COMPANION

The killer had used many different names in his lifetime. Today, he was going by the name of Edward Thrask. He was happy with it. Thrask. It sounded a lot like thrash, or casket. It suited him well.

He could see the girl’s house in the distance. He was parked in a vacant lot about a hundred yards away. The Chevy pickup truck he had stolen appeared natural to the environment. It wouldn’t stick out in that neighborhood, he knew. Half the people in the area seemed to be driving one.

With the vehicle angled toward the house, he took his binoculars from the passenger seat to survey his surroundings. Despite the Chevy’s inconspicuousness, Thrask had to be careful while using the binoculars. A man sitting alone in a parked truck was one thing. But a man spying on a young woman’s home from a not-too-far distance was another. The last thing he needed was for some nosy bystander to spot him and call the police.

Even still, Thrask was generally confident that he wouldn’t hit any such problems for the time being. The neighborhood seemed particularly segregated from the nearby town. The girl’s house sat alone on the corner of the street, hidden by patches of trees and a tiny field of grass. Her nearest neighbor was several hundred yards away. Every now and then a car would cruise by, but none of the drivers seemed to pay much attention to Thrask’s Chevy. It looked as natural to the landscape as the snow covered fields and leafless trees that protected the girl’s tiny home.

He was alone. And free to work.

The girl seemed to spend a lot of time inside the house, he discovered. In the four days that he’d been in town, he’d only seen her leave twice. Once to throw some breadcrumbs out to the birds and once again to sweep the snow off her front porch.

She lived alone, he knew. She was quiet. Harmless.

This one will be easy, he decided. A young woman, living alone in a small, relatively secluded house. It’ll be simple. Routine.

- - - -

“So why don’t you get on with it?” a deep voice suddenly asked.

Still in the Chevy, with his concentration focused on the house, Thrask was mildly startled by the sudden inquiry. Forgetting his binoculars for the moment, he turned sharply toward the Chevy’s passenger seat, ready to confront the voice’s owner.

He was relieved when he saw who was there. “What are you doing here?” he asked sharply. “I thought we agreed that you’ll only come to me when I’m alone.”

“You are alone, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” Thrask insisted to his newly arrived companion in a harsh tone. “We’re outside, hidden by the environment, but still in the open. Someone could drive by and see us. Or a hiker could emerge from the forest.”

“Exactly,” the companion agreed. “Which is precisely why I’m here. It’s still daylight, yet you chose to watch your target through binoculars from a stolen vehicle. What if a passing motorist or a hiker were to see that?”

Thrask paused for a moment, thinking to himself. The companion was right. There were techniques that needed to be followed. There were rules to the act of surveillance that he wasn’t observing at the present. He wasn’t being professional. In fact, his actions almost seemed sloppy. The companion was letting him know this.

He placed the binoculars under his seat.

“I suppose you’re right. I’m being careless. Thank you for reminding me. But you have to understand, I must be completely alone when we talk.”

Thrask was the only person who could see or hear the companion. No one else could summon him. No one else could witness his presence or engage in discussions with him. He was an entity that belonged only to Thrask. A spirit that only he could converse with. That’s why Thrask insisted on being alone when the companion appeared. If anyone were to see him talking to the companion, they’d think that he was talking to himself. They’d think that he was strange or unstable. Thrask understood how the human mind worked. He knew that there were people in the world who were prone to hallucinations and delusions. People whose minds were weak. Whose minds were overrun with uncontrollable voices that made them appear foolish. Insane. If a bystander were to see Thrask talking to the companion, it would look as if he were talking to himself, and they’d most likely assume that he too was succumbing to a hallucination or a delusion. This couldn’t be allowed.

The companion was not a hallucination, Thrask knew. The companion was a spirit, a product of a higher plane of conscience that only he could achieve. But the layman wouldn’t understand this. The layman would just assume that he was mentally ill. That’s why Thrask insisted on being alone, preferably in a locked room, when the companion came to him.

“You’ve made your point,” Thrask said. “I’ve put the binoculars away. You can go now.”

The companion stayed put. “Why are you in such a hurry for me to leave?”

“I told you already. I can’t be seen in public with you. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous? And what are you afraid of?” the companion quickly asked. “Are you afraid that people will see you talking to yourself and think you’re crazy?”

Thrask shot him stern look. “I’m not crazy,” he insisted.

“I know you’re not.”

“Don’t ever say that again.”

“I won’t. But you have to be more careful with your work. How long have you been in town?”

