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.No hesitation.He knew I was here for you, and he ran toward me without thinking about it twice.He was going to kill me to save you.”Another pause.Then a chuckle, low and long.“I want you to know that so you understand: Buster’s dead because he loved you.”The door flew open wide, and The Stranger was there, and he threw something onto Sarah’s bed.The light from the hallway lit up the object: Buster’s severed head, teeth still bared, eyes wide with rage.Sarah unfroze then.She began to scream.20“I NEED YOU TO WATCH, SARAH, AND I NEED YOU TO LISTEN.This is the start of something.”They were in the living room.Mommy and Daddy sat on chairs with handcuffs around their wrists and ankles.They were naked.Seeing her father nude embarrassed Sarah and added to her terror.Doreen was lying on the floor, watching them all, unaware that anything was wrong.Stay stupid, puppyhead, Sarah thought, and maybe he won’t kill you like he killed Buster.Sarah was seated on the couch in her nightgown, handcuffed as well.The Stranger, as she thought of the man, was standing.He had a gun in his hand.He had panty hose pulled over his head.The panty hose stretched and twisted his features, made it look as though his face had been melted by a blowtorch.Her fear was still there, still strong, but it had moved away from her.It was a scream in the distance.It was a waiting, a terrible waiting, the executioner’s axe frozen at its apex.Her parents were terrified.Their mouths were covered with tape but their eyes showed their fear.Sarah sensed they were more afraid for her than themselves.He walked over next to her daddy and leaned forward so that he could look into Sam’s eyes.“I know what you’re thinking, Sam.You want to know why.Believe me, I wish that I could tell you.I wish it more than anything.But Sarah’s listening, you see, and she might tell others, later.I can’t have my story being told until I’m ready.“I can say two things: It’s not your fault, Linda, but your death is my justice.It’s not Sarah’s fault, but her pain is my justice.I know, you don’t understand.That’s all right.You don’t need to understand, you just need to know that these things are true.”He stood up.“Let’s talk about pain.Pain is a form of energy.It can be created, like electricity.It can flow, like a current.It can be steady or it can pulse.It can be powerful and agonizing, or weak and just annoying.Pain can force a man to talk.What a lot of people don’t know is that pain can also force a man to think.It can form a man, mold a man, make him who he is.“I know pain.I understand it.It’s taught me things.One of the things I’ve learned is that while people fear pain, they can tolerate much, much more of it than they think.If, for example, I tell you that I’m going to jam a needle into your arm, you’ll become fearful.If I actually do it, the pain will seem excruciating.But if I do it again, every hour on the hour, for a year, you’ll learn to adjust.You’ll never like it, but you’ll no longer fear it.And that is what this will be about.”The Stranger turned his gaze on Sarah.“I’m going to stick that metaphorical pin into Sarah.Over and over and over, for years and years and years.I’m going to use the pain to sculpt her, like an artist.I’ll make her over into my own image, and I will call her what she’ll become: A Ruined Life.”“Please don’t hurt my mommy and daddy,” Sarah said.She was surprised to hear her own voice.It sounded strange, far away, too calm for what was happening.The Stranger was surprised as well.He seemed to approve, nodding and smiling with his melted face.“Good! There it is: love.I want you to remember this moment in the future, Sarah.I want you to think back and mark this as the last time you were without real pain.Trust me, it will sustain you in the coming years.” He paused, examining her face.“Now, hush, and watch.”She watched as he turned toward her parents.Things still felt dreamy to her, all hazy and indistinct.Fear was there, horror was there, tears were there, but they were pinpricks in the distance.Things shouting at her from the horizon.She had to strain to hear them, and her reluctance to do so was heavy, crushing, a weight she couldn’t lift.She’d looked into Buster’s dead eyes, she’d screamed, and then her heart had gone away.Not for good, and not far, but far enough that she didn’t have to listen to it shriek.Buster…There was anguish waiting in that word, a pain powerful enough to suck a soul under forever.At some level, she knew Buster was only the beginning.The Stranger was more than a black tide, he was an ocean of darkness.A huge, empty nothing in human form with a gravitational presence strong enough to bend light waves and laugh sounds and goodness.The correct instinct of a civilized society is to protect the young from evil, but in doing so, society sometimes loses sight of a basic truth: A child is always ready to believe in the existence of monsters.Sarah knew The Stranger was a monster.She had accepted this as a totality the moment he’d thrown Buster’s severed head onto her bed.“Sam and Linda Langstrom,” The Stranger spoke, “please listen carefully.The thing you need to understand is that death’s inevitable.I’m going to kill you both.You need to dismiss any hopes you might have that you’re going to live.Instead, you need to focus on what you can control: what happens to Sarah.”Linda Langstrom’s heart had sped up when the man said he was going to kill them.She couldn’t help it; the desire to live was visceral.But when he told them that Sarah’s fate was still undecided, her heartbeat had actually slowed.She’d been looking at Sarah, worrying, only half-listening to the man.Now she turned her eyes to him, forced herself to focus.The Stranger smiled.“Yes.There it is.That’s one mix of love other than the love of God that comes close to having real power—mother to child.Mothers will kill, torture, and maim to save a child.They’ll lie and steal and prostitute themselves to feed a child.There’s a certain divinity to it.But nothing is ever as strong as the strength achieved when you give yourself over to God.”He leaned forward until his eyes were level with Linda’s.“I have that strength.Because of that, I get to kill you.Because of that, I get to do my work with Sarah.Because of that, I never have to apologize.The strong don’t have to be sorry.All they have to do is continue to breathe.” He stood back up.“So, what does that kind of strength do when it’s defied by a lesser love? It demonstrates its power by forcing choices.And now I’m going to give you some choices, Linda.Are you ready?”Linda looked at The Stranger’s face, examined the panty-hose-twisted features.She realized that trying to bargain with this man would be like bargaining with a rock, a block of wood, a rattlesnake.She was nothing to him, nothing at all.She answered his question with a nod.“Good,” he replied.Was it her imagination, or was he breathing faster now? Getting excited?“Here is the scenario.Sam, you need to listen to this as well.”He didn’t need to demand Sam’s attention; Sam had never taken his eyes off the man [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]