KUTTER

By Jeff Strand

Kutter copyright 2010 by Jeff Strand

Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://LynneHansenDesign.com

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

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- 1 -

Charlie Stanlon held the dead woman and wept.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He'd been careful, like always. He'd applied antiseptic and bandaged each cut right after he made it, and he hadn't cut her anyplace where she should've bled to death. Though her nude body was covered with dozens of bandages, she should've been his for at least another week.

But, no, she'd just given up. After the first few slashes, she'd barely even struggled.

Charlie walked away from the bloodstained metal table, to the other side of the basement, and tried to compose himself. Crying over this was ridiculous. He was forty-two, not a little kid who'd broken his toy airplane. He grabbed a rag from the crooked shelf he'd installed himself and wiped his eyes.

Pathetic. He was absolutely pathetic.

Charlie forced himself to shrug. "Oh well," he said out loud. "These things happen. Can't win 'em all. That's life in the big city for you."

He glanced back at the corpse. He could pretend she was still alive. Pretend she could feel the new cuts. Pretend she was so petrified with fear that she'd slipped into a catatonic state where she could see everything, feel everything, yet couldn't make a sound or move a muscle, even though she was screaming inside of her brain.

No. He'd just be cutting up a dead woman. That was no good. There was no satisfaction there—he'd simply be making a mess.

He felt the tears start to form again, and bit down on the sides of his mouth—hard—to keep them from flowing. It didn't work. But at least the pain made him feel a little bit better about crying.

Charlie sat in the corner on the cement floor, and silently wept. It wasn't fair. Nine hours. He'd only had her for nine hours.

Maybe this one wouldn't count. If he had less than a day with her, she shouldn't count. That made sense.

No.

No, no, no.

He had a rule: one every two months. No more. Not ever.

It was always somebody who wouldn't be missed. She was homeless and usually a junkie, although he preferred it when she wasn't on drugs. He could barely even imagine the euphoria if he were given the chance to cut somebody healthy and attractive—maybe even one of his co-workers—but he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in jail. He had to be cautious. And that meant no more than one victim every two months, even if one died prematurely.

He'd just have to figure out a way to make it through the next few weeks.

* * *

Alicia dropped the papers into Charlie's in-box. He didn't look away from his computer monitor until she'd walked back to her desk.

He picked up the stack of papers and sighed with frustration. She'd stapled them in the top center. She was supposed to staple them in the top left, so that he could easily fold the papers over when he was photocopying them. He quickly typed an e-mail to Bob Testiro, his supervisor, explaining the issue once again and requesting that he send out a note to the department to remind everybody of the proper procedure.

He flipped through the pages and sighed again. She hadn't written the customer report date on the balance adjustment form. Charlie sent another note to Bob to inform him of the situation.

A few minutes later, Alicia walked back to his desk. "You know, I sit in the next row," she said.

"Okay."

"Instead of trying to get me in trouble, you could've just asked me to write in the date."

"I wasn't trying to get you in trouble."

"It took more effort to get Bob involved than it would have to come to me directly."

"Okay." Without looking Alicia in the eye, Charlie took the papers out of his in-box and handed them to her.

"Did I do something to piss you off?" she asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

Charlie didn't respond. He looked back at his monitor and silently pleaded for her to leave him alone. If she'd done it right the first time, he wouldn't have to bother anyone, and nobody would have to bother him. It was just a staple and a date. Not that hard to remember. She'd been working here three weeks; it wasn't like today was her first day.

Alicia scribbled on the form and put it back in his in-bin. But she didn't leave.

"Charlie?"

"Hmm?"

"Look at me."

Charlie reluctantly turned to face her. She was a couple of years younger than him, as far as he could tell. Not model pretty or actress pretty, but her beauty still made him nervous. She had curly red hair that went down to her shoulders, and freckles. Lots of freckles.

"We have to spend nine or ten hours a day in this place," she said. "So why don't we try to make it a pleasant work environment?"

"Okay."

"If you have an issue with me, bring it to me first, all right? If you're still not happy, then take it up a level. We're supposed to be partners, not adversaries."

Charlie nodded. Why wouldn't she leave him alone?

She stood there for an excruciatingly long moment, as if waiting for him to continue their conversation. He had nothing to say. Finally she left.

* * *

Charlie sat in his basement, staring at the empty table. He'd disposed of the dead woman in what he liked to call the Body Pond four days ago. She should still be alive and thrashing around in front of him. He had no idea how he was going to make it all the way to September 24th, the day he was allowed to stalk his next victim. He'd go insane.

She really shouldn't count. If they died in less than twenty-four hours it shouldn't count. Otherwise it wasn't fair. Just not fair.

He closed his eyes and lightly rapped his head against the basement wall. This wasn't about fairness. This was about being careful. He'd go hunting every week if he knew he wouldn't get caught, but after claiming his first victim three years ago in what had been the greatest single moment of his life, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't get greedy. Wouldn't get sloppy. One kill every other month.

The schedule had always worked out well. It gave him something to look forward to. But after getting ripped off so badly this time, he wasn't sure he could wait for the next one, especially because he rarely found somebody the first night of a hunt. It usually took a couple of days of searching to find a suitable victim where there'd be no witnesses and little chance of injury. Sometimes it took more than a week.

He couldn't break the rules. He'd created them for a reason.

Yet...if he thought about this logically, which was more dangerous? Seeking another victim sooner than planned, or waiting until he was so desperate and frantic that he made a mistake? If he went now, he'd still be in top mental and physical form. In a few weeks, he might be like one of those twitching junkies he sometimes killed.

Yes, waiting was far more dangerous. He'd have to be a complete fool to wait. And since he hadn't been caught in three years, Charlie Stanlon knew he was no fool.

He'd begin the new hunt tonight.

* * *

As Charlie walked down the sidewalk, his heart raced with excitement yet he was also sick to his stomach with dread. As always, he knew that this could be the one that went bad. He could end up in jail, or lying on the street with a knife in his belly, or strapped to a metal table in somebody else's basement. He shuddered at the thought of the things he did to the women happening to him.

He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a matching gray shirt, specifically chosen to be nondescript. The clothing was hotter than he'd prefer during the summer, even at night. But though Charlie wasn't obese, he was a couple dozen pounds overweight, and he figured he'd be more memorable to possible witnesses in shorts.

It wasn't a good evening. Too many people hanging out in groups. There was one potential: a middle-aged woman huddled on the bench at a bus stop, trying in vain to light a cigarette butt that had no tobacco left. Charlie watched her for a few minutes, then decided that she could be carrying a can of pepper spray. He had to get up early for work tomorrow, so he quit around ten-thirty, went home, and went to bed.

The next hunt began much better. She wasn't attractive, at least not at the moment, but she was young. Sixteen or seventeen. She looked scared.

For several minutes, he stood thirty feet away and watched her dig through the garbage bin behind the crappy restaurant, working up his courage to approach her. Finally he did so, keeping his pace casual, trying to be as quiet as possible.

The girl gasped and spun around to face him. She dropped a Styrofoam container and looked almost embarrassed. Her eyes darted back and forth, as if trying to decide where to run.

"Hi," Charlie said, trying to sound friendly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I wasn't stealing anything."

"I don't care." That didn't come out right. "I mean, I don't care if you were. I don't work here. Did you run away from home?"

The girl nodded. She still looked like she was about to flee. If she did, Charlie would just let her go—you couldn't be cautious enough when you were sprinting after a potential victim.

She wasn't a good choice. If she was a new runaway, then somebody was probably looking for her. Charlie preferred to prey upon people who wouldn't be missed right away, if at all. Too risky to take a girl away from parents that cared about her.

Still, he really wanted to do this.

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

"I'm fine."

Charlie thought carefully about what he was going to say. Though he said the same thing almost every time and had even written it down, he occasionally got the words wrong and scared the woman off. "I'd offer to let you sleep on my couch, but I'm crammed into a really small apartment and I barely have room to turn around as it is. I can't give you any money—nothing personal, it's just the way I am after getting burned a few times. Drug users, you know."

The girl stared at him. Charlie cleared his throat.

"Anyway, I can't do any of that, but I'd be happy to buy you something to eat."

He waited expectantly. He considered offering a friendly smile, but that wasn't something that had worked out well for him in the past. Charlie wasn't sure why. He'd practiced his smile in the mirror and it seemed pleasant enough.

The girl shook her head. "I...I don't think I can."

"Why not?"

"I just can't. I'm sorry."

She stepped back. Charlie grabbed her wrist.

Oh, no. Why had he done that? He never did that kind of thing. He always got them back to the car before laying a hand on them. This was sloppy. This was horrible.

He realized that he was squeezing way too hard and let go of her. "I'm just trying to be nice," he said.

She ran.

Charlie took a step forward, then stopped himself. He couldn't chase her out where people might see. That was ridiculous. He'd screwed this one up and couldn't salvage it, so it was time to go home. That was his rule: if a hunt was close but didn't work, he quit for the night.

The rules were what kept him out of jail. Kept him alive.

God, he wanted to chase her. Chase her down, drag her back to where they'd been standing, and bash her head against the rusty metal side of the trash bin. Not hard enough to kill her—hard enough that she knew he wasn't playing around, hard enough that she knew he was controlling her fate, hard enough that she knew there was a lot more pain on the way.

There didn't seem to be anybody else around. The whole area was quiet.

If she was reduced to digging scraps out of the garbage, she probably didn't have much energy. He could catch her quickly. She wouldn't put up much of a struggle. He could handle the situation in less than a minute. Nobody would see.

No. Terrible idea. Terrible idea.

"You can't win 'em all," he whispered.

The hunt was over. Charlie walked back to his car and drove home.

- 2 -

Charlie stared at the TV for about three hours, not really watching it.

* * *

He was deeply ashamed of himself the next morning. Grabbing her arm? How could he be that careless? That impatient? He was starting to lose control, and if he didn't shape up soon, he'd find himself on the receiving end of a three hundred pound convicted rapist's penis. At least, that was the fate he'd overheard a co-worker wish upon the person who stole her laptop. For what Charlie was doing, he'd probably end up with a much larger rapist. Or a much larger penis. Either way, he needed to get himself back to normal.

There was always his emergency shelter, but that was a last resort. He'd rather not spend his remaining years hiding out like an animal.

He looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "Shape up or ship out," he told himself.

Charlie brushed his teeth and rinsed with Listerine, then practiced his smile a few times. He didn't think it looked that creepy. Maybe it was his eyes. He knew people whose eyes seemed to sparkle when they smiled, but his never did.

Contacts might work. Lighten his eyes up. Turn them from brown to blue or green. Then the women might trust his smile. He should make an appointment to visit the eye doctor sometime soon.

After work the next day, Charlie decided to empty his change jar. All of his spare change went into the plain glass jar. When the jar was full to the very top, he'd dump it into the grocery store's loose change machine, get his savings in paper currency (minus an eight percent service charge), and then buy himself something special. With his last jar, he'd bought a really nice power drill with dozens of different bits. He found that he preferred the smallest one.

The jar was just over a third of the way full, and Charlie's official rule was that the top coin actually had to protrude over the surface before he could consider spending the money. But having already decided to break the biggest rule in his life, using the change jar early was a pretty minor infraction, and a handful of bills could possibly accomplish what his personality couldn't.

* * *

He walked out of the grocery store, disappointed. Only fifty-five dollars and twenty-one cents. Less than he'd expected. The jar must've been heavier on pennies than usual.

Still, it should be enough to get somebody into his car. Though it felt like cheating this way, he didn't think he had a choice. After this one, he'd get completely back on track. Follow all of the rules. He just needed to get this one out of his system and then everything would be back to the way it used to be.

* * *

The money worked. He didn't even have to promise that more was forthcoming. He drove with the hooker—really, a crack whore, though he hated that term—in his passenger seat and tried to keep his eyes on the road.

"So what do you want to do?" she asked.

Charlie shrugged. He didn't have a script for this sort of thing.

"I bet you have some idea."

"Okay."

"This your first time?"

"No."

She smiled. "Not first time ever. I meant first time for money."

"Oh. Yes."

"I can tell. I know a guy who can give us something to make us both feel better. It doesn't cost that much."

Charlie shook his head.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"You're the boss. Pity, though. You'd have a lot more fun if you relaxed a bit."

"I'm okay."

She pointed through the windshield at a building up ahead. "How about you pull behind that bank over there?"

"My house is better."

"How far is it?"

"Not far."

"You know I can't drive around all night with you, right? Not for what you're paying. Let's just go someplace quick."

"My house is better. It'll only take ten minutes."

"You got beer?"

"Yes."

"What kind?"

Charlie tried to remember the commercials. "Bud Light."

"All right. But we're gonna have to be quick."

The first thing she did when they walked into his house was excuse herself and go into the bathroom. When she emerged a couple of minutes later, her eyes were glazed over and she gave him a half-smile. She wasn't anywhere near as appealing now, but it was very easy to get the chloroform-soaked rag over her mouth.

* * *

"I never had any interest in finding my real parents," he told her, as he polished the blade with a cloth. "I could probably find them, I guess, but I don't see any reason to do that. I lost touch with my first foster family, too, and I spent a lot more time with them than I did my birth parents, so it's just not something that's important to me. I feel guilty about that sometimes, like I should care, but I don't. Why do you need parents when you're in your forties?"

She continued tugging on the straps. He liked that.

"I think maybe if I'd had a really good childhood or a really bad childhood, I'd be more interested. But I barely even remember being a kid. What would we talk about? I don't even use credit cards, so it's not like I'd try to borrow money from them. This is going to sting a lot, so brace yourself. I mean it—it's really going to hurt. I'm going to cut you right there. Not a long cut but a deep one. Are you ready? Blink if you're ready. I bet you can't keep your eyes open like that for more than a minute. Want me to time it? One one thousand, two one thousand, three...see, you blinked. Ready?"

Charlie winked at her, then slid in the blade. Not too deep. He left it there for a few minutes, giving it a slight twist every now and then.

Finally, he removed it and showed her the tip. "Don't worry, I'll make the bleeding stop now. Then you can relax for a while."

He giggled as he tended to her wound. This was well worth the risk he'd taken. Not that he planned to ever do it again—he had to follow the rules—but for this one time he deserved the pleasure.

She went into withdrawal on the second day and died on the third, but Charlie felt completely satisfied.

* * *

His September 24th hunt went much more smoothly. He got her the first night. She'd begged him for money. It probably would've been harder to keep her out of his car than to get her in there.

She screamed so loud when she regained consciousness that Charlie worried that even the extensive soundproofing in his basement might be insufficient, so he put on the leather gag. By the third day, she wasn't screaming very loud anymore, and he took it off.

* * *

His November 24th hunt was about average. Last year around Thanksgiving he'd told his victim that he was celebrating with human flesh instead of turkey, and then he read her some cannibalism jokes he'd gotten out of a book. He dug out his notes and did the same thing this year. He didn't really eat her, though.

He drove her pieces to the Body Pond, which was a small pond about an hour out of the city. As far as Charlie knew, hardly anybody ever went out to the pond, and he thought it was deep enough that even an extended drought wouldn't uncover the rock-filled sacks.

Of course, he hoped to fill the pond enough that someday he'd be forced to find a new hiding spot.

* * *

"What do you think you're doing?" Alicia asked, walking over to his desk.

"What?"

"What do you think you're doing?"

Charlie squirmed and desperately wished she would leave him alone. "I'm just trying to work."

"Everybody else is in the break room having Christmas lunch. Doing work is strictly off-limits. C'mon."

"I didn't bring anything for it."

"Why not?"

Charlie shrugged.

"You could have at least signed up to bring napkins. It doesn't take anything to stop on your way here and buy a package of napkins. But I won't tell anyone you didn't contribute if you don't. Let's go get some food."

"I'm fine."

"If I called it a holiday lunch instead of a Christmas lunch, would you go?"

"I'm not hungry."

"How hungry do you have to be for cookies?"

"I don't know."

"Get up, Charlie. The whole department is having a holiday lunch, and you're part of the department. It's silly for you to sit here by yourself. Don't make me drag you in there by your shirt collar. I'll do it."

Charlie looked back at his computer screen. "I'm not hungry."

Alicia stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged. "Whatever you want. I'm just trying to be nice to you. Hope you get a lot done."

She left, and Charlie let out a deep sigh of relief.

* * *

Charlie walked down the sidewalk, hands deep in his pockets, breath misting in the cold air. He had no interest in the Christmas lights or the music that played from one of the downtown shops, but he did enjoy the crunching sound the occasional patches of ice made under his feet as he walked.

The wind was starting to pick up and it was getting chillier than he liked. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and decided to cut through Klant Park. It wasn't usually a good idea to walk through the park at night (Charlie was confident in his ability to deal with a helpless vagrant woman; less so in his ability to fend off a group of muggers) but the small park seemed to be empty.

As he walked through the single path, past the swing set, he heard something.

A faint whimper.

He stopped and listened more closely. Definitely a whimper. Not human. Sounded like a dog.

He glanced around, looking for the source. It was difficult to hear over the rush of the wind, and the park was poorly lit, but it seemed to be coming from the opposite side. He picked up his pace a bit, curious to see what was out there.

He walked through the park until he found the source of the sound, which came from beneath a wooden bench. It was indeed a small dog, lying on its side. He crouched down and stared at it with mild interest.

Charlie had never owned pets as a kid, and didn't feel he was missing anything as an adult. He knew that a lot of serial killers started with animals and worked their way up to humans, but Charlie didn't see the point. Anybody could have control over a domesticated dog, unless it went on a wild rampage and started mauling infants. There was no trick to keeping a dog on a leash, no thrill to be gained from causing it pain. Why bother?

He wondered what was wrong with the dog. There didn't seem to be any blood. Maybe it was just starving.

The dog kind of amused him. It had a funny black-and-white face (white down the middle, black on the sides) that almost looked like a clown. He didn't know the name of the breed, but this kind of dog appeared in television commercials a lot. He liked the way its eyes bugged out a little. Very silly.

