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difficult to speak or raise his arms. He was a snowsuit filled with winter slush, logy like the bags of concrete mix they found at construction sites. His eyelids fluttered.

Mr. David asked, “Would you like to talk about something else?”

Kahle was quiet and Mr. David was quiet with him, like Dad. He thought about asking his question. Mr. David seemed nice. If he knew, he would answer. “Does everyone die?”

Mr. David was motionless. “What did your Mom and Dad say?”

“They said yes.”

Mr. David spoke in slow motion. “Well then...”

Kahle had stopped playing with the GI Joe. The question was all he could think about. “What happens after?”

Mr. David frowned for the first time. “We don’t really know, Kahle. I like to think that we go to a good place.”

“What about the people who are mad?”

Mr. David shifted on his desk as if he had inadvertently sat on a stapler.

A buzz echoed from the lobby.

“I’m sorry, Kahle. I have to take that. I have a patient. But we can talk again.”

Kahle doubted it. Mr. David evaded him with his eyes as he said it, looking down and to the left. Mr. David pressed a button on his desk to open the outside door and Kahle walked with him back to the lobby.

“You can keep the GI Joe, Kahle. My son outgrew it.”

“So why do you have it?”

“To remind me...” He broke off his sentence.

Framed in the doorway was a tall man, gaunt as a wire clothes hanger. “I’ve been waiting out here.” His hands pawed the air.

Mr. David said, “Hi, Dennis. I’m just finishing up.”

“Why are these people here?” Hangar Man asked. “Have you been talking to them about me?”

“Of course not, Dennis. Let’s talk about this.”

“No one is supposed to be here. That was the agreement.”

It was happening again. Kahle bent over, covering his ears. Hangar Man’s aura had exploded into a kaleidoscope of red and black, a widow spider that crouched on his back, it’s fangs buried into the sides of his neck, filling his mind with venom. Kahle whimpered. “Mom.”

Mr. David pushed his glasses up his nose. “It’s okay, Dennis. They’re friends.”

Kahle resisted the urge to squeeze his eyes shut.

“They’re not my friends,” Hangar Man said. “I knew it. I knew I couldn’t trust you. You’re like everyone else. You're a liar.” His eyes shifted like a deer caught in a forest fire on television, like Bambi’s mother before the flames came.

“I did not lie, Dennis. I am here to help you.” Mr. David raised his hands to shoulder level with his palms out.

Hangar Man reached into his coat. “I’m going to do what I should’ve done six months ago.”

Mom and Dad must have seen Kahle’s terror because they were moving before Hanger Man could finish raising his arm, the barrel of the gun looming darkly, deep as a canyon and freighted with bad tidings. Dad had the man under the elbow, guiding the arm upward toward the ceiling. Mom was in a full crouch, Noyce pulled tight to her. Her foot shot out to hook Hanger Man’s trailing ankle.

His body twisted, incisors visible in his open mouth. “I’ll see you at the crossroads!”

Mr. David grabbed Kahle and threw them both to the floor. The gun went off, and Kahle swore that thunder had ignited beside them, shattering the air into fragments of plaster.

Dad was turning, his right hand rising from his hip, the knuckles getting larger as they approached the Hanger Man’s face. Hanger Man's finger flexed again and the barrel loomed, dark as the leeway beneath a country bridge. The black smoke is coming for me.

The Call

THE POLICE LEFT. THE boys waited outside in the car, with their father. It was one of the few times that David Burge had seen Edie scared.

She asked, “Okay, so no psych report? I don’t want him labeled.”

“It’s the least I can do, Edie. You guys saved my life. I still don’t know how he....” He rubbed the back of his neck with a dusty palm.

She squeezed her hands together. “But what do we do?”

Hell if I know. “He’s a good kid with a good heart, Edie. That’s what matters. Much like his asthma, he may grow out of it. After childhood, the world is a different place. You guys are doing a great job, considering. He’s going to be fine. Don’t wait so long next time to say hello.” He touched her arm just below the elbow. She nodded and said goodbye.

He kept his word. There was no report. But the moment stuck with him. He dreamed that night and every night after about the gun rising, the barrel stretching across the gap until the tip kissed his forehead, followed by the click of the round chambering and the slice as it approached up the barrel.

His eyes picked out tall, thin men in the walk from the parking garage and followed them until they disappeared. He mixed glasses of rum and coke after returning from the office and kept them coming until he fell asleep in front of the television.

