Beginning

He was called Jack Feather because he never left a fucking mark on the snow. Perhaps the thick snow that was falling that winter in Boad Hill, one of the whitest of the last ten years, had erased all the tracks with its flakes crashing to the ground while the wind had finished smoothing them.

They all appeared with their panties at their ankles and their eyes open and glassy, ​​showing pain and cruelty, staring at the dark sky. The snowflakes covered them to form a brilliant sculpture while the horror was still there.

In that cold winter of 2017, Peter had fallen in love for the first time of his impossible love.

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1

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"Sir, what do we do?"  Lloyd Chambers's eyes were stony and did not emit any brightness, quite the opposite: darkness and uncertainty.

Sheriff Burt Duchamp glanced sideways at him for a moment and shook his head under his felt hat, now covered with a thick layer of snow, falling heavily.

Lloyd was one of his men. It was the new one, the fellow. In a city like Boad Hill, everyone knew each other, and one could guess from which foot each limped and from which family came. But Lloyd had come from far off Michigan to face the sheriff Burt's men.

Jack Hodge, the fatty, one of the Sheriff’s agents of Boad Hill, was always sticking his nose into his business, laughing in his face. He glanced at him, later spat a green phlegm that glued on the ground as a mint gum. But that was inside the offices if one could call it that to the Burt’s hovel. Four tables and one study, with a broken glass door. Everybody thought,  Meh! Last name!

Lloyd Chambers was an emaciated guy who begins to have the belly beer. In a few years, he would be with a deformed body, with his stomach on his eggs and his back curved by the weight. Now he would weigh, with the snow on top of the hat, about sixty kilograms. He was dark skinned and had slightly long hair, something that annoyed Burt. His eyes were green and his nose quite pointed. His closed lips drew a thin line, like a closed zipper. Now he wore the official uniform, but when he was on leave, he used to wear jeans to mark the package. A non existent package. He did not smoke or drink alcohol. He never stepped into Moll's bar. What a name, he thought with a rictus on his lips. Prostitute, that's what I wanted to say and, in fact, you found them in there seducing to their possible clients, like ticks about to suck all the blood. He was 47 and had the longest and thinnest cock in the world, but he was proud of it. He had used it only twice. One with Charlize, a mentally retarded woman, but with bright ideas, and again with Elizabeth, how well that name sounded ... But she was never the mother of his children.

I was alone. He was one meter seventy five high and had the boniest hands in the world. His pulse often shaken. He was addicted to coffee.

"It's frozen, sir."  His voice was deep and growly. His long neck served as a musical instrument, in this case, to modulate the voice. Why did the frail guys always have a serious voice? Burt wondered.

"And how do you want me to be under the snow?" Sheriff Burt scolded him as he crouched down to the girl's corpse, which now looked like a dune in the snow.

Burt Duchamp was a hunky man, weighing a hundred kilos, shaved head with grey hair, and a moustache of the same colour that covered his upper lip. His eyes were dark, and his countenance was always serious. It was as if life would piss him off every second. He was one meter and eighty, and he always wore his uniform, even on days when he was free, which he never had. His revolver, the 9 millimeter Glock 19, was always at his fingertips, despite that in Boad Hill, a seemingly quiet town where only strange things happen from time to time, everything else was normal. Fights between drunkards, mistreatment of couples, who went no further than a black eye, and a few hooliganisms of the children and their fucking firecrackers.

But now they were faced with something new. Such new that they had no experience in this type of case, since what was learned in the academy had been thrown into the toilet. But Burt was a resource man and knew what to do. Disconcerted, although he disguised it quite well.

"I want you to dig up this poor girl and identify her." I want prints. I want the killer.  And he was so calm. The snow was falling heavily, and his moustache was white, and his nose was red, and it was running at times. They had never had such a cold winter in Boad Hill either.

"Sir, this is Rachel Geller, Tom's daughter.  The voice of one of the officers who had dug it up earlier, informed him with bewilderment about who was.

"Well, there's not much to figure out here,"  Burt said, turning to face him.  "And why the hell did not you tell me before?"  Tom was a childhood friend who now lived in a library full of books like blocks of a writer of terror and fantasy.

"Do you want to know the cause of death?"  Asked Martin, the agent who had told him the name.

"I suppose so,"  said Burt, almost in a whisper that carried the wind through the surrounding trees, so tall and white that they looked like snowy snowmen who threatened to fall to the ground.

The blue lights of the two patrol cars gleamed in the snow and were reflected between the branches of the trees and their faces as if it were a merry go round. The ambulance arrived in silence, had not set the siren. Red and white, it barely stood out against the glistening white of the snow, which enveloped everything like a large woollen blanket.

"The woman, well ... the girl,"  Martín said, "was torn apart ..."

"Stripped?"  Burt cut him off as two men got out of the ambulance with a red stretcher.

"Yes, on both sides,"  the officer continued in a murmur, his face a little flushed, even though the snow was clinging to his skin like a suction cup.

The wind, literally ate the noise of the bustle of the men in the hat, while the snow fell with such intensity that they had to blink continuously to remove their flakes from the eyebrows.

"And how did you find out if she's buried in the snow?"  Burt wanted to know, with his back to the victim, who covered her with moments of new snowflakes.

"We proceeded to unearth it this morning because we thought we saw that ..."  The agent shrugged and blushed. His sparse beard was completely white.

"What?" Come on, spit it boy! or you'll choke, fuck."

"We saw a part of what were red panties ..."

"They were, and they are, are not they?"  Burt's lips were cut, and one of the lines began to appear blood, a thin line hot to the touch and slippery. He licked it with his tongue.

"Yes, sir. It's the only proof we have of the crime."

"Then she was raped, was not she?"

"Yes."

"On both sides."  Burt had to raise his voice to a new gust of air that sounded like the howls of a hungry wolf.

"Unfortunately, yes, sir. She has bled from both holes."

"Say through the vagina and the anus!"  He screamed this time, closing his eyes and sticking more snowflakes.  "You see a pussy, and instead of getting a boner you start to tremble,"  he mumbled.

Jack Hodge began to laugh like an incoherent, about to swallow the chopstick dangling between his teeth, resting in one of the cars patrolled like a huge barrel of beer.

"It's not funny,"  Martin barked, and before Burt's watchful eye they all fell silent and gave way to the whimpering wind.

"And in such a short time she has been buried in the snow again?"  Burt asked his men, looking at them with a serious face and circling in front of them.

The silence was present for an extended and eternal silence, except for the frantic noise of the wind. Finally, Lloyd spoke.

"Yes, sir, that is so. In a few minutes, the falling snow buried her again, so you did not see anything. It's only been five minutes."

Burt was already suspecting that they had called him when they had gotten out of the balls. His forehead had begun to sweat, a magical combination of hot sweat and ice, he stayed calmer.

"And what else have you been able to find out, smart asses?"

"That she died suffocated,"  said Lloyd.

"How do they know?"

"By the purple marks on the neck, sir,"  Martin said. You have not been able to see it through the ..."

"Yes, the damn snow!"  Burt shouted as much of the snow cap on the top of his hat fell off.

Burt was a rather grave and aggressive man at times, above all when he did not drink the glass of whiskey in the morning. He had neither his wife nor his two sons at his side.

Everything had gone to hell for more than four years, because of his character and alcoholism, in which he had fallen again. His red nose kept crawling under the snowstorm. His family had moved to Boston.

The blue lights kept flashing between the snow and the poor girl, turned into an Egyptian tomb.

2

Not far away from there, through the window of his room, was Peter Bray staring at the snow and all its splendour, even as the sun shone.

Peter's hair was dark, straight and greasy as if it had been sprayed with a bottle of oil on his head. His haircut made him more youthful, but he was already thirty two, and still in love with Ann German, ever since he first saw her when he was sixteen when she was leaving high school. She was younger than him.

"Someday you'll be mine,"  he whispered to the window.

His face left tracks of hollows caused by severe acne from the past. His lips were eerily red and his eyes a light blue. He wore black bone frames glasses and occupied a large part of his face. He had bought the larger ones that existed, so much, that they looked like diver's glasses.

He was thin and quite tall. His hands were fine, and his knuckles were marked as white lumps every time he closed them in a fist. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt. Above all this, instead of putting on an anorak, wore a black raincoat, like Dracula's cape, which reached to his ankles.

As the wind whipped the glass of the window into a shake, was heard the whisper of a series of cartoons from a children's channel he had left on plasma television was heard behind him.

And he continued to contemplate how wonderful was the white blanket of snow, and how it licked every corner of the city and shone like a led bulb.

With his index finger drawing a heart in the cold windowpane, he thought of Ann.

3

"I want you to dig up this poor girl. I need to see with my own eyes how the poor has been left,"  said Burt, waving his hands like a millstone. At once, all his men and the two of the ambulance began to unearth it with their hands.

Removing the snow from her face, they noticed that her glassy eyes remained open. They were bright green, like a cat's. She was blond and looked good looking. But now she was pale and bruised at the same time. She had some scratches on her cheeks and his upper lip swollen. The nose was purple. And on the neck, were finger marks that had left a chain of bruises as big as the ass of glass.

It was Rachel Geller, no doubt.

"I want you to analyse those marks on the neck. We may find a clue,"  said Burt, standing before his men and her body, which was beginning to be visible even though the snowflakes covered it with a new cloak.

"I'm afraid the killer would have worn gloves, sir,"  Hodge explained, looking away at Burt, who was arms folded and snow on his shoulders as if he were a snowman.

Burt frowned. I knew he was right.

Lloyd cleared of the snow the area of ​​the chest and touched two big boobs, hard as two balls of ice and, somewhere in it, felt a sexual lasciviousness.

The men of the ambulance were digging up from the waist down, and they discovered the red panties, carved and with something that looked like snot.

"Mr Sheriff, this looks like semen,"  one of the men said, holding up his hand with the panties stiffer than a piece of cardboard.

Burt extended his long arm, and his fingers touched the cold cloth. He clenched his fist and pulled his panties up a handful of eyes so he could watch them in the blizzard. Obviously, there was a spot of something dull and could be semen or vaginal discharge.

He walked to his car, sinking his big boots into the snow, and took a plastic bag from the trunk. The instant it opened and closed, it was filled with snow. With subtlety, he put the panties inside the bag. And then he headed for the passenger's door to take a pen from the glove compartment. The strong gust of wind almost ripped the door open. On the sticker on the bag, he wrote: "Evidence one, Rachel."

He dropped the closed bag to the passenger seat, closing the door slowly.

When he returned to where the group was digging up Rachel, he saw with amazement how torn apart she was. This had not been a simple rape, and it was possible that have been introduced a metal bar or something similar. The ice, which bordered on her slightly open legs, was dyed red and had spread like an icy river. She had lost a lot of blood. The cowboy pants she wore before being raped appeared a meter further, buried in the snow. There were marks of something dark. Burt kept it as a second evidence.

The agents' hands, glove coated, now brushed against Rachel's flat, hard belly, which focused them with her lost gaze. One of the officers wanted to close her eyelids, but he could not. That look made them nervous while they dug her up. Also, the huge breasts, naked and hard as a rock, that had the nipples purple and stony. The sweater appeared beside her, in the snow. Now, her curved hips appeared naked and purple. The agents stared at it and her pubis, with the dull hair. They could not avoid looking at her steadily.

Then, Burt had an essential question to ask.

"How long do you think she's dead?"  He looked at them all through the snowflakes, which were falling fast on the ground, dragged by the strong wind.  "Who is the smart guy who dares to give his opinion?"

The men continued to dig it up until the entire body, totally naked, was raised rigid like a mummy. Finally, Lloyd answered.

"I think I could have spent the night here,"  he said with a strange grin in his mouth. He was not sure.

"Well, we'll see it when they do the autopsy,"  Burt admitted, removing the sticky snow from his moustache.

Then, Rachel's stiff body stepped onto the stretcher, and in the middle of the storm, they took her into the ambulance, which was almost a handful of snow on top.

The hollow of the body in the snow filled again, and Burt felt like digging to see if there were any more clues.

And that was all that happened on that January morning.

4

"Dad, you must not stand for long,"  Peter said to his father, affectionately.

He was standing in the hallway next to the door frame that Peter had left open. His feet trembled, and all the force fell on his two almost skeletal arms, resting on two old crutches.

"Son, you know I cannot be quiet. Also, this snowstorm has me altered. Do not you hear howling in the wind at every corner of the house?"  John looked at the silhouette of his son in front of the window, with some optimism and sadness at the same time. His whole world lay in the cabal of what would happen if his heart fucked off. Then, he thought of Peter, at thirty two years of age, without independent himself yet.

"The truth is there is a fucking storm ..."

"The little words,"  his father interrupted.  "You know that I do not like bad words and if any one escapes in this house, only me can say them. You already knew your mother."  John glanced at the windowpane, and his eyes darkened as he remembered her.  "She's there, in the snow, in the weeping wind and nature."

Peter glimpsed a smile and walked over to his father with strange jumps as he walked. He limped. The thing was that there was a sequel left when a drunk man ran him over with a Ford pickup while ran through the hard shoulder of the road leading to Boston. He suffered four surgeries and needed crutches for two years. One day he rose euphorically and threw the two crutches out of the window. The glass shattered and her mother, terrified, shrieked like a mermaid. That was years ago, when his Dad had not yet retired, and every fucking morning he took the lunch in a backpack that hung on his back.

John was not far from his son's condition, his three sciatica had worsened just before he retired and underwent two operations, but he was not well. On days like these, snow and cold, he resented the back and, consequently, he lost his balance, and had lost nearly twenty kilos in the last five years and was now the closest thing to a walking zombie. But, unlike his son, he had a sharp eye and did not wear glasses so thick, only some to read the novels while he lays down to rest on the couch.

"Dad, let's get some food,"  Peter said taking him from the arms softly. His father pushed aside one of them, but eventually, he dropped himself into the arms of his son. How have you climbed the stairs?  Asked his son, as he put his father's arm around his neck and took the crutch.

John looked back and smiled.

"The truth is, those fucking stairs are fucked up,"  he said.

Dad! The bad words.  A smile flickered again under his spectacles, which came down to his cheekbones.

"I can say them."

And they went downstairs to eat sandwiches with cheese.

5

"Burt Duchamp?"  The voice on the other end of the line sounded like a cicada. The heated living room, thanks to the chimney, made one forget that it was a cold of thousand devils. But the noises of the line returned to the reality to him.

"Yes, speaking,"  said Burt with a few cans of beer in his stomach.  "Who is?"

"William. William Forrest,"  the voice in the telephone handset answered. In the background, intermittent clicks were heard, which made it appear that the communication would be cut short by a technical breakdown.

"And to what do I owe the honour of speaking with William?"  Burt opened another can of beer. There was a sound like a shotgun shot, and then the foam filled the edge of the can until it spilt onto the floor. He remembered her ex's voice and laughed.

