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  I had dinner in my room. My parents know enough to leave me alone when I’m in there. I had some heavy thinking to do. Being able to kill gave me an awesome power. But I needed to figure out the best way to use that ability.

  Even an idiot could see lots of ways I could exploit my gift. From now on, I could get what I wanted by using fear as my weapon. That’s how things would go at school. If people knew, or even suspected, that I could turn them into cold, lifeless slabs of protein, they’d do anything I asked. But fear meant danger. We destroy the things we fear, if we get the chance. I’d have to watch my back.

  There had to be better ways to use my power than just scaring students and teachers. I could kill people and rob them. That would be easy. I’d only do it to bad people, of course. Criminals. Yeah. That would work. Maybe. Still, I’d have to be careful. I’m not sure how I’d get them alone. It’s not like I wanted to kill a bunch of people at once. I’m not a monster.

  Though that could be sort of cool. I smiled as I pictured a cluster of bad guys dropping dead, crumpling to the ground at the same time.

  Yeah. That would be slick. I could be an army of one. For the highest bidder, of course.

  My phone rang, dissolving the fantasy image.

  “Yeah?”

  It was Carl. “Want to make some money?” His voice was quivering.

  “Sure. How?”

  “I’d rather tell you in person.”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “How about the park?” he asked.

  “Pritchard’s Park?”

  “No. The one behind my place.”

  “Got it. I’ll head out, now.”

  “See ya.”

  I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted. He lived with his uncle, and the guy was really mean. Carl wanted me to kill him.

  My first job, I thought. My first good job, that is. I’d had a couple low-paying summer jobs. Which led to a very important question: How much should I ask?

  I guess it depended on how much he had. It’s not like I could tell him I wanted a thousand bucks if he only had a couple hundred. Of course, he could sell his uncle’s stuff. Or I could even ask for some of the stuff. No. I didn’t want to start trading death for silverware and stereo speakers, or try to figure out how to sell my loot without raising suspicion.

  When I reached the edge of the park, I looked around for Carl. There was nobody in sight.

  “Over here,” Carl whispered.

  I spotted him just inside a dense cluster of trees. “What’s the big secret?” I asked. I knew why he’d called me, but I wanted to make him say it.

  “Can you really kill people?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “For sure?” He edged a step back, as if he suddenly wondered whether he was at risk.

  “Definitely.” I stepped closer. “Want a demonstration?”

  He stared at me, once again lagging in his ability to get what I meant. Finally, he screamed “No!” and threw up his hands in front of his face, as if that could stop my power.

  “Just kidding.” I let out a laugh.

  “I knew that.” But he backed away a bit more, and his eyes shifted past me.

  That’s when I got grabbed from behind. Someone pinned my arms to my sides. Someone else tied a rag around my face, pulling it tight against my mouth like a gag. I tried to shout, but couldn’t form any words.

  A couple seconds more, and my hands were tied behind my back. I glared at Carl. “Drop dead!”

  Thanks to the gag, my shout was a muffled cry. I had no power. Carl kept breathing.

  “Witch!”

  The speaker spun me around. Rochelle.

  “Demon,” Danny said, stepping up next to her.

  There were others in the group. About ten, in all. Not that the number mattered, now that I was tied up. They dragged me deeper into the woods.

  When they stopped walking, my own heart almost stopped beating.

  The scene in front of me looked like the set from one of those medieval witch trial movies. A stake—actually, a fence post—had been stuck in the ground. The soil looked freshly dug. There was kindling around the post, and larger branches piled on top of that.

  My knees buckled as I realized what they were planning to do.

  “No!”

  I struggled, but they dragged me to the post and tied me there. I glared at Carl. He shrugged, as if he hadn’t realized it would go this far, but wasn’t all that upset now that it had.

  “Die, witch,” Danny said. He knelt and lit the kindling. The flames licked at my toes.

  As I’d said, all of this could have been avoided, if only I’d kept my mouth shut.

