No it’s not. We don’t know how many people are inside. We don’t know who will answer. It’s easier than that. Just follow my lead.

There aren’t many places in the backyard to hide, but I find a gap in a mangle of hedge that’s overgrown in the corner. We move toward it, searching the ground for something to throw. I take aim and fire a stone hard up onto the roof. It thumps heavily, and I duck in behind the hedge, the branches scratching at me and snagging my clothes. I stay absolutely still. Nothing happens. I throw a second stone twenty seconds later.

A light comes on inside the house. Just one light in a bedroom. Could mean the other bedrooms are empty. Could mean the others are better sleepers. A few moments later I can hear the front door open. Twenty seconds after that it closes, and not long after that the back door opens. A man, silhouetted by the hallway light, steps into the backyard. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and nothing on top. Tattoos that probably have violent stories behind them climb up his body from under the waistband. He’s skinny and tall and looks like he’s spent too many years in jail and the rest of them on drugs. He takes a customary glance over the backyard, shrugs for his own benefit, then goes back inside. I wait until the lights go off, then I wait another few minutes, then I throw a third stone, same speed, same place, same kind of sound.

The light comes on much quicker this time. Still just the one light. Front door. Nothing. Then back door. He walks out into the yard.

“Fuck is out there?” he asks, and he probably asked the same thing out the front and got the same answer, but he’s probably thinking he’s talking to a cat or a possum.

We don’t answer him. He doesn’t walk far, stays near the door, wondering if the sound was an animal, or a pinecone falling from somewhere. Only difference between this time and the last time is this time he’s carrying a flashlight. He’s not using it as a flashlight, though, he’s using it as a weapon. It’s not even switched on. It’s black and steel and about the length of his forearm and I figure if he had a better weapon he would have brought it out here. Nobody brings a flashlight to a gunfight. He heads back inside. The light goes off. Silence.

We give it ten minutes this time. Long enough for him to think the sound isn’t coming back. Long enough that he might be falling asleep again.

This time the lights don’t come on. The front door doesn’t open. Only the back door, and it’s fired open quickly and he storms outside, the meat of the flashlight slapping into the palm of his hand. He’s dressed this time, black jeans, black top, black everything.

“Who’s out there?” he yells. “That you, Reece? This ain’t funny.”

He moves deeper into the yard. He switches on the flashlight and spotlights random areas. He passes it over the hedge but he doesn’t squat down or move branches aside or come any closer. He doesn’t circle behind it. He thinks whatever is being thrown on his roof is either some random event or it’s being thrown from outside his yard. He walks one way, then the other way, and he comes back to the doorway and he stares out toward us awhile without seeing us, then he closes the door. His bedroom light turns on and off, but he’s not in there, he’s waiting inside the doorway, waiting for the next sound, ready to burst out at a second’s notice.

I move away from the hedge, slowly, confident slow movement will be less likely to draw his attention in case he’s watching from the window. I put more distance between the house and us, backing into the neighboring property, a similar house in similar disrepair, same warped wood siding, same dirt-packed yard, probably the same kind of person living inside. I keep the hedge between me and Kingsly. I head slowly down the side of the next-door house and make it back out to the road. My car is still where I left it. All the wheels are still on it. I figure it’s like winning the lottery out here. I move to the front of Kingsly’s house and walk up the pathway, staying low, moving slow. I stick the bag on the path halfway between the house and the road. I reach the front door and squat down and take a few moments to calm down, drawing strength from the monster.

I knock. Twice. Two loud, heavy knocks. Footsteps pound down the hallway. I run, staying low, back to the side of the house before he gets the door open. I can hear him saying something but I’m not sure what, something that sounds like “what the fuck.” I reach the back of the house and put my hand on the door handle and trust in Kingsly’s desperation to get outside as fast as he could. Sure enough, the handle turns and the door opens. I can’t see a thing inside. The hallway has a bend in it, so I can’t see Kingsly either. He’s outside. I can hear him walking around out there, asking who’s out there, when he should be asking an entirely different question. He should be asking who’s in here. I close the door. I head into the bedroom where the light was turning on and off before, using my hands to lead the way, almost tripping on rope lining the floor. Kingsly stays outside for another minute before returning to the hallway. The front door closes.

We wait in the dark for him to come into the bedroom.

chapter twenty-five

Kingsly heads out to the backyard. He moves around out there for a minute, swearing loudly, unsure of what he’s looking for. He knows he’s not dealing with pinecones anymore. He finally comes back in. He walks up and down the hallway a few times with the lights off. I’m not sure why, but as he does, it comes to me that I’ve already made my first mistake. The knife won’t make him talk. He isn’t going to come in here and see the steak knife in my hand, then start talking.

I can’t see anything, but I can hear him. All I can see are the numbers from the clock radio and a small glow coming from the power button of a stereo. Kingsly knows the layout of his own house, knows where to walk without banging into anything. He has the flashlight on which helps him, I guess, but helps me too.

The flashlight beam comes into the room from the hallway, lighting up part of the bed from the angle he’s on. The light grows in size the closer he gets. I squat down and wait for him, the knife out ahead of me. As he comes into the room, he twists the flashlight toward the light switch and reaches for it.

He switches it on at the exact time I move forward. I can’t kill him. I need him. I need names and addresses and information that he can’t provide if I stick the knife into his throat. So I aim for his shoulder. He hears me coming and turns and lifts his arm. It throws off my aim. The knife bites into his hand and pushes it back to the wall, but the knife goes into the wall too, right through the drywall, the blade burying down to the hilt, extending all the way into the wall and ripping into the wiring behind the light switch.

Every single muscle in my body tightens, my head crashes up into his chin, my right arm numb and in pain. I can’t let go of the knife. Every muscle in Kingsly goes tight too, his arm with the flashlight swings up randomly, the metal casing hits me hard in the shoulder and pushes me back. My hand comes off the knife and I fall down and quickly back away, hitting the bed and pushing the mattress askew.

Then nothing.

Kingsly stands almost still. There are veins standing out in his neck and forehead. He’s still holding the flashlight, his arm straight up in the air like he’s asking a question. He isn’t screaming. Isn’t trying to pull the knife away. I can hear a low hum, and a couple of sparks fly from the wall from behind his hand, but nothing else. No crackle of electricity. Almost perfect silence—except for the low hum.

Then I realize he actually is moving. Small, shallow movements, almost every part of him swaying minutely back and forth, convulsing almost, as if he’s having an epileptic fit but doesn’t have the energy to give it his all. He can’t break the contact, all he can do is this death dance as the power flows through him. His feet seem bolted to the floor. The lights in the bedroom fade, then come on real bright, then fade again. One of them blows, the other one brightens, dims, brightens.