"What's going on?"  Asked the voice that came and went in the modulation of the tone.

"Nothing."

"I'm the forensic doctor at Road Main, the nearest city to Boston. You sent me the corpse of a young girl to perform the autopsy. I've done it and made it known to Sheriff Steve, from here ..."

"Steve? And who the hell is Steve supposed to be?"  Burt cut him off burping at the same time.

"I've already told you, I'm calling from Road Main, and Steve Hammer is the sheriff who has jurisprudence here ..."

––––––––

"But not in Boad Hill,"  Burt cut again, his eyes bloodshot. He walked, circling the dining room with the cordless phone pressed to his ear as if he were listening through the hollow of glass.

"I know. That is why they sent us the corpse here, where there are more resources for these cases. You are there, isolated, in a village that could be ruled by a single agent, by yourself. And they do not even have a court of their own. We are within the same county, so yes, we have jurisprudence there."  The voice reminded him.

Burt nodded. Nearby was a village where a large dog went crazy and killed several people. They had to go to another city to carry out the investigation.

"Here we arrange things by visiting the neighbours,"  Burt explained, more serene. He had gotten nervous.  "And that, when something happens. Today was a present."

"A Present?"

"I was talking to myself."

"Ah!"

Burt left the conversation in a long, ominous silence, broken only by the sound of the wind brushing against the corners of the houses' eaves, and the trees. The snow hit the windows as if they were small stones. Finally, the voice spoke again.

"Are you there, Mr Burt Duchamp?"

"Of course."  He paused for a moment, then added.  "My ear is heating up."

"Well, let's get to the point,"  said the other voice, and again there was an electric click on the line.

"Ok, go ahead,"  Burt said, sitting down on the couch. He lifted his feet without the heavy boots and set them on the table of the living room, right in front of the TV off. A cold forty watt light bulb flung a dim light on his face in the gloom.

"The girl's name was Rachel ..."

"Geller,"  Burt said, then took a sip of beer.

"Are you always so conceited?"

"Almost always, and more with strangers,"  said Burt.

William's voice continued to speak from the other end of the line with a dry, harsh tone.

"She probably died of a heart attack from the pain of the tears. It must have been a metal bar or something like judging from the tears I have found in the vagina and anus. It is also true that I discovered, before death, a significant lack of oxygen. That must have been while he was strangling her. It is probable that the murderer did both at once. Must be a strong man to do this. The hour of the death is not exact, but I can say that she died near midnight, so, she was dead all night, which explains her freezing state. If I remember correctly, there you have a temperature of about five degrees below zero."

Burt looked out the window, in the distance, and saw the snow falling on the streetlights. He pursed his lips and nodded as if William were watching him.

"Are you there?"  It was William's voice.

"Yes."  He finished another short silence, only broken by the continuous clicking of the line, and added.  "This year is quite cold, yes."

"There are no footprints, and that spot you said looked like frozen semen is nothing more than a vaginal discharge, but it's hard to believe. She lubricated before. Do you have any idea why?"

Burt took another sip of beer and set the can on his hip.

"Should I know these things about women?" Are not you the intellectual man?"

"It's okay. The bottom line is that we have no trace of the killer."

––––––––

Burt's body curled up on the couch as if it had been pushed by a spring. His eyes widened a little. The beer can lay on the sofa and foam came out, which devoured the velvet of the seat.

"Shit!"  Burt yelled caused of the spilling of the beer.

"That's what everyone says."

"No. I referred to the beer can."

There was another pause they could publicise if they wanted to. Burt picked up the can and tossed it to the floor. That only made things worse. Now he had a spot in his crotch that looked like piss.

"Beer?"

"Don’t’ you ever drink beer when you relax?"

"I Do not."

"Well!"

"What I was saying. There is no trace of it. The killer got it all!

"Not even a sample of saliva?"

Suddenly, a high pitched beep began on the line, not very strident and continuous. William had cut off the communication.

Burt took the beer can from the floor, into a puddle, and checked that there was still liquid in it. He brought it to dry lips and went to the window, again, to watch the snow and make guesses.

6

At nine o'clock at night, John turned on the television to watch the local news on Channel four. He had left his crutches on one side of the couch and left his feet on the floor, wrapped in brown cotton lined slippers. They were warm. He moved to find the right posture and looked closely at the TV screen.

Peter was in the kitchen, washing dishes, and the noise was heard from the living room. A small chimney, with a handful of lit birch logs, cast a faint reddish light on the floor as if it were a large carpet. On the walls and the ceiling, dozens of strange figures writhed in the crackle of wood.

That night they had eaten tomato soup and mashed potatoes. It's a combination, John thought, but something is something. Since his wife had gone to the other side, the ribs and pasta dishes were missing from the table and ... He stopped thinking to hear what the bald man was saying, holding a microphone in his right hand, as if it were a relic.

"The victim, an eighteen year old girl, was named Rachel Geller, and it was found this noon buried under the snow. Local police have not said anything about it. There is an absolute silence, so we cannot tell if it is an accident or a murder."

John's brow wrinkled until he let out a couple of drops of sweat.

"Have you heard that, Peter?"  He shouted, turning his neck as if on a wheel.

––––––––

"A murmur, that's all."  There was a chuckle from Peter at the rattling of the plates.

Outside the wind snorted.

"Tom's daughter has been found dead this afternoon!"  He exclaimed from the same position, while the bald man continued to speak with his clenched fist around the microphone exaggeratedly.

Suddenly, it stopped listening to the beating of the plates, and then the footsteps were approaching the hall. Peter stepped through the door frame and stared at the television. Here was!  A photograph of Rachel of, at least, two years ago. The bald man gave way to a small woman with blond hair and big tits resting on the table. It was Christie, the woman on Channel Four. Now she was about sixty, and she was still there, with her long fingers, clutching at a handful of pages she read continuously.

"It's the first time in my life I've heard anything like it,"  said Peter in astonishment. His eyes shone in the dim light of the lamp. And for a moment, the glasses of his glasses seemed to shine like the headlights of a car.

He moved around the sofa and sat down on the armrest, squeezing it hard, since he weighed little. It was as thin as the edge of a door.

"In my seventy years, I haven't seen anything like it,"  his father complained, moving again, to fit the best posture to mitigate the pain in his back. He had taken his medicine of every night, but only it started to make the effect when he went to bed and sometimes woke up in the middle of the night with a painful ache in it that made him scream.

"Ann German is in danger,"  Peter announced, his grey eyes lost on the television screen, where, again, was Rachel's photograph.

"Are you still obsessed with that woman, son?"

Peter saw into his father's eyes and gave a faint smile that barely curved his thin lips.

"You know I love her, Dad,"  he said, forgetting Rachel and the TV.

"But she doesn’t' t love you back."

The sound of the television had now become a murmur.

"I know one day, she will be mine."

"We all say that,"  John complained, his voice torn. A phlegm had come between the air he breathed and the words. He coughed and brought his fist to his mouth.

"Look who's talking."  What did you do with Mom?

"Well, that was different. Between us, there was what today is known as a crush. I was a handsome man ..."

"And what am I?"  Peter cut him off by touching his shoulder with his bony hand.

"A man. My son.  he paused to watch him in the dim light.  "But look you in the mirror, even if only for once. You're neglected. You unkempt. Ler's say, those glasses don't fit very good on you, and the hair is dirty. You are always wearing that dull raincoat, even in summer. You are old fashioned. You are out of style.

––––––––

Peter pinched the cheek affectionately and brought his lips to his father's forehead. Once he felt the warmth of him, kissed him.

"I'll change, Dad. I promise."

"You always say so, my son."

The two laughed for a while the wind grew in intensity and the snow fell with fury and crashed against the windows and cars buried in hours.

"You haven't formed a family; you have not a permanent job, you have not given me a grandson who could annoy me all day ..."

Peter put his forefinger to his lips, laughing.

"But I have a gift,"  he said in a whisper.

"I know."

Then he took him by the hand, and he saw it all very clear. The soft contact with the palm of his hand was the way to connect with him. Suddenly he felt a slight tingling in his hand and entered in a mental block, sombre and dark. After the darkness, he could see his thoughts, present, and past. Someone had called it splendour in a book.

Peter had the gift of telepathy, but he needed to touch your hand to connect with you. Then everything seemed dark and got inside you.

For now, he'd only tried it with his deceased mother and his father, not even with his best friend, Denny German, Ann's brother, his platonic love.

And he saw that his father had severe pains in his back and that he had become obsessed with the idea of ​​death.

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7

Burt made suppositions during the rest of the night lying on the mattress, one hand on his forehead and one can of beer in the other. He could not understand who would have done such a thing. To Tom's daughter, an honest man, who manages a bar with whores who sneaked in there, yes, but honest. When he saw, them coming, he took the hunting shotgun, although was unloaded, was only to intimidate the prostitutes that with the adrenaline to the limit after a shot, had their eyes wide open. It was not a metaphor but the eyes were orbiting slightly, pushed by the blood pressure behind the eyes. They could stand up to a total of three millimetres and look like a toad. It was pure science. When they saw the weapon in such hands, they trembled and went out of there like a bat out of hell. Later, Tom laughed and hung the gun on the wall, over the coffee pot and the liquors. He was a great guy, who had two daughters, a twenty year old named Samantha, and Rachel, the youngest, who went to high school and always greeted Burt as she passed in front of him.

Burt felt an internal fury very difficult to calm, except with beer. Little by little, his eyes turned white, and he saw fog and everything became blurry. He did not sleep that night because of the fucking storm of the century. It was windy, and it was snowing copiously. And he thought, among other things, that the next day he would have another problem: snow.

And he thought about Miriam, Rachel's mother, in how she would throw herself like a cat on her daughter's coffin when she returned from who knows what Road, he did not remember the name, only that it was somewhere between Boston and Portland.

And in those red panties.

Until he fell asleep and the beer spilled on the mattress like the great skein of a dog.

8

Larry was the young priest at Boad Hill Church, who was stationed there when the Father Sam dies, who fed the neediest. Only the oldest of the place knew his real name. Larry had been there for about a year, and he seemed to do his job well with God. It was the nuns who said that whose every Sunday and every burial came to the church at the end of Culver Street, almost a district and quite far from the Masterson's, the last home.

But this winter has been particularly difficult with the snow, and they could hardly go to church. With big scarfs wrapped around her necks like stoles, this morning they had to go to Rachel's burial mass, and that was undisputed. So, they had to leave the cars at home and cross the thick blanket of snow, and yet they gathered. Larry was waiting for them with his eternal smile and his brown eyes behind glasses with a golden frame.

Everyone who was there, in the warmth of the central heating, was known. Everyone knew each other and, besides family members, they came from neighbours and friends and even the most curious. It had wakened a gale worse than in the cold winter. Everyone wanted to hear Larry's words and, above all, see the coffin and Rachel's makeup. Also, her parents crying over the coffin in an attack of hysteria and then the weakness of the mother.

The situation was critical and raised an absolute expectation in a city of no more than two thousand inhabitants.

Burt was in the front row, in front of the pulpit, where Larry climbed with a dazed slowness. Burt thought he was clumsy and therefore the unnecessary care to take a step. Now he was in the middle of a hangover and still wearing his sheriff's vest, with his felt hat and a big yellow stain on his pants.

Tom and his wife and their other daughter had not yet arrived, and everyone was mumbling like parrots on the top of an electric line. The church walls picked up these voices and sent them back like waves across the room. When there was finally something behind the church door, which was not the grip of the wind, the murmur increased the quality of a cry, and then there was silence. All the eyes of those present were almost out of their sockets and black lips tight as a thin zipper sewn into the mouth.

Larry looked up from the Bible that was open in the pulpit, also known as the choir lectern.

Suddenly, the doors of the small church opened, and with them, a gust of icy air and millions of snowflakes entered. Two tall men, dressed in black and leather gloves, pushed the doors and now, completely covered in a white robe, simply opened the door to the back of the hearse, with a metallic grey scent. On the sides of the car, there was no wreath of flowers and the wheels were covered by thick chains. The snow had piled at the foot of the gates at the entrance, but now it was being reduced to miserable sheets of ice, thanks to the footsteps of both men. The exhaust pipe spat in the wind a line of dark grey smoke. The engine purred like a big cat.

"My daughter!"  Suddenly the mother of the deceased cried out as she stretched out her arms like a zombie and started to run through the corridor of the crowd. The clattering sound of heels was heard, and finally, the fleshy blow of her body hugging one end of the coffin, which peered out like a dark tongue from the hollow of the car.

The murmur rose to an annoying noise, and the hands waved in front of the grave faces, making crosses with the fingers. The most heard were, Rachel is dead. Tom burst into tears like a child supported on the bench of the front row; held with his hands tight. He also had snots and felt its salty taste of them. After all, it did not feel so bad, he thought, in a loophole of sanity because the rest was madness.

"Please, friars, let us be silent for a moment,"  said the voice of Larry, the priest, or the pastor to some, though there was a great difference between them, from the loudspeakers installed throughout the modest church, which it lacks a Christ the size of a tree.

The crowd continued murmuring, drowning Larry's words, which became the whistling wind of the snowstorm. Cold air began to fill the room like the inside of a refrigerator, drastically lowering the temperature. Now the words had turned into vapour halos rising to the ceiling. At the entrance to the corridor, which separated the sides of the benches, the snow began to rest in a thin, slippery layer.

Samantha, with a more severe and earnest countenance, stared in the distance at her mother sprawled over the coffin, while the two men endeavoured, lovingly, to take her off. The snow played in the air, and the damp hair of the people present turned white again.

Finally, at the insistence of Larry, who had been stuck like a burning spike behind the lectern, the two men managed to take Miriam out of the coffin, and those closest to her held her by the arms as they consoled her, caressing her wet hair. Her eyes were about to explode, and suddenly everyone seemed unfamiliar and suspicious to her.

During a stream of icy air and thousands of snowflakes, the two men in black pulled the coffin, and beneath it, metallic legs unfolded from what looked like a stretcher on wheels. The coffin gave a chirp as it emerged from the hollow of the car, unnoticed by the furious blizzard. After this, they pushed the casket inside and closed the doors, and it was only then when the murmur ceased immediately, except for Miriam's whimpering and the characteristic noise of the snot when swallowed.

At the attentive gaze of the congregates, the two men pushed the coffin through the corridor that smashed through the wheels. The melancholic eyes of some looked at him out of the corner of their eyes. And there was someone who whispered: Rachel is inside that pine box.

Miriam had risen from the ground and, with a sudden movement, had dislodged herself from the arms of those who held her. She did not say anything, just walked behind the coffin with bloodshot eyes. Tom lifted his head at the incessant chirping of the wheels and saw the coffin approaching as it grew larger and more disturbing.

