Friday, November 4th, 10:30 a.m.

Paul woke to the feeling of sticky, dried sweat rubbing the voluminous folds of his skin raw.

    After his encounter with the Beings, Paul expected to fall into a deep slumber. Paul was notorious for his ability to succumb to a deep, peaceful sleep that resembled a coma in its intensity. In fact, he had once slept through the worst storm Lancet Falls had in fifty years, but last night previous, sleep eluded him.

    The second he closed his eyes, his mind was plagued by the perfectly ordinary faces of the Beings, and the soundless Jeach undulating towards him like an implacable bloodhound, Paul's odious scent fixed in its nostrils. Whenever he did manage to lapse into an uneasy, feverish state of unconsciousness, he imagined a wet squelching sound of suction on his window. At each occurrence, he probed the property with his tendrils and found nothing, but this did little to put his mind at ease. He remembered how the Beings were immune to his extra-sensory perception, and he had a sneaking suspicion the Jeach had a similar immunity. It was lying in wait for Paul to leave the confines of his sanctuary.

The smell of burnt sausage drifted into Paul's bedroom, his favorite. Since his mother had started taking care of him, she had been meticulous in following the doctor's every order, Paul's well-being always being in the forefront of her mind.Food was the one notable exception. To the chagrin of the nurse and doctor, Joyce was persistent in satisfying Paul's prodigious culinary appetites. Paul's sedentary lifestyle put him at risk for deep vein thrombosis, which was just a ten dollar word for blood clot, and Joyce's grease-lathered food wasn't doing Paul's arteries any favors.

Is there any greater way to die than doing what you love? Being carried to an all you can buffet version of Valhalla wouldn't be half bad.

Paul had become attuned to the sound of Joyce's soft footfalls down the hallway to his bedroom. To the untrained ear, her approach was nearly undetectable. Years of being punished for having an opinion and displaying any sense of self had trained her to fade into the background and make as little impact on her surroundings as possible. Even after the liver failure and subsequent death of Frank Curts, Joyce still tiptoed around as if she were worried his ghost would phase through a wall and beat the living shit out of her for making too much noise while he was trying to watch the damn game.

His mother inched the door open as to not wake him if he were still sleeping, but Paul was never asleep by the time she came into his room. The smell of crisp sausage and bacon acted as smelling salts and were the only reliable means to rouse Paul from a deep slumber.

Joyce had a sixth sense for when the people around her were in a dark mood; it was a survival mechanism. She'd sensed how on edge Paul was and had pulled out all the stops to cheer him up. Twelve sausage links and twelve strips of bacon, six of which were greasy with white pockets of fat and the other six being a pleasant rust colored red. Three plate sized pancakes were stacked on top of each other stuck together by a combination of peanut butter and Nutella. To top of it, Paul could see steam wafting off a coffee mug that could only contain Paul's standard coffee order of half coffee, half cream, and a tablespoon of sugar.

The years hadn't been kind to his mother, but he still found her the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. As a byproduct of their evolutionary code, women were built more frail than men. they needed to compensate by being twice as devious. Being manipulative is as fundamental to a woman as breathing, but Paul's mother had been spared that curse. She'd remained untainted by the years no matter how many men stomped her underfoot like a discarded piece of gum, and that made her a rose in a field of weeds.

Paul felt it a shame that no one else could see what he did. While others couldn't look past the pale bat wings of flesh adorning her underarms, Paul saw them for what they were, visible reminders of the woman she'd once been before the world had shrunk her down to a nub. She wore her hair in a tight bun, tired of trying to make herself beautiful, because male insecurity equated self-care with sleeping around behind their backs. Although her eyes were perpetually downcast, whenever Paul caught a glimpse of them, he was struck with admiration. To the mere passerby, Joyce's faded green eyes were dull lifeless marbles, but Paul saw a faint glimmer of hope and joy like a bird trapped in a cage.

The sight of the only human being that loved him laden with a tray full of the only thing he loved filled Paul with a warmth as uncomfortable for him as acid reflux.

Love. Yuck.

The image of Cade Jahns hanging from a lamppost like a trophy fish flashed through his mind. He averted his eyes from Joyce's approach; he couldn't meet her eyes. She paid his inattention no heed and placed the tray on his ample belly with a kiss on the cheek.

"I love my sweet boy," she said.

Paul sat in silence. The thought of Cade Jahns had settled in his stomach like he'd swallowed a jagged rock.

Joyce stood by his bedside, her silent adoration giving him strength while asking for nothing in return. Normally, his mother loved to watch him eat, her cooking being one of the few traits that gave her any sense of value. Paul eating with gusto made Joyce swell with pride, but today she sensed Paul needed solitude. She drifted out of the room like a wraith.

"I love you too," Paul said softly as her form disappeared down the hallway.

