By the light of the moon

Do you understand?'
    Although Dylan didn't understand anything this lunatic said, he
nodded out of a concern that failure to agree would trigger a
psychotic outburst involving not a hypodermic needle but a
hatchet.
    The man's voice remained soft, but a bleach of anguish at last
purged all the color from it, even as – eerily – the
smile endured: 'I want to be repentant, to reject entirely
the terrible thing I did, and I want to be able to honestly say
that I wouldn't do it again if I had my life to live over. But
remorse is as far as I'm able to go. I would do it again,
given a second chance, do it again and spend another fifteen
years racked by guilt.'
    The single drop of blood soaked into the gauze, leaving a dark
circle visible through the vented covering. This particular
Band-Aid, marketed for children, came decorated with a capering and
grinning cartoon dog that failed either to lift Dylan's spirits or
to distract his attention from his booboo.
    'I've got too much pride to be contrite. There's the problem.
Oh, I know my flaws, I know them well, but that doesn't mean I can
fix them. Too late for that. Too late, too late.'
    After dropping the Band-Aid wrappings in the small waste can by
the desk, Doc fished in a pants pocket and withdrew a knife.
    Although ordinarily Dylan wouldn't have used the word weapon to describe a mere pocketknife, no less menacing noun
would be adequate in this instance. You didn't need either a dagger
or a machete to cut a throat and sever a carotid artery. A simple
pocketknife would do the job.
    Doc changed the subject from unspecified past sins to more
urgent matters. 'They want to kill me and destroy all my work.'
    With a thumbnail, he pried the stubby blade out of the
handle.
    The smile finally sank out of sight in the doughy pool of his
face, and a frown slowly surfaced. 'A net is closing around me
right this minute.'
    Dylan figured that with the net would come a significant dose of
Thorazine, a straitjacket, and cautious men in white uniforms.
    Lamplight glinted off the polished-steel penknife blade.
    'There's no way out for me, but damn if I'll let them destroy a
life's work. Stealing it is one thing. I could accept that. I've
done it myself, after all. But they want to erase everything
that I've achieved. As if I never existed.'
    Scowling, Doc wrapped his fist around the handle of the little
knife and drove the blade into the arm of the chair, a fraction of
an inch from his captive's left hand.
    This didn't have a beneficial effect on Dylan. The shock of
fright that jumped through him was of such high voltage that the
resultant muscle spasm lifted at least three legs of the chair off
the floor and might even have levitated it entirely for a fraction
of a second.
    'They'll be here in half an hour, maybe less,' Doc warned. 'I'm
going to make a run for it, but there's no point kidding myself.
The bastards will probably get me. And when they find even just one
empty syringe, they'll seal off this town and test everybody in it,
one by one, till they learn who's carrying the stuff. Which is you.
You're a carrier.'
    He bent down, lowering his face close to Dylan's. His breath
smelled of beer and peanuts.
    'You better take what I'm telling you to heart, son. If you're
in the quarantine zone, they'll find you, all right, and when they
find you, they'll kill you. A smart fella like you ought to be able
to figure out how to use that pocketknife and get himself loose in
ten minutes, which gives you a chance to save yourself and gives me
a chance to be long gone before you can get your hands on me.'
    Shreds of the red skins from peanuts and pale bits of nut meat
mortared the spaces between Doc's teeth, but evidence of his
madness could not be found as easily as could proof of his recent
snack. His faded-denim eyes brimmed with nothing more identifiable
than sorrow.
    He stood erect once more, stared at the pocketknife stuck in the
arm of the chair, and sighed. 'They really aren't bad people. In
their position, I'd kill you, too. There's only one bad man in all
this, and that's me. I've no illusions about myself.'
    He stepped behind the chair, out of sight. Judging by the sounds
he made, Doc was gathering up his mad-scientist gear, shrugging
into his suit coat, getting ready to split.
    So you're driving to an arts festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where in previous years you've sold enough paintings to pay
expenses and to bank a profit, and you stop for the night at a
clean and respectable