False Memory

far?”
    “About sixty miles.”
    “Can we make it in this weather?”
    At last a commanding wind had risen, lashing the snowfall with discipline until it had become a snowstorm. Rigorously marshaled ghost-white armies blitzed across the high plains.
    “Might be less snow as we lose some altitude.”
    “Albuquerque’s bigger than Santa Fe?”
    “Six or seven times bigger. Easier to hide until morning.”
    “They have an airport?” she asked.
    “A big one.”
    “Then let’s go.”
    The wipers brushed snow off the windshield and gradually swept away Santa Fe, as well.

     
     
    Even as Dr. Ahriman waited along the side of the Coast Highway, a sudden onshore wind blew through the tall shore grass and buffeted the El Camino harder than did the slipstreams of passing cars and trucks. A good wind would help to cover the crack of gunshots and would at least distort them so that getting an accurate directional fix on the source would be difficult for anyone who happened to hear the reports.
    Yet the doctor had doubts about the beach, too. What were these two geeks doing there at this time of night, in this cool weather?
    What if they were two of those kooks who tested their stamina by swimming in very cold water? Polar bears, they called themselves. And what if they were polar bears who liked to skinny-dip?
    The prospect of encountering Skeet and his pal sans clothing was enough to alter the doctor’s relationship to the four cookies that he had eaten. One a walking skeleton, the other a Pillsbury Doughboy wanna-be.
    He didn’t believe they were gay, though he couldn’t rule out the possibility, either. A little romantic assignation in a beach parking lot.
    If he found them in their car, going at each other like two hairless monkeys, should he kill them as planned or give them a reprieve?
    When the bodies were found, the police and media would assume that they had been killed because of their sexual orientation. That would be annoying. The doctor was not homophobic. He was not a bigot of any stripe. He chose his targets with a sense of fair play and a belief in equal opportunity.
    Admittedly he had brought suffering to more women than men. He was, however, in the process of redressing that imbalance within the hour—and especially by the time he finished playing out the game in which these two killings were but one inning.
    After ten minutes, when the pickup didn’t return, the doctor set aside his misgivings. In the interest of sport, he switched on the headlights and drove down to the parking lot.
    The truck was indeed the only vehicle in sight.
    Only moonlight brightened the lot, but Ahriman could see that no one was in the cab of the pickup.
    If romance was in the picture, they might have adjourned to the camper shell. Then he remembered the dog. He grimaced with disgust. Surely not.
    He parked two spaces from the truck and counseled himself to move quickly. The police might patrol lots like this, once or twice during the night, to discourage teenage drinkers from staging rowdy parties. If the patrolmen recorded license-plate numbers, Dr. Ahriman would have a problem come morning, when the bodies were discovered. The trick was to hit them fast and get out before the cops or anyone else drove in from the highway.
    He pulled the ski mask over his head, exited the El Camino, and locked the door. He might have saved a few precious seconds on his return if he’d left the vehicle unlocked; however, even here in this long stretch of the California Gold Coast, in Orange County where the crime rate was much lower than elsewhere, untrustworthy people were unfortunately still to be found.
    The wind was lovely: cool but not chilling, turbulent but not so strong that it would hamper him, certain to damp and distort the gunfire. And the nearest house along the shore was a mile north.
    Upon hearing the low thunder of the breaking surf, he realized that not only the wind would conspire with him. All of nature in this fallen world seemed allied with him, and he was overcome by a sweet sense of belonging.
    Drawing the Taurus PT-111 Millennium from his shoulder holster, the doctor walked briskly to the pickup. He glanced through the cab window, just to be sure no one was inside.
    At the back of the truck, he pressed one mask-covered ear to the door of the camper shell, listening for sounds of bestiality, and was relieved to hear nothing.
    He stepped past the truck and, surveying the night, spotted an odd light down on the shore and perhaps fifty