Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

My father, Alfred Leverone, was an avid reader, but rarely of fiction. He preferred biographies and historical accounts, mostly of the American Revolution and Civil War, two subjects about which his curiosity was unquenchable and his knowledge impressive.

Im unlikely to ever write a nonfiction book on either of those subjects, so this novel is dedicated to my dad. He died nearly seventeen years ago, more than a decade before I signed my first publishing contract, but I know he would have been proud, as well as mystified, by how far this particular apple fell from the tree.

My dad taught me the value of hard work, of honesty, of doing the right thing even when no ones looking. He wasnt rich or famous, but if I can be half the man he was, Ill consider my life a resounding success. This book is for him.

If youve read the acknowledgements in any of my other books, I run the risk of sounding like a broken record, but this bears repeating: I am utterly indebted to my wife, Sue, for her unwavering support since the very first day I told her I wanted to make stuff up and write it down. When I was receiving literally hundreds of rejections from agents and publishers, Sue provided the quiet voice of encouragement that kept me writing when any sane man would long ago have given up.

DarkFuse Senior Editor Greg Gifune accepted this novel and worked with me to make it as powerful as possible, including offering a critical editorial suggestion that turned a solid horror novel into something special, at least in my opinion.

DarkFuse founder and Managing Publisher Shane Staley worked with me on my two novellas released by the precursor to DarkFuse, Delirium Books. For nearly a decade and a half, Shane has provided horror readers with a consistently high-quality reading experience, as well as access to unique releases by some of the most respected names in the horror fiction community.

Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to every single reader who has seen fit to plunk down his or her hard-earned cash on one of my books. I may not know you, and will probably never meet you, but you are always in my mind when Im writing. I take very seriously my responsibility to entertain you, and always will. Thank you for giving my work a chance.

Stalking.

Mr. Midnight was stalking.

He trailed along behind his two targets carefully, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, staying a healthy distance while being sure to keep them in sight at all times. The girls were college students; that much he knew. Whether they attended B.U., Northeastern, Tufts, or any of the dozens of other schools in the Boston area, the predator didnt know and didnt care.

What mattered to Mr. Midnight was that the girls were clearly from out of town, new students still unaware of the lines of demarcation the more experienced students observed automatically, which allowed them to stay safe. Relatively speaking.

Mr. Midnight had been following the pair for twenty minutes, ever since observing them as they stumbled, drunk, out of a raucous apartment party on Commonwealth Avenue. He had been loitering in the dark recesses of a doorway across the street and gotten a vibe about the girls almost immediately.

Now they were lost, and confused, and just beginning to feel the first tentative twinges of apprehension. Alcohol bravery and the fact that they were together and could count on each other for support had suppressed the panic thus far, but Mr. Midnight knew it was mere minutes away from bubbling to the surface.

He picked up his pace and moved silently closer, now near enough to hear bits and pieces of their conversation. think we went in the wrong direction, the one on the left was saying. She had a nice, shapely ass packed into low-rise jeans. Her crop-top blouse didnt come close to reaching her waist and the predator thought he could see the hint of a thong peeking out over the jeans. He smiled with approval.

dont recognize anything the other one said. She was Asian, a slim, tiny girl poured into a red mini-dress.

Maybe we should turn around, the first girl said. Mr. Midnight was close enough to them now that he could hear their voices clearly. Both girls sounded near tears and the predator felt himself becoming aroused.

The area was unfamiliar.

The streetlights were dim and spaced far apart.

Pedestrian traffic was minimal.

It was time to move.

Mr. Midnight closed the remaining distance between himself and the girls, still unsure of which one he would take, not that it mattered. They were both young and pretty, and he knew he would be more than satisfied with either.

It was almost too easy. The predator wore Nike cross-trainers and moved with a practiced stealth, and the frightened girls were chattering to each other like magpies in an effort to keep their mounting fear at bay.

They were crossing in front of a Catholic grade school, the Victorian-era stone structure looming in the semidarkness behind a padlocked chain-link fence, when the predator struck. He used the butt of his knife to club the girl on the lefthe glanced down and discovered he had been right about the thongin the temple. She let out a low moan and dropped straight down, unconscious before her body hit the concrete sidewalk with a wet thud.

The second girl, the tiny Asian in the mini-dress, gasped and froze, trying to process in her alcohol-addled brain what had just happened. A half-second later she drew in a breath to scream, but by then it was much too late. Mr. Midnight slapped a hand over her mouth and lifted the knife to her throat, running its razor-sharp point along her silky skin like a lovers caress. Blood immediately began welling up in the furrow.

The girl stopped struggling, undoubtedly hoping compliance would equate to survival.

She wouldnt find out until much later how wrong she was.

The air inside the Super-K Grocerette felt pleasantly cool to Caitlyn Connelly as she waited in line at the register. A low-pressure system had stalled over Tampa, the moisture in the atmosphere combining with the blazing heat to form a mushy tropical blanket over eastern Florida.

Through the plate-glass windows fronting the store, Caitlyn watched as people trudged across the parking lot. They seemed to move in slow motion, as if bogged down by the weather.

The line dragged, Cait inching forward until eventually she stood behind only an elderly woman who had placed her purchasesroughly a fifty-fifty split between food for herself and food for her petson the conveyor belt and now reached into a purse approximately the size of a small European car for her wallet.

Cait felt a sensation of pressure inside her skull, a wave rolling over her brain. She blinked twice and her head rocked back slightly. It was the sort of reaction a person might have if confronted with a completely unexpected sight. The image of a tiny kitchen flashed into her head. The room was shabby but spotlessly clean. On top of faded linoleum tiles that had been out of style for half a century, Cait saw a checkbook that had fallen to the floor and now lay against a leg of an ancient kitchen table.

A pair of sleeping cats sprawled on either side of the checkbook, looking like furry bookends, and Cait knew instantly what had happened. The woman had placed her purse at the edge of the table in preparation for her trip to the storeshe shopped twice a week, Monday and Thursdaybut she had mistakenly left it unclasped. The checkbook had fallen out of the purse when she picked it up, in a hurry because the taxi arrived sooner than expected, and it would simply be wrong to make the poor driver wait.

Caitlyn wasnt guessing about any of it. She knew what had happened because she could see it in her mind as clearly as if it were playing on a high-definition television screen in front of her. She didnt know