Mr. Murder

tell her that all of her pets had been killed.

“Oh, okay. Then it’s a good thing it wasn’t Mrs. Sanchez who went totally berserk.”

“Who you calling, Daddy?” Emily asked as the first ring sounded at the far end of the line.

“Grandma and Grandpa.”

“Tell them I’m gonna make a cone sculpture for them.”

“Boy,” Charlotte said, “that’ll thrill the puke out of ’em.”

The phone rang a third time.

“They like my art,” Emily insisted.

Charlotte said, “They have to—they’re your grand-parents. ”

Four rings.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the Snow Queen, either,” Emily said.

“I am too.”

Five.

“No, you’re the Snow Troll.”

“You’re the Snow Toad,” Charlotte countered.

Six.

“Snow Worm.”

“Snow Maggot.”

“Snow Snot.”

“Snow Puke.”

Marty gave them a warning look, which put a stop to the name-calling competition, though they stuck their tongues out at each other.

After the seventh ring, he put his finger on the END button. Before he could push it, however, the connection was made.

Whoever picked up the receiver didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” Marty said. “Mom? Dad?”

Managing to sound both angry and sad, the man on the other end of the line said, “How did you win them over?”

Marty felt as if ice had formed in his veins and marrow, not because of the penetrating cold in the cabin but because the voice that responded to him was a perfect imitation of his own.

“Why would they love you more than me?” The Other demanded, his voice tremulous with emotion.

A mantle of dread settled on Marty, and a sense of unreality as disorienting as any nightmare. He seemed to be dreaming while awake.

He said, “Don’t touch them, you son of a bitch. Don’t you lay one finger on them.”

“They betrayed me.”

“I want to talk to my mother and father,” Marty demanded.

“My mother and father,” The Other said.

“Put them on the phone.”

“So you can tell them more lies?”

“Put them on the phone now,” Marty said between clenched teeth.

“They can’t listen to any more of your lies.”

“What have you done?”

“They’re finished listening to you.”

“What have you done?”

“They wouldn’t give me what I needed.”

With understanding, dread became grief. For a moment Marty could not find his voice.

The Other said, “All I needed was to be loved.”

“What have you done?” He was shouting. “Who are you, what are you, damn it, what are you, what have you done?”

Ignoring the questions, answering them with questions of its own, The Other said, “Have you turned Paige against me? My Paige, my Charlotte, my sweet little Emily? Do I have any hope of getting them back or will I have to kill them too?” The voice cracked with emotion. “Oh God, is there even blood in their veins any more, are they human any more, or have you made them into something else?”

Marty realized they could not conduct a conversation. It was madness to try. However much they might look and sound alike, they were without any common ground. In fundamental ways, they were as unlike each other as if they had been members of different species.

Marty pushed the END button.

His hands were shaking so badly that he dropped the phone.

When he turned from the window, he saw the girls were standing together, holding hands. They were staring, pale and frightened.

His shouting into the telephone had brought Paige out of one of the bedrooms where she had been adjusting the electric heater.

Images of his parents’ faces and treasured memories of a life of love crowded into his mind, but he resolutely repressed them. If he gave in to grief now, wasted precious time in tears, he would be condemning Paige and the girls to certain death.

“He’s here,” Marty said, “he’s coming, and we don’t have much time.”

PART THREE

New Maps of Hell

Those who would banish the sin of greed embrace the sin of envy as their creed. Those who seek to banish envy as well, only draw elaborate new maps of hell.

Those with passion to change the world, look on themselves as saints, as pearls, and by the launching of noble endeavor, flee dreaded introspection forever.

—The Book of Counted Sorrows

Laugh at tyrants and the tragedy they inflict. Such men welcome our tears as evidence of subservience, but our laughter condemns them to ignominy.

—Endless River, Laura Shane

Six

1

He stands in his parents’ kitchen, watching the falling snow through the window above the sink, shaking with hunger, and wolfing down leftover meatloaf.

This is one of those decisive moments that separate real heroes from pretenders. When all is darkest, when tragedy piles on tragedy, when hope seems to be a game only for idiots and fools, does Harrison Ford or Kevin Costner or Tom Cruise or Wesley Snipes or Kurt Russell quit? No. Never. Unthinkable. They are heroes. They persevere. Rise to the occasion. They not only deal with adversity but thrive on it. From sharing the worst moments of those great men’s lives, he knows how to cope with emotional devastation, mental depression, physical abuse in enormous quantities, and even the threat of alien domination of the earth.

Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.

He must not dwell on the tragedy of his parents’ deaths. The creatures he destroyed were surely not his mother and father, anyway, but mimics like the one that has stolen his own life. He might never learn when his real parents were murdered and replaced, and in any event he must delay grieving for them.

Thinking too much about his parents—or about anything—is not merely a waste of precious time but anti-