Page 1 of Heat Lightning

PART ONE

ONE

THE MASKED MAN

I fucking loved hunting people.

It wasn’t glamorous. Tucked away in a dark alley, I’d spent three nights in a row hunkered behind a dumpster that stank of rot, with no airflow to relieve my watering eyes.

The summer night remained hot even though the sun had set an hour ago, and the decaying food waste—among other organic matter that was better left unmentioned—gave the alley an unnaturally swampy feel.

I plucked at the knit mask covering my face, desperate for a cool breeze. My air-conditioned car called to me, sweeter than any siren song, but I couldn’t move just yet.

Not until my target did.

Across the alley from where I hid, Joseph Weber took one last drag from his cigarette and flicked it away. His ever-growing clump of spent butts shifted closer and closer each day to a pile of plywood and leaf debris stacked up against the brick exterior of his place of work, but that didn’t seem to concern him.

I wouldn’t lose sleep over it, either. He wouldn’t be alive long enough for it to matter.

Despite the overflowing trash bins reeking of spoiled dairy and piss, I was exactly where I wanted to be. There was something about the way people acted when they thought they were alone and unobserved that made my blood sing.

Now, I didn’t mean walking around the house naked after showering, talking to yourself, or rubbing one out before bed. Everyone did that. None of it phased me anymore. One thing I’d learned from all my years of people watching was there were surprisingly few original human experiences.

I also wasn’t referencing the vile things my targets did to end up on my radar in the first place. The fact that they raped, murdered, or liked watching kids at the playground a little too much may be the reason I was there, but I didn’t want to be around when they did it.

I was a killer, not a pervert. The distinction mattered.

To me, anyway.

No. What made my heart whoosh in my ears more than anything else, more than sex or a good meal or canceled social obligations, was the unguarded drop of someone’s shoulders just before I slid my knife across their throat. It was the slow, easy breathing of a beast that didn’t know a bigger, hungrier predator lurked in the shadows of their room, waiting to pounce.

It was the way Joseph Weber stared down at his glowing phone screen, completely unaware his demise waited behind an overflowing dumpster twenty yards away.

Yeah. I lived and breathed for the hunt.

Afterwards, things just got messy. I cared very little for the dying words of a pedophile, and even less about offering dignity in death.

I did care about going to prison, though. All that bright light and noise twenty-four-seven was a hard pass. A few faces flashed through my mind; the ones who would suffer the most should my life, and thus theirs, become a criminal trial circus.

I cared about them, too.

So, I was careful. I lived by a few simple rules that ensured I wasn’t caught by the police, or worse, someone avenging an old target: keep calm, plan ahead, and don’t leave any witnesses.

Oh, and don’t be a hero. Getting caught up in trying to save every innocent person from the evils of humanity wasn’t productive. I did what I could and slept easier for it.

Just as my target lit up his second cigarette, the heavy metal door behind him swung open, and a figure stood next to him under the lone street light.

I sat up.

“Hot in there,” the newcomer said, fanning the hem of his shirt while his eyes flicked to my target and then away.

I couldn’t discern their color from this distance, but his hair shone golden under the fluorescent glow, and the eyeglasses perched on his slightly upturned nose accentuated his high cheekbones. He coughed when a plume of smoke drifted into his face.

“Well, you’re out here now, so it’ll cool down soon enough,” Weber answered with a leering wink.

I bared my teeth at the way the boy blushed. I couldn’t scent him, not with the heavy cigarette smoke masking everything else, but he looked… warm. Tasty. Like the gooey center of a cinnamon roll.

No one should blush for Joseph fucking Weber, least of all someone so soft. He clearly had no concern for giving the boy second-hand smoke-induced health problems. Or for committing negligent arson.