I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Author:Dan Wells
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Mystery, Fiction - Espionage, Horror, Fiction, Suspense, Horror fiction, Serial murderers, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Thriller
ISBN: 9780765322470
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-03-30T07:00:00+00:00

I AM NO T A S E RI AL KI L L E R

yard and talks and laughs and pretends that nothing is wrong, and meanwhile all our empty houses are ripe for burglary. This particular party was not about burglary, however, but serial killing—we were all gathered in a large, “safe” group, watching out for each other. There was even a little speech about safety, and locking your doors, and that kind of thing. I wanted to tell them that the safest thing they could do was to not bring everyone into Mr. Crowley's back yard, but he seemed tame enough that night. If he was capable of flipping out and murdering fifty people at once, he was at least not inclined to do it right then. I wasn't ready to attack him yet, either—I was still trying to learn more about him. How could I kill something that had already regenerated from a hail of bullets? This kind of thing takes planning, and planning takes time. More than to talk about safety, the real purpose of the party was to convince ourselves that we hadn't been beaten—that even with a killer in town, we weren't afraid, and we weren't going to collapse into a mob. Whatever. More important than any hollow declaration of bravery was the fact that we were roasting hot dogs, which meant I got to stoke a fire in the Crowleys' fire pit. I started with a massive blaze, burning huge blocks of wood from a dead tree the Watsons had cut out of their backyard over the summer. The fire was bright and warm, perfect for starting the party, and then as the safety talk dragged on, I went to work with the poker and a long pair of tongs, shaping and cultivating the fire to produce thick beds of bright-red coals. Cooking fires are different from normal fires, because you're looking for steady, even heat instead of simple light and warmth. Flames give way to low flares, and the brilliant red glow of wood burning from the inside out. I arranged the fire carefully, routing oxygen through miniature chimneys to create wide roasting ovens. Just in time, the meeting ended and the crowd turned to begin cooking. Brooke was there with her family, of course, and without making it obvious, I watched her and her brother as they skewered a pair of hot dogs and approached the pit; Brooke smiled as she crouched down next to me with her brother on the other side. They held their sticks out over the center of the blaze, where the flames still danced, and I wrestled with myself for almost thirty seconds before daring to talk to her. “Try down here,” I said, pointing with my tongs to one of the beds of coals. “They'll cook better.” “Thanks,” said Brooke, and she eagerly pointed the spot out to Ethan. They moved their hot dogs, which immediately began to darken and cook. “Wow,” she said, “that's great. You know a lot about fire.

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