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"Why are you yelling, Mom?"

"Get back in your room and lock the door!"

"What’s wrong?"

"Now, goddammit!"

Jenna ran crying into her room and slammed the door.

"I don’t want to shoot you but I will," Beth hollered at the darkness.

"How can you shoot me when I have your gun?" a calm masculine voice inquired.

The shadow emerged from the playroom and walked toward her.

Beth flicked the light switch on the wall.

The hallway lit up, burning her eyes and flooding the shadow with color and texture.

The man who approached her had long black hair, a face whiter than a china doll, and smiling red lips. He tracked bootprints of blood across her hardwood floor. It speckled his face, darkened his jeans and long-sleeved black T-shirt.

Beth sank down onto the floor, immobilized with terror.

Luther came and stood over her, said, "I haven’t hurt your children and I won’t long as you’re compliant."

Beth saw the ivory hilted knife in his right hand. It had seen use tonight.

Jenna’s door opened. The young girl poked her head out.

"I’m all right, baby," Beth said, her voice breaking. "Stay in your room."

Luther turned and gazed at the teenager.

"Obey your mother."

"Why are you doing this?" Jenna cried.

"Get in your room!" Beth yelled.

"What is happening?"

"Get in your room!"

Jenna’s door slammed and locked.

When Beth looked back up at the intruder she saw he’d traded his knife for a blackjack.

"Turn around," he said. "I need to see the back of your head."

"Why?"

"I’m going to hit you with this and I’d rather it didn’t smash your face."

"Don’t you touch my children."

"Turn your head."

"Swear to me you won’t hurt—"

Luther seized her by the hair and whacked the back of her skull.

14

ACCORDING to the official website www.wafflehouse.com, the thirteen hundred Waffle Houses in the United States collectively serve enough Jimmy Dean sausage patties in twenty-four hours to construct a cylinder of meat as tall as the Empire State Building. And in one year they serve enough strips of Bryan bacon to stretch from Atlanta to Los Angeles seven times.

Luther recalls these amusing factoids while cruising down the offramp of I-40, exit 151, in the city of Statesville, North Carolina. Though it’s 4:13 a.m., two establishments remain open for business. There’s the never-closing Super Wal-Mart on his side of the underpass and the wonderful Waffle House—just a left turn at the stoplight and two hundred yards up the street. Its lucent yellow sign cheerfully beckons him. He smiles. He hasn’t enjoyed that smoke-sated ambience in awhile.

Luther pulls into a parking space and turns off the ’85 Impala. In addition to stinking of onions, the car has been running hot and he worries it won’t endure the remainder of his journey. With respect to his sleeping cargo, breaking down would be an unthinkable disaster.

Intricately patterned frost has crystallized on the windshield of the car beside his, a web of lacy ice spreading across the glass. Touching the fragile crystals, he shivers and takes in the predawn stillness of the town. From where he stands the world consists of motels, gas stations, fast food restaurants, the drone of the interstate, and the sprawling glowing immensity of that Super Wal-Mart in the distance, set up on a hill so that it looks down upon its town with all the foreboding of a medieval stronghold.

Luther heads first into the bathroom. Though his work clothes rest safely in a trash bag in the backseat, he hasn’t had the opportunity to wash up. His hands and face are bloodspattered and he watches the water turn pink and swirl down the drain.

Even at this hour of the morning, Waffle House is buzzing, the bright light from the huge hanging globes bouncing off a murky cloud of cigarette smoke. The grill sizzles on without respite, the smell of the place a potpourri of stale coffee, smoke, and recycled grease.

A waitress moseys over to Luther’s booth.

"Know what you want, sweetie-pie?"

Though still perusing the illustrated menu he knows exactly what he wants.

"Vanilla Coca-Cola. Sausage.