For George

132
 “...are assuring the public that they
have partial containment of the epidemic.
Locally, Fargo, Mariposa, and Hoffman
have been evacuated, and there are
reports from several other cities around
the country including Sacramento and
Chicago. Authorities are at a loss to
explain what caused the outbreak,
though they say a thorough investigation
is underway, and any details the exami-
nation yields will be forthcoming. The
exact number of casualties is undeter-
mined at this time, and officials are assur-
ing the public that there is still a very
viable threat in infected areas. Those who
are on highways or roads are being
instructed to go to national guard desig-
nated safety zones, while citizens in
secure homes or businesses are urged to
remain there and not to go outside.
Sweep teams are covering the state look-
ing for survivors, attempting to capture
or exterminate any of the infected crea-
tures that have spread out of the con-
tained areas. We have unconfirmed
reports that murdered victims are return-
133
ing to life and joining the horde of raven-
ous creatures, adding further speculation
to the exact nature of the outbreak. The
national guard cautions that it is still too
soon to determine what the plague is, but
many believe that the dead are returning
to life and attacking living victims, thus
continuing the spread of the infection.
Again, authorities are encouraging the
public not to go outside until the threat
has been stabilized, and this will help
prohibit the expansion of the outbreak.
We will remain on the air 24 hours a day
providing information for the public, and
any further developments in the status of
the epidemic...”
The voice of the woman on the radio
was pleasant enough, but it failed to
soothe Earl’s sweaty, shaken body. Still, in
this spacious but windowless pantry, the
sound was the only encouraging sign of
life he was privy to. The sunlight coming
through the crack beneath the door told
him that it was the second full day he had
been inside the cubicle, and it was the
radio that had kept him apprised of his
necessity to remain there. Without a win-
dow to provide a gaze into the vast corn-
fields surrounding his weathered house,
he could not see how many of the crea-
tures were out there.
But he knew they were there.
He could hear them shuffling through
the stalks in his fields, the rustling of the
leaves betraying their slow, steady
approach. There were creaking sounds
from his porch, and he knew that they
emanated from beneath the feet of the
foul monsters as they staggered around
the premises, looking for him. And, most
chillingly, he heard their wilted hands
tapping on his doors and windows all
around the property, seeking entrance
into his sanctuary. He knew that they
could sense him, or smell him, but they
had not yet forced their way into the
threshold, and that is why he was keep-
ing out of sight. If they did not see him,
they might forget about him. And, when
he was forced to barricade himself inside,
he knew that he was so far outnumbered
that any escape would prove futile. Thus,
134
he was compelled to pray that somehow
the creatures would disperse from the
area if he could make them believe that
there was no one inside the house.
Occasionally, Earl would hear the dis-
tinct crackle of distant gunshots, yet he
was unsure if this was a sign of life, or
more death. Other than that, it was the far
too optimistic voice on the radio keeping
him sane. That, and the 12-gauge shotgun
he kept in the pantry with him.
The trouble was, there was only one
shell in it. That was all he had left after his
encounter with the vile fiends in the corn-
field two days before. His shooting had
been quite ineffective, though it took him
a full box of shells minus one to figure
that out. He shot some of the things
repeatedly, yet they kept coming at him
with the same fevered, hungry faces,
eager jaws gaping open.
So, now he was down to the one shell,
which he would use to do himself in, if the
creatures managed to gain entrance to his
house. He had seen what they did with the
meat they captured, and a shotgun shell to
the head seemed a sweet mercy compared
to what he had watched them do to Jasper.
Earl consigned himself to remain in the
pantry until he was forced to use his one
shell, or until the voice on the radio and
lack of shuffling sounds around his house
told him that it was safe for him to emerge.
The container was well stocked with pro-
visions, and he had food and water to last
him for at least two weeks, if he rationed it
efficiently. Thus, there was no reason to
risk another confrontation with the beasts,
so he remained mute in his confinement,
the radio turned up loud enough for his
ears alone.
Earl didn’t really sleep, except when
his exhaustion would force him into time-
less lulls that he could not measure since
he had nothing resembling a timepiece in
his pantry hovel. But, these wafting slum-
bers never lasted long, for the unforget-
table sights he had seen two days before
drifted through his head wrapped in
blood soaked nightmares. Each one
would inevitably jerk him back to con-
sciousness, jolting him with a soundless
scream from his sweat-parched lips. Not
that it mattered much, mind you, because
even when he was lucid, he was unable to
see anything but the leering, ravaged
faces of the ghouls as they had lumbered
toward him.
Two days previous, he had been on
his porch, a chilled glass of lemonade
soothing his heat-stricken body. He was
sore from tending the fields and contem-
plating a vigorous nap when the move-
ment deep within his crops alerted him to
the presence of something other than him
on his lonely farm.
The stalks spread as something moved
through them, coming toward Earl slowly
and methodically. Whatever it was did not
scurry through the field, as an animal
would, but he could not see what lurked
within the parting rows, so it was rather
small. Earl stood when his squinting eyes
adjusted to the minute red trail that fol-
lowed the shuffling corn approaching him.
Whatever was coming toward him through
the field was bleeding, and he could see its
crimson path drawing closer.
Daringly, Earl stood from his porch
swing, set his lemonade on the planks, and
approached the occupied field, moving
with the same careful, sure footing that his
visitor maintained. As it drew nearer, he
clearly heard the crunching of the stalks in
its path, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem
to make any noise itself. As he stood at the
edge of the field, peering through the nar-
row, obstructed window between two
rows, he could make out the figure.
It was a child, that much was easily
apparent, for Earl could see the top of his
head, a dirty frock of sandy blonde strands.
But, the hair alarmed Earl, for it was matted
with dark, stained blood. As the boy drew
nearer, the face remained obscured, but the
source of the bloody hair was very quickly
revealed to be a deep, intrusive gash in the
child’s forehead. It was obvious that the
boy was seriously hurt, and Earl was
alarmed and eager to help.
“My dear child,” Earl consoled.
“What happened to you?”
Earl stepped into the cornfield, meet-
ing the boy in his approach. As he did so,
the facial features of the boy began to
come into view, and Earl noted some-
thing very unusual in the child’s eyes.
They weren’t the vibrant, searching eyes
of a young boy; rather, sunken, swollen,
gray pits that looked toward him with
what seemed to be cold indifference.
“It’s all right, my boy,” Earl said warm-
ly, continuing toward the child. “Come on
over here. Let’s have a look at you.”
But, Earl realized that the boy was
actually looking at him. Perhaps Earl was
a bit alarmed, but his desire to help the
obviously wounded boy ultimately kept
him focused on his approach. To be fair,
there would be no way for him to expect
what met him as he crossed the cornfield.
“That’s right, child,” Earl called. “It’s
all right. Let’s see what happened to you.”
Earl pushed aside the stalks separating
him and the boy, and when the child’s full
face came into view, it did so for only a
moment, because Earl gagged and
released his hold on the row. A second was
long enough, because the face on this boy
was dreadful enough to remain in Earl’s
mind for the rest of his life, however much
he had left.
The boy’s skin was a sickening yel-
low pallor, rubbery and unnatural like
that of a corpse at a wake. The flesh was
knotted and wrinkled far beyond what
the skin of a small child should be, and
this made the entire face look distorted,
unevenly stretched across the young
cheeks. There was an incredible amount
of blood on the boy’s face which
appeared to have emerged from the
chasm in his forehead. Also stained red
was the boy’s bare chest, which further
revealed the uneasy skin color. The
source of this blood was even more
obvious than that on the face.
The boy’s jaw had been torn free from
the skull on one side, and it dangled from
the tissue still connecting it to the head,
swaying grotesquely as the child walked.
It was a savage wound, and the massive
sanguine accumulation on the child’s
entire body revealed that if all the rules of
mortality Earl knew of were accurate,
there was no way that a child with such
135
an injury should be alive, let alone able to
walk around.
As the boy approached, eyes clearly
locked on Earl, the latter continued to reel
away from the horrid sight. He wasn’t as
afraid of the boy as he was of the sicken-
ing nature of the boy’s askew jaw. He
found himself unsure what to say. There
seemed to be little chance of reassuring a
boy who had his jaw torn free from his
face. Yet, most amazingly to Earl, the boy
did not seem to be in pain. Earl speculat-
ed that the child was in a severe state of
shock, which would have accounted for
the dazed demeanor on the boy’s seem-
ingly lifeless face.
Earl continued to step backward,
reaching the edge of the cornfield again,
and the boy was just ahead of him. Once
free of the confines of the cornstalks, Earl
steadied himself and took a breath as the
boy stepped out from the field.
“My boy, what happened to you?”
Earl asked with sincere alarm.
The child did not answer, but it
reached out for Earl, grasping his arm
with surprising strength. Then, as Earl
looked on in stunned disbelief, the boy
lowered his mouth, or, more accurately,
what was left of it, to the appendage. Earl
felt warm breath on his skin, and he
became distinctly aware that the muscle
of the boy’s ragged upper lip was tighten-
ing around his skin. Once he felt the teeth
touch his skin, he realized the unbeliev-
able: this mouthless creature that resem-
bled a boy was trying to bite him. As he
struggled beneath the boy’s grip, the sep-
arated jaw began to sway on its hinge
with the movement, and Earl felt it tap-
ping persistently on his ulna.
Earl pushed the thing away, disgust-
ed. But, the boy-creature was unfazed and
continued its descent on him. The mad-
ness truly overtook Earl when he saw its
small tongue loll inside the exposed
throat cavity, pushing a bubbling mass of
blood down the creature’s stained chest.
Earl staggered backward and lost his
footing as he tripped over a hoe behind
him. The impact of the fall stunned him
for a second, and the monster did not hes-
136
itate. It leaned down upon Earl, who
kicked his legs desperately forward to
push the thing off of him. As he pushed
himself backward across the dirt, his
hand grazed the hoe, and he grabbed it
from the ground, gripping it desperately.
He swung it at the creature’s head,
screaming as he did so. The blade of the
hoe sliced across the former boy’s face,
sending its head reeling to the side. But, it
did not slow in its pursuit, and continued
to maneuver its way on top of Earl, its
bloody non-mouth gaping open hungrily.
The blow did not even stun it, and, in fact,
it seemed completely indifferent to the
punishment. There was no emotion in its
eyes, and it did not seem to be angry,
hurt, or discouraged by the wound,
which tore off a large chunk of taut flesh
from its cheek. The amount of blood that
surged from the wound belied the appar-
ent savagery of the attack, and, in fact,
there was very little shed at all, as if the
veins that held the blood were no longer
pumping it.
Desperately, Earl swung again, this
time with much more force. The blade of
the hoe lodged itself into the boy-thing’s
cheek, sinking into the spongy, bloodied
mass effortlessly. As it did so, the hoe han-
dle tore free from its headpiece, and Earl
was left holding a splintered stick. This shot
toppled the creature, and it fell roughly to
the dirt, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
But, as quickly as it fell, it began pushing
itself to its feet again, undamaged by the
assault, even as the hoe blade protruded
from the intact half of the thing’s head.
But, Earl did not hesitate to find out
how quickly the twisted creature would
be on him again. He lunged to his feet
and took off running, seeking no destina-
tion more complex than far away from
the wretched spawn he was fleeing. He
allowed himself only one look back
behind him, and when he did, he saw that
the child monster had now regained its
footing, and it was following him, albeit
at such a slow pace that Earl was yards
ahead of it.
As he raced across the dry, brittle
grass, his panicked mind struggled for
comprehension, but none came. And,
very quickly, he became aware that he
was running toward a miserable sound.
At first, it sounded like the agonized
cries of a wounded animal. But, as he
drew closer, still more fearful of the mon-
ster far in the distance behind him, he real-
ized that what he was hearing was not an
animal. It was very human, and quite rec-
ognizable: shrieks of the most bloodcur-
dling and excruciating pain Earl had ever
heard. And, as a familiar barn grew into
his view, he realized that the cries were
coming from the farm of Jasper Dudley.
The yelping grew louder as Earl
neared the residence, yet it did not slow
his stride. He feared the pursuing boy
more than the unknown nature of the
cries, and somewhere inside him, he was
convinced that no matter what was caus-
ing the commotion on Jasper Dudley’s
farm, it certainly could not be worse than
the scene he was escaping.
But as he rounded the corner of Jasper’s
barn, he found that he was very wrong.
He nearly stumbled over the
sprawled corpse of Francine Dudley,
Jasper’s wife. Actually, he could only
guess this because of where the body was
located, because the mangled pile of flesh
he saw bore little resemblance to
Francine. Her nose was missing from her
face, and the flesh around the cavity had
been taken with it. Francine’s upper lip
was gone as well, which left her top teeth
exposed, giving her half-missing face the
appearance of a forced and wholly inap-
propriate smile. The left eye was also
missing, and the frayed skin around the
eye socket indicated that this had been
done with little precision. Francine’s face
looked, literally, torn apart, as if finger-
nails and teeth had ripped into her like a
piece of fruit. Her left arm was also sepa-
rated from the body, and it lay several feet
from her; or, more accurately, the bones
did. The flesh on the arm had been picked
off so thoroughly that, in places, he could
actually see the milky white finish of the
bones beneath. There was blood every-
where, and scattered doughy shards of
meaty red tissue.
Earl’s attention was again summoned
by the agonizing roar he heard on his
way to the farm. It was coming from the
other side of the barn, where he knew
Jasper Dudley’s home was. When Earl
began to walk toward it, the nauseating
presence of the festering corpse simmer-
ing behind him, he dreaded to imagine
what he would see when the turned the
next corner.
Jasper Dudley was being attacked by
several individuals. However, though they
were several yards away, Earl could clear-
ly see that there was very little human
about the attackers. There was a total of
eight of them dragging Jasper to the
ground, and though they physically
resembled human beings in form, it was
clearly not people attacking him. Each of
the eight had the same sickly pallor to their
flesh that the boy-creature wore, and Earl
could more clearly see this since four of the
things were nude. The ones that were
dressed wore what looked to be bloody,
tattered rags, but this was the only distinc-
tion in the group, other than the obvious
difference in sex on some. Two of the nude
creatures were clearly female, and their
gray breasts swayed as they struggled
Jasper to the dirt. They didn’t seem to
notice him, and Earl watched the lifeless
transfixion in the creatures’ eyes as they
ensnared their prey. The skin on their
faces, those that he could see, was knotted
and worn, as the flesh of the boy in his
cornfield had been. Some of them had lac-
erations that looked large and painful, but
the things did not seem to be bothered by
them. As Earl squinted to examine them,
many of the wounds actually appeared to
be bite-marks.
As they took Jasper to the ground, the
circle of eight swarmed in on him, all
leaning their heads toward his prone
form. Earl did not have a view to see the
bites, but the frantic side to side swaying
of the creatures with their backs to him
efficiently revealed that they were tearing
into Jasper’s body, gnashing their teeth to
pull the tough skin free. Jasper’s vocals
seemed to indicate this as well. Hearing
the dreadful sound, Earl could imagine in
137
his head what Jasper Dudley was endur-
ing. Four of the frenzied beasts pulled
away from the circle, twisting their rav-
aged frames into a squat. All of them lift-
ed gelatinous masses of bloody meat to
their mouths and began chomping on
them uniformly. They ate with the tenaci-
ty of starving animals, taking large bites
out of their prizes as blood poured down
their chins and across their bodies.
Jasper’s screaming had stopped, but
from the edge of the feasting circle, Earl could
see his fingers twitching on the ground as the
creatures grabbed at him, tearing off crimson
pieces that made wet sounds as they were
detached from his husk. The monsters were
literally eating Jasper alive, and, for Earl, sud-
denly the small child creature he encoun-
tered at his home didn’t seem nearly as
imposing as the scene unfolding before him.
Yet, he could not take his eyes off the canni-
balistic spectacle.
Then, to his horror, he heard scuffling
from the cornfield behind Jasper’s house,
and more of the creatures began to emerge
from the stalks. They walked slowly and
stupidly, staggering like drunks out of the
crops. Yet, they seemed somewhat focused,
for they headed straight for the dining
group, several of which were retrieving sec-
onds and thirds from Jasper's tormented,
but mercifully dead, shell. As Earl watched
on, a full dozen more of the creatures came
out of the corn, and now there was almost a
mob gathered at Jasper’s body. They all
encircled the husk like ants on a candy
crumb, now actually fighting each other for
pieces of Jasper’s meat. Two of them strug-
gled with a slimy, slithering piece of intes-
tine, the creatures tugging against each
other with sluggish ferocity. Finally, the
limp tissue snapped into two pieces, and
the satisfied creatures retreated from one
another and began to devour their yield.
When he saw the group together, they
ebbed as a singular lifeform, all identical-
ly entranced and enthralled by the food
on the floor. They continued to feast, and
as the group repeatedly tore their drip-
ping bites free, Earl was amazed at the
amount of meat they were extracting
from Jasper.
138
The increased number also gave him
the ability to further study exactly what
he was looking at. Several more of those
in the new group were nude, and only
when he saw multiple naked creatures
did he realize that those without clothes
didn’t seem to have contusions on their
flesh. They were covered in blood, but
this seemed to be from the messy meal
they were enjoying. The creatures in
clothing all had some visible wound on
them, which left Earl to wonder if the
nude creatures had bitten the others. And,
if that was correct, was it the bite that
turned them into the ravenous things he
now observed?
Earl heard dry grass snap behind him
and wheeled to face the source.
Amazingly, Francine Dudley was now
back up on her feet.
He knew she was dead. The savage
mutilation of her face was beyond what
any mortal could survive, but her one eye
was open wide, glazed but staring direct-
ly at him. Her chewed and bloodied legs
were walking, and her lone intact arm
was reaching out for him. The exposed
teeth no longer formed a smile, however,
for Francine’s mouth was open and her
red, blood-soaked tongue rolled out the
side of her mouth like that of a panting
dog. Black-red fluid dribbled from the
corner of her lip, and she almost appeared
to be salivating the rancid bile.
