the arm and one in the leg. Can’t risk killing them at your parents’ house or anywhere they can be linked back to us.’

“‘What? Why? They already know who we are.’

“He took a turn down a sandy dirt road. ‘They do, but they’re likely the only ones that do.’ Turning to glance behind my seat, he nodded to himself. ‘Look, while we talk, I need you to do a couple of things. Grab the box of stuff behind your seat. You should also see a small blue bag behind mine. Get both of them up here with you if you can.’

“I did as he asked, pulling a medium-sized cardboard box up to find it contained six glass jars with sealable lids. The jars were all full of nails and ball bearings. I thought about asking questions, but I knew there was no time. He’d tell me what I needed to know.

“I found the blue bag where he said it would be. It contained a variety of items, and as I looked through them, he told me what to use. There were little rolls of taped-up face towels in the bag, and following his instructions, I unwrapped three of them to find small glass vials with rubber stoppers in the middle. The vials contained some kind of fluid, but he told me to be careful not to open the vials. Instead, I was to slide them gently into the middle of the nails and bearings in three of the jars. After I did so, he told me to take a specific plastic bottle from the blue bag and squirt it on the metal in the jar until the three prepped jars were two-thirds full of the liquid too. Then I had to screw the sealed lids back on.

“When I was done, he gave me a grin. ‘Congratulations, you’ve just made nail bombs. Now be very careful with them. Don’t drop one, and try not to tip them over. We’ll need them in a few minutes.’

“His cautions made me feel queasy. ‘Why will we need them? Because you think they’re going to track us down?’

“He nodded. ‘Oh yeah. They better. That’s why I didn’t try to kill any of them. These cultists, they are very dangerous, but sometimes they lose their stomach when they see a buddy get killed. We can’t outrun two SUVs, and we need them to follow us.’

“He looked up at the odometer. ‘We’re about ten miles away now. Need to be at least ten more. Anyway, back to what I was explaining earlier. This cult, the House of the Claw. I didn’t know they existed at first. Looking back on it, there were signs of their influence. That little boy that Salk picked up and killed, for instance. What was he doing out that late? And I learned later that he lived with his parents over fifty miles from where Salk snatched him. What are the odds of that happening? I can’t prove it, but I suspect the House dropped him back there and had tipped Salk off as to where to look.

“‘That’s what these crazy bastards do. They help the outsiders facilitate their plans. Worship them. Not every outsider has any cultists around them, in fact only about one in three or four do as best as I can tell, but where the House does exist, they operate like some terrorist cells. There’s usually four or five working together, and they don’t know the identity of anyone else in the cult outside their cell. Of course, those higher up in the chain know who are in the cells, so they can send directives down as needed. But if a cell member gets caught, they can’t give up their bosses or details about the larger organization. It’s clever in some ways, but it has its flaws too.’

“He looked over at me, his face stony. ‘For instance, these men that are after us, they have no way of telling people outside of their group who we are unless they get contacted by their bosses. That does happen periodically, but not often. So as long as the entire cell dies, our identities are safe.’

“I felt my skin going cold. ‘Even if we kill them, how will we know we got them all?’

“He nodded. ‘It’s always a risk, but the most likely source of them finding out is a House member in the sheriff’s office. If that person isn’t among this group, we know there’s likely another person. If they are, odds are good this is all of them, as they tend to do things as a full unit most of the time. There’s no sure answers, though. We just have to do the best we can, be smarter and better than them.’

“We drove on for a couple of minutes in silence, and then he spoke again. ‘Put your seat belt on, if you would.’

“After I clicked it on, he continued. ‘You good with all this? I know it’s a lot, and I hate you’re at risk, especially having not signed up for it. Believe me, I know this is hard to adjust to, but this is as serious as it gets.’ He turned, studying me for a moment. ‘Life or death, good and evil. Even these are bad people that do terrible things, and they will torture and murder us if we don’t get them first.’

“I met his eyes. ‘I… I believe you. I get it. I’m freaked out, but I get it. And I’m with you.’

“‘Good. Because I think this is a good spot. Hold on to those bombs. It’s gonna be bumpy.’

“With that, he yanked the wheel to the left, then back to the right, sending us down the sandy shoulder and into a stand of bushes. I held the box containing the jars in a death grip, my muscles tensing at every clink of glass. When we came to a stop, he smiled at me.

“‘Good job. Okay, let’s go. Get out. Come around so I can show you something on the side, and then you’ll come back and grab the three jars you prepped.’

“I did as he asked, and when I reached his side of the SUV, I saw he had a long-bladed hunting knife in his hand. He pointed it at the tire as he talked.

“‘Now, as you may have figured out, we’re trying to make it look like we wrecked. We took this sandy road because even if they’re idiots, they should be able to track us on it. But just because they aren’t all brilliant doesn’t mean you should underestimate the least of them, and some of them are very capable. Either way, we need a visible reason why we should have wrecked here.’

“He took the knife and slammed it into the crevice between two tire treads. When he pulled it free, I could immediately hear the angry hiss of air escaping.

“‘My grandfather tapped the outer wall of the tire. ‘It’s easier to flatten a tire on the side, the rubber’s weaker, but it’s also very obvious that it was cut. So when you need it to look like a blowout instead of a cut tire, you have to hide the cut in the treads. If they saw a cut tire, they might suspect an ambush. Now, hopefully they’ll just think we had bad luck.’ He patted my shoulder and laughed. ‘Lots of teachable moments today, I guess. Now go get those bombs.’

“He guessed we had about three minutes left before they should be on us. In that time, he grabbed a scoped rifle out of the back of the SUV and got me into a position across the road with my three nail bombs and some final advice.

“‘Weighing these things work is that they have to hit something hard enough that the vial inside breaks. When its contents mix with what’s in the outer part of the jar, you get an explosion filled with metal and glass shrapnel. So what that means is this. First, you throw it against something hard or hard enough it will break on landing. The jars at this point should weigh about seven or eight pounds, so if they land on asphalt from more than ten feet up, they should break. Throwing it hard at the road or the truck will work too, but try not to directly hit a person or you run the risk of it bouncing off and not breaking. And above all else, do not throw it where it goes off close to you or you will be caught in the shrapnel. Two,’ he had me positioned in an elevated spot behind some bushes about twenty feet from the road, ‘you’re far enough away here and in good position, and hopefully they will be focused on the wrecked SUV for a bit, but wait until they start to get out or the pickup will protect them a good bit. Take your time and aim, and when your third one is thrown, you slowly work your way farther into the woods. Do not wait for me, and keep going straight back from the road. I’ll find you when I’m done with them.’

“He seemed to be debating something internally, and after a moment he pulled out the semi-automatic and handed it to me. ‘Have you fired one of these before?’

“I nodded. ‘A couple of times in college. I know how to shoot.’

“‘And this is the safety, right?’

“He looked grave. ‘Yes. Keep it on, but keep your finger away from the trigger unless you mean to fire. There’s one in the chamber, and it will keep feeding them in unless it jams, which it shouldn’t. You have thirteen shots. Do not lock your arms. Do not pull the trigger, squeeze it. Hold it tightly when you fire, and remember it will recoil. For both the gun and the grenades, accuracy is always better than speed. Slow is fast, and fast is slow. And you do not fire this at all unless you have no alternative. My goal is that they never see you at all. Okay?’

“I could see by his expression he was scared, and I realized it was fear for me. I felt a wave of love for him and guilt at how I treated him.

“‘I’ll be okay. I’ll play it safe and do what you told me.’

“He gave me a half-smile and reached forward to pat the side of my head affectionately. ‘Gotta go. See you in a few minutes.’

“With the ease and agility of someone half his age, my grandfather moved down the embankment and back across the road before disappearing into the woods on the other side.

“Less than a minute later, I saw a cloud of dust as the cultist truck made its way towards us. As they approached, I felt anxiety gripping my stomach, and I fought it down. I was worried I’d make a mistake, but I still had to try. I would do what he told me and trust that it would work out.

“As they approached the wreck, they slowed to a crawl and then stopped. From my vantage, I could see one of the men was stretched out in the bed, and I guess that was the one he had shot in the leg. His companion in the passenger in the cab got out to investigate the SUV.

