Behm’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. Todd barely noticed that his hands were no longer on Behm’s shoulders.

“Behm!” he shouted, and his own voice filled the world. “Behm! I can do anything! There’s a—”

Todd laughed. “There’s a spirit inside me! It’s like when I wrote the book! A spirit! Guiding me. Guiding my—”

A thought occurred to him.

“Behm, what happened to Turner?”

There was no reply save a sick groan. Todd looked at his hands. They were tight around Behm’s neck. Behm’s head was lolling in his grip like a fucking cauliflower thought Todd wildly. He let go, and Behm’s lifeless body thumped to the floor.

Shit, Todd thought. Fucking shit.

He sat on the floor next to the corpse. Behm’s body had fallen onto the yellowing pages. Todd looked down. One of the pages was different to the rest. It had a handwritten scrawl in red pen at the bottom, maybe written by the bookstore guy or whoever had found the confession. Todd picked it up.

Jake Turner died two days after writing this, said the note. He walked onto the highway and was killed immediately by a speeding truck.

Todd made a pile of the books, heaping them at Behm’s feet like a sacrificial offering. He found a book of motel matches, lit one, and dropped it onto the books. It went out. Todd ripped up some newspapers. He tore up Turner’s confession and scattered it over Behm.

He went out to Behm’s car. In the trunk he found, as he knew he would, a can of gasoline (Behm was, or had been, a prepared kind of guy). He brought it inside and sloshed it all over the carpet. Then he put everything he needed inside a pillowcase and threw that outside.

Todd lit another match and dropped it onto the carpet, which caught alight with a woomph. Then, before the flames got too high, he dropped his own copy of All My Colors into the fire and walked out, closing the door behind him.

The Volvo pulled out of the parking lot, just as smoke started to pour from the motel room’s windows. In the distance he could hear the sirens of fire trucks.

After a few miles, he turned off at a White Castle and got something to eat. He hadn’t felt hungry for days and, judging by the horrified look on the face of the girl behind the counter, he hadn’t eaten for days either.

“Give me a box of sliders,” he said. “And a Coke, and fries.” Damn, he was hungry.

Todd barely made it back to the car before finishing the box of tiny burgers. He crammed a fistful of fries into his mouth, gulped some Coke down, and was about to start the car when he saw it in the rearview mirror.