Earl screamed as he flinched away
from Francine, or whatever this monster
that resembled her was. Almost instinc-
tively, he forced himself to check back on
the group that was eating Jasper, and his
fears were realized. The hungry monsters
had heard him, and each of the twenty
hideous faces was turning his direction.
Without hesitation, they began their slow,
leering shuffle toward him.
Earl did not forget the Francine-
shaped creature now upon him, nor did it
forget him. The monster grabbed Earl’s
arm as the boy had, and leaned its defaced
head toward him, its mouth open eagerly.
Without a hoe this time, Earl swung at the
creature with his fist, feeling his knuckles
hit the skull bone exposed beneath the
noseless gouge in the center of its face.
Tissue splattered behind the blow and
Earl felt still-warm blood trickle between
his fingers. It was revolting, but the hit
knocked the creature back to the ground,
its head cracking against the side of the
barn. It did not stall the monster, however,
and it immediately began working its way
back to its feet.
Earl saw this and heard the slow but
steady steps of the approaching horde
behind him, and he was bounding away
from the scene immediately. Again, he
ran without destination in mind, but he
was heading back in the direction of his
property, with the blackjack of creatures
following behind. As he ran, he scanned
the countryside around him, and every-
where he looked, he saw approaching fig-
ures, all of which moved with the same
absent shamble that the creatures used in
their travel. Up ahead of him, he saw the
familiar small figure of the boy-monster,
which looked up at Earl as he raced to
meet it. Earl shifted his course, running
diagonally away from the tiny creature. It
turned to meet his direction, but he was
moving much faster than it, and he was
soon quite distanced from the boy, and
the horde pursuing him.
The things moved very slowly, and
Earl then realized he could easily outrun
them, but he had seen a group of them
take Jasper, by no means a small man, to
his chewy death. As Earl raced back to
his house, noticing scattered, moving
shadows on the horizon in every direc-
tion he looked, he was forced to wonder
exactly where he could run to, and how
many of the creatures he would
encounter on the way.
He reached his porch, where less than
a half hour before, he had been enjoying a
delicious glass of lemonade. He had a fine
view of the surrounding area from this
vantage point, and, though he could see
steadily approaching shadows in the dis-
tance, there did not seem to be any of the
creatures in his immediate area, and the
horde from Jasper’s farm was comfort-
ably behind him in their pursuit. He had
a moment to think, and he would use it,
at least as much as his panic-stricken
mind would allow him.
Earl was more than rural, and he did
not have a telephone, a television, or, more
importantly, an automobile of any kind.
He scanned the inventory of his storage
shed in his mind. There was a massive
tractor, but it moved more sluggishly
than the creatures did, and he could trav-
el much faster on foot. When Earl went
into town, he rode his trusted horse,
Savini, and she was capable of very fast
flight. But, Earl was forced to wonder
exactly what he would encounter if he
went into town, even if the creatures in
the surrounding fields were unable to
stop him from reaching there. Still, he
knew that he had very little choice, so, as
the creatures around him continued their
descent on his home, he went inside to
grab a companion he knew would come
in handy on the journey.
Earl emerged from his house with his
Remington shotgun in his hand, and a
box of shells in his flannel pocket. He
scanned the area, discouraged to see that
many of the creatures were now well in
sight. He moved quickly, rushing to his
barn, where Savini’s stable was set up.
He pushed a heavy swinging door
aside and stepped cautiously into the
dusky barn. Earl was immediately aware
that something was wrong. Customarily,
he would hear Savini’s breathing or
whinnying when he entered. But now
there was a different sound: chewing.
Earl raised the shotgun into firing
position as he crept toward the stable. He
could not see Savini, and, as he drew clos-
er, he realized why.
Savini was lying on the ground, and
she was not moving, but something else
was. There were two of the creatures eat-
ing the dead horse, both leaning over her
lecherously and tearing pieces off of the
frame, then shoving these pieces into
their waiting mouths. The creatures did
not look at him, apparently thoroughly
engrossed in their meal, so Earl crept clos-
er, the shotgun positioned directly toward
the two fiendish beings viciously tearing
his horse into bloody chunks.
139
 He fired without warning, and his
shot was well-aimed. One of the creatures
flew back away from Savini’s corpse as a
large wound opened its chest. The other,
a sickly and emaciated creature that had
once been a woman, stood up. Despite
the abundance of meat on the floor in
front of the monster, it now focused its
attention on Earl, beginning to move
toward him. As it did, its mouth opened
and an unchewed piece of horseflesh fell
from its cracked and bloodied lips and hit
the floor with a sickening plop. Behind
the approaching creature, the one Earl
shot also took to its feet, apparently
unphased by the shotgun blast Earl had
sent it. As the beast regained its footing,
Earl could clearly see where the shot had
hit. It was hard to miss, as the hot ele-
ments had torn a massive hole through
the creature’s chest, actually allowing
Earl to see directly through it to the barn
wall behind it, which was splattered with
the monster’s now-missing insides.
“God,” Earl cursed, probably to the
creatures, though they didn’t seem to
acknowledge his speaking. “What the
hell are you?”
It came as no surprise to Earl that the
creatures did not answer; they merely
continued their languid walk toward
him. The wounded monster lost its foot-
ing, slipping on the warm pile of entrails
that Savini’s opened belly had spread
across the floor. It collided with the sec-
ond creature, and both fell to the ground
together. Earl stepped toward them,
pointing the shotgun down at their ris-
ing forms. He fired again, this time hit-
ting the unwounded one in the shoul-
der. Its flesh seemed to be brittle and
weak, for the impact of the shot discon-
nected its arm from its torso. The
appendage flew to the ground behind it,
smacking the barn’s wooden planks
roughly. Yet, even this failed to slow the
monster, which continued rising to its
feet, using its one arm to push up from
the floor.
Earl fired twice more, once at each of
the determined monsters. Both shots hit
their targets, rocking their distorted
140
frames but failing to stop the creatures’
relentless seeking.
“What the hell are you?” Earl ques-
tioned again, this time screaming it at the
unhearing beasts.
He fired twice more, but this time his
overwhelming confusion altered his aim,
and both shots sailed wide, instead splin-
tering the wood in the barn wall behind
them. Now, the two creatures were on
their feet, and taking stumbled steps in
Earl’s direction. He pulled the shotgun’s
trigger again, but there was no explosion,
merely a disappointing click.
Earl reacted quickly, fumbling for the
box of shells in his chest pocket. He man-
aged to get the package open, and fisted a
haphazard handful of the rounds, losing a
few to the floor in his haste. He had four
in his hand, and these he loaded into the
weapon as quickly as he could. But, as the
creatures drew increasingly closer, Earl
could see the wounds, a stippling of holes
he had already delivered, which had
failed to stop the monsters’ approach. The
one-armed creature was almost upon
him, and the shotgun in his hand no
longer provided the optimism that it had
a moment before. Taking one last look at
the butchered lump that had been Savini,
his only means of escape from the crea-
tures, Earl retreated, rushing impatiently
to the still open barn door behind him.
As he stepped back outside, Earl was
greeted by another one of the creatures, a
nude old man covered in what appeared
to be sewn shut stab wounds. This one’s
behavior was familiar as it reached out
for him with its unfed mouth gaping
wide for a bite. It was right upon him,
and the creature put its clammy hands on
Earl’s shoulders, using them to pull its
hungry mouth closer to his face. As it
struggled with him, he shrugged away,
and the box of shells left their precarious
perch inside his pocket and spilled onto
the dirt.
Reacting quickly, Earl squeezed off
another shotgun round. The range was
mere inches, and Earl actually watched
the creature’s stomach implode behind
the shot. It flew back to the ground, send-
ing a spray of pungent smelling red fluid
across Earl’s sweaty face. As the creature
lay sprawled on the dirt before him, Earl
could actually see where the heat of the
muzzle flash had singed the monster’s
flesh around the wound. It was a mon-
strous looking wound, but as the crea-
tures in the barn had been, the old man,
too, seemed impervious to damage. It
was immediately trying to regain its foot-
ing, but Earl wasn’t prepared to give it
another chance to engage him. He ran
again, this time back toward his house. As
he glanced back, he saw the box of shells
on the ground, but their debatable effec-
tiveness convinced him that it was okay
to leave them behind.
As he neared his porch, another crea-
ture stepped from within the cornfield,
this one in the shape a woman who had
probably been quite beautiful before the
monsters tore her trachea and breasts
from her body. From the creature’s chin to
its bellybutton, there was a wall of splat-
ter that surged from valleys of partially
chewed tissue. Earl fired the shotgun at
the woman-thing, more out of reaction
than intention, and the shot blasted the
top of her head from her body. As the
creature toppled backward into the lush
stalks of the cornfield, Earl saw shattered
splinters of brain matter drip to the dirt.
He kept moving, not waiting to see if the
creature got back up.
When he reached his porch, he could
see that there were still creatures coming
from the fields from all directions. They
were still some distance away, and their
diminutive speed would keep them from
him for a few moments, but Earl found
himself realizing that he had few options.
The floorboards of his porch creaked,
and another creature stepped from
around the side of his house, its open
mouth and outstretched arms clearly
illustrating its intent. Earl moved toward
it, pointing the shogun at its head, and
fired. A spattering of holes opened up in
its sinister face and it staggered back-
wards, falling off the porch into the grass.
Knowing there was nowhere else to
go, Earl opened his front door and
pushed his way into his house. He
slammed the door behind him and fas-
tened the deadbolt. He had never locked
the door to his secluded home, and the
bolt struggled with him, but he finally
managed to secure the entrance.
Once inside, he heard the stomping
steps of the meticulous creatures out-
side, and knew that they would be on his
house in a matter of minutes. He knew
that the only chance he had was to keep
the creatures out of the dwelling, and he
forced himself to ignore the
terror and madness that seized him and
leap into action.
He began by barricading the front
door, grabbing every piece of furniture he
could gather in his modest home and
positioning it in front of the frame. A
wanton pile of chairs and tables were
assembled at the entrance, and it
appeared heavy enough to resist any
pushing on the door from the outside. He
then set out to drag his two largest cabi-
nets across the two main windows in the
house. The creaking of the wood across
the planks in his home was unbearably
loud, but, in a matter of minutes, the shel-
ter was reasonably secure.
Still, there were other windows he
didn’t have furniture to cover, and Earl
realized that the creatures had focused
their eyes on him outside, and they
would surely try to get at him if they saw
him on the inside. He resolved to position
himself in the pantry. It was the most
secure area of the house, with no win-
dows to allow detection, and his food was
located there, which would keep him
from moving around in the house and
making any noise that might attract the
creatures. There, he resolved, he would
hide out and nurse the vague hope that if
he stayed out of sight, the creatures
would forget about him, or pass him by.
But, if the barricade on his door failed to
hold, and the dreadful apparitions found
their way inside the house....
For this scenario, he decided to save
the one shell inside of his shotgun. He
saw what the creatures did to Jasper, and
had no desire to endure the obscene pain
141
of having chunks of his flesh torn from
his body by those foul teeth. No, if the
creatures did get inside, Earl opted to fin-
ish himself off and spare himself the
agony of that ordeal. And, perhaps, if the
creatures did not get their fangs into him,
he would not rise to his feet and join their
hungry quest, as he had seen Francine
Dudley do.
It was only after he locked himself
inside the spacious storage room that he
realized he had a radio in there. He
turned it on, careful to keep the volume
very low, and scanned the dial for recep-
tion, any hint a life beyond the madness
that encircled his farmhouse. He did not
have to look long, for a voice came
through on the one station he received
definitively clear at his house. Normally,
it played country music, but now there
was an unfamiliar voice, and this voice
sounded deadly serious.
Over the next two days, Earl kept his
radio tuned to this station, which aired a
continuous news report outlining some
sort of viral outbreak that had spread
throughout his state, and several others.
There was very little information about the
nature of the infection, but the reports
seemed to match what he had encountered
outside. As Earl assimilated the facts, they
seemed to suggest that for some unknown
reason, savage cannibalistic attacks were
taking place all over. The authorities also
speculated that these attacks were related to
widespread incidents of bodies going miss-
ing from morgues and funeral homes across
the country. There were also reports of sev-
eral attacks in or around these sites, and Earl
shuddered at what it seemed to suggest.
After two days of listening to the
reports, Earl was forced to accept that the
creatures he had encountered were in fact
corpses that had returned to life. Earl now
knew that the dead were walking, and
possessed with some sort of murderous
desire. That explained why the clothed
creatures he saw had bite marks on them.
They had been victims of attacks, and
when they died from their wounds, they
somehow rose from the dead to join the
famished horde. Knowing this, Earl was
142
sickened and defeated, for he knew that
even if he was able to keep the creatures
at bay, there were many more lurking
about spreading the horrendous plague.
Further, it made sense that the shots had
done no good. After all, how can one kill
what is already dead?
As hours passed inside the pantry,
Earl’s attention was often commanded by
the sounds he heard from somewhere
outside the house. He clearly heard the
creatures as they gathered and commiser-
ated around his farm. Their brittle nails
scratched on the windows and their
twisted hands pawed at the front door. At
times, he could hear them thumping their
frail bodies against it, pushing their clum-
sy weight at the sturdy wood seeking
entrance. In a few far more chilling
instances, he heard them fumbling with
the doorknob, their dead minds exploring
something distantly familiar. These
sounds continued through the night,
keeping Earl’s eyes, ears, and mind open
at all hours. He slept very little, for even
when the sweet silence of the creatures’
distance lulled him into uneasy rest, these
spells never lasted long. From what he
could hear, the things never grew
fatigued. Without a view to keep him
apprised, Earl never knew how many of
the creatures rapped at his door. There
was a kaleidoscope of sounds outside his
view, so counting the sources was impos-
sible. However, he heard enough life, if
the sick defaced creatures could be
described as such, to feel a teeming pres-
ence outside of his walls.
But, as the two days departed, the
creatures had been unable to gain
entrance. Earl’s desperate plan was work-
ing, for now, but he was growing weary
of waiting. Without sleep or nutrition
more complex than the jars in his pantry
would provide, he was growing ragged.
And, as he weakened, it seemed as if the
impulsive thumping at his front door
seemed to grow louder and more persist-
ent. Now he heard the door knob turning,
and the creatures had learned to combine
that with their forceful pushing. His bar-
ricade was holding, but he feared to guess
for how long. But if there truly were
dozens of the creatures outside, as the
consistent barrage of noises suggested,
and they gathered to push en masse, they
could potentially batter their way in. Earl
came to realize that his safe time inside
the pantry was not indefinite. But now,
trapped inside of his tightening space, he
knew he had no means of escaping the
creatures if they surged their way
through his barricade.
Yes, he would probably be needing
that last shell. But, not now.... For now, he
would wait, because if this problem really
was so widespread, then there were peo-
ple out there working on a solution. And,
perhaps it wouldn’t be long before some-
one found a way to stop the creatures, and
Earl could emerge from his self-imposed
confinement and somehow life could
return to normal in a world where the
dead returning to life is a reality. But, ulti-
mately, he knew that any semblance or
normalcy was an unfathomable fallacy.
The dead were walking around, and noth-
ing would ever be the same again.
So, Earl remained inside his pantry,
and he waited.
On the fourth day, the batteries in his
radio went dead, and the silence inside the
pantry was suffocating. With nothing but
his tense breathing to drown out the sounds
from beyond, they resonated with more
intensity and proximity. The creatures
sounded like they were just upon him, and
he could hear the piled components of his
makeshift barricade shift with each push of
their withered limbs.
The fifth day was most curious, for
Earl noted a significant decrease in the
frequency of the noises. When they came,
they carried the same powerful drive, but
throughout the day, he heard the flurries
only a few times. However, somehow, the
silence seemed far more sinister. Though
Earl was able to sleep in more reliable
blocks, when he sat awake, searching the
air for telltale traces of the vile creatures
that encircled him, not hearing where
they lurked haunted his mind more sig-
nificantly than the identifiable thumping
at his door.
He knew the one-minded creatures
had not departed because he could feel
them in air, but, by the end of the sixth
day, their rumbling groans had vanished.
Earl waited several hours before truly
appraising the silence. His exhausted
frame was still too frightened to be opti-
mistic, but after some time without activ-
ity, he realized that the creatures were not
at his door, or at least not on his porch.
Outside of the direct vicinity of his house,
he had no idea what they were doing, but,
for now, it certainly seemed as if they had
given up on gaining entrance to him.
Had they truly gone away? Or were
they simply in his fields, waiting for him
as he waited them out? Earl was afraid to
guess, but the alarming change in the
rhythmic attack he had weathered in the
previous days indicated to him that he had
to investigate. Perhaps a quiet creep out of
the pantry and a look out the window?
Earl was sweating. It was hot and
musky inside the pantry, and he had been
living in the same air for several days.
Breathlessly, he reached for the pantry
door and twisted the knob, hesitating
before he pushed the entrance open. When
he did, his eyes were stung by the fresh
sunlight that filled the house outside of his
room. He paused in the doorjamb, listen-
ing intently for sounds from beyond the
front door, but heard none. Perhaps the
creatures really had gone away....
Earl changed his mind, however. For,
as he sat perched on the verge of step-
ping out of his cell, a distinct rattling
stole his focus. The front door knob
turned roughly, shaking the wood
around it, and Earl ducked back into the
murky depths of the pantry.
The creatures were back. They had heard
his movement, and were now upon the
house again. He shut the pantry door tightly,
making a noise of his own. But, it didn’t mat-
ter now, because they knew he was still
inside, and they were coming for him.
He settled back into his seat on the floor
as the front door thundered with impact.
To his horror, he heard the crashing of
wood on wood as pieces of his barricade
began to fall off the heap to the floor. The
143
door thumped hard again, and he heard
the barrier that kept the creatures at bay
begin to crumble beneath their crushing
force. Earl heard death at the door as the
monsters smashed their way in.