“I hesitated, wanting the driver out as well, but he wasn’t budging. Time to do it. The first jar at the top of the truck, and while the explosion wasn’t as loud as I’d expected, the carnage was impressive. One of the cultists was still high enough up the shoulder that a wave of shrapnel slammed into the back of his head, shooting up a bloody mist and sending him sprawling forward. The driver was looking around terrified but seemed unharmed, and I couldn’t see the third person any longer as he had dove down after the first bomb went off.

“Not sure of my next best target, I ultimately aimed one for the bed of the truck. My aim was off but lucky. It hit the driver’s side window and shattered the glass, detonating as it did so. I heard the driver’s scream, but he wasn’t dead from it. Instead, he was frantically putting his truck in drive and trying to get away.

“I felt a thrill of panic, but then I heard my grandfather’s rifle. One crack, and I saw the cultist who had dove for cover near the SUV lose half his skull. As the truck pulled away, a second crack, and the one I had knocked down with the first bomb flinched as the bullet went into his torso. Fifty yards down the road, I saw my grandfather step out onto the road and line up another shot.

“The truck had surged past me now, and any idea of using the third bomb seemed fruitless. I was worried he was going to get away, but then a third crack came. I saw the back windshield break, and suddenly the truck veered from the road as though swept aside by some invisible giant’s hand. It crashed into a small culvert on the left side of the road, and what I could see of the driver’s head through the broken side window was a ruined mess.

“I was about to stand up and say something to my grandfather when I heard another gunshot. The man in the back of the bed had either been flung out or crawled out as soon as the truck came to a halt. He was down on his belly in the culvert, some kind of revolver in his hand. The gunshot had come from him, aimed at my grandfather. I glanced back at him and saw he seemed okay and was taking cover down the opposite shoulder. Still, I felt anger welling up inside of me.

“These goddamn people trying to kill us, helping whatever these things were that were hurting people. What the actual hell? How could that be allowed to go on? And now this piece of shit was shooting at grandpa. No. Hell no.

“I stood up, throwing the remaining bomb at him. My aim was too good that time, and it pelted him in the shoulder, bouncing off him without detonating. I kept moving towards him, shifting the pistol to my dominant hand and taking aim. The first shot went wild, so did the next two, and by then he had gotten over being struck and figured out where the new shots were coming from.

“I saw him turning and aiming towards me, and forced myself to slow down. I lined up a shot on his chest and squeezed the trigger. He fired a second before me, but it went wide. Mine didn’t, and I saw him jerk as the shot took him in the shoulder close to where the jar had struck. He dropped the gun with a shriek, but I kept firing, emptying the clip into him.

“I looked around to see my grandfather approaching. He looked at the bullet-riddled body and then at me.

“‘Looks like you got him. You okay?’

“I nodded silently, trying to keep my hands from shaking in front of him.

“My grandfather moved past to check the driver before coming back to me. ‘They’re all dead. I don’t know if any of them are tied to the sheriff’s office or not, but we may get lucky and be able to find that out. Believe it or not, these guys carry their wallets on them most of the time when they do this stuff. I guess they’re worried about getting a ticket.’

“He gave me a serious smile and squeezed my shoulder. ‘I know what we just did wasn’t easy, and you’re still in shock now. That’s okay, but I need you with me. Can you change out our flat tire for the spare while I check their bodies, get rid of that last bomb, and get our shell casings?’

“I smiled weakly and said I could.

“Twenty minutes later, we were back on the road and headed away from the carnage. My grandfather had found wallets on three of the four men, and one of those men had an ID card identifying him as a dispatcher for the Sheriff’s Office. It was a small comfort, and it wasn’t a guarantee that the House of the Claw wouldn’t still be after us, but it was something.

“I asked him where we were going, and he hesitated. ‘It’s time I take you to where I do my real work. I need to tell you more, and there are things you need to see.’ He paused as though picking his next words carefully. ‘Some of it is going to be hard to hear and hard to look at. I think we may be past you now believing me or trusting me, and that’s great, but it also makes it harder when I have to show you things you aren’t going to want to believe.’

“I felt fear creeping back in past the staticky shell of shock and adrenaline. ‘What do you mean?’

“‘Just that there’s more to all of this, and it’s a lot worse than some random monster occasionally killing people for fun. As though that wasn’t bad enough. I’m not trying to spook you, just prepare you. For now, try to rest some. We’ve got a ways to go.’

“What troubled me more than his words was the way he said them and the haunted look in his eyes as he studied the road. For all that had happened, he had never really seemed rattled or afraid, aside from worrying about me. But whatever he was thinking about now, I could tell he was shaken. I don’t know my grandfather well, but I know him much better now than I did just a day ago, and whatever is able to truly worry or scare that man, well, it terrifies me.

“We drove silently for some time, with my initial assumption being that we were going back to his hometown for him to tell me the rest. As we drove, however, I began to realize that we were going north rather than east, taking the highway for two hours before he turned off onto a small paved road that later led to a gravel one. Another few miles and we turned onto a concrete driveway that led up to a metal gate and a chain-link fence topped by razor wire and several surveillance cameras. A sign next to the gate read ‘Jagger Solutions Incorporated.’

“I looked over at my grandfather, perplexed. ‘What is this place? Why are we here?’

“He smiled at me as he tapped a remote attached to his visor, and the metal gate began to open. ‘We’re at the Batcave. I couldn’t do research and other things related to all this close to home, so I bought this place.’ He was pulling through the gate now and gesturing to the three large warehouses contained within the fence’s perimeter. ‘This used to be a warehouse for an importer guy sold rugs and carpet, I think, but when he died the place sat unkempt and unsold for years before I found it. Got it for a song, though the repairs and modifications did take some time and money.’

“He pointed to the farthest building. ‘That’s the main building there in the back. Those other two were mainly for storage and some fake inventory in case the place ever got looked at or broken into. Most people don’t even know it’s tucked back here, though.’

“As we drove past the first two buildings, I saw relatively new-looking signs cautioning forklift safety rules and the importance of always wearing a hard hat and gloves. I pointed at them. ‘Safety first, huh?’

“My grandfather nodded. ‘Yeah. Me and my non-existent workers have never had a workplace death since I bought the place.’ He paused. ‘Well, except for outsiders.’

“We parked outside of the building, and he led me to a door with a keypad, making a point of showing me the code before we entered. Inside was largely empty except for a pickup, an SUV, and a corner of the building that had been converted into a workshop of sorts filled with workbenches and tools along with a heavy oak desk.

“I looked at him questioningly. ‘The Batcave?’

“He let out a chuckle. ‘No, not this.’ He walked over to a far corner that was largely in shadow, and as I drew closer I saw that it contained a stack of what looked like corrugated roofing tin. He went to a spot at the edge of the tin and stepped on it with his foot. With a loud hiss, a portion of the tin lifted up to reveal a growing slit of amber light as it expanded. I realized that a large hydraulic hatch had been camouflaged by the pile of scrap and was now opening to reveal a set of concrete steps leading down into the ground.

“My grandfather pointed at it proudly. ‘Batcave.’

“He led me downstairs, which consisted of a short hallway with a small living area including a shower, sink, and toilet on one side, and a larger room that was clearly a lab of some kind on the other. At the end of the hall was what looked like the door of an old bank vault.

“When I mentioned that to my grandfather, he nodded. ‘That’s because that’s exactly what it is. As you can imagine, after I got this place I had to have all this underneath added in. I convinced the contractor I was some kind of doomsday prepper. He was into that stuff too, so he actually gave me a discount, but it was still ungodly expensive.’

“He pointed to the vault door. ‘But this, this I actually got for free. Kind of.’ He took two large metal keys from his pocket and stuck them in the door. They turned with a large metallic clunk that made me think of bank robbery movies I had seen. He then gripped the wheel in the center of the door and gave it two full turns before tugging the door open. Lights came on inside as the door swung aside, and looking inside I could see he had more than just a vault door. He had an entire vault.