Samantha clenched her fists, while Father Larry touched the microphone with his finger to check that everything was in order. As the coffin strolled slowly in front of those present, they rose and crossed, and with a whisper on their lips, they sat down again. There were most of the acquaintances there: Gordie, Norman, Donald. Stephen, Eileen, Andy, Morrison, the Masters and an extensive list of friends.

Of course, was Burt, who now looked with his grave countenance the arrival of the coffin down the aisle, his hands folded in his belly, as he held his felt hat. His men were there too, and they had orders to observe everyone. Any clue was valid.

Finally, the men in black placed the coffin lay across in front of the lectern, where flower wreaths and photographs with farewell dedications awaited him. Then Larry began to release his sermon. In one of the hottest moments, he said:

"Father, welcome this young girl into your bosom, so pure and ..."

"She was a virgin!"  A voice interrupted him from the back of the crowd. This shout made that the murmur rise again among all those people there, like a noise of an engine that is about to explode on all four sides.

Larry called for silence and people hushed.

The mass lasted about fifteen minutes and was more of the same. The people of Boad Hill were not happy with verbosity released by Father Larry. He had scarcely mentioned Rachel and the reasons for her death. He later stated that he did not do it because he did not hurt the sensitivity of his relatives. Everyone was disturbed.

"Please be quiet!"  Burt shouted, and they all fell silent.

It was time to open a part of the coffin to show Rachel's makeup face, where the scratches and bruises had disappeared. When this happened, the moment a part of the coffin lid rose and Rachel's blond hair shone in the intense light of the church, Miriam, her mother, went into hysteria, bringing her nails to her face and marking it. This time she threw herself so hard to the casket that it almost throws it to the ground. A disturbing movement of the coffin made to presage the worst.

Tom had step aside and get his wife of the arms, while his daughter Samantha did the same. They managed to pull her from her neck, but not to calm her. Her breathing went wild, and she went into hyperventilation. A slight tingling began to raise her feet and then her face was numb, and there was a strong pain behind her eyes, which protruded from their sockets. She barely stammered her daughter's name three times and fainted.

Burt took care of the situation, taking her feet and lifting them up. Then, the black dress ran beyond her knees and showed red panties. Burt looked away, but he could not help remembering those red panties of Rachel.

As Burt revived her, Tom walked over to the open coffin and looked inside. She was there, with her eyes closed, he could not believe it, he could not admit that all this was happening to him. With tears in his eyes and a quick pulse, he brought his fat lips to her daughter's cold forehead, and when his lips brushed against her taut skin, he kissed her with a strange sound like a suction cup.

"Goodbye, my girl"  he said, crying like a child.

And so, it was all until she was buried two hours later in the old cemetery, in a grave covered with snow and with the strong wind accompanying it. As the casket descended into the depths, Miriam wanted to die on top of it. She felt like again that her feet and face were asleep and she was sweating, even though there was a cold wind like ice cubes.

Finally, she threw a rose and was buried with the earth removed and snow, lots of snow.

––––––––

9

The news and the burial had saddened the entire town of Boad Hill, unaccustomed to this sort of thing. They all looked at Burt, pointing to him and letting out some rebuke. Then, he pointed them with his finger at the same time.

"I can arrest you for public disorder and disrespect to the authority,"  he said, his lips dry with the cold of that winter.

There was nothing clear and no more talk about Rachel in the days that followed; even it persisted in everyone's memory. Tom kept working at his bar, and the prostitutes walked away as if the wind had dragged them by the snow.

Miriam entered a deep depression, and she was now crammed with pills. It was the closest thing to a living dead, when she moved slow and deliberately, dragging the feet, with swollen eyes and inert arms on both sides of the body. Her daughter had asked her boyfriend Rick to leave her alone for a few days so she could take care of her mother. He reluctantly agreed.

The storm did not stop in the following days and Burt did not stop looking at the photograph of his ex wife and their children while filling the belly of beer.

In a rural town like Boad Hill, everyone was suspicious.

There was an uneasy, tense air.

––––––––

10

"I know you needed it,"  Peter said, accidentally touching Ann's hand. She was putting the silverware on the table when Peter's hand went straight into the pocket of his raincoat to put his glasses into his pocket. Then, his fingers had touched the back of her hand. Suddenly, he became nervous and entered a total darkness, and then he saw everything clearly.

He had pushed inside her.

"What have you said?  Ann asked, her wrinkled forehead. Her blond mane, straight, moved like a large bundle of threads on her shoulders. She was beautiful anyway.

Peter shook his head negatively.

Denny German had invited him to dinner that night at home in one of the most difficult times for his sister Ann. Denny suspected something about Peter. They were close friends and told everything, except that he was in love with his sister, although he could see it in his small eyes after removing the huge glasses.

And Peter suddenly felt bad, because something evil had seen in Ann's mind. Something wrong.

Ann was a thin girl with a body of scandal for Peter, with breasts tucked in his hands, he thought on many occasions. She was four years younger than Peter, and her hair was long, over his shoulders, so straight and so perfect it looked like a wig. His eyes were green and glowed in the sun, even in the few days when the sun was out in winter. Her lips were fleshy and pink. Her skin, thin as velvet, and had no wart all over her body. That night she wore a short dress that showed her pink knees and gave way to the imagination of what her buttocks would be like in the blue flowered dress, somewhat dated by then, but she liked it better than a pair of trousers and a sweater. His hands were thin and with long fingers ending in nails trimmed. Her teeth gleamed like freshly fallen snow, and her tongue was pink and excited Peter when she made fun of him, showing him her tongue. That was a long time ago when they were kids, and Donald had not entered her life, her future husband.

The one that worried Peter right now.

Something unknown to the German family.

––––––––

11

At night, the wind increased in Boad Hill and, while somewhere in the world the sun should be shining, here, neither did the moon. The sky was overcast of the greyish colour, to the dark sinister, the same that Peter saw before entering the other person's mind after touching you. The passage, he called it, a passage that disappeared within a few seconds. Afterwards, was inside the brain files as if he were looking through 3D glasses in a virtual world, only that it was real.

After twelve o'clock, when his father had been snoring like a locomotive for at least two hours, Peter was still standing with his shoulder against the window pane while the snow was piling up on the other side, crashing against him as if someone were there throwing snowballs with all his might. A white mantle filled the streets and cars of Boad Hill for the third consecutive time. Snowed with balls.

"What a hard winter,"  Peter whispered to the glass, and the mist made his presence the moment of releasing his breath. It formed like a white, opaque layer, and little by little the transparency returned to the glass. He wanted to draw a heart with his index finger, but he thought only the children did that.

––––––––

Forgetting the scene in the church with Rachel's mother, and after a week and a half not knowing anything about what happened, Peter strayed to other thoughts. At first, it made him smile when he imagined the smiling Ann's face, and then his face became serious when he remembered what she saw inside her.

He remembered that his fingers had grazed her hand and how soft her skin was. He had felt a strange sensation of libidinous pleasure. She had withdrawn her hand very quickly and shown her best smile, but that moment was enough to enter the passage. Everything became dark, gloomy and sinister. A total darkness and a slight loss of memory or transposition state. Then there was a spot of light in the distance, which enlarged quickly and could be seen inside the mind of the other person. As a character in Wonderland, observing everywhere the images and memories kept by that person. He saw them and could choose which to see in detail. And that was what happened with Ann, except, this time it was so ugly, terrifying, horrible, that had made his heart gallop without her realizing it.

While his best friend Denny, Ann's brother, and his parents ate without stopping, he saw it with absolute clarity, and his face had to change at times because it was frightening. The German cat was purring under his chair when he saw it. And it was like this:

Donald Creed, her husband, though she called herself German by name at all costs, was in front of her, with his cock in one hand and the leather strap in the other. Her tummy was overblown glided through the air like a bag of water. He was naked, and his eyes were bloodshot. In turn, he tightened his yellow teeth. Drunk like a vat, his feet trembling beneath an obese structure he had been a good sportsman before, but now he had been inflated like Homer Simpson was forcing her to turn around. He wanted to penetrate her through the anus, and she resisted it. The leather strap lifted in the air and drew an arc, to end in a fleshy blow with a sharp pain for Ann and then, he approached her with the bar of meat in his hand, prepared to push. She, leaning on the kitchen table, and him naked, except with the shoes on. It was ridiculous. He forced her until Ann turned around and the first thing she saw was the closed fist of her husband.

Peter emerged from the trauma with a spasm that made his back arch and returned to reality. The snow kept crashing against the window pane and his father snoring, and he told himself he had to put an end to that.

A tear flooded her right eye and slipped beneath his glasses, sliding down his cheek until he felt it dangling from her chin.

He was awake all night.

And he was not the only one.

––––––––

12

The killer had acted again. It had been during the night of Wednesday, just as the sun was hiding behind the mountains like a great red stain, but the overcast sky could not see that. The snowstorm had subsided a little, but flakes still fell on the ground, though far fewer. And she appeared there buried, legs spread, licked, again and again by George's dog, a neighbour near the playground who had pulled it to piss like every morning. The snow evaporated under its great yellowish stream, but that morning the dog did not pee, but dragged its owner across the street to the playground, until he found a pair of bare and blue feet.

George, a man in his fifties who wore blue Tergal trousers, a white wool sweater, and a beige polar coat over it, was almost dizzy when he called the emergency telephone number. It had not crossed his mind to call the local police. He had suffered a trance at one point and had dialled other numbers. His trembling hand brought the cell phone to his ear. The wind was weak, but there was a slight noise between the ear and the mobile phone.

"How can I help you?"  Said a rough voice.

George's lips were shaking and not for the cold precisely. His heart was galloping, and he felt the cold sweat of death on his forehead.

"He ... found ... something,"  the man said uneasily.

"What did you find?"

"You believe ... or a ... person ..."

"How do you know that?"  The voice asked with a quiet voice.

"Because I see ... feet,"  he said at last.

"Okay, just tell me where you are right now."  It seemed that the voice at the other end of the line had regained its enthusiasm that morning.

"I'm at the Mouse playground on New Maine Street, next to the Straub gas station."  Now the man was calmer and could say the whole sentence of a run, of course, he was with his back to the find of his dog, who was still licking the victim's icy, almost purple feet.

Ten minutes later, the sharp sirens and the blue and yellow lights made their way down the street, over the snow turned almost into the layer of ice. They braked abruptly and became skaters of great magnitude. One of the patrol cars crashed into the telephone pole, leaving it tilted slightly to one side. George was puzzled.

Then the doors opened and closed as the sirens of the two vehicles ceased, and there was Burt, his pants almost at the level of his navel and his eyes swollen.

"You idiots! There is ice in the snow, and we have no budget for this year! That car will stay the rest of it."  He pointed to the front of the vehicle, which had big damages on the bumper.

Jack Hodge let out a stupid laugh as he pulled his pants up to his waist. Lloyd, however, walked to the man holding the dog in his arms. His face was all a poem.

"It's in there,"  George said, pointing to the bare feet, which now looked as white as the belly of a fish.

Burt, approaching from behind, gave the stop. He wanted to see him first, for something was the boss. And, while he was doing it, he saw the bare feet come out of a small wooden hut made for the little ones on Boad Hill. It based on a wooden ceiling finished in a tip, like a church, held by four columns of wood. The top of the roof, which would not reach the height of Burt's chest, was completely covered with a thick layer of unbroken snow.

"Damn it, again,"  Burt whispered as he approached, burying his boots into the snow.

Burt took his hand to his moustache and stroked it. His eyes more open now, and somewhere inside him, felt ashamed of last night's drunkenness. But nobody knew that. He knelt in the snow, close to those feet, and stared at the length of the body that lay hidden beneath the small hut.

"Sir, who is it?" Lloyd's voice, who was standing right behind him, made him came out of the lethargy.

"I think it's Eileen. Michael's youngest daughter, the baker."  His lips made a strange grimace under his moustache, which Lloyd did perceive because Burt had turned around, twisting his head as hard as he could.  "It's happened again, damn it,"  he announced.

They left the body as it was to the delight of their eyes and on the way, to be able to guess what would be the first clue. There were no tracks in the snow, and it had not snowed too much that night to erase the tracks. Also, it was near the Straub's gas station, and some car had to refuel, but no one saw it. Since when was she supposed to be dead? Because she was, he knew it only to see her face purple and swollen, almost deformed, although he recognized it.

There were no tire tracks or footprints, no murder weapon. There was nothing except the snow of that cold winter. The worst of the last years.

Could Burt know if the victims knew the killer? They were disfigured, and that indicated nothing except the suffering before dying. Choking or bled? Did he rape her this time? There were many questions in the air like, for example, what was doing that girl, who went to middle school, at those hours of the night?? And if it was in the afternoon, at dusk? Nobody had refuelled gasoline, and their eyes could divert to what was happening in the playground that was across the street? The assassin then gained the nickname of Jack Feather Feet. Now it was him.

Ten minutes later, the yellow lights of the ambulance drew strange shapes on the faces of the agents. Eileen's lifeless body still buried beneath the wooden hut. When the two ambulance doctors came down, they approached the corpse to dictate what Burt already knew: she was dead.

Burt had already interrogated George, while his dog was crying. Of course, he had not seen or heard anything except the discovery of the body and said he did not bend down to see her naked. He emphasized it twice.

Without moving the body, the two doctors made a report of the condition of the corpse. Her eyes were swollen and purple. The upper lip was broken, and she had bled to the chin. There were bruises on her neck. Undoubtedly, the assassin had used his two great hands entirely to strangle her. Her breasts, frozen and anxiously purple, had this time something new: one of the nipples had been ripped off. The autopsy would determine whether by a bite or with a tool. Her vagina was dilated and torn, and a river of blood had dyed the snow red, which had now turned into a red ice layer. She had more bruises on her arms and buttocks.

"Sir, he has done to this poor girl the same thing as the previous one,"  the doctor informed him with pale skin.

Burt grunted. He had run out of words and deep down he thought he should follow the same guidelines as the previous one. That morning, fortunately, there were no neighbours behind the windows or their noses near the crime scene. No one had heard.

Until noon.

––––––––

13

Christie, the woman on channel four, broke the news at nine o'clock in the evening. All Boad Hill realized of what happened at that time, and Eileen's parents had yet to file a complaint about her daughter's disappearance. Maybe by carelessness or maybe because they had used too much cocaine.

Burt, this time, with his feet on the sofa and of course, a can of beer in his hand, wondered where the fuck would be Eileen's panties and all her clothes.

And as the snow began to fall back to Boad Hill, Burt made assumptions that did not take him anywhere. Eileen had already been sent to do the autopsy on Road Main, where things were a little more advanced and not too rural as in Boad Hill, with its great forests and its limitations in any matter.  But also, it had a cemetery, a church, a city hall, a sheriff's office, a supermarket, a gas station, a park, and a few more things.

The snow, driven by the rising gust of wind, crashed against the glass, drawing strange shapes that ended up becoming tears of water.