  It was too late for that, now. I screamed and jerked against the ropes. They held. As I struggled, thrashed, and yelled, the gag moved just the tiniest bit. I could feel it pull down a little. But not enough to come free. It was caught across my nose. I shouted again, moving my jaw violently, pretending to be terrified while I tried to work the gag off my mouth. It wasn’t hard to pretend. I was scared. But, more than that, I was angry.

  I felt a sharp pain on my lower legs as the flames rose. I had to hurry.

  “Witch!” Rochelle called again. As if the flames weren’t enough, she lifted a rock and hurled it at me.

  Her aim was terrible. The rock was going to go wide. But I leaned toward it, as much as the ropes would allow, and let it hit me right in the face.

  I felt the worst pain I’d ever experienced as the rock crushed my nose.

  Perfect.

  I bent my head and jammed my chin against my chest as high up as I could, trapping the gag. Then I pushed my head forward, dragging my chin against my chest, tugging down on the cloth.

  Agony.

  The gag slipped down a little.

  I repeated the motion, like an infant struggling to kick off a heavy comforter.

  My nose and legs both felt on fire.

  But the gag finally freed itself from my crushed nose and fell from my face. My mouth was no longer bound.

  I was so furious, rage clouded reason. “DROP DEAD!” I howled at them.

  At all of them.

  They all dropped. Except for Carl. Somehow, he was still on his feet. He could free me. I looked him in the eye, hoping to see some sign of mercy.

  But I saw no sign of anything. His eyes were empty. He was dead, too. He’d just lagged a bit behind everyone else, for one last time. As I realized this, he fell forward, joining the rest of the slain scattered across the forest floor.

  They were sprawled on the ground in front of me, as lifeless as Mr. Ledona or the squirrel. I’d killed all of them. Nobody was left to set me free. Nobody was left to put an end to this.

  That would be the fire’s job.

  RUMPLECODESPIN

  Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who wasn’t very good about getting her homework done on time. So, one evening on a school night, she sat in her room, staring at her keyboard as the last hour shrank rapidly toward the last minute.

  “I’m doomed,” she whispered. She started to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” a strange little man asked. He was standing just outside her doorway, thin as a stray cat, dressed in rumpled jeans and a rumpled black T-shirt. Even seated at her desk, she was taller than him, so she didn’t feel any fear.

  “I’m supposed to code a video game for school,” she said. “But I sort of waited too long. And now, I’m going to fail.” As she said fail, she added a poetic wail and flopped her head into her waiting hands.

  The strange little man—let’s call him SLM—thumped his chest and said, “Your worries are over. I can spin out streams of code in the blink of an eye.”

  “You can?” she asked, as a glimmer of hope grew in her heart.

  “Certainly,” he said. “I was born to code.”

  “Will you code a game for me?” she asked.

  “That depends,” he said. “What will you give me in return?”

  She scanned her room, searching for something
she wouldn’t miss, and spotted a watch she never wore. She dangled it in front of him. “How about this?”

  “Deal,” the man said. “Step aside.”

  He shooed her out of her chair, took a seat, and tapped the keys so fast his fingers blurred. She watched the screen as the lines scrolled past, amazed at the way SLM spun out a slew of code.

  “Done,” he said a few minutes later.

  The girl gasped. On the screen she saw a perfectly adequate video game involving colorful pieces of fruit and a slingshot. When she handed over the watch, she promised herself she’d be more diligent next time, and not wait until the last minute to do her assignments.

  But she wasn’t. Barely a month later, as she wailed and wept and glared at her keyboard, SLM returned. This time, she needed to create a useful app for keeping track of her books, magazines, sports equipment, or some other collection. And this time, SLM took a necklace she no longer wore in exchange for spinning out code.

  As SLM departed, the girl promised herself she’d absolutely, definitely, positively be more diligent in the future.