He gently brushed his hand across its fur. The dog whined, though Charlie didn't think he was hurting it. It wasn't wearing a collar.

Would it bite him if he put his finger next to its mouth? He'd never been bitten by a dog before. Maybe it would enrage him enough to want to bring the dog to his basement. That would certainly be less risky than a homeless woman.

Of course, the dog could be rabid. That was a good reason not to see if it would bite him.

It didn't seem to be foaming at the mouth at all, and it certainly wasn't being aggressive. Admittedly, Charlie knew very little about rabies, but everything he'd seen on TV and movies involved foaming at the mouth and growling. A rabid dog wouldn't just lie here under a park bench; it would be going berserk.

He took off his right glove, extended his index finger and carefully placed it in front of the dog's mouth.

The dog whimpered and licked his finger.

Charlie wiped its slobber off on his jeans. Disgusting.

But he wasn't going to kill it simply because it got some dog spit on him. He put his glove back on and stood up. He might check back tomorrow to see if it had starved to death, just out of curiosity.

As he walked away, the dog let out a pitiful howl. Charlie kept walking. It wasn't his dog, and if the owner didn't care enough to watch his property, Charlie wasn't going to do it for him. If he saw the owner frantically searching for his dog, he might point out where it was laying, but beyond that, the animal wasn't his problem.

He left the park and resumed walking on the sidewalk, once again enjoying the crunch of ice under his feet. He tried to remember which commercials he'd seen that kind of dog in. At least one of them was for flea medicine—the clown-faced dog was scratching and the pug wasn't. Or maybe it was the other way around. He also thought one of those dogs was in a car insurance advertisement. It might have talked.

It was definitely a popular type of dog. Not only would the owner probably be looking for it, but there might be a reward for its safe return.

Charlie had no idea how much a clown-dog cost, and he had no idea what kind of reward might be offered for finding one...but what if it was a lot? What if it was five hundred dollars? Though it was unlikely to be that much, what if the owner was really attached to the dog? It wasn't as if Charlie had anything else to do tonight—he might as well take the dog home and hope there was a reward. If there wasn't, he'd throw it back outside. No harm done.

He turned around, walked back to the park bench, and crouched down next to the dog again. Now that he was looking at it a second time, he seemed to recall that it was named after a state. Or a city. Something like that.

"Don't bite me," he warned the dog. He was fine with the animal biting him as part of an experiment in rage control, but not when he was trying to help it.

Charlie immediately felt like an idiot. Dogs couldn't talk. And, more importantly, dogs couldn't understand human speech. He was glad that nobody else was around to hear.

He carefully slid his hands underneath the dog's side and lifted it off the ground a few inches, then pulled it out from beneath the bench. The dog whimpered some more, but lifting it didn't seem to hurt it. He hugged the dog to his chest and stood up.

The dog licked his face.

Even more disgusting.

He couldn't wipe it off without dropping the animal, so Charlie merely scowled and left the slobber on his face. The wet warmth quickly turned uncomfortably cold in the chilly night air. Stupid dog.

The dog nuzzled its face into his jacket, as if trying to burrow inside for warmth. Charlie supposed he couldn't blame the poor creature, though he wasn't about to unzip his jacket and let it get any closer to him.

It was a bit heavier than he'd expected, but Charlie was used to dragging corpses around, so he was pretty sure he'd have no problems carrying the dog home.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, the illumination from the streetlights revealed a couple of streaks of red on the dog's fur. He hadn't noticed the blood before. He wondered if the dog had gotten into a fight, maybe with a squirrel. There hadn't been a shredded squirrel carcass lying under the bench, so it was kind of sad that the dog had been beaten by something so much smaller than it.

Well, okay, he had no evidence that it was a squirrel. It could've been a bigger dog. Or a human with a knife.

Either way, the dog didn't seem to have lost all that much blood, certainly not enough to account for its weakened state. Possibly a lack of food and water is what made it lose the fight. Much of Charlie's success at hunting came from seeking prey that was hungry and thirsty, so he understood the dog's plight.

The dog fell asleep in his arms as he carried it home.

- 3 -

Charlie smiled as he carried the dog downstairs to his basement. He'd lived in this house for five years, and the dog would be his first guest that wasn't going down into the basement to die. At least he hoped it wasn't—the dog didn't seem to be dying, but Charlie couldn't be certain. He'd never even met a veterinarian.

Actually, as embarrassing as it was to admit to himself, Charlie was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of the dog seeing the scene of his many crimes. Not that he thought the dog was going to run barking to the police, but still, dumb animal or not, it was another pair of eyes on the table where he'd killed almost twenty women. Maybe he was being less than meticulous about his secrecy.

However, that irrational feeling wasn't enough for him to let the dog bleed all over his upstairs furniture. He'd upholstered that couch himself.

He placed the dog on the metal table. It looked as if it wanted to jump to the floor but lacked the strength. He pressed down on its back to keep it from moving, and counted the wounds. Five different gashes: two long ones on its back, two smaller ones on its left side, and one on its back left leg. None of them were bleeding profusely.

Charlie had plenty of experience tending to wounds. No medical training, and nothing fancy—just bandages and antiseptic. He assumed this would work for a dog, too.

Normally his patient was strapped down. Unfortunately, though his ankle and wrist bracelets could adjust to accommodate various heights, they were still only designed for a human. He'd just have to hold the dog down while he applied the alcohol.

The dog yelped and thrashed and almost got free. "You'll break your leg if you jump off," he warned it as he pressed the dog more tightly against the metal surface. Instead of his usual precise touch, he settled for pouring the antiseptic over the wounds, and then held the dog against the table for several more minutes until it calmed down. The bandages didn't stick very well because of its fur, so Charlie wrapped tape around its legs and torso, which kept them affixed well enough.

The basement had a sink that Charlie primarily used to rinse blood off his tools. He found a small plastic bowl, emptied out the screws and nails that were inside, filled it with water, and placed it in front of the dog. The dog frantically lapped up the water, drinking so vigorously that Charlie had to hold the bowl steady to keep the dog from knocking it off the table. When the dog finished, he refilled the bowl and let it drink some more.

He lifted the dog off the table, causing it to yelp in pain, and set it down on the floor. "Stay," he told it in a firm voice, as he walked toward the staircase.

The dog followed him. Slowly and shakily, but it followed.

"I said, stay." Charlie pointed to the dog. "Stay."

The dog barked.

"Don't bark at me," he told it. "Stay." He decided to try something else: "Sit."

The dog did not sit. It barked again.

Charlie walked up the stairs and shut the basement door. He didn't want blood and dog hair upstairs. The only untidy part of his house was his basement, and then only when he had a victim down there. That dog was lucky it wasn't still freezing in the park; it would just have to deal with being kept downstairs until he returned it to its rightful owner.

He opened the cupboard and looked through the shelves. He didn't have any dog food. What was the next best thing?

Breakfast cereal? That sort of looked like dog food.

He filled a bowl with dry cereal, then reopened the door to the basement. The dog sat on the bottom step, looking up at him expectantly. Charlie walked down the stairs and placed the bowl on the floor next to the dog. It sniffed the cereal, looked back at up at him, and whined softly.

"Eat it," Charlie said.

The dog continued to stare at him.

"Eat it," Charlie repeated. "They're Cocoa Puffs."

The dog sneezed. Charlie wasn't sure if it was a derisive sneeze or just a regular sneeze. Either way, he didn't have a lot of sympathy for a starving creature that wouldn't eat the food that was right in front of it. If it wanted to die, he'd let it die. If it expired in his basement, his only regret would be that it had sneezed all over his perfectly good Cocoa Puffs.

Maybe he was being unfair. Charlie wouldn't eat a bowl of dog food, so perhaps it was unreasonable to expect this dog to eat a bowl of human cereal, especially without milk. It was only around eight o'clock, so the pet store was probably still open. He'd pick up some real dog food and then bill the cost to the owner.

"Stay," he told the dog, then walked back upstairs and shut the door.

* * *

Before he went to the food aisle, Charlie stopped at the revolving metal book rack. He looked at the various covers, trying to figure out what kind of dog he had in his basement. It wasn't a schnauzer, dachshund, beagle (That was a beagle on the cover? They didn't look anything like Snoopy!), pit bull, shih tzu, Japanese chin...there it was. Caring For Your Boston Terrier. He knew it was named after a city or a state.

He didn't take the book off the rack. He had no intention of learning how to care for the dog—he was just curious about what kind it was.

He wandered over to the food aisle and frowned. There were several dozen different varieties. Were they breed specific? Was it all the same garbage with different packaging? What was wrong with just having one bag and labeling it "Dog Food?"

Charlie decided to make this into a much easier decision. He scanned the aisle, searching for the lowest price.

"Looking for something in particular?" asked an employee, a young cute brunette, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three.

"Just food."

"How old is your dog?"

Charlie shrugged.

"Is it a puppy?"

"No." Charlie picked up the closest bag of food, hoping that the employee would think he'd made his final decision and go away.

"If you're looking for anything else, toys, treats, or whatever, just let me know," said the employee with a friendly smile.

"Okay."

After she left, Charlie put the bag of food back on the shelf and traded it out for a cheaper one. Actually, for some reason he'd expected dog food to be a lot more expensive; still, no need to risk spending unnecessary money in case he never found the owner and had to abandon the dog.

He walked past the toy section on his way to the checkout counter. Maybe he should buy something to keep the dog occupied during the day. He picked up a bone-shaped squeak toy, decided against the expenditure, then paid for the food and went home.

* * *

The dog gobbled the bowl of food as if it hadn't eaten in months. It didn't even seem to be taking time to breathe, which was funny to watch because it had a flat little nose that didn't seem like it would be easy to breathe through.

It finished off the contents of the bowl in no time, ate the pieces that had spilled over the side, then looked up at Charlie. He shrugged and filled its bowl again. This time it finished half of the food, then let out what sounded like a happy bark.

Charlie had nothing to say to the dog, so he went back upstairs to make some signs.

* * *

Charlie wrote "Found Boston Terrier" and his phone number in black magic marker on twenty pieces of paper. The notice would probably be more effective if he attached a picture of the dog, but he didn't own a camera. The whole idea of photographs made Charlie uncomfortable. Not that he believed that they'd steal his soul or anything like that—he just didn't like them. He might have owned a cell phone with a camera, if he ever had anybody to call.

After he finished making the twentieth sign, he questioned his judgment in putting "Boston Terrier" on there. If those were valuable dogs, people might try to falsely claim the one in his basement. Though he could certainly figure out a way to make potential owners prove that the dog truly belonged to them, he didn't want to be bothered with scam artists.

He crumpled up all twenty signs and began the process again, writing simply "Found Dog" and his phone number. Then, armed with his signs and some scotch tape, he walked around the area for about half an hour, taping the signs to streetlamps, mailboxes, and newspaper boxes, as well as on the park bench where he'd found the dog. He returned home, turned up the heat, and went to sleep.

* * *

Charlie woke up out of a sound sleep and glanced over at the alarm clock. 1:21 AM.

There was a strange noise in the house. He listened carefully for a moment, and then figured out what he was hearing: scratching.

Why was that stupid dog scratching on the basement door? What could it possibly want at this time of night?

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but the scratching didn't stop. The dog had food and it had water—did it just have an attitude problem? Charlie was a big believer in the merits of a good night's sleep, and if this dog didn't knock off the scratching, he'd kick it in the face.

He counted slowly to five hundred. The scratching continued. With all the soundproofing, scratching on the door was pretty much the only sound he would hear from the basement. Figured.

Charlie cursed, got out of bed, then walked in his underwear through the kitchen over to the basement door. He opened it and glared at the dog, which sat on the top step.

"Don't do that," he said.

The dog barked.

"Don't do that, either," he told it.

The dog pushed past his leg and ran into the kitchen. Charlie cursed again and went after it. If that dog wrecked any of his things, he was going to withdraw his objections to torturing a dumb animal. With Charlie in hot pursuit, the dog ran into the living room and jumped up on the couch.

Charlie pointed to the floor. "Get down."

The dog lay down in the crevice between the two couch cushions.

"Get down," Charlie repeated, more sternly.

Charlie realized that he'd left the basement door open. It wasn't as if he had a victim down there who might escape or be discovered, but still, he liked to keep the door closed at all times.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you," he said out loud, closing the basement door and causing a waft of cool air to brush against his face.

It was pretty cold down there, he supposed. He couldn't blame the dog for wanting to come upstairs where it was warmer. The basement was surely a lot better than being outside in the park, but if the dog was used to a warm home with a rich master...

Charlie poured himself a glass of milk, drank it, rinsed out the glass, and then returned to the living room.

"Hey," he said to the dog. It looked like it was about to fall asleep. "You can stay up here, but if you..." He trailed off. Why in the world was he trying to speak a complete sentence to a dog? He was losing his mind. Many of his victims had claimed that he was insane, and now he was trying to prove them right!

The dog closed its eyes.

Charlie watched it for several minutes until he was sure that the dog was asleep. Then he returned to bed.

* * *

Charlie woke up and glanced over at the alarm clock. 4:29 AM.

Woof!

Stupid dog.

Woof! Woof! Woof!

Charlie got out of bed and stormed into the living room. The dog stopped barking and started panting happily. At least it looked happy—it was just a dog, so he couldn't tell for certain.

"What?" Charlie asked. "What do you want?"

A horrifying thought occurred to him. He quickly rushed over and peeked out the front window to make sure the dog wasn't trying to alert him to potential danger.

No police car was waiting outside. Apparently no watchdog duties were being performed. He returned his attention to the animal.

"What the hell is your problem?" he asked.

The dog continued to pant happily.

"I have to sleep! I have to get up early to go to work! You can't bark like that!"

Then he noticed that the dog had somehow worked the bandages off its legs. There were a few small blood spots on his couch. Charlie cursed again, setting a personal profanity record.

"You had your chance, but you blew it," he said, picking up the dog. "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

He carried it into the kitchen, shifted the dog in his arms so he could open the basement door while still holding it, gasped as he nearly dropped the dog, regained control, then got the basement door open and placed the dog on the top step.

"It's your own fault," he said, closing the door.

He didn't know if it would start scratching again, but he could sleep through that a lot more easily than the barking. He'd be okay for work if he got in a couple more hours of rest before the alarm went off. Charlie was perfectly fine with not getting much sleep on a night when he had a plaything in the basement, but he was much less fine with the idea of losing sleep over an idiot dog.

* * *

Charlie woke up to the alarm at 6:30. He had a banana and a piece of toast for breakfast, then opened the door to the basement. The dog bounded up the stairs toward him as he walked down, nearly tripping him as it nipped at his feet. He braced himself against the wall and told the dog to knock it off. It had a lot more energy now than when he'd first found it, that was for sure.

He reached the bottom without falling and breaking his neck and then refilled the dog's food and water bowls. By now it had lost its torso bandages completely, so he took a few minutes to redress its wounds. The dog licked his hand, and he wiped the slobber off on its fur. He didn't see the point in explaining to the dog that it would be spending the entire day in the basement while he went to work, so he simply went back upstairs to shower and get dressed.

* * *

As Charlie drove to work, it occurred to him that he should have taken the dog for a walk before he left. Oh well. It was far from the first mess he'd have to clean up in that basement.

- 4 -

During his 10:45 AM break, Charlie called his home voice mail to check if there were any messages. He had to think for several moments to recall his password—he wasn't used to having any reason to access his voice mail.

Two messages. The first was from an old-sounding man who described a white poodle. No need to call him back. The second was a woman who didn't say what kind of dog she was missing, just that she hoped he had her beloved Rhinestone. Charlie didn't think the dog looked like a Rhinestone—he didn't think any dog looked like a Rhinestone—and it didn't sound like the kind of name a wealthy person would give a dog, but he called the woman anyway.

"I'm returning your call," he said, when the woman answered with an annoying, sing-songy "Hello."

"My call about...?"

"The dog."

"Oh, yes, of course. Rhiney came home this morning. Sorry to waste your time!"

"Okay." Charlie hung up.

There were no messages at lunch or at his 3:15 break. Charlie was surprised. He would have expected more people to lose dogs than that.

There were no new messages waiting for him when he got home. Charlie opened the door to the basement and the dog rushed out. It stampeded over to the front door, whining and twitching. Charlie realized that he didn't have a leash. He had plenty of rope and other things that he could fashion into a leash without too much effort, but the dog seemed to be in a state of emergency and what was the worst thing that could happen? The dog might run away. So what? Charlie wouldn't be any worse off.

He opened the door and let the dog race outside. It ran a few feet out onto his lawn and then immediately squatted. Charlie watched it for a moment, then questioned why he was watching this particular activity in progress and averted his eyes. The dog finished and ran back inside the house. It was definitely well trained.

Charlie went down into the basement, and was surprised and pleased to note that there weren't any messes to clean up. The dog held out better than some of the humans he kept down here.

He filled its food and water bowls once again, then walked upstairs. The dog was back on his couch.

"Get down," he said.

The dog rolled onto its side.

"I'm not going to pet you," he told it. "Get off my couch."

The dog woofed at him—not quite a bark.

Charlie sighed. "You can stay, but you'd better not shed on it."

Interesting. Now he was not only speaking to the dog as if it could understand human speech, but he was acting as if the dog could control its own shedding. Bring on the men in white jackets.

If nobody claimed the dog by the time he was out of food (a couple of days, probably) he'd take it to the pound.

Charlie changed out of his work clothes into jeans and a sweater, then microwaved a frozen pizza. He sat down next to the dog and turned on the television.

The dog licked its chops.

"No," he said. "It's mine." He took a bite of pizza and winced. Way too hot. He opened his mouth and fanned his hand in front of his tongue.

The dog inched closer to him.

"Don't even think about it."

The dog whimpered.

"No. My pizza. You've got dog chow." Charlie blew on the slice of pizza to cool it down then took a big bite. The dog watched him carefully. "I'll take you to the pound right now if you don't quit staring at me," he informed it. "I mean it."

The dog didn't whimper again, but silently watched him as he ate the first piece of pizza. Charlie didn't like the crust anyway, so he pinched it between his thumb and index finger and offered it to the dog. "Here."

