Page 11 of Stranger Danger

And I’m really sick of being “Crowd” Ira. I’ve had enough of “him” to last me two or three days of solitude in a padded white room.

I drop the vampire cape at the door and slip out the back.

Chapter 3

Ira

The cold air hits me as soon as I get out of my car on Sunday. I put my GPS to a random neighborhood, twelve or thirteen blocks from the campus, just to get a little variation in my life. My last few kills have been in the same circle, and I’m tired of looking at the one blue house with the white fence.

“Crowd” Ira gets to sit in the car like a good little boy and wait.

I am totally back.

Eeny.

Meeny.

Miny.

My finger spins between two houses, then lands on one.

Mo.

I grin beneath the bunny mask, heart pounding loud enough that I feel it in my jaw. My fingertips. All the way down to my toes. It’s electric and freeing—way more erotic than the stupid thumb-tongue moment in the kitchen last night. That was exciting.

This shit’s real.

I skip over to the front door, leaves crunching under my sneakers with every third step. The paint on the house is chipped near the top. The rocking chair outside is missing a leg, leaning to one side, and I end up grinning even harder.

My new pen pal would hate that, wouldn’t he?

Oh my god, we’re pen pals!

That’s so cute. I’ve never had a pen pal before; they stay with you forever, even if you move. The Eunice Strangler won't forget me to go live his life in Missouri.

Three knocks, and the door swings open.

The dude’s older, probably in his fifties or sixties, with a cigarette hanging from his lips. A television is blaring some courtroom show in the back. One chair, one table. One glass. I don’t hear anyone upstairs.

Perfect!

“Congratulations!” I sing, throwing my hands up in the air. “You’ve won our grand prize. I’m so excited to tell you all about it!”

He flicks ash near my sneakers and squints.

“What prize? I didn’t enter no damn prize pool.”

I drop my hands. “Everyone’s automatically entered when they buy two or more packs of cigarettes at qualifying retailers. They didn’t tell you at checkout?”

A couple of kids laugh behind me, someone’s phone video screeching louder than the television and my pulse.

“Y’know,” he says, scratching the back of his head. “I did get two dollars off the other day. I think they said something about mail-in prizes.”

“And that’s just the beginning!”

“Ain’t it a little late? Don’t sweepstakes people come around noon?"

He looks over his shoulder, and his mouth opens again.