“Safety deposit boxes lined the walls, and in the center a heavy metal table had been bolted to the floor with several smaller tables on rollers surrounding it. Some were filled with medical supplies or tools, others were filled with items you would find in a garage: drills, pruning shears, hammers, knives. Along several places on the wall I saw what looked like metal mesh cages that seemed to contain something, possibly cameras. Everything was immaculately clean, but it did little to make the room seem less sinister. It looked like a cross between an operating room and a torture chamber.

“Speaking the thought before I realized it and looking quickly at my grandfather, afraid I’d hurt his feelings. But he was nodding as he looked into the room before meeting my gaze ruefully. ‘That’s pretty much what it is, if I’m honest.’

“I got this vault from a defunct bank in Arkansas after I had started work on this place. The bank building was being converted into a restaurant of some sort, and they just wanted the vault gone, so I had to pay for the removal and transport, which was quite a bit even twenty years ago when I got it, but it was worth it.’

“He pushed the door back closed and led me back into the living space. Aside from a cot against one wall, it contained an overstuffed chair and a sofa along with a pair of small tables. Sitting on the sofa, he gestured for me to sit in the chair.

“‘Before I try to tell you any more, I think I should show you something.’

“As I sat down, I saw he had picked up a tablet from the small table next to the sofa and was tapping at it. After a moment, he handed it to me. It was a video, and even before I hit play I could see it was taken with a camera in the vault room. It looked very similar to how it looked now except for the little girl tied to the metal table.

“I felt my stomach lurch, and I had to fight to resist the urge to ask more questions before hitting play. But I had come this far and I needed to see it through and have some faith.

“When I started the video, I could see the girl struggling at the straps that held her. The video was not of the best quality and seemed to have been filmed through some kind of mesh like those small cages I had seen in the room, but I would have guessed she was no more than ten. After a couple of minutes of tugging at the straps, she became deathly still.

“‘I leaned closer to the video, squinting to look for any signs of life. Nothing. I glanced at my grandfather.

“‘Keep watching.’

“Returning my gaze to the video, I waited and watched. Several minutes passed. Suddenly I saw the briefest glimpse of her entire body seeming to flicker and jump, and then the video went scrambled for half a second. When the image returned, it was in infrared mode, and I almost threw the tablet down. Where there had been a little girl, there were now strands of coiled, stringy flesh that stretched out across the room in all directions like some kind of macabre spider web of gore.

“My first nonsensical thought was that the girl had somehow exploded and that the image had frozen mid-destruction, but then I saw the strands of meat moving of their own volition, running together and pulling apart like chewing gum as they explored the walls. This wasn’t that little girl at all, or at least not the version of her that had been there moments ago.

“I looked back at my grandfather. ‘This is one of them?’

“He nodded and began to explain. ‘Two years after Salk’s death, I had three more hunts under my belt. I had already learned that many of them behaved differently from Salk and that the outsiders’ human form and the monsters were one, or at least inextricably linked. But I had only seen one of the three actually transform, and he was radically different than the thing that Salk became.

“‘He was a young guy named Stephen Kolchak, and he worked construction in Atlanta. I had taken to going to medical conferences different places to have a reason to travel and widen my net and search for more outsiders. I’d encountered him at a diner near his current worksite and decided to extend my stay a few days. I trailed him back to work and found he was working on a high-rise apartment building that was going up nearby. He knocked off at four o’clock that afternoon, and I kept up with him all the way out of Atlanta proper and into one of the suburbs where he lived with his parents.

“‘I followed him for the next three days and nights as best I could, and on the third night he left home and headed back into the city. At first I thought he might just be going out somewhere, but he headed right back to the worksite. He didn’t seem to have a key to the gate, but he scaled the fence nimbly and ducked into the shadows of the partially constructed tower.

“‘I went down the fence a couple hundred yards and followed. Soon it took me a couple of minutes to find him in the dark, but then I saw him in the dim illumination of a distant streetlight standing just inside what would one day be the lobby of the building. He was looking up at one of the walls as though trying to decide something, his face half-hidden in shadow, but the portion I could see was as blank and emotionless as Salk’s had been.

“‘Then he changed. In the blink of an eye, where Steven Kolchak had stood there was a much smaller creature, two feet tall or thereabout. It had a barrel of a torso with two arms and legs all covered in something that looked more like bluish moss than any kind of hair, and a flat, thick head that looked like a snapping turtle except for having six eyes on each side of its long, sharply beaked snout. It gave out a small, contemplative clicking noise as it shuffled back and forth, still looking up at the wall.

“‘Suddenly it leapt up ten feet and clung to the spot it had been considering. As I watched, it began to lick the wall with a long black tongue, each lash leaving a blue-gray trail of slime on the spot that quickly blended in with the concrete. I had no idea what he was doing, but I knew it was nothing good. Still, I remembered shooting at the thing that I now felt sure had been Salk and the bullets doing nothing, so I waited in the shadows for him to finish his work.

“‘It took close to two hours. He moved from place to place throughout the outer shell that had been constructed so far, and I felt guilty for not moving against him, trying to stop whatever he was doing. It was too great a risk without knowing more about what, if anything, might hurt or kill him in this form.

“‘When the creature was finished, it climbed back down to the ground, and just as quick the man was standing there again, fully clothed, no sign of having just turned into a monster. This was food for thought, but now wasn’t the time for theorizing. Trying to move quietly, I left the shadows to intercept him from behind as he went to leave the building.

“‘I had a collapsible baton that I carried with me from the car, and I brought it down hard on the back of his head. Or that was the plan. Unfortunately, he turned at the last second, and it glanced off his shoulder, eliciting little more than a grunt of pain as he dodged to the side.

“‘I was already reaching into my jacket pocket for my stun gun, but when I pulled it out and hit the button, it was dead. This was strange because it had been fully charged and working when I got out to follow him over the fence, but again, no time to wonder. There was another flash of movement, and the man was replaced with the creature. Without missing a beat, it leapt at me, slamming me to the ground.

“‘I managed to get the baton up in time to catch its sharp mouth diving for my face, with the iron bar of the baton wedged into the creature’s maw. I felt like I was just delaying my death rather than preventing it. It was surprisingly heavy on my chest, and its hands and feet ended in hard claws that were already digging into my clothes and flesh, pushing my arms down and minimizing any leverage I had to push the baton and the creature farther away from me.

“‘Then I noticed it was stopping. It pulled its head away swiftly, and I thought at first it was going for another lunge, but then it jumped off me, shaking its head. I rolled to my feet, ready for the next attack, and saw that it was glaring at me, a gray smoke coming from the edges of its mouth. I could see the yellow-brown of its beak blackening slightly where the smoke touched.

“‘I could tell it was considering its options, looking at the baton in my hand than myself. It was afraid of it more than me. It suddenly leapt into the shadows, and for a moment I thought it might be retreating, but then I heard the scrabble of claws behind me. I spun around with a blind swing and managed to catch it right before it landed on me, knocking me back down. The baton had hit it in the side and done remarkably good damage, caving in part of its torso and causing it to immediately begin trying to roll-crawl away.

“‘But I was quicker this time, getting back up on my knees and bringing the weapon down again and again until I was certain it was dead. I found out later I survived because of dumb luck. Some of these things are very weak to iron, unnaturally so. If it had been made of steel, I would have died that night. And there was a time later on where my reliance on iron nearly did me in. There are rules to these things, but you can never assume they will always apply. There are always exceptions, and you always have to remember that they have most of the advantages. The way you beat them is by being smarter and stronger-willed than they are, more clever.

“‘I’m still learning now, but back then I still had a lot to learn. One of the things that I wondered early on is what the nature of these things truly are. First of all, are these people transforming directly from their human forms into monsters, like a werewolf or some version of vampires? But if that was the case, I reasoned, then what are the limits of how much they can transform?

“‘Look, there’s no denying the supernatural component of all this, and even early on I understood there would be some aspects of it I could never explain fully. But at heart I’m a scientist, and I always start from that framework in trying to understand what I can. I considered mass, for instance. Once I understood more of how the human and monster forms were connected, I started looking back at earlier encounters. Salk, for one. That creature was over half again as large as him as a man, and while you can displace mass to some extent if he was less dense in spots, I can tell you from the sound of it chasing me and the force with which it knocked me out that the monster version of Salk weighed significantly more than the man did.

