Mr. Murder

questions of its own, The Other said, "Have you turned Paige against me? My Paige, my Charlotte, my sweet little Emily? Do I have any hope of getting them back or will I have to kill them too?" The voice cracked with emotion. "Oh God, is there even blood in their veins any more, are they human any more, or have you made them into something else?"
        Marty realized they could not conduct a conversation. It was madness to try. However much they might look and sound alike, they were without any common grounds. In fundamental ways, they were as unlike each other as if they had been members of different species.
        Marty pushed the END button.
        His hands were shaking so badly that he dropped the phone.
        When he turned from the window, he saw the girls were standing together, holding hands. They were staring, pale and frightened.
        His shouting into the telephone had brought Paige out of one of the bedrooms where she had been adjusting the electric heater.
        Images of his parents' faces and treasured memories of a life of love crowded into his mind, but he resolutely repressed them. If he gave in to grief now, wasted precious time in tears, he would be condemning Paige and the girls to certain death.
        "He's here," Marty said, "he's coming, and we don't have much time."
        

New Maps of Hell Those who would banish the sin of greed embrace the sin of envy as their creed.
    Those who seek to banish envy as well, only draw elaborate new maps of hell.
    Those with passion to change the world, look on themselves as saints, as pearls, and by the launching of noble endeavor, flee dreaded introspection forever.
    - The Book of Counted Sorrows
        

    Laugh at tyrants and the tragedy they inflict. Such men welcome our tears as evidence of subservience, but our laughter condemns them to ignominy.
        
    - Endless River, Laura Shane S X 1.
        
        He stands in his parents' kitchen, watching the falling snow through the window above the sink, shaking with hunger, and wolfing down leftover meatloaf.
        This is one of those decisive moments that separate real heroes from pretenders. When all is darkest, when tragedy piles on tragedy, when hope seems to be a game only for idiots and fools, does Harrison Ford or Kevin Costner or Tom Cruise or Wesley Snipes or Kurt Russell quit?
        No. Never. Unthinkable. They are heroes. They persevere. Rise to the occasion. They not only deal with adversity but thrive on it.
        From sharing the worst moments of those great men's lives, he knows how to cope with emotional devastation, mental depression, physical abuse in enormous quantities, and even the threat of alien domination of the earth.
        Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
        He must not dwell on the tragedy of his parents' deaths. The creatures he destroyed were surely not his mother and father, any way, but mimics like the one that has stolen his own life. He might never learn when his real parents were murdered and replaced, and in any event he must delay grieving for them.
        Thinking too much about his parents-or about anything-is* not merely a waste of precious time but anti-heroic. Heroes don't think.
        Heroes act.
        Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
        Finished eating, he goes to the garage by way of a laundry room off the kitchen. Switching on fluorescent lights as he crosses the threshold, he discovers two vehicles are available for his use an old blue Dodge and an apparently new Jeep Wagoneer. He will use the Jeep because of its four-wheel drive.
        The keys to the vehicle hang on a pegboard in the laundry room.
        In a cabinet, he also finds a large box of detergent. He reads the list of chemicals on the box, satisfied with what he discovers.
        He returns to the kitchen.
        The end of one row of lower cabinets is finished with a wine rack.
        After locating a corkscrew in a drawer, he opens four bottles and empties the wine into the sink.
        In another kitchen drawer he finds a plastic funnel among other odds and ends of cooking implements. A third drawer is filled with clean white dish towels, and a fourth is the source for a pair of scissors and a book of matches.
        He carries the bottles and the other items into the laundry room and puts them on the tiled counter beside the deep sink.
        In the garage again, he takes