The Hispanic crouched to look at his buddy. “Joey! What he do?”

“My eye! Oh, shit, my eye!”

“I like eyes,” Jack said in a strange, garbled tone. His own eyes had a strange, unfocused look, and Alicia noticed with a start that his mouth was smeared with red. “Blue eyes are especially delicious.”

And then he opened his mouth to reveal a bloody eye clenched between his front teeth.

Alicia’s stomach lurched. She’d seen traumatic horrors beyond most people’s wildest nightmares on her ER moonlighting stints during her residencies, but never anything like this. She was sure the gaping shock on the faces of the black and the Hispanic mirrored her own. She wanted to turn away but couldn’t. She had to keep watching.

As a child, she’d once had the misfortune of being in a pet shop when it was feeding time for the snakes. She’d been passing the cage of a large garter snake swallowing a frog headfirst. She’d been repulsed, especially since the frog’s legs were still kicking, but she’d stood rooted to the spot until the poor frog was gone from view.

That was how she felt now. Only this time the frog was eating the snakes.

No… not eating.

Jack spit out the eyeball. Alicia felt her gorge rise as it splatted against the side window of the car. The bloody, gelatinous mass stuck there for a heartbeat or two, then began a slow slide down the glass, leaving a glistening red trail.

Joey’s screams devolved to moans as his two buddies watched the misshapen eye come to rest at the bottom of the window.

“But brown eyes are tasty too,” Jack said with a bloody grin as he took a step toward them.

Both men jumped back, the Hispanic almost knocking over the black in his haste to get out of Jack’s reach.

“I’m outta here, meng!” he said as he backed away.

“Yo, Ric! What about Joey!”

“Fuck him!”

The black tried to grab him, but Ric slipped from reach and backpedaled down the sidewalk.

“That guy’s fuckin’ crazy!”

Jack took another step toward the black. “You have such big brown eyes.”

That did it. The black guy turned and hurried to catch up with Ric.

“Yo, Joey,” he said to his fallen buddy. “Catch you later.”

But Joey didn’t seem to hear. He was bent far over, his head almost on the pavement, wiping at his face.

Jack watched them go, then pumped his fist toward the car.

“Yes!”

As Jack spat red into the gutter and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, Alicia began backing away. Slowly. She didn’t want to attract Jack’s attention. What had she got herself into? She was glad she hadn’t hired him to burn the house. She didn’t care if he’d found the stolen toys, she wanted nothing more to do with this maniac.

But then Jack turned and spotted her.

“Did you see that?” he said with a bloody grin. “It worked! Worked like a charm!”