“‘And this creature I just told you about, it was less than half the size and weight of Stephen Kolchak. Even if his physical body was somehow transforming into that thing, where did the rest of the meat and bone and fluid go? And then you have examples like the video I just showed you. These things take all kinds of forms and sizes and then go back to looking like people the next instant. But the biggest sign was the clothes. They weren’t shucking off clothes or ripping them apart as they changed. They would turn back into being human with hardly a wrinkle or smudge.

“‘So they aren’t transforming. They’re swapping places. It was a theory at the time, but since then I’ve managed to get some footage slowed down enough that you can see the transition happen, if just barely. It’s similar to when you drill through the seed, though it happens even quicker. One moment the person, next moment the monster. Or to be more accurate, they are both the monster, just with different strengths and weaknesses inherent to each form. Both are capable of doing a great deal of harm, and I’ve seen more than a few that seemed to rarely change at all to their other form. Their goals don’t require it, I guess.

“‘When I had this place set up, I redoubled my efforts to learn more about them and those goals. I have a very secure closed-circuit filtration system running into that room so I can control if there’s air or not and pump in gas to sedate or kill if I need to. The system has no ties to the other ventilation down there, so even if one of those things turned into a mist it couldn’t get out once the room is sealed. Though I doubt that’s a possibility. In any case, one of the consistencies I have found between all these outsiders is that their non-human form is always at least semi-solid and is never so small that it can’t house the seed.

“‘The seeds do show up on MRIs if you know what to look for, but for obvious reasons I’ve never been able to scan one in creature form. But I believe the seed is the key. It acts like a gateway between this reality and wherever those things come from. What looks like a transformation is actually a swapping of sorts, but if you destroy the seed you destroy the gateway. And if you kill the human body, the seed will dissolve approximately thirty-seven minutes after brain death. That’s by design, I think, just like most of this is by design.

“‘As he had talked, my grandfather had been animated and telling about his encounter with Kolchak, but that life had drained away as he talked about all he had learned. Now he was silent a moment, staring off with a melancholy expression before looking back to me. ‘At first I captured one and put it in the vault, I set up two camcorders to record what happened. I didn’t think there was any real risk of it getting out, and I had gas ready if I needed to knock it out or kill it, at least assuming the gas would work because again you can never assume anything is certain with these things.

“‘In any case, I locked it in, it wakes up, it transforms for a while and tries to get out. I can hear it beating against the door, then it tries swapping back to the person, a pretty woman who ran a wedding boutique in Memphis, and I can just barely hear her screaming and crying as sympathetically as she could muster through the wall. I hit the gas, go in and deal with her, and then I check the video.

“‘The videos were blank, and the cameras were fried. I figured out that whenever the swap happens it sends out a short but very strong electromagnetic pulse. Kills electronics and lights in about a forty-foot radius around it. That’s why my stun gun had died fighting Kolchak, and that’s why my cameras got toasted.

“‘I figured out I could build Faraday cages around cameras to shield them.’ He laughed and nodded. ‘Exactly. Very good. They aren’t perfect, but between the shielding on the cameras themselves and the mesh, for the most part I can capture decent footage now.’

“His expression was lighter for a moment, but my next question brought back the look I had feared since we left our fight with the house earlier in the day. ‘So you talked about them having goals. Have you figured out what the point of what they’re doing actually is? Or is it just random?’

“He frowned, looking thoughtful for a moment and seeming to consider his next words carefully. ‘I don’t know what the overarching plan is, no. Though I could guess it is a stage of some larger campaign to encroach upon or infect our world with their malignity. But that there is a plan, an intelligent design, is hard to deny at this point.’

“He leaned forward, tapping his fingers individually as he made his point. ‘First, the seeds are designed to take over people and also provide an extremely efficient method of bringing over this other form, all while appearing to bridge and share consciousness between the two forms. Could that be naturally occurring through some evolutionary process? Possible, but unlikely given the supernatural component and how perfectly it aligns with their apparent goals of infiltrating this world without notice and creating pain and death.

“‘Second, consider that this all occurs without altering the DNA or most biological processes of the human form. There was no indication in Salk’s tissue samples that he was other than human, and while his blood unquestionably has some unique properties, it was nothing that raised red flags during routine testing at the hospital. And I can tell you that I have run exhaustive tests on these things over the years and never found any trace of anything abnormal other than the seed itself, which somehow manages to self-destruct less than an hour after death, leaving no trace that it was ever there.’

“He sighed and looked away for a second. I could see he was on the verge of crying, but he held it in check, looking back at me with his iron gaze as he spoke. ‘Third, look at who they targeted to take over. I have encountered close to a hundred of these outsiders in just over thirty years. My guess is that there are at most a few thousand of them in the world right now, maybe less. But without fail, to the extent I can figure out what an outsider’s individual goal is, the person they have taken is in a good position to accomplish it. It’s not random. It’s part of some broader plan.’

“He rubbed his mouth and went on. ‘I also know that they have to be able to control and plan precisely who gets a seed. It’s not like an infection or a bomb. It’s selective. I found what he was saying made a lot of sense, but it was still assuming a lot.

“‘How do you know that for sure? What aren’t you telling me?’

“He looked down, his mouth trembling slightly. ‘I know because of the odds. Say there are three thousand of these things out there out of over six billion people. What are the odds that a specific person would have a seed? Extremely low. But of all those people, against all those odds, I’ve got one in me.’

“I jerked involuntarily forward, blood rushing in my ears. ‘What? You have what?’

“I had to have heard him wrong.

“He looked back up at me, tears now welling at the corners of his eyes. ‘They put a seed in me. I know it comes as a shock, and yes, I’m sure. I really do have one in me. Let me explain.

“‘I’m seventy-seven years old, and I’ve been at this since I was forty-five. It’s a long time to do anything, but much less something that’s dangerous. And like I’ve told you, the key to being successful is in being smart and careful. If you are having to actually fight an outsider, even in human form, you’ve already made one or more serious mistakes.

“‘Just because they aren’t physically enhanced when they look like the people they’ve overtaken doesn’t mean that they aren’t dangerous. Just like a normal human, they can hurt and they can kill you. And bear in mind that the mind powering that body isn’t the same mind as the person it inhabits. These beings aren’t perfect. They can be tricked, they can make mistakes, and they can be outsmarted. But they are very intelligent and very ruthless.

“‘They do access and utilize the brain and the memories of the person they inhabit, and it seems from my experience to have some impact on their behavior, how they talk even when the mask of emotion is gone, for instance, or how they might go about accomplishing their individual goals. My point is that they’re always a threat regardless of their form, and even when things go well, which they don’t always, there’s always a physical component to this kind of work. Being stealthy, carrying equipment and bodies, fighting or running when something goes wrong. It takes a toll.

“‘In the first five years of hunting these things, I lost thirty pounds of fat and gained twenty pounds of muscle. Some of that is I made a point of exercising more to improve my odds against them, but most of it was just the work itself. In some ways I was healthier in my late forties and early fifties than I had been in my whole life. But by the time I hit my early sixties, I could feel things starting to slide back the other way. I would get out of breath easier, and I could feel myself getting a little weaker over time. If I got hurt, it took longer for me to come back from it, and my joints weren’t as limber anymore.

“‘Now, I’d estimate I was still well above average for someone that age, but most people weren’t doing the kinds of things I was doing either. And while it concerned me some, it wasn’t unexpected. All I could do was mitigate the effects of aging as best I could and keep working on improving how I did my work.

“‘Then one day I got sick. All of a sudden. I was in a grocery store, and I felt a wave of nausea and dizziness overcome me. I would have fallen if not for the shopping cart I was pushing. I stood there gripping that cart for support long enough for a couple of different people to come over and ask if I was okay. I was able to reassure them and eventually got moving again, but I had to give up shopping and head to the car. By the time I was cranking up, it had faded somewhat. I still felt bad, but I was okay to drive.

