Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Seth C. Adams

church’s alarm system,’ Reggie said. ‘It was late when they called and told him one of the window sensors had been triggered. I heard his half of the conversation from my room, where I lay in bed watching TV. He drove off to check it out.

      ‘Mom asked him not to. She told him to call the police. He said it was probably just an animal or kids throwing rocks. And he left us.’

      Something started to come through the numbness inside him, and Reggie pushed it down again. The pain was old and tiresome and he was tired of hurting.

      ‘He was gone for hours for what should have been a twenty-minute drive there and back,’ Reggie said. ‘Mom finally had enough, grabbed her keys, and dragged me along. I’d never seen her drive so fast, and yet the drive there seemed so long.

      ‘I remember how dark it was on the highway,’ Reggie said. ‘It was like we were driving through a long tunnel. And those little homemade crosses on the side of the road where people mark accidents that have happened? They were so bright in the dark. Like signposts.’

      He looked at the man across from him.

      ‘And then we were there.’

      Like his mom earlier on the way back from the movie and cemetery, Reggie felt a wetness at his eye and swiped it quickly away.

      ‘We saw him in the parking lot, lying on the ground. The tithing box was broken in pieces around him. The money was scattered all over the place. A couple dollar bills blew around like trash.’

      Reggie smiled at the killer across from him.

      ‘The police counted it later and told us,’ he said. ‘There was sixteen dollars and seventy-two cents on the pavement. After all that trouble, he killed my dad and left the money.’

      Whether he’d expected sympathy, some simple display of concern, from the man or not, Reggie wasn’t sure. In the two days he’d known Ivan, he’d seen little to suggest the killer knew such simple things as human emotions. But what he definitely didn’t expect was what the big man said next.

      ‘Some things live. Some things die. Remember that, Reggie. There’s no sense to it, and you waste your time trying to find any.’

      At first, a hint of anger rose up in him. Reggie thought of seeing his dad dead there in the parking lot, and the killer’s casual dismissal pissed him off. He clenched his fists, on the verge of saying something, like he’d said to the older kid at the drugstore. But as quickly as it had come, the rage slipped away.

      Instead, Reggie found himself repeating those words in his head, the killer’s voice echoing in his mind. Some things live. Some things die.

      Reggie found his gaze drifting again to the shoulder holster and the pistol slid snugly into it. Ivan watched him, saw the direction of Reggie’s glance. Quickly, Reggie looked away.

      With nothing left to say, they sat in silence.