The sound was getting to him. It was like ants crawling over his body, bothering him, annoying him, sending him insane.
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” he shrieked. The man was worse than the baby had been. Why wouldn’t he be quiet?
The moans and groans egged on his panic. Making it grow. It was like a balloon inside him, and each pitiful sound the man made was a puff of air forced inside the balloon.
It was growing too big.
He gasped.
He couldn’t stop it.
It grew and grew.
Bigger and bigger.
Frantically he paced the room.
The man moaned again.
And his balloon of panic popped.
As panic seeped out, something new took its place inside him.
Darkness.
His evil side was returning, stronger than ever. He didn’t want to fight it anymore. He wanted to embrace it. He wanted to feed it. He wanted to let it consume him until there was nothing left of the man he had once been.
He knew what he wanted to do.
It all felt so natural.
In his pantry was a pair of pliers. He thought they should do the job. Once he had retrieved them, he went to the moaning man and straddled his potbelly. The man didn’t beg and plead for his life like theJack and Jillcouple, theLittle Teapotwoman, or theLittle Miss Muffetwoman. This man just stared at him with pleading eyes. Perhaps if he was more human he would have known what the man wanted from him, but he didn’t. Nor did he care.
He abandoned the part of himself that still wanted to do the right thing. He ignored its pleas for him to think about the consequences, to fight to crush the evil inside him, to think about the people in his life. Instead, he locked that part of him away.
All he cared about was inflicting pain on the moaning man.
The Nursery Rhyme Killer pried open the man’s mouth and wedged a wadded-up handkerchief inside to keep it open. Then he closed the pliers around one of the man’s teeth and began to wiggle it back and forth, completely oblivious to the screams of agony that promptly filled the cabin.
* * * * *
7:55 P.M.
Summer checked her watch, she was anxious for Luke to arrive.
They were having their second first date tonight, and she was counting the seconds until he arrived to pick her up. She wasn't anywhere near as nervous as she had been on their first first date, this time she was more excited. She felt so close to him already. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Another check of her watch.
Four minutes to go.
Although she had enjoyed spending so much time with Luke, they’d basically been together continuously since the shooting, she had needed a little time to herself today. She didn’t want to become dependent on someone else, even if that someone else was someone that she thought she might be able to fall in love with. She had been completely self-sufficient for a decade, it was going to take a lot of getting used to having someone around that she could rely on.
Three minutes to go.
She had also needed some alone time to sort out in her head just where things were at with Luke. She didn’t want to get swept up in the trauma of the shooting and the fact that Luke had saved her and Hope. She wanted to make sure that the feelings that were developing were developing based on something real.
Two minutes to go.