“‘So I drove home, drank some water, and went to bed. I woke up twelve hours later, and my first thought was to get a feel for how I was doing. Was there any sign of weakness or nausea or fever? But no. Not only did I not feel bad any longer, I felt great. I got out of bed easily, and as I cautiously tested myself I could tell that I had none of the aches and pains that I would have normally expected after being in bed so long.

“‘Over the next few days, the feeling of wellness and strength only grew. My endurance was better than it had ever been, and I could lift as much as when I was twenty-five. I knew this was all abnormal from the start, and I considered that a seed could have been implanted from an early stage. But you have to understand that I was trying to be cautious. I was monitoring myself very closely, and so far I wasn’t seeing any negative side effects or indications of anything usurping my control.

“‘Plus, seeds didn’t make outsiders physically stronger or better in their human form. When I began to worry more about the possibility I had one implanted in me, that was the fact that I could always return to as a way of assuaging my fears or rationalizing them away. Because I admit I didn’t want it to be a seed, and I didn’t want the way I felt to go away. It was easier to just keep enjoying the benefits and keeping watch for any trouble rather than getting a definitive answer.

“‘I had already learned I could detect seeds with an MRI, but when the thought of testing myself would periodically arise, I would always find an excuse for delaying it, waiting until I had gathered more data. I was being foolish and selfish, trying to lie to myself and doing a poor job of that. But then I got shot in the chest.

“‘While I’ve had several encounters with the House of the Claw over the years, today was only the fourth time I actually had real combat with them. The first time was when I was in my fifties, and the second time was a short time later with the remainder of the first group, which taught me the importance of killing an entire cell when you can. The third time was about six months after I had gotten sick in the store and woke up the next day feeling so much stronger.

“‘I had hunted down two outsiders in that six-month period, but the second one had a group of the House that were serving, which I learned a few days later when they ran me off the road. There were only four in that cell, and the first two I actually managed to run over with my car by playing possum when they approached to see if I was dead. The third started to run and was actually shot and killed by the fourth as some kind of weird cult court-martial. Then he turned the gun on me.

“‘My gun had gotten dislodged from its normal place behind the passenger’s seat somewhere between mine getting run off the road and turning the two House guys into speed bumps. The fourth member was too close for me to search for the gun and had a bad angle to try and hit him with a car, so my thought was to reach him with my baton before he turned his attention from the cohort he was murdering back to me.

“‘I almost made it. I was raising the baton to bring down on his arm when he turned and fired into my chest. His aim wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. The bullet perforated my right lung and went out my back, chipping a rib along the way. I spun from the impact and had the presence of mind to keep turning, whipping the baton into his face as I drew even with him. It struck him with a wet and meaty crunch that dropped him immediately.

“‘I fell the next moment, my chest burning painfully with each breath. I knew I likely had only a short time before my lung started collapsing, so after making sure number four was dead, I headed back to my car and started trying to find the duct tape.

“‘When you get shot in the chest, one of the biggest risks you face is your lung collapsing. This can be caused by outside air coming through the hole, which stops your lung from being able to expand. This is called a pneumothorax. Another way is that if the area around the lung fills with blood, again it can’t expand. This is called a hemothorax. Either one can cause you to slip into unconsciousness and die.

“‘I needed to get to a hospital, but first I needed to do what I could to slow down any collapse. Taking off my shirt, I layered strips of duct tape to make a bandage for my back wound and then for my chest wound. After applying the back bandage with some difficulty, I took an empty ballpoint pen barrel and inserted it into the bullet hole on my chest before sealing and securing it with the remaining strips of tape.

“‘The idea is the same as a needle decompression. You are giving the air outside your lungs somewhere to go so you can continue to breathe. The problem is that what I had done would only help a pneumothorax. Particularly when I still had to be upright and driving, my chest cavity and lung could still be filling with blood and kill me just as quickly.

“‘I started towards the nearest hospital, but I knew it was over twenty minutes away even if I drove fast, which I wasn’t capable of doing. I could feel myself getting weaker, and every breath was painful, to say nothing of the gunshot wound itself. I kept driving as I tried to think of better alternatives to my current plan, and as I went I realized I was feeling better.

“‘At first I thought it was my imagination or the onset of physical shock, but as the minutes passed I could see tangible improvements. The pain was fading, and I wasn’t having problems with my breathing. Finally I pulled over and carefully removed the pen barrel and tape from my chest. The hole actually looked smaller and wasn’t bleeding anymore. I gingerly reached back to where the bullet had exited and peeled away the tape. When I probed with my fingers, I found tender but un-torn flesh.

“‘I started driving again, still headed towards the hospital. At this point, my mind was swimming, and I was already chastising myself for not having looked into what was happening to me more, for not finding out if I had been compromised by a seed or other outside influence. I promised myself that if I survived this, I wouldn’t turn a blind eye for convenience’s sake ever again.

“‘When I reached the hospital parking lot, I looked at my chest again. It was completely healed. I had no pain or problems that I could tell. Instead of going in, I went to my own office and ran tests. I had just started leasing an MRI machine the year before, both for my medical work and my after-hours studies, and it didn’t take long for me to find the dark speck lodged in the deep folds of my left temporal lobe.

“‘I could have done a lot of different things at that point. Killed myself or tried to have it removed, being two obvious choices. I struggled with the decision and what it meant if I stayed alive and left the seed where it was. My reasoning was ultimately based on a few assumptions.

“‘First, it seemed clear that I had been targeted for a seed because, as we discussed before, the odds are far too great to make it lightly. I got selected for one by chance. But that would mean that they know about me to some extent. Yet I’ve never had someone assault me at work or home or track me down other than in response to specific actions I took, such as killing an outsider associated with a House cell. Attacks against me seem to always be about what I had done, not some greater knowledge of who I was or what I had done in the past.

“‘Now that was still a guess. They could have reasons for not attacking me at times while knowing everything about me. But my suspicion was that they targeted people by some means independent of knowing a name or specific address. My experience since then has continued to bear that out. It’s almost instinctual, I think, though that instinct is propelled by intellect and purpose.

“‘The second, I knew that my newfound strength and resiliency wasn’t normal for those that received a seed. Setting aside the possibility of getting a different kind of seed than most or having some unique property in and of myself that changed the seed’s effects, both of which seemed unlikely all things considered, I found the most likely answer was Salk’s blood. Even if they had invaded thousands of people, the odds of any of those having ingested and been altered by an outsider’s blood prior to receiving the seed was very unlikely.

“‘I couldn’t question that Salk’s blood had irrevocably changed me. Even long after his blood should have faded from my system, I retained and even further developed my ability to sense outsiders. It seemed likely that however it permanently changed my body also afforded me some level of protection from the seed and granted other benefits as well.

“‘Third, I assumed that the outsiders themselves, or whoever they call master, did not realize this would happen. I saw little benefit for them in making someone like myself stronger and harder to kill. If that was correct, it was a sign of their fallibility, and it gave me hope that I could use their attempt to punish and subjugate me against them.

“‘For years that’s exactly what I’ve done, all the time keeping a close check on myself for signs that I was changing or being taken over. For the longest time I saw none. But about three months ago, I started having strange dreams. It started sporadically, but then it became a nightly occurrence. Then a few days ago, I noticed myself having odd thoughts.

“‘You have to understand that whatever my mistakes in all of this, I have truly tried to remain responsible and have trained myself to be hyper-vigilant to any signs of a problem since getting the seed. Part of that has been examining my internal self, going into my inner dark and finding the person who lives there, coming to know them well.

“‘I know my font, and some things lately, it’s not me. I haven’t lost control, not that I can tell, but I can’t continue on like this any longer. It’s too great a risk to everything I care about, including you.

“‘I’ve made friends over the years. Some are people I have helped, others are on the inside of this thing like I am, and well, like you are now, at least to some extent. One of those friends is a doctor, not a surgeon really, but I helped save his daughter a few years back, and he owes me. He knows enough, and I’ve told him enough, that he can do the procedure I’ve taught him to remove the seed from me.

