"I don't know, Paxton. And that's what scares the hell out of me."
Jack forced a smile at the same time Carver heard footsteps behind him.
"What did I miss?" Ellie asked, sitting back down beside Carver. "I mean besides the fact that one of you is hiding a rotten mackerel."
"Jack says it's the smell of freedom."
Ellie laughed and Carver realized it was the most beautiful sound in the world.
She leaned her head against his shoulder and in that moment everything else ceased to exist.
"I guess it's about time we headed back to shore," Jack said, grunting as he rose. Carver heard him retreat into the cabin as though from a million miles away.
Ellie looked up at him and their eyes met.
He leaned in and kissed her, and prayed for the moment never to end.
III
Anywhere
A man with a familiar face sits on a bench in a park. It could be any park, every park. Large deciduous trees, a smattering of evergreens, picnic tables, playground equipment, screaming children. This isn't his first time, nor his last. He is invisible, a decent looking man dressed like any other. Only the occasional shooting pain in his shoulder mars his otherwise contented smile. He has the look of a man who may have just enjoyed an exceptional cup of coffee, or perhaps just that of a man enjoying a sunny morning out of the office.
Children crawl over the slides and jungle gym while their mothers chat about things of no real consequence, happy to have a momentary break from the chaos.
He sometimes chuckles aloud when one of the kids does something amusing, like the shaggy-haired boy who now hangs upside down from the monkey bars, or maybe he laughs at a joke inside his own head, most often the one about the flu vaccine that never reached the market. Why go fishing with a shotgun when a simple hook will suffice? Even a small barbed hook like the one he now holds in his palm.
A mother with a stroller joins the other cackling hens. She absentmindedly rolls the carriage back and forth to keep the infant within from waking, while she watches her other child on the playground from the corner of her eye. She is distracted, but comfortable in her assertion that nothing bad can ever happen on such a beautiful day while the air is alive with the blessed sound of laughter.
The man knows this look. He has seen it before. It's what he's been waiting for.
He drives the hook under the scarred skin on the tip of his index finger, and jerks it back out. The blood swells to the surface. A couple quick squeezes of the finger and it's a trembling sphere.
After a moment he stands and walks toward the woman.
He thinks of the ocean, and how every wave, no matter how large, must somewhere begin with a single drop.
The woman is still preoccupied as he approaches, unaware of the stranger who leans casually over the stroller.
The man reaches inside and with practiced ease inserts his fingertip between the infant's lips, runs it over the soft gums, and extracts it in one fluid motion. He feels her eyes on his back as he continues to walk in the opposite direction, but she knows only that a man just like any other veered a little too close to her child and will probably never give it a second thought.
Not for many years anyway.
Not until the bloodletting begins.
About The Author
Michael McBride is the author of
Remains
,
Spectral Crossings
,
The Infected
, and the
God's End
trilogy. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including
Dark Wisdom
,
Dark Discoveries
, and
Cemetery Dance
, which featured his story "It Rips," soon to be released as an independent film. He lives with his wife and four children in Westminster, Colorado, where he works as a radiologic technologist. To explore the author's other work or to contact him directly, please visit:
www.michaelmcbride.net
.
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