KILLING TIME

“We’re glad to have you aboard, Mr. Beechum,” said Roger Meeks, principal of Hampton Lake Middle School, rising from behind his desk. “I think you’re going to be most happy here.”

Fallon thought about how he’d killed the last man he shook hands with and released the principal’s flaccid grip quickly. That man’s name was Beechum and he’d had the misfortune to pick up a sodden, weary Fallon hitchhiking on the side of a lonely interstate. Poor Beechum also had the misfortune of being in the process of relocating to a new state to take a new job and for having a passing resemblance to Fallon. Passing in that they both had dark hair and features, close enough to allow Fallon to effortlessly fool principal Meeks with only minor modifications to his own appearance.

“Your résumé is quite impressive,” Meeks continued, retaking his seat and looking up from the pages before him. Their eyes met and for just a moment Fallon thought the principal was studying him, perhaps noticing the anomalies with the face of the now-dead teacher clipped to the top sheet. But then he smiled. “I think you’re going to be very happy at Hampton Lake Middle School. Let’s show you the building.”

The “tour,” as Meeks called it, was important to Fallon. Though he smiled through its course, careful to ask all the right questions, he was actually cataloguing various routes of escape and hiding. That his former employers were after him was not in doubt at all, any more than the fact they would eventually be successful. Because Fallon had failed them. Worse, Fallon had misbehaved by executing those sent to make him pay for his failure.

His former employers would have been wise to let him go and be done with it. But they couldn’t take the chance Fallon would come after them. Here he became a victim of his own well-deserved reputation. His background in Special Forces had taught him to not just accept killing, but embrace it as a skill to be mastered like any other: with practice. The means-knife, gun, bare hand, explosives-mattered not at all, only the result. And with Fallon the result was always the same.

Except once. And now because of that he was on the run. Killing time in the guise of a middle-school English teacher. Or Language Arts, as they called it these days.

Meeks continued the tour of Hampton Lake Middle School in perfunctory fashion, Fallon nodding and smiling at all the appropriate times. The building was T-shaped with two long hallways separated by an enclosed courtyard adjoining a perpendicular two-story wing at the building’s front end located farthest from the road. A gym and presentation room were located in the back end, the cafeteria in the front. Fallon noted a drop ceiling heavy enough to support a man’s weight, accessing a crawl space that ran the length of the building on both sides. The location of the subbasement, containing the electrical and heating elements, was more difficult to pin down at this point.

Normally, Fallon would look for places to stash weapons, as well. Here he didn’t consider that to be a factor. If he was found, escape would be the thing, not confrontation.

“Now,” Meeks said, the cursory tour over, “let’s show you your classroom.”

Eighth-grade honors English, Language Arts, was just finishing an abridged, heavily censored version of a book called Catch-22. Fallon rented the movie that night and didn’t really get most of it, except the title concept of a wartime pilot in search of a loophole to be deemed too crazy to fly. Fallon thought parts were supposed to be funny, but didn’t laugh and was glad when it was time for the class to move on to Frankenstein. Fallon hadn’t read the book, either, but he’d seen the movie, the old one with Boris Karloff, and figured that was close enough.

His classroom overlooked the front of the building, including an oval-shaped drive that enclosed a parking lot used by teachers, as well as visitors. Fallon couldn’t see the main entrance but had a clear view of any vehicle approaching it, which was the next best thing.

“So who do we think is the villain in the story?” Fallon asked his class.

His remark was greeted by shrugs and quick glances cast amidst his young charges. Having no real concept of how to teach exactly, he’d constructed his classes around discussion. Fortunately, he’d come at a time of the semester devoted to literature and didn’t expect to still be around for the next unit. More than a month in any one setting would be tempting fate indeed.

“The villain?” Fallon prompted, leaning back so he was halfway sitting on the lip of his desk.

“Frankenstein,” a boy named Trent said from the rear. Trent had floppy hair and the first signs of acne.

Fallon liked him because he recognized a worn patch in the rear pocket of his jeans as the outline of a switchblade. Fallon looked into Trent’s eyes and saw emotionless, stone-cold resignation. A boy after his own heart.

“Not the monster,” Trent continued, without further prompt. “The doctor.”

“Why?” Fallon asked him.

“’Cause he fucked with nature.”

The moment froze, everyone staring at Fallon in shock. Trent resumed again, saving him the bother of coming up with an appropriate response.

“So the monster kills all these people, terrorizes the village, scares the crap out of people. But it’s not his fault, not really.”

“So he’s not responsible for his own actions?” Fallon challenged.

“Poor bastard doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Blame Frankenstein for bringing him to life.”

“Like parents,” a frizzy-haired girl named Chelsea chimed in between crackling chomps on a wad of gum, sending a brief laugh rippling through the classroom.

“Maybe that’s Shelley’s point,” someone else said.

“So the monster’s not evil,” Fallon raised.

“No,” came the multiple response.

“But he’s not good, either.”

“No.”

“So what is he?”

“The same as everybody else,” Trent said, booted feet propped up on the desk before him.

Five weeks earlier Fallon had received his next job through the usual means. A text message sent to his cell phone dispatched him to a public e-mail Web site. He logged in at the nearest FedEx-Kinkos and entered the coded details into his PDA. Fallon never knew the reason for his targets’ selection. He only needed to know who and where; sometimes how and when. His logon automatically triggered the deposit of half his fee into a previously designated offshore bank account.

Setting up a kill could take considerable time, up to several weeks, a period during which Fallon became intimately acquainted with the habits of his targets without immersing himself into the minutia of their lives. The last job was different because it specified the target’s entire family be included. Someone out to set an example, obviously, make a point.

Discussion here was not an option. Even if Fallon had wanted, he couldn’t have asked for confirmation and clarification. And if the fact that the target’s family consisted of a wife and three young children bothered Fallon, there was no way to contact his employer to change his mind. The URL from which his assignment had been sent was a dummy site automatically deactivated as soon as Fallon logged off. Declining a job was never an option, once the mechanical triggering apparatus made Fallon an even richer man. Catch-23.

Wiring the target’s house with explosives was easy enough, doing it in a way that would make it look like a tragic accident only slightly harder. The only drawback: he’d have to trigger the blast manually himself. Not an attractive prospect, considering he much preferred being somewhere else far away when the explosion ripped lumber and concrete, flesh and blood, apart.