“‘I’ve never done this procedure on someone before, and I have no way of knowing if it will work. One of several things will likely happen. One, he will be able to extract the seed with minimal brain damage and no fracture of the seed. If that happens, I will likely live and be okay. Two, he will extract the seed intact but it will cause significant brain damage, either killing or severely impairing me. That is not my favorite outcome. Three, he will fracture the seed during extraction, and I will get transported either alive or dead to wherever these things come from, hopefully dead because I don’t think they will greet me warmly. Four, the seed will react to being extracted and either take me over or kill me.

“‘Now there is another possibility in all this. Given our history, I think it’s unlikely, but I can’t rule it out. If my doctor friend Prakash has been gotten to, he may try to kill me while I’m under. In that event, or if the seed does start taking me over, it would be useful to have an insurance policy.

“‘As I can tell you’ve already guessed, that I’m talking about you. This is nothing you have to say yes to, and I hate the idea of putting you at more risk than I already have. The procedure isn’t going to be for four more days, so you have time to decide.

“‘In any case, my original plan was to help you finish sorting out your folks’ stuff and then come have the procedure on my own. If I didn’t make it, well, I got to spend some time with you, and you would hopefully have some good final memories of your grandpa. But things never work out quite like you plan. Your knowledge and involvement today opens up a new possibility, but one that you need to seriously consider before you decide what you want to do.

“‘If you say no, I’ll spend the time I have with you now if you’re willing, and I can always look you up later if things go well. If things don’t, well, we’ll discuss contingencies before you leave. If you decide you want out.

“‘If you say yes, then you have to commit to it, for not only my sake but yours. I can’t have you in a dangerous situation that you aren’t prepared for. What I’m saying is if you decide to stay and help, you have to be ready to kill my friend. You have to be ready to kill me.

“‘You need to think about it for a while before you answer, because this hole only goes deeper and darker the farther in you go. I think I’ve done some good in my life, but I have no illusions about who it’s made me, or more accurately what it’s brought out in me. I’m a killer, and that’s not an easy thing to face and live with for a lot of people. It’s up to you to go into your inner dark like I did and find the person that’s waiting there. See what they are and aren’t capable of living with. And if you can embrace that, just remember that when you really find them past all the bullshit and self-deception, you’ll have found something valuable and true. Whether they want to stay or go, kill or run, whether you love them or hate them, that inner self won’t lie to you. Sometimes I think that’s the worst part. They’re so goddamn honest.’

“My grandfather’s going to die, and it’s my fault. That’s the thought that keeps pushing to the surface as I pound on the lab door screaming for Prakash to let me out, to not do this. I try to force the idea back down. It’s a distraction, and I need to focus. But it keeps working its way through me like shrapnel driven by some inexplicable need to harm.

“I step back and slam against the door with my full body weight. Once, twice, and on the third time I feel my collarbone give way when I hit, biting back a sob of pain and rage. I beg again through the door for the doctor to leave him alone, but the only answer I receive is silence.

“I had gone to pick up Prakash from a department store parking lot over an hour away. He was a small, affable man standing next to his car with a small duffel bag in hand. When I identified myself as Dr. Barron’s grandson, he greeted me warmly, and when I handed him the black sack to put over his head and asked him to get in the back so he wouldn’t be seen, he nodded without complaint or any sign of surprise. Whether that was because my grandfather had already told him he couldn’t know the location of where he was going or because he was just that compliant, I wasn’t sure.

“I looked through his duffel bag, but it was just a collection of medicines, syringes, and a few other medical supplies that I supposed he brought in case my grandfather had forgotten something that was needed for the procedure. We drove in silence for the most part, other than me periodically asking if he was comfortable enough.

“When we arrived back at Jagger Solutions, I carefully led him inside to where my grandfather was waiting. After patting him on the back and thanking him again for his help, my grandfather led Prakash down to the lower level before finally removing the black sack from the man’s head.

“Prakash had looked dazedly around at the bright lights and new surroundings before focusing on us and smiling. He said he was ready to begin whenever we were, and in less than an hour my grandfather was in the vault and under anesthesia, strapped down to the same metal table where so many outsiders had lain.

“I didn’t like the look of him on that table in a hospital gown, asleep and tied down. He looked so vulnerable. As he had instructed, I was standing at the open door to the hatch, gun ready in a holster at the back of my belt. I knew that Prakash had seen the gun, and I had made no attempt to hide it, figuring its presence might serve as a deterrent if he was up to something nefarious after all.

“But I thought my grandfather was right. Prakash seemed to be a good man who genuinely liked my grandfather and deeply appreciated him saving Prakash’s daughter years before. They had talked amiably for a few minutes as my grandfather had gone under, and it seemed natural and heartfelt.

“As he was fading into unconsciousness, my grandfather had waved me over. When I was close by, he gave my arm a squeeze and met my eyes.

“‘Remember everything we talked about. I love you, and I’m very proud of you.’

“I saw tears forming at the corner of his eyes. I put a letter for you on my desk in the lab too, and just wait and read it when this is over, however it turns out.’

“Giving me another squeeze, his eyes began to flutter shut as his hand slipped away.

“Wiping my own eyes, I went to my post by the vault entrance. While my grandfather had described the procedure to me, I had only understood it at the most basic level, and I assumed it was going to be a fairly long operation. In truth, after Prakash started to work, it was all done in less than an hour.

“My grandfather had already shaved his own scalp around the surgery site, so after sterilizing the area, Prakash used a surgical saw to cut out a small piece of skull on the left side of his head. Setting it aside on one of the rolling instrument trays in the room, he then inserted a thin metal rod that my grandfather had showed me was actually an endoscope, a small camera used in brain surgery. This was followed by a thin hollow tube.

“When he said he had located the seed, a tiny rod ending in an articulate claw was inserted down the tube, with the idea of it being positioned at the other end to safely grab the seed and pull it back through the hollow tube itself and out of my grandfather’s brain.

“As Prakash worked, I felt myself growing tenser and tenser, cool sweat pouring down my back and legs as I waited for it to be finished or for something to go wrong. I kept imagining my grandfather suddenly waking up and trying to attack us as the seed took over, or perhaps worse him just disappearing entirely if the seed became damaged during extraction. But nothing like that happened.

“And when Prakash finally removed the extraction rod, I saw the small metal claw at the end held something small and black.

“‘Is he okay?’ I blurted out, instantly regretting any distraction I might be causing while surgery was still going on.

“Prakash didn’t turn but nodded. ‘He’s very strong, and I think it went well. Like your grandfather probably told you, this isn’t my specialty, but after I replace the skull door and bandage him up, he should be done.’

“I nodded back before realizing he couldn’t see it with his back turned. ‘And good. That’s awesome. Thank you so much for helping us.’

“I thought for a moment I saw Prakash flinch, but he continued to work steadily, and I decided it was my imagination.

“A few minutes later, he was finished and washing up, and when that was done he approached me with a small plastic tray in hand. In it was the seed.

“‘He wanted you to store this, I think, in the lab maybe?’

“I nodded. In the days leading up to this, my grandfather and I had talked about a number of things, but much of the time was spent on showing me features of this place and teaching me more lessons about hunting. Most of it would come out casually in the way of a story about this or that, but I knew he was trying to prepare me for if I decided to stay and help him, or if he didn’t make it, prepare me if I decided to carry on his work.

“I wasn’t sure I knew the answer to any of the longer-term questions, but as the surgery day drew closer I knew that at the very least I was going to see him through it and make sure he was safe. And what Prakash was saying was true. My grandfather had wanted to store the seed in a secured freezer in case it didn’t dissolve. This time he theorized it was possible since it was being extracted rather than disappearing from a corpse, and if it did stay he wanted it safely confined and available for study.

“Seeing it held out to me in that plastic tray, it seemed like a physical manifestation of my relief that it was safely out of my grandfather. I smiled at Prakash, fighting the urge to give him a hug, and reached for the seed instead.

“I left the vault and went to the door of the lab, Prakash following behind. He was saying something about how impressed he was with my grandfather’s setup down here, but I was hardly paying attention. Holding the seed even in a tray felt something akin to holding a poisonous snake, and as I carefully walked into the lab my eyes never left it.

