I want to peel my eyes away, but I can’t. A picture pops up of a white torso with no blood running through it. The body is naked—bare chest and abdomen, with the private area blurred. A husk of a body.

“We gotta go.” Mom steps into the living room as she slips into her jacket.

She picks up the remote and freezes as the anchors return with a new headline:

Elusive Atlanta Serial Killer Suspected in New Homicide

Elusive is only half of the story. It’s a demon terrorizing the town.

“What is going on?” Mom says, her tone soft and petrified.

She’s speaking to no one in particular. She’s posing the question to the world.

This is Sawyer Doon’s latest victim. The kid went to Sawyer’s school.

In the truck, I search the newest victim’s name.

Kieran Waters Heritage brings up a bunch of pictures from Heritage High’s current soccer team. The boy from the most recent report is in the pics. A redhead in a red jersey, with his arms wrapped around his teammates. Sawyer’s second victim. Well, technically his eighth.

The questions keep unfolding about where he exists on the pendulum between life and death.

How did you put someone in the ground?

That night, I think about taking the car keys from Mom’s purse. It’s nearly midnight, and she’s asleep. She’d probably never know. But even if I am exploring a more daring side of myself, I’m still not bold enough to take it that far. Besides, I can’t drive.

So I swipe Mom’s bottle of sleeping pills from the cabinet instead and drag my bike out from the garage, through the house, so the noise won’t alert anyone.

Motion-sensored LED lights attached to the wheels illuminate the spokes with studs of color. A taillight attached to the back fires a glow into the darkness.

I keep myself to one side of the curb. Each car that zooms by thrashes me with a breeze, and I picture myself slammed into at an intersection, doomed to the death loop, bones breaking again and again.

The one-story houses and community churches peel into pieces of city. My GPS fires instructions through my earphones, and I fold into the suburbs, past the darkened windows of family businesses, eateries, the farmers market, the town hall screaming Southern tradition.

The school is nestled inside a residential area. Here the streetlamps make small pockets of light inside spreads of darkness. Avenues are ablaze with falling leaves.

The speed bumps become more and more dramatic as plastic yellow signs in the shape of kids appear by driveways and mailboxes. SLOW! they warn drivers.