He reached for the Remington lean-
ing against the shelving behind him.
There was only one shell inside of it;
scarcely enough to head off the
onslaught that he heard coming for him.
Earl cradled the shotgun in his lap,
unsure rather to point it at the pantry
door, or himself. He got his answer a
second later, when the house shuddered
furiously. He heard the barricade
implode upon itself, and a loud splinter-
ing which must have been the door
cracking beneath the creatures’
famished frames.
Earl tilted the shotgun up to his face
and wrapped his lips around the barrel.
The cobalt was cold and slightly numbed
his dry mouth. He closed his eyes and lis-
tened carefully as he reached for the trig-
ger, searching for a last second reprieve
from the approach of the monsters’ din-
ner party. But, all he heard was footsteps
on his floorboards; the same slow and
deliberate creaking that had carried
across his porch through the previous
days. The steps traveled through his
home, each one stinging Earl’s trembling
finger as he tensed it on the trigger. The
steps came closer, increasingly closer,
until he heard them right in the next
room. He studied the sliver of light burn-
ing through just above the floor. Then, the
light was eclipsed, and one of them was
standing right at his pantry door.
Earl pulled the trigger and the shot-
gun discharged. His fatigue, despair, and
terror all burst out of the back of his head
with his brains and most of his skull. His
immediately dead body crumbled
beneath him, and Earl slumped into a
crippled rind as a fountain of blood
poured out of his body, beneath the door,
and under the feet that stood beyond it.
“What the fuck?” shouted the startled
voice above the feet.
“Everybody, get the fuck back!”
ordered another voice.
144
As the closest soldier pulled the
pantry door open, and the other three in
the search party aligned behind him, they
all discovered Earl’s nearly headless
corpse sprawled across the large storage
room. They relaxed their readied
weapons, and the front man, who had
opened the door and now stood closest to
the rapidly draining corpse, gagged at the
grisly sight.
“Jesus Christ!” one of them exclaimed.
“What the fuck did he do that for?”
“I guess he didn’t want to be found,”
chuckled another.
The front soldier, his name patch read
“Davis”, turned an angry glare at the man.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,
Erickson?” he scolded. “You think this is
funny? Huh?” He grabbed the sleeve of
Erickson’s uniform and pulled him closer
to the pantry, forcing the man’s face closer
to Earl’s defeated corpse. “Is that fucking
funny, Erickson? Huh? You like that?”
“No, sir,” the rattled soldier responded,
his tone now much more contemplative.
“Now, go check the other rooms.”
Davis pushed Erickson away from the
pantry. “I’m going to report in.”
The three grunts dispersed into other
areas of the house, and Davis unholstered
his walkie talkie.
“Phillips, this is Davis, do you copy?
Over.”
“This is Phillips,” came the voice
through the speaker. “Go ahead, Davis.
Over.”
“We’re about a mile from the safe
zone,” Davis reported. “We’ve killed
about twenty infected, but so far no
survivors here. Over.”
145
For David
 It was 93 degrees as Jeremy Stratton
rushed across the deserted campus of
Fincher Community College. His watch,
always set a few minutes fast, read 8:03
p.m., leaving him precious few seconds
to reach his Mathematical Logic class on
time. He was drenched with sweat as
his quickened pace carried him through
the oppressive, humid night, and the
sticky perspiration reminded him how
much he longed to leave his home in
Dukirk, Texas. It was the last day of the
semester, and Jeremy eagerly awaited
completing the final exam he was about
to take.
The class was the last he needed for
his transfer to Madrid University in
New York. With his solid 4.0 grade point
average, Jeremy had put himself in the
small percentage of applicants who
were lucky enough to be accepted by
the prestigious film school. And now, it
was all he could think about.

149
 Jeremy’s desire to leave Dukirk had
grown into a near-obsession in the two
years following the death of his parents.
After selling their home, which harbored
too many painful memories after their
passing, Jeremy lived alone in a modest
apartment. The inheritance they left
behind kept him taken care of, though not
completely comfortable, and he spent his
days sweating in his living room, tighten-
ing his resolve to finish his schooling and
move on to something better. Jeremy had
no real friends to speak of, and in fact,
nothing at all to keep him in the city he
had lived his entire life. He yearned for a
change, and to Jeremy, film school in New
York was as radically removed from his
current situation as possible.
He sweated through these thoughts
now, with 8:04 p.m. showing on his digi-
tal watch. A slight dread came over
Jeremy when faced with this increased
possibility of being late. He recalled what
Professor Dillon had said at the first meet-
ing of the class, which Jeremy had
watched the teacher enforce on
several occasions:
“This class begins at 8:00 clock sharp,
not 8:01, and not 8:00 and 30 seconds.”
The gruff instructor had then adjusted
his rounded glasses for effect, Jeremy
remembered, before continuing:
“If anyone arrives for this class even one
second late, they will be asked to leave,
and not to return until they understand
what promptness is.”
Those opening remarks had pretty
much set the tone for the laborious semes-
ter Jeremy had endured in Professor
Dillon’s class. Although he maintained
some semblance of respect for the aging
teacher, who was actually quite good at
presenting the material, Dillon was per-
haps the most unpleasant man that
Jeremy had encountered in his 21 years.
The Professor was prone to loud and
animated outbursts about etiquette when
he heard anyone talking during his lec-
tures, which began precisely at 8:00 p.m.,
and ended at precisely 9:50 p.m. When he
became really agitated, he would pull his
glasses from his face and slam them
150
down loudly on his podium. Jeremy was
amazed that the glasses never shattered
during one of these fits, but the same stur-
dy pair had been on Dillon’s face at the
beginning of every class of the semester.
The Professor also had a habit of smash-
ing the chalkboard with his pointer,
which he carried at all times in his right
hand, and waved during his lectures like
a symphony conductor. This violence was
the only thing the chalkboard was used
for, as Professor Dillon had never written
on it during the semester, and did not
even write his name on it the first day.
One time, a girl in the class, whose name
Jeremy never found out since she
dropped the class after only a few weeks,
asked Professor Dillon why he never
wrote anything down. His dry response
was merely:
“Young lady, I already know the
material. Therefore, I have no need to take
notes from my lectures. However, I sug-
gest that you do so.”
Jeremy quickly adjusted to the
teaching style, and Dillon explained
everything so thoroughly, it was quite
hard to misunderstand the material.
Others in the class did not do so well,
however. Each week it seemed like anoth-
er person dropped the course --“defec-
tors,” as Dillon called them--and by the
previous week’s meeting, there were only
nine people left enrolled. But Jeremy had
continued to ace each test the Professor
threw at them, and he was determined to
go the distance, which he had.
The last thing he needed now was to
arrive late for the final exam, which
Jeremy knew Professor Dillon would pro-
hibit him from taking if he was not on
time. He quickened his steps, his eyes fix-
ated on the building that housed his
Mathematical Logic class, now a mere 50
yards away. He was somewhat relieved to
see the door to LB 104 still gaping open, a
clear sign that the Professor had not start-
ed class for the evening.
Finally, he was at this open door, and
stepped into the hot classroom to see
Professor Dillon sitting at his desk, scrib-
bling something into a notebook, as he
often did, while the few remaining mem-
bers of the class wandered in and took
their seats. Tonight, Jeremy was the last to
arrive, and he quickly studied the eight
familiar faces of the other students, most
of whom Jeremy did not know by name.
He glanced up at the clock, which told
him he had only 34 seconds to spare.
As 7:59 slowly gave way for the eight
o’clock hour, Jeremy hurried to his desk.
Although there was no assigned seating
in Professor Dillon’s classroom, each stu-
dent seemed to claim a desk as their own,
and Jeremy had sat at his at every class
meeting. Tucked away in the corner of the
room, with his nearest neighbor at least
two desks away, Jeremy felt somewhat
safe. He had never made any attempt to
get to know any of the other students in
the class, and he kept his distance from
these familiar strangers that he saw every
Wednesday night. Most seemed to pay no
attention to him either, which was fine
with Jeremy, and only a couple seemed to
pay any attention to each other.
Professor Dillon did not look up as
Jeremy crossed the room to his seat, and
even the teacher seemed somewhat
removed from his surroundings. He
seemed oblivious to the small, quiet
group gathered before him, more focused
on his frantic scribblings. Jeremy watched
the Professor run a hand through his thin-
ning hair, pausing his writing for a sec-
ond as if searching for a perfect word for
his thoughts. He found it, then scribbled
one more sentence into the notebook and
shut it soundlessly.
His timing was nearly impeccable,
and the Professor glanced up at the clock
on the wall facing his desk just in time to
watch the last seconds of 7:59 disappear
into memory. He rose from his chair, as
Jeremy had watched him do exactly 18
times, once at each class meeting. Dillon
adjusted his tie, which was always his
next action, and stepped forward to his
podium, his navy Dockers shuffling
together as he walked.
The Professor had worn these same
Dockers, or an identical pair, at every
class meeting, and his short sleeve white
dress shirt was equally repetitive. Jeremy
imagined the Professor’s closet as a flat
wasteland consisting of 7 pairs of the
navy pants, with seven identical white
shirts hanging next to them. Only the
Professor’s long necktie seemed to indi-
cate any conscious thought while dress-
ing, and Jeremy had noticed that he
never saw Dillon wear the same tie
twice. Professor Dillon paused for a
moment at his podium and studied the
faces of the students, all of which
seemed to read, very simply: “let’s get
this over with.” Jeremy followed Dillon’s
glance uninterested, thinking the same
thing himself. The instructor cleared his
throat slightly, and removed his mighty
glasses from his face slowly, deliberately.
Jeremy noticed now that the pointer,
always a staple of the lectures he had
endured throughout the semester, was
notably absent tonight. Perhaps Dillon
would not be lecturing before the final,
Jeremy speculated, hoping.
Finally, Professor Dillon broke the
silence in the room, which was becom-
ing increasingly hotter. The air condi-
tioning in the LB building had broken
down a few weeks earlier, and the noto-
riously under budgeted College had yet
to make any attempt at fixing it.
Whenever anyone in the classroom
would complain about the condition,
which was nearly unbearable by 9:50,
Dillon showed no sympathy, though he
himself wore beads of sweat on his fore-
head. He would simply say:
“The pursuit of knowledge is not
meant to be comfortable.”
Jeremy resolved to finish his final as
quickly as he could, and leave this sauna
for the last time, as the Professor began
for the evening.
“Tonight, we are going to do some-
thing a little different.” He spoke slowly,
as usual, with each word impeccably spo-
ken, as if for maximum effect. “I would
like all of you to turn your desks to the
left, so that you are all facing the door.”
He motioned at the door to his right,
which Jeremy had stepped through 54
seconds earlier, then without another
151
word, he carefully lifted his podium and
carried it to the doorway, positioning
himself directly in front of the entrance.
As he did so, the students grudgingly
followed his instructions, slowly turning
their desks toward Dillon’s new location,
then stared at him in mock interest.
Jeremy did so also, somewhat alarmed by
the haunting question that came
suddenly to his mind:
“Why is he blocking the only exit
from this room?”
Jeremy shook his head, as if catching
himself dozing off, and looked up at the
Professor, who stood behind the podium
studying the group once more as the last
of the students settled their desks into the
new configuration. Dillon reattached the
sturdy glasses to his face, still scanning
the scene before him. And, as he did so,
another abrupt thought penetrated into
Jeremy’s mind.
“Something is wrong.”
He watched Dillon’s face as the
Professor watched the others. There
was a slight alien grin betraying the
instructor ’s lips, something Jeremy
had never seen on the man before, and
beneath the godly glasses, Dillon’s
eyes sparkled. The man appeared
almost happy, Jeremy realized, but
there was something else in the blank
expression that Professor Dillon wore.
Something….
Malicious?
Jeremy shook it off again, thinking
himself foolish, but the longer the
Professor scanned the room vacantly, the
more Dillon’s silence intimidated him.
The instructor had spent the entire hour
and 50 minutes of every class meeting
talking, and this sharp twist into placid
silence was an alarming departure.
Finally, as if satisfied by his observations,
Dillon broke the façade, his tone as cold
and deliberate as ever.
“This is much better,” he smiled
slightly, the expression without warmth
in any form. “Now, it has come to my
attention that some of you in this class-
room have strong objections to my
teaching methods.”
152
He glanced around the room again,
watching the guilty parties’ faces drain of
color as his eyes crossed them. Then, he
continued:
“It seems that your objections are so
strong, in fact, that you have seen fit to
file complaints against me to your admin-
istrators, who are, subsequently, my
employers.”
Professor Dillon paused again, scan-
ning the same faces, this time looking
even more guilty and drained of color.
“As a result of this, I was asked to
attend a meeting with these administra-
tors this afternoon,” Dillon continued.
“After nearly two hours of negotiations,
myself and the administrative board have
reached a solution to the problem that
you students have brought to light.”
Dillon watched a middle-aged gentle-
man in the front row roll his eyes in impa-
tience, then fixated his unyielding glare
on the man.
“You’ll want to hear this, Mr. Kundre,
because it affects everyone in this room.”
The Professor adjusted his glasses before
continuing. “Tonight will be the last class
I conduct as an instructor at Fincher
Community College.”
There was little reaction from the stu-
dents, as most attempted to hide their sat-
isfaction at this revelation. A few stirred
in their seats slightly, probably those
responsible for Dillon’s termination,
Jeremy suspected. The class was silent,
and so was Dillon, as if he were expecting
some sort of reaction from the news.
Finally, the man who the Professor had
called Kundre raised his hand. Somehow,
Jeremy knew he would ask the question
that was inevitably on the minds of the
rest of the class.
“Yes, Mr. Kundre?” Dillon addressed him.
“Does this mean we don’t have to take
the final?” Kundre inquired. The class
began to giggle slightly, all but Jeremy,
who suspected that Kundre’s question
was meant seriously.
The slight and frightening smile that
Dillon wore faded slowly, and he adjust-
ed his glasses once again before offering
his icy reply.
 “Mr. Kundre, until 9:50 this evening, I
am still your instructor, and it is still my
job to teach you the fundamentals of
Mathematical Logic.” Dillon watched the
satisfied grin disappear from Kundre’s
face. “So, tonight, since it is my last night
as an instructor here, you will all have a
final examination, and this test will be the
entire basis for your grade in this course.”
There was a reaction from this, as the
students looked at each other in disbelief.
Was Dillon actually throwing out the
homework and test grades from the rest
of the semester? Jeremy wondered this
also, although his expression was punctu-
ated with less worry than some of the
other students, who turned their heads to
those next to them, their mouths jarred
open with the desperation of mice caught
in traps.
Sensing the slight uproar, Dillon reas-
sured the students before him.
“Now, now, before you go running to
the administration office, there is some-
thing I should tell you about this exami-
nation,” Dillon stopped abruptly, waiting
for the attention of the students.
Then, it came over Jeremy again, the
inexplicable dread that had invaded his
head before:
“How could we run anywhere?
You’re blocking the door. There is no way
out of here.”
He put those thoughts on hold, as
Dillon continued his explanation.
“Our final examination is a bit, how
should we say .… unorthodox.” The
morbid grin reappeared on Dillon’s lips,
and Jeremy noticed it immediately. “So
taking this into consideration, I have
devised a grading scale for tonight that is
equally unorthodox. Each of you will
receive an A in this course dependent
entirely on your mere participation in
our exercise this evening. I am not con-
cerned with how well you perform, just
that you follow the instructions carefully,
and take our exercise extremely seriously.
Do you understand?”
There was no verbal reaction to
Professor Dillon’s narration, but the stu-
dents, including Jeremy, nodded their
heads in subdued understanding. Dillon
studied their reactions carefully, then sat-
isfied with their compliance, continued.
“Now, are there any questions before
we begin?”
A young girl, probably about Jeremy’s
age, he guessed, raised her hand timidly.
Jeremy studied the girl, he thought her
name was Cynthia, as if seeing her for the
first time. For the last 18 weeks, he hadn’t
paid much attention to her, and now he
was realizing that this girl was actually
quite attractive. He watched her delicate
arm raise weakly into the air, anxious to
hear the voice that went with this beauty.
Perhaps he should have noticed her 18
weeks ago, he cursed himself.
“Yes, Miss Timothy,” Dillon
addressed her, noticing her upraised arm.
Cynthia Timothy’s voice was
almost angelic, Jeremy noticed, and
he listened intently to her simple
words, catching a hint of shyness and
intelligence in the tone.
“Well, sir,” she began meekly, “what
exactly is the exercise?”
Dillon smiled at her deeply, his full-
toothed grin somehow even more sinis-
ter than the slight hint of happiness he
wore earlier.
“Why, Miss Timothy, I’m so glad
you asked.”
He spoke slowly and deliberately,
each syllable punctuated with a degree of
sarcastic disgust that amplified the effect
of the twisted smile he wore.
“I will be splitting you into two
groups for tonight’s exercise,” Dillon
began. “I would prefer to have even
groups, but since there are nine of you,
we will have to work around that.”
He smiled a knowing smile and
chuckled briefly, as if remembering a joke
heard the night before, leaving the stu-
dents ignorant to the humor.
“After all, I would hate to leave any-
one out.”
He stepped from behind the podium,
something he had never done during a
lesson before, and stood before the class,
resting directly in from of Kundre, who
gazed up at the Professor with a flat
153
bewildered expression on his face. The
instructor continued his dialogue.
“I will assign each of you a number,
either a one or a two. Now, you are all col-
lege students, so I will assume that you
are intelligent enough to figure out that
your number corresponds with what
group you will be in. Once I have
assigned each of you a number, I would
like you to take your desks to each side of
the room, and gather with your groups.
Group one will meet in the far corner to
my left, and group two will be in the
opposite corner. Mr. Kundre, you are
number one.”
Professor Dillon motioned to the mid-
dle aged man before him, then continued
counting down each row, alternating
numbers for each student. The instructor
reached Jeremy and assigned him a two,
then moved over to the last of the nine
students, Jeremy remembered him as
Miguel Perron, and assigned the young
Latin man a one.