Thrask returned his attention to the distant house. “Four days,” he answered.

“You’ve seen the girl?”

“Yes.”

“You know her movements. You know her patterns.”

“That’s right.”

“So what you have,” the companion began, “is a twenty-two year old woman who lives alone, doesn’t have any boyfriends, no husband, she doesn’t even have a damn phone. She’s vulnerable, an easy target.”

“It would appear so.”

“So why the delay?” the companion asked. “Why watch her now?”

“Caution.”

“Bull shit,” the companion declared. “This isn’t about caution. If so, you wouldn’t be here in broad daylight watching for her. You want to know what I think? I think you’re attracted to her.”

Thrask said nothing.

“Am I wrong?” the companion prodded.

Thrask stared straight ahead toward the house. His silence was the only answer that the companion needed.

“It’s not right,” the companion pointed out. “You can’t be attracted to her, because you can’t be attractive for her. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

Thrask nodded silently.

“And what did you see?”

Thrask said nothing.

“I’ll tell you what you saw. Ugliness. You’re jawbone is freakishly large. Your skin is coarse and leather-tough. Your nose is crooked and your hair is receding and falling out. You’re unattractive. No woman would want you. So don’t you see? You can’t be attracted to this one. She wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”

“You don’t know that,” Thrask offered.

“Don’t I? Or perhaps I’m right and you just don’t want to admit it.”

Thrask wanted to argue with the companion. He wanted to declare to the companion that he was not ugly. That he could have this woman if he wanted her. But he couldn’t make that argument. Because the companion was right. Thrask was an ugly man and he knew it. Everything the companion had said was true. His jawbone was too big. His nose was crooked. And because of this, the young woman, whose house he was now watching, would never give herself to him. That’s why he hadn’t killed her just yet. It would be easy enough. A simple task. But instead of getting on with it, he had chosen to hang back, as if watching her from a distance would somehow cure the affliction of unattractiveness in which he suffered.

“You can’t escape what you are,” the companion insisted.

Thrask knew that he was right. The companion was always right.

“Do you even know what you are?” the companion asked.

Thrask nodded gently.

“Say it.”

“I’m a killer,” Thrask muttered.

“What else?”

“I’m ugly.”

“That’s right,” the companion insisted. “So what are you going to do?”

“Kill the girl,” Thrask said softly.

“Say it again.”

“I’ll kill the girl.”

“Louder!”

“I’ll kill the damn girl!”

“See that you do.”

With that, Thrask shifted his attention from the girl’s house and focused it back toward the Chevy’s passenger seat, but the companion had disappeared. As quickly as he had come, the companion was gone. Vanished. He had gone back to his resting place, leaving Thrask alone once again.

Cautiously, Thrask surveyed his surroundings, checking carefully to make sure that no one had seen him shouting to the companion. As far as he could tell, no one was in sight. No one had seen him.

Thrask was relieved. If anyone had seen him talking to the companion, they’d think he was crazy. He couldn’t have that.

Sometimes, power can be passed off as delusion. But the companion was not a product of a sick mind, Thrask knew. The companion was a gift. The companion was wisdom. And in this case, he was right. The girl was not supposed to live, Thrask knew. He had a job to do. Surveillance was no longer necessary. He knew her patterns. He knew her movements. He could make his move at any time.

From his vantage point just a few hundred feet away, he watched as the young woman left her house and started for town.

- - - -

He had been innocent at first. Young. Uncorrupted. As a boy, he liked to fly kites in his neighbor’s field, catch frogs in a nearby pond, and play in the local bear caves, scratching pictures on the sides with stones and pretending they’d been drawn by Indians. He never killed anything at first. And that was probably the most tragic thing of all. Death. It hadn’t interested him. He had never been curious about it. Not until he witnessed it first hand. Then things had started to change.

Some believe that it began when his Uncle Will came to live with them. Will had just gotten out of prison, and with nowhere else to go, he came back to stay with the boy and his mother. Will didn’t show much kindness to the boy, but the boy was fascinated with his uncle just the same. Maybe it was because his own father had long since left. Or maybe it was the fact that Will had been in prison. For whatever the reason, he began following his Uncle Will whenever he could. He had to be careful though, because his mother had told him not to bother his uncle. And Will, on more than one occasion, had taken a belt to him whenever he was caught following. But that didn’t stop the boy. He liked spying on the man too much.

