He raised his gun and shot both theater workers as they stood walleyed and dorky at the door. He shot them again when they were down on the floor. Just to be careful. Professional.

And now he was really shaking, legs like J-E-L-L-O, but trying to walk very calmly out of the men’s room.

Then out of the Sutton Theater onto 57th, heading east on foot. Everything outside feeling completely unreal and otherworldly, everything so bright and brassy.

He’d done it. He’d killed three people instead of just one. His first three murders. It was just practice, but he’d done it, and you know what? He could do it again.

“Practice makes perfect,” the Storyteller whispered under his breath as he hurried toward his car—his getaway car, right? God, this was the best feeling of his life. Of course, that didn’t say much for his life up to now, did it?

But watch out from here on, just watch out.

For Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

Of course, he was the only one who got that. So far, anyway.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL again in cold blood? he asked himself many times after the New York murders.

You think you can stop this now that you’ve started? You think?

The Storyteller waited—almost five months of self-torture, also known as discipline, or professionalism, or maybe cowardice—until it was his time.

Then, he arrived in the kill zone again, and this time it wasn’t going to be practice. This was the real deal, and it wasn’t a stranger who was going to die.

He was just a face in the crowd at the 3:10 showing of The Village at the Westwood Village Theater in Los Angeles. There were a number of patrons, which was good news for him and, he supposed, for the film’s star director, M. Night Shyamalan. What kind of name was that? M. Night? Self-conscious phony.

Apparently Patrice Bennett was among the last people in town to see the horror film. Also, Patrice actually deigned to sit in a real movie theater, with real ticket-buyers, for her movie fix. How quaint was that? Well, she was famous for it, wasn’t she? It was Patrice’s shtick. She’d even bought her ticket ahead of time, which was how he knew she’d be there.

So this wasn’t target practice anymore, and everything had to be just right, and it would be. Never a doubt. The story was already written in his head.

For one thing, he couldn’t be spotted by anyone in the theater. So he went to the twelve-o’clock; then, when the show let out, he waited around in a bathroom stall until the 3:10. Nail-biting, nerve-thwacking ordeal, but not that bad really. Especially since if he was spotted, he’d simply abort the mission.