The dog snapped at the treat, biting his fingers.

"Ow!" Charlie slapped the dog in the face as hard as he could. It let out a loud yip, jumped off the couch, and ran into the kitchen.

Rotten mutt.

It was lucky he didn't shove its food bowl down its throat. Maybe he would. Maybe he'd slice that cur's neck open with an electric carving knife and see if he could get the bowl all the way in there.

He examined his fingers. They stung a bit, but the dog's teeth hadn't broken the skin.

Rotten, lousy, ungrateful mutt.

Wretched, mindless, bitey cur.

Then again...

What was the dog supposed to do when he offered it a piece of food that way, pinched between his fingers? His flesh was in the way of the pizza crust. He couldn't have expected the dog to carefully nibble around his skin—it was just an animal, living through instinct. He should've placed the offering on his palm or set it on the couch cushion. He'd been wrong.

Oh well. Charlie wasn't going to get bent out of shape over hitting a dog without just cause. It was still lucky he hadn't left it to freeze to death in the park, and if he took it to the pound, it might end up euthanized anyway, in which case the slap was the least of its problems.

He watched television and ate the other three pieces of pizza. He almost ate the crusts just to convince himself that he wasn't saving them as a peace offering for the dog, but decided that would be silly. He didn't like crust. Why eat something he didn't like just to fool himself into believing that he wasn't trying to make up for hitting a dumb animal?

He carried his plate into the kitchen, where the dog was huddled in the corner. Charlie set the plate with the pizza crusts down on the floor. The dog looked tentatively at it but didn't move.

"It's food," Charlie said, impatiently. "Eat it."

He could see the dog's nose twitching, but it remained in the corner. Charlie shrugged. It wasn't his job to force the dog to eat. He went back into the living room, and before he even had a chance to sit down on the couch he heard the scrape of the dog's feet as it ran across the tile floor. He listened to it eating. Good. At least the pizza crusts wouldn't go to waste.

About twenty minutes later, Charlie realized he was sitting through a rerun and hadn't even noticed. He switched channels. Nothing looked interesting. He shut off the television and sat there for a moment.

Why did he feel guilty? It was a mindless animal. It was like having guilt over slapping a mosquito.

He looked toward the entrance to the kitchen. There'd been no sound for a while. He wondered if the dog had gone to sleep.

Charlie got up off the couch, feeling stupid. He walked into the kitchen, still feeling stupid. He looked at the dog, which lay curled up next to the basement door, and then cleared his throat, continuing to feel stupid. The dog raised its head and perked up its ears.

"I'm sorry I hit you," he said.

Charlie stood there for a long moment, as if waiting for the dog to acknowledge his apology. It did not.

He returned to the couch and turned the television back on. A few minutes later, the dog bounded into the living room and jumped up onto the cushion next to him. It sat next to him until bedtime.

* * *

"Surfing the net on company time?"

Charlie glared at Alicia over his shoulder. "I'm on my lunch break. We're allowed."

"I was just kidding," said Alicia. "Wow, you take everything personally, don't you? We need to figure out a way to make you a little less serious."

"I'm fine."

"You're a powder keg of repressed rage. If you don't lighten up, you're going to run somebody over with your car."

"Okay."

"Looking for a new dog?" she asked, nodding at his monitor. Charlie was in the middle of a Google search for animal shelters in the area.

Charlie shook his head. "Getting rid of one."

"Oh, no! What did it do?"

"Nothing. I found it."

"Well, make sure you take it to a 'no kill' shelter."

"They have those?"

"Yeah, they'll keep it until they find it a home. What kind of dog is it?"

"Boston terrier."

"Oh, I love those!" said Alicia. "They're so cute! Did you name it?"

Charlie shrugged. Why would he name a dog that he was taking to the pound? And why wouldn't she leave him alone? She knew he was on his lunch break—why couldn't she respect that and let him enjoy it?

"I guess if you named it, it might be hard to let it go," Alicia admitted.

"Yeah."

"But it was nice of you to take in the dog and give it a home for now. Where did you find it?"

"In a park."

"I can't believe the owner hasn't claimed it yet."

"Do you want it?" Charlie asked.

"Can't. I've already got three cats. If I didn't, I'd take it in a second. I think you should keep it, though—a dog would be good for you."

"Why?" Charlie was surprised to discover that he actually cared about her answer to his question.

"Unconditional love. A dog doesn't care if you're in a bad mood or if you cheated on your taxes; they love you no matter what."

Charlie frowned. Was she accusing him of cheating on his taxes?

"I don't have time to take care of a dog," Charlie said, knowing that he had plenty of time, even if he kept up his current schedule of television viewing.

"That's fair," said Alicia. "I'm not trying to get into your business. But promise me that you'll take it to a 'no kill' shelter, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll even look one up for you and give you the address. Then you can enjoy the rest of your lunch break."

It took Charlie several seconds to figure out how to respond to that. "Thanks."

"No problem at all. I'm happy to do it." She smiled. "Did you notice that it's not that painful to have a friendly conversation with a co-worker?"

Charlie didn't necessarily agree with Alicia about the level of pain the conversation created, but he nodded and forced himself to smile.

* * *

By the end of the day, still nobody had called about the dog. Maybe his signs just weren't very good. He supposed that if he asked Alicia, she'd help him make better ones—he'd seen the sign she made for a bake sale last week that he didn't participate in, and it was colorful and eye-catching. Of course, making new signs would be a waste of time, since he'd be taking the dog to the address of the animal shelter she'd given him right before he left.

Still, it would be a major disappointment if he turned the dog over to the shelter and then the rich owner claimed it that same day. Or even a few days later. The dog wasn't exactly eating up a large percentage of his income; maybe Charlie should hang on to it for a few more days, just in case. Also, he didn't want to deal with the awkward phone conversation if the elated owner called him to reclaim his or her pet, and Charlie had to explain that he'd taken it to the pound, where it might have been given to somebody else. At least he wouldn't have to tell the owner that the dog had been gassed. He didn't like hearing people cry outside of his basement.

He decided to stop at the pet store on the way home.

* * *

"Don't get used to this," said Charlie, waving the red rubber squeak bone at the dog. "I'm not buying you a toy every time I go out. This is all you get." He squeaked the bone and the dog ran in a joyous little circle on the basement floor. "If you lose it, it's not being replaced, so be careful."

He tossed the bone to the dog. It caught it in its mouth and then dropped onto its stomach, chewing vigorously on the toy, which squeaked and squeaked and squeaked.

Charlie leaned against his metal table and watched the dog. It seemed to be having a lot of fun. Why? It was just a rubber bone. Was the dog imagining that the squeaks were screams of agony? They didn't seem comparable.

He observed it for several minutes, wondering what possible pleasure the dog could be getting out of this, besides the opportunity to exercise its jaws. Why did people like Alicia think that dogs were so great? Who cared about unconditional love? Love should be given out on an "as deserved" basis.

When he decided that the dog had squeaked the toy enough for one night, Charlie changed its bandages and refilled its food bowl. The dog was healing nicely—in a few days, it would probably be completely back to normal. Normal for a clown-faced idiot dog, anyway.

"I don't want you to run away and cost me my reward," he informed the dog as he showed it the cheap black collar he'd purchased, "so you're going to have to wear this, like it or not."

The dog most definitely did not like it, and it took a few minutes of struggle to get the collar over its head and fastened properly. Charlie considered hitting the dog to encourage it to keep still...but, no, there was no reason for that. He'd win this little dispute without resorting to violence.

He got the collar on the dog, attached the leash he'd also bought, and led it up the stairs. He let the dog run around the living room for a minute while he put on his heavy coat and gloves, and then took the dog outside for a traditional walk.

It finished its business almost immediately, but Charlie was pretty sure that walks were about exercise as much as defecation, so they began to walk along the sidewalk. Sometimes the dog walked right alongside of him, sometimes it tugged on its leash in a failed attempt to run ahead, sometimes it forced Charlie to tug on its leash because it got distracted by fascinating smells, and sometimes it ran in a circle and almost tripped him, but overall Charlie thought it was a relatively successful walk.

After they'd gone about six or seven blocks, they approached a driveway where a young blonde woman was taking groceries out of her car. Her eyes lit up as she saw the dog.

"Oh, look at you!" she said, placing a bag of groceries on the ground and crouching down so she could pet the dog. "What a sweetie!"

The dog licked her face, clearly loving the attention.

"What's his name?" the woman asked Charlie. She was absolutely beautiful. She looked as if she might have just come from the salon as well as the grocery store.

"He doesn't have one."

"Doesn't have a name?" The woman scratched both of the dog's ears. "How can a sweetie like you not have a name? You don't like that at all, do you? I bet you don't!"

"I mean, I don't know its name," said Charlie.

"Well, he's absolutely adorable," said the woman, picking up her grocery bag and standing up. She grinned at Charlie. "Both of you have a great evening, all right?"

The woman turned and retrieved a second grocery bag from her trunk. Charlie couldn't believe it. She was just standing there, totally unguarded, not even looking at him. He could shove her into the trunk, slam the lid, and have a gorgeous woman in his basement this very evening.

He wouldn't do it, of course. He'd broken the schedule once, and had vowed to never do it again. And though this idea sounded great as a flash of fantasy, it was far too risky. She could scream, or somebody could see (for all he knew, her husband was right inside), or she could be locked in the trunk with the only set of keys.

Still...he was amazed at how the dog had instantly created a level of trust.

He should have asked the woman if he could help her carry her groceries inside, just as a test.

"Maybe you could be useful," Charlie told the dog as they resumed their walk.

Yes, he was talking to an animal in public, but the woman had done the same thing without feeling humiliated. Clearly, you were allowed to talk to uncomprehending animals without looking like a candidate for the local asylum.

Perhaps he shouldn't be so quick to get rid of it. Charlie might have a creepy smile, but he had a cute dog.

* * *

"You need a name," Charlie told the dog as they sat on the couch.

The dog squeaked its bone.

What was a good name for a dog? Fido? Rover? Duke? Prince? Spike? Clowny-Face?

Killer?

Hmmmm. He liked Killer.

"Do you want to be named Killer?" he asked.

The dog squeaked its toy again, but it was a non-committal squeak.

Killer wasn't exactly subtle. He should probably brainstorm more options. Charlie went to get a pen and a notebook, then sat back down and started writing down ideas. He wrote down every dog name he could think of, the first names of everybody he knew, and other names that might be appropriate for a dog whose cuteness was going to lure women to their death.

After about an hour, he had a list of forty-seven names. He read them slowly, one at a time, to see if any elicited a reaction from the dog.

None of them did. The dog just kept chewing on its toy. Charlie had to admit to himself that he was taking his newfound willingness to communicate with the dog a bit too far.

He read the list of names again, to himself in a whisper.

Cutter sounded the best, but it didn't look right. He wrote it on a separate page. Cutter.

He wrote it again: Kutter.

"That's your new name," he said. "Kutter the dog."

Charlie took Kutter for another walk, tearing down the "Found Dog" signs as they went.

- 5 -

"Did the address help at all?" Alicia asked the next day.

"I'm keeping it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Its name's Kutter."

"Well, that's great. Congratulations on the new addition to your household."

"Thanks."

Charlie looked at her more closely. He'd always liked freckles. Perhaps someday she'd let him take her out for coffee or—

—his basement. Perhaps someday he'd lock her in his basement. That's what he meant.

But maybe coffee to start.

Charlie wasn't even going to try to pretend to himself that he'd be even remotely close to capable of asking her out right now, so he ignored the thought and glanced back at his monitor.

"Do you have pictures?" asked Alicia.

Charlie shook his head.

"You need pictures."

"Okay." Charlie had no intention of buying a camera, even a cheap disposable one. Still, it couldn't hurt to pretend to go along with her idea.

"Well, I'm glad you kept the dog. Give it a great big hug for me." Alicia patted Charlie on the shoulder and then returned to her desk.

* * *

Alicia asked him about Kutter photos every day for the next three days. After the third day, Charlie realized that saying "I forgot again" just wasn't going to continue to work. It was really not her place to guilt him into photographing his dog, but finally Charlie decided to cave in to the pressure. He bought a surprisingly inexpensive disposable camera on the way home from work.

Taking the camera downstairs was not an option. Some clue about the basement activities, no matter how subtle, might appear in the photograph, and Charlie couldn't take the risk. He also refused to appear in the picture himself. He'd just get a couple of quick snapshots of Kutter and take them straight to the photo-developing lab at the grocery store.

He opened the door to the basement. Kutter happily bounded up the stairs. Charlie put on his leash, took him for a quick walk, then brought him back inside.

"On the couch," Charlie said, patting the cushion.

Kutter jumped up onto the couch.

"Good boy. Now smile." As Charlie peeked through the viewfinder, Kutter jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen.

Stupid dog. "Hey, get back in here!" Charlie called out. He heard Kutter thundering around in the kitchen for a moment, and then the Boston terrier came running back into the living room. He patted the cushion again. "C'mon. Picture time."

Kutter woofed at him.

"I don't like it either. We don't have a choice."

Charlie patted the cushion a few more times, then decided that although the couch was the most aesthetically pleasing location for the photograph, it didn't much matter either way. He pointed the camera at where Kutter stood on the floor. The dog looked right at the camera. Perfect.

He pressed the button, and nothing happened.

"What the hell?" He pressed it again and the camera still didn't click or flash or do anything to indicate that a photo had been taken. Was it broken?

No, he just hadn't wound it.

Cameras sucked.

He wound the dumb little dial. Kutter ran back into the kitchen.

"Hey!" Charlie followed Kutter into the kitchen and nearly tripped over the dog as it ran back into the living room. He pointed the camera at the dog, trying to follow it as it ran in a circle around the living room, and squeezed off one shot that he knew wasn't even close.

"Sit down, Kutter! Stay in one spot!"

Kutter jumped up onto the couch. Charlie quickly pointed the camera and pressed the button, but he hadn't wound it this time, either. Kutter jumped back down before he could finish.

"Do you want me to tranquilize you? Quit moving around!"

Charlie managed to take another twelve action shots of the hyperactive animal, and then, finally, a few pictures of Kutter relaxing on the couch. He decided to splurge on the one-hour developing, and discovered that his thumb was over the lens on all of the pictures.

* * *

Alicia laughed at his feeble attempts at photography, but it was a nice kind of laugh, not a mean one.

* * *

Charlie bought a couple more squeak toys and a stuffed penguin, to give Kutter some variety. He also bought the forty-pound bag of dog food, which was the most cost effective, and a bag of pseudo-bacon treats. If all went well, Kutter would deserve the reward.

* * *

It wasn't as if walking Kutter opened up a whole new world for Charlie, where potential victims fell at his feet by the dozens. But there was no question that the dog was going to make things easier for him. Somebody fussed over his dog almost every other walk, and in two weeks there'd been at least three separate occasions where he'd felt completely confident that he could have safely gotten a woman home—and not homeless vagrants; attractive, desirable women who would be almost unbearably pleasurable to cut.

He altered his route often, sometimes taking Kutter out for as much as three hours at a time. Exactly one week after seeing the woman unloading groceries from her car, almost to the minute, he saw her again, doing the same thing. A creature of habit. Charlie liked that.

It was only about three weeks until his next hunt on January 24th. There was no question whatsoever in Charlie's mind that this was going to be the best one yet.

* * *

Charlie stood impatiently by the open basement door. "You know where to go."

Kutter never wanted to go down into the basement at bedtime. Not that Charlie blamed him—it was cold down there—but Charlie was the master and Kutter was the dog and house pets didn't have any say in the matter of where they slept. "Get down there."

Kutter whimpered.

"Do you really think that's going to work on me?" Charlie asked. "Seriously? If my heart melts, it's not going to be for you. So get your flat face down there."

Kutter just stared at him.

The dog's wounds had healed completely, so it wouldn't be ripping off its bandages and ruining his furniture. That was the primary reason Charlie kept him in the basement. As long as Kutter was quiet through the night, there was no real reason to keep him locked away.

Charlie narrowed his eyes and pointed his index finger at the dog. "All right, you're going to get your way, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: No barking. None. Unless somebody is breaking into this house—not a neighbor's house, this one—I don't want to hear a single peep out of you. Do you understand?"

Kutter continued to just stare at him, which Charlie took for a "yes."

"Good. Don't forget it."

Kutter ran into the living room, then ran back with one of his squeak toys. Charlie pulled it out of his mouth, a task made more difficult by the fact that Kutter assumed they were now playing tug-of-war. "I don't think you'll be keeping me awake with that thing," Charlie said, putting the toy on top of the refrigerator. He gathered up Kutter's other toys and placed them up there as well.

Kutter sneezed at him.

"Bless you. Good night."

Ten minutes after Charlie got under the covers, Kutter pushed open the bedroom door, jumped up onto the mattress, and curled up at the foot of the bed. Charlie carried Kutter back out to the living room and told him to knock it off. The second time Kutter pushed open the door, which never seemed to close properly, Charlie put him back down in the basement.

Charlie gave the dog another chance the next night, with the same result.

"This is your last chance," Charlie warned, tapping Kutter gently on the nose to emphasize his point. "If you try to break into my room tonight, you'll be sorry."

He was woken out of a sound sleep by the stupid dog jumping up onto the bed. Kutter curled up next to his right foot. Charlie was too tired to bother getting up to remove the disobedient animal, so he simply rolled over and went back to sleep.

It was surprisingly comforting. When he woke up the next morning, he decided that maybe the dog could sleep in the bedroom from now on.

* * *

Charlie looked at the calendar on his desk at work and realized that it was only a week until his next hunt could begin. He was surprised—for some reason he'd thought it was a couple more days than that. Great news.

Since he was going after a higher class of victim this time, he needed to change his cover story. He couldn't lure these kinds of women in with promises of a warm meal. Well, he could, but he'd have to sell the idea in a different way. Find out which unsuspecting women wanted to grab a quick cup of coffee with the trustworthy guy with the cute dog. Kutter would win their heart, Charlie would talk them into his car, and the chloroform would do the rest.

