OCTOBER 12TH

Cherry Lane Development

Birds whistle in the newborn day as the killer watches, seethes, plotting to steal the peace. He stands in the center of a posh neighborhood enveloped in quiet, a liminal space between their waking eyes and his desires. He wears flannel and jeans, a red ballcap. Unassuming. Plain. A dead end sign with graven eyes.

Three minutes pass. He mumbles, bites the bottom lip until it runs red. This offers him a notorious smile, and powered by the act, he moves forward. Twenty paces. Sharp right turn, straight up the walkway to house number 24. Military pace. Shoulders hunched like a stalker or a boy being disciplined.

The home is three stories high, stone at the base and reeks of upper middle class. A dog barks from behind the door as the man raps three times.

A woman tells him to hold on as she wrestles with the overgrown mutt. The man smiles.

As she opens the door, her face jumps from casual awareness to frightened concern.

He uses the bloody lip to fake an injury, a fall from a skateboard he claims he can't locate. Hands up, the left sports a white gold ring on the middle finger and a tight leather bracelet. Eyes soft, expression sheepish, embarrassed even. She ushers him inside, past the snarls of a dog grown mad but ordered to hush.

Yes, this is the way in. Simple and well oiled, humanity used against itself. Here is where he determines to begin. The house, just waking to the day, will not see the Sun.

This is when they will all say it started, on that crisp autumn day when birds sang hope from the little breasts. Here. The day all of South Jersey would soon lose whatever desperate innocence it had left.