So he watched his uncle go out drinking. He watched his uncle go into rooms with strange women. He watched his uncle get in fights, break into cars, steal from his mother. And he even watched his uncle kill. That had happened on a summer night in the forest out back. He’d followed Will and another man, being careful to hide behind trees and not rustle any sticks or leaves. It hadn’t been hard to go unheard. Both men were drinking and carrying on loud enough to mask his pursuit. The other man was one of Will’s friends. Something called a drinking buddy. But it didn’t take long for their friendship to end. The more they drank, the more they got to arguing over things. Money that was owed. Promises not kept. Some woman’s name even popped up here and there. It got so heated that they came to fists over it. The fists then changed to rocks. The rocks then gave way to beer bottles. And the fight didn’t end until the broken shards of Will’s bottle were buried into his drinking buddy’s throat. The boy had watched as all of this unfold. He even watched as his uncle scratched out a shallow grave for the man.

After that, the boy became more and more interested in death. Instead of catching pond frogs with a net, he started using a spear. He noticed how the blackbirds would forage in the metal trashcans out back. This gave him an idea. He placed mousetraps, baited with bread, inside of them. Once, he was even able to trap two blackbirds at the same time. So he got a length of twine, tied them together at the feet, let them go, and watched as they fluttered away in a frantic haze, bumping and banging into each other as they tried to separate, then stopping completely when the twine got tangled in a tree branch, trapping them there where they starved, and died, and rotted. It didn’t take too long for that novelty to wear off. That’s when the boy had graduated to cats and dogs.

- - - -

Her name was Angie, and Thrask enjoyed watching her.

From his position in the truck, he could see her leave the house and start down the long sidewalk toward town. A light snow flurry started to fall, compelling her to dress in a heavy coat, gloves, and scarf. Yet even with such a bundle, Thrask allowed himself to imagine how she may look underneath. Thin. Soft skinned. She wasn’t a particularly handsome woman, but there was a solidity to her features that gave her a rare sort of beauty. She seemed to be untouched. Uncorrupted.

And modest. The house she lived in was small. Its roof was warped and probably leaked. The paint was chipped and falling apart. One of the windows was broken, with only a plastic bag tapped over it to keep out the elements. No telephone or cable lines could be found going into the house. No car sat in the garage. As it seemed, despite her youth, she chose to live as primitively as anyone in this day and age could. Even her clothes were second-hand and out of style. To Thrask, she was unique. He wanted to know her.

Ever since he’d seen her at the grocery store four days earlier, he had followed her from a distance. Watching. Learning.

Still parked in the truck, he looked on as she walked alone. Her image grew smaller as the distance between them increased, until she was just a speck standing at a bus stop along side the road. He was tempted to take the binoculars from under the seat, but the memory of the companion’s warning caused him not to. After a few minutes, the bus arrived at the stop, and Angie got on. Now he had some time.

After the bus pulled away and was gone, Thrask eased out of the Chevy and briskly walked toward the house. Now that she was away, he had an opportunity to investigate her home. He wanted to see how she lived. What her interests were. How well she cleaned, what she threw away, what she collected. It all added up to a description of her. It was like a blueprint to her personality. A way of getting to know her.

When he reached the door, he found that it was locked, but not in any serious way. With a few skillful motions, he picked it and quickly entered. The temperature inside was even cooler than it was outside. The place was also dark. Thick drapes were hung over the windows, keeping any sunlight at bay and casting the opening of the house in a sort of homey darkness. Thrask found it inviting. The living room came first. And despite the rundown appearance of the house’s exterior, this room was relatively clean and well kept. The furniture was old and musty, and the carpet was worn and coming up in places, but the rest of the room was neat. The tables were free of clutter. The surfaces had been dusted and organized. It was pleasant.

But Thrask wasn’t interested in the living room. As if tethered to a leash, he felt himself being pulled forward to another area of the house. The bedroom. After a brief search, he found it. Like the living room, it was in good order. Dirty clothes were in the hamper. The dresser and bedside table were dust free. The bed was neatly made. A thick flowered quilt sat on top the mattress, pulled tight enough to bounce a quarter off of. He liked her bed. The smoothness of it. How soft and comfortable it looked, almost daring him to lay down in it.

“So why are we here?” a voice asked.

Thrask turned to his right and saw the companion.

“Don’t look at me like that,” the companion ordered. “We’re alone. No one can see that you’re talking to me.”