Eileen also appeared with her eyes open.

––––––––

14

"Did you know!"  Peter cried suddenly.  "You knew about Ann!"

Denny looked at him with some sadness.

"I did not want anyone to know. No one can imagine what that sadist can do. My sister made me swear that I would never get this out of my mouth."

"But you see, it turns out that I have a gift that my dear mother left me and, look where I have been able to read, your thoughts. What about that now? You did not know that either, did you?"  Peter had his teeth clenched and his lips so straight that they formed a straight line.

"You're my best friend, why you did not tell me that before?"

"Now I'm worried about your sister and the son of a bitch of Donald."  Peter's eyes were bloodshot. He was moving around the chair in front of the computer. He looked like a desperate kid. The low light from the computer screen drew strange shapes on their sweaty faces. Outside, the cold was unbearable.

"That's why you brought me here?"  Denny asked, sitting on the edge of Peter's bed. They were both in his room because half an hour earlier, Peter had called him urgently. He needed something, but he had not said what. He'd been obsessed with Donald for days trying to penetrate her from behind and hit her.

After hearing the cries of the wind at the corners of the roofs and the edge of the window, Peter spoke:

"The other day, in oversight, I touched Ann's hand and entered an absolute darkness ..."

"Wait! Do you say darkness? Do you see darkness before reading thoughts?"  Denny cut him off with an evil Joker look.

"Yes, it's normal, it lasts only a few milliseconds. It is imperceptible to people, but I see darkness, and then I see what that person thinks. In this case, Ann. I saw her repetitive memories, like a tape that never ends. He was lashing her with his eyes out of the sockets and mouth open. That scene was repeated in her head.

"Then, can you know what I think now?" In the present?"  Denny was repetitive with this prayer because he had already told him at first.

"And in the past." I can also dig into the memories. But if it's any consolation, I did not do it with your sister.

Denny raised up his hand. He had the urgent need to carry a cigarette to his cut lips for the cold.

"Do you have any cigarettes?"

Peter shook his head negatively as the computer screen shed a red light as blood, and their faces resembled the sunset on a summer evening. Of course, Peter had not turned on the light bulb in the room.

"You know I do not smoke." What's the matter today, Denny?"  There was a short but ominous silence, and he added.  "I do not want you to say a word about this to Ann; I do not know how she would react to having a being so strange as me.

"Of course," said Denny, now lying on the bed, his arms crossed behind his head.

"Do you think I'm crazy? Do you really see me able to tell people that you know what they think by just touching their hand? That sounds like a joke. He paused for a few seconds, where Peter was watching him and added.  "I think you're crazy, that you've discovered that by other means. Maybe my sister told you, and you're riding a trolley.

Peter looked puzzled.

"Come!"  He said, holding out his hand. I'm going to show you.

Denny stood up in bed as if his body had been pushed by a spring. His face was all joy, but he got out of bed and shuffled to his friend Peter, hesitating. He was raising his hand in circles, and his index finger pointing everywhere. He had never behaved like this in front of his best friend; it was unlike him. Now his face was blue, thanks to the computer screen saver.

"Buff! He's going to read the thought. Denny's lips twisted into a grimace, and his eyes seemed to glow in the green colour that reflected the computer screen.  "What finger are you going to touch me, this or this one?" He reached his dick with his hand.

Peter took his hand with force on an impulse.

"You're thinking that I'm crazy,"  Peter said, his eyes fixed on him from behind the crystals of his glasses.

"Buff! how hard is to be right, right?"

"And now you remembered the pleasure Angeline gave you when she was only thirteen."

Denny's face paled, suddenly as if he had become frightened suddenly. He ducked his head and tried to withdraw his hand, but he could not. Peter held him tight.

"And then you forgot about her."

Denny looked serious, and his face was a restless shadow. He was getting nervous. He pulled his hand tightly, but it did not separate from Peter's.

"And then you told all your friends, except me."

The wind hit the windowpane and Peter let go Denny's hand. Inside the house, in the room, Denny had on his black raincoat, like a vampire. The scene was somewhat comical but uncomfortable.

Denny left, knocking on the door, which he tapped in the frame a couple of times.

In the distance, John complained about it with a swear word.

Peter avert the glance at the window.

It was still snowing.

And after a few seconds, he saw Denny's silhouette disappear into the snow until it reached an almost invisible spot.

––––––––

15

As usual on dark nights and especially this winter, stormy and icy, Burt gobbled the beers one after the other, as he thought of those two poor girls. When suddenly, and for the second time, the phone rang near midnight. The bell, like a motor saw, echoed on every wall of the room. Burt had programmed that tone to be able to hear the calls, for he has not so good hearing.

The beer can, or what was left of it, lay on the couch spreading like a large raft of water, only that it had foam, like the waves of the sea crashing against the rocks. Again, with a wet stain on the service pants, Burt reluctantly got up to pick up the phone, which was lying on a small table a meter away from him. Next to the window, away from the fireplace.

"I'm coming,"  he said as if someone was listening to him on the other side of the phone, not picking it up. It was a custom that all the locals had. Answer a phone while it was still ringing.

His small, hairy hand on the back came up to the black cordless phone. When his fingers embraced it, he clenched his fist tightly and lifted it with passivity.

"Are you Sheriff Burt?"  Asked a voice that was slanted and somewhat twangy at the same time.

Burt belched and answered at once.

"Yes, the same. Who the hell is calling me? Have you lost the cat?"  Burt was more drunk than sane.

"I'm the medical forensic."

"Oh!"  He looked at the clock on the wall. It was a little past twelve. The short needle was stiff as a cross while the minute hand was to the right, slightly dropped. It would be twelve ten, he thought. He was not very clear.  "And can you tell why you always call from midnight?

"Change of schedule, Mr. Burt, and besides, it's when I have some free time. Are you drunk?"

"What question is that?"

"Does not matter. I am calling to inform you of my report on the second girl sent by you."

Burt regained his memory, and the adrenaline injected into the bloodstream of his eye. Until that moment, he was not sure with who he was talking. He remembered now. It was William Forrest, the forensic doctor or Pathologist from Main Road, the one that earns about $ 180,000 a year. Burt had been informed about this, but not exactly where Main Road was located, or why Sheriff Steve Hammer had not called him. He let out a laugh, and it was so much effort that he let out gas. Then his mouth opened to swallow air.

"I am sorry. The cat had escaped from the window,"  Burt said with a broad smile on his face. His face lit by the flames of the fireplace that kept the room warm. Outside it was snowing copiously, and if it continues like this, they would be about to beat all the records of the hard winters of Boad Hill.

The phone line was silent, except for a click that sounded from time to time and made think of the worst. He was going to ask if was still clinging to the phone when suddenly the voice rang again.

"I do not know if you're able to listen to me or if you even know who I am ..."

"William Forrest, the forensic doctor,"  Burt cut him off in a low voice. Now he was grave and all ears.

"Perfect. Can we continue?"

"As you like."

"The girl was called ... well, you know that."  There was a brief silence, and he continued.  "In short, I'll tell you she died as the previous victim. By suffocation and bled. Her vagina was fully dilated and torn. The killer has used the same type of bar or object to penetrate her. The uterus has been terribly damaged; it has been a destroyed. It is the part of the woman who expels the most blood, that is, by which they can bleed to death. An ectopic pregnancy in the neck of the cervix can lead to death ...

But William was talking to himself, as Burt had taken the receiver from his ear. His forehead was a sea of ​​dunes, and it began to sweat copiously. Those words were choking. He put the phone back in his ear, sticking out like a black suction cup.

"Forgive me, William, I've lost my "  Burt had cut off his conversation, for he had heard William talking about strange terms to him when he put the phone to his ear.

There was silence on the line, and the blows of snow were heard piling on the window sill.

"I understand, Mr. Burt. Sometimes we go over the details, but I can tell you that he put a big object into her vagina, and there are also marked fingers on her neck, so I think she must have died suffocated before she lost all her blood. There are scratches all over the body and a nipple less. I, personally, believe that he has used various objects to do all this to her because we have not found any trace, neither remnant of saliva, mucus, sputum, semen or DNA. Have you understood now?"

Burt nodded as if William were looking through the receiver. Standing by the fireplace, he tried to wipe out the stain of beer away. Suddenly, he realized that he had not answered, and a faint smile shone in the firelight.

"Oh, sorry, I was assimilating too much information,"  Burt lied. I have it all clear. We stand before Jack Feather feet.

"What?"

"Nothing! A nickname I invented." Burt turned his gaze to the window. Outside the night it was not dark, but bright, as if there were a full moon, though it was only the reflection of the snow. The killer leaves no footprints in the snow. We do not have anything. That is what I think.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Burt. I cannot do more for you."

Burt thought about the $ 180,000 and felt like saying something about it. Burt did not earn even a tenth part of that money.

"I'm sorry, too,"  Burt said and restrained himself about the money.

A moment later, a long, high pitched whistle sounded on the line. William hangs up, and Burt stared at the cordless phone as if to discover something interesting there.

The clock was almost twelve thirty. The minute hand was almost at the centre of a free fall, like a spider hanging from a thread.

And that was all for that night.

Burt leaned back on the couch and felt the cushions still wet, but still, he fell asleep in the flames of the fireplace. Another thing they would not have in Boad Hill, but good fireplaces were not missing.

––––––––

16

About one o'clock in the morning, Peter was still writing a story, whose contents did not want to reveal, this time, not to his father. The word processor's blank screen made him so agitated that it made him shiver, not because of what he was going to write, but because of the mental blockage, suffering in each new paragraph. Forgot things, left aside details and sometimes kept staring at the cursor for too long at the end of the line. As the desktop processor warmed like a Cossack, the letters, the few he wrote that night, were reflected in the glass of his huge glasses.

The lack of concentration and the few ideas that could generate before a state of stress, it threw everything overboard. With his body hunched over his keyboard and his nose almost touching the computer screen, his hands danced on the keyboard and, moments later, remained motionless. His fingers did not press any of the keys.

"If I were you, I would not have told that to your friend Denny,"  said suddenly, a harsh voice behind him.

Peter turned compulsively, in the act of reflection, and looked through the thick crystals of his glasses toward the door of the room, which was now open and gripped by a knobby but firm hand. His father's silhouette, in his long underpants and T shirt, sketched between the penumbra of the door jamb and the low light of the hallway that came from his room.

"Dad, what are you doing now awake?"

"I do not know, you tell me,"  he said quietly.  "Now he will say it to the four winds, and everyone will know that Peter has a strange gift, which your mother and I called brightness."

"Denny is not that kind of person,"  Peter announced with his chair turned, his back to the computer. The crystals of his glasses seemed to glow for a moment under the blazing light of the snow. Between the room and the hall, everything was a play of lights that drew strange shapes on their tired faces and the walls.  "And who does not take the cards today?"

"But you do not take the cards, son."

"I know, but I needed to tell you. I needed to tell him about Ann, but I saw it when I touched him. I could not restrain myself at the thought that he had been hiding it all this time."  Peter stretched out his index finger and put it on his chest, plunging it into the hollow of two of his ribs.  "To me. To his best friend."

"That's why I tell you that the fox knows more for being old than for being a fox."

Peter was silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke.

"You're going to get cold standing there."

"I do not think so; the fireplace spits heat like a damn, even the air is dense with this heat in here. Worse must happen to the dogs out there."  He pointed to the sale.

"The dogs are well taken care in their houses,"  Peter replied with a smile on his lips. The crystals of his glasses shone again.

"Do you know that another dead girl has appeared?"  Said John, changing subject and countenance.

Peter waved his hands. The raincoat dragged on the floor. He had not taken off yet.

"I'm not really aware of that,"  he admitted.  "When has happened?"

"You should watch the TV a little more, Peter, and not write too much nonsense of terror on your old computer."

Peter made a face with his mouth, his face like an idiot, and he knew it, but luckily it had been in front of his father. He did not want to think what would have happened if that same face had been put in front of Denny or Ann since he had no more friends. He blushed instantly.

"When will they buried her?"

"I do not know, you guess. You only think about Ann."

"I'm sorry, Dad."

"She was Michael's daughter, the baker. Our neighbour about two houses from here,"  said his father, as he turned and stopped catching the door handle. He was heading for the light of his room.  "You should watch more the local news anchor, she's old yes, but she has nice tits. And you would not have told him that you have that brightness behind the darkness,"  the man insisted, his voice fading at times as he walked down the hall.

––––––––

17

The burial was on the following day, and the snowstorm did not give truce but, still, Eileen received burial. Larry, the priest, gave the sermon with the Bible held in one hand and arms open, ready to receive all the snow in the world and to be frozen like a statue. He wore something like a black nightgown, that was not a soutane, and was criticized by the most meddlesome people. Larry wore a purple stole wrapped around his neck as if it were a serpent waving in the wind, and underneath Adam's apple, he saw the clerical neck of pure white. Larry's hair and eyebrows were covered by a thin layer of snow and looked like it had come out of a freezer. Everyone, there was sheltered to the ears.

"Lord, hold her in your bosom, for it is not her fault to be here." A degenerate has changed her destiny, and for that, I commend her to you now,"  said Larry, leaving the script. It was a terrible thing for some religious with deep roots, yet it was fresh air for others. There was a diversity of opinion. Larry was not like the former priest, who spent all his life in the church. Larry went for a walk with or without his clothes and talked to everyone in the street and their houses. Larry was very different. The younger ones liked it. The Sunday mass had become something else. Larry was much more outgoing and always had a solution for everything except death.

After these words, he closed his arms and crossed them over her chest. The Bible, which remained closed, occupied the centre of his chest and was worn. The title written in gold letters, but now it was like a white brick in his hands. Someone in the crowd sneezed in the silence and a murmur rose, as when the doves took off.

That winter was becoming more complicated than expected. The wind whipped their faces and froze their blood. Their scalps, though they were under thick coats, stood up like the spikes of a hedgehog. Michael was with his lost look between the coffin containing his daughter inside and the pit waiting below. Both covered with snow, which fluttered around like foam.

Eileen's mother was the one who had broken the silence with her crying. Why is it that all mothers are more visceral and hysterical when they lose a child? That was the question Peter asked himself as he watched her. He was tempted to touch her icy hand and push inside her. Or, even better, he had the horrible idea of ​​touching her dead daughter's hand and checking if she had anything in her memory. If, for some reason, the brain was still alive. But a new burst of icy air brought him back to reality. Denny was at the other end of the crowd. He did not look at him at all. Ann stood beside her parents, silently, head down.

Burt and his men were there, of course, and their eyes were everywhere, looking for a suspicious, unfamiliar face, out of place. A glitter in the eyes, a smile. Something. But there was nothing but hurt, worried people, and the strong gusts of wind accompanied by snow.

