Interlude
The man feared death.
He himself knew his own fears were extreme, and he thought it explained all the abnormal behavior he sometimes exhibited.
“Well, that’s just how it is.” Grinning, the man quietly raised his head. “I mean, nobody wants to die.”
He spoke words of fear.
He didn’t want to die.
He considered that impulse to be biological instinct.
Therefore, he believed anything he did because of it could be condoned.
“You gotta share the joy with everyone.”
The man was smiling.
“Isn’t that right, Paula?”
As he smiled, and smiled more, the man stuck the ice pick he held into a pile of hot coals.
The iron core grew hotter.
His hand was being exposed to the heat as well, but he didn’t pay the least bit of attention to that. In one fluid motion, he held the glowing red iron out to the woman who was seated in front of him.
To be accurate, she was being held down.
She drooped limply; it wasn’t clear whether she was conscious. The man quietly shook his head.
He was still smiling.
“I’m not the one to blame here, Paula.”
The man with the ice pick murmured, more making excuses to himself than talking to the woman.
He really did fear death.
But that had nothing to do with this—even though the man treated them as the same.
“I just don’t want to die, that’s all. Nobody does. So why would you try to keep it all for yourself?”
“Now…where did you put the failed liquor?”
The man had asked a question, but he didn’t even wait to hear the answer before he stabbed the glowing red iron into the woman.
She stifled a scream, and the man’s smile widened at the sound.
And so time passed, and…
…a boy who wished for death and revenge met a peculiar hitman…
…and a reporter who feared death reunited with the killer lurking inside him.
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