He doesn’t turn on a light. In the kitchen, he washes his hands and dries them on a clean towel. He wipes the blood from his boots. The refrigerator hums. The trailer smells of herbs. There is basil by the sink. He looks at himself in the reflection of the window. His appearance is neat. Unruffled. He listens again.

He walks to Ava’s bedroom door. He stands with his ear to the door, and then he touches the knob and turns it.

Ava lies in bed. Curled up under the sheets. Her eyes closed.

She has been peeking out the window.

She lies very still. Breath flitting in and out of her. Almost soundless. Her face smooth. In the bed beside her is a stuffed animal: a little monkey with brown fur. She wants to reach for it, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t move.

His footsteps are silent, but she knows he’s there.

She smells his aftershave.

He sits in the chair by the bed. Quiet. She feels his darkness there. She waits. She breathes. Heart flapping against the walls of her chest. She lies in the shadows and thinks about blue skies and palomino horses and happy things. She waits, she waits.

He stands and crosses to the bed. He waits there. He leans down and brushes his lips against her hair. She doesn’t move.

The room is still.

He sits in the chair again.

When she wakes, he is gone.

V

They found that man out somewhere off Route 20. Everybody said it was Jack’s dad who killed him. But it wasn’t.

It seems like most people don’t believe in good and evil anymore. They smile at you funny if you talk about those things. Like you’ve seen too many movies or something. But I can tell you, evil’s real. I’ve seen his face. Pure and simple. I’ve heard his voice. I’ve looked in his eyes. And once you look evil in the face, you know. You don’t even wonder.

I told myself to stay away.

Jack’s dangerous, I said. Stay away from him. As far as you can.

And I planned to stay away.

I did.

But Jack pulls me to him like the Earth pulls the moon.

And I don’t stay away.

I saw him four more times.

After school, Jack walked Main Street from store to store, looking for somewhere open. Most of the buildings were abandoned. Broken glass. Boarded doors and crumbling brick.

Snow whispered down from a crouching gray sky. Frail bits getting thicker. Drifting like ash in some apocalyptic world. Already starkly cold. Jack zipped his coat and blew on his sore hands and shoved them in his pockets, every part of him sore and tired.