Mr. Murder

metal cabinet in one corner of the garage. There were also boxes of ammunition in every caliber required.
        He unpacked each weapon, which had been cleaned and oiled before being put away, and loaded it.
        He put the Beretta in the kitchen, in an upper cabinet beside the stove, in front of a pair of ceramic casserole dishes. The girls would not happen upon it there before he called a family conference to explain the reasons for his extraordinary precautions-if he could explain.
        The M16 went on an upper shelf in the foyer closet just inside the front door. He put the Smith & Wesson in his office desk, in the second drawer of the right-hand drawer bank, and slipped the Mossberg under the bed in the master bedroom.
        Throughout his preparations, he worried that he was deranged, arming himself against a threat that did not exist. Considering the seven-minute fugue he had experienced on Saturday, messing around with weapons was the last thing he should be doing.
        He had no proof of impending danger. He was operating sheerly on instinct, a soldier ant mindlessly constructing fortifications.
        Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. By nature he was a thinker, a planner, a brooder, and only last of all a man of action.
        But this was a good of instinctual response, and he was swept away by it.
        Then, just as he finished hiding the shotgun in the master bedroom, worries about his mental condition were abruptly outweighed by another consideration. The oppressive atmosphere of his recent dream was with him again, the feeling that some terrible weight was bearing down on him at a murderous speed. The air seemed to thicken. It was almost as bad as in the nightmare. And getting worse.
        God help me, he thought-and was not sure if he was asking for protection from some unknown enemy or from dark impulses in himself.
        "I need…"
        Dust devils. Dancing on the high desert.
        Sunlight sparkling in broken bottles along the highway.
        Fastest thing on the road. Passing cars, trucks. The landscape a blur.
        Scattered towns, all blurs.
        Faster. Faster. As if being sucked into a black hole.
        Past Victorville.
        Past Apple Valley.
        Through the Cajon Pass at forty-two hundred feet above sea level.
        Then descending. Past San Bernardino. Onto the Riverside Free Riverside. Carona.
        Through the Santa Ana Mountains.
        "I need to be…"
        South. The Costa Mesa Freeway.
        The City of Orange. Tustin. In the southern California suburban maze.
        Such powerful magnetism, pulling, pulling ruthlessly.
        More than magnetism. Gravity. Down into the vortex of the black hole.
        Switch to the Santa Ana Freeway.
        Mouth dry. A bitter metallic taste. Heart pounding fiercely, pulse throbbing in his temples.
        "I need to be someone."
        Faster. As if tied to a massive anchor on an endless chain, plummeting into the lightless fathoms of a bottomless ocean trench.
        Past Irvine, Laguna Hills, El Toro.
        Into the dark heart of the mystery.
        "… need… need… need… need… need…"
        Mission Viejo. This exit. Yes.
        Off the freeway.
        Seeking the magnet. The enigmatic attractant.
        All the way from Kansas City to find the unknown, to discover his strange and wondrous future. Home. Identity. Meaning.
        Turn left here, two blocks, turn right. Unfamiliar streets. But to find the way, he needs only to give himself to the power that pulls him.
        Mediterranean houses. Neatly trimmed lawns. Palm shadows on pale-yellow stucco walls.
        Here.
        That house.
        To the curb. Stop. Half a block away.
        Just a house like the others. Except. Something inside. Whatever he first sensed in faraway Kansas. Whatever draws him. Some The attraction Inside.
        Waiting.
        A wordless cry of triumph escapes him, and he shudders violently with relief. He no longer needs to seek his destiny.
        Although he does not yet know what it may be, he is certain that he's found it, and he sags in his seat, his sweaty hands slipping off the steering wheel, pleased to be at the end of the long journey.
        He is more excited than he has ever been, filled with curiosity, however, released at last from the iron grip of compulsion, he loses his sense of urgency. His