“Now, get into your groups,” instruct-
ed Dillon, as he stepped back to his perch
behind the tall podium.
There was a rustling of backpacks and
a creaking of desks as the students fol-
lowed the direction, moving their desks
from the center of the room to their
assigned corners. It took only a couple of
moments to gather the small groups, and
Dillon watched the classroom intently
during this time, his gaze never fixating
on one student for too long, surveying
their obedience as a group. When they
had settled into circular formations, each
turned their attention back to Professor
Dillon, who looked back at them silently.
Jeremy surveyed his group, and was
pleased to see Cynthia Timothy sitting
across from him. She smiled slightly, and
Jeremy turned his head, pretending not to
notice, and hoping that she would not see
the redness forming on his cheeks. The
other two Jeremy did not know, a black
man who looked to be in his late 20s, and
an overweight young girl who looked
straight out of high school. He looked
back to the front of the room, rejoining the
collective stare of the class.
154
When Professor Dillon saw their
attentiveness, he continued.
“Now, I want you to look over the
members of your group, and study them
very carefully.”
He extended the index fingers of both
of his hands and moved them in slow cir-
cles, as if implementing some primitive
and lazy hypnosis. His eyes slowly
panned between the two groups as he did
this, as if he were studying them himself.
“Most of the people in this room are
probably quite insignificant to you, but
one of them may play a very important
role in your lives tonight. As you study
your group, I want you to consider the
strengths and weaknesses of each of your
partners, and decide for yourselves who
in your group is expendable.”
From his quiet space in the corner
with group two, Jeremy watched the
group in the opposite corner and saw an
animated young man’s face light up, as if
with recognition. He lurched into the
conversation with a near-repulsive
excitement.
“Professor Dillon?” he chimed. “Is
this like that desert island thing, cause I
think I’ve already done this before?”
Dillon studied him amused for a few
silent seconds, then nodded his head in
response. “Yes, Mr. Joiner, it is some-
thing of that sort.” He smiled another
knowing smile. “But, I assure you that
this will be unlike anything you have
ever experienced.”
The one that the teacher referred to
as Mr. Joiner calmed with this, satisfied.
Jeremy moved his glance back over to
Professor Dillon, who remained behind
the podium while continuing his
instruction.
“Now, as I said, look around you care-
fully, because one of the members of your
group will have to die for the rest of you
to live.”
There was an awkward silence here,
as the students examined Dillon’s visage,
the same foppish grin still adorning his
face. Their expressions indicated little
concern, and most seemed to merely
wonder if they had heard the Professor
correctly. Jeremy was unnerved by
Dillon’s words, but did not let his face
register his fears. Still, the thoughts
returned to him:
He’s blocking the door.
Finally, the silence, an eternity that
occurred in seconds, was broken again,
this time by the black man in Jeremy’s
group.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he began uneasily,
“but what does this have to do with Math
or Logic?”
The Professor ’s response was as
dry as Jeremy expected. “Why, Mr.
Ryder, if you had been paying atten-
tion in my classroom for the last 18
weeks, you would realize that this
exercise is the perfect summation of
what we have learned.”
He left it at that, and Ryder nodded
his head in feigned understanding. It
made little sense to Jeremy either.
From group one, a burly man wearing
a cowboy hat joined in the discussion.
Jeremy scanned the unshaven man, prob-
ably in his mid-20s, as he stood from his
desk defiantly and faced Professor Dillon
like a cowboy waiting to draw in a duel.
It was clear that he, like the rest of the
class, saw the instructor’s decision mak-
ing exercise as a waste of time.
“So, Professor,” the burly man chal-
lenged, “when we choose someone, how
are they going to die?”
The class laughed somewhat nervous-
ly, and the man remained standing, obvi-
ously enjoying the attention.
Professor Dillon stared at the man
with a frost in his eyes, but no expression
on his face.
“Well, that is a fair question, Mr.
Carter,” was the blank reply. “Let’s
say something simple: a gunshot to
the head.”
Professor Dillon looked away
from the man, expecting that to con-
clude the diversion, but Carter asked
another question.
“Okay, so how are we supposed
to decide who gets it?” He wiped
sweat from under the brim of his hat
as he spoke.
Professor Dillon looked back to him,
and Jeremy could see genuine annoyance
on the instructor’s face. No one had ever
talked back to Dillon in class, and, in fact,
it was rare that anyone in the class spoke
at all. Carter seemed to be unintimidated
by the newly-fired teacher now, perhaps
thinking that he was not a threat to the
students anymore. The rest of the class
had their attention squarely on Carter as
well, except for Jeremy. Though he tried
to fake their interest, the voice in his head
distracted him.
“Just sit down, you fucking hick. This
is a bad idea. Let’s just do this exercise so
we can all get out of here already.”
“Well, Mr. Carter, I was about to
explain that, if you will be patient with
me,” Dillon cracked, with a not-so-fright-
ening attempt at anger in his voice. Then,
more menacing, “however, I am losing
my patience with you.”
Carter chuckled at this, apparently
pleased to be getting under the
Professor’s skin. Still, he was not satisfied
with the mild annoyance he had received
in response from the instructor. He spoke
again, still refusing to be seated.
“Just one more question, Professor,”
he chuckled eagerly.
“Let’s have it then,” Dillon invited.
“Well, can we pick you?”
The class laughed politely, but their
patience was growing thin as well. Most
remained focused on Professor Dillon,
perhaps fearing that Carter would anger
the Professor so much, that he would fail
them all. Jeremy was the most annoyed.
“Just shut up, you dumb mother fuck-
er. I want to get out of here.”
Jeremy looked back at the instructor,
waiting for a rage-infused diatribe on
classroom behavior. But, surprisingly,
Dillon seemed to be calm, and the anger
on his face slowly dissipated like the head
of a beer. And, when he finally respond-
ed, after several uneasy seconds, his tone
was the warmest Jeremy had heard come
from that mouth before.
“Well, Mr. Carter,” Professor Dillon
cooed. “Since you so enjoy being the cen-
ter of attention, and since you clearly
155
understand this exercise much more
than me, perhaps you should teach the
class today.”
The instructor stared at Carter chal-
lengingly, and the young man’s smile
drifted out of sight, replaced by a coat of
confusion. The cowboy seemed dumb-
founded that he had failed to get a reac-
tion from Professor Dillon. For Jeremy,
the lack of reaction was seemingly more
suspenseful than the inevitable tirade that
would normally follow such a challenge
of the instructor’s authority.
“So, Mr. Carter?” Dillon taunted.
“What are you waiting for?”
Carter was still frozen with a stupid
look on his face, and he comprehended
the words very slowly, then let a sly grin
part his lips.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“I am always serious, Mr. Carter,” the
teacher replied. “Now, come up here, in
front of my podium and face your class-
room. They are all waiting on you.”
Carter, still unsure, slowly stepped
away from his desk and crept to the front
of the room, approaching cautiously
toward Professor Dillon, who did not
move at all. The cowboy stepped in front
of the podium, facing Dillon, his face still
looking somewhat confused.
“You are teaching them, not me, Mr.
Carter,” Dillon was clearly mocking the
young man, making him look foolish
before the class. “I would suggest that
they would hear you better if you turn
and face them.”
Carter slowly turned toward the body
of the room, still shooting backward
glances at Dillon, who did not move, except
to remove his glasses. A mild annoyance
was visible in the instructor’s eyes, and
Jeremy remained fixated on them.
“Well, what do you have to teach us,
Mr. Carter?” Dillon monotoned.
The cowboy looked increasingly con-
fused as he faced the room, and did not
turn to answer the instructor directly
behind him, a podium’s distance away.
“I don’t know,” Carter surren-
dered, slowly putting his head down.
“I guess nothing.”
156
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that Mr. Carter,”
Dillon consoled with mock sympathy.
“I’m sure that this class will learn a lot
from your lesson.”
It happened so quickly that it barely
registered in Jeremy’s head. He never saw
a weapon, and there was almost no
sound, but Carter’s face suddenly
exploded outward, sending a torrent of
blood and tissue soaring through the
silent classroom. Though he was quite far
from the scene, Jeremy felt the warm liq-
uid and sticky matter cling to his damp,
sweat-smeared skin. His eyes closed
instinctually, and in the darkness of his
head, he let out a terrified scream, though
nothing came from his trembling mouth.
He heard other screams fill the room, as
realization spread through the 7 seated
bodies around him. Closer to him, he
heard Cynthia Timothy scream, a piercing
cry followed by a bellowing of sobs as she
choked back tears. When he opened his
eyes again, he saw Carter, somehow still
standing at the front of the room.
There was a gaping hole in the center
of his former face, with two glassy eyes
resting right above the shredded skin that
surrounded the wound. His jawbone
hung askew, still swinging on the one
hinge that connected it to the carnage.
The rest was blood, and nothing but. It
seemed to pour from the mock face like a
waterfall, and it slid down the twitching
body below it in thick, runny streams,
soaking into the faded T-shirt that Carter
had worn. Somehow, the cowboy hat
remained in place on top of the mutilated
head, and it was all that was recognizable
of the young man who had so defiantly
stood before them seconds before. As the
legs gave, the twitching body plopped to
the floor, its vacant eyes coming to rest on
the stucco ceiling above. A thick crimson
pool began to form beneath the back of
the corpse’s head, which spread across
the floor. The hands flopped at the body’s
sides, making horrible splashing sounds
in the river sliding across the carpet.
Though he felt like vomiting, Jeremy’s
eyes remained fixated on the grotesque
thing on the floor. The room was eerily
silent, as the other 7 stayed their shocked
gazes with Jeremy’s.
“Now,” Professor Dillon’s voice splin-
tered the shock, and eight pairs of eyes
bolted upward to his satisfied face. He
was completely calm, not so much as
breathing heavy, and the only clue to his
state of mind was the deranged glaze in
his eyes as he studied the horrified people
in his classroom. The gun in his hand,
which had seemingly come from
nowhere, still wisped a thin tendril of
smoke from its barrel into the air. He held
it like he had held the pointer for all those
weeks, and let it wave slightly in his hand
as he spoke.
“Now that I have your attention, is
there anyone else who intends to ques-
tion the validity and seriousness of
this exercise?”
There was, of course, no reply from
the 8 quivering people before Professor
Dillon. Each wore a different expression,
all of which portrayed the same combina-
tion of shock, horror, and knotted wrin-
kles of despair. Jeremy’s eyes were now
open, and he briefly let his dampening
eyes drift across the silent assembly.
Across from him, Cynthia Timothy’s
lovely face was streaked with thin
streams of wet mascara, and her tears fre-
quently retraced these tracks, running
over her quaking lips and dripping
noiselessly into a neat pool on her desk.
Her eyes were somewhat vacant, and
only the involuntary shaking of her body
gave any hint of life behind them. There
were slight patches of blood in her long
brown hair, and a few dots on her right
cheek. She made no sound, but air hissed
through her lips as her heavy breath
escaped her body.
Next to her, the young overweight
girl, whose name Jeremy did not know,
gripped the sides of her desk with her
pudgy fingers as if steadying her shak-
ing desk. But it was the frantic tapping
of her feet which led the desk in its
swaying. She sniffed with her breaths
often, choking back tears unsuccessful-
ly. Occasionally she made slight
squeaking noises.
The black man, Dillon had called him
Ryder, was perched forward on his desk,
his back to the still corpse laying behind
him in a wide pool of blood that quietly
soaked into the carpet below. Despite his
bad angle, it was clear he had witnessed
the scene, and his head was bowed for-
ward, his eyes fixated on his desk. His
lips were shut, and moisture slowly
formed around his eyelids.
Over in group one, Miguel Perron
shared the overweight girl’s clear view of
Professor Dillon, and his face was frozen
in an expression of complete confusion.
He did not seem to move at all, and
Jeremy felt as if he was looking at a pho-
tograph of the man.
The young man Professor Dillon had
called Joiner had his back to Jeremy. But
even the back of his staggering head
revealed the disbelief that the face on the
other side projected. Joiner was shaking
his head no repeatedly, and his hands
cupped the sides of his face, as if they
were the only thing holding that head on
his shoulders.
Across from Joiner, a slim older
woman wore many tears, and her eyes
were firmly fixated on the smoking gun
that Dillon let flutter in his hand. Her
gaze followed the weapon as it gently
waved to the classroom.
Kundre was weeping the most and he
sobbed deeply, his eyes shut and head
bowed. Jeremy saw tiny drops of urine
dribble over the edges of Kundre’s seat,
and the moisture on the carpet under the
seat revealed that the middle-aged man
had wet his pants. Occasionally, he would
look over his shoulder at the pile of flesh
that once was called Carter, as if expect-
ing to wake up from a horrible nightmare
and find the scene before him without
such an atrocity on the floor. When his
eyes reaffirmed the reality of the situa-
tion, he would quickly turn his head for-
ward again, shut his eyes tightly, and let
out another deluge of tears and sobs.
Jeremy forced himself to look back at
Professor Dillon, whose eyes still roamed
the room surveying the wave of panic
unfolding before him. On any other day,
157
the aging instructor would be a far from
imposing figure. But today, the large pis-
tol in his hand, the splatter dotting his
face, and the sadistic gleam in his eyes
gave Dillon new and much more menac-
ing persona. And, Jeremy was now com-
pletely terrified of the man before him.
Dillon wore a face of complete con-
tentment and serenity, and seemed unaf-
fected by the blood he was covered in, or
the lifeless heap in front of his podium.
He seemed to relish the fear his students
let seep into the hot, stale air of the class-
room, and that was when Jeremy realized
that himself and the 7 other people
around him were all going to die today.
Professor Dillon returned his glasses
to his blood spattered face, and smiled the
leer he had produced previously. He
loudly set the gun down on the edge of
the podium, making a loud knocking
sound that broke the trance of the girl sit-
ting across from Joiner. She gave a quick
gasp, as if being woken suddenly, and
new tears dribbled down her face. Dillon
spoke in his usual dry tone, but his voice
resonated with a new and terrible clarity.
For once, the instructor had the strict
attention of the entire classroom.
“There, that’s much better,” Dillon
began. “Now we have even groups.”
He paused for a moment to let his
audience consider how insignificant the
act he had just performed was to him.
“I know that some, if not all, of you
are reacting to various degrees of shock,
but it is important for you all to pay
close attention. Because everything I say
will have an effect on your performance
this evening.”
He paused again.
“There may come a point after this
initial shock where you begin to delude
yourself into thinking that someone is
coming to help you. This is a futile train
of thought, and will only hinder your per-
formance in this exercise.
“Mr. Wallace is the only security
guard who wanders the campus this late,
but I have taken the liberty of removing
him from this equation. I assure you that
he will not be disturbing us tonight.
158
“As for your administrators, who
work so tirelessly to maintain the integri-
ty of this institution, they too have been
taken care of. You see, several hours after
we adjourned our little meeting, I
returned to, shall we say, prepare your
final examination. I entered the main
office and used this gun to kill everyone I
found. All except for Mrs. Chivers, that is.
She decided to run from me, and I didn’t
have time to reload, so I was forced to
bludgeon her with the pistol.
“If you were unaware of this before,
we are the only class left on campus
tonight, and in fact we are the only 10,
excuse me, 9 people here. So, you see, we
will not be disturbed.
“So, feel free to scream for help to
your heart’s content, because no one will
hear you but me. However, please keep in
mind that if you see fit to make any noise
that I do not think is pertinent to this
exercise, you will force me to exact a pun-
ishment very similar to that of our friend
Mr. Carter here.”
Professor Dillon motioned to the floor,
but it was clear that the class understood
without the visual.
“Now, I will explain the terms of this
exercise once again, and I trust that I will
not be interrupted this time.”
Dillon pointed his finger accusingly at
no one in particular.
“In order for anyone in this room to
walk out alive, someone in their group
will have to volunteer to sacrifice their
life to save those of the other three in the
group. This means at least two of you will
not be leaving tonight, and I really have
no preference which two of you that turns
out to be. If you as a group can not come
up with any resolution, and no one vol-
unteers, then all four of you will share
your fates together.
“Do not attempt to bargain with me.
You would be wiser to save that energy
for the task at hand. Perhaps you may
even be able to convince someone in your
group to volunteer.
You may not intermingle with the
other group, and one volunteer from one
group will not save you all.
 “Those are your instructions, and you
have 90 minutes to arrive at your resolu-
tion. I suggest you use your time wisely,
because, as I’m sure you know, a lot
depends on your grade here tonight.
“Lastly, I want to make it very clear
that you are all insignificant to me, and I
have no problem with killing every one of
you. If you want my honest guess, I have
a feeling that is what is going to end up
happening. But, I want to be fair, and let
you make your own decision about your
fate, although I won’t hesitate to make it
for you.
“You have 90 minutes starting now.”
And with that, Professor Dillon reclaimed
his gun from the podium surface and
walked casually over Carter’s broken
corpse, taking special care not to step in
the still widening lake of blood on the car-
pet. He returned to his desk and opened
his notebook, setting the pistol within
easy reach and resting a damp, sweaty
hand on its handle. With the other hand,
he retrieved a pen from his shirt pocket
and returned to the frenzied scribbling he
had been slaving over when Jeremy
stepped into the classroom.
And, as the time began to tick away,
the groups found themselves in silent
circles, with most of the 8 still reacting
to Carter.
The lack of conversation was inter-
minable, and Jeremy felt the time pass-
ing in agonizing miniscule increments.
He never looked at the trusty, exact
clock on the wall, as his gaze was divid-
ed between Carter’s sweltering corpse
on the floor, and the frantic flailing
faces of his group members. He did not
look over at the other group, but he
heard their similar panting misery.
Somewhere in the distance, he could
hear Professor Dillon scribbling dili-
gently into his notebook, but mostly
there was sobbing, a pulsating, collec-
tive malphese that burned with the
fresh blood and hot sweat in the air.