Charlie wondered if he should make some personal changes to assist with the success of his new plan. He'd always kept his hair neatly trimmed, but what if he added a bit of style? Nothing crazy and nothing unsuited to a guy in his forties—just something slightly more contemporary.

Then he wondered if that was the first sign of a mid-life crisis.

He'd do it. What could it hurt? He wasn't quite ready to depart from his usual barber, but when he went in on Friday he'd ask the guy to do something a little different.

* * *

It had been difficult to convince his barber that "different" did not include coloring, spikes, or any sort of hair product, but he'd eventually gotten the message across. Charlie walked out with hair that was a little wavier on the sides and a little mussed in the front. Though he wasn't sure if he liked it or not, he'd promised his barber that he'd stick with it through the weekend and give it a chance to grow on him.

They'd both laughed at the "grow on him" comment, although the barber laughed a little harder than Charlie.

Charlie knew that Kutter didn't care about his hairstyle, and indeed the dog didn't treat him any differently, but for the first time in his life Charlie found himself sort of looking forward to returning to work on the following Monday.

* * *

"Nice! I like it!" said Alicia, giving him a thumbs-up sign as she quickly walked past his desk on her way to a meeting. Charlie was a bit disappointed that she hadn't stopped to talk longer. The hair was staying for sure, though.

- 6 -

January 24th. The first night of the first hunt of the year. Charlie put on his nicest shirt—a dark blue, long-sleeved dress shirt that he hadn't worn since his job interview. It was sort of a wasted effort, since he'd be wearing a winter jacket over the shirt, but dressing well might subconsciously cause him to behave in a more charismatic manner.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Not bad.

He took down a bottle of unopened cologne that he'd received from somebody one year for Christmas—he thought it might have been a work gift exchange from somebody who didn't realize that he wasn't participating—and unscrewed the cap. He sniffed it. Awful. However, women liked this sort of thing, so he splashed some on his neck.

Charlie took a piece of folded paper out of his pocket. Couldn't hurt to practice a few more times. He unfolded the paper and tried to sound natural as he read the handwritten words aloud.

"Hey, I know a great little coffee place, maybe a two-minute drive from here. I can't promise you won't get dog hair on you, but I'd be more than happy to drive us there and treat you to a cup."

Maybe he should cut the part about the dog hair. If somebody was genuinely fussy about getting dog hair on their clothes, they might decline his offer based just on that. But he liked the way it sounded—it acknowledged concern that Kutter might have gotten dog hair on the front seat. Maybe he'd use it the first time, and drop it if the comment seemed to be the deciding element in somebody refusing to come with him.

He read it out loud a few more times, making his voice as friendly as possible, then moved on to another prepared line: "He's a handful, but I love him." This was to be used when somebody was cooing over Kutter, and he'd already tested it out a few times. Responses were evenly divided between an amused "I can imagine!" and the mock disbelief of "Nooooo, not this sweetie!" Either way, the line worked.

The story of how he'd found Kutter worked perfectly fine when he told the truth, and he was surprisingly comfortable sharing it, so he didn't write it down. He practiced the "handful" line a few more times, then refolded the paper and put it back in his pocket.

"Okay, time to earn your keep," he told Kutter, fastening the leash to his collar. "If you help me out tonight, I'll give you as many bacon treats as you want." That wasn't entirely true—he wasn't going to rush out to the pet store to buy another bag if the first one ran out, but still, Kutter would be entitled to a hell of a lot of bacon treats.

He'd considered putting Kutter in a doggie sweater, but that seemed too far over the top. He wasn't looking for bimbos, just women more attractive than his usual prey.

He put on his jacket, checked his appearance in the mirror one more time, and then he began his first-ever hunt with a partner.

Normally Charlie was content to hunt within half an hour or so of his home. But since he had a Boston terrier along for the ride, which might make him more memorable to possible witnesses, and was planning to take home a victim more likely to be missed, he decided to play it safe and drove for nearly two hours before pulling into a movie theatre parking lot just after dark. It was one of those enormous multiplex theatres, twenty-four screens, and he figured that a place like this would be busy enough that he could wander around and be relatively anonymous.

"Don't let me down, buddy," he said, scratching the top of Kutter's head. They got out of the car and he walked Kutter toward the theatre.

Kutter was an instant hit. Unfortunately, it wasn't in a way that did Charlie any good.

People made a fuss over the dog, but it was children with their parents, girls with their boyfriends or husbands, and women in small groups. And some guys, too, which did Charlie even less good. Nobody seemed to go to the movies by themselves.

Of course they didn't. Everybody knew that.

Charlie dragged Kutter—who was loving the attention—back to the car after about fifteen minutes. Stupid. How could he pick a movie theatre, of all places? This was why he didn't get to kill beautiful women. This was why he didn't deserve to kill beautiful women. All of this planning, and he still screwed it up. Pathetic.

He felt like hitting something, but it couldn't be Kutter. The dog had done his part. Perfectly. The fault was all Charlie's.

"Stupid," he said out loud. "Pathetic."

Kutter panted happily. He didn't seem to think that Charlie was stupid or pathetic. Charlie put his index finger out and Kutter licked it. He felt a little better.

All right, so he'd made a bad decision and wasted some time. Fifteen minutes was nothing, especially not when he'd driven over two hours to get here. Now was not the time to start doubting himself. "No use crying over spilt milk," he said.

He'd just have to laugh off this minor moment of foolishness and drive someplace else where he was more likely to find a single woman. No problem at all. He'd just drive to the first public parking lot he could find, and then walk Kutter around the area until he was successful.

Charlie found a parking garage less than a mile away. "See?" he told Kutter. "We're back on track." He parked on the third level. Maybe he'd be lucky enough to get out of here quickly and only pay the single-hour rate.

He hadn't even shut off the engine before he wanted to kick himself. He couldn't drive a victim out of a public parking garage! Not only were there security cameras, but the attendant would see him drive out of there with a soon-to-be-missing woman. What in the world was he thinking?

He'd made mistakes before, lots of them, but Charlie couldn't remember ever having been so dense during a hunt. Was Kutter just distracting him? Could he not think clearly with a dog in the passenger seat? This was crazy! Bonkers!

"I'm a creature of habit," he told Kutter. "You're throwing off my game."

The official hunt was over for tonight. Charlie couldn't risk making another stupid mistake. He'd drive around for a while and try to find a suitable location, and then return the next evening. Better to waste a four-hour round trip than get the electric chair, lethal injection, or the gas chamber. There had to be a good place to hunt where there were no security cameras.

When he drove past the dog park, Charlie burst into a fit of giggles so intense that he had to pull off to the side of the road for a few minutes to recover.

* * *

She was perhaps the most beautiful woman Charlie had ever seen. Her dog was ugly as hell.

"What's his name?" she asked, as her bulldog and Kutter exchanged undignified sniffs.

"Kutter," Charlie replied. "With a K." He'd thought of clarifying the "with a K" part during the drive over that afternoon, and was very pleased with himself. It made him sound friendly.

The woman stroked Kutter's fur. "Well, he's a sweetheart."

"Thanks." The woman's bulldog caught sight of another dog and tugged on its leash. Charlie knew he had to act now. "Would you like to get coffee?"

The woman smiled. "I can't, sorry. I don't do caffeine."

"It doesn't have to be coffee. It can be anything."

"I'd love to, but I can't."

"Why not?"

Her smile vanished. "I just can't."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "I've gotta go," she said, letting her bulldog lead her away.

Charlie made himself shrug. He hadn't done anything incorrectly that time. He'd just try again with somebody else. Nobody, not even movie stars, got a "yes" every single time they asked somebody for a date. He had plenty of time.

* * *

"What's his name?" asked the woman, letting Kutter lick her palm. She was probably in her fifties, but still nice-looking.

"Kutter," Charlie said. "With a K."

"Hi, Kutter. You're a good boy, aren't you?"

Charlie tried not to grimace, Yeah, he talked to Kutter way more than he wanted to admit, but at least he didn't ask idiotic questions like that. What did she think Kutter was going to say? "No, ma'am, I'm not a good boy at all, but I appreciate your vote of confidence."

The woman had a wiener dog. Charlie didn't want to touch it. He knew he had to make some small talk before asking her out.

"What's your dog's name?" he asked.

"Harvey. With an H."

Charlie frowned. What other letter would the name Harvey start with? Did she think he was a moron? She was the one with the hot dog dog, not him.

Then he realized from her smile that she was trying to be amusing by referencing his "with a K" comment. Duh. He shouldn't have needed extra time to figure that out. If she thought he was a moron, she was absolutely right. But if she was joking around with him, then she trusted him, and if she trusted him...

"Do you want to get some coffee?" Charlie asked.

The woman held up her left hand, revealing her wedding ring. "I don't think my husband would like that."

"I didn't mean like that. Just coffee."

"I'm just here to get Harvey some exercise. But I appreciate the offer."

Charlie started to insist that he merely wanted to get coffee as friends, but no, it wasn't a good idea to appear desperate. The last thing he needed was for her to tell the cops that there was a creepy guy harassing women at the dog park.

"No problem."

This wasn't working at all. Apparently only the dregs of society could be convinced to go anywhere with him, even with a Boston terrier in tow. It was time to give up on this idea and return to his old hunting grounds.

No. He had as much right to be here as anybody else, and it wasn't a crime to ask somebody to go out for coffee.

It was definitely a nice park—a lot nicer than the one near his house. Would hanging out here all day without bringing home a victim really be such a wasted day? Kutter seemed to be enjoying it, if nothing else.

There was a circular purple object lying in the snow. A Frisbee. Charlie picked it up, shook off the snow, and let Kutter sniff it. The dog seemed to approve.

Charlie flung the Frisbee, which went in the exact opposite direction that he'd intended and struck a tree that was about four feet away. As soon as the Frisbee hit the ground Kutter had snatched it up in his mouth and brought it back, holding it up expectantly.

Charlie took hold of the Frisbee and tugged gently, but Kutter didn't let it go.

"Give it to me so I can throw it again," he instructed.

He tugged again. Kutter tugged back.

"You're not doing this correctly," Charlie said. He knew next to nothing about dog/human interactions, but he at least knew how to play fetch. How was it possible that he understood the rules better than Kutter?

Charlie let go of the Frisbee. "When you're ready to play right, let me know."

Kutter stared up at him for a moment, then let out a whine.

"Don't whine at me. You have to let it go. Do you want me to throw it with your jaws still stuck on it?"

Charlie grabbed the Frisbee and gently tugged again. Kutter vigorously shook his head side-to-side and refused to relinquish his grip. Charlie tugged a little harder and Kutter tugged back harder.

"You're playing the wrong game," Charlie informed the dog. Tug-of-war was supposed to be with a thick rope, or a sock, or maybe a dead squirrel. Frisbees were for throwing and playing fetch. This dog was totally mixed up.

Charlie released his grip again. This time, Kutter let the Frisbee fall. Charlie picked it up and gave it another fling—right into the same tree. He looked around the park to see if anybody had noticed.

Several people had. They were amused.

Charlie cursed.

Kutter brought back the Frisbee, and after another minute of not letting go of it, dropped it into the snow. Charlie picked it up and walked several feet to the left to distance himself from that stupid tree. He swung his arm back and forth a few times, trying to envision the trajectory the Frisbee would take when he released it. Finally, with all of his strength, he threw the disc.

It was another pretty lousy throw, but this one at least missed the tree and any other obstacles and flew through the air like it was supposed to. Kutter, barking furiously, chased after it, running across the park at top speed while kicking up snow. He leapt up into the air and caught the Frisbee in his mouth.

Wow. Charlie was impressed. He certainly couldn't do that.

Kutter happily scampered back over to Charlie and dropped the Frisbee in front of him. Then Kutter snatched it back up as Charlie reached for it. It was a bizarre combination of fetch and tug-of-war—clearly the poor animal had never been taught how to separate the individual games. No problem. Charlie played along, making several attempts to retrieve the Frisbee before Kutter let go of his prize.

The next throw was infinitely better. Charlie hoped lots of people had seen it, because it went perfectly straight and almost beyond the edge of the park. Kutter caught this one, too.

"You're pretty talented," Charlie told the dog. "That's a good skill to have."

It wasn't really, unless there was a market for Frisbee-catching, but everybody else in the park was complimenting their pets, so why shouldn't Charlie? He scratched Kutter behind the ears, then threw the Frisbee again.

And again. And again.

He threw the Frisbee until his arm ached. Kutter never seemed to get tired of it. On the seventh or eighth throw, Charlie accidentally blurted out "Go get it, boy!" which was of course a completely pointless command, but he found that he felt a surprising lack of self-consciousness while saying it, so he kept it up, going so far as to cheer on the dog as it sprinted toward the purple Frisbee. Though Kutter didn't catch it every single time, he at least got three out of four, and the ones he missed could generally be blamed on the quality of Charlie's throw.

Charlie shifted to his left arm when his right arm started to go numb, but after a throw that involved flinging the Frisbee straight down into the ground, he decided to quit for the day. He checked his watch. Wow. They'd been there over two hours. It hadn't felt anywhere near that long.

It was a lousy hunt, but a good day.

- 7 -

"That wasn't very smart of us," said Charlie as they pulled into the McDonalds drive-thru. All that Frisbee-tossing had made him hungry. "Everyone in that park is going to remember us. We can't hunt there tomorrow, or maybe any other time. We're too memorable."

Well, perhaps they weren't. Certainly Kutter wasn't the first miracle Frisbee-catching Boston terrier to have spent a couple of hours practicing his craft in the dog park...but still, they had to be as cautious as possible, and running around in front of everybody was not the way to keep himself out of jail.

Even if he had found a woman willing to get into his car, it would've been a terrible idea to actually lure her inside. He'd screwed up.

That said, Charlie didn't feel like beating himself up over it. He didn't feel like crying. He wasn't pathetic. He felt fine.

He'd had fun. And it was a much safer kind of fun than torturing and murdering a woman in his basement.

He ordered a Big Mac, large fries, and Coke for himself, and three hamburgers and a cup of water for Kutter. Kutter gobbled the burgers almost as quickly as Charlie could unwrap them and toss them over to him, and also lapped up the water in no time, although Charlie had to keep tilting the cup, since it wasn't really designed for a dog.

Not a bad day at all. And they really didn't need to drive so far to do it again. He was sure he could find an equally nice dog park in his area. If he wasn't planning to kidnap anybody, there was no reason to be discrete.

He'd resume the hunt tomorrow. If he felt like it.

* * *

That evening, Charlie sat on the couch, watching television. Kutter lay on his lap, snoring softly.

There was a knock at the door.

Kutter immediately woke up, jumped off the couch, and ran toward the front door, barking. "All right, all right, calm down," Charlie said, even though he was a bit panicked himself. Nobody ever came to his door at nine-thirty at night. Hardly anybody ever came to his door, period.

He peeked through the peephole. It was a young blonde. She didn't look like a cop.

Charlie opened the door. The young woman, who probably wasn't even twenty-one, smiled brightly at him.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Patti, and I'm trying to pay my way through college. It's pretty expensive these days, as I'm sure you know."

Charlie didn't respond. She sounded even more rehearsed than he did.

"So I'd like to offer you the chance to purchase subscriptions to your favorite magazines at a greatly discounted price." She crouched down and petted Kutter. "Aw, what a cutie! What's her name?"

"His name. Kutter."

"Awwwwwww." She scratched Kutter's chin, until he rolled over and she rubbed his belly.

Charlie glanced outside. Nobody around.

He grabbed the girl by the hair and yanked her inside. He slammed his hand over her mouth, kicked the door shut, and dragged her into the kitchen where he kept the bottle of chloroform.

* * *

Well, that was impulsive.

Charlie leaned against the basement wall, staring at the blonde who was now strapped to the metal table, still unconscious. He should've been cackling with glee; she was, without a doubt, the finest victim he'd ever claimed. If he believed in fate or a higher power, he would have called her a heavenly gift. But she wasn't—her presence at his door was a coincidence, and her presence in his basement was the result of acting without thinking.

He'd wanted to let her go as soon as he got her into the kitchen. Unfortunately, this wasn't like accidentally stepping on her foot or spilling soda on her blouse. He couldn't just apologize and send her on her way. She had to die.

But that was a good thing, right?

Somebody would definitely come looking for her. The disappearances of young cute college students didn't typically go unnoticed. And though she was dumb enough to go knocking on the doors of strangers after dark, she probably wasn't dumb enough to do it without telling anybody where she was going, so the search would probably begin soon.

He had to get rid of her. The question was, how much time did he have? A day? A couple of hours?

Under other circumstances, a couple of hours with a victim would barely seem worth the effort. But tonight, it sounded like paradise.

Did he have even that long? What if she lived at home, and his house was her last scheduled visit before she was late for dinner? The cops could be one or two houses down already, doing a methodical search.

Would they suspect him, though? Would they suspect that the guy with the cute dog was a killer?

Yeah, probably. Charlie still had to admit that he was kind of creepy.

"What should I do?" he asked Kutter, who lay on the cement floor, chewing on a piece of rawhide. He didn't like having Kutter down here, as if the dog might think less of him for what he'd done, but he knew that if he kept the basement door closed, Kutter would just stand outside of it and bark. Loud barking in his home was not a good thing at this moment.

The smartest course of action would be to quickly end her life and dispose of the body...but freebie victim or not, it seemed like a waste. If this was divine intervention, which it wasn't, was it a good idea not to make the most of his gift?

"Now you're just trying to rationalize it," he said out loud. Kutter looked away from his rawhide for a moment as if Charlie was speaking to him. "Bad idea. Bad, bad idea."

He needed to slit her throat, soak up as much pleasure as he could from the act, and then get rid of her. Dump her in the Body Pond.

Or...?

He could take her someplace else. Someplace far away. Someplace where he could take as much time as he wanted.

His emergency shelter?

He owned a crappy little cabin deep in the sticks, about a five-hour drive away, left to him when his second set of foster parents died. He'd only visited it a couple of times, and had stocked it with canned food, bottled water, and other emergency supplies. His plan was that if he ever did screw things up badly enough that the police found out about his murders, he could hide out there for quite a long time.