“Perhaps not. But I’m busy. I don’t want to talk now.” Thrask was more than a little annoyed with the companion’s recent uninvited appearances. Ultimately, as well as historically, the companion was a product of his will, a force which Thrask was able to summon whenever he chose. He wasn’t accustomed to these sudden visits. “You’d better go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m busy.”

The companion snickered. “Busy indeed. With what? What can you possibly learn by being here that you don’t already know? Kill the girl.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

The companion paused, taking a moment to study Thrask’s appearance. “I see.” He surveyed the bedroom. “You’re attracted to this one. That’s why we’re here. In the bedroom. You have thoughts of being with her.”

“No, I don’t.”

The companion only laughed. “Yes, you do. Why else would you spend this much time watching her? Why else would you be here, in the bedroom? You want to be with her.”

Thrask said nothing.

“Do you want to force yourself on her?”

“No,” Thrask answered. He was being honest. In all his years, he’d never forced himself on a woman. He had stayed away from closeness. He simply listened to the companion, and killed.

“So you don’t want to force yourself on her,” the companion continued. “But you still want her. You want her to want you. But you’re ugly. So you watch her, you hope that maybe her humble, modest ways will cause her to look past your ugliness. You come to her bedroom, and dream that you would be welcome there. But you’re not. And you never will be. And you know it. She’d call the cops on you the first chance she gets. She’d have you arrested, tried for your past crimes. Have you sent to prison, or maybe the mental institution. But worst of all, she’d reject you. Just like the others. Because you’re ugly.”

Thrask remained silent.

“So where does that leave us? I’ll tell you where. It leaves us where we’ve always been. It leaves us here. Alone. With just one purpose. Kill the girl.”

Thrask nodded.

“So what will you do?” the companion asked.

“I’ll wait here, and kill the girl.”

The companion left as quickly as he had come, and Thrask was alone once again, in the bedroom, where his secret desires died as swiftly as the girl surely would. He turned and left the room, allowing no opposition to the companion’s demands. Having only loyalty to the voice that had guided him for so long.

- - - -

It didn’t take long for the boy to get tired of the dogs and cats. He needed to find something else to hurt, like the other kids at school perhaps. So one day, he hit another student. The kid yelled, “ooouuuuch!” He liked that. It sounded a lot like the sound the cats would make when he poked them. Meeooowww. It was a painful sound. Full of sorrow. And when people made that sound, the thrill was even greater. For a long time, he felt content with that. Hitting. Poking. Listening to the sounds people made when they were in pain. That had been enough at first.

He hadn’t heard the voice until later. Not until he got older. Seventeen. A young man. Back then, the voice had been formless. He couldn’t see who had spoken it. He’d only heard it. The messages had been simple. Often only single words. Hurt. Kill. Now. Sometimes, he’d watch people he didn’t like. And he would think of the voice. And listen to it. At first, listening was all he did. Hurt. Kill. Now. He had never followed those vague orders. Not right away. But he wanted to. Because they seemed right. And the more he listened, the easier it was to imagine a use for the voice, to find someone to use the voice’s orders on. Like his uncle who still lived at his home. Whose drinking had gotten worse. Who still stole money. Who still got in fights and brought home cheap women. One night, Uncle Will took to hitting one of the women he’d brought home. The young man stayed in the next room, and listened to the woman’s cries of pain. They were longer and more sorrow-filled than anything he’d ever inflicted on a cat or classmate. The slap of a hand across a face. The cries for mercy. It almost sounded musical.

The young man beat another neighborhood boy even harder after that. Again, the sound of increasing pain brought him closer to voice he’d been hearing. Hurt. Kill. Now. Not long after that, he learned his final lesson from his uncle. He found the man dead one day. He was strangled, shot twice in the stomach, lying by a tree out in the back yard. He must have stolen from the wrong person or beaten on the wrong woman. He wasn’t quite dead when the young man found him. He was still wheezing for air, blood running from his wounds. His throat was too beaten up to utter words. This was the greatest suffering the young man had seen yet. A person, close to death. Physically destroyed and full of fear. After his uncle died, the voice grew stronger. Vague words became sentences. Sentences that offered suggestions and ideas. Ideas about his future. Ideas about a kind of work that might suit him.

- - - -

As dusk approached, Thrask sat in the living room and waited for Angie to return. A semi-automatic pistol rested on his lap. A silencer was screwed into the barrel. He had been wearing a thin pair of leather gloves the entire time so as not to leave prints in the house. His hair was always cut short, lowering the risk that any would fall out and be left behind as evidence. He was always cautious about his work, and never left behind anything that might link him to any other killings he’d performed.