None of the students around him said
anything, and as he searched their eyes
for some glimmer of hope, he saw that
these empty optics did not look back at
him, for they were lost in scrambled
desperation of their own.
An eternity passed in dwindling min-
utes, and it was Jeremy who finally broke
the crimson silence.
“Somebody say something,” he
pleaded weakly, and the sound stirred life
into the whimpering shells around him.
But, though they looked desperately
at him for some sort of assurance, Jeremy
could think of nothing else to say. He
looked over at Professor Dillon, whose
head was also lifted by the utterance. The
teacher stared back at him, damn him,
with a smile on his face. The frumpy man
was watching his cruel game unfold, and
Jeremy could see satisfaction in the eyes
behind Dillon’s taunting glasses.
“Mr. Stratton,” cackled the Professor,
“I’m glad to see that a least one of you
is not content to simply shut down
and die.”
With that, Dillon returned to his scrib-
blings. But no one else said a word. Jeremy
surveyed the mourning faces of his group
members once more, but their eyes were
still absent, and their trembling lips offered
no reply. He watched Cynthia Timothy’s
lovely brow squint in despair. Even now,
with drying blood staining her cheeks, she
looked delightful, and Jeremy found it
strange that the thought even passed
through his head. Still, the struggling girl
offered nothing to him in return. He
glanced across at the group adjacent to
him, but their weeping silence revealed
that they too were still in shock.
“Professor Dillon?” Jeremy attempted.
Now, every other student in the room
looked up, as if reminded of their predica-
ment again. Jeremy saw seven pairs of eyes
dart through the room, pausing on the pile of
Carter, then move anxiously to the frail and
terrifying Professor who sat so calmly
behind his desk. Dillon looked up to address
Jeremy, skepticism prevalent in his tone.
“What is it, Mr. Stratton?” he asked.
“May I approach your desk, sir?”
Jeremy inquired nervously.
Dillon grabbed the pistol that rested
on his desk, but did not lift it. Rather, his
fingers danced on the grip inquisitively.
159
 “Very well, Mr. Stratton,” he respond-
ed quietly, though the tone still carried
some menace. “Come on over.”
Jeremy slid out of his cramped desk,
gripping the surface of the tabletop to
support his trembling legs. The other stu-
dents in the room followed his ascent,
and he paused for a moment once on his
feet, slowly studying Professor Dillon,
who faced him down eagerly, the gun
resting easily beneath his reach. Jeremy
stepped slowly away from his group, his
eyes alternating between the desk that
was his destination, and the bloody heap
on the floor in his path. Carter’s body was
sprawled across the ground, and Jeremy’s
feet paused at the edge of the widening
pool of blood that flowed from the hole in
the body’s head. Jeremy stepped careful-
ly around it like the rim of a cliff, some-
how more sickened at the thought of
actually stepping in this blood, than the
splattered source of the mess. As Jeremy
passed the body, he did not look back at
it, and his eyes remained cautiously
focused on Professor Dillon’s looming,
smiling form. There was no fear in the
teacher’s eyes, so Jeremy knew that
Dillon was not the least bit intimidated by
him, and the gun at his fingertips certain-
ly gave him little reason to be.
“That’s close enough, Mr. Stratton,”
Professor Dillon interrupted, lifting
his gun an inch from the tabletop for
illustration.
Jeremy complied, stopping suddenly
a few feet from the desk. Dillon’s lips
parted obscenely as he spoke again.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Stratton?”
he asked deliberately.
“Don’t do this, Professor Dillon,”
Jeremy said firmly, though the quaver-
ing in his voice belied the optimism of
his attempt.
“It’s already done, Mr. Stratton.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Jeremy
attempted. “You can let us go.”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Stratton, that is
entirely out of my control now,” goad-
ed Dillon. “Whether or not anyone
leaves here tonight is up to your
group, isn’t it?”
160
“Why are you doing this?” asked
Jeremy, and he was sincere.
“I am a teacher, Mr. Stratton, and I
have been so for most of my life,” Dillon
spat. “I am teaching everyone in this
room a lesson that none of you will likely
ever forget.”
“No one here wants to die, Professor.
But, we’re all a little too scared to figure
all of this out right now.”
“But, not you, right, Mr. Stratton?”
Dillon taunted.
“No, I’m really scared, Professor
Dillon. I don’t want to die either.”
“I’ll be honest, Mr. Stratton.” The
Professor adjusted his glasses with the
hand that wasn’t resting on the gun. “You
are one of the only students in this class
that has demonstrated any sort of prom-
ise to me.” He paused, raising his eye-
brows to Jeremy, as if he had just paid
him a great complement. “In fact, you are
one of the most promising students I have
seen in my years. And, your bold
approach here simply affirms my view of
you. But, your energy would be more effi-
ciently spent on the task at hand here.”
“Please, Professor Dillon, just listen to
me,” Jeremy pleaded.
“Mr. Stratton,” Dillon interrupted
sharply, “what I am saying is that I feel
that you have a better chance of surviv-
ing this night than anyone else in this
room. Do not waste valuable time debat-
ing the relevance of my exercise with
me. And do not try my patience with
this tiresome plea for mercy.” The
Professor pushed his glasses against his
face. “If all of you are going to die
tonight, so be it. But, your determina-
tion would be better utilized in an
attempt to mobilize your group into
some sort of resolution to the problem
you are all facing here tonight.”
The diatribe was cryptic, but Jeremy
understood it, and there was no pity
in Professor Dillon’s voice. Carter ’s
festering body behind him was proof
that Dillon would dispose of any of
them without afterthought. Jeremy
was quite defeated, but he tried one
more time.
 “Sir?” Jeremy began, but Dillon bolt-
ed his feet suddenly, raising the gun into
aiming position as he did so.
“That’s enough, Mr. Stratton,” Dillon
scolded sternly. “Just because I like you
doesn’t mean that I won’t put a hole in
your face. Now, sit down. Or, don’t you
even want a chance to live?”
Jeremy’s head sank solemnly. “I’ll sit
down,” he said weakly, and he slowly
moped his way back to his desk, rejoining
the three shaken people in his group.
It was silent again for some time,
and Jeremy’s defeat had not prompted
him to engage with the people in his
group any further. The fevered minutes
were uncountable, but Jeremy’s atten-
tion was diverted when he saw some-
one from the other group, the angular
young black man Professor Dillon had
addressed as Joiner, rise from his desk.
The other three in his group looked up
at him in pleading bewilderment, and
he nodded slightly to them as he turned
to face Dillon.
The instructor had seen Joiner rise,
and he collected his pistol from the desk-
top to address the deviation.
“May I speak with you, Professor
Dillon?” Joiner asked calmly.
“By all means, young man, come
here,” Dillon responded, but the invita-
tion was devoid of pleasantry.
Joiner stepped slowly to the desk. His
group was closer to Dillon, and Joiner
was fortunate enough to avoid Carter’s
husk on his path. As he stood before
Professor Dillon, the instructor studied
him intently, a grim smirk pulling his
skeletal lips astray. Joiner breathed heavy,
as if about to say something, but his
exhale was all that came.
“Well, what is it?” Dillon challenged.
“Have you decided to volunteer?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Joiner
replied, a surprising lack of fear evident
in his demeanor.
“You were easy to convince,” mocked
Dillon. “Nobody has said a word since we
began this exercise.”
“I made the decision myself,” Joiner
countered coolly.
“Very well,” nodded Dillon. “Why
don’t we go stand up here?” He waved
the gun in the air, gesturing toward the
podium where Carter had fallen.
“Everyone can have a nice view there.”
Joiner stepped backward slowly,
toward the podium and away from
Dillon, who slid his chair back from the
desk. Unseen to him, seven other pairs of
eyes were locked on him, as the
remaining students in the musky class-
room anxiously braced themselves for
another death. The slim older woman in
Joiner’s group began sobbing and buried
her eyes in her shaking hands.
“I can’t watch this!” she shrieked. “I
don’t want to see!”
Both Joiner and Professor Dillon
turned to look at her, the former pausing
in his backpedaling to do so. There was a
second of stillness, and that was the sec-
ond Joiner had been anticipating. He
lunged into a sprint for the door, forty
feet, one splattered body, and one podi-
um away from him. But Dillon responded
with terrible quickness, leaping from his
chair and lifting the pistol into position.
Jeremy tensed in his seat as the shot
rang out, and next to him, the overweight
girl bellowed an ungodly scream. Across
from her, Ryder had been twisted around
to view the scene, but as the gun roared,
he turned back into the group and his
awestruck eyes focused on his desktop.
Across from Jeremy, Cynthia Timothy
clenched her exhausted eyes tightly shut,
squeezing a new deluge of tears down
her face. In Joiner’s group, the slim older
woman also screamed, her buried eyes
imagining the sight unfolding before
them. Miguel Perron and Kundre seemed
to be completely shut down, and they
reacted little.
But Jeremy saw it clearly. The bullet
tore into Joiner’s throat, and the projec-
tile’s momentum cancelled the momen-
tum his run had generated. The shot
twisted his body around, and his flailing
legs stumbled on Carter’s body. Joiner
slammed into the podium, and the stand
toppled to the floor under him as he fol-
lowed it down. His stunted body crashed
161
to the floor next to Carter, and Joiner
kicked his legs in the air chaotically as he
clutched his throat. Blood gurgled out
between his fingers and from his mouth
as he choked on the bullet. The heavy
woman next to Jeremy continued to
scream as Joiner flopped on the floor like
a suffocating fish. Jeremy watched the life
pour from his throat, and his movement
began to decline. His feet continued to
kick meekly, each time smacking against
the fallen podium and sending a knock
echoing through its hollow frame. At this,
Jeremy, too, looked away, but the knock-
ing persisted, audible even through the
unyielding shrieking next to him. The
knocks slowed, and soon there was just
the screaming.
Then, that was interrupted by
Professor Dillon, who Jeremy had almost
forgotten about as he was lost in Joiner’s
dying spectacle.
“Shut up!” he roared, his enraged
eyes stabbing at the screaming girl next
to Jeremy.
She stopped abruptly and leaned back
into her desk, whimpering. Dillon
stepped to the center of the room, stand-
ing in front of the two bodies littering the
floor. The man Jeremy saw before him
was so infused with rage that his entire
face was twisted into a mask of feral fury.
“Maybe you’re not taking this exercise
seriously,” he growled. “Let me amend
my original assignment. The next person
who gets out of their desk will be dead
before they stand. Are we clear?”
No one responded, but the surrender-
ing silence that encompassed the room
was reply enough.
“Good,” continued Dillon. “Now,
you have all wasted the last forty-five
minutes panicking, and at this point, you
all seem resigned to merely sit and wait
for your turn.”
He paused to scan the tearful faces
before him.
“Five of you can leave here tonight, or
none of you can leave. And it seems to me
that there are a least five of you who want
to go home. So, rather than taking the
route that Mr. Joiner took here….” He
162
pointed back at the fresh corpse with his
gun. “Perhaps you would be wiser to
actually participate in this exercise, yes?”
He hissed on the “esss.”
No one said anything, but Dillon nod-
ded as if they had.
“Now, as I said, do not get out of your
chair, do not try to plead with me, and do
not address me in anyway until I say that
we have concluded our exercise.” He
looked at the perfectly set clock on the
wall. “You have thirty-nine minutes left. I
suggest you use it trying to survive this
night. If you choose to continue ignoring
each other, you choose to join our ever-
widening pile on the floor here. That is all
I will say to you until I begin systemati-
cally shooting you. Unless, of course, we
come up with some volunteers.”
It was Kundre who fired back at Dillon.
“He volunteered for us, man!” he
pleaded. “You said one would have to die
to save us all. So let us go now!”
Dillon chuckled, genuinely amused.
“My dear boy, I do not appreciate
being deceived. I thought that Mr. Joiner
had genuinely put some thought into the
shallow frame of his miserable existence
and decided that the lives of his three
group members outnumbered the value
of his own. But, in fact, he learned noth-
ing from this exercise. He merely showed
us all that he is a selfish coward, perfectly
willing to leave the rest of you here to die
without pity. He did not volunteer to die
for you, he died for nothing. Now, I sug-
gest you begin working through the
equation you are all facing. So, do not let
me distract you any further.”
“You can’t do this!” Kundre shouted,
but Dillon was unfazed.
“The next mouth that opens to
address me will be closed with this,” he
held the gun into the air. “When the
time is up, I will ask each group if they
have made a decision. And none of you
will speak to me again until I do so, are
we clear?”
Again, no one responded, but it was
clear on each face that they all understood.
“Now, get back to work. You now
have thirty-seven minutes.”
 The time went quickly, and after
several moments of stunned silence,
Jeremy began watching the thirty-seven
minutes disappear on the reliable wall
clock. No one in his group said any-
thing, and Joiner’s group was equally
subdued. Somewhere inside of him,
Jeremy was outraged that everyone in
the room was completely submissive to
their predicament, but he, too, could not
motivate himself to react any further.
Jeremy, like the others around him, was
reeling with a numbing wave of fear
that pinned him to his chair. There was,
simply, nothing for anyone to say, and
the seven of them sat idly, patiently
waiting for their turn to die. Jeremy’s
malaise disappointed him, and as he
struggled through what he knew would
be his final minutes, his mind repeated-
ly conjured the same question: Why isn’t
anyone saying anything?
Surely, he understood, for he did not
know what to say to the condemned peo-
ple around him. The young overweight
girl was simply staring at the top of her
desk, her pudgy chin trembling as she
gasped for air. The black man Jeremy
knew only as Ryder similarly eyed his
desktop. He had not looked up since he
pulled his eyes away from Joiner’s gory
fate, and though he did not weep, his face
was heavy with a solemn countenance.
Across from Jeremy, the Cynthia
Timothy’s lovely face was moist with
passed tears. She had her hands cupped
together before her in a gesture of prayer.
Her lips, too, were trembling, but she
seemed to be voicing silent, desperate
pleas to something beyond the sticky
room they all sat in. Across the room, in
the other group, no one stirred, and even
Kundre, who had shouted aloud
moments before, had sunken into a
defeated silence. When Jeremy looked
around the room, he realized that the peo-
ple who sat around him looked just as
dead as the two on the floor. Those in the
chairs were simply cleaner dead people.
But, their faces mirrored the knowledge
that Jeremy was now digesting: that none
of them were leaving this room alive.
As Jeremy looked over to the
teacher’s desk, he saw a much different
facial expression. Dillon was still lost in
his writing, and the scratching of his pen
to his journal created the only sound in
the room, other than the dismal sobbing
that arose from the group. Though the
Professor did not look up at the students,
Jeremy knew that the instructor’s
thoughts were locked on them, for he
wore a contented smile beneath his cold
glasses. His plan was being realized to
perfection, and Professor Dillon was pos-
sessed with a vulgar happiness. Jeremy
could see it on his face, and he knew the
teacher was counting the minutes until he
could slaughter the rest of them.
But, why was he waiting? The cru-
elest and most agonizing part of the
students’ fate was the interminable
moments they sat in now. Surely, Jeremy
knew, Dillon was aware that no one in
the room was going to give their life to
save the strangers around them. Did
Dillon really expect the groups to take
his instructions seriously? Were they
really supposed to sit in these circles
and barter with each other in the vain
hope of convincing someone in the
group to volunteer their life? That was
the part of Dillon’s plan that was put-
ting the smile on his face, Jeremy real-
ized. No one would volunteer, so Dillon
would kill them all anyway. Jeremy sus-
pected that even if someone did claim
the bullet, the instructor would likely
kill the rest of them regardless. There
was no escaping the predicament—
Joiner ’s violent reminder made that
clear—and there was no hope for any of
them, even if they did participate in
Dillon’s sick exercise. So, each of them
was truly engaging in the most human
response they could: sitting in silent
servile circles awaiting their deaths.
So, wait they did, and the thir-
ty-seven minutes dwindled with
stunning rapidity.
There was a subdued, sustained
silence through this time, and it was
Professor Dillon who interrupted it.
“Your time is up,” he announced curtly.
163
 The instructor rose from his chair, and
as he did, Jeremy watched the six bodies
surrounding him tense in their compact
wooden desk seats. He did the same, but
his eyes remained on Dillon, who had
looked so meek throughout the semester.
But now, as he eagerly appraised the
room before him, the pistol dangling at
his side, Professor Dillon was the most
terrifying thing Jeremy had ever seen.
“None of you had much to say
throughout this exercise,” the teacher
intoned, his voice permeating with indif-
ference. “I find it rather disappointing
that no one truly participated in our
exam. You were each faced with a prob-
lem, and instead of working together to
solve it, you simply resigned yourselves
to be conquered. It seems that none of
you have gained anything from your
experience in my class.”
He paused, surveying the reactions of
the seated students before him, all of
whom had their eyes and ears precisely
focused on him. But, no one said any-
thing. In fact, even the tears that had been
so heavily flowing for the previous nine-
ty minutes were absent. There was a col-
lective lull of dreadful anticipation in the
room, and Jeremy found himself lost in it.
But, he paid full attention to the instruc-
tor as he continued.
“Well, perhaps there is hope,”
Dillon continued, though he shook
his head as he did so. “Maybe some
of you have used these silent minutes
to reflect within yourselves. And
maybe you have come to resolutions
that you have not spoken aloud. Let’s
find out.”
Dillon stepped from behind the desk
and moved to the center of the room. He
casually stepped over the punctured head
that sat on Carter’s formerly intact body,
and his shoes splished in the thick pool
that had gathered around the scene. He
raised his gun into the air, aiming it the
three people remaining in group one,
who cringed at the sight of it.
“Group one, stand up and go face that
wall,” he ordered, waving the gun toward
the wall to his right.
164
None of them, not Kundre, the slim
older woman, or Perron, moved an inch.
Their eyes carried the desperation of pup-
pies peering through the bars of a pound,
and a scattered disbelief seemed formed
on their faces.