The cabin was miserable, though. He'd only go live there as an absolute last resort.

And it wasn't soundproofed. His assumption was that if he ever had to flee from the police, he'd probably quit killing women for a while. Deep in the sticks or not, he couldn't have a live victim out there, so the cabin idea was out. He'd deal with her here.

Charlie walked over to the table and ran his fingers through her hair. She was absolutely beautiful.

Killing her seemed like...a crime.

What a bizarre way to feel.

He'd been given the gift of a lifetime (admittedly, a high-risk gift that could easily land him in prison) and he just didn't really want to kill her. He sort of wished he'd asked her to go get coffee instead.

The whole situation reminded him of when he'd gone to a buffet restaurant, and he'd eaten until he was full and didn't want to eat anymore. As he was walking toward the exit, he'd noticed that they put out strawberry cheesecake. He didn't much feel like eating dessert after his huge meal, but he knew that he loved strawberry cheesecake and would have pounced upon the opportunity to have some if he weren't so full, and he'd felt compelled to eat it anyway.

Would killing the girl make him just as sick to his stomach as the cheesecake?

Maybe this wasn't a good example. He could go for some strawberry cheesecake right now, actually. The point was that dragging the young woman into his house was a decision based more on what he'd wanted in the past than what he wanted now.

If only he could undo it.

"You can't change what's in the past," he said. He'd be fine. Quite honestly, he was probably just still riding high on the adrenaline from playing with Kutter all afternoon—in the morning, he'd be absolutely delighted to have a beautiful college student to slice.

Yeah. That was it. Also, he was just nervous. One cut with the razor and he'd probably be energized with the desire to kill.

Maybe he'd use the drill instead.

No, no, the razor. Keep it simple.

He selected his smallest razor from the shelf, and then held it above the unconscious girl's stomach. He'd awaken her with smelling salts before he began the process, but he should figure out his plan of action first. "Where to cut...where to cut...?"

He dropped the razor in surprise as the phone rang.

He quickly picked it back up—it had broken the skin on her stomach a bit—and set it on the metal table as he hurried upstairs. Kutter followed him, and he told the dog to shush up as he opened the door to the basement and hurried through the kitchen into the living room to answer.

"Hello?"

"Hi there! I'm calling about the dog you found."

- 8 –

Charlie suddenly felt as if he'd been kicked in the chest. "What?"

"I heard from one of your neighbors, Darlene Clifton, that you found a Boston terrier about a month ago. I think it's mine."

Before Charlie could lie, Kutter let out a loud bark.

"Hey, I recognize that guy!" said the man on the other end. "I'm right in your area. Mind if I stop over?"

"I'm...heading out."

"I'm literally like a minute from your place. I'm passing Darlene's house right now."

Charlie wasn't sure which one Darlene was. Probably the old lady on the corner. He supposed it didn't matter.

"Okay," he said.

"Great, thanks!"

Charlie hurried into the kitchen and closed the basement door. The soundproofing really wasn't designed for situations where somebody was sitting right in his living room, so he'd just have to pray that the girl didn't regain consciousness while he had a visitor.

What was he going to do? He couldn't let the man take Kutter away.

Maybe he had the wrong dog. Maybe he'd just show up, take one look at Kutter, sigh, and say "That's not my dog. Sorry to have bothered you, sir. Have a pleasant evening."

Or maybe Charlie could just not answer the door. What was the man going to do, break a window and steal Kutter? He couldn't force Charlie to give him up, could he? Charlie wished he'd researched the state law on this matter.

He scooped Kutter up in his arms and let his dog lick his face. "Don't worry," Charlie said, "I won't let him take you away." He held Kutter until he heard the car pull into his driveway, and then he put Kutter in his bedroom and closed the door. A moment later, the doorbell rang. Charlie paced around the living room, trying to figure out what to do, until the doorbell rang again.

The man standing on his front porch looked about thirty. He had slicked-back hair, wore a black leather jacket, and had a phony-looking grin. Charlie disliked him immediately.

"Hey there, Charles," said the man, sticking out his hand. "You go by Chuck?"

"Charlie."

"Nice to meet you, Charlie. I'm Byron." When Charlie didn't return his handshake, Byron lowered his arm and shifted uncomfortably. "I know you were on your way out, so I won't take up much of your time. Could I just see if you've got Duke?"

"Okay," said Charlie, stepping out of the way so Byron could come inside. But it wasn't okay. He couldn't just let this irresponsible owner come and claim a dog that he'd left to freeze to death. "How did you lose him?" Charlie asked, shutting the door behind Byron after he entered.

Byron let out a deep sigh. "Kid next door. I've been out of town, so I paid him twenty bucks a day to stop by before and after school to walk and feed Duke. Kid's sixteen years old, you'd think he could handle it, right? Loses Duke the second day. Doesn't call me on my cell. Doesn't tell anybody. I bet he barely even looked. And here's the kicker—the little shit asked me to pay him for those first two days. Can you believe it?"

Charlie didn't respond.

"Anyway, can I see if it's him?"

Charlie wanted to refuse, but how could he? The man knew that he had a dog in the house. If he tried to lie and say that Kutter had just run away moments ago, no doubt the stupid dog would bark again at precisely the wrong moment.

"Okay."

On numb legs, Charlie walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. He opened the bedroom door. Kutter rushed out, nipped at his ankles, and then saw the man crouched down on the living room floor.

"Duke!" Byron joyously exclaimed. "It is you! C'mere, boy!"

Kutter bounded over to Byron and jumped into his arms. Byron stood up, lifting Charlie's dog into the air. "Duke! Aw, I've missed you, boy! I didn't think I was gonna see you again!" Kutter licked the man's face all over while Byron laughed and Charlie just stood there, absolutely stunned.

"Did this guy take good care of you?" Byron asked Kutter. "You look great!" He turned to Charlie. "There's a reward. I'll pay you what I'd planned to pay that dumb-ass kid."

"Please," Charlie said in a quiet voice. "Don't take him."

"Excuse me?"

"Please don't take him."

Byron smiled. "It's easy to get attached to these little guys, isn't it?"

Charlie nodded.

"He's a great dog. Have you ever owned the breed?"

"No."

"I had one before this. Ronnie. Sweetest dog you can imagine. Lived seventeen years. I swore to my parents that I'd walk it, clean up after it, buy the food with my own money if they'd let me get a dog. They made me practice on a goldfish. Fish lived, so they got me a hamster. Dad accidentally kicked the hamster in its plastic ball down the stairs and killed it, and my parents felt so guilty that they got me the dog."

"Please don't take him away from me," Charlie said. He didn't care how he sounded.

"Do you own any other dogs?" Byron asked.

"I've never had a pet."

"Never had any kind of pet? Ever?"

Charlie shook his head.

"That's almost criminal," said Byron. He scratched the top of Kutter's head. "No wonder you don't want to let this guy go."

"I found him in the park under a bench. He was almost dead. I helped him get better."

"I really appreciate that."

"He likes it here."

"He does, huh?" Byron set Kutter down on the living room floor. Charlie crouched down and gestured, and Kutter ran into his arms. "He's definitely a friendly guy," Byron noted.

"I've got toys for him," Charlie said. "And lots of food. Good food. I bought the cheapest food when I first got him, but now I've got the really good kind. And I have bacon treats. I clean up after him when I take him for walks, and I let him sleep on my bed, and I clipped his toenails a couple of days ago, and I play Frisbee with him."

Byron chuckled. "You sound just like me when I was pitching the idea to my parents."

"Please. I don't have any friends. I really like having him here."

Byron's smile faded. "I can't give you my dog, Charlie."

Kutter licked Charlie's nose.

"Just let him stay a little while longer, okay?" Charlie asked. His voice cracked. He couldn't remember it ever having done that.

Byron was quiet for a long moment. "You've really never had a pet?"

"Never."

"You're almost making me cry here, Charlie."

"I'm sorry."

"Mind if I have a seat?"

Charlie shook his head, and Byron sat down on his couch. "You're not making this easy for me, you know. I feel like I'm stealing a puppy away from a little kid."

Byron sat there for a while, lost in thought. Charlie desperately wished that he'd written a script for this kind of thing. He should've guessed that somebody would come for Kutter eventually, and he should've written a foolproof speech to convince the owner to let Charlie keep him.

"Can I at least visit him?" Charlie asked, his upper lip trembling a bit.

"Show me the toys," said Byron.

"What?"

"The toys you bought him. Show them to me."

Charlie walked over to the television stand and picked up the small wicker basket that was on the floor next to it. "He keeps scattering them all around the house," Charlie said, "but I put them here when I clean the place up."

He brought the basket over to Byron. "It's only six. He wrecked two of them. The stuffed ones."

Bryon peered into the basket and nodded his approval. "Nice selection. He likes squeaky things." Byron poked at a rubber dolphin. Kutter's ears perked up at the squeak.

"I'd buy him more," Charlie insisted.

"Well, it's never good to spoil them."

"I'd spoil him anyway."

Byron sighed. "All right, Charlie, here's what we're going to do. Have you seen those movies or TV shows where the kids are fighting over the rightful owner of a dog, and so they do a contest where they both call the dog and see who he comes to first?"

"No."

"Doesn't matter. We'll set Duke in the middle of the room, we'll each take a corner, and we'll both call him. You're clearly deeply attached to the little guy, and if he's just as attached to you, I'll step down as his owner. Sound fair?"

"Yes. Very fair." Charlie was elated. Even if he liked his old home, Kutter wouldn't want Charlie to be left alone, would he?

"Go grab a couple of dog treats," said Byron.

Charlie retrieved two pseudo-bacon strips from the canister on top of the refrigerator and brought them back into the living room.

"Duke loves food a lot more than he loves either of us, that's for sure, so we'll put the treats in the center of the room while we each take a corner."

"Who picks the corner?"

"You have the home field advantage, so I'll pick. I'll stand in the corner by the TV."

Charlie walked over to the opposite corner and crouched down. If Kutter didn't pick him, Charlie was going to start sobbing right in front of this stranger. Maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe he'd look so pathetic that Byron would give him Kutter anyway.

No. You didn't give great dogs away to pathetic sobbing people. He just had to frantically hope that Kutter would make the right choice.

Byron dropped the bacon strips onto the center of the floor and then gently set Kutter down next to them. He quickly walked to his own corner, and then crouched down as well. "C'mere, Duke!"

"C'mere, Kutter! Here, Kutter!"

"Duke! Come to your Daddy!"

"Kutter! Come to your friend!"

The Boston terrier gobbled up the first bacon strip and immediately started on the second.

"Here, Duke! Here, Duke, Duke, Duke!"

"Here, Kutter! Here, Kutter, Kutter, Kutter!"

Byron clapped his hands. Charlie did the same.

The dog finished up the second bacon strip, sneezed, let out a soft bark, and then ran into Charlie's arms.

"Thank you!" Charlie said as he vigorously petted the dog with both hands. "Thank you, Kutter! You're such a good doggie! Yes, you're such a good doggie!"

Byron stood up. Charlie felt a pang of sympathy for the guy as he dabbed at the corner of his eye with his index finger. "The dog has spoken," he said with a sad smile.

"I'll take good care of him," Charlie promised.

"You'd better. I reserve the right to make surprise inspections. If I don't like what I see, I'll grind your ass up and feed you to him."

"That's fair."

Byron walked over and stuck out his hand. Charlie shook it.

"Congratulations on owning your first pet. Kutter, huh?"

"Yes."

"I actually like that better than Duke."

"Me too."

Byron picked up Kutter and spoke softly to the dog while it licked his face. Charlie felt as if he should leave the room and give them some privacy, but he also didn't want to give Byron a chance to sprint for the exit, so he stayed where he was.

After a couple of minutes, Byron handed Kutter to Charlie. "I guess I'll head off. You were on your way out, right?"

"No. I made that up."

"That's what I figured." He gave the dog one last scratch behind the ears. "Seeya, Kutter."

Charlie let Byron out of the house. He watched through the window as he got into his car and started the engine, not willing to believe that Kutter was truly his until Byron backed out of the driveway and drove out of sight.

Steak. He and Kutter needed a steak to celebrate.

Then he remembered that he still had the girl in his basement.

- 9 -

"What am I supposed to do with you?" Charlie asked the girl. He'd already taken off her gag and informed her that if she screamed, he'd cut her throat. It wasn't a threat he'd ever made good on—though he had cut vocal cords more than once—but he was feeling more paranoid than usual and didn't entirely trust the soundproofing in the basement.

"You could let me go," said the girl, her voice raw and scratchy. "I won't tell anyone."

"Yes, you will. I would."

She violently shook her head. "No, no, I swear to God I won't tell anybody. I've got a warrant out for my arrest—I can't talk to the cops even if I wanted to."

"What did you do?"

"I killed my ex-boyfriend. I shot him."

"No, you didn't." Charlie's spirits fell. He'd been momentarily excited, because the idea of her not going to the cops because of an outstanding arrest warrant made a lot of sense, but if she'd committed murder she wouldn't be going door-to-door selling magazine subscriptions.

"I did. I swear I did."

"I can look it up and find out if you're lying," Charlie told her, although he wasn't certain that he could. "If you are, I'll use my knives on your arms until they're just skeleton arms. That takes a long time. Are you willing to stick to your story?"

The girl began to cry.

"Answer me."

"No," she said.

"I didn't think so. Don't lie to me again." She was being pretty brave, a lot braver than most of his victims, but her body still shook with tiny sobs. Charlie usually enjoyed that sight. Not tonight. "I don't want to kill you," he said. "I thought I did, but I don't anymore."

"Then don't."

"It's not that easy. You know what I look like. You know where I live. How can I let you go?"

"I promise I won't tell anybody."

"But you'd be stupid if you didn't. Why would you let a serial killer roam free and not tell anybody where he lived? I don't want to hurt you, I swear I don't, but you'd tell the police. You'd have to tell them. You'd be a horrible person if you didn't."

"You'd come after me if I did."

"Not if you had police protection."

"I wouldn't have police protection forever."

"I'm not that kind of killer. I hunt easy targets, people who won't be missed."

"Everybody is missed."

"No they aren't."

"Yes, they are."

Charlie could talk to strapped-down women in his basement with an ease that eluded his interactions with other humans, but he found himself momentarily flustered. "Either way, a promise not to tell isn't enough. I can't believe you."

"Then what can we do?"

"I don't know! That's the whole problem! If we can find an answer, I'll do it, but I can't think of one! I probably shouldn't have kept you alive even this long. The police could be on their way right now."

"They're not."

"I'll make it quick," Charlie promised. "I never do, but this time I will. It'll be over in seconds. You'll hardly even feel it."

"My name is Patti."

"I don't care."

"I just want you to know that. My name is Patti."

"I said I don't care." Charlie ran a hand through his hair, thoroughly frustrated. She was ruining his celebration with Kutter.

"I can come up with a plan," Patti said. "Just give me time. Give me an hour."

Charlie considered that. It was a bad idea, a terrible idea, but it seemed fair to give her a chance. She might come up with something brilliant. If he could resolve this situation without murdering her and risking having the police hunt him for the rest of his free life, it would be worth taking the chance on keeping her alive awhile longer.

"Okay," he said. "I won't kill you yet."

"Thank you."

"Put your thinking cap on. I'll go get you some food. Do you like cereal?"

* * *

Charlie closed the basement door behind him as he stepped into the kitchen. He didn't have any steak in the house, and though there was a twenty-four-hour grocery store not too far from his home, he wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave the house right now. He and Kutter would just have to celebrate with bacon strips.

He walked into the living room. "Kutter! What the hell—?"

Kutter stopped chewing on the couch cushion. He'd exposed a piece of the stuffing, and another bit of white fluff was on the floor.

"Why are you chewing up my couch?" He hurried across the room. Kutter ran to the other side, thinking it was playtime.

"You idiot, I was going to buy you a steak tomorrow! Steak! I bet you've never even had a steak. A big, thick juicy steak on the way and you're trying to eat my couch? Why would you do that? Huh? Why?"

Charlie stood there, waiting for an answer. Then he remembered that he was unlikely to receive one.

He couldn't believe this. He hadn't even been the dog's official owner for half an hour and Kutter was chewing up the furniture.

He sat down on the damaged couch. Kutter jumped up next to him.

"Go away. I'm mad at you."

Kutter prodded Charlie's hand with his cold wet nose, seeking petting.

"No. You don't deserve to get petted. You're a bad dog. Good dogs don't chew up couches. Only evil ones do that."

Kutter continued to prod him. Charlie reluctantly petted his head.

"What's wrong? Were you just stressed out because your old owner tried to take you away?"

That might've been it. Byron's unexpected presence might've confused the poor animal. And Kutter might've been scared by having Charlie go down into the basement so soon after Byron left. Maybe he thought that Charlie had left him forever.

"I'm sorry," said Charlie. "You're not a bad dog. We'll make up." He took Kutter's paw in his hand and shook it. "Deal?"

Kutter licked his face.

* * *

Charlie watched the 11:00 PM news to see if there was anything about Patti. Nothing. That wasn't surprising—she'd hadn't been missing for very long, and if she lived on campus and had a boyfriend, it might not be unusual for her to come home late.

He had time.

"What a waste," he told Kutter. A beautiful girl in his basement, and he simply didn't feel like torturing or killing her. How had his life turned out this way?

He decided not to go downstairs to check on her. She'd be fine until tomorrow. Then Charlie would call in sick to work, and spend the morning either following Patti's plan, or disposing of her body.

* * *

The alarm went off as usual at 6:30 AM. Charlie got up, threw on a robe, took Kutter for a quick walk, came home, brushed his teeth, and then practiced his "sick voice" a few times. He thought it sounded pretty good. He considered leaving his voice mail without using a script, then lost his nerve and wrote down what he wanted to say. He kept it simple—giving more information than was necessary made it sound like a lie.

He dialed Bob Testiro's number. It rang twice.

"Hello?"

