the best he could and trust in the protection of the dark god who
guided him.
He left Janet Middlemeir’s car keys on the kitchen counter and picked
up the folded tarp. As he stepped out of the apartment he wiped the
doorknobs with his handkerchief. He didn’t have an arrest record, his
fingerprints weren’t on file anywhere, but nevertheless he was
cautious.
He walked away from the apartment complex. The fairgrounds lay nine
miles to the west, but he wasn’t going to cover the entire distance on
foot. He intended to call a taxi to take him back to the carnival, but
he didn’t want to risk summoning a ride from anywhere near the
Middlemeir apartment, the cabdriver would keep a record of the trip and
might even remember his passenger’s face. A mile from the woman’s
place, he disposed of the tarp in a big trash bin behind another
apartment building. After walking another mile, he came to a Holiday
Inn. He stopped in the hotel bar, had two double Scotches, and then
took a cab to the fairgrounds.
In the taxi he thought back over what he had done from the moment he
had found the corpse on the gondola tracks, and as far as he could see,
he hadn’t made any serious mistakes. The coverup probably would
work.
Gunther would remain free–at least a while longer.
Conrad couldn’t let them take Gunther from him. Gunther was his son,
his very special child, his own blood. But more than that, Gunther was
a gift from Hell, he was Conrad’s instrument of revenge. When Conrad
finally found Ellen’s children, he would kidnap them, take them to an
isolated place where their screams couldn’t be heard, and turn them
over to Gunther. He would encourage Gunther to play with them in
cat-andmouse fashion. He would urge Gunther to torture them for
several days, use them sexually again and again, no matter if they were
girls or boys, and then, only then, tear them apart.
Sitting in the darkness in the back of the taxi, Conrad smiled.
He seldom smiled these days. He hadn’t laughed in a long, long time.
He wasn’t amused by those things that amused other people, only death,
destruction, cruelty, and damnation–the dark handiwork of the god of
evil, whom he worshipped–could bring a smile to his lips. Ever since
he was twelve years old, he had been unable to obtain joy or
satisfaction from innocent, wholesome pleasures.
Not since that night.
Christmas Eve.
Forty years ago . . .
The Straker family always decorated their house from top to bottom for
the Christmas season. They had a tree as tall as the ceiling would
allow. Every room was festooned with evergreen wreaths, nut wreaths,
candles, Nativity scenes, tinsel, Christmas cards received from friends
and relatives, and much more.
The year that Conrad turned twelve, his mother added a new piece to the
family’s enormous collection of holiday decorations. It was an
all-glass oil lantern, the flame was reflected and refracted within the
angled walls of the lamp, so that there were a hundred images of fire
instead of just one, and the eye was amazed and dazzled.
Young Conrad was fascinated by the lantern but wasn’t permitted to
touch it because he might burn himself. He knew he could handle the
lantern safely, but he couldn’t convince his mother of that. So when
everyone else was asleep, he crept downstairs, struck a match, lit the
lantern–and accidentally knocked it over. Burning oil spilled across
the living room floor. At first he was sure he could put the fire out
by beating it with a sofa cushion, but just a minute later, when he
realized his folly, it was too late.
He was the only one to escape unscathed. His mother died in the
blaze.
His three sisters died. His two brothers died. Papa didn’t die, but
he was scarred for life–his chest, his left arm, his neck, the left
side of his face.
The loss of his family left Papa with mental and emotional scars every
bit as horrendous as his physical injuries. He wasn’t able to accept
the idea that God, in whom Papa devoutly believed, would let such a