“It was not a request!” Dillon shouted,
and the force in his voice chilled Jeremy.
“Get up! Now!”
It was Miguel Perron who stood first,
doing so slowly and gently. The other two
studied him with disbelief, but as they
watched him step toward the center of
the room, complying with Dillon’s direc-
tions, they, too, rose to their feet carefully.
Jeremy watched as Miguel, the slim
woman, and Kundre formed an orderly
line and marched toward the wall, guided
by the watchful eye of the pistol Dillon
aimed at them. As the Professor stepped
into an executioner’s position behind
them, they lined up against the surface as
if preparing to be searched by police;
Kundre on the far left, Miguel Perron in
the middle, and the slim older woman on
the right.
The latter collapsed to the floor as she
reached her hands toward the wall for
support. She remained hunched over on
her knees, curling herself into a ball. The
woman was spasming violently, and
Jeremy could hear her weeping profusely,
muttering “please, please” over and over
again as she buried her face in her lap.
Kundre’s legs were shaking, but he
was standing, though his head was also
slumped down. He may have been cry-
ing, but Jeremy could not hear him.
Miguel Perron was the strangest,
however. He was not trembling, but from
Jeremy’s seat, he could see that the man’s
eyes were wide and fierce. There was
anger in the stare, and Miguel bit his bot-
tom lip passionately.
“So, group one, do we have any
volunteers?” Dillon said way too
charmingly.
There was no vocal response, save for
the loud cry that the shrunken older
woman bellowed. However, Miguel
Perron responded visibly. He curled his
hands into fists against the wall and
roared like a woken bear. Miguel turned
around to face Professor Dillon, who
wore an amused and confident expres-
sion. The gun was already in the air, per-
fectly aimed at Miguel Perron’s head, but
the raging student stepped toward
Dillon, his roar even more animalistic.
One step was all he had time for, how-
ever. Before his shadow was off the wall,
the gun screamed life, and Miguel met
death. The shot hit him the center of the
face, and Jeremy watched the back of his
head explode against the wall behind
him. Dark red mass splattered against the
cold whiteness of the classroom’s barrier,
and the body of Miguel Perron imploded
beneath it, slumping limply to the floor.
The slim older woman began to
scream, and the overweight girl next to
Jeremy harmonized with her. The next
two shots were quick and efficient. After
seeing Miguel Perron’s head disintegrate,
Jeremy had turned his away, but he clear-
ly heard Kundre’s body hit the floor after
the first fire. And, as the second shot rang
out, there was a disgustingly abrupt end
to the screaming that wasn’t coming from
the girl sitting next to Jeremy. He forced
himself to look back over at the scene,
and he saw what he had expected. Three
more bodies now littered the floor, and
Dillon was already disregarding them
and looking excitedly back at the remain-
ing four students. The pudgy girl’s
screaming persisted, and Dillon seemed
most intently focused on her. The grin on
his face was wide, and Jeremy could fully
see the man’s yellowed teeth and emaci-
ated gums. But, as the gunsmoke wafted
through the air, and the screaming per-
sistently cancelled the deathly silence,
this smile dissolved into a mask of mad
rage. His voice was truly wretched.
“Shut up!” Dillon shouted, but the
screaming continued. “I said shut up!” he
repeated, this time even more forceful
than before, but the increased volume did
not cancel the distressed girl’s cries.
Jeremy watched the gun discharge
again, and he heard it twice more as he
rolled his head away. When he did, he
watched three holes erupt in the girl: one
in her breast, one in her throat, and one
nearly in the center of her forehead. The
last one sharply silenced the screams, and
the girl’s substantial body slithered down
her uncomfortable wooden seat and
plodded onto the floor next to Jeremy.
Her eyes were looking up at him as he
studied her, and Jeremy watched the final
optimistic hints of fading life disappear
from her face. He heard Cynthia Timothy
whimper across from him, but Ryder did-
n’t make a sound. Jeremy did not have
time to react, for Dillon interrupted his
panic again.
“Group two!” he yelled, still visibly
infuriated by the girl’s disruptive human-
ity. He toned his voice down, continuing
with the same apathetic grace he had dis-
played throughout this ordeal. “Perhaps
you have learned something tonight, and
come to a better resolution?”
No one answered him. Cynthia
Timothy was still praying, now more fer-
vently, and Ryder was simply crying qui-
etly, his fresh tears washing through the
tiny spots of the overweight girl’s blood
that dotted his face. Jeremy, too, was
frozen, his eyes lost in the cradles of
blood that seemed to be everywhere
around him. Again, he did not have much
time to react.
“Well, let’s get up then,” he said,
his voice betraying the implication of
the action.
This time, there was no resistance,
and the three crushed souls took to their
feet and awaited instruction.
“Go ahead and face that wall,” he ges-
tured, indicating the wall over behind the
instructor’s desk.
Jeremy followed his orders quietly, tak-
ing care not to look back at the nameless
heavy girl’s body behind him, or at any of
the other five bodies that shared the room
with them. The others followed behind
him, and each of them lined up as the first
group had done; Jeremy on the left,
Cynthia Timothy in the middle, and Ryder
on the right. Each of them were silent
against the wall, though Cynthia was clear-
ly fighting overwhelming emotion. Again,
Dillon gave them no time to react.
165
 “Group two, do we have any volun-
teers?” Dillon asked, and though Jeremy
was facing away from him, he swore he
heard a chuckle in the question.
As Jeremy expected, there was no
response. Dillon didn’t wait long.
“Very well, then,” he said simply.
Jeremy heard the gun rise into the air, but
he refused to give it a chance to fire.
“Wait,” Jeremy said hurriedly.
He turned around and faced Dillon,
careful not to step toward him, and saw
the instructor’s eyebrows rise with
genuine interest.
“I volunteer,” continued Jeremy, his
head sinking down. “Kill me, and let
them live.”
He looked over at his two surviving
group members. Both stared back at him
with stunned disbelief, but there was an
awkward glimmer of hope in their eyes.
“Mr. Stratton, are you sure?” asked
Dillon, his head cocked to the side.
“You’re willing to give your life to save
Miss Timothy and Mr. Ryder here?”
Jeremy forced himself not to pon-
der the answer. “Yes. Kill me, and let
them go.”
“Well, this is certainly very interest-
ing.” Dillon sounded delighted. “Very
well, Mr. Stratton. I’m glad somebody
took this exercise seriously.”
He lowered the gun to his side.
“Miss Timothy? Mr. Ryder? Turn
around,” Dillon ordered. “You’ll want to
see this.”
They did as they were told, but nei-
ther took their eyes off of Jeremy. They
watched him eagerly, and the look in their
eyes sickened him. Jeremy did not see any
indication of gratitude, rather, the two
desperate people simply seemed to be
wary that he might change his mind.
“Mr. Stratton,” Dillon called.
“Step this way, please, and face your
group members.”
Jeremy stepped forward slowly, careful
not to make any sudden movements. His
slumped shoulders carried his burdened
head, which eyed Dillon suspiciously.
“That’s just fine,” Dillon stopped him.
“Now turn around and face them.”
166
Jeremy did as he was told, and two
unsure people stared back at him. He felt
some sort of unexplainable anger toward
them, as if they had forced him to enter
this predicament. But, there was not
much time to dwell on that, for all
thoughts drained from Jeremy’s head as
he felt the warm muzzle of Dillon’s gun
press against the back of his head. Now it
was Jeremy who began to weep, clench-
ing his eyes tightly as the tears poured
from him. The gun pressed tighter, push-
ing his head forward slightly. But, he kept
his eyes closed, not wanting to see the
faces of those his death would send home
safely. Still, Dillon’s procrastination con-
tinued, as he addressed things Jeremy
could no longer see.
“Miss Timothy, open your eyes,”
Jeremy heard behind him. “Both of you
need to see this. Mr. Stratton is doing this
for you, and you at least owe him the dig-
nity of witnessing what your selfishness
has brought upon him.”
Jeremy began to sob.
“I said open your eyes!” The shouting
again came from behind him. “If you
close your eyes again, Miss Timothy, you
die right after Mr. Stratton here. Do you
understand?”
Jeremy heard Cynthia’s weakened
cries, but no other response. But, Dillon
did not address it again, so he assumed
that she was watching.
“Now, Mr. Ryder, Miss Timothy, since
you hold yourselves to such high impor-
tance, I want you to witness the heroic act
of an unselfish man. I’m sure you’ll learn
a great deal.”
Jeremy tensed as he felt the muzzle lift
away from his skull. Dillon was lining up
his shot. Jeremy held his breath and
awaited it.
But, when the gun fired, Jeremy heard
two shots, not one. There was no pain,
and he was still lucid and on his feet. He
dared himself to open his eyes, and when
he did, the first thing he saw was two
dark, murky stains on the wall in front of
him. When he followed these down, he
saw the bodies of Cynthia Timothy and
Ryder on the floor. Ryder’s lifeless frame
had landed on top of Cynthia’s, and the
two fresh corpses formed a malignant
heap on the ground. Somewhere in that
brief second, he had forgotten about
Dillon, but the thought returned to him
suddenly, and he wheeled around to find
Dillon’s beaming visage looking back at
him from behind an outstretched gun.
“Easy now, Mr. Stratton,” cautioned
Dillon. “You’ve done so well. Don’t blow
it now.” Jeremy struggled for words, but
little vocabulary was available to his rat-
tled mind. An incomprehensible mumble
was all that came.
“Mr. Stratton, go ahead and have a
seat,” offered the Professor, and for once,
the warmth in his voice sounded sincere.
Jeremy somehow carried himself to the
nearest desk, trying to avoid looking
directly at any of the scattered carnage
that enveloped him.
“I--,” he began, but had trouble finish-
ing. “I don’t….”
“Mr. Stratton,” enlightened Dillon,
“you have earned an ‘A’ on this assign-
ment. Everyone else in this classroom was
willing to let each of you die because they
were afraid to volunteer themselves.
They put the value of their own life over
the importance of the others around
them. Their selfishness cost them their
lives, and justifiably so.”
The awestruck smile on his face
broadened.
“But not you, Mr. Stratton,” he contin-
ued. “You were willing to sacrifice your
own life to save the lives of two people
who, for all intensive purposes, were total
strangers to you. The world would be a
better place if there were more people like
you in it. But, Miss Timothy and Mr.
Ryder, who were so willing to watch you
die to save their own selfish lives, they are
not fit to inherit this world. Mr. Stratton,
you are a decent person, which is some-
thing I see with unfortunate infrequency
in my profession. Because of this, and the
unselfish act you were willing to face, you
will leave this room with your life
tonight. I congratulate you.”
He paused, as if expecting Jeremy to
respond, but the stunned man could say
nothing. Though he could not take his
eyes off of Dillon, his disbelieving and
delirious composure left the stare vacant.
“Now, go,” Dillon gestured for the door,
“and remember this night for as long as
you live. That is the greatest lesson I can
impart on to you.”
Jeremy remained seated and shaken,
unsure whether he should attempt to rise
or not.
“I mean it, Mr. Stratton,” repeated
Dillon. “Go. Live your life.”
With that, Jeremy stood, bracing his
shaking limbs on the desk. He kept his
focus on Dillon, expecting him to fire
again, but even as Jeremy cautiously
walked around the Professor, the still-
smoking gun remained dormant. As
Jeremy approached the door, which
seemed an impossible eternity away
moments before, he was overcome with
fear, as his back was now to the Professor.
He could feel Dillon’s eyes on the back of
his neck, and he expected the pistol to
ring out at any moment.
And, indeed, it did. But, again, Jeremy
felt nothing, and he turned around to
investigate.
He looked in time to see Dillon’s
limp body slink to the floor, dead by
his own hand. There was a rancid
plume of smoke in the already thick
air, and the fresh shot stung Jeremy’s
nose. The teacher folded backwards,
but he landed on his back, and Jeremy
could see Dillon’s empty eyes staring
up into the air. From Jeremy’s angle, it
still seemed as if Dillon was looking
directly at him. There was not a smile
or a frown on Dillon’s face, merely a
satisfied, flat expression. Though the
body was still, and blood soaked its
mouth where the fluid had cascaded
out of its nostrils, Dillon almost looked
alive lying there. The intent glare on
his lips and the still glimmering spark
in his open eyes seemed to echo the
words he had said seconds before: Go
live your life.
Jeremy wept again as he opened the
door and stepped into the not-so-cooling
night air. It was still in the 90’s, and the
167
atmosphere outside was nearly as musky
as it had been inside the dead classroom.
But, he was outside, and the beauty of
seeing anything but the ghoulish scene
behind him was overwhelming. He
quickly collected himself, and took one
last glance back into the room. There was
blood everywhere, but somehow, Jeremy
was elated, because none of it was his. He
looked up once more at the unyielding
clock that hung on the wall, it’s bubbled
surface smeared with a thick sliver of
dark red mass. Through the murk, he
could still see the ticking hands.
It was 9:41 p.m., the earliest he
had ever stepped out of Professor
Dillon’s classroom.

168
169
For Marilyn
 April Hutton was found dead in her
home on April 4th at 12:38 p.m.
Her sister, Michelle Mallar, went to
4421 Heather Road that day to pick up
April for their scheduled lunch date, and
received no reply when she knocked on
the door. Seeing April’s car in the drive-
way, Michelle assumed that her sister
was either in the shower or in the back-
yard, thus unable to hear her knocking.
Ms. Mallar tried the front door, finding it
unlocked, and let herself into the resi-
dence. She found her sister on the living
room floor, soaked in blood and clearly
dead. Michelle would later describe the
scene as “a horrible nightmare,” and
claimed the room was “covered with
blood; the floor, the couch, the bookcases,
and even the windows.” Ms. Mallar also
grimly recounted, “I couldn’t even recog-
nize what I saw as my sister. It didn’t look
like April, but the sickness twisting in my
stomach told me it was her.”
It was not Michelle who called the
police, rather April Hutton’s next door
neighbor, Samantha Richards. Mrs.
173
Richards called 911 when she heard
screams coming from the residence. “What
I was hearing turned my blood cold,” she
later remembered. “It was just this terrible
shrieking, ‘Oh, god, no! Oh, god, no!’ Over
and over again.”
After a thorough investigation of the
scene, police later revealed that April
Hutton was stabbed over 200 times.
There were, in fact, so many wounds
covering her entire body that the exact
number was officially listed as “indeter-
minate.” It was clear that the majority of
the wounds had been inflicted post-
mortem, but over 70 of the wounds
would have been fatal by themselves.
The first wound had been a deep gouge
in the front of her throat, which would
have caused her to bleed to death within
a manner of seconds. April’s face had
been severely mutilated by the stab-
wounds, and though the location of the
body indicated to police that the corpse
was probably that of April Hutton, fin-
gerprint verification was necessary to
make a definite identification. Not even
dental records were an option for inves-
tigators, since nearly all of Mrs. Hutton’s
teeth had been knocked out during the
brutal attack. The autopsy also found
that April had been sexually assaulted
both before and after her death. The offi-
cial time of death was noted as April 4th
at 1:54 a.m.
There seemed to be very few defen-
sive wounds, and there was no sign of
forced entry onto the property, so investi-
gators speculated that April Hutton most
likely knew her attacker. Additionally, no
one in the neighborhood reported hear-
ing any commotion during the time of
the attack, even Samantha Richards, who
described herself as a “very light sleep-
er.” Mrs. Richards’ bedroom window
was open that evening when she retired,
and she insisted that if there had been
screaming or much struggling, it would
have woken her. Police were quick to
point out that the nature of the throat
wound April Hutton had suffered first
would have made screaming, or any loud
verbalizing, impossible.
174
On April 7th, April’s husband
Christopher was questioned about his
possible involvement in the murder of his
wife. Mr. Hutton emphatically denied
that he had anything to do with the crime.
He tearfully stated during that first inter-
view, “you have no idea what this is
doing to me... How could it even cross
your mind that I would do something like
this? I love my wife more than anything
in this world, and feel like I am gone with
her. Only an animal could do something
like this... How could anyone do this?”
The questioning went on for nearly three
hours, largely because Mr. Hutton wept
through the entire process, and according
to investigators, he “could barely put a
sentence together without completely
breaking down.”
Still, police named him as their prime
suspect, for several reasons. Firstly,
Christopher Hutton did not have a con-
crete alibi for the night of the murder. He
claimed he had been studying financial
records at the contracting office he
owned, nearly 15 miles away from his
home. According to Mr. Hutton, he had
fallen asleep in his office, which he had
done several times before when business
tasks demanded he worked through the
night. He said he awoke at approximately
1 p.m. on April 4th, when police called his
office to inform him of the gruesome dis-
covery at his home. Two employees con-
firmed Mr. Hutton’s work habits to inves-
tigators, and swore that when they left at
approximately 10:30 p.m. on April 3rd,
Hutton was still hard at work in his office.
However, since he had worked alone
through the night, and the office was not
equipped with any sort of surveillance
system, there was nothing to corroborate
Hutton’s claim that he had not left his
office any time during the night. Since the
office was closed on April 4th, as it was
every Saturday, there was no one to even
confirm that Hutton had been in the office
any earlier than when he answered the
phone at 1 p.m.
The most damning evidence the
police held was the testimony of two wit-
nesses who gave an indication that
Christopher Hutton might have had a
hand in his wife’s murder. The first infor-
mation came from Mrs. Hutton’s sister,
Michelle Mallar, who told police that
April had told her a week earlier, on
March 27, that the couple had experi-
enced “the worst argument in the histo-
ry” of their four-year marriage. The next
time Ms. Mallar spoke with her sister was
on April 1st, when the two sisters had
arranged their lunch meeting for the 4th.
On April 1st, Mallar said, her sister had
spoken of a reconciliation between her
and Christopher. According to Ms.
Mallar, April told her, “It’s all right now,
Michelle. Christopher said he wants to fix
all of this.” That was the last time
Michelle Mallar spoke to her sister.