There was also Denny, at one end of the crowd, surrounding the pit and the coffin, which came down with thick ropes to the bottom of the hole with a layer of snow on top. And every time the coffin fell a foot, the cries of Emma, ​​Eileen's mother, burst forth. The poor girl, who was now in a box of pine, in absolute darkness, stiff and with blood coagulated at one end of her body, her lips purple and her wounds clean. She was always going to stay there forever, buried by hundreds of kilos of dirt and a heavy slab, as it rotted to dust.

Ann was also there, along with her husband Donald, the chubby man with the sadist faced, from the front row, who seemed not to have broken a single plate in his life. He was the bravest actor in the world.

And all the acquaintances of the town were there for the second time, with their faces marked by worry and fear.

"You can stop by the church and talk with our Lord and with me for a while,"  Larry announced aloud when the coffin had struck a loud blow against some stone.

During the whistling of the wind, murmurs rose, and heads rolled in various directions as if they were over balls. There was too much to talk.

But neither Michael nor Emma went to church that afternoon and, of course, neither did Rachel's parents, the first victim, who were also present at the funeral.

––––––––

18

The blinding light of the snow was now a faint reflection beneath the overcast sky, and even without the moon, the village shone. It was hard to move with so much snow, and the wind seemed to have no end during the last two weeks. One of the most severe winters in Boad Hill.

Larry, with his kind of black shroud fitted to his athletic body, clenched his fist and directed him toward the white door. His knuckles ring twice, like a door in the frame.

There was no answer.

The snow was now more dispersed and fell slowly, like soap bubbles. If you were standing still under the snow, you could see that it can create a very fine white cloak on your shoulders. That's what Larry thought before he touched his knuckles for the second time that evening, a few hours after Eileen's funeral.

A dull, distant sound pierced the thick wooden door. It was the voice of Michael, who was probably shouting from the kitchen or the living room. Little by little, that unmistakable voice of the baker became clearer, and finally, he could hear perfectly behind the door.

"Who?"

"Are you Michael?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I will not be better if we talk inside the house?"  Larry had taken a higher note in this new intervention, but without shouting.  "It's freezing outside here, and it's snowing."

There was a moment of silence that was broken by a distant cry; it must have been Emma. Finally, Michael's voice was heard behind the door.

"But who the hell is this?"

"The devil, precisely, I'm not. I'm Larry, the priest, or whatever you want to call me."

"Oh!"

A moment later the noise of the lock was heard, and the door opened slightly. Amid the hollow of it, Michael's head peered out, and he looked at Father Larry with a stupor.

"Come on, Father Larry, come in. Do not stand there; you're going to freeze,"  Michael said as the gap grew larger and showed the entrance to the house. A long corridor led to a silhouette kneel on the floor, hands folded. It was Emma who was sobbing.

"Come in, Father, to see if you can console her a little."

Larry's lips stretched into a smile. From one of the pockets of his attire, he took out a small Bible that fit in the palm of his hand. With the other, he pulled the glasses from another pocket and put them on passivity. Dragging his feet, he strode down the hall, as if he were carrying strings attached. He was not in a hurry, he thought ironically. He was only going to tell her good things that the Lord Almighty does when you cross the threshold of death. While he approached, he doubted whether his sermon would bring Emma to reality. Now she was with her head on the ground, totally stooping over, whimpering.

"She's very distraught,"  Larry noticed, his glasses on. He had very fine gold coloured frame glasses. Its crystals showed hardly that was corrective lenses, the reason why the brightness of its eyes was notorious even with the spectacles on.

"This afternoon, the Sheriff Burt Duchamp has come too with one of his vigils or helpers, as far as I know. And his questions have made her nervous, as you can see."  He pointed to the silhouette of Emma, ​​who already looked like a human body because they were already close.

Larry breathed slow and deep into the dense cloud of heat in the house and bent to touch Emma's shoulder with his fingers outstretched. When his fingers sank into her skin, she stopped sobbing and became silent, except the snot, which was the last thing she swallowed before turning her head.

––––––––

19

That was an afternoon of visits and calls. Peter had called Denny on the phone several times, and he did not answer. He called home and got her mother, Melanie on the phone, who told her he was in her room, locked up. Later, on an insistent new call, the phone picked up Ann herself. Her warm, soft voice made Peter sink into his magical world of strange sensations. It was her voice, he thought. Of course, it was her voice, and when she did not receive an answer, at the passivity of Peter, she hung and said an insult.

"Who called this time?"  Her mother asked as she prepared dinner.

"Some idiot,"  Ann said with some anger in her voice.

20

"The Lord will be in charge to give him what he deserves,"  said Larry, saying goodbye to Emma. His hands had been squeezed for the first time. Larry was a strong man, Emma could tell. She smiled at him forcefully and released his hand.

Now it was the turn of Tom and Miriam, Rachel's parents, the first victim. He should give them advice.

With the Bible in his lap, Reverend Larry stepped out the door and into the icy snow as he tunnelled into it, to go and give some consolation to his faithful parishioners.

––––––––

21

Denny did not answer the calls, so Peter decided, without removing his raincoat, to visit him.

"Dad, I'm going to Denny's house,"  he announced as he made his way down the stairs, his legs limp. His hair splashed against his skull, nor did he move.

John was watching the nine o'clock news, punctual like a clock, to watch, half screen down, right where the tits of the hostess were focused. Although he had no erection at all, he did feel a sexual desire never forgotten despite his age. Afterwards, he went to the lavatory and, as he tried to piss, he watched as the glans was wet with something very familiar to him: seminal fluid.

"Are you going to go after him after all?"  John asked from the couch where he was leaning, legs spread, and a hand always clutched to the remote control of the television. Christie's voice, the hostess, buzzed in the background.

"He's the only friend I have,"  Peter grunted.

"And the only girl your eyes can see in this fucking town,"  his father snapped, turning his gaze to him. Peter was already at the end of the stairs and had only two steps left. He jumped them smoothly, producing a thud.

"Look who's talking. The old dirty man that look to Christie's tits, the hostess of channel four, every night at nine o'clock, "  said Peter affectionately, looking at that silhouette that was his father. The orange and red stains produced by the reflection of the fire drew strange shapes on the walls and ceiling. It was like seeing a whole maelstrom of monsters.

John smiled, and his teeth seemed to shine, just for a moment, in the gloom.

"I have my needs,"  he said, at last, shaking his head.

"And I, Papa,"  Peter announced, buttoning his trench coat.

"Before you go see that clown ..."

"Denny, Papa,"  Peter cut him off.

"Well, Denny. Why do not you primp for it a little? Take off that raincoat you've had since you came of age and change those horrible glasses.

There was a clatter of keys now in the pocket of Peter's trench coat. And, with the skill of a conjurer, he took out the keys and raised them in the palm of his hand.

"I like this look."

"Look?" Is that what you call look?  John started to laugh, and a phlegm crossed his throat, producing a dry cough. He put his fist to his mouth.  "I'm going to toss the chicken into the toilet,"  he announced in a choked, almost faint voice, as he rose from the sofa with a surge of his arms.

"Take care,"  Peter said.  "You do not have age to do nonsense."

"Silly things,"  he said, with phlegm on his tongue.

"Do not wait for me awake; I take my keys. I'll open the door. Goodbye, Dad."  Peter raised a bony, white hand that John could not see as he was already passing through the doorway of the bathroom, located at the end of a short hallway next to the living room.

"Do whatever you have to do,"  John said with a ringing in his voice.

An instant later, the door rang in the frame at least twice.

22

"Miriam, your daughter is resting now. That's what the Lord has wanted. That wretch will not hurt him anymore,"  said the Rev. Larry with an unusual expression in his eyes.

She raised her head and showed him a face full of tears and snot. Her eyes were bloodshot, wide open like plates. Outside, the wind howled as it had been for two long weeks.

"You son of a bitch!"  Cried Miriam, twisting his lips and making his words bounce on the walls of her living room as if she were in the middle of the mountains.  "How dare you say that the Lord has wanted so?"  Miriam's hands clung to Larry's sash and began to shake him like a rag doll. Larry did not resist, as his physical strength might have made Miriam a fool, but no, it was not the time to defend himself. His glasses fell to the floor.

"For the love of God!"  Cried Tom, approaching his wife.  "What the hell are you doing?" The Reverend has not said it with malice."

"Now my sister is under the ground,"  Samantha said, her eyes watering.

"Do not use the name of God in vain!"  Miriam screamed, looking at him now.

Her husband's big hands closed in a tone to her wrists and pulled hard.

"The important thing is that the Reverend has tried to show a different view of all this sadness."  Tom's finger pointed to each of the family members, including himself.  "In this house, we breath only sadness and hate."

"Perhaps your daughter, does not hurt you?"

"Yes. Also, if they catch the son of a bitch who has done this to my little girl, I tear him apart with my own hands."  He tightened his teeth and bit his upper lip, which began to bleed.

"I did not want to say that exactly,"  the Reverend apologized, his forehead mottled with sweat and fear drew on his face, like a mask for cleansing the skin.

"Do not worry, Larry ... I mean, Reverend,"  Tom said roughly.

Samantha rose from the chair she was sitting in and went to her room, climbing the stairs like a heavy machine and rattling on the steps.

"It's okay,"  said Larry, showing the palm of his hand.  "I understand the pain you are going through."

Miriam looked at him one more time and said:

"And now, will you please leave my house?"

Reverend Larry nodded, and Tom gave him his glasses.

"All right,"  he said.

23

"Can we talk?"  The question sounded almost like an exclamation. Peter's gaze was sad, and he was sorry for what had happened. After all, he had done nothing wrong, just showing him his gift.

"What did you come for?" Denny's serious face asked, for reasons of life, had opened the door at the first ring. A coincidence, knowing that Peter would come home.

"I want to make peace."

Denny walked away from the door, which he left open.

"Will you join me?"  Denny grimaced with her mouth in the distance, down the hall. His body began to look like a silhouette and his voice a murmur.  "It's pathetic.; this looks like a child's play.

At that moment, Ann walked past by the door with a glass of milk in one hand, and when she saw Peter through the doorway, she stared at him.

"What are you doing there? Come in, or you'll freeze."  It was the soft voice of his beloved, who seemed to tame him as the music to the animals.

"Thank you, Ann."

I would swear that these were the first words they had crossed since they were very little. Peter was making guesses about the matter and had isolated Denny for a moment.

Peter stomped the doormat from the doorway to shake off the snow of his boots and entered, closing the door slowly.

Denny was already one more figure in the set of the room.

Ann crossed the hallway with her glass of milk smoking. A warm atmosphere was a contrast with the cold of that winter.

"Take off that ridiculous raincoat!"  Denny asked him from the depths of the room.

"Needless. I feel comfortable like that."

And it was not the only time he did this.

Peter's boots rumbled down the hall like the war drums, and the sound echoed in all directions. He limped. His glasses shone as he reached the room. The four light bulb reflected in them. A faint smile showed on his dimpled face from past acne.

"I noticed you're both angry. What happens this time?"  Ann wanted to know as she sipped some milk. A thin white line drew a moustache under his leaning nose. The milk licked with the pink tongue, which Peter watched. He felt something as she did so.

"Well! Who blew it to you, little sister?"  Denny was sitting on the back of the sofa. The television was off, and the wall clock was quarter past nine.

"You just have to look at it,"  Ann said, sipping another drink of milk, and when she liked her thin moustache again, she added.  "Your faces betray you."

"But this never happened to us,"  Peter said, his voice shaking.

"True!"  Denny said, his arms crossed.  "Do you know what Peter can do, little sister?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Writing, I suppose,"  she said,  "not sure."

"He can read your mind,"  Denny said, putting aside what Peter saw in him as he took his hand a second time. That did not interest him. It was a secret that had to endure.

Ann sat down on the edge of the sofa. She wore a knee length skirt, brown colour, with a heavy cloth. Peter saw her knees and something else, higher forming a V when she crossed both legs.

"You're joking, aren't you?"

Denny shook his head.

"Ignore him. "It's a joke,"  Peter said before the tension that breathed in the air.

And Denny was not angry about his gift, but from what he had seen in it. That girl. What they did.

"Peter has a gift,"  Denny insisted now, a smile on his face.

"Oh yeah?  Ann asked, taking another sip of her milk.

"Give her hand, and you will see,"  said his brother. He was tense.

"No need,"  Peter said, his eyes widening behind the glasses of his spectacles.

She smiled forcibly and held out her hand. For the first time, Peter had Ann's hand right in front of him, palm open. He began to sweat copiously, and his fingers followed an invisible line that guided him to furrowed and soft skin.

24

Burt Duchamp was not drinking beer that night, but he was making suppositions while he walked up and down throughout his office in front of his men, who he had called them all. There were only three of them: Lloyd the apprentice, Martin, the strong complexion, and bald man, and Jack, the fat guy in the group.

"Tomorrow morning, if the county roads allow it, Richard Priest will join us."

Suddenly, Lloyd and Jack raised their voices like a whisper. Nothing was understood of what they said, except a phrase said by Martin:

"We're enough."

Burt looked at him and tapped his bald head. His hat was not on.

"You should always have the hat on. And no, we are not enough. Two more eyes and a brain could come in handy. No one is advancing at all. The fucking medical forensic always calls me past midnight to tell me he has not found any traces. And there is no news. My ramblings have come to an end, and something inside me tells me that this has not stopped yet."

Lloyd and Jack shrugged and prepared a strong coffee. They knew that a long night awaited them.

"Would you like some coffee, sir?"  Lloyd asked, reaching for the glass.

"Better be a box of beers,"  Burt said.

––––––––

25

His trembling fingers touched the soft skin of her hand, and his whole body experienced a host of strange sensations that excited him, and he felt her virile member raised his blood pressure while it swelled like a sausage.

He was nervous and sweating. The beads of sweat slid down his cheek and went to the end of his chin, hanging him like snot. Denny was watching him like a child from the other end of the sofa. He was expecting a reaction from Peter, as he did with him.

Peter's fingertips began to go numb with a slight tingling that spread out until his stomach and then came into contact. Suddenly, everything became dark and momentarily saw the images as projected onto a large screen. After the light came a memory he was caught in her mind, trying to look for a bucket of mental garbage to get rid of that sinful thought.

"I know what you need,"  said Peter for the second time in a week.

Ann frowned.

"What?"

"See, little sister?"  Denny said funnily a moving a hand.

"Your parents know,"  Peter said, looking into her eyes.

Ann wanted to move away from his hand. She was scared, but Peter squeezed her tightly, now with both hands.

"They agreed that you marry Donald for his social position. He had money, and he could give you all kinds of luxuries and to them."

"You're hurting me, Peter,"  Ann complained, pulling her hand away from his. Denny frowned.

"They knew he was abusing you from the first moment when you were only seventeen."

"You are scaring me."

"Hey! Release her now, Peter. That's enough,"  Denny yelled, leaning forward.

"Your parents know about his mistreatment, his abuse, and his madness. And they consent. You're scared and sad."