Angie would be home soon. And soon after, she’d be dead.

After leaving the bedroom, Thrask had left the rest of the house alone and took a seat on the living room couch. He didn’t need to see anything else. Like the companion had said, she would never accept him. Fantasy would only lead to disappointment.

So instead, he sat, with his finger on the trigger, and waited.

“You’re still having doubts,” a familiar voice said.

Turning, Thrask found himself sitting next to the companion.

“I didn’t summon you,” he said annoyed. “I don’t need you now.”

The companion grinned. “I think you do. You forget. I know what you’re thinking. And part of you is contemplating mercy. Why?”

Thrask didn’t answer.

“And you think you don’t need me,” the companion said. “Why show mercy for this one and none of the others. What makes her so special? What makes her more deserving of mercy than any of the others?”

“I… don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what makes her more deserving. Absolutely nothing. She’s just another mark. Just another target. You know what has to be done.”

Sadly, Thrask did know. He trusted what the companion had to say. The companion had always been there. In truth, he’d had these types of thoughts before. During other jobs. Other assignments. Part of him had wanted to show mercy. Part of him had wanted to stop killing. But the companion had always been there, encouraging him, pushing him, showing him what to do, showing him how to act without being caught, how to be cautious. Efficient.

Thrask would have never made it this long without the companion. Somehow, he always knew that whenever the companion spoke, he would have to obey. And the companion spoke often. About death mostly. And whenever he had thoughts about stopping, the companion would always be there to see that he didn’t.

“What skills did you learn when you left home to become a man?” the companion asked.

“How to kill.”

“And why did you learn this?”

“Because I had the talent.”

“And you had me,” the companion added. “You have something special. Something rare that no one else could claim. That’s why you do what you do. That’s why you’ve survived this long. And that’s why you have to do this now. When she comes home, kill her.”

“I will.”

“What do you want?”

“Blood.”

“When do you want it?”

“Now.”

“What will you do?”

“Kill.”

The companion left.

But his message was clear. Kill. Thrask’s attraction to the girl didn’t matter. The companion wanted only death.

Sometimes Thrask would close his eyes and imagine simple things. A car. A job. A house. A dog. A mind without voice. No sacrifice. No pain. But then he’d remember Uncle Will. A criminal. A violent man. And he’d remember how curiosity had grown to obsession. And how voices then became words. Words became sentences. Sentences became form. The companion, who guided him. Who taught him to enjoy death. To perform it. To follow the voice.

He heard footsteps on the front porch.

Angie was home.

- - - -

At the age of eighteen, he left home. He had nothing. But that didn’t matter. The voice showed him how to survive. The voice was always there for him. A companion. Teaching him what he needed to know. Speaking to him. And then there were the clients. He soon came to learn that there was an abundance of work out there for a man of his tastes. Wives that wanted to snuff out their husbands. Businessmen who wanted to eliminate the competition. Young people with scores to settle. It wasn’t hard to find them. And he was always cautious. Keeping mobile. Changing his name. He got use to being careful. And the work paid. A hundred dollars here. Two hundred dollars there. It allowed him to stay on the move. He went all over the country, from one extreme to the other, applying his self-taught trade. Earning his keep. Sometimes, there wouldn’t even be a client involved. Just the companion’s insistence. Like with Angie. Some people just had to die. Reasons weren’t important.

- - - -

Just before Angie entered, Thrask debated over how exactly he would do it. He could put a bullet through her body the moment she stepped through the threshold. That would be quick and simple. Or he could make his presence known. Maybe show her the gun. Give her a few simple commands. Watch the frightened look on her face. See the fear grow insider of her. He preferred that option. It was much more interesting than a quick death.

As the door opened, he sat quietly on the living room couch.

A wash of cool winter air preceded her. Then she entered, carrying a sack of groceries. Her cheeks were rosy from the bite of the outside wind. The breeze died after she closed the door.

Then she looked up, and saw him. He was like a shadow, seated in the dark living room. His legs crossed. One arm draped over the sofa’s brim. The other resting in his lap as he clutched the pistol.

He stayed just like that, waiting for her gasp, the first tool of the startled. Then would come the broken voiced question. “Who are you?” she’d ask. Maybe she’d drop the groceries. Then panic.

Inside the house now, shielded by a closed door, she looked at him.

And grinned.

Thrask had been in this position many times. But he’d never seen that reaction. A gasp. A startled shout. At least a frown.