Perhaps more damning was the testi-
mony of the Huttons’ other next-door
neighbor, Gerald Keeler. Mr. Keeler
reported that he was on his porch smok-
ing a cigarette at approximately 2:40 a.m.
on April 4th. Though he was up through
the entire attack, he too claimed to hear
nothing out of the ordinary. However, he
claimed that when he was out smoking
that morning, he saw someone exit the
Hutton residence through the front door.
The street was exceptionally dark at this
time, so Keeler said he could not
definitely identify who it was. He added,
“at the time, I just figured it was Chris. I
didn’t really give much though as to why
he would be out that late, since I’m a night
owl myself. I really can’t say for sure that
it was him, but from what I remember, the
person I saw was about Chris’s height,
and the body shape did seem similar. I
mean, nothing struck me as out of the
ordinary at the time, but if I had seen a
strange person leaving Chris’s house, you
bet it would have.” Adding to Keeler’s
impression was the fact that he said he
could clearly see the person turn and
notice him sitting on the neighboring
porch. “Whoever it was, they waved at me
when they looked my way,” Keeler con-
cluded. “I mean, I can’t imagine Chris
doing what happened that night, but
whoever walked out of that house that
night waved at me when I saw them.
Jesus, they went and did that, then waved
at me when they left. That’s just sick.”
After the brief encounter, Keeler claims
that he returned his attention to his ciga-
rette, and though he did recall hearing a
car start further up the street, but he did-
n’t pay enough attention to it to recognize
it as Christopher Hutton’s engine.
Police concluded that April Hutton
not only knew her killer, but her killer
knew Gerald Keeler.
A crucial detail the autopsy revealed
was unmentioned by any of the people
authorities questioned during their ardu-
ous eight-day investigation: the body of
April Hutton carried another inside it.
The fetus in her stomach was determined
by the case pathologist to be approxi-
mately six weeks developed.
Michelle Mallar told investigators that
April and Christopher had been strug-
gling financially, as Christopher’s busi-
ness was dealing with a large savings
loss. Mallar recalled that April had men-
tioned a couple of weeks before her mur-
der that Christopher had caught one of
his employees stealing a large sum of
money from a safe inside the office, and
that the man had later confessed to mak-
ing large cash withdrawals from the com-
pany account. April told her sister that
Christopher was destroyed by the betray-
al, and burdened by the dismal task of
tearing apart the company’s financial
records to determine exactly how much
money had been taken.
The scenario police constructed was
that Christopher Hutton was enraged by
the financial stress that his wife’s pregnan-
cy would impart on them, and that he had
killed her both to alleviate this strain, and
to collect her life insurance policy, which
was valued at approximately $70,000.
There was little concrete evidence
linking Christopher Hutton to his wife’s
death, but enough troubling questions to
merit his detainment.
The most potent physical evidence
was the murder weapon, a six-inch
kitchen knife recovered at the scene. The
crimson-soaked tool was discarded care-
lessly beside April’s body, about four
175
inches from her right arm. There were
only two sets of prints on the knife han-
dle: those of April and Christopher
Hutton. When confronted with this,
Christopher maintained that he used the
knife that evening preparing dinner for
he and his wife. While police were forced
to concede that it was not uncommon
that a kitchen knife in the Hutton resi-
dence would have Christopher Hutton’s
prints on it, they were equally compelled
to speculate why the killer had left no
prints behind.
Though April Hutton had been sexu-
ally assaulted, investigators were unable
to get a semen sample from the corpse.
This lurid absence first led police to
believe that the killer had not ejaculated
during intercourse, but a more terrible
reality soon presented itself when a detec-
tive discovered a condom wrapper in a
small kitchen wastebasket. This piece of
evidence illuminated a sinister degree of
premeditation.
Fingerprints on the wrapper were too
smudged to be positively identified as
Christopher Hutton’s, but police found no
fingerprints in the kitchen, even on the
cupboard that housed the wastebasket,
other than April and Christopher’s.
Christopher Hutton was arrested on April
12th and formally charged with the mur-
der of his wife April. The irony that a girl
named April had been murdered in the
month of April was not lost on the press,
and the media soon dubbed the sensation-
al murder the “Bloody April” case.
•••
Christopher Hutton sat on a wooden
chair in the center of a dimly lit interro-
gation room. His head hung low as he
slouched on this perch, his manacled
hands resting flaccidly on his lap. His
face was haggard and unshaven, and the
lids under his red, swollen eyes were
decorated with thick gray rings. He had
not slept in days, and his head had suc-
cumbed to an empty haze. The lamp
that swayed gently from the ceiling
above him conjured thick beads of sweat
176
on his decayed face, and this wetness
ran down the sides of his face and the
back of his neck. He stared listlessly at a
paper cup of water that rested on the
table in front of him, which was too
small to be refreshing, even if he wished
for such moisture.
Beyond the cup, on the other side of
the table, there rested an empty chair,
which two detectives had traded off on
during a grueling three-hour interroga-
tion. He had answered their questions,
but the barrage now seemed like an
unintelligible blur, and he could not
remember exactly what they had asked,
or what he told them. One detective, a
black man with his skull shaved bald
wore a penetrating, accusing stare as he
slid a small stack of blank white papers
and pen in front of him.
“We want to end this, Christopher,”
the man had said with an actor’s studied
sensitivity. “Just write down everything
that happened and sign it, and this will
all be over.”
Christopher’s voice was weak and
raspy, and he had meekly replied, “I
think I need to see my lawyer. Please call
Victor Marduk.”
“You just fucked up, Christopher,”
the detective had admonished. “You just
made things so much harder on your-
self. You’re finished, man.”
The two detectives left the room at
that point, and a plainclothes officer
returned in their place a moment later.
Christopher could feel this man’s eyes
on him from the darkened corner of the
barren, windowless room, but he did
not turn to meet that glance. He simply
stared forward at the empty chair in
front of him and awaited the arrival of
Victor Marduk.
Christopher had known Victor since
both men were 10 years old, over twen-
ty years before the wretched day he
inhabited now. Victor was a respected
and rising criminal defense lawyer, suc-
cessfully defending his clients in a num-
ber of prominent cases. Victor had told
his friend that he prided himself on his
ability to read the innocence of his
clients, and to work diligently to prove
this absence of guilt. Indeed, two of the
suspects Victor had defended were
found innocent by the court, then later
by the public when other perpetrators
confessed to their alleged crimes.
The two friends had a running joke
about Victor giving Christopher a dis-
count if he should ever require his repre-
sentation, but Christopher never imag-
ine that he would actually need the serv-
ice. As he sat in lifeless room, he longed
for the arrival of his friend, yet he
detested the circumstances which neces-
sitated this arrival.
After what seemed like several
hours to Christopher, he heard a rattling
of keys outside in the hallway he had
been escorted down at the start of his
ordeal. The door opened and Victor
stepped into the room. The lawyer
appraised the trembling condemned
man that wore Christopher’s frame, and
his eyes swelled with horror and sympa-
thy. He stepped slowly into the room,
hands tucked nervously into his slack
pockets, and approached the empty
chair across from Christopher. When
Victor finally spoke, it was not to
Christopher, but to the guard who stood
stolidly against the wall.
“I’ll thank you to leave me with my
client, officer,” Victor said rigidly.
The proud officer stared into Victor’s
cold eyes indignantly, making no move-
ment of exit. Victor left his stare on the
guard, his proud countenance demand-
ing compliance.
“Let’s go, Torrez,” boomed the voice
of the black detective, who stepped into
the room from the hallway. With this
instruction, the guard complied. Though
Christopher remained fixated on his
newly arrived friend, he could feel the
eyes of the policeman upon him as the
uniformed man moved slowly toward
the door. He did not look away from
Victor as the door slammed behind the
exiting investigators.
His pride intact after the assault of
the accusing interrogators, Christopher
now began to sob. His face wrinkled
into a mask of agony, and tears began to
pour out of his eyes.
“Jesus, Chris,” Victor said softly. He
could think of nothing more, and for a
moment he looked down at the floor to
escape the horrid face his friend wore.
He took a deep breath and returned his
compassionate gaze to Christopher.
“How are you?” he finally managed.
“I’m not good, Vic,” Christopher
understated. It was not a quip, merely a
simple and exhausted reply.
Despite himself, Victor laughed. He
quickly realized how terribly cruel the
gesture appeared, but the more he tried
to stop himself, the harder is was to con-
tain his chuckle. He straightened him-
self, embarrassed.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Chris,” Victor tried
to assure. “I know it’s not funny. I was-
n’t laughing at you, it’s just....” He
trailed off. “I mean, that was a really stu-
pid question, I know, and you gave me
the most obvious answer. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Christopher barely
verbalized. “I guess I can see the
humor too.”
“No, it’s not okay, Chris,” Victor con-
tinued to apologize. “I’m sorry man. It’s
just so awful to see you like this. And,
Jesus, April....”
At the mention of his wife’s name,
Christopher’s tears became a torrent. He
lifted his bound hands to his face and
cried into them thoroughly, shaking his
head from side to side as his body shud-
dered. “Oh, God,” he sobbed repeatedly,
but he could not find any other words.
“I can’t imagine what you’re going
through right now, Chris,” Victor
consoled, “but I’m here to help you,
man. We’re going to figure this thing
out, but I need you here with me, all
right? I need you to talk to me. Can you
do that?”
Christopher lifted his streaked face
toward his friend again and maneuvered
his impaired hands to wipe the wetness
from his eyes. “Okay,” he conceded, “I
don’t know what to tell you though.
They want me to sign a confession. They
told me that was what I had to do.”
177
 “No!” Victor scolded, finally
pulling the other wooden chair out.
“You are not going to sign anything.”
He corrected his tone, and sat down,
calming himself. “How long have they
had you here?”
“I don’t know,” Christopher tried to
reason. “There’s no clock in here.
Probably at least a couple of hours. But I
feel like I’ve been here for days.”
“Well, they’ve clearly violated your
rights, but that’s the small problem,
we’ll deal with that later.” Victor rested
his hands on the table and clasped them
together. “All right, Chris, I’m here to
help you. But I have to ask you some-
thing. I know the answer to the question
I’m going to ask, but I have to ask you
anyway. I’m not asking as your best
friend, I’m asking as your lawyer.
Please do not misinterpret my inten-
tions, okay?”
“Okay,” Christopher sniffed.
Victor leaned forward and peered
into Christopher’s eyes. “Chris, did you
kill April?”
“No!” Christopher shouted, wound-
ed. “God, Vic, No. I could never... Oh,
God.... Do.... What they’re saying I’ve
done. You, Vic? How could you think...?”
“I don’t think you did this, Chris,”
Victor interrupted. “I’m sorry I had to ask
you that. Every part of me knew that you
didn’t do this from the moment I found
out about all of it. I’ve never thought you
were guilty. But I had to hear it from your
mouth. I had to look into your eyes and
see the truth in them. Because, if you told
me that somehow you did do this, that
would change how we would have to
approach this. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Christopher, his
face drained of color from the seeming
accusation.
“I’m going to get you out of this,
Chris, I promise,” Victor said sincerely.
“You know that you are innocent. I know
that you’re innocent. We’ll show them
that you’re innocent. You’re not here
because they have an overwhelming
amount of evidence. You’re here because
the public wants swift justice, and they
178
want to give this town what it wants. You
understand? They’re grasping at nothing
here, that’s why they wanted you to sign
a confession, you see? Quick open and
shut, the husband did it, and everyone
can go home. It’s that easy to them, but
it’s going to be real hard for us, Chris. I
got to tell you, man, it doesn’t look good.
You don’t have an alibi, and your prints
are on the weapon.”
“It’s my knife!” Christopher inter-
rupted desperately. “I bought it, I used it
all the time, and I chopped onions with it
that night. Of course my prints are on it.
That doesn’t mean I’m not innocent.”
“I know, Chris, I know,” Victor said
soothingly. “I’m just trying to give you
an idea of what we’re up against here.
Please understand, I’m not pointing
out the problems I find. I know you’re
innocent.”
“Why aren’t there any other prints on
the knife?” Christopher inquired, snif-
fling. “I mean, if someone else used it,
why are my prints on it?”
“There are a number of explanations,”
Victor conjured. “Maybe they wore
gloves, maybe the prints were just
smudged during the attack, I don’t know.
But that won’t get us off here. They’re
going to say it’s because you did this.”
“Do you think they have a case
against me?” Christopher asked, dread-
ing the answer.
“Well, like I said, it does look bad,
Chris,” Victor replied sincerely. “I mean,
they don’t have anything concrete, but
they have enough to put you on trial. And
with a crime of this nature, they’re going
to try for the death penalty.”
Christopher buried his face in his
hands again as another barrage of liquid
misery consumed him. “Oh, god! They’re
going to kill me!”
“It won’t get that far, Chris,” assured
Victor. “Do you hear me? It won’t get
there, I promise you. You have to trust
me. They have their circumstantial evi-
dence and their theories, but we have the
advantage here. Do you know why?
Because you are an innocent man. And I
am going to prove that, Chris. I promise
you. You have to trust me, and you have
to stay strong.”
“Vic, I’m so scared,” Christopher
lamented. “God, I’m scared.”
“I know you are, man, and that’s
okay,” Victor reassured him. “No innocent
man deserves what you are going through
right now. It’s going to take a while, but
we will get you through this. This story
will have a happy ending. You are not
going to prison, I promise you that.”
“I need to know something though,”
Christopher said. “They could still find
the guy who did this, right? Then they’ll
know, because they’ll have the guy, right?
They’ll know it wasn’t me?”
Victor’s head sunk, and he sighed
deeply. “Well, I won’t lie to you, Chris.”
His tone was sympathetic. “As far as the
police are concerned, they have their guy.
He’s sitting in this room. No, Chris, I’m
sorry, but unless some monster piece of
evidence falls on their heads, or some-
body barges into the police station
screaming, ‘I killed April Hutton,’ they’re
not going to look anymore. This case is
closed to them.”
Christopher shook his head in naïve
disbelief. “No.... So whoever did this is
going free? They’re getting away with it?”
“I’m sorry, Chris,” Victor soothed.
“That’s just the way they work. When
this is all over, we’ll get this case
reopened, and we’ll set things right. But
right now, you need to focus on making
sure that you don’t go down for this.
Cause if you do, they’ll never catch the
guy that did this.”
“All right,” Christopher agreed. “What
do we do now?”
“I’ve got a lot of things to put togeth-
er,” Victor replied, “a lot of things to fig-
ure out. I’ve got to go now, but I will be
back real soon. I’ll keep you informed
every step of the way, but I need you to
stay strong, Chris. This is only the begin-
ning....”
•••
The murder trial of Christopher
Hutton began on March 3rd.
The state’s case was being presented
by Richard Handler, a seasoned and griz-
zled attorney whose most infamous
career benchmark was the successful con-
viction of Javier Cruz, an illegal immi-
grant who was charged with raping and
murdering three women in a frenzied
two-week spree.
Damned by the testimony of a fourth
victim who identified him as her
assailant, Cruz was sentenced to death
for the crimes. A controversial state ini-
tiative had recently instated a mandatory
five-year window of execution, and Cruz
was put to death less than four years
after his sentencing.
About a month after Javier Cruz
received his lethal injection, Henry
Stodd, an unemployed alcoholic, was
arrested for breaking into a bar an hour
after last call.
Drunk out of his mind and nearly
incoherent, Henry Stodd reportedly ram-
bled to the arresting officers, “you goin’
put me down for this? I done worse than
this plenty, and you aint’ got me for that.”
When the officers asked him, “what else
have you done, Henry?”, Stodd told
them, “ I guess you could say that I kilt
three bitches and a beaner.”
The investigation was reopened
because of Stodd’s admission, and police
later learned that Javier Cruz was still in
Mexico when the first murder took place.
The victim who survived later admitted
that she had been knocked almost uncon-
scious by a blow to the back of her head,
and that she had not actually seen Cruz
before or during the attack, only after,
when he was arrested while standing
over her battered frame. Cruz’s defense
that he had come across the woman
crawling on the park grass and was mere-
ly trying to help her up when police
arrived was proven true.
Two policemen were dismissed from
the force for beating Cruz in submission
and forcing him to sign a confession,
which was entered as evidence at his
trial. Cruz had testified that he could
not understand what the document he
was signing said, and that the officers
179
had told him it was a routine form he
had to fill out.
Suddenly, the media was hoisting the
story that an innocent man had been put
to death, an uproar that eventually
extended the execution window to 12
years. There was even public speculation
that the lawyer knew Cruz had been out
of the country when the killings began.
Attorney Richard Handler was called “a
killer of innocents,” and his career suf-
fered severely, a blow that he eventually
recovered from. Handler went on to try
many prominent cases, and the public
soon forgot all about this ill-fated prose-
cution. However, no one would ever for-
get the events that unfolded in the case of
the State vs. Christopher Hutton.
During Handler’s 20-minute opening
argument, the prosecutor delivered his
address in front of an easel, which dis-
played three enlarged crime scene photos.
Two of the pictures captured different
views of April Hutton’s mangled corpse
sprawled on the floor, while the third was
a close-up of the victim’s unrecognizable
face. When the photographs were uncov-
ered, Christopher Hutton bellowed an
agonized sob and began to shudder vio-
lently, a torrent of sorrow flowing from
his eyes. The reaction was so violently
pained that Victor Marduk asked that his
client be removed from the courtroom
while the photographs were on display.
While Handler addressed the jury,
Christopher Hutton listened from a hold-
ing cell elsewhere in the building.
“There is no disputing the fact that
whoever committed this crime deserves
the most severe punishment the law will
allow,” Handler said during his oration.
“In fact, the murderer of April Hutton
deserves far worse than we can give
them. The state will show you, beyond all
reasonable doubt, that Mrs. Hutton’s
killer was Christopher Hutton, the man
you just saw react so violently in this
courtroom. Ladies and gentlemen, when
you hear the testimony in this case, never
forget that the animal we are speaking of
is in this building. We have the beast cap-
tured, and it is up to you to make sure
180
that this unspeakable evil is never
released upon the world again.”
