Mr. Murder

another.
        "Cannibalizing itself to close the wound," said the big man.
        More ghostly wisps of vapor were rising from the creature, and it began to tear at the clothes it wore as if it could not tolerate the heat.
        The smaller man shot it again. In the face.
        Still holding its head, The Other reeled across the bell-tower platform and collided with the south parapet. It almost tipped over and out into the void.
        It crumpled to its knees, shedding its torn clothing as if the garments were the tatters of a cocoon, squirming forth in a darker and utterly inhuman form, twitching, jittering.
        It was no longer shrieking or hissing. It sobbed. In spite of its increasingly monstrous appearance, the sobbing rendered it less threatening and even pitiable.
        Relentless, the gunman stepped toward it and fired a third shot.
        The sobbing chilled Marty, perhaps because there was some thing human and pathetic about it. Too weak to stand, he slid down to the floor, his back against the waist-high parapet, and had to look away from the thrashing creature.
        An eternity passed before The Other was entirely motionless and quiet.
        Marty heard his daughters weeping.
        Reluctantly he turned his eyes to the body which lay directly across the platform from him and which was bathed in the mercilessly revealing beam of the flashlight. The corpse was a puzzle of black bones and glistening flesh, the greater part of its substance having been consumed in its frantic attempts to heal itself and stay alive. The twisted and jagged remains more resembled those of an alien life form than those of a man.
        Wind blew.
        Snow fell.
        A greater cold came down.
        After a while, the man in the black ski suit turned away from the remains and spoke to the bearish man. "A very bad boy indeed."
        The larger man said nothing.
        Marty wanted to ask who they were. His grip on consciousness was so tenuous, however, that he thought the effort of speaking might cause him to pass out.
        To his partner, the smaller man said, "What'd you think of the church?
        As weird as anything Kirk and the crew have turned up, isn't it? All those obscenities Day-Gloing on the walls. It'll make our little scenario all the more convincing, don't you think?"
        Though he felt as lightheaded as if he had been drinking, and though he was having difficulty keeping his thoughts focused, Marty now had confirmed what he'd suspected when the two men first arrived, they were not saviors, merely new executioners, and only marginally less mysterious than The Other.
        "You're going to do it?" the larger of the two asked.
        "Too much trouble to haul them back to the cabin. You don't think this weird church is an even better setting?"
        "Drew," the big man said, "there are a number of things about you I like."
        The smaller man seemed confused. He wiped at the snow that the wind stuck to his eyelashes. "What'd you say?"
        "You're damned smart, even if you did go to Princeton and Harvard.
        You've got a good sense of humor, you really do, you make me laugh, even when it's at my expense. Hell, especially when it's at my expense."
        "What're you talking about?"
        "But you're a crazy, sick son of a bitch," the big man said, raised his own handgun, and shot his partner.
        Drew, if that was his name, hit the tile floor as hard as if he had been made of stone. He landed on his side, facing Marty. His mouth was open, as were his eyes, though he had a blind man's gaze and seemed to have nothing to say.
        In the center of Drew's forehead was an ugly bullet hole. For as long as he could hold fast to consciousness, Marty stared at the wound, but it didn't appear to be healing.
        Wind blew.
        Snow fell.
        A greater cold came down-along with a greater darkness.
        Marty woke with his forehead pressed to cold glass. Heavy snow churned against the other side of the pane.
        They were parked next to service station pumps. Between the pumps and through the falling snow, he saw a well-lighted convenience store with large windows.
        He rolled his head away from the glass and sat up straighter.
        He was in the back seat of a truck-type station wagon, an Explorer or Cherokee.
        Behind the steering wheel sat the big man from the bell tower.
        He was