11

FOUR hours later Horace returned the manuscript to the drawer.  He sat for a moment in Andrew’s chair in sheer shock.  If he were to believe the preface, that this manuscript was true, then Andrew Thomas was one damned unlucky human being.

He climbed down from the loft, laced his boots, buttoned his jacket, and stepped out into the premature darkness of the afternoon. 

On the way back to his Land Cruiser, he couldn’t stop thinking about Orson Thomas and Luther Kite, how they’d destroyed Andrew Thomas’s life. 

A splinter of pity worked its way in. 

Having grown up with all those terrible stories about Andrew Thomas, that manuscript was hard to believe.  Maybe it was full of lies.  But why would a man living in the middle of nowhere in assumed anonymity have any reason to lie?  What if the monsters were really Orson and Luther?

He was running through the woods now, eyes watering from the cold. 

When the idea hit him, Horace laughed. 

But by the time he’d reached the Land Cruiser, he knew what he would have to do for his book. 

Next time he came out here, he would drive right up to Andrew Thomas’s cabin, knock on the door, and politely ask the alleged serial killer for an interview.