Christopher Hutton was returned to
the courtroom for Victor Marduk’s open-
ing argument, after the easel had been
removed from the room. Though not as
experienced as the state prosecutor,
Marduk gave an eloquent and thorough
rebuttal to the scenario described by
Richard Handler.
“All of you have been made aware of
the concept of reasonable doubt,”
Marduk stated. “But the most important
piece of this mandate you must grasp is
that if there is any avenue in which the
facts do not precisely shape a straight line
to my client, then you can not rule that he
is guilty. You will find no straight lines in
this case, and all of the evidence you will
be presented with is wildly circumstan-
tial. When this case unfolds, my client’s
innocence will be abundantly clear. Then,
as horrifying as the elements of this crime
are, you will realize that far more terrible
is the fact that while Christopher Hutton
sits in this courtroom awaiting your judg-
ment, the killer of April Hutton will be
walking around free.”
The first witness called by the prosecu-
tion was Michelle Mallar, who had first dis-
covered April Hutton’s body. She was ques-
tioned extensively by Richard Handler,
who focused on the fight with the accused
that April had told her about. Somehow,
without arousing an objection from the
defense, he was able to lure Mallar into
some potentially damning allegations:
Richard Handler: Did your sister ever tell you
that Mr. Hutton had been violent with her?
Michelle Mallar: No.
RH: Was the nature of your relationship
such that she would tell you if he were?
MM: I would think so, but she never told
me about anything, so maybe not.
RH: Are you saying that you believe
Christopher Hutton was violent with
April, but she never told you about it?
MM: I’m not sure if he was. I can’t say.
RH: Based on your knowledge of Mr.
Hutton’s character, do you think he was
violent with her?
MM: I really don’t know. I can’t say
for sure.
RH: Did Mr. Hutton ever exhibit a temper
in front of you?
MM: I have seen him act out a couple
of times.
RH: Can you please elaborate? How
would he act out?
MM: There was a time at a club where he
had to be removed because he was fight-
ing with another guy.
RH: Do you know what the fight
was about?
MM: Christopher said that the guy had
been making rude comments to April,
and the two started throwing punches.
RH: So, you saw this fight?
MM: Yes.
RH: Did you hear any rude comments?
MM: No, I did not.
RH: Did April tell you about the comments?
MM: No, she didn’t. The two of us never
talked about it after that night.
RH: So, how did you get this explanation?
MM: The defendant told me about it
afterwards.
RH: So, it’s possible that the defendant
made that up?
MM: Yes, I suppose it’s possible.
RH: So, you’re saying that the defendant
has proven in the past that he can be a
violent person, whether he is provoked
or not?
MM: I said....
RH: Miss Mallar, based on your intimate
knowledge of April’s murder, and any
motive that may have preceded it, do you
think Christopher Hutton is the perpetra-
tor of this crime?
MM: Yes, I do.
When Victor Marduk cross-examined the
witness, he asked very few questions, but
delivered them passionately.
Victor Marduk: Miss Mallar, what did
your sister tell you was the nature of the
fight between her and Christopher?
Michelle Mallar: She told me that he was
stressed out about finances.
VM: Didn’t she tell you that they were
working it out?
MM: Yes.
VM: What in Christopher’s character
would make you think that this is how he
would work it out?
MM: I don’t know, but I don’t think
anyone else would have a reason to
kill April.
VM: And what would you speculate that
Christopher’s motives would be?
MM: Well, she did have a life-insur-
ance policy.
VM: Did she tell you when she signed up
for that policy?
MM: It was about two years before.
VM: So, you’re alleging that my client
signed his wife up for a life insurance pol-
icy two years earlier so he could kill her
and collect on it?
MM: I don’t know if he was planning on
doing it at the time.
VM: How was April’s mood when you
had your last conversation with her?
MM: She was really happy. April was
always happy.
VM: So, she didn’t sound threatened
in any way?
MM: No.
VM: Don’t you think that, if someone
with your limited knowledge of my client
suspects from his behavior that he is
capable of murder, that his wife, who
knows him far better, would be afraid of
him after a major fight?
MM: Yes, I suppose so.
VM: But your sister was not afraid of my
client when you talked to her last, correct?
MM: Not that I could tell.
VM: Nothing further.
The knife evidence proved most
compelling to the jury, and was a major
hindrance for the defense. Neither
Victor Marduk nor his client could
explain why the only fingerprints on
the weapon were Christopher Hutton’s,
and the prosecution’s attack of this
damning fact was unyielding. If Hutton
had used the knife earlier in the evening
while cooking, as he claimed, then the
killer had later handled it with gloves,
which the defense speculated, then the
gloved hands of the murderer, if it was
181
someone other than Christopher
Hutton, would have surely smudged
his prints. But, as Richard Handler got
one of the chief investigators to testify,
Christopher Hutton’s prints were easi-
ly identifiable on the handle of the
knife that had been used to murder
April Hutton.
The defense had no conclusive
answer to this.
Christopher Hutton wept loudly when
the case pathologist testified about the
removal of the mangled fetus from April
Hutton’s corpse. Hutton was facing two
murder charges, since, the prosecution
argued, Hutton knew April was pregnant,
therefore knew he would be killing the
baby if he murdered her. The defense con-
tended that Christopher was very excited
about the child, and used testimony from
his family members to support this. Their
goal was to divert attention away from the
financial stress of having a child, which
was a major point for the prosecution. But,
Richard Handler managed to coax a small,
but, he argued, significant, comment out of
Christopher Hutton’s mother, Dorothy.
Richard Handler: Mrs. Hutton, did
Christopher ever discuss financial issues
with you?
Dorothy Hutton: Not normally, no.
RH: So, he never told you about the sink-
ing financial state his business was in?
DH: He did mention that there were some
issues he was dealing with in the busi-
ness, but nothing specific.
RH: And, when he told you April was
pregnant, did he say anything about
preparing for a child?
DH: He did say that it would cost
money, yes.
RH: What exactly did he say,
Mrs. Hutton?
DH: He said “I don’t know how we’re
going to afford this baby,” but....
RH: I’m sorry. He said, “I don’t know
how we’re going to afford this baby”?
DH: Yes, but....
RH: So you say it’s true that when he told
you about April’s pregnancy, he was con-
cerned about the financial strain?
182
DH: Yes, but everybody worries about
having enough money for their child.
RH: Nothing further.
After three weeks of testimony,
Richard Handler gave his closing state-
ment, a simple appeal to the jury to con-
sider what the case’s principal witnesses
had said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he
addressed, “we know many important
things in this case. We know that the
defendant’s business was in financial
upheaval. We know that when April
Hutton was killed, Christopher Hutton
stood to earn a lot of money from her life
insurance policy. We know that the
defendant was concerned about the
financial stress of having a child. But
most importantly....”
Handler lifted the plastic evidence
bag with the murder weapon inside of it.
“We know that the only person who
touched this knife, the knife that was
used to stab April Hutton over two hun-
dred times, was Christopher Hutton.
Now, I’m a open minded man, and I’m
sure that you ladies and gentlemen are
open minded as well, but I’m forced to
wonder how someone could lift a knife
into the air and stab someone over two
hundred times.... without touching it.
You see, if Christopher Hutton’s
defense is accurate, and it was someone
else who murdered April Hutton, then
that is what had to have happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, how could
somebody stab someone to death with-
out touching a knife? It’s simply not
possible. But it doesn’t have to be,
because the person who killed April
Hutton is sitting in this courtroom, and
he’s right over there.”
Handler pointed to the defense table,
where Christopher Hutton stared back at
him with moist, emotional eyes. Next to
him, Victor Marduk wore a stern and
thoughtful face.
“His name is Christopher Hutton,”
the prosecutor continued. “And now, it is
your job to make sure that he is punished
for this savage crime. The man sitting
over there not only killed April Hutton
in the most brutal fashion imaginable.
He also had intercourse with her slaugh-
tered body...”
Handler paused, and there was a col-
lective gasp of disgust from the jury, the
same wave they had created when testi-
mony first arose about this fact.
“But, perhaps most despicably,
Christopher Hutton murdered the help-
less infant that April Hutton carried
inside of her, his own unborn child. Such
a man does not belong in a society of
decent people, and it is up to you to make
sure that he does return there. No one else
touched that knife, ladies and gentlemen.
No one else touched that knife.”
Victor Marduk’s closing address was
much more brief, and did not have the
same visceral resonance that Richard
Handler’s had.
“Ladies and gentlemen. The prosecu-
tion keeps telling you that only
Christopher Hutton touched the knife
that was used to murder April Hutton.
But, that is a false statement. Crime scene
investigators touched the knife when
they collected it from 4421 Heather Road.
Lab technicians handled the knife when
they analyzed it and collected the finger-
prints they are saying prove that my
client committed this crime. So, they are
essentially admitting that they could pass
this weapon through all these channels,
and even though they handled this evi-
dence with gloves, they did not compro-
mise the fingerprints of my client, which
were put on the knife when he made din-
ner earlier that evening. So, if these pro-
fessionals were able to use the knife for
their purposes without smudging the fin-
gerprints, how is it not possible that
someone else could have used the knife
before they did? My client did use the
knife that night, but it was to chop onions
for his supper. The next day, CSI collected
it. But, in between those two uses, some-
one else came into the Hutton home and
used that knife to murder April Hutton.
And, if you find my client guilty of this
crime, then whoever used the knife in
that interim will never be found. The
prosecution has offered nothing conclu-
sive that proves, beyond a reasonable
doubt, that we should stop looking.”
After four days of deliberation, the
jury found Christopher Hutton guilty on
two counts of first-degree murder. He
was led out of the courtroom to a holding
cell inside the building, accompanied by
his attorney, Victor Marduk. The events
that transpired inside that cell were later
reported by Marduk, and the two officers
involved.
“He was very upset,” Marduk
recalled. “Christopher was an innocent
man and he was wrongfully convicted in
this courtroom today. Anyone in that
predicament would be upset. He wasn’t
in his right mind, I guess.”
According to the two officers on the
scene, they heard shouting inside the cell
and rushed to investigate. When they
arrived, Christopher Hutton was choking
and pummeling Victor Marduk.
Reportedly, Hutton was shouting, “I’m a
murderer.” The officers physically
detained Hutton, but were unable to take
him to the floor.
“He was fighting us real good,”
described officer Hank Judd. “We were
trying to get him down, but we couldn’t.
Next thing I know, he had my partner’s
gun, and he aimed it at the other fella on
the floor. And, I just drew mine and
shot.”
Christopher Hutton was hit twice,
once in the shoulder and once in the head.
The second shot killed him instantly.
Victor Marduk was badly beaten, but the
officers had saved his life.
Despite the confession heard by the
officers, Marduk maintains his client’s
innocence.
“I know that Christopher did not
murder his wife,” contends Marduk. “I
can’t even imagine what being labeled as
a murderer does to an innocent man. I
think he just snapped, as most of us
would under those extraordinary circum-
stances. But, I don’t think that officer
should have shot my client. Christopher
will not have a chance to prove his
innocence now, and that is a tragedy.”
183
 However, after a thorough investi-
gation of the incident, officials deter-
mined that the officers reacted with
proper force.
“I shot him because he would have
shot that lawyer,” Judd defends. “If I
were in the situation again, I’d do the
same thing. I mean, the guy was going to
get the death penalty anyway. He had
nothing to lose, and he would have killed
all of us to get away. I’m just glad that he
wasn’t able to hurt anyone else.”
•••
Christopher was weeping into his shack-
led hands inside a cold, damp holding cell.
Victor sat across from him at a table in the cen-
ter of the room, saying nothing, for he knew
nothing could console his grieving friend.
“Oh, god,” Christopher gasped. “I
didn’t do it, Vic. I could never....” He
winced as the image of his wife’s man-
gled body shown during the trial surged
through his head.
“Chris, I believe you, man,” Victor
consoled. “I know you didn’t do this. But,
it’s not over yet. We’ve still got the
appeals process.”
Christopher was uninterested.
“I can only imagine what’s going
through your head right now, man,”
Victor continued. “It must have been hell
to go through the presentation of all that
evidence knowing that you’re innocent.”
“My prints on that knife,”
Christopher remembered. “Why were
my prints all over the knife, but no
one else’s?”
“There you go,” Victor coached.
“Now you’re thinking.”
“They’re going to kill me, Vic,”
Christopher wept. “I’m going to die.”
“Chris, the reason there were no other
prints on the knife is because that’s not
the knife I used.”
Christopher didn’t seem to hear this,
for he did not react. He was still crying,
and seemed quite oblivious to his
friend’s words.
“I only touched that knife once,
when I moved it from the kitchen and
184
rubbed it on her body. But, even then, I
had my gloves on, and I wasn’t holding
it by the handle.”
Christopher was still unobservant,
sobbing and shuddering into his
cuffed hands.
“Of course,” Victor chuckled slightly,
“April was bleeding so much that I just
had to kind of touch both sides of the
blade to her, and the knife was covered
with as much blood as the one in my back
pocket was.”
With this, Christopher ’s grieving
trance was interrupted. He tilted his
moist face up and studied his friend.
Victor was smiling warmly; calm, col-
lected, and poised. Christopher squint-
ed like a confused puppy, and looked a
pitiful sight.
“What?” he muttered, his voice taut
with confusion.
“Chris, I’m sure you’ve known this
entire time how much I wanted April,”
Victor continued. “Shit, man, since we
were teenagers. I’ve always been jealous
of you. I mean, I’m sure you had to have
seen it.”
Christopher was still quiet, drained of
emotion, but fighting to allow the words
to sink in.
“I told her, man,” Victor shrugged.
“That night. I told her everything,
and she told me to leave. Can you
believe that? She didn’t even think
about it. April really loved you, man.
I mean, she was like insulted that I
would tell her. But I still had to see,
man. So, I kissed her, and she pushed
me right away.”
Christopher shook his head slowly,
his face still perplexed and shaken.
“What? No.... “
“Then she yelled at me, man,” Victor
interrupted. “She said ‘some best friend
you are, you asshole!’” He chuckled a bit.
“She fucking called me a asshole!”
“Vic....” Christopher protested, but he
was interrupted again.
“So, I hit her, and I felt kind of bad
about it, but I hit her, man.” Victor recalled.
“And she went right down. I mean, she hit
the floor quick. So, I just took her.”
 Now it was all appearing on
Christopher’s face, which began to con-
tort with comprehension.
“She fought me the whole way, too,”
Victor elaborated. “I mean, she couldn’t
really scream too much, cause she was
still pretty stunned from the punch, and
besides, my hand was covering her
mouth. But, she fought as much as she
could. I couldn’t come though, cause she
was crying a lot, and I just kind of lost the
will, you know? So, I just kind of pulled
out and pushed up off of her. But, when I
was looking down on her, she fucking
spit in my face, man.”
Victor paused here, for he could see
that Christopher was quickly becoming
aware of what he was saying.
“It really hurt me, man,” Victor stam-
mered. “I mean, I understand it now, but
at the time, it just fucking enraged me. So
I hit her again, really hard this time, right
in the mouth. I don’t know what came
over me, but I stormed into your kitchen
and grabbed a knife out of the drawer, the
biggest one I could see. When I came back
with it, she looked at me with such fury,
and I knew she would tell you what I had
done. So, I just started stabbing her, and I
kept doing it for a long time.”
Now, Christopher ’s face was
shaped with unfathomable anger, and
he tensed in the uncomfortable metal
holding cell chair.
“But, man, even when I was done, I
still wanted her,” Victor chortled. “Can
you believe that? I mean she was a fuck-
ing mess, but it was still April to me. So I
put on a condom and just went for it. And
she couldn’t fight me.”
Christopher’s limbs tensed for attack.
“Damn, Chris. I’ve never come so
hard in my life.” Victor was smiling as he
said it.
Christopher lept out of his chair and
across the table, bellowing an animalistic
cry of pure, agonized rage. “You murder-
er!” He hissed the loathsome word with
intense hatred, then shouted it louder.
“You murderer! You fucking murderer!”
Christopher’s lunging body pushed
Victor out of his chair, and the pair tum-
bled to the hard, unyielding floor.
Christopher began smashing his joined
hands into Victor’s face, striking with all
of his might, but hindered by the hand-
cuffs. When this technique failed to stop
Victor’s winning struggle beneath him,
Christopher gripped his hands tightly
around his quarry’s throat, squeezing
with desperate fury. Somewhere outside
of himself, he heard the door to the cell
open, and a booming voice commanding,
“let him go!”
“Murderer! Fucking murderer!”
Christopher shrieked, tightening his
throat grip with each syllable.
Strong arms suddenly wrapped
around his, and he became aware that
two officers were pulling him away
from Victor. His grip released, and he
began to struggle with the guards as
Victor clutched his throat, gasping for
air. The two officers tried to force
Christopher to the floor, but he pushed
his body back against them, slamming
them against the wall and loosening
their hold on him. Out of the corner of
his eye, Christopher saw the gun in one
guard’s holster, and he lunged for it. He
succeeded in pulling it free, and refo-
cused his aggression on Victor, who
backpedaled away from him across the
floor. Christopher aimed the weapon
and put his finger on the trigger, but
before he could fire, there was a gun-
shot, and he felt warm lead plunge
through his arm, right below the shoul-
der. The impact of the shot ricocheted
his body away from Victor, though he
kept his footing and the gun was still
outstretched into the air, now aimed
toward the direction the bullet had come
from. For a split second, he saw the bar-
rel of the officer’s gun explode with life,
a bright flash of crackling fury. Then, as
the bullet tore through his skull, there
was nothing. Victor’s revelation, and the
scourging anger it had produced, were
erased in a tiny moment of blinding
brevity. Christopher’s body expired in
an instant, and he toppled to the floor,
his dead fingers twitching on the
unfired weapon they clutched.
185