Crouch in the slide. Blend in with the plastic. Feel freshly fallen rain inside with soft hands. A streetlight spotlight, don’t look at me. My mojacked shadow staring. Look up and out and listen.

His jeans, as usual, were packed with all sorts of strange things. In his front left pocket, a little but powerful pistol named Alex and a vial of almost pure cocaine abode. In his front right, there was a matching small pistol named Hal, a black ballpoint pen, and a pencil with a snapped point. In the back left, he had a switchblade and some ammo; in the back right, a folded-into-quarters note from his girlfriend. For good measure, he also had put his somewhat soiled snot blanket into his left mojack pocket. When he wiped up the blood, he used the handkerchief as well as he could and then put in the wash, telling his mother that he had had “one heckuva nosebleed.”
It was this last, the somewhat soiled snot blanket, that he utilized now. He daintily wiped his nose, put it back, and then peeked out. There they were…

Prey.

…his prey, a teenage couple younger than him by a year or two. He stared intently at the girl, a pretty sophomore who must have been in the rain about twenty minutes ago, judging from the fact that, in the streetlight, he could see her wet red hair and blue bra underneath an unfortunately white shirt. He didn’t know her name, which was unusual for him. He did know the boy she was holding hands with, though. His name was Evan Fogerty, with whom he had played Babe Ruth baseball for two years. Ev, a lefty, was doomed to first base, the outfield, or the mound, and since he didn’t throw so well, he was a first baseman. Fogerty had been just fair at the game, he recalled. No great arm, a bit on the slow side, walked more than he hit, never picked well…that’s what town leagues were for.

And, despite what the frighteningly idiotic press might be tempted to say, that’s not the reason he’s about to die.

Here’s how they were set up. Hold on tight. Fogerty and Pretty Girl were on a walk through a halfway peaceful suburban development, with the historically accurate but dull name of “Oak Tree Farms.” The Farms had been experiencing some moderate rainfall over the past hour or two, which had only just stopped. In the northernmost part of the development, there was an elementary school with the likewise accurate/dull name of “A.R. Jefferson Elementary School.” The actual school is of no importance, but consider the playground instead. He was sitting inside a winding cylindrical slide, with his head just looking out onto the sandy expanse before him, turned to darker, softer, colder dirt by the fallingwater. The couple was walking specifically on that large sandy area. A streetlight shed enough light on the subjects for him to see them fairly well, from scarce twenty yards off. They murmured to each other.

What are they saying?

It was 10:27 PM.

They sat down on a bench together, where Evan played with Pretty Girl’s vivid hair. It’s not what he would have chosen to play with, but maybe Pretty Girl was easily offended by that sort of thing. What mattered now, though, was that he was going to have to move to align himself. To move was to make noise, and to make noise was to give the game away.

Oh, fuck it.

He decided to pull himself up the slide first and go from there. If he didn’t keep himself low, then Evan would see his shadow, and that wouldn’t be good at all.

It was 10:34 PM by the time that inhumanly patient he got himself out of the slide and situated ten yards away, hiding beneath another piece of playground equipment, belly to the woodchips, hand on a handgun, lined up perfectly with the back of Pretty Girl’s head. Pity he’d never see her face.

It was 10:39 PM when he got his chance.

He could hear their voices now, hissing whispers in the cool, dark night.

“I — you, you know.”

“— you, too. So that’s why—“

A kiss. His whole soul rejoiced, bounding into the one-starred sky. He was no romantic, but he was one hell of a good shot. Out came Hal in the silence, and Hal made no mistake. The bullet entered Pretty Girl’s head from behind, went through her eye, and cut off Evan’s brain from his nerves in less than two seconds.

Within a minute, he had slipped on latex gloves, slit both of their throats, just in case, and thrown them into a pre-dug pit. He leaned down, kissed the whole, blue eye of Pretty Girl (what a waste), and proceeded to cover it up with more wet sand. His switchblade returned, and he scrawled “Dig here!” in cursive letters. By 11:00, he was home, in bed, and having a pretty dream about going with Charlie to Candy Mountain.

“It’s a magical Leopluredon, Chaaaaarlie!”