He wondered about the apparent contradiction of a man who preferred the company of children—pedophile was the proper term, but he steadfastly refused to use or acknowledge that word; the girls he chose as companions were practically full-grown adults!—choosing to avoid them for the most part.
Maybe that was why he would never be caught. He was very different from most others of his ilk: men who worked as schoolteachers or counselors or sports coaches or scout leaders or priests because of the opportunities those positions afforded to get close to children. Martin had never really enjoyed being around children, with the exception, of course, of the select few, the nubile, developed, but still na?ve girls he picked out to serve as his special companions.
Thus far, three-and-a-half years into his project, he had chosen well on some occasions and poorly on others, but he knew, he was absolutely, one hundred percent certain, that Carli Ferguson would be perfect for him. And why wouldn’t she be? He hadn’t chosen her, after all, the fates had. And that made all the difference in the world.
Martin sat inside his idling car, pondering these and other issues as he waited on the side of a quiet, redneck back road somewhere on the outskirts of town, the farthest fringes of Stockton, past the water treatment plant, on the very edge of civilization where the forest reclaimed the landscape. The nearest home was probably a quarter-mile away, assuming the broken-down double-wide with the front door hanging halfway off its hinges was even inhabited.
This was where Carli’s bus driver lived. Martin knew it was where she lived because he had followed her home last night at the end of her long shift.
In this little town, as in small towns everywhere, the school bus drivers ferried kids to the high school first thing in the morning, then a few minutes later, they ran the very same routes all over again, this time bringing kids of a slightly younger age to the middle school, and then repeated the whole routine one more time a to bring the youngest children to the town’s only grade school.
At the end of the school day they performed the same ritual all over again, bringing the kids back to their homes from the three schools in the same order: the high school classes ended first, followed by the middle school, and lastly, the grade school. In between, the drivers had a couple of hours to themselves and were allowed to park their buses at their homes rather than take them all the way to the bus company’s lot and then have to pick them up later.
The driver of Carli’s bus, a squat, middle-aged woman with a head of massively frizzy brown hair and sweat stains under her armpits, should be walking out the front door of her dumpy little ranch-style home to begin the afternoon shift any second now, and Martin would be waiting for her. She had backed the bus into her gravel driveway after the morning shift, a fairly impressive feat, he thought, considering the relative sizes of bus and driveway. Now it loomed next to her house, a hulking yellow tin can, facing the road as if prepared for a quick getaway.
Right on cue, the front door swung wide and out waddled the frumpy driver. Martin gunned his engine, pulling the little car skillfully across the end of the driveway, coasting to a stop in front of the bus’s grille as the woman watched, her mouth forming a surprised “O.” Martin could almost see the question mark hanging in the air over her head. She wasn’t afraid, at least not yet, she was just curious. That was why he had come in so fast. Martin had discovered that if you caught them before they had time to realize they should be scared, the sheep were much easier to deal with. More compliant.
He put his best, insincere, I’m-just-a-huckster-with-some-swampland-to-sell-you smile on his face and stepped out of the car, crossing the burned-out brown grass of the small front yard in a few, long strides. It was obvious the woman didn’t give a crap about the condition of her property. It was only late May for crying out loud; the lawn shouldn’t be in this kind of horrible condition for another two months yet.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he started out, “I’m so sorry to intrude, but I was wondering…” He was making it up as he went, riffing, enjoying the opportunity to mess with a stranger. He hardly ever interacted with people, and this was kind of fun. He really should get out more, he thought to himself.
By now he had almost reached the woman and it was just beginning to dawn on her that something was seriously wrong. The grin Martin had plastered on his face was only effective from a distance. Up close, people seemed to recognize that the smile was put-on, probably because the good humor it implied never quite reached his eyes. Martin could see the exact moment the alarm bells started going off in her head, the panic beginning to blossom in her eyes, but by then it was much too late.
She took a couple of shuffling steps backward, wanting to turn and run for the safety of her house but afraid to turn her back on this man who was approaching her for some unknown purpose. It was the wrong move, although by now, it didn’t really matter much. By backing up instead of running she was missing the opportunity to prolong her lifespan by maybe two or three seconds.
As he arrived at a point roughly three feet from the now-fearful bus driver, Martin reached behind his back with his right hand and pulled a razor-sharp combat knife out of a leather sheath on his belt. He held it up with a flourish in front of the astonished woman’s eyes. She drew in a great wheezing breath, about to scream, but didn’t get the chance. With the grace born of practice and preparation, two things Martin Krall believed in greatly, he sliced her throat deftly from right to left, severing her vocal cords, opening a great yawning chasm from which blood splattered like crimson water out of a fire hose.