Charlie froze. Bob was never in this early. "Uh, Bob? It's Charlie Stanlon."

"Hey, Charlie, what's up?"

He considered coughing into the phone, then decided it would sound forced. "Nothing much. I'm just calling in sick."

"What's wrong?"

"Sore throat. Some aches and pains."

"Charlie, we're already two people down this week. I worked all day Saturday and half a day yesterday to get ready for the global operations center's visit. You really can't fight through a sore throat and some aches and pains?"

"I...guess I can."

"Thanks. It's just really not a good time for you to be out. If you're still not feeling well on Tuesday, it won't be an issue. See you in a bit."

Charlie hung up. That hadn't quite gone as planned. He couldn't afford to get fired, so it looked like he'd be going in to work today.

It would be fine. He'd left women in his basement countless times while at work. It even made the day more pleasant, knowing they were down there. He'd simply have to treat this situation no differently than any of the others. If there'd been a witness, the cops would've been at his door by now, so he'd just trust that the security measures he already had in place were sufficient. And maybe this was a good thing. His job was pretty boring, so he'd have all day to brainstorm ideas on how to let Patti live.

And after he dealt with that, he thought he might build Kutter a doghouse.

* * *

Charlie stared at the stapled papers.

Alicia had been doing so well, but there it was, stapled in the top center instead of the top left. Only one of them—the others were done correctly—but this could be the start of a trend. If he didn't say something, the entire batch of papers could be improperly stapled tomorrow. He'd have to pluck out all of the staples and redo them, which wasted staples and put his fingertips at risk for puncturing.

He started to type an e-mail to Bob, then stopped after "Bob, I need to bring to your attention—"

Alicia was always nice to him. She was the one who'd suggested that he keep Kutter. If he hadn't listened to her, Kutter could've been gassed or adopted by an unloving home. She'd said that if he had a problem with her, he should bring it to her directly, so that's what he'd do. She deserved that much.

He picked up the flawed papers and walked over to her desk.

"Uh-oh, did I screw something up?" Alicia asked.

Charlie shook his head. "No. It's all fine."

What was he saying? It wasn't fine. It was wrong in a way that he'd already asked her to fix. Why was he suddenly compelled not to mention it?

Coming over to her desk was a mistake. He should've just e-mailed Bob. It was never a good idea to change the plan.

Alicia was a lot more beautiful than he remembered.

"I just wanted to tell you that I get to keep the dog," he said. "The real owner came over, but he's letting me keep him."

"Really? That's great! I bet you're thrilled!"

"Yeah. So...thanks."

"For what?"

"For your help."

"Oh, I didn't do anything. I just told you to keep him."

"That helped."

Alicia smiled. "Well, then I graciously accept your thanks. Now tape a damn dog picture to your monitor. That's the rule."

"Okay."

She returned her attention to her work. Charlie didn't leave. His mouth had dried up and he ran his tongue all over the inside, trying to replenish the moisture so he could speak.

"Did you...did you want to get coffee sometime?" he finally asked.

Her smile faltered. Just for a fraction of a second, but it faltered.

"You know," she said, "some of us get drinks after work on Wednesdays."

He knew. Alicia had mentioned it a couple of times, but he always declined the offer. It sounded boring.

"You should come with us."

Did she really want him to come along, or was she just trying to get out of a coffee date? He was almost positive it was the latter. He couldn't blame her for that.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I wasn't asking to...I wasn't asking because I wanted to..."

"No, no, I understood. Coffee as friends. I'm sure you have a rule against dating co-workers just like I do. But you really should come with us for drinks on Wednesday. Coffee counts as a drink."

"Maybe."

"Is that a legitimate maybe, or a maybe meaning no?"

"A legitimate one."

"Great! We'll look forward to having you along."

Charlie returned to his desk, feeling humiliated. He never should have asked her out. That was idiotic. There was no possible way she'd ever have said "yes," and now she'd go around the office telling everybody what he'd done.

He could hear her voice: "Oh, he's got a cute little crush on me! It's so adorable!" She probably thought he was a pathetic little puppy, following her around, too stupid to know that she was out of his league.

He wasn't sure if he should go with them on Wednesday or not. Most likely, Alicia had just invited him to escape from the awkward social situation.

He'd leave her alone from now on.

* * *

After an endless day, Charlie drove home. At least he knew Kutter wouldn't decline his invitation to go for a walk.

As soon as his key touched the lock, he could hear Kutter's happy barking on the other side of the door. He opened the door and his best friend gave him the usual wildly enthusiastic greeting. "Good boy," Charlie said, crouching down and petting him. "You're always a good boy, aren't you?"

He glanced over at his couch.

No new tooth marks. No stuffing all over the floor.

However, there was a big puddle of vomit on the left cushion, much of which had trickled down the front and onto his carpet.

"Aw, come on, Kutter, why would you do that?" Charlie asked. "You couldn't hold it in until I got home? I've got an entire kitchen of tiled floor that you could've puked on. Why did you need to do that on my couch?"

Kutter did not answer.

"What are you even eating that you would've—aw, shit!"

Literally.

"That's horrible, Kutter. Horrible. That's a horrible thing to eat and a horrible thing to vomit on my couch. I can't believe you would do that."

Charlie's was not always a life of great dignity—after all, he'd once found himself in his basement sobbing over the corpse of a victim who'd died too soon—but he'd never eaten and thrown up his own feces. Even his moments of most intense shame were never that low.

"You suck, Kutter." Charlie glared at his dog. "If I had let you lick my face before I saw that, you'd be out on the street."

Oh well. If there was one thing that Charlie's home didn't lack, it was cleaning supplies.

He took Kutter for a much shorter walk than usual, then brought him back inside and took off his leash. When Charlie opened the basement door, Kutter pushed past him and ran down the stairs. Charlie didn't bother calling him back—Kutter couldn't jump up on the table, and Patti couldn't get down, so it really didn't matter if the dog was down there or not.

He had mentally run through scenarios all day, trying to figure out how he could let Patti go without putting himself in serious danger. He couldn't think of any, except to leave her here and flee to his cabin, but even in that scenario he'd be more likely to get captured and arrested than if he just killed her. Still, he was the first to admit that he didn't always think of every possibility, and he hoped that she'd been more successful.

Kutter scampered around the room while Charlie cut off Patti's gag. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" he asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She looked scared, but she also looked defiant. She could be as defiant as she wanted—she was still strapped to a table, and she wasn't getting away.

"I tried to find a solution," Charlie said. "I really did. What did you come up with?"

"Here's what I came up with. If you kill me, my parents will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. You will never know another moment of peace. You will—"

Charlie put his hand over her mouth. "I didn't ask you to come up with a speech. Is that really all you've got for me? A threat? All this time down here and your answer is to tell me that your parents will seek revenge?" Charlie was incredulous, but it also made him feel a little better about himself. If she'd spent about twenty hours in a basement with absolutely nothing to do but think about how they could work things out, and even she was unsuccessful, then there truly had to be no answer. It wasn't just him.

He pulled his hand away. "They'll torture you," Patti said.

"They'd do that even if I let you go."

"They'll fuck you up."

Charlie picked up the knife. "You didn't do what you were supposed to. This isn't my fault."

"You'll burn in hell."

"You think I don't know that?"

"They'll—"

"Enough! Do you want the blade in your throat or in your heart? You pick."

Patti bit her lip and said nothing.

"Throat or heart? Come on. It's not that difficult of a decision."

Her voice became frantic. "I have a place where you can stay. My parents own a cabin. Nobody will find you there. I'll take you there right now if you let me go. I'll never tell. I swear."

Charlie shook his head. "That won't work. It's better than the threat, but it won't work. Heart or throat? You can also think of it as slice or stab. Which do you want?"

"I—I don't..." Tears began to stream down the sides of her face. "Which one hurts less?"

"I don't know. I think heart."

"Please don't kill me."

"We'll do heart."

Charlie raised the knife over Patti's chest. Kutter began to whimper.

"What's wrong?" Charlie asked. The dog continued to whine, clearly distressed.

What was wrong seemed pretty obvious: Kutter didn't want him to stab her.

Great.

"It's okay, boy," Charlie assured him. "You don't have to be scared."

He set the knife down on the table. Wow. He never would've expected to interrupt killing his prey to avoid traumatizing a dog.

"Kutter, upstairs. Come on." He whistled and started up the stairs himself. Kutter didn't follow. Halfway up, Charlie clapped his hands and whistled again. "Come on, boy!"

He spent another full minute trying to coax the dog onto the stairs, then gave up and just picked Kutter up. "It'll be fine," he said in a soothing voice. "Nothing bad's going to happen to you." Kutter continued to whine as he carried him upstairs into the kitchen. He closed the door behind them and set Kutter on the floor. Kutter immediately started to scratch on the basement door.

"Stop it," Charlie said. "You know better than that."

Charlie decided that he might as well clean up Kutter's mess before tending to the problem downstairs. Stupid pukey dog. "It's not too late to take you to the animal shelter," Charlie said, even though he was considering no such thing.

By the time Charlie finished cleaning up the couch, Kutter had fallen asleep on the floor and was snoring softly. It felt weird to be sneaking around in his own house, but Charlie crept into the kitchen and slowly opened the basement door. He shut it behind him as he went down the stairs.

He walked over to the table and sighed with frustration.

And then he slid the blade across Patti's throat, receiving no pleasure from the sight of her gushing blood.

- 10 -

The next evening, a policeman showed up at his door. Charlie told him that a girl had indeed tried to sell him a magazine subscription, and that he felt bad turning her down, but that he couldn't bring himself to do anything that might encourage further door-to-door solicitation. The officer seemed satisfied with his response, gave Charlie his card, and asked him to call if he thought of anything else that might be helpful. Charlie promised him that he would.

* * *

"So are you coming?" Alicia asked, as Charlie shut down his computer.

He'd decided that he wasn't. She'd only asked him to join them as a way to be nice about turning down his request for a date—not even a date, coffee as friends—and he didn't particularly like the other people he worked with. He knew their names and whether or not they had kids (mostly because they talked about it so loudly in the aisles) but not much else, and wasn't interested in knowing more.

"Nah."

"You really should."

"Okay, I'll go," he heard himself say.

"Great!"

Oh well. No big deal. He'd survive this. Worst-case scenario, he'd have a miserable hour or so, and then he'd go home and spend some quality time with Kutter. Wednesdays were now Frisbee night—he'd stop at the toy store on the way home and get the nicest plastic Frisbee they had.

* * *

Five of them sat around the table in the restaurant. Mike, Gary, and Jessica had all expressed surprise that Charlie was coming with them, and it looked like Jessica had purposely picked a seat where she wouldn't be next to him, yet they were all reasonably pleasant. Everybody ordered alcoholic beverages except Charlie—Gary had pushed for him to get a beer, but Charlie needed to remain in full control of his mental state. He'd never been drunk, and could see no positive outcome to having too much to drink and accidentally blurting out something like "Say, were you aware that during my non-working hours I slaughter innocent women?"

They started by talking about tedious job-related stuff that Charlie had no interest in. He didn't care about the whispered rumors about possible mergers or layoffs in other departments or suspected affairs between bosses and their administrative assistants. Charlie did his own job as well as he possibly could, and expected others around him to do their jobs correctly, but outside of his area, he didn't much care what was happening. None of this conversation affected him personally or professionally. What a waste of time that he could be using to choose the perfect color of Frisbee. His thought was blue, if they had it, though dark green might also work.

"So, Charlie," said Alicia. "Tell everybody about your new dog."

Charlie's stomach clenched up. He hated being the center of attention, even in a small group. "Kutter," he said.

"What kind of dog is it?" Mike asked.

"Boston terrier."

"Oh, I love those!" said Jessica. "Those cute little faces. You didn't get him from a puppy mill, did you?"

"No."

"Charlie found him under a park bench, badly hurt," said Alicia.

"Not badly hurt."

"I thought you said he was hurt."

"He just had some scratches. But he was freezing to death, I think."

"So you saved his life."

"I think so. Yeah."

"I had no idea you were a heroic puppy-saver," said Mike. Charlie couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Then Mike smiled, and Charlie decided that he wasn't.

"He isn't a puppy," Charlie explained.

Charlie noticed Jessica rolling her eyes. He was screwing this up. He never should've agreed to this torture.

"I just meant that if he was a puppy I probably wouldn't have been able to save him. It's good that he had grown up."

Charlie wasn't sure if that explanation helped things or not.

"Why the name Kutter?" asked Gary.

"It's my grandfather's name," Charlie lied, as he'd planned in case anybody ever asked him.

"Kutter Stanlon?"

"Yes."

"That's a pretty bad-ass name."

"Thanks." Charlie took a long drink of his Cherry Coke, and then checked his watch. Alicia kicked him gently under the table. He thought he'd been more subtle.

"Do you have a picture?" asked Alicia.

"Not with me." Charlie did have to admit to himself that he appreciated the way Alicia was trying to keep him involved in the conversation. Yeah, he'd rather be at home, but all things considered, this really wasn't so bad. If nothing else, this place knew how to make a good Cherry Coke—he hated the weak ones. He couldn't see himself joining his co-workers every single week...but perhaps once a month, just to be nice.

Maybe he'd try something new. Something he couldn't remember ever having tried before in his adult life. Maybe he'd ask somebody about themselves without any motive except to hear the answer.

"Do any of you own dogs?" he asked.

Mike owned a golden retriever named Zak who carried around a teddy bear, and a parakeet named Twitter who said three different phrases in German. Gary was allergic to dogs but owned goldfish, which he flushed and replaced on a regular basis so as not to disturb his daughter, who tended to overfeed them. Jessica desperately wanted a puppy, something that would stay small, but her apartment complex didn't allow pets. And Alicia had three cats, Wilson, Puffs, and Jagged Edge, each named by one of her children. Charlie hadn't known that she had children.

Three kids. Wow. Charlie had never expected to love a dog, but the idea of having a girlfriend with three kids was almost inconceivable. He was really glad that she'd declined his offer for coffee. He smiled to himself, thinking that this had been a productive social outing after all.

They stayed for another hour, with Charlie successfully carrying his fifth of the conversational load. Gary was the first to excuse himself, and everybody else simultaneously agreed that it was time to head home.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Alicia asked, as they walked out of the restaurant and headed for their vehicles.

"Yeah," said Charlie, surprised that he didn't have to lie.

"Join us next week?"

"I might."

She didn't give him a kiss or a hug or any of the things that Charlie would've originally considered the only possible benefit from going out with the group—just a friendly pat on the arm. And Charlie was fine with that.

* * *

He picked out three Frisbees: a light blue one, a dark blue one, and a glow-in-the-dark green one. That way he'd have extras if any of them got lost or Kutter chewed them up to the point where it impacted their aerodynamics. When he got home, he let Kutter out of the basement, put on his leash, and ran with him to the park, at least for the first couple of blocks, after which Charlie walked fast while Kutter tugged on his leash and stopped occasionally to smell things.

The glow-in-the-dark Frisbee didn't glow worth crap, but Kutter was still able to catch it. Charlie tried to keep track of how many times he threw the Frisbees, until he lost count around twenty-eight and decided that it didn't really matter. This time, Charlie was amused to find that Kutter ran out of energy before him, although to be fair, Kutter was doing the vast majority of the running.

* * *

As Charlie lay in bed, with Kutter asleep at his feet, he suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to worry about the police returning based on new evidence against him. Odds were, he'd gotten away with his impulse kill. Though he never planned to do anything even remotely that reckless again, it was kind of nice to know that even when he had a huge lapse in his better judgment, he could evade arrest.

He got a great night's sleep, and dreamt about working in a dog biscuit factory.

* * *

The next evening, it was finally time for their steak dinner celebration. Charlie dragged his rarely used grill out into his backyard, applied a generous helping of lighter fluid because he enjoyed the whoosh of the fireball, and tossed a match onto the pile of charcoal. When the coals were ready, he brought out two thick New York strip steaks and tossed them on the grill. He liked his steaks medium rare. In the cartoons, dogs always ate raw steaks, but Charlie didn't want to risk Kutter getting worms, so he cooked the dog's steak medium rare as well.

Kutter whined and twitched and licked his chops over and over as Charlie cut his steak into small pieces. "Chill out," Charlie told him. "I don't want you to choke."

The dog, clearly unconcerned with the potential choking hazard, let out an impatient bark.

Charlie set Kutter's bowl on the floor, watching as the dog proceeded to gobble the steak down so quickly that it might as well have been a bowl of Alpo, considering how little time the food spent in contact with Kutter's tongue. Charlie elected to savor his own meal in a much more leisurely manner, and also enjoyed a side dish of a fully loaded baked potato. Because he was in a really good mood, and it was a celebration dinner, Charlie gave Kutter the last third of his steak.

* * *

"Shake! Come on, buddy, shake! Shake hands!"

Kutter never resisted when he shook his paw manually, but Charlie could never get the dog to put up his paw on his own.

"Shake hands, Kutter! Shake!"

He took Kutter's paw and shook it again, to demonstrate what the dog was supposed to do. "Shake," he said, looking into the dog's eyes. "This is called shake."

He let go of Kutter's paw, but kept his hand out. "Shake, Kutter! Shake!"

Kutter preferred face licking over paw shaking as a means of greeting, but Charlie refused to give up. He didn't expect the dog to leap through flaming hoops (although that would be pretty cool) but sometime before the end of this year Kutter was going to learn how to shake!

"Shake, Kutter! Shake! Shake!"

Kutter lifted his paw. Charlie grabbed it and shook it. "Good dog! Good doggie!"

Next up: Rolling over.

* * *

Charlie found himself speaking to Mike, Gary, and Jessica about non-work-related matters. Only brief, trivial conversations about pets, television shows, and prior night's meals, yet he enjoyed the contact. The next Wednesday, he went along for drinks, even though Alicia couldn't go because of a prior engagement. They talked about their favorite movies, and Charlie made a list of things he needed to rent on DVD.