“This was likely why it was so easy for Prakash to reach forward, yanking the gun out of my belt holster and all while shoving me forward with the other hand. I stumbled forward, my first panicked thought of not dropping the seed, which rolled dangerously close to the edge of the tray’s raised lip before settling back into the bottom.

“It then struck me what had actually just happened, and I turned to see Prakash slamming the door shut, his face looking sad as the slab of metal swung in and obscured him from view.

“I cursed and sat down the tray gingerly before running to the door. It was designed to lock from the outside in case there was ever a problem in the lab, and I knew of no other way out. I beat on the door with my fist screaming for Prakash to let me out, but there was no response.

“I tried to calm down, searching the door for any signs of weakness I might be overlooking. It was a sturdy metal door, and the hinges were on the outside as well. I looked around the lab for something I could possibly pry the door open with, but there was nothing I could see that would make a dent in the job.

“Finally, I went back to yelling and pounding on the door, slamming against it hard enough to break my collarbone at this point. As I lay defeated and weeping at the bottom of the door, I knew at least fifteen minutes had passed. Prakash could have easily killed him already, or something even worse. He could be carrying him off to be tortured right now, and it was all because I thought it was over and let my guard down. I failed in the one thing my grandfather asked of me, to keep him safe.

“I beat my head with my fists as I cried harder. I could feel myself slipping closer to some dark nadir of self-loathing and despair, and I forced myself to stop.

“‘Now is not the time for this weak shit.’

“I needed to think, to try and be more like him. I needed to be smarter and better.

“Wiping my face, I stood up and started looking for anything that I might have missed or that might be useful. I saw my cell phone on one of the counters, but it was useless at the moment. My grandfather had turned on a series of cell phone jammers before I arrived with Prakash to keep him from being able to communicate with the outside world while he was with us, and the controls for them were in the living quarters, not the lab.

“I jammed the phone into my pocket and kept looking.

“When I reached his desk, I saw the envelope he had left me sitting at its center. I hadn’t even noticed it when I was looking for a pry tool for the door, but now it was hard to take my eyes away from it. I knew my time was limited, but I felt some dim hope that it would contain some solution for our predicament, that like so many times before my grandfather had outthought his opposition before they even knew he was there.

“I tore into the letter and saw it was written out in his deliberate but messy handwriting.

“‘Jason,

“‘You’re a good man. You deserve to have a happy life, and you need to have your own reasons for what you do and how you live. I’ve asked a lot of you, and for the last few days I’ve been preparing you for this kind of life, but that’s wrong and selfish of me. I won’t ask you to sacrifice your happiness to continue my work after I’m gone.

“‘If you ever decide you want to, this place is yours. But I honestly hope that you don’t. Hunting these outsiders is an important cause, but it’s a very lonely life. I started out of pain and revenge, out of not caring if I lived or died. I’ve come to realize those aren’t good reasons, or at least not good enough, and those aren’t burdens I’d ever want for you.

“‘If I had to do it over, I’d have more time with you and your parents instead of pushing you all away. But life is a series of choices, and I can live with mine. I’ve managed to help those I could, and I got to spend the last few days with you. Hopefully I’ll get to see you again, but either way I’m satisfied with how things have turned out, and I hope you are too.

“‘I love you,

“‘Grandpa’

“Reading his words, I felt the swell of love for him. I also felt the resolute certainty that he was wrong.

“Looking back on the last few days, I realized I had felt a growing sense of purpose and rightness that I never had before. At times it had been terrifying, and I had no illusions I would be as good at it as my grandfather was, but I felt like I was capable of helping him, of helping others, and that it was what I was meant to do.

“Any last uncertainty faded away as I read the letter, my mind refuting his points as he made them. This could be a good and full life, and it didn’t have to be lonely or done for the wrong reasons. And whatever my grandfather’s reasons for starting down this path, I knew that he had stayed on it because he was a good and strong man that couldn’t stand by while those evil things hurt people.

“And I was going to tell him that in person.

“I put the letter down, my mind racing as everything seemed to slow down around me. I had to be at twenty minutes now. If my grandfather was dead, time was less of an issue. But I doubted he was. Not yet. Assuming Prakash was taking him away from here and wanted him alive, he probably needed to stabilize him further and then prep him for being moved. It was a guess, but that would probably take fifteen or twenty minutes if he was having to monitor his vitals and keep him medicated enough to stay under without killing him. Then he had to physically drag him up and out to a car, find keys for the car, and drive away. Another ten minutes, given how much larger my grandfather was than Prakash.

“That meant I might have five to ten minutes before they were gone.

“That would have to be good enough.

“I ran to the refrigerator where he stored blood and tissue samples of outsiders, looking through the blood vials. The most recent two were dated three months earlier. I had no idea if this was going to work, and if freshness had anything to do with it, but it was the best chance I had at this point.

“I gave the vials a shake, uncapped the first one, and drank it down as quickly as possible. Immediately my gag reflex tried to rebel against my plan. Punching my leg, I fought down the urge to vomit through gritted teeth, and then uncapped the second vial.

“‘Down the hatch.’

“There was no nausea now, and I thought maybe the trouble was passed. Then my midsection flamed into white-hot pain that dropped me to my knees. I would have screamed if I was able to, but there was no air left in my lungs or in the world at all it seemed. I fell onto my side clutching my stomach with both hands as the pain rolled upward into my chest. I felt myself spasm once, twice, and then the pain was suddenly gone.

“‘God,’ I said, ragged breaths slowly coming back to me. ‘Okay. Part one done.’

“Ideally I would have waited longer before the next step to ensure that the blood had time to take, if it was going to take at all. But there was no time, and I was just going to have to hope for the best.

“Leveraging myself back to a semi-standing position, I used the counter to shuffle around to where the plastic tray sat. I swallowed my revulsion at the sight of the seed sitting there, its black surface reminding me of the dark surface of a spider’s abdomen as it sat hunkered down and quietly dangerous.

“Not giving myself more time to think about it, I picked the seed up and swallowed it quickly, like the world’s bitterest pill. It had almost no taste other than being faintly salty, and I suspected that taste was coming from the bits of brain fluid clinging to its surface.

“I held onto the counter and waited, my worry building that ingesting it would either do nothing or just make it easier for it to take me over, blood or no blood.

“After a minute with no change, I walked slowly back over to the door and put my ear up to it, trying to hear any signs of what Prakash was doing or if my grandfather was still alive.

“At first I heard nothing. Then I realized I was hearing something after all, a small popping sound. But it wasn’t coming through the door, and as I turned and looked around the lab I couldn’t find its source there either.

“That’s when I realized it was my collarbone knitting back together. Within a couple of seconds, the pain in my shoulder was entirely gone, and as I slammed my fist into the door again I could feel the change immediately. My arms felt stronger, more solid, and with each blow I felt the door starting to give way more and more.

“When I felt the first hinge popped loose on the other side, I shifted to kicking the door. Three kicks later, it was down, and I was out.

“I looked around, but I saw no sign of anyone in the hall or across in the living quarters. Heading into the vault, I was terrified I’d find my grandfather’s dead body laying on the metal table, but it was thankfully empty.

“That left outside.

“I ran upstairs and was heading outside to see if the cars were still there when I caught movement in the corner of my eye. I turned back to see Prakash hunting for a set of keys at the little corner workshop my grandfather had set up in the above-ground warehouse.

“When he heard me approaching, he spun around, his eyes wide.

“‘You! You stay back! I’m warning you, I’ll shoot you!’

“He glanced down, and I could tell by his expression that he had left my gun in the car.

“‘It doesn’t look like you will. Where’s my grandfather?’

“His eyes darted towards the cars outside, but he was already shaking his head.

“‘I have to take him. They found me. They found my family. If I don’t take him to them, they’re going to take my wife, my baby girl. I’m…’

“I raised my hand. ‘Stop. Shut up. Where’s my grandfather?’

“I saw his eyes widen, and it was all the answer I needed. In the back of my mind I knew that this rage I was feeling was more than I had ever known, more than I could ever really comprehend, but I didn’t care. This stupid man and his daughter were trying to kill us. The house was trying to kill us. The outsiders were trying to kill us. And they were all gonna pay.