But not now. Instead, the tables were turned. Angie bore the smile that he usually possessed.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

Thrask didn’t know what to say.

“I thought you’d never work up the nerve.”

Regaining his power of speech, Thrask said, “You knew I was watching you?”

She nodded. “Only because I’ve been watching you even longer.”

Thrask jumped from the sofa, aiming his pistol at her. “What are you? A cop?” He ran to the window, looking to see if a SWAT team was ready to burst in.

Angie giggled. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

He was about to protest, but she stopped him before he could. Clutching his free arm playfully, she led him into the kitchen and to the basement door. “Come on,” she insisted, as if they were going on a carnival ride at the county fair. Overwhelmed by the bizarreness of her response, he let himself follow her into the basement’s darkness. At once, he noticed a pungent odor of decay.

She clicked on a light, casting the dingy cramped cellar in an orange glow. She didn’t seem to mind the stink. In fact, she inhaled it rather enthusiastically.

She took him to the far corner where the producer of the smell was sitting.

Two corpses. An old man and an old woman sat in a pile of death. Their bodies were bloated from the beginning of decomposition.

His eyes beseeched her for an explanation.

“I killed them,” she said with a giddy chuckle. “This isn’t my house. It was theirs. I needed a place to stay. So I slipped in here, strangled them, drug them down here, and made myself at home.”

“Why?”

“To meet you,” she answered. “Do you remember two weeks ago when you killed that guy in Sexton? I was going to do that job, but you beat me to the client. I decided to see how you worked. So I watched you. I liked your style. Then I followed you here. After I killed these two, I went to find you. I saw you at the grocery store and went in, hoping that you’d notice me. When you trailed me back to here, I knew it would only be a matter of time before you approached me.”

“You wanted to meet me?”

“Sure.”

“Why?”

She gave him a shy smile. “Because. You’re kind of cute.”

His mind swirled, stunned by such an unexpected response. But it made sense. When he’d seen her at the store, he knew that there was something special about her. That’s why he followed her for so long. They had made some kind of special connection that day. He’d thought it was just a physical attraction. Little did he know that she had been following him, having felt the bond when she’d first seen him back at Sexton. She wasn’t just another potential victim. She was something that he never knew existed. Another person that shared his interests.

“It’s a trick,” a familiar voice insisted.

Standing next to Angie, the companion had appeared. He leered at Thrask disapprovingly. “This can’t be real. She’s tricking you.”

“No, she isn’t,” Thrask insisted.

“She can’t like you. You’re ugly.”

“No I’m not. Stop saying that. I’m tired of you saying that.”

Then Thrask realized. I’m talking to the companion. She can’t see him. She’ll think I’m talking to myself. She’ll think I’m crazy! But the expression on Angie’s face held nothing but understanding. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know what’s happening. I’ve been there myself. Go ahead and deal with him. I’ll wait until you’re done.”

“Kill her!” The companion ordered.

“No,” Thrask said.

“No? No! What do you mean no? I’m the one you listen too! I’ve been there all your life! You listen to me!”

“No. Not anymore.”

“But I’m… your partner. I’m…”

The voice started to fade, as did the image of the companion. Until there was nothing left of him. And Thrask was alone with Angie.

“He’s gone,” Thrask said.

Angie nodded.

“But how?”

She shrugged.

Maybe it was that simple. Maybe, his mind had created the companion to give him another voice to confer with. And maybe such a voice wasn’t needed anymore. Maybe he’d found a new form of companionship, a form that now rendered his own inner voices obsolete.

Angie grabbed his gun-free hand. “Let’s go upstairs. There’s so much I want to talk to you about. Wait until you hear what I once did with my pet cat.”

Thrask followed her out of the stench-ridden basement. He had heard the saying for years, and he never would have believed it. But as it now seemed, he guessed they were right. There really is someone for everybody.

- - - -

Rumors floated around for years. In time, the rumors grew into legends. Some people would even remember the names involved. Like Mr. and Mrs. Hughes who owned that boarding house that burned down with seven people inside. Or Mike and Joanne Dawson who were the only people to survive when that cruise ship, the one they say was sabotaged, sank to the bottom of the Pacific. There were other stories also. Ones that came later. Like the one about the Gilbert brothers who led that rampage through their high school, killing eight classmates and four teachers. People often wondered about those kid’s parents. Who they really were. How they met. To this day, no one really knows just how big their family actually got. Or what their grandchildren are up to.