* * *

A month later, Alicia announced that she was engaged. Charlie wished her the best, and meant it. Then he joined his co-workers in speculating about whether or not the ridiculously short time frame between meeting the guy and agreeing to marry him was somehow related to an unexpected pregnancy.

When she brought him to their next gathering, Charlie decided that no, they were simply in love.

* * *

On a lark, Charlie entered Kutter in a small local dog show. They were eliminated in the first round, though at least Charlie was pretty sure that their scores were better than the bulldog that took a dump in front of the judges. They didn't get a trophy, but Charlie gave Kutter lots of treats.

* * *

"Hear me out before you say no," said Alicia. Charlie didn't like her wicked grin. There was no question that her intentions were evil.

"All right."

"I have a friend—"

"No."

"She just moved here a couple of weeks ago. If you don't count me, she doesn't have any friends outside of work. She's really nice. She likes dogs. I think you two would really hit it off."

Charlie thought about that for a moment. "You mean a blind date, right?"

"Yep."

"Uh-uh. No."

"You're not going to take pity on my poor friend? My poor lonely friend, who got really excited when I told her all about you?"

"Sorry."

Alicia lowered her voice to a whisper. "She's been unwillingly celibate for the past two years."

Charlie broke into a cold sweat and hoped that Alicia didn't notice. "I'm busy."

"I didn't say when."

"When?"

"It's open-ended. Anytime you two are able to make it work. And here's the best part, I thought that you could do a 'dog date,' where you take your dogs to the park together. She has a Yorkie. So Kutter can have a date, too. It'll be fun."

"Is her Yorkie mean?"

"Her Yorkie is just fine. Can I tell her you said yes?"

"I don't know."

"You need to say yes, because I'll harass you about this as much as I can without violating any HR policies."

By the official company rules, Charlie thought that the "unwillingly celibate" comment might have been a human resources violation already, but of course he wasn't going to report her. "Fine," he said.

"Cool! How about Saturday?"

"Afternoon or evening?"

"Do you already have plans for either?"

"No."

"Then let's go with Saturday afternoon. You'll love her. I promise!"

* * *

Despite the badgering from his hair stylist, Charlie still refused to add any highlights.

* * *

He had no idea what to wear. He wanted to dress to impress, but he also didn't want to look like an idiot running around the dog park in formal clothes.

"You're lucky," he told Kutter. "All you have to wear is fur."

Kutter woofed in agreement. Or disagreement. One of the two.

Charlie settled on jeans and his nicest red polo shirt, with an extra spritz of cologne.

* * *

She was seated on a bench, waiting for him as he and Kutter arrived at the dog park. Unless it was some other curly-haired blonde with a Yorkie on her lap.

"Elizabeth...?" he asked.

"Hi, Charlie!" she said, standing up.

Charlie had hoped it was a case of mistaken identity. She was remarkably unattractive—overweight, bad complexion, and crooked teeth. Her hair was nice, and Charlie liked her yellow blouse, but she wasn't one-tenth as good-looking as Alicia.

Was that how Alicia saw him? Her ugly co-worker? She hadn't set up the blind date to be nice to him; she did it because there was nobody else who'd go out with her repulsive cow of a friend.

Okay, "repulsive cow" was too harsh.

And he had to be honest: he was not a handsome man. Not even if you graded on a curve. For all he knew, she was thinking the same thing, that Alicia must've picked her ugliest co-worker to set her up with on the date.

If nothing else, she looked a lot better than some of the junkies he cut up.

"Hi," he said. He gave a gentle tug on Kutter's leash. "This is Kutter."

"Nice to meet you, Kutter," said Elizabeth. "This is Cooper."

"After the singer?"

"Alice Cooper?"

"Yeah."

"No, but I like his music. Are you a fan?"

"Uh-huh." Charlie didn't listen to music very often, but School's Out was one of the few CD's he owned.

Charlie awkwardly shook her hand. A soft breeze was at her back, and he noticed that she smelled nice, sort of like cotton candy.

"So Alicia says that you rescued your dog...?"

"Yeah. Not from wolves or anything like that, but yeah."

Elizabeth giggled. Charlie smiled as well. The wolves line was kind of clever. He didn't usually ad-lib things like that.

"That's pretty cool of you. I got Cooper from an animal shelter. If my sister hadn't stopped me, I probably would've taken home six of them."

"That's a lot of Yorkies."

"Yeah."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Charlie frantically tried to think of something to ask. "Do you go by Beth?"

"Liz. Or the full Elizabeth. As long as you don't call me Lizzie, it's fine."

"I won't."

"Thanks."

"Do you want to see Kutter catch a Frisbee?"

"I'd love to."

With the pressure on, Charlie half-expected Kutter to develop performance anxiety and completely botch the Frisbee-catching game. Fortunately, with the exception of one miss that was Charlie's fault (a bad throw, but not a bad enough throw to be humiliating) Kutter caught them all.

"He's really good at that," Liz said.

"He was that good when I found him. Can Cooper catch?"

"Yeah, but not one of those Frisbees. They're bigger than she is!"

"What can she catch?"

"A bouncy ball. I have to do it at home, though. It won't work on the grass."

"I'd like to see that," Charlie said.

Had he accidentally made a suggestive comment? Charlie sure hoped not. He couldn't honestly say that he was attracted to her, but he still didn't want to screw the date up this early, if for no other reason than to have to face Alicia on Monday.

She smiled. "Maybe you will."

Okay, that had been a suggestive comment.

They spent another hour at the dog park. Though the conversation didn't always flow freely, they were able to fill the silences by watching the dogs play. Liz suggested that they get an early dinner, so they drove in separate cars to Charlie's favorite seafood restaurant. Never having brought a guest there before, Charlie suddenly became very concerned about the quality of the food—maybe he only liked the flounder because he didn't know what good flounder tasted like!—but decided that he really couldn't worry about it.

"Please don't destroy my car," Charlie told Kutter as they pulled into the restaurant's parking lot. "You have no idea how happy it will make me if I come back and you haven't wrecked anything. You went to the bathroom before we left and you haven't eaten anything that you should need to vomit, so there's no excuse. If you have to slobber, slobber, but don't chew up the seats. Okay?"

As Charlie ate his baked flounder and Liz ate her salmon Caesar salad, Charlie decided that the date had gone from "much less painful than he would have expected" to "absolutely fantastic." By the time they'd finished their crab cake appetizers her physical appearance didn't bother him at all. In fact, her smile and the way her eyes lit up when she spoke made her more appealing to look at than a lot of genuinely pretty women he knew. And she was easy to talk to. Almost as easy as Kutter, and the best part was that she talked back.

They had similar tastes in movies and television shows, both hated sports, had differing political views (Liz was a passionate Democrat, while Charlie had no interest in the subject whatsoever and had never voted in a single election), both read very few books, and neither had travelled extensively. Charlie wasn't thrilled with her choice of dessert, since bread pudding was among the nastiest concoctions ever devised by humankind, but he happily shared it with her.

She asked if he wanted to go back to her place to watch a movie, and he enthusiastically accepted her offer.

Aside from a drool mark on the steering wheel, Kutter hadn't harmed his vehicle.

Liz apologized for the condition of her apartment, which was only sparsely furnished and had boxes everywhere, but Charlie didn't mind. It was a nice little apartment, and he was glad that she hadn't asked to continue their date at his house. Kutter and Cooper chased each other around the apartment until finally both dogs fell asleep halfway through When Harry Met Sally. When the movie ended, Liz asked if he wanted her to put in another one. Charlie said sure. A moment later he realized that "sure" wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it was too late to change course now. She put in 9 1/2 Weeks.

About half an hour into the movie, she asked if he wanted to kiss her, and this time Charlie gave the right answer. Her lips were...perfect.

Half an hour after that, she asked if he wanted to move to the bedroom. He gave the right answer to that, too.

- 11 -

Charlie lay in bed, Liz asleep next to him, thinking that he'd never felt so content. He was pretty sure his performance hadn't been very good, but she'd seemed reasonably satisfied and she certainly hadn't complained. Charlie figured he had the benefit of her two-year dry spell working in his favor.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, Liz woke up and began to kiss his chest. "Are you still frisky?" she asked.

Charlie nodded.

"We should do it in a way that honors our doggies," she said, getting on her hands and knees.

Charlie spent all day Sunday at Liz's apartment. They watched a couple of movies and took the dogs for a couple of walks, but spent most of the time in bed. Charlie tried to imagine her strapped down to the table in his basement. It was a repellent image.

He left Sunday night with a kiss and a promise to see her again after work the next day.

* * *

Alicia walked over to his desk as soon as he sat down the next morning.

"You are such a slut," she whispered. Charlie felt his face turn red and his ears burn as she walked back around the corner, giggling.

* * *

"So do you think I have a girlfriend now?" Charlie asked Kutter, as he put on the dog's leash right after getting home. "I was only there one night, so I guess it counts as a one night stand, but I spent all day there, too. Don't you usually leave first thing in the morning if it's a one night stand?"

Kutter, as always, provided no useful feedback.

When Charlie went over to her apartment, Liz greeted him wearing nothing but a string bikini and some freshly applied chocolate on her nipples. Charlie decided that she was indeed his girlfriend.

* * *

March 24th. The night of the new hunt.

It used to be like Christmas six times a year. In the days prior to a hunt, he'd be so filled with excitement that he could barely control himself. He'd spend hours sitting in his living room, opening and closing one of his pocketknives, fantasizing about where he'd cut first. Had to start with the extremities—fingers and toes. He didn't want a victim to bleed to death too soon.

Tonight...he just didn't feel like it.

He was enjoying work a lot more these days. Sure, he'd still quit if he won the lottery, received a surprise inheritance, or got a higher offer elsewhere, but the day went by much more quickly now that he interacted with his co-workers in a friendly manner. His relationship with Liz was going wonderfully. He was relatively certain that she considered him more of a "boy-toy" than a "soul mate," but Charlie had never been anybody's boy-toy before and he liked it.

He didn't need to hunt anymore.

Didn't need to kill anymore.

And so, on this particular March 24th, he was not going to roam the streets hunting for prey. He was going to put on the iPod he'd just bought last night, put on the "Walking Kutter" playlist, take his Boston terrier out for a nice long stroll, and then go out with his girlfriend.

"This is where I found you," said Charlie, as Kutter sniffed the bench. "If I hadn't taken you home, you would've been a dog Popsicle. Kutter the dog-flavored Popsicle. That's no way to end your life, buddy."

As usual, the park was empty. They really needed to promote this place better. Charlie unhooked Kutter's leash and played fetch with a rubber ball for about fifteen minutes. Then, on one throw, Kutter ran in the opposite direction, toward the street.

"Wrong way!" Charlie shouted. It wasn't a particularly busy street, but he could hear a car coming. "Kutter! Get back here!"

Kutter kept running. Charlie took off after him.

Charlie could see the car now. A small one, but Kutter was headed straight for—

The car took a left turn, putting Kutter out of potential danger.

Charlie saw what Kutter was running for. A dog on the other side of the street. "Kutter!" he shouted. "You stop right now!"

Kutter stopped, then went into a barking fit. Charlie hurried over to him and snapped the leash onto his collar. "Don't ever run off like that again," Charlie said. "You could've been hit by a car! Do you know how worried I was?"

He glanced across the street again. Now there were two dogs. Big ones. The one he'd seen first was a big black dog—a rottweiler, he thought it was called. He thought the other one might be a pit bull but he wasn't completely sure what pit bulls looked like, just that they were vicious, mean dogs. And the two men holding their leashes didn't appear much friendlier.

"Time to head home," he said. Kutter barked at the dogs again. Brave but stupid.

"Hey there!" said the first man, waving to Charlie from across the street. "How's it going?"

Charlie didn't answer. He tugged on Kutter's leash to draw his attention away from the other dogs and began to walk down the sidewalk.

"Don't walk away from us!" the man said. "We just wanna see your dog!"

Charlie kept walking for a few moments, then stopped. He really didn't want to talk to these guys, but if they decided to turn their scary dogs loose he could be in a lot of trouble. He had a knife in his inside jacket pocket, so if they intended to mug him he'd take them by surprise with a blade to the face.

Kutter growled as the men and their dogs approached. Charlie shushed him. They probably wanted nothing more than to laugh a good laugh about how they had big monster dogs and he had a silly looking clown-faced dog. Or else they just wanted directions.

The men walked their dogs across the street. They were both smiling, but they were some of the least friendly smiles Charlie had ever seen. He wanted to pick Kutter up to keep the dog out of harm's way; however, that would prevent him from using the knife if the men truly did intend to mug him. Though he wasn't worried about losing money, since he only had seven dollars in his wallet, some muggers got mad if you couldn't pay them off and stabbed or shot you to vent their frustration.

The men were of equal height—probably over six feet tall—and both had facial hair, though the first had a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee while the second had an unkempt full beard. The first man seemed to have bathed much more recently than the second.

"Nice dog," said the cleaner man.

Charlie tightened his grip on the handle of Kutter's leash. "He's mine."

"Nobody said he wasn't."

"What do you want?"

"I thought I already said that we wanted to see your dog." The pit bull sniffed at Kutter, and Charlie took a step back, pulling Kutter away. "It's a pretty nice dog. How much does one of those things cost these days?"

"I didn't steal him."

"Why would you think that we're accusing you of stealing him? I'd think that the owner of such a fine dog would be used to people wanting to see him."

Charlie took another step back. "Keep your pit bull away from him."

"Pit bull? This isn't a pit bull. This is an American Staffordshire terrier. And even if he was, you're not one of those people who think that pit bulls go around mauling babies, are you? They got a bad rap. Pit bulls are great dogs if the owner takes care of them. When you hear about them ripping some kid apart, it's almost never the dog's fault."

"I don't have any money," Charlie said.

"Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid." The man laughed, but there was no humor to it. "We've seen you around and we liked your dog. You're acting like you have a guilty conscience. You do something you shouldn't have?"

"I need to get home," Charlie said.

"Why?"

"I'm meeting my girlfriend."

"Then by all means, don't let us keep you." The man gestured grandly toward the way Charlie had been walking. "I wouldn't want to stand in the way of a man who's gonna get himself some."

Charlie led Kutter away from them. Behind him, one of the dogs growled.

"None of that, Bear," said the first man. "He's going to get himself laid. Let's not ruin his night."

Charlie wanted to run, but didn't dare. He settled for walking very, very quickly, tugging hard on Kutter's leash when the dog tried to stop for sniff breaks.

* * *

Charlie and Kutter sat on the couch. What had those men wanted? Were they simply jerks? Were they friends of Byron? Maybe Byron had never really owned Kutter, and these men were after him to take the dog back.

"You're being ridiculous," Charlie said out loud. It wasn't part of some elaborate hoax.

Then again, Byron might not have been Kutter's original owner. Charlie might be his third owner, and one of the men in the park might have been the first.

If so, why wouldn't they just ask for him back? Why be all weird about it?

Either way, he didn't feel like going out with Liz tonight. He called her, claiming that he was sick to his stomach (which was technically true, even if he blamed it on food poisoning) and cancelled their movie date. She told him that she hoped he felt better tomorrow, and made a very pleasant suggestion for an evening activity if he did.

Charlie wished that he could report the men for harassment, but having the police investigate why he might have people angry with him was probably not the best course of action. He'd just have to wait this out and be on the defensive.

Kutter didn't seem distressed by this. Charlie wished he could be more like the dog.

Charlie wasn't sure what to do the next morning. He didn't want to leave Kutter at home—what if the men broke in and dognapped him? Liz would probably let him drive over and leave Kutter there for the day, but he'd still be leaving Kutter unattended, and her place might not be any safer than his if the men were following him.

So he called in sick. Bob was fine with it.

"I can't do this forever," Charlie told Kutter. "They don't give me many sick days each year. But I'll protect you. I promise."

Charlie kept three guns—fully registered—around the house in case of emergencies. These "emergencies" were supposed to be in the almost inconceivable case that one of his victims escaped from the basement, but dog defense was an even more valid purpose. He didn't want to keep a gun on his person, since he couldn't bring himself to trust that it wouldn't go off accidentally, so he took the one in his sock drawer out and rested it on the coffee table for easier access.

Under normal circumstances, it would've been a very pleasant day, since he did very little except watch television and hang out with Kutter. He took Kutter for a couple of cautious walks and saw no sign of the men. If he was lucky, they'd simply been a couple of creeps who were having fun messing with him, and his life could return to its standard level of paranoia in a couple of days.

* * *

What his day job needed was a new policy where dogs were allowed to accompany their masters to work. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Charlie asked Kutter. "You could sleep under my desk all morning, I'd take you for a walk at lunch, you could go back to sleep all afternoon, and we'd go home. That would solve all of my problems."

He thought it might be funny to send Bob an e-mail with that suggestion, adding a smiley face to the end to make sure Bob knew he was joking. But it was getting close to time for his annual performance review, and he didn't want Bob to think that he was using humor as a brownnosing tactic.

He took Kutter down into the basement and set some cardboard boxes on their side for Kutter to hide in if it came down to that. They weren't very good hiding places and he didn't think that Kutter would figure out what to do with them, but Charlie wanted to keep open any options he possibly could. He gave his dog some extra petting, then locked him in the basement.

Around noon, Charlie became too anxious at work and told Bob that he needed to take a half day off.

When he hurried down into the basement, Kutter ran out of one of the boxes, perfectly fine.

"We can't live like this," he told Kutter. "It was just a couple of stupid men playing a joke. They haven't come back. We'll probably never see them again. Only an idiot would keep worrying about them, right?"

* * *

The next evening, as Charlie poured some dry food into Kutter's bowl, there was a knock at the door. He finished pouring the food, walked into the living room, and looked through the peephole.

It was both of the men. And their dogs.

Charlie backed away from the door, slowly and carefully, hoping that the men hadn't heard his footsteps.

The knocking grew in intensity.

"We know you're in there," said the man who'd done all of the talking before. "It's rude to leave guests waiting out on your porch."