  She was true to her word, for a month and a half. And then, she wasn’t. Ten minutes before bedtime, she still didn’t have an app that could create cryptogram puzzles. That’s when SLM appeared.

  But this time, nothing in her room interested him, though she was desperate enough to offer him even objects she knew she’d miss.

  Finally, he said, “I will do it, but if you ever become a pet owner, you must give me your first pet.”

  “Deal,” the girl said, as a surge of relief pulled her out of despair. That was a safe offer for her to accept. She was petless, and fairly sure her parents planned for her to remain so.

  She’d totally forgotten about the whole thing a year later, when her dad surprised her with the cutest Poodle-Beagle-Dachshund puppy she’d ever seen.

  SLM came back that night. “I’m here for your first pet,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a Poobeadash.”

  “No,” she screamed. “Take anything else. Take everything else.” She grabbed a handful of rings and necklaces from her jewelry chest and thrust them at him.

  “Sorry. We have a deal. But to show you I have a heart, I will make you an offer. If you can guess my name within three days, you can keep your dog.” He laughed, like this was an impossible task.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Really and truly,” he said. “But you never will.”

  When SLM came back the next day, the girl, who had put off thinking about the problem until the last minute, spewed out a series of wild guesses.

  “Rufus?” she said. He looked like a Rufus.

  “No.”

  “Tyberius?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sarsaparilla?”

  “Now you’re just wasting my time,” he said.

  The next night, things didn’t go much better. He wasn’t Aaron, Abner, Ace, Adonis, Aegis, Afton, or any of the other guesses she’d methodically listed, having actually put a bit of thought into the problem.

  “How about my phone?” she asked, holding it up like it was a precious jewel. “Will you take that, instead?”

  “Not a chance,” he said. “I want the dog. And he’ll be all mine, tomorrow.”

  On the third and final night, the girl tried again, making more bad guesses, like Zoopy, Contripunto, Clamface, and Moxflox. She knew those were ridiculous attempts. She was just doing this to give SLM the feeling he’d won, and to make her last-second victory feel all that much sweeter. This time, she was prepared.

  “Hand over the puppy,” SLM said when the girl had finished her list.

  “Not quite yet,” she said. “I have one more name to guess.”

  “It won’t help,” SLM said.

  “I think it will,” she said. “I took your photo, yesterday.”

  “Wonderful. You’ll have something to remember me by as you weep at the loss of your pet,” he said. “Now hand over that puppy.”

  “Not so fast, Rumplecodespin,” she said.

  He let out a gasp. “No! You couldn’t have!”

  She let out a laugh as his expression told her she had won.

  “How did you know?” the man screeched.

  “Easy,” she said. “Hardly anyone can resist posting selfies. That’s why I took your photo last time. I did an image search. And there you were, all over the internet. You really do like to brag about what a great coder you are.”

  The man let out a howl that was louder than his gasp and screech combined, and stomped his foot so hard it broke through the floor. That made him even angrier. He tried to run off. Which was not a great idea since his foot was stuck. He pulled a groin muscle pretty badly before he freed himself from the hole.

  And then he hobbled off, gasping in pain with each agonizing step.

  The girl hugged her puppy and promised herself she’d be more diligent with her homework from now on, and ever after.

  And she was.

  For at least a month or two.

  I CAN’T QUITE PUT A FINGER ON IT

  It took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. That’s how strange it was. But when it sunk in, I couldn’t keep from blurting out my reaction.

  “Your finger!” I shouted, pointing at Ridley Iverson’s left hand, where it rested on his desk.

  Up front, Mr. Pierson shot me a glare. I clamped my mouth shut, but turned my attention back to Ridley. His little finger was gone, as if removed by a highly skilled surgeon. Or a magician.

  Ridley frowned, like he had no idea what I was talking about. My face grew warm when I realized that, whatever had happened to him, he didn’t want to talk about it. And he certainly didn’t want me to point it out. I’d been a jerk.