“As I reached the first workbench and started around it, Prakash tried to dart away around the other side, but he was far too slow. I snatched him back and threw him against a table, several wrenches and screwdrivers falling off their hooks and clattering to the wood floor.

“Gripping his throat, I fought back the urge to squeeze harder as I brought his face up to mine.

“‘No more bullshit. Where’s my grandfather?’

“His nose was running with snot now, and it seemed to physically pain him to say the words when he spoke.

“‘In… in the pickup out there. Passenger’s seat. He’s sedated but alive.’

“I nodded. ‘Good. Now when and where were you supposed to take him?’

“He tried to shake his head again, and I gave his throat a hard squeeze. He croaked out, ‘I can’t tell you though!’

“I let go of his throat and grabbed his wrist, holding his left hand down to the table as I picked up one of the screwdrivers that had fell there an hour ago.

“I couldn’t have imagined ramming a screwdriver through a man’s hand, but now it was surprisingly easy.

“After his hand was pinned, I slapped him hard across the mouth to stop his screaming. He gave out a wet sob and then told me he was supposed to be meeting them in a motel a couple of hours away at ten o’clock that night. He told me the name of it and said he already had a room key in his pocket.

“I took it out and saw from the plastic keychain it was room 609 at the Sunset Motor Lodge, just like he had said.

“‘Look, I have told you everything I know. Please let me go. Let me get my family to safety.’

“I stared at him for a moment, weighing my options. I felt the stirrings of what felt like sympathy for him, but I knew better. I had spent so much of my life confusing weakness and uncertainty with mercy and consideration. It was easy to do living a mundane life where the stakes were low and very little mattered.

“I was finding out now that when things really mattered, the right thing to do was usually the hard thing, but it was also the easiest to see.

“‘Sorry, but I’m not done with you yet.’

“After I quickly gagged and bound Prakash and secured him back down in the vault, I ran to the pickup truck to check on my grandfather. He was just as the man had said, slumped over and heavily sedated but still very much alive.

“Reaching under the driver’s seat, I pulled the key free from where it was taped and started up the truck. To be safe, I drove an hour away to a hospital where I told them that my grandfather had been attacked by some unknown assailant prior to my arriving to meet him for lunch at a local restaurant.

“Luckily I’d had the foresight to drive in the direction of his actual hometown, which the hospital was over forty-five miles from, and I had googled restaurants so I could name a real place. The local police were still called, of course, and I gave them an earnest but unhelpful statement.

“Both the cops and the doctor had questions about the shaved portion of his scalp and the surgically precise wound to his skull, but they could only listen to so many blank-eyed and shrill assertions by me that they needed to find whoever the maniac was that did that to my grandpa before solemnly giving up. The whole thing looked bizarre, but what could they do about it?

“Three hours later, I was done with questions and knew he was in stable condition, so I left to finish what had to be done.

“By eight o’clock, I was in room 609 waiting, and the evil cultists were punctual if nothing else.

“At 9:59, there was a heavy knock on the door. Looking out the peephole, I saw three figures, meaning there was at least one or two more out there somewhere.

“I opened the door, staying behind it, figuring they would come on in and be distracted when they saw what was inside. It worked well as the light from the parking lot security light spilled across the room. Two figures tied to motel chairs were illuminated, their forms and features a patchwork of amber light and shadow.

“As the men entered the room in confusion, the first figure was Prakash. He was clearly dead, his arms broken and held at odd angles and his throat cut almost to the point of decapitation.

“The second was Prakash’s three-year-old daughter, Gabrielle. Or as one of the cultists called her, ‘Gabby baby.’

“‘What are you doing here?’

“The man was rushing forward to kneel at her side, trying to pull the gag off her tear-streaked face. Her eyes had gone to him immediately when the door opened, but now they were back on me, the shadow behind the door.

“She tried to scream a warning through the gag as it was yanked down, but it was too late.

“I slammed the door shut behind them, driving a knife into the neck of the closest one as the third started turning towards me. He started fumbling for a gun, but he was slow, and by the time he started to raise it I had already removed the knife from his friend and slashed it across his eyes, banishing any idea of attack from him forever.

“He clutched his face as he began to yell, but it was all short-lived. Five fast stabs into his torso and he slumped to the floor as his life seeped out onto the dirty orange carpet.

“By this point, Gabby’s voice was free, and she was yelling for Keith to kill me. Keith had different ideas as he had abandoned trying to free her and was running for the bathroom.

“They were all going to die.

“I was going to pursue Keith, but then the front door crashed open as the remaining members of the cell came barreling in. I jammed my knife into the smaller one’s thigh, but my hand slipped off the blood-soaked handle even as the larger of the two brought a ham-sized fist down across my face.

“I felt something give as my jaw shattered, and the world went gray.

“I was only out for a couple of moments, but it was enough time for the pair of them to hit me again and for courageous Keith to come back in and start trying to explain to Gabby baby the merits of a strategic retreat.

“I acted as though I was nearly unconscious, taking the hits while trying to propel myself back to the front door. It had slammed back closed after their entry, and while the latch was broken it seemed wedged shut pretty tight. I assumed they noticed it too or they wouldn’t have let me fall against it in the first place.

“Laughing bitterly about how they were going to kill me for what I had done to their friends, they looked confused as I pushed myself up the door slowly and looked at them, my eyes clear.

“My face felt swollen and lopsided, and I could feel my jaw itching. Not thinking, I grabbed it and shoved. A bolt of pain shooting through my head as it snapped back into place.

“‘I said you haven’t known.’

“Their eyes were wide, first looking at me and then at Gabby as she started screaming.

“‘[ __ ] [ __ ] I remember when he brought us in here the room smelled like gas! Gasoline!’

“I reached into my pocket and brought out the small flare I had brought from Jagger Solutions.

“‘I think I might survive it. I doubt any of you will.’

“Lighting the flare, I tossed it down in the middle of them and watched as everything turned to fire.

“The newly freed Gabby and Keith ran back for the bathroom, but I had already been in there. The window was too small for a person, and I had soaked the walls in there too. They were already engulfed as they reached the doorway, their flaming bodies dancing together towards an escape they never found.

“The other two came towards me, intent on getting out the door. The small one’s pants were already blazing from him sitting on the floor, and after a feeble dash forward that was ended when I kicked him in the chest, he decided that thrashing around on the floor screaming was the best way to go.

“The large one, the last one, put up more of a fight. He punched me, tried to choke me and shove me out of the way. Finally, when he saw he was burning, he wrapped me in a fiery bear hug as though to take me with him.

“I burned with him for a few seconds before his ligaments gave way and he slumped down, a layer of his molten skin sloughing off onto the front of my smoldering shirt.

“I turned and yanked the door open, dropping outside on the concrete walkway to roll away the few places I was starting to catch fire myself. Then I was up and running around back to where I had parked the car.

“On the way to the hospital, I stopped and changed into the extra set of clothes I had bought, and by the time I reached my grandfather’s room the only sign of trouble I still carried with me was a sweet, smoky smell that still clung to my hair.

“I thought he was asleep when I entered the room, but then his eyes were open and staring at me. He didn’t say anything at first, and as I approached his bed he frowned.

“‘Who… who are you?’

“I felt my stomach plummet. After all of this, his brain had been hurt by the surgery after all. But it was okay. I would take care of him, and hopefully over time…

“I realized my grandfather was laughing, and my jaw dropped open.

“‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist.’

“‘You old bastard, that’s not funny.’

“He grinned at me. ‘It’s kind of funny.’

“He stopped and looked at me, his face growing more serious.

“‘Are you okay? I know things must have gone wrong somehow for me to wind up here. What happened to Prakash?’

“I looked away at the wall.

“‘He made some bad choices. But it’s dealt with. I dealt with all of it, and we should be okay.’

“My grandfather frowned again.

“‘I don’t want you having to deal with all this. It’s not fair to you.’

“I looked back at him, shaking my head.

“‘It’s my choice. I want to help you, and I want you to teach me. We can do more together.’ I paused. ‘And neither of us will have to be alone anymore.’

“He studied me for several seconds before clearing his throat and nodding.

“‘I… I like the sound of that.’