Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

Mrs. Ferrick recoiled from her son, stood up and turned her back on the sofa, on her guests. She was quivering and hugging herself, and when she turned again, there were tears streaming down her face and she had bitten her lip hard enough that a small trickle of blood went down her chin.

"How can you… how can you say that?" she whispered, sniffling, wiping away tears and blood. Then she shook her head again, with finality, and stared at Eve and Clay. "I don't believe it. I won't believe in it. I've never believed in angels and demons, no heaven or Hell. That's all bullshit. None of it is real."

Eve began to stand, but Clay was faster. He moved around the chair and strode toward Mrs. Ferrick. She flinched as though afraid he might attack her. Clay passed her and went to the window, then quickly drew back the curtain.

"Have a look, Mrs. Ferrick. You've seen what's going on out there. Are you telling me none of that is real?"

She hesitated a moment, then joined him at the window. Clay looked with her, and together they gazed out at her neighborhood, overrun with a crimson fog, at the sun blacked out by an eclipse, at a swarm of mosquitoes that clung to a car as it careened down the street, tires squealing, only to bump up over the sidewalk and crash into a minivan parked in a driveway just a few houses away. The shattering of glass and crump of metal upon metal made the woman flinch.

"There are…" she began weakly, "there are explanations for it. All of it."

Clay sighed. He stepped in front of her, forcing the woman to look at him. "All right. All right. Give me an explanation, then, for this."

He reached out and touched her hand and in an instant of painfully shifting bones and flesh that flowed like mercury, he became Julia Ferrick, right down to her gnawed fingernails and her white peasant blouse. The woman blinked and gasped for air, breath hitching in her throat as she stared at the mirror image of herself that he had become.

And then she fainted, tumbling so quickly toward the floor that Clay did not have a chance to catch her. He was only grateful that the living room was carpeted.

"Mom!" Danny called, running to her, kneeling beside her. The kid twisted his face up into a terrible grimace and when he spoke again it was in a rasping whisper. "I'm sorry. Sorry I'm not what you wanted."

Clay decided to give the boy a moment to collect himself. He stepped back, then looked over to where Eve was unfolding from her chair.

"That went well," she said.

Before Clay could respond to her sarcasm he heard the squeal of tires yet again from outside the window. He turned, peering through the glass into the darkness beyond, and saw the limousine barreling through the suburban neighborhood. Its brakes screamed as it skidded to a halt in front of the Ferrick home, and then slowly turned into the driveway.

"Eve," Clay said. "Trouble."

Tom Stanley stood above the grave of his recently departed mother and wept, hot scalding tears streaking his round, cherubic features. It was this way every time he visited, a deluge of sorrow for the woman who had meant the world to him.

He crouched upon his mother's grave and used the elbow of his jacket to rub imaginary fingerprints from her gray marble headstone. It had been set in place earlier that week by the groundskeepers of the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Tom could not escape the certainty that they had marred it somehow. He paused, studied the gleaming marble, and then shook his head, buffing the stone again. His mother had been gone for a little more than two weeks, and already it felt like forever.

Strange shadows moved across the ground and Tom gazed up from his routine of sorrow, troubled by something he could not put a name to. The cemetery was strangely deserted this day, perhaps because the weather was so odd. Far off in the distance he heard what could have been the faint rumble of thunder. He wished that he had bothered to listen to a weather report before leaving the house. The sun was partially obscured by weird, shifting, gray clouds and a strange, reddish fog drifted just above the gravesites.

Like the red tide in the ocean, he thought. What the hell is this? Biologicial warfare in the city of Cambridge? He chuckled to himself, a bit giddy, a razor edge of hysteria bubbling just under the surface, as it had since his mother's death.

His gaze shifted back to the headstone. Loving Mother, he read through teary eyes, and couldn't have agreed more with the simple inscription. He doubted there had ever been a mother more dedicated to her child's happiness than Patricia Stanley.

Tom removed a silver flask from his coat pocket and had another jolt of whiskey. He had been indulging more since his mother's passing, to help ease the pain of her loss, and was beginning to worry that a problem was developing. That's all I need, he thought, helping himself to another large swig before screwing the cap back on and returning the flask to his pocket, another problem.

Widowed not long after his birth, she had always been there for him, playing the role of both mother and father. He could still hear her voice as she defended her only son from accusations that he had been responsible for the deaths of some neighborhood cats and dogs. These were echoes of a past that seemed only yesterday, but in truth was so very long ago. That was the nature of time, though.

Time was a teasing bitch, and he wished that he could treat it like all the other teasing bitches who thought they were better than him.

How dare you accuse my Tommy! his mother had wailed. To think my little boy could be responsible for such a thing is a sin!

He was sure she had always known that he had killed the pets. But she wasn't about to let them ruin her son's good name. And besides, they were only stupid animals, what harm had he really done?

Tom wished that she had been as understanding about the other killings.

Once again tears filled his eyes and he wondered if he would ever feel happy again, or if there would only be grief for him now, forevermore. He had been coming here every day since her burial, hoping to experience some sense of closure, but all he felt was the gaping hole left by his loss.

He stared at the ground beneath his feet, imagining the fine mahogany coffin nestled in the grave below, and the peaceful countenance of the elderly woman at eternal rest within. How he hated to think of her down there, alone, without him to take care of her. She had been rather fragile in her final years, and had needed more of his attention, but it had been the least he could do after the years she had devoted to him.

"Why did she have to die?" he asked aloud, dropping to his knees, the moisture from the dewy grass seeping through his pants. But it was a foolish question. He knew the answer. Tom leaned in and pressed his forehead against the cool marble of the gravestone.

She had to die, because she was going to tell.

Animals were one thing, but people were another all together. He wasn't exactly sure how she had found out about his nasty little avocation. Maybe she'd discovered the trophies he kept hidden in the footlocker beneath his bed, or even watched one of the special videos he'd made. He didn't know for sure, which was why it came as such a surprise when she ordered to him to stop or she'd inform the police.

"You made me so angry, Mom," he said, bringing a beefy fist up to gently pound the marble. He fished in his pocket for his flask again, and had himself another drink.

Tom had been doing his thing for years. The pets had been nothing but a warm-up to bigger and better things. He'd developed a real knack for zeroing in on the losers of the world, ones who would never be missed. Over time, he'd actually begun to think of himself as a kind of public servant, making the world a better place to live, one loser at a time.