The Anniversary

Prologue

You trudge up the hill along the overgrown path that cuts through the graveyard. The sky is gray, the air thick. It’s quiet, the kind of quiet that comes only before a storm. You find the headstone, wipe away the grime with your hand until the face is visible:

MEGAN TUCKER

BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER

You unfold your lawn chair, position it facing the stone.

You notice a bundle of dead flowers, the skin of wilted balloons, and it angers you that the groundskeeper hasn’t maintained this plot, or any of the others on this patch of gloom on the outskirts of this depressed Nebraska town.

You extract the small laminated rectangle from your special trinket box. Her driver’s license. You stare at the pretty face, the infectious smile, the sparkle in her eyes.

You close your eyes and you think of her. And you remember. Every. Single. Moment.

Of course you do.

You never forget your first kill.