  But when we got up to go to lunch, he said, “What was that about?”

  Now, I felt even more embarrassed. “I was wondering what happened.…” I didn’t even dare point. I just nodded in the direction of his hand. “You know…”

  “No, I don’t know,” he said.

  I guess he was going to make me suffer a bit. “Your hand,” I said. “Your little finger.”

  He held up his right hand and wiggled the little finger. “What about it?”

  I shoved my own hands in my pockets and tried to think of a way out of this. I came up empty. It looked like I’d have to answer his question. “No, not that one. The other one.”

  Ridley stared down at his left hand and frowned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Now I really wished I’d kept my mouth shut in the first place. “Your little finger,” I said. “It’s gone. Something happened to it.”

  “I’ve never had one,” he said. “You have a really wild imagination.” He walked off, leaving me staring at his back.

  Never had one?

  I thought back. Every image I had of Ridley included that little finger. But I couldn’t help doubting my memories. That doubt vanished the next Friday morning, exactly one week later, when I took my seat. Ridley’s left ring finger was gone.

  It was brutal keeping my mouth shut. But I couldn’t think of any way to ask him about it. Really, what could I say? Hey, Ridley, didn’t you use to have a ring finger?

  The whole day, I kept sneaking glances at it, trying to spot any sort of clue about what could steal away both a finger and the memory of once having it. There was no explanation. There was just a deep-seated feeling that something was very wrong with the world. Or, at least, with Ridley’s world. And mine as well, I guess, since I was observing this wrongness.

  The next week, when his middle finger had joined the ranks of the missing, I decided I had to find out what was happening. I waited until Thursday before I put my plan in action. Ridley lived just a few blocks away from me, in a new development. There was a half-finished house on the lot right behind him. I went there after school. I know it’s trespassing to go into one of those places, but my curiosity was far stronger than my fear of getting in trouble. I discovered that there was a windo
w on the second floor that gave me a good view of Ridley’s kitchen. I spotted him at the table. Even from this distance, I could see his left hand still had one finger and a thumb. My stomach lurched as my brain seized on the question of where all of this would end. Would it stop after he’d lost all the fingers on that hand? After he’d lost all ten of his fingers? All his fingers and toes? All his limbs?

  I forced myself to quit thinking about that part, but decided I’d have to sneak out of my house and return here at night so I could spy on Ridley while he slept. For some reason, maybe because he was unaware of the change, I figured that whatever was going on, it must have happened while he was asleep. Besides, it just didn’t seem like something that could happen while the sun was shining.

  It turned out I was somewhat right about that. And somewhat wrong. As I discovered when I watched him from my hiding spot in the unfinished house, his hand hadn’t changed, yet. His bedroom was directly above the kitchen. I’d brought binoculars, which I thought was also probably a crime. I didn’t care. They allowed me to see a magnified view of Ridley asleep in his bed, and catch a glimpse of his hand. It was still as intact as it had been that morning.

  I hoped something would happen soon. I wasn’t eager to spend all night spying on him. I lowered the binoculars so I could shift into a more comfortable position. That’s when a motion on Ridley’s roof caught my eye. Something half the size of a man slithered, snakelike, down the roof. It disappeared beneath the eaves. I guess it had squeezed into the attic. I didn’t see whether it entered Ridley’s room through the door or a vent. Either way, once it was inside, it approached his bed.

  My horror grew as the creature grabbed him by the hair and flung him against the wall. At that point, he was no longer asleep. He lay there, crumpled, screaming so loudly I could hear his cries through his closed window. His bedroom door flew open. As his parents raced in, I braced myself for a scene of slaughter. But the creature turned his head in their direction and leaped directly in front of them, so close they must have felt its foul breath. Instead of flinching, they froze, as if time had stopped. The monster pressed his forehead against each of theirs, mother first, and then father. Their faces grew slack, losing all signs of fear. They left the room, walking away as if nothing was wrong.