I walked through the mall more confidently, hyper-aware of my own authority, and in my mind I was like an Arnold Schwarzenegger character, single-mindedly stalking an enemy.
“He hasn’t gone through the initiation yet,” Philipe said as we followed the man through Sears. “He’s not yet one of us.”
“The initiation?”
“He hasn’t killed yet.”
The man exited Sears and started running down the first aisle of the parking lot. I was about to run after him when Philipe put a hand in front of me, holding me back. “Stay here. We’ll never catch him. Just try to see what kind of car he drives.”
We stood on the sidewalk in front of the store. The man moved between two cars about halfway up the aisle, and a moment later, a yellow VW Bug pulled out.
“He’ll drive by us,” Philipe said. “He wants to see us. Try to get his license plate number.”
Sure enough, instead of exiting down the aisle away from us, he came speeding in our direction. In the second before he turned, I saw through the windshield wild eyes staring out from beneath a large forehead.
Then he was gone.
“Did you get the number?”
“Part of it,” I said. “PTL something. I think the next number was a five, but I’m not sure. It could’ve been a six.”
“Close enough. I saw a Fullerton College parking decal on his bumper. It should be pretty easy to find a yellow Bug in the Fullerton College parking lot with a license plate that starts with PTL.”
We walked back into the mall, through Sears, toward the food court.
“How do you know he hasn’t killed his boss?” I asked.
“You can tell. Something happens during the initiation. Something physical or biological. Something changes within us the first time we kill someone. There’s a definite difference in the way we act. I can’t really explain it, but I know it. It’s real, concrete.” We saw the others, and he motioned for them to join us. “We’ll follow this guy, keep tabs on him. In a few weeks or so, he’ll be ready to join.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” I said. “You don’t know him, you don’t know his family, you don’t know his work situation. What makes you think he
“We all do,” Philipe said, and there was a hint of sadness in his voice. “We all do.”
A week or so later, we staked out the Fullerton College parking lot. We found the VW with no problem, and the rest of us waited in our cars while Tommy, the youngest of us, stood near the Bug.
A few minutes after noon, the man came walking up from the direction of the math building, a load of books beneath his arm. Several other students came out as well, talking in groups or pairs, but our man walked alone.
He reached the VW, unlocked the door.
“Hey!” Tommy said. “Is that your car?”
The man stared at him for a moment. Contrasting emotions were visible on his face: surprise, relief, fear. It was fear that won out, and before Tommy could say anything else, the man had gotten into the Bug, locked his door, and started the engine.
“Wait!” Tommy called.
The man took off.
The rest of us emerged from our hiding places. “He’s getting close,” Philipe said knowingly. “Next time he’ll be ready.”
Through sheer luck, we picked the perfect day. It was about two weeks later, and again we staked out the parking lot. This time the man was not in class but sitting in his car.
He was wearing a Frankenstein mask.
I felt a chill pass through me. I knew exactly what he was going to do. I’d been there. I understood how he felt, what he was going through, but it was strange seeing it this way, watching it as a third party. I felt almost as though I were viewing a film of my own stalking of Stewart. I remembered how alone I’d thought I was, how invisible I’d perceived myself to be, and I knew that this guy felt the same way. He had no clue that we were watching him, that we knew what he was going to do and were waiting for him to do it.
I wanted to walk up to his car right now, let the man know he wasn’t alone, let him know that I and all the others had gone through the same thing. But I also understood, as Philipe had made clear, that this was something he had to go through himself. This was his initiation.
He got out of the Bug clutching a sawed-off shotgun.
We watched him walk across the parking lot toward the quad.
A few minutes later, there came from one of the buildings the sound of a thunderous shotgun blast, followed soon after by another. Faintly, from far off, filtered as though through water, we heard screams.
“Okay,” Philipe said. “I’ll take it from here. You guys meet me at Denny’s. I’m going to talk to this guy, then bring him around.”
We nodded. “All right,” Steve said.
In the rearview mirror of the Buick, I saw the man, dazed and confused, stumbling out to the parking lot, still wearing the Frankenstein mask. He had dropped the shotgun somewhere.
Philipe walked up to him, smiling, waving.
By the time the two of them arrived at Denny’s an hour later, he was one of us.
The man’s name was Tim, and he fit in as well and as quickly as I had. He understood us, was one of us, and he was tremendously excited by the idea that we were Terrorists for the Common Man. He thought that was a brilliant concept.
He also found us a place to live.
We had been staying, since our return, at a series of hotels and motels. Philipe had not wanted us to go back to our old homes, believing that they were not safe, and we’d been searching for a new place to live, someplace where we could all live together.
Tim told us that he’d been living in a model home for the past two months.
“They built a new subdivision off Chapman in Orange, where it goes over the hill toward Irvine. It pretty much sucks in the daytime, since people are tromping through all the time. But at night, it’s empty and it’s great. It’s furnished with
“That sounds great,” I said.
“It’s in a nice new area, and there’s a gate to keep vandals out. It’s the perfect place to stay.”
“It does sound good,” Philipe admitted. “Let’s check it out.”
It was a weekday and there was no one house-shopping, but we still passed through the sales office unnoticed, unaccosted by any of the salespeople. We all grabbed brochures, and we walked into the gated cul-de- sac to check out the first model.
All of the houses were wonderful, all very expensive and very expensively furnished. There were five huge houses, and thirteen of us, so there was plenty of living space. Philipe took the largest house, Tim’s house, and said that he would be sharing the place with both Tim and Paul so that he’d be there if they needed any help or had any questions. I took the mock-Tudor next door with James and John.
We went back to our current place of residence — the Holiday Inn in Tustin — and gathered up our belongings and personal effects. It was getting late. It was already after five, and I wanted to go straight back to the house, but James wanted to do some shopping, pick up some snacks, and John was going to hitch a ride with Steve and pick up his van, which was still at our previous motel, so I gave James the keys to the Buick and caught a ride back with Junior, who was driving the new Jaguar he had obtained last week in our latest raid.
Junior and I drove to the new housing development, and we each took our own suitcases from the tiny trunk.
“You still have anything back at the hotel?” he asked me.
“Another box.”
“Me, too. You want a ride back tomorrow?”
I nodded.