It was my fault. He clearly missed whatever signs were there. He canceled cleaning service for the rest of the week and laid the case out on his office floor, perusing it anew from the first page.

Yes, the patient had a history of paranoia. Sure, he'd verbalized a desire to inflict violence but he'd never actually committed any. His job was the same. So were his relationships. And he'd said something when he pulled out the gun. It didn't make any sense. There was no obvious trigger. Unless he had a dislike for children.

What about his savior? Kahle was an intuitive boy but a gift like that was a large burden for a child. Despite what he’d told Edie, he had no idea what effect that would have on his development. What if he didn’t grow out of it?

He would’ve liked to have more time with him but that wasn’t going to happen. He would describe it to Kahle like a bad case of asthma: a sensitivity to his surroundings to guard and protect.

There were programs for people like that. Otherwise, Kahle could spend decades wondering what was wrong with him, and wake up someday stuck in a dead-end job at a factory, only to retire with an environmental issue or lousy pension.

He consulted a friend in Virginia (off the record, pro bono).

A hidden listener followed the conversation with interest.

Factory Rat: Person who gets stuck in a dead-end blue-collar job at a factory and spends decades in a position he despises; only to retire with an environmental issue or lousy pension.

Urban Dictionary

Factory Rat: an artisan who creates in the cathedral known as the manufactory. They are clever, committed, and resourceful problem solvers. They gain satisfaction from fashioning products that give joy to others. They are the salt of the Earth.

Author Unknown, “Production Methods in Small Lots for the Manager of Managers”

Pied Piper, 1998

RICK BORDA HAD CONVINCED his prospect to drive a full day through a blizzard, for a company that was rapidly going down the tubes. He considered himself a wily man ... except when it came to Wesley Brummert. The phone rang and he scooped it out of its cradle.

“My good man. How’s recruitment going? Tell me about our goals,” Wesley asked.

Speak of the devil, the devil appears. “We’re progressing, Wesley. I’ve got a new prospect coming tomorrow. On those targets...”

“The targets are the targets, Rick. You know the rules.”

Rick stood in front of his desk and leaned backward against it, his hands opened palm up (when she was still alive, his wife had called it the “we come in peace” gesture) as if Wesley were across the room instead of across the state. “Maybe we can talk about that. You know the factory is like a titan...”

“Heard the story. But I can read the numbers. I know everything I need to know about Frampton.”

Rick visualized Wesley waving him off, his eyes upon the Chicago skyline. “...But...”

“There are no buts, Rick. You’re part of the old guard. I get that. Bodge could count on you so I figured I could too. I need you to think big. People are counting on us. To accomplish Motomax 2000, I need leaders who are committed. Is that you?”

“You know I am.”

“What we need, Rick, is people. A lot of people. We’ve got a backlog of orders to push out. I need you to bring them in from everywhere. I’ve heard your spiel. I like it. It’s good. Makes Frampton sound like a paid vacation. Keep it up. You’re a regular pied piper.”

Getting them was easy. But the Frampton Plant swallowed new hires like sailors into a whale. Rick visualized himself pitching employees into inky black ocean waters where orcas shredded the weak and infirm. It was agony for him when they quit or worse yet, he had to fire them.

Wesley took a breath and changed tack. “I realize I’m different than Julian Bodge. But he’s gone, God rest his soul. And we need men on those machines, Rick. I’m not telling you to give an employee badge to anyone that can fog a mirror. I’m just saying we’re going to have to loosen those standards.”

Rick threw up a little bit in his mouth. “Yes, sir.” He felt disembodied. He'd been the architect of all this. Old Man Bodge had given him latitude. But Bodge was dead. Sure Bodge had been a little flamboyant for taste, but Wesley was different. Their conversations left him feeling impotent, the power drained away.

“Motomax is bigger than one factory, Rick. It’s bigger than just one man. Look here, do you ever watch the fights?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, well. Never mind. Send me an update at the end of the week. Together we’re going to make this company great. Make it happen, man.” And then he hung up.

Fifteen years of his life had gone into the bone and marrow of Motomax. His grandchildren stared down from picture frames on top of his credenza. He wondered what they were doing now. His daughter, Megan, probably had a pitcher of lemonade waiting for them while they played on the swing set he’d assembled last summer. The condensation would leave a ring on the table that used to sit in his kitchen.

Motomax had paid for all of that. He picked up the yellow legal pad with his list of prospects and started dialing the phone.

Ere does a man not live

Ere does a man not lie

Ere does a man not die

In the path of a flexible bullet

Ere may a man yet eat

Ere