That night, after dark, before the rain, I sneak out of the house. I’ve mastered this particular skill over the course of many dead nights, when the silence is too loud and the solitude too confining. Mom sleeps soundly and well and without break. I sneak out of the house, but the truth is, I could simply leave.

I ride my bike out of the neighborhood, out to where Route 27 intersects Brook Road. The night is overcast, but the streetlights and a gauzy blur of moonlight show the way. The remnants of the day’s heat and humidity linger like party guests who stubbornly refuse to get the hint.

The streets are empty, except for the occasional rumble of a big rig dinosauring from out of the darkness back into the darkness. I sail through intersections, the traffic lights gone blinking red after midnight.

Halfway there, the rain timidly speaks up, beginning as a hanging mist. Moisture wicks by; jewels grow on my eyelashes, distorting the meager light. I wipe at them; they grow back like Hydra heads.

Soon, the mist breaks, maturing into a light tattoo of soft, nearly soundless droplets. Sweat mingles, and a thread of moisture runs cold against the warm skin of the back of my neck, beneath my shirt collar and down my back. Lifting my feet from the pedals, I coast onto the shoulder, then bump and jostle onto the grass, gliding down a grade. My tires, rain-grass slick, slip and jitter under me. I wrestle them under control almost unconsciously.

Through a stand of trees, I see it. Drifting to a halt as the grade levels, I lean my bike against an aging poplar, its branches bent, gnarled, as though arthritic and melancholy. I pick my way through an undergrowth of sticker bushes and brambles.

Above, the rain patters on the leaves.

Ahead, it crouches in the dark, a deader dark, cloaked in dirt and rust.

The old mobile home seems to tilt just slightly to the left, but this is an illusion caused by a dent in the roof and the natural slope of the land here. It is still and silent, save for the clink and ping of raindrops, audible even from here.

This is where.

This is where it will happen.

This is where I will do it.

When the time comes.

I’ve fired a gun once in my life.

I’ll do it again.

When the time comes.