"Peter!"  From a strong impulse, Ann managed to free herself from Peter's hands. Fear was on her face.

Peter shivered and leaned back. He was sweating copiously, and his eyes had opened like two large wounds about to bleed profusely.

"I'm sorry, Ann. I have to go."  Peter's voice sounded cascading, and he left from there, back through where he had come, with his limp. As he left, he left the door open, and a strong gust of cold entered the room, which made both Ann and Denny take a deep breath.

The door struck the frame with a thud.

Their scrawny faces looked out, toward Peter's small silhouette.

––––––––

26

He felt the imperative need to blow up some good beers when, suddenly, he burst in, hitting himself with the door, which he knocked three times on the frame. It was Richard, the new agent destined to increase the number of supporters of the commissioner of Boad Hill. In his unusual entrance, he left behind a stream of icy air that formed a great cloud of snow that dissipated there inside.

Burt was sitting in his chair, in his office, with the glass facing the door. His feet on the table showed no energy and his swollen eyes explained that he had spent the night with his men. Now he would be one more, but he seemed clumsier than himself when he got drunk. He looked at him with a grave countenance and touched one end of his moustache.

Richard was a skinny, tall guy. Identical to Lloyd, Burt thought. But Richard did not wear a shoe beyond 40. However, it had a difference with respect to Lloyd: his hair and his skin. Her unkempt hair was the closest thing to an ear of corn and red haired. This colour made Burt go back to his past, to remember his ex's long red hair when he had it entangled between his fingers, silky and pleasant, after taking a good sex.

In front of Burt's office was the counter, which now filled with plastic cups crumpled with coffee grounds. Jack was leaning on one end of the counter, his huge belly supporting, and he was fingering the smooth surface of it. His eyes lost, and he did not even hear when Richard came in.

Lloyd and Martin were at the other end of the commissary as if it were the thirteenth district. They were scanning computer screens for clues, and the most they managed to find out through Google was that during the remainder of the month there would be a storm, not very strong, but a fucking of noses. Jack sighed now of right clicking. He was just hanging out.

"Hi, I'm the new one,"  Richard announced, raising his hand. He had a thin beard that was now a white cloak as if he had put his head in a bucket of cream. His bony fingers were in the distance, and Burt frowned.

No one answered.

Then, a moment later, Burt's feet moved from the table to rest them on the floor. Slow and whining, he walked to the glass door and pushed it gently. In fact, he was almost climbing the walls because that night had not put gas into his stomach. The door made a strange noise behind him as he headed toward the counter. Jack looked up and glanced at him as he yawned. A smell of coffee shook the hot air of the commissary, and Burt's lips twitched.

"I was not expecting you so early,"  Burt said with a slight tilt of his chin and a tired look.

"It's half past nine,"  Richard said, looking at the watch on his left hand.

"Even so, it's too early. We've been up all night and tired, sleepy. I guess you'll be Richard. I was expecting you at noon. How are the roads?"

The verbiage had come out unintentionally, and Richard could only nod his head several times and open his eyes wider.

"I'm sorry Mr. Yes, I am Richard and I hope to be a help."  He put his right hand in the cowboy's pocket and added.  "I made an opposition for a criminalist."

"Did you pass?"

"No sir."

There was a contagious laughter coming from one end of the counter. It was Jack. His eyes lit up.

"And stop calling me sir, this is not the army,"  Burt whinged, leaning against the countertop. Several crumpled plastic cups fell to the floor soundlessly, but he felt as if a dog had just peed on his foot.  "Shit, I've filled my pants with coffee."

"I'm sorry,"  said Richard disconcerted. He was wearing like a cowboy and wearing no hat. It was all blue, jeans, denim jacket and black boots that glittered at the tips of the fingers.

"Did you come with the suit?"

"What?"

Burt pointed to the brown shirt and silver plate. In turn, his index finger pointed to his felt hat, unpunished on his head.

"Oh! No! I'm sorry. I've been sent directly here. I assumed you already had a suit, well, the uniform."

He had stuck the word.

Burt raised his eyebrows.

"You are thinner than the ankles of a goldfinch; I think Lloyd's uniform will fit you, our agent made like you."

From the table in the back, Lloyd protested.

"Boss! The suit is mine."

"It's Richard's now!"

And on that, suddenly, the phone rang. A bell like the firemen's alarm. The ringing echoed through all the walls. Burt smiled as he looked at Richard.

"You can go change."  He paused and shook his head.  "Jack, get the fucking phone."

A moment later, the scandalous ringing ceased to give way to silence, and then to the astonishment.

"Boss, on the phone. Apparently, we have a third victim."

Burt was suddenly serious, even more than he already was.

––––––––

27

John was lounging on the couch watching TV. As usual, news channels. Local TV did not broadcast anything interesting after breakfast. This morning he had managed to get a taste of it, and for the first time in a month he had not shed blood, or at least the piss was not red. He was amused to see the bottom of the toilet.

Peter, with his raincoat grazing the floor, was sitting in the chair in front of the computer, trying to write, but the memories did not let him advance anything. The computer remained blank, and the cursor blinked in the glasses of his glasses.

With one foot, he pushed himself to the side. The swivel chair shifted his body toward the window, which he gazed sadly into his eyes. He remembered Ann's warm skin and, insistently, those awful things he had seen inside of her. To her suffering, to Donald groping her before her refusal, and the support of her parents to the union of the new marriage. Although Peter had always suspected something, he had never been as clear as he is now.

Once when they were little, and Denny did not reach the meter high, he accidentally touched Ann's hand, which had fallen from the swing, and saw in her happiness and an affection towards him. He had seen how she asked her brother about him. Her interest and the butterflies flying in his stomach as she looked at him. Then Peter had lighter hair, no glasses, and the acne had not yet appeared.

Meanwhile, he thought again about the stupid Donald and what he saw last night, and his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. In the palm of his hand had nailed two nails forming a crescent shaped wound that began to bleed.

"Damn son of a bitch,"  he whispered and continued to watch the snow accumulate behind the windowpane.

28

This time, the corpse of a young girl appeared at the entrance to the cemetery. Of course, buried beneath the dense snow cape, though one could see her knees and one hand with stiff fingers protruding from the white dune.

The voice of alarm gave it the gravedigger of the cemetery, the old Mike Scully, who was about to retire and had an assistant, a Jonesy, a strange name who adopted the blond of an athletic body, who never came on time to work. Mike used to get up early, and although the snowstorm had not subsided, he wrapped a scarf around his neck like a priest's stole, and, immersed in a large blue anorak, just pushed through the snow. As he walked, slowly and whining, he spat black phlegm over the snow and stood for a while watching them, to see if he saw blood in them. Then, with an insult at the tip of his tongue, he resumed his march.

That morning, the cold winter gave him a surprise. Her heart nearly exploded when he saw those bare knees and that frozen hand. He had seen deaths throughout his life, but in this case, something special happened to make his face draw the face of fear. Although he was apathetic, he called the commissioner in a soft and languid tone.

He told Burt that he had seen something strange in front of the cemetery door and that, as he approached in the middle of the snowfall, he was able to discover what was there under the snowy mountain. More than anything, because he had found black panties that were as dull as plastic. That's what he told Burt on the phone. And he added that he had also found a light coloured bra within a meter of his hand.

When the patrol cars arrived, with the irritating sound of sirens and blue lights burning, it became a fair of lights looking for a gap in the snow.

There was not a fucking trace, except for Mike, who was careful not to step too close around the corpse, looking at those open, glassy eyes, where the snowflakes melted.

As the noise of the sirens ceased, Richard, the new one, dismounted from the vehicle, releasing Lloyd's suit, who glanced sideways at him with a toothpick between his teeth. Richard, just watch the bundle and panties, he said something.

"It's about rape."

"Oh yeah?"  Burt hesitated, his felt hat held tightly over his head, with an increasingly incipient bald spot on the top of his head.

"This guy is a wise man,"  Jack said, pulling his belt up to his navel.

"The presence of the underwear lying here indicates that this has been a rape."

"Yeah, but no cock,"  Burt said, smiling white faced.

Richard raised his eyebrows. He was not aware of what was happening in Boad Hill.

"It turns out she's the third victim in less than three weeks." And I bet you want to have died like the other two."  He glanced at Richard, eyes fixed, and added.  "Torn apart by the vagina and by the anus."

Richard's face changed colour.

––––––––

29

Now he could not go to Denny and Ann's house, not after what had happened, Peter thought from the bed. The raincoat hung on one side like a blanket. He had his arms behind the back of his head, and his palms impregnated with something viscous like oil. His eyes were spying on every corner of the ceiling, waiting to see her hidden in a line of one of his books.

––––––––

30

Burt's men, this time included Richard, dug with their own hands in the snow, subtly and gloved. Snow fell heavily on their felt hats and shoulders. Burt stood with his hands on his waist waiting and watching as the poor wretch unearthed his heart beat faster and faster. Stiff as a club, the girl's body was naked, and Burt wondered where his clothes were.

"The killer usually takes the clothes. Where the fuck does he take it?" To his home?"

"Maybe,"  Richard said.

"I did not ask you,"  yelled Burt.  "I was thinking aloud."

Jack giggled.

Burt felt more and more the desire to fill his belly of beers; even when his breath turned into a white cloud that seemed to solidify right there in the cold air. The emergency lights of the cars bounced off the girl's body. Her breasts were not complete. This time, the killer had cut the two nipples off, and instead, there were two large holes with a river of blood coming down to the belly, crystallized in ice. The girl had black hair, quite long, but she was dishevelled after probably having a struggle with the killer and rapist. Her eyes were open and bright, a light blue. She was thin and her sinuous legs were long, but they were stiffened in a bent position. Her legs were slightly open, and beneath her ass the floor plate had turned red. All the blood of the poor girl had gone to the drain like a river, ending up in a puddle, evidently frozen at this point.

Burt thought there had to be a moment when the girl felt the hot liquid escape from down below, her legs warmed by the contrast of the cold and how, moments later, she was beginning to feel dizzy from the sweet smell of her own blood. He did not want to imagine what she would suffer from what the killer had brought into her vagina.

"Damn son of a bitch. She's ripped' apart. It was the same guy."  Burt's voice was deep and hoarse as he let out the words like an outbreak of water.

"Or could be a woman,"  Richard announced as if he knew everything.

Burt looked at him sideways.

"You're smart, do not you think so?"  Burt's voice was broken now.

Richard continued extracting snow from the edge of the victim's body, which had turned a bluish colour. Her lips were purple and white at the same time. Her eyes were open and her mouth closed. Richard wanted to say something about this last, but he said nothing.

Mike spat a blackish phlegm six feet from the corpse and chewed tobacco leaves. A huge ball was pacing from side to side of his mouth. His eyes never stopped looking at the naked body of that poor wretch. He shared that feeling. The icy wind hit his face, and a cloud of snow rose from the ground. More snow fell from the blackened sky. It was the cold winter that no one would forget.

"Boss, this girl is Joe's daughter, the one at the hardware store,"  Lloyd said, turning to him.  "I think her name is Alice. She was going to high school."

"But if they all go to high school, why the fuck appears dead early, freezing like an ice cube?"  That is because they have been buried all night by the snow and the events have taken place, very soon, at dusk,"  explained Burt with open hands, well protected by leather gloves.

His men looked at him, not knowing what to answer.

"Well, there's no book or suitcase on the crime scene to show they came from school,"  Richard said as if he'd been on the team for years.

––––––––

Michael glanced at him. His belly did not allow him to be bent for too long, so he bent his knees in the snow. Suddenly, an intense chill gripped his legs.

"But we know who she is." We all know each other in this small town. We are aware she was going to high school, "  Burt talked desperately for a beer.

Richard whirled around and kept moving away snow, this time from the girl's hips, as hard as a rock and purple.

Burt pulled the cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialled William Forrest's number. He had kept it for the occasion. He put the phone to his ear and waited, listening to a sharp but intermittent tone. After a minute, a hoarse voice answered:

"Yes, tell me"

"You are right. I was laying down, are you Burt?"

Burt thought about the damn $ 180,000 a year.

"Yes, it's me, I have news."

"Have you discovered something new?"

Now William's voice was loud and clear, at the sound of the blizzard caressing the mobile phone in Burt's hand.

"Yes, another dead girl."

"For goodness sake!" I think you have a problem."

"Yes, it will be. I'll send it to you in a couple of hours, "  Burt said, and pushed the phone away from his ear to press the red button and cut off the call.

And in this, in silence, through the heavy snow, two flashing yellow lights glimpsed through the dense snow. It was the ambulance.

Later came Jonesy, and when he saw the face of the poor girl, he suffered an anxiety attack.

And there was no one else there.

––––––––

31

John did not see anything about this third murder despite to swallow all the local news. It seemed that Sheriff Burt had carried him away quite secretly, or rather, no one found out because they were all still sleeping under the thick blankets at that time in search of a little warmth.

However, on the nine o'clock news, Christie, with her huge boobs, was announcing the new criminal case, because the family had told Channel Four.

On one level he saw Joe, the hardware dealer, with an enormous anger, his evil eyes like those of a madman, swearing vengeance and raising a big fist, while in the other hand he held a saw.

"I'm going to give that son of a bitch what he deserves!"  he yelled as Christie's tits came out again, to John's delight.

He turned the TV down and yelled in the distance at his son.

"Did you hear the local news?"

"No, Dad, we do not have a TV in the kitchen."  Peter was making a salad with mashed potatoes.

"A third victim has appeared!"  John shrieked, hanging in there to piss so he could see her tits. Tonight, she was more discoloured, in a provocative red dress.

From the kitchen came nothing but silence.

When Christie gave way to the weatherman, John got up to go to the bathroom.

––––––––

32

He returned to his beers and nibbled pizzas that were waiting for him on the table, and he saw again the minute hand, which was so heavy that it was already the thirty minute mark. It was after midnight. With the rustle of the television on, the phone rang again, like the timbre of an old train. The beer spilled on his shirt, and his felt hat fell to the ground. But he liked the sound. Now he had the cordless phone on his left side, on a small table. He had removed the lamp, and the only light in the room was the reflection of the flames of the fireplace and the constantly changing colour of the television screen. He let the phone ring three times. The day that it will ruin how much he was going to miss it.

––––––––

On picking it up, he said:

"Here, Burt, what do you want, William?"

There was a moment of tense silence at the other end of the communication. He was surprised.

"How did you know it was me? By the number that comes out on the phone screen, no, because I'm calling from another phone."

"I know because only the morons always call after midnight,"  Burt said, smiling in the gloom.

There was another moment of silence, but this time there were several electric clicks.

"Ignoring that little detail, I'll tell you "

"You know nothing,"  Burt cut him off, belching at the same time.

"How do you know that?"

"Pure intuition."