Charlie picked the gun up off his coffee table and shoved it into the waist of his pants. He pulled his shirt over the weapon, but it was too obvious—it looked silly. And he still didn't trust it not to go off in his pants. If he opened the door and immediately shoved the barrel into the first man's face, he ran the risk that the man might simply pluck the gun from his fingers and turn it on him.

He decided to keep the gun in his hand and sit on the couch. If they broke in, he'd shoot them. He had neighbors, so they had to know that they couldn't make too much of a ruckus or somebody would call the police, even if Charlie himself couldn't.

Kutter joined him.

The men continued to knock on the door, but didn't say anything else. After a couple of minutes, they left.

"Don't worry," he told Kutter. "If they try to hurt you, I'll kill them."

- 12 -

"Dammit!" exclaimed Charlie as the warm liquid splashed into his face. He wiped the soapy water out of his eyes. "Quit shaking!"

Kutter tried to jump out of the tub, but Charlie blocked his escape and pushed down on his back. "This isn't hurting you," he said. "You want to be all nice and clean so that people know I'm taking good care of you, don't you?"

The dog obviously had other priorities, such as getting out of the tub as soon as possible. The slippery, soapy animal slid out from underneath Charlie's hands and leapt out of the tub. Charlie grabbed for him and missed. Kutter ran out of the bathroom.

"Not on the couch!" Charlie shouted.

Kutter jumped up onto the couch and shook again, spraying suds all over. This was better than vomit, Charlie supposed. He picked Kutter up, hugged him to his chest, and carried the struggling dog back into the bathroom. He pushed the door closed—which he should have done in the first place—with his foot and then set Kutter back into the tub.

"Don't you want to smell nice?" he asked. "Not to be rude, but you don't always smell so good. This is expensive shampoo just for dogs. Not every dog gets this kind of treatment, so you should be counting your blessings instead of being a pain in the neck."

He scrubbed Kutter some more, then pulled out the plug and let the water drain out of the tub. "Almost done," he said. He turned on the warm water and filled a plastic bowl, then gently poured it over Kutter. After a few bowls of water, the soap was rinsed out of Kutter's fur and Charlie dried him off with his fluffiest towel.

When Charlie let Kutter out of the bathroom, he ran happily into the living room, then rolled around on the floor. Charlie was glad he'd vacuumed.

* * *

Somebody called in the middle of the night from a blocked number, but didn't say anything. They hung up after about ten seconds. If Charlie'd had a whistle handy, he would have blown out the caller's eardrums.

* * *

Kutter stood at the door and let out one sharp bark, indicating that he was ready to be taken for a walk.

"Why aren't you a cat?" Charlie asked. "If you were a cat, you could just use a litter box and you'd never have to go outside."

Technically, he never had to let Kutter outside anyway, but the cleanup would be unpleasant and the dog would be miserable. He wasn't going to let those cretins ruin his relationship with his pet. He put on his jacket, and put the gun in his inside pocket.

Charlie had been altering his route every time these past couple of days, figuring that the men probably weren't watching his home from an unmarked van, and so if he kept his path unpredictable he wouldn't run into them. He hated having to do this. He almost hoped that he'd run into them tonight, put a bullet in each of their throats, and end the problem.

Almost. Not quite.

It was a nice, long walk, and both Charlie and Kutter had a great time. Then, as he dug his keys out of his pocket and unlocked his door, the two men and their dogs ran onto his front porch. They must have been hiding by the side of the house.

He threw open the door and quickly stepped inside. Before he could pull the door shut again, the man with the goatee stuck his foot in the gap and blocked it. Charlie yanked harder on the door, hoping to break the man's foot or even pop it off, but he wasn't strong enough and the man easily forced the door all the way open.

"Can we come in?" the man asked.

"I have a gun," said Charlie.

"We're not going to hurt you. We just want to talk."

Charlie and Kutter cautiously backed into the center of the living room as the men and their dogs came inside. The man who hadn't said anything yet closed the front door. The rottweiler and the pit bull (or whatever it was) growled and strained against their leashes, which looked like they might snap at any instant. Charlie wondered if these were the kind of dogs that fought each other while people bet on them.

"Were you worried?" the first man asked.

"What?"

"All this time. Were you worried?"

"About what?"

The man laughed. "Let's make a rule that during this encounter, we'll all respect each other's intelligence, okay? I'm talking about the way we entered your lives. Were you worried?"

Charlie shook his head.

"Bullshit. Do you know when I was worried?"

"No."

"When my sister didn't come home." The man reached into his pocket and took out a piece of folded white paper. He unfolded it and held it up for Charlie to see. "Recognize her?"

Charlie did. He'd been crying over her eight months ago, when she died on his table too soon. "No."

"Sure you do. Think back."

"I've never seen her."

"Never? You're saying that you recall everybody you've ever seen in your entire life? People in line at the grocery store? That's a pretty impressive talent. But you know her. She made a lot of bad decisions, and she got herself hooked on all kinds of shit, but she was the only thing I had. I kicked her out of my place so she'd get clean. You took that chance away from her."

"You have the wrong person."

"I do not have the wrong person. I made damn sure I had the right person. The cops may not care about a homeless junkie, but she was my goddamn sister and you murdered her!"

At this point, Charlie didn't think that lies were going to do him any good. He also didn't think that the man would accept an apology. So he said nothing.

"What do you care about?" the man asked. "Just that dog, right?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"Yeah, but that's nothing. You've got no emotional investment there. I don't even have to hear what you're saying to each other to know that. She'll dump you as soon as she gets a better offer, and you'll mope for a week and move on. You don't care about her."

"Okay."

"That dog, though. Man's best friend."

Charlie shoved his hand into his inside jacket pocket.

"You packin'? What are you going to do, shoot both of us and our dogs? You think you can do that before we get you?"

Charlie fumbled with the gun inside his pocket for a moment before he managed to pull it out and point it at the man who did all the talking. The man did look a bit worried, but not worried enough.

"Put the gun down," the man said. "You prey on the helpless, like the sorry piece of crap that you are. Even with a gun you're not going to stop big strong guys like us. You're pathetic."

"I'm not pathetic."

"Yeah, I think you are."

Charlie wanted to put a bullet right between the man's eyes. Unfortunately, even at this close range he wasn't sure he could hit his target, and the man was absolutely right—two men and two huge dogs were more than he could handle.

"Do you want money?" Charlie asked.

"Money? Are you kidding me? This isn't about blackmail. At this very moment it's about your life, so why don't you put the gun away so we can take it out of that area?"

Charlie had no idea what to do. A bloody shootout wasn't going to end well for anybody. If these men really meant to kill him, they would've done it sooner instead of stalking him. He wasn't good at talking his way out of situations, yet this might be one time that he had to.

He put the gun back in his inside jacket pocket, then held up his hands to show that they were empty except for the handle of Kutter's leash.

The man let out a loud whistle that hurt Charlie's ears. "Kill!"

Both men released their dogs.

The dogs moved like a blur, and as the dogs struck him Kutter let out a high-pitched yelp that was like a shriek of pain and terror. The yelp didn't stop as Charlie reached into the snarling mass of dogs, drops of blood spraying into the air, screaming and trying to rescue his pet.

Jaws clamped down on his arm, but he couldn't feel them.

Charlie kicked at the rottweiler as hard as he could. He was off balance and panicked and the kick bounced harmlessly off the dog's side. The rottweiler shook its head back and forth rapidly, ripping away Kutter's skin and fur.

His second kick connected with the rottweiler's snout and the dog let out a yelp of its own. The other dog pulled its jaws away from Charlie's arm and bit down onto Kutter's ear.

With a burst of adrenaline that he'd never felt in his life, Charlie yanked the bloody mess of Kutter out of the fray. Both dogs pounced on him, and at any other time Charlie knew that they would've knocked him to the floor and probably mauled him to death within minutes. But he held his footing. He had to protect his best friend.

With Kutter clutched to his chest with both arms, Charlie ran for the hallway, the dogs right behind him. He raced down the hallway into the bathroom, spun around, and kicked the rottweiler once again. This time he got it good, giving him enough time to slam the bathroom door closed.

"Kutter...oh, God, Kutter..."

Tears streamed down Charlie's face as he looked down at his pet. Kutter had been savaged—most of his left ear was gone, and much of his fur was so soaked with blood that Charlie couldn't immediately tell how deep the lacerations were. More blood was flowing freely from several places.

There was no way Charlie could tend to these injuries the way he had the wounds when he first found the dog.

He needed his hands free, so he set Kutter on the floor. Kutter let out a whimper as his fur made contact with the tile. Outside, the dogs barked and growled and clawed at the bathroom door.

Charlie pulled out the gun that he never should have put away. Stupid. A terrible decision. He couldn't wait out the men and their dogs, not with Kutter dying on the floor, so he flicked off the safety and fired a shot through the door so they'd know he was serious.

He heard the men calling off the dogs, and the scraping stopped. Charlie almost fired another shot, then decided that he needed to conserve his bullets in case he didn't successfully scare the men off. He opened the door, then scooped up Kutter in his left arm and stepped out into the hallway.

The men were exiting through the front door. Charlie shot at them and the bullet didn't even come close, putting a hole in his wall instead. By the time he got outside, the men were sprinting down the sidewalk with their murderous dogs.

Charlie bolted to his car and opened the passenger side door. "I'm so sorry," he told Kutter as he set the dog on the seat.

Towels. He needed towels. Not to protect his car seat—he didn't care about that—but to wrap around Kutter and hopefully slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't die before Charlie could get help. And he needed the car keys.

"I'll be right back," he promised Kutter as he ran back inside. He grabbed a stack of towels, got the car keys from where they rested on the kitchen table, and hurried back outside. He wrapped Kutter tightly. Blood immediately soaked through the first white towel, and he wrapped him in another.

He slammed the door and got in the driver's side. "Don't die, don't die, please don't die," he whispered as he started the car's engine and pulled out of his driveway.

Charlie realized that his arm really hurt where the dog had bitten it, but he had much more important things to worry about. As long as he didn't pass out from loss of blood before he could get help for Kutter, he'd be fine.

Kutter whimpered softly as Charlie sped down the road.

"You're going to be okay," Charlie promised. "They'll fix you up. They'll make you stop bleeding and they'll sew you up and we'll play Frisbee."

He wiped the tears from his eyes since they were blurring his vision, and then scratched Kutter's chin. The dog licked his fingers with a bloody tongue and whimpered again.

Charlie thought about his emergency cabin. If he started driving to it right now, he might gain enough of a lead on the police that they wouldn't know where he'd gone, wouldn't be able to find him. He'd live in relative discomfort, but it would be a hell of a lot better than prison or lethal injection.

The men would tell the police that he'd murdered the girl, and they'd connect him to the murders of twenty-one other girls. Even if they never found out about the others, even if they only got him for the one, he was screwed.

If he drove to the cabin, Kutter would die.

If he didn't, he was going to prison.

If he left him somewhere, even someplace that could fix him up, he'd never know if his dog lived or died.

There was only one possible choice here.

"Just a few more minutes," he assured Kutter. "Just a few and then I'll make everything okay."

* * *

Charlie burst into the hospital emergency room with Kutter in his arms. "I need help!" he cried out. "He's dying!"

Several people turned to stare at him, but Charlie didn't care. He rushed over to the receptionist's window and tapped on the glass. "Please, you need to save him."

The receptionist, a plump woman with too much eye makeup, slid open the window. "Sir, you're at the wrong—"

"I don't know any twenty-four hour veterinarians," said Charlie. "Saving a dog is easier than saving a person, right? Please."

"Sir, your arm—"

"I don't care about my arm. I care about my dog."

A man in blue scrubs pushed through a pair of swinging doors and looked startled as he saw Charlie and Kutter. "What's going on here?" he asked, walking over to them.

"Please save him," Charlie begged. "His name is Kutter and he loves Frisbee and this wasn't his fault."

The man in the scrubs looked at Kutter, then at Charlie, and nodded. "Give him here."

* * *

Charlie sat in the waiting room with his arm bandaged up. It had required eight stitches, but he wouldn't bleed to death.

Two cops sat next to him, one on each side. Charlie had promised to go peacefully if they let him wait until he knew what had happened to Kutter.

* * *

"Not my usual patient," the doctor said with a smile, as Kutter licked Charlie's palm. Kutter's entire torso was covered in bandages, as was what remained of his left ear, but his tail wagged happily. Charlie wished that there was more unbandaged fur available to pet, and settled for petting Kutter's legs.

"You're a good boy," Charlie said. "You're the best dog ever." He wiped some tears from his eyes—much happier ones than before—and turned to the doctor. "Thank you."

"Not a problem. It'll be a good story for parties."

"He'll be okay, right?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. The vet should be here to pick him up any minute now. Don't worry about him."

Charlie spent a few more minutes with his dog, until the police told him it was time to leave.

* * *

"I could ease into this, or I could just get straight to the point," said the detective, leaning back in his chair in the interrogation room. "As you'll soon discover, Charlie, I'm a get-to-the-point kind of guy. Where are the bodies?"

"I can't tell you yet."

"The more you hold out on me, the worse things are going to be for you. I recommend that you come clean right now."

"I'm really stupid sometimes," said Charlie, "but I know enough to know that things can't get worse for me. I want to bargain."

"You have nothing to bargain with."

"I can save you a lot of time. I'll tell you everything you want to know."

The detective raised an eyebrow and took a sip from his cup of coffee. "What do you want?"

"I have a dog. He's hurt, but he's going to be okay."

"Yeah, I know about your dog."

"Kutter."

"Kutter, right."

"I want you to make sure he gets taken care of. His original owner is a good guy, he'll take him back, but I want to make sure that Kutter gets everything he wants. I've got some savings. I don't want to pay for a lawyer—I want that money to go to Kutter. I want him to have steaks and bacon treats and a nice dog bed and I don't want him going back to being named Duke and I want him to come visit me sometimes." Charlie wiped his eyes. "That's all I want."

The detective scratched his chin. "Hmmmm."

Charlie wondered what Alicia and his other co-workers were saying about him. They were probably totally freaked out. Liz was definitely freaking out. She'd had sex with a serial killer. He didn't think she'd ever come see him in prison, except maybe to yell at him, but he didn't care as long as they brought Kutter in every once in a while.

"I want it in writing," said Charlie.

The detective took another sip of his coffee. He set the mug down and smiled. "You've got yourself a deal, Charlie. If the original owner doesn't want him back, my daughter has been wanting a dog. He'll get a good home. I promise you."

"Thank you."

Charlie took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then told the detective everything he wanted to know.

The End

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Books By Jeff Strand

Bring Her Back. A tale of revenge and madness.

Sick House. A home invasion from beyond the grave.

How You Ruined My Life (Young Adult). Sixteen-year-old Rod has a pretty cool life until his cousin Blake moves in and slowly destroys everything he holds dear.

Everything Has Teeth. A third collection of short tales of horror and macabre comedy.

An Apocalypse of Our Own. Can the Friend Zone survive the end of the world?

Stranger Things Have Happened (Young Adult). Teenager Marcus Millian III is determined to be one of the greatest magicians who ever lived. Can he make a live shark disappear from a tank?

Cyclops Road. When newly widowed Evan Portin gives a woman named Harriett a ride out of town, she says she's on a cross-country journey to slay a Cyclops. Is she crazy, or...?

Blister. While on vacation, cartoonist Jason Tray meets the town legend, a hideously disfigured woman who lives in a shed.

The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever (Young Adult). Three best friends with more passion than talent try to make the ultimate zombie epic.

Kumquat. A road trip comedy about TV, hot dogs, death, and obscure fruit.

I Have a Bad Feeling About This (Young Adult). Geeky, non-athletic Henry Lambert is sent to survival camp, which is bad enough before the trio of murderous thugs show up.

Pressure. What if your best friend was a killer...and he wanted you to be just like him? Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best Novel.

Dweller. The lifetime story of a boy and his monster. Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best Novel.

A Bad Day For Voodoo. A young adult horror/comedy about why sticking pins in a voodoo doll of your history teacher isn't always the best idea. Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best Young Adult Novel.

Dead Clown Barbecue. A collection of demented stories about severed noses, ventriloquist dummies, giant-sized vampires, sibling stabbings, and lots of other messed-up stuff.

Dead Clown Barbecue Expansion Pack. A few more stories for those who couldn't get enough.

Wolf Hunt. Two thugs for hire. One beautiful woman. And one vicious frickin' werewolf.

Wolf Hunt 2. New wolf. Same George and Lou.

The Sinister Mr. Corpse. The feel-good zombie novel of the year.

Benjamin's Parasite. A rather disgusting action/horror/comedy about why getting infected with a ghastly parasite is unpleasant.

Fangboy. A dark and demented fairy tale for adults.

Kutter. A serial killer finds a Boston terrier, and it might just make him into a better person.

Faint of Heart. To get her kidnapped husband back, Melody has to relive her husband's nightmarish weekend, step-by-step...and survive.

Mandibles. Giant killer ants wreaking havoc in the big city!

Stalking You Now. A twisty-turny thriller soon to be the feature film Mindy Has To Die.

Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary). First in the Andrew Mayhem series.

Single White Psychopath Seeks Same. Second in the Andrew Mayhem series.

Casket For Sale (Only Used Once). Third in the Andrew Mayhem series.

Lost Homicidal Maniac (Answers to "Shirley"). Fourth in the Andrew Mayhem series.

The Andrew Mayhem Collection. All four novels for one low price!

Suckers (with JA Konrath). Andrew Mayhem meets Harry McGlade. Which one will prove to be more incompetent?

Gleefully Macabre Tales. A collection of thirty-two demented tales. Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best Collection.

Elrod McBugle on the Loose. A comedy for kids (and adults who were warped as kids).

The Haunted Forest Tour (with James A. Moore). The greatest theme park attraction in the world! Take a completely safe ride through an actual haunted forest! Just hope that your tram doesn't break down, because this forest is PACKED with monsters...

Draculas (with JA Konrath, Blake Crouch, and F. Paul Wilson). An outbreak of feral vampires in a secluded hospital. This one isn't much like Twilight.

For information on all of these books, visit Jeff Strand's more-or-less official website at http://www.jeffstrand.com