(no subject)

He can see the two kids in their car (the boy's mother's Rambler).

Lake Herman Road.

Their first date.

He stands some distance away, hands tucked into his pockets, just watching. He knows how this will play out.



Another car pulls into the turnout and parks beside them. A man climbs out.

Paul can't see his face. God, he wishes he could. He doesn't trust himself to go closer.

(He can't, anyway. He's stuck to the spot.)



The boy gets out of the car as the man gestures.

He's halfway out when the man shoots him in the head.

(The gunshot sends a shock through Paul's spine.)


The boy drops like a stone.

The girl's screaming as she gets out of the car, running for her life, away, away, away.

She makes it twenty-eight feet with five shots through her back before she hits the ground, too.




The man gets back in his car, and drives away.

(The car's tail lights are blinding.)

(no subject)

The Blue Rock Springs Golf Course isn't that remarkable a place. Paul's sitting in the passenger seat of a car parked about four miles from Lake Herman Road, arm slung around the back of the driver's seat. In the driver's seat sits a petite young woman, her blonde hair cut short, hands in her lap rather than on the steering wheel.

"Darlene, right?" he asks, tapping the fingers of his other hand on the dashboard. (He doesn't actually have to ask. He knows this place and all the circumstances like the back of his hand.)

"Yeah," she says, and her voice is more a coo than anything else.

What is he supposed to say to her?




"You look nice."

(It's the only thing he can think of.)




He can hear the car coming before he sees it. It parks right behind them (he doesn't bother telling her to go, doesn't bother telling her to just drive and get away).

A man gets out, and Paul can hear his heart pounding.


(I want to see his face.)

He can see the Luger hanging at the man's side as he approaches.



When the man finally arrives at his window, he shines the flashlight directly in Paul's face.

(Godfuckingdammit.

I can't see worth shit.)



"I -- hey."

Three shots each.



She's dead.

Is it his blood?

It hurts.


It fucking hurts and there's blood everywhere and he couldn't even get a look at the sonofabitch's face.

He groans, teeth grinding as he places a hand on his chest, blood spreading through the fabric of his clothing.





Two more shots each and he blacks out.

(no subject)

It's been a while since Paul's been down to Lake Berryessa.

He's lying on a picnic blanket and there's a girl lying next to him.

He knows what happens here.

-- Of course, really.

He wrote the damn article.

They're approached by a man wearing a black executioner's-type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes and a bib-like device on his chest that had a white 3"x3" cross-circle symbol and carrying a .45.

He claims to be a former convict, and brings out pieces of precut plastic clothesline to tie them up.



And then he stabs them both.

The girl dies two days later.

The boy survives.



He knows what happens here but that doesn't mean he's prepared for it to happen to him.

(no subject)

The cab's a neat little affair.

Stine is sitting in the driver's seat (Paul's in the passenger seat - again), ready to pick up his first fare of the night.


It's the intersection of Mason and Geary when they pick the man up.

(Paul still can't get a good look at his face.

The side mirror doesn't do much thanks to the dark.)


The man asks to be taken to Washington and Maple.

When they reach it, Stine drives one block farther.

(Cherry.)

Stine puts the cab in park.





He's shot once in the head.

The man takes his wallet and keys and tears off Stine's shirt tail.

He wipes down the cab before leaving.




It's only after Paul wakes up that he realizes he'd been holding his breathing the whole time.