"The girl died bled. This one in question has broken cartilage, but that was after die bled. As always, there are no traces, so the two nipples were ripped off with a tool."

"Scissors?"

"Could be. We are facing a murderer who rapes the girls with an instrument ..."

"Or a fucking elite body,"  Burt snapped, hesitating.

"I do not know, but it seems to be something huge, or she tries very hard to do a lot of damage to the girl's vagina."  The sound of an electric click interfered with his words,  "and in the anus. He looks like a crazy fetishist."

" Do you think so?"

"I do not know."

"Or is he perhaps just a crazy loose who walks with severe sexual impulses, but with a deep trauma in his mind?"

The communication broke off at Burt's watchful eye. He sipped another drink of beer and threw the phone on the carpet, which bounced like rubber.

"Moron," he whispered.

––––––––

33

Ann was sitting on the edge of her bed. She had come to visit him to apologize. Now she was with her back to him. Peter looked at her guitar figure. She wore a black dress with a long zip on her back.

"I'm sorry, Peter, I should not have behaved that way with you,"  she said.

Peter showed a smile that she did not see and said:

"You do not have to do this, Ann. You know you're forgiven. You always were."

"I know, but I still owe you an apology. My parents forced me to marry him for the money. It makes me sick to make love to him. That monster does not know what it is to have sex. He goes straight and with his oddities. He's a sadist."

"I saw it inside you, Ann, you do not have to explain anything to me."

"You know what my eyes have seen, Peter."

"Yes, that would be all."

"I want you to make love to me, Peter. Softly. I want to be yours."

Peter was amazed and his eyes widened, as if he saw the most horrible thing in the world. A tingling in his balls brought him back to reality. Then he approached her, climbing onto the mattress, getting closer to her on four legs by her back, which kept her face hidden.

As he reached her, he reached out with his fingers outstretched. In the window were snowflakes the size of an olive bone. Then his fingers tangled in her silky blonde hair and he felt a spontaneous erection begin.

"Caress me, Peter. I need it. I need you to love me.'

Peter pressed his lips to her neck, gently brushed her hair away and kissed her as softly as a feathering on her skin. Suddenly all of Ann's hair bristled. He felt a magical combination of excitement and feelings.

"I've always wanted to do this,"  Peter whispered, his lips caressing her ear now.

"Show me what you've always wanted. This is your moment, Peter."

"I will do it."

Then his trembling fingers began to open the zipper. Noise, like a paper torn in two, came when he lowered the zipper to the shade of her panties. They were red, the colour that excited Peter. She followed the game, pulling the dress from her shoulders and pulling it forward until her breasts were naked. She was not wearing a bra, but her breasts were erect, her nipples hard. He stroked them with one hand and with the other took off his glasses, dropping them by the edge of the mattress.

"I like that, Peter. Make me yours."

Then she turned around looking for his mouth. Her fleshy lips opened and brushed the others. The contact was magical, and Peter felt like a metallic club in his private parts. She put her tongue into his mouth and wrapped his neck with her long hands, warm to the touch. Slowly she lay on the bed.

Then his hands worked to pull the dress down to her knees. Her red panties gleamed in the dimness of the computer screen. He felt her pulse arose and began to breathe deeply. She was excited. Then he removed her panties gently, and she arched her back panting, totally naked. He continued with the preliminaries, kissing her everywhere until her sex was wet.

Her hands unbuttoned his belt and pulled down his pants, watching his swollen cock.

––––––––

She pulled down his underwear and spread his legs. And then he, gently, began to enter her, feeling extreme pleasure.

He woke up with his body soaked in sweat and a firm erection. It had been an erotic dream.

––––––––

34

"Let's go over it,"  said Burt before the Mass at the Commissary.  "It would be a strong man, possessed by a frightening sexual rarity. Apparently, he tries to rape them but, instead of using his cock, he introduces something huge and rips them apart until they bleed. He also suffocates them during the attack and takes as much clothing as possible except their underwear. I do not know if he has a fetish or what, but the clothes do not show up. He selects her victims; they are girls from high school. So, we must push the security measures in that school. Any questions?"

"Is everything clear?"  Said Richard, raising his hand.

"It was enough to move the head,"  Burt said.  "Let's go to the church. Run!"

35

The Mass went on monotonously but quickly. Reverend Larry was exalted every time he referred to Alice Jones. The poor girl was visible to all, perfectly made up, but without that rosy glow on her skin. She was pale, and her lips were purple, though the makeup hid it with skill.

"Whoever has done this, and three times, will be devoured by the devil because so our Lord wants,"  said Larry clenching his fists and looking at the crowd. Then a deafening murmur increased in the church air. Then the loudspeakers sounded again in Larry's voice, and everyone was silent.

Burt was in the front row, scanning all the villagers for a grimace, a look or a gesture. All his men were scattered around the four corners of the church doing the same work. They were all known but, at the same time, they were all suspects, although Burt did not understand it. He was sure that the killer was from outside. A stranger, who knows who, hidden in the streets of Boad Hill or its woods, spying from behind the trees. It was all conjecture.

Peter did not attend Mass, nor did Ann or Denny. Neither were Rachel and Eileen's parents. They were hiding in their houses, shedding tears and opening fresh wounds to know this new murder. Was there no one to solve the case? There were no witnesses? The anger among the inhabitants of Boad Hill was increasing, a murderer was on the loose, and their daughters were in danger.

"Because the way of the murderer of these poor unfortunates is sinful,"  the speakers roared, and the murmur rose again. Nobody agreed on the peculiar way he had to give a mass.

Joe was whining like a kid in the front row, head down. His fingers played without knowing why. When Larry closed the Bible, and said they could say goodbye to the dead girl, Katia, Alice's mother, threw herself on the coffin like a toad with her arms and legs open. She kissed her on the forehead, face, and mouth, and her tears slipped down her cheek to land on her daughter's face.

When the men in black closed the coffin to put it in the hearse, Katia fainted.

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36

I did not expect Reverend Larry's visit and less dressed in cowboy pants and plastic coat. After two days of talking, from the third death, there was nothing to suggest that they were going in the right direction.

Of course, Burt did not think Reverend Larry was going to fix things, but he was looking forward to his presence. When the door opened, and a tall, athletic looking man appeared, accompanied by a steady stream of air and snow, none of those who were there could think that he was the Reverend of the people.

After being received in the Burt's office with frozen hands, everybody should think the same thing. A petition or plea. So, it was.

Larry stepped through the doorway into an inflatable bag. He smiled at Burt and rubbed his hands together as he said:

"Buff!! It's freezing. My hands are frozen."  He looked at them and added.  "I just feel them, and the same thing happens to me with the face."

Burt noticed that he had snow on his nose, eyebrows, and glasses, not to mention his hair.

"This is the hardest winter we've had in Boad Hill in all of history.  Burt looked at Larry again and continued.  "At least, that I remember."

"I've been here for a short time, as you know." So, I do not know the winters of this blessed town, "  Larry said with his hands folded.

"Would you like a coffee to warm up?"  Burt pointed to the coffee pot, which was on a table next to a shelf.

"Thank you, but I do not drink coffee,"  Larry said, still rubbing his hands.  "I came here to talk about those poor three girls, and I hope you do not find any more corpses. I will be practical."

Lloyd and Jack were looking through the doorway, and Burt raised his eyebrows, beckoning.

"Then talk,"  Burt said.  "I'm all ears. If you have something new to tell, go ahead."

Burt went to the coffee machine, thinking that he wished it had a beer instead of coffee.

"I've come to know more about these murders ..."

"Sit down, Reverend,"  Burt snatched back into his chair with a cup of coffee smoking in his hands.

"Thank you,"  Larry said, taking a seat. He had slid the chair on the floor, and it made a sound like the hinges of an old door.  "Oh! I am sorry."

"You're welcome. This fucking chair has the ends wore away and when touches the floor is the metal, the very ... "  Burt stopped himself from swearing more insults in front of the reverend.

Larry grinned and ended with a smile.

"As I was explaining, I would like to know if you have any suspects or have investigated anything about that man condemned by the Lord."

Burt frowned because he confirmed that the new Reverend had a very peculiar way of saying things. It seemed that he was delirious at times.

"Nothing. Now, we only have three young girls dead underground who were raped by some contraption, and our "Jack Feathers Feet" still does not appear."

Larry opened his eyes more than usual. A thin line is drawn on his lips, which began to open to speaking.

"Excuse me, Sheriff, what did you say about Jack?"

Burt sipped some coffee and burned his larynx, made a gesture and closed his eyes to the sharp pain.

"Excuse me, Reverend, I've burned myself with coffee."  Larry smiled at him.

"Often happens,"  he said.

"Jack Feather Feet" is the nickname that has been earned from the beginning, since he leaves no traces."  Burt smiled mischievously now.

"I mean, he's like the wind,"  Larry said, not very convinced by his grave countenance.

Burt stared at him.

"More or less."

"Well, I beg you to catch that stinker and condemned by the hand of God before he does another madness."  Larry's voice was heard so loudly that it sounded like an order.

"We're on it,"  Burt said, putting his cup down on the table.

"Do you have any idea what the parents of these three miserable ones are suffering?"

"I have a son, Reverend. I know."

"Well, I will pray day and night to stop this man condemned by the wrath of God."  He pulled the zipper off his coat, which sounded like a ripping cloth, and took his hand to the cross hanging from his neck. He showed it to Burt and then kissed it.

After this, Larry rose from the chair making noise again and left the commissioner with a God blessings on the lips, before being whipped again by the blizzard.

Burt was silent.

And the others too.

––––––––

37

It was not even eight o'clock when, after buying a pot of tomato at the supermarket on the corner before it closed, he smelled someone's breath on his neck.

Ann whirled around suddenly but saw no one, just noticed the icy wind on her face and saw all kinds of snowflakes fall, to vary.

She was at the supermarket door, and the last customers came out with their bags in their hands. Nobody did anything strange. Ann felt ridiculous at that moment, so she began to walk again, down the street, under the small light of streetlights that rose like palm trees in a tropical zone, except that these would not be in the Caribbean, but in the North Pole.

It was a dark night when she heard a roar as if someone behind her was shaking some plastic bags.

She turned again, stopped walking, and then she saw him.

It was a black silhouette. She thought quickly of a water suit since he wore a hood. It was not near to see if he was wearing gloves or something in his hand, but the great silhouette was enough to panic and start running to her house, which was a block away from there.

The snow was an obstacle, and the ice sheets were slipping. Ann fell to the floor, and the bag with the can of tomato went to embed itself in a snow dune next to the entrance of a house that was closed. It was the old house of the Morrison, who was no longer in this world, and the snow swallowed the bag.

Ann felt a painful pain in her bare knees, but when she touched them with her trembling hands, she did not notice any hot fluid. She did not have a scratch, but she could not stay too long on the floor.

The dark silhouette must have come close enough to look like a human figure now, perhaps some drug addict intent on stealing. But she remembered that there were no such people in Boad Hill, although alcoholics did. She thought about Donald and tried to stand up in a rush of heart. But she could not.

Strong, gloved hands gripped her arm and shoved her head to the ground, but she still had time to see a black mask and eyes in the middle of it, moving through the holes.

The attacker pulled her arm back until he twisted and thrust her head into the snow until Ann's face froze. She tried to scream, but she could not, the snow was now covering her mouth.

The figure did not speak, only treated with extreme violence, wants to turn it around until he got it. When Ann's eyes were in front of his, his hand covered her mouth so she could not scream.

They were about three hundred meters from the supermarket and the light of this no longer shone on the snow, so the two were alone.

Then an attacker's hand touched her crotch, but Ann managed to raise her knee fortuitously, having the good fortune to hit the balls of that stranger who broke down in pain but did not make a sound.

And that was the moment when Ann, slippery, could stand and flee from there as the devil's soul.

Once she entered her house, her hair full of snow and dishevelled, and big drops of sweat on his forehead, she decided not to say anything about it.

It was a wrong decision of her.

She was already accustomed to this kind of fighting, for she supposed it was her husband Donald who had attacked her.

Donald had a restraining order toward her, and Ann decided that he would stay at her house.

And during the night it continued snowing copiously.

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38

For Ann, Sheriff Burt Duchamp was the best news she could have that day of late January and wanted to hug him but had to take things easy. Burt's frown was furrowed, and one of the eyes was fixed on her face, which went from apparent joy to utter sadness.

"Do you want to come and drink a cup of coffee?"  Ann asked with a serious look on her face. Of course, forced.

"No thanks. I just came to tell you the news. This morning I got a call from the Main Road hospital because as you know, we do not have a hospital here."  Burt smiled slightly and thought they did not have shit in a town so hidden on the map as Boad Hill with only two thousand inhabitants and a loose serial killer.  "So, they could only certify his death."  It was the second time he'd told her.

"And, how was it?"  Ann wanted to know.

Apparently, he was a little drunk, tried to go down the stairs of his house and slipped, with such bad luck as to break the chrism."

Ann shrugged, seemingly afflicted. Denny's face appeared over her shoulder from the back, eyes wide open.

"Is it true what I've heard?"

All he needed was to smile or break his ass with laughter, right there, right in front of him.

"Well, I have to keep working, it seems that things have finally returned to normal."  He meant that no corpse had appeared for days, but he did not know Ann herself might have been next on the list.

Ann had a secret that would soon be revealed by mistake.

39

Ann did not get closed to the coffin to say goodbye to her husband, the sadistic Donald, who was now with his arms crossed on his chest, inside the box and with cotton on his nose and ears. The fucking fathead had swollen like a big ball of gas, and the coffin screeched like a chainsaw during Mass. Despite the intense cold outside, inside the church, the heat kept the temperature sufficiently warm, until the first drops of sweat appeared on the forehead and the parishioners complained. Ann said she was dizzy and could not resist seeing Donald completely pale, eyes closed. Fuck you in hell, she thought. She was free at last.

And although it had continued to snow persistently for almost four weeks, in intense and moderate gusts, Boad Hill continued its normal life, and the snow removal machines ensured to have roads accessible to the nearest cities. Also, the funeral service worked at its pace. The two men in black, as if it were already a ritual, closed the coffin and pushed it toward the hearse. No one gave a tear or cry.

––––––––

40

"Peter, have you heard the local news this morning?"

"No, why?  Peter was busy with the pan, making some scrambled eggs with bacon, a craving of his father, though he had forbidden to eat them on his doctor's orders.

John had stopped pissing blood, and now it seemed that he was already releasing the whole piss all at once, like a dog peeing a street lamp or the corner of your house. One morning, he wetted his fingers of his urine, and later he carried them to his nose, sniffed and found nothing strange. He was healthy, he told himself and continued with the piss.

"The bastard of Donald, the husband of your platonic love, that one of the pasta. He has broken his neck like a chicken. He has fallen from the stairs, completely drunk, as revealed by blood tests and autopsy."

Peter froze.

"And when did that happen?"

"Last night. Today they bury him. One less thief, "  John said and spat on the carpet. He was catatonic. It was the first time he had done something like this in his own home.

"So, they will bury him today, are not they?

––––––––

"I guess so." His father's voice was loud and clear, and it sounded perfectly in the kitchen. They were barely two meters away from the corridor.

"And what time do they usually bury them?"

"To who?"

"To the dead, Papa!"

"In winter, all at twelve o'clock." In the afternoon, there are no burials. It darkens very fast."

"Then I have an urgency,"  Peter said, looking at the watch on his left wrist. It was eleven thirty .  "Dad, you'll have to eat the scrambled eggs with bacon as they are. I'm in a hurry."

In the time of an ejaculation, Peter was already in the doorway, his usual raincoat, like a lone, lone rider, letting in the gust of wind and snow.

"Again, behind that woman?"

Peter shrugged.

"Go and get out." Give her the condolences and if you can take advantage, kiss her even in hand.'

"Goodbye, dad!"

The door slammed shut and re crushed into the frame. The warm air in the room had cooled now, and John had to lean back on the couch. He was still watching TV.

41

Peter arrived with a sweaty forehead, and his glasses took up much of his face. His hair was white, and the snow prevented him from seeing how dirty he was. All those around the coffin, like a pendulum between the ropes, giving Ann's condolences. Peter thought they were always the same. And Larry had raised his arms in the form of a cross looking at the sky, commending the soul of Donald to God.

Mike and Jonesy were at the opposite end of each other, clutching in each of the ropes that allowed the casket to be lowered to the bottom of the pit as if it were going down an elevator. The fucking corpse weighed too much that they needed the help of two more people. The eight hands clinging to the ropes began to yield inch by inch, slipping between their gloves and watching a slashed mark on the palm of their hands. Finally, the coffin touched bottom and pulled strings up to pick them up.

The reverend uttered a repeated verbosity to the satiety and ended with an amen that everyone repeated. He lowered his arms and his goggles filled with snow.

That fucking winter was the coldest of all who had met in Boad Hill, and the heavy snow with its gust of wind. Peter made his way through the full crowd and stood in the queue to offer his condolences to Ann. Denny, who had always been his best friend, saw him and looked away. Since winter had begun, their relationship had cooled like the air they breathed.

Ann had taken off her glove and was getting bruised by the intense cold. Fortunately, every time she held a hand, it was warm and allowed her to recover some warmth in her fingers until Peter arrived. He was already in front of her, covered in snow and sweat frozen over her eyebrows. Her white lips were not spared from the cold.

"What are you doing here, Peter?"  Ann whispered, holding out her hand.

"To come and to give the condolences."

"You know what happened because you saw him."

They were speaking in a low voice so no one would know. Suddenly, the silence became a murmur, as usual.

Peter shrugged and appeared to be smiling. That was when his fingers touched her hand and squeezed it tightly when saw the sinister darkness. His father called the shine. And then he saw everything.

"The killer has attacked you!"  Peter suddenly exclaimed, his eyes widened by the crystals of his black glasses.

Those around them began to murmur things. The background noise was now like the rattle of a waiting locomotive.

"It could be Donald,"  Ann said, whispering, and changing her serious countenance into a worried face, perhaps strained.

"He touched your intimate part, and you hit him with the knee in the eggs. That's how you got free."  Peter was euphoric.  "His face covered, and he was a large man wearing a hooded water suit. You saw it."

Ann felt nervous and pulled her hand hard. Peter did not want to let her go.

"You hurt me, Peter!"  She claimed, and Denny grabbed Peter's hand to pull it off, but he could not.

"You should tell Sheriff Burt."  Peter almost screamed and released her as a dozen hands separated them. But it was the grain of a mountain called rumours, which lashed over the next two days.

Now the whole relationship had worsened without any possibility of sort out.

Peter left the cemetery, extinguishing his silhouette in a remote black spot that gleamed on the snow, like an ant on the ground.

42

He knew he had shit it. Peter was uneasy, but she had seen it in the darkness. She had entered it and had seen him, but she keeps silence. It would be a step closer to lure the killer or to save Ann's life if there was a second attempt.

Peter called to her house, and every time her snooty mother answered, he hung up. It was impossible to see her or to contact her. The snow was still falling and piling up behind the window pane, on the doors and on the roofs of cars. And the murderer was loose because his father did not inform him otherwise. At least, there had been no news on Channel Four. In fact, Peter thought that his father would only watch for the hostess's tits. And, on the other hand, he had left it a little forgotten.

His stubborn determination, his relentless fury, until something unexpected happened.

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43

Two days later, Peter had gone to buy a bottle of milk and a bag of muffins. It would be about seven thirty in the afternoon, and the sun, if it had ever raised up in the entire month of January, had lain behind the Rocky Mountains. It was drizzling, and it seemed that the snow had given a small break, but the temperatures were still too low. The heating of Chuck's supermarket, the only man in colour all over Boad Hill, and a very nice man was functioning very good sending out a light purring that was heard in the background.

In the supermarket, there were few people doing the last minute purchases, and Peter listened, among the greetings of some people, a frankly familiar voice. It was not Ann, which he would have liked to be able to kneel in front of her and to apologize. No, it was the Reverend's voice, grave and unmistakable.

Peter did not give a damn about it, after all, he's like the others, and he needs to buy food, or maybe a good wine for the masses, he thought as he sketched a smile that no one saw. When he had taken a can of green beans to make a good mash to his father, who would be waiting for him sitting on the sofa, he decided that it was already the turn to go through the box. So, he crossed the long hallway, one of the three that formed the supermarket, and stopped at the cashier with the three articles in his lap.

The cashier was short, dark with short hair and dark eyes. Wide hips and a two cushioned butt were crushed in a swivel chair, raised to a certain height, and Peter wondered one more time how the hell she could climb onto such a high chair. From his position and leaving the articles on the belt, which was moving only slowly when they lifted a product at the beginning of the belt, Peter saw the feet of that fat girl, hanging inert as pendulums.

In front of him was a tall man in jeans and gold glasses. He wore a coat like a large plastic bag around his body. And then, the girl named Olivia said something to the man who took the things of the belt and put them in a paper bag.

"Is that yours, Reverend?"  Olivia asked, pointing to the products that Peter had left on the belt and was close to her.

The Reverend turned, looked, and answered.

"No, this is of this boy,"  he said contemptuously, showing his best smile.

"Hello, Mr. Larry, I did not recognize you with those clothes,"  Peter said as he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers as if to say hello.  "I thought heard a very familiar voice."

"Fortunately, yes! son."

Olivia, in the middle of the two, could not help but smile.

"It's been quiet for days, is not it?"  Said Peter, not knowing why he had said it. Sometimes nerves play tricks, he thought.

"Fortunately, there have not been many burials in the past five days. Only one. The rest have been little confessions. Every people has its secrets."  Larry's face glowed with his light.

Then, the Reverend's hand picked up the "next customer" marker and put it right in front of the three things Peter had bought. Something unnecessary, but he did. Peter reacted by reaching out, and his fingers touched the back of the reverend's hand. It was like an electric shock. A tingling in hand spontaneously, and then the evil darkness, deep and almost infinite but which, fortunately, passed quickly. Then came the glitter and saw something horrendous.

"It's you!  Peter shouted suddenly, his mouth disengaged, forming a perfect O.

"What's the matter, boy?"

Olivia's eyes widened in the middle of all that.

Behind him came another customer with several bottles of milk in his lap.

"You're the murderer! It's you!"  And he grasped the Reverend's hand. And he stepped into it, in his memories and saw everything, from the time he lowered his red panties to Rachel to Ann.

Larry yanked the hand and let go with his enormous strength.

"Are you crazy!"  Larry shouted.  "May God have mercy on you when you perish!  And leaving the paper bag with everything bought, he started to exit the supermarket.

"Your mother was abusing you as a child, forcing you to make love to your little sister when you were only twelve! That's why you hate all young girls!"

The supermarket door opened in the presence of Larry, thanks to the motion detector, and the two sliding doors gave way to a blast of cold wind. Then the doors closed and the icy wind began to pass over all the shelves.

"Listen young, respect the Reverend,"  said the old woman behind Peter, waiting with a can of tomato. Right behind the customer who had the bottles of milk in his lap and now with his mouth wide open, in silence.

"It's him! It was him!"  Peter continued shouting with his hair, without dishevelled, crushed and greasy. And he went straight to see Burt. With luck, he would catch him in the police station.

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"Sir, this young man with dead faced wants to speak urgently with you,"  Richard said, looking at him sideways.

From the counter to the window glass of Sheriff Burt's office there was not a meter. Peter was sweating copiously and was very nervous. His eyes, wide open, looked even larger through his glasses.

Burt lowered the newspaper he was reading. His feet were on the table. That would be good in the early morning, but at night it was not the right situation. He frowned and said:

"Come back tomorrow. I need to rest."

"Mr! I know who the murderer is!"  Peter shouted, leaning his bony hands on the counter.

"That's all I needed! A barmy who has smoked too much marijuana."

"Sir, you have to listen to me!"

Richard did not know what to do and looked at both sides like a spectator at a tennis game.

"It's eight o'clock, and I'm not on guard!"

"But you are the authority of the people and must always be available!"

There was a moment of silence that everyone made eye contact.

"All right, come in." But I need you to be brief."

"I will,"  Peter said more appease.

Richard pointed to the half way door that led to the sheriff's office. Peter ducked his head and, dragging his black raincoat, hobbled to the entrance. He crossed it and walked a meter straight up. He opened the glass door of the office and closed it gently.

"A coffee?  Burt proposed.

Peter raised his hand.

"I just want to tell you something."

Burt frowned again. He stroked his moustache.

"Go ahead."

Peter's heart began to beat faster, much more than when he touched the reverend's hand. Much more than when he was in front of Ann.

"Reverend Larry is the killer,"  he said.

The absolute silence settled in the office, which seemed to last for eternity. Finally, Burt burst into laughter that echoed throughout the police station. Richard turned to look at him, Jack too. And so, did Martin and Lloyd at the laughter of their boss. They were at the other end of the station.

"Come now. Take a walk, good man. Make peace with your wife, walk and get a good night tonight. Today is not the day of the Fools Day."

"Larry is the murderer!!!  Peter shouted, showing his darker side as he leaned on the table with his knuckles, which turned white first and then red.

"I have told you "

"Do you want to know why it is?"  Inquired Peter furiously.

"What?"

Peter reached out his two hands and grabbed Burt's hand and saw the darkness.

Richard was going to take out his service issue weapon, but Burt raised his other hand with open fingers.

There was tension in the air. There was no more laughter but anger.

"You've lost your whole family because of alcohol. Now you drink beer but before you drank whiskey and mistreated your wife and children when you came drunk home."

Burt's heart began to gallop beneath his chest, and his face became serious.

"Do you want to stop?"  Burt said in astonishment.

"Now you're a bitter bastard who misses your family, but it's too late. Your ex is fucking another man. Another person occupies your bed, and your children have a new dad. They live in Derry ..."

"It's okay!  Burt shouted, pulling at his hand, which seemed to be trapped by an octopus's tentacles.  "I believe you. I believe you."

Peter relaxed, taking a deep breath.

"Guys, we have work tonight!"  Burt said, rising from his chair after a frantic noise.

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45

The lights illuminated the front of the church, and at the door, there was a silhouette that hid quickly. Burt and his agents got out of the two patrol cars that had the alarm lights on. The blinking blue drew strange shapes on the facade of the church and the trees next to it. The street was free of passers by. The nearest houses had their lights turned off.

Peter was going with them.

With their hands on the service issue weapon, the officers surrounded the church and Burt headed for the front door. His knuckles touched gently at first and then stronger. After a long silence, there was a sound of a lock. The door opened slightly. Through the gap, a Larry dressed in a water suit and hood over his head could be seen.

"What do you want, Burt?" Are you coming to pray?"

"We just want to talk to you."

Then Larry's eyes fell on Peter's elongated face and slammed the door.

"Reverend!"  Burt yelled.

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Upstairs it was an organized room to live. There was a bathroom in it, and Reverend Larry went straight to the drawer of the kitchen cutlery. A kitchen that would not measure more than a square meter, but that had a small stove to heat things. His fingers touched the ends of the cutlery, and he found what he was looking for: a large knife that shone in the snow, which had begun to fall again, beside the blizzard. He listened to Burt's cries and took the knife to the bathroom, toward the small tub in the side. Dressed in a water suit, like a fisherman, and military boots, a strange combination, Larry slipped into the empty bathtub. He placed the knife between the gaps of the taps so that the metal blade was like an arrow about to be fired, and he put his hands behind his head. He was calm. His heart did not accelerate in the slightest. He was clear about what he was going to do.

He opened his mouth and approached the sharp edge of the knife, but something repressed him. He chose another place to bet hard. He placed his left eye against the tip of the knife's edge.

"Lord, take me into your bosom and punish these miserable,"  he said, and forcefully thrust his head toward the knife. It was heard as the eye split in two and how the tip of the knife touched the bone behind the basin. The blood began to sprout like an open tap, and his body succumbed to several spasms before he died.

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It was already too late. Peter found it first. It was a large pool of blood, with his head tilted slightly, the knife inside his eye, and the whole face smeared with blood that was beginning to coagulate. The sweet smell of his blood felt in the air.

Burt lowered his weapon and something stirred inside his stomach. He prayed for not being wrong. Then Peter shook his head, and Burt nodded. Peter reached out his hand to Larry's, inert, at the bottom of the tub. His fingers touched the palm of his hand, and it happened. There came the darkness and then the monstrosities he had done with those poor girls. He withdrew his hand as if suddenly it would have been disgusting to touch him. He had discovered something he had always wondered about if he could enter the dead. The answer was yes. The brightness allowed him to read inside the dead, but there was one more thing: a new victim.

"I saw Sophia, Todd's daughter, dead."

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48

Throughout the night, the snowstorm was spectacular, as if it was to say goodbye. The next morning there was a new layer of snow twenty centimetres of thickness.

And, then, on the outskirts of Boad Hill, Mr. Matt Shelman saw something that made him stop and look. It was an icy hand that rose from the snow like a zombie, fingers stiffened. His eyes widened horribly, and he called the police, Burt himself on the phone.

"Tell me your location,"  he said, and the man began to speak.

Ten minutes later, they were all there, including Peter, who touched the unhappy hand and saw it all.

"He rips them apart with a huge cross he has under the mattress,"  Peter said, looking at Burt with some sadness.

Burt took his phone from his pocket and dialled William Forrest's number. After two ringing tones, he answered.

"Tell me?"

"I'm Burt. I'm calling to inform you that I'm sending you a fourth victim." He stopped and added.  And we already have the murder weapon, and Jack Feather Feet is now Jack Heavy Feet.

And he hung up.

THE END