After she left the room, Paul tried to dig into his breakfast with enthusiasm, but he'd found its taste less vibrant. Each bite didn't linger on his tongue bursting with flavor. The globs of food slid down his throat, devoid of passion. He descended into a mechanical rhythm until his entire plate was depleted.

Of everything that had happened in the last month, Paul found this the most troubling.

It's those smug otherworldly bastards in their hackneyed suits.

Paul had expected fanfare or congratulations at the higher form he'd become, but nothing had changed. The Beings were a simulacrum of the bullies and so called beautiful people that had made him feel so impotent his whole life. They'd looked at him like an experiment gone wrong that needed to be eliminated.

They'll have to pay too, and they'll recognize that I'm not a mistake. That I'm worthy of the gift that has been bestowed on me. Then I'll feel better.

Satisfied with his brilliant course of action, Paul decided he would pay a virtual visit to his buddy Diego Sandoval. The man had been a hard nut to crack, but that's what made it all the more satisfying. While Paul applauded his adversary's decision to eradicate all social media from his life, it had turned out of be a minor albeit entertaining speed bump that stood in the way of Paul's wrath.

Before he dropped off the social media grid, Diego took on his father's jack of all trades mantle, being Mr. Fix-It for every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town. In the high school days, when he wasn't terrorizing Paul, Diego was failing all his classes except shop. The man toed the line between an idiot savant and just an idiot when it came to the inner workings of machinery compared to the rest of his schooling.

Despite being a poor student and meaner than a pit of rattlesnakes, The town of Lancet Falls had grown to love the spick and the whistle of his chipped front tooth when he laughed, a whistle that still plagued Paul whenever he caught a whiff of pine needles.

As was customary of all good-looking high school mouth breathers, Diego played varsity sports. Despite his diminutive stature, the guy had carved a name for himself with his cockroach like agility and resilience on the basketball court. When the opportunity presented himself, Diego applied to coach the new crop of jockletes when the high school was in dire need of a new head coach. In Diego's five years of coaching the Lancers, he forged them into a two time state championship winning team. High school sports is the common metric for small towns to measure their worth, so in the eyes of the folks of Lancet Falls, Diego Sandoval became a pillar of the community, bordering on a legend.

Being a legendary came with costs, and star status pressured Diego into wiping himself off social media to dissuade any advances made by impressionable high school groupies. This fact and the fact he lived in the center of town with his wife and two kids made it exceedingly difficult to find an opportunity to separate him from the pack.

He mulled over this problem for several weeks, working it over and probing to find Diego's Achilles heel. The answer lied in his fame. Although he had wiped his own activity from social media, it didn't stop the innocent folks of Lancet Falls from posting about the wonder coach. Paul kept tabs on Diego's immediate circle and waited for a time to strike, and with Nina Kline, the blonde high school English teacher, Paul hit the jackpot.

Paul's sixth sense for sniffing out shame and weakness of character pinged the moment he noticed dear Nina being far too interested in the comings and goings of the aforementioned Diego Sandoval. The next step was to hack into her social media and school intranet. The woman had the crazy gleam in her eye that most women still single in their early thirties had, the type of crazy that would think about a man like Diego until she had all but deified him. Paul plowed through her password as if it were nothing more than a child's cardboard fort. She used a combination of the names of her two cats, Bowser and Peach, that she posted about incessantly on her Instagram.

A quick sweep through her private messages revealed all that he could have ever wanted and more. On top of suggestive missives between her and Golden Boy, Paul got the added pleasure of seeing Little Miss Crazy in the nude, trying out a myriad of sexy poses. Paul felt the odd combination of disgust and arousal he always got when gazing upon the naked female form. He lingered on the photographs for a healthy thirty minutes before drafting a message designed to separate Diego from the herd. Paul would send a message at precisely 10 p.m. that evening threatening to expose their illicit affair to the entire town if Diego did not meet Nina at 12 a.m. on Lancet Street.

Ding Dong

The sound reverberated through Paul's house, and he was confused at the noise before he realized what it was, the doorbell. In the three months he'd lived here, and the twenty years he'd lived in his old studio home, Paul never once had a visitor. Even salesmen had the good sense to avoid knocking on his door.

Paul heard a masculine voice address his mother, "Good morning ma'am. I'm Officer Durant from the Lancet Falls Police. Department. We have it on record that a Paul Neiman lives here. Is that correct?"

"I'm his mother. What do you need with Paulie?" She asked in a soft voice.

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to ask you both a couple of questions concerning an ongoing homicide investigation. Do you mind if I come in?"

"You don't think my Paulie has anything to do with this, do you?"

"We haven't eliminated anyone as a suspect as of this moment, but we do have reason to believe he may possess information pertinent to the case,"

Joyce's behavioral condition of being run over by men took over. "I suppose. Paulie's in his room."

"I don't mean to be impolite ma'am, but I would prefer it if we had this conversation in an open area."

"Oh my Paulie wouldn't hurt a fly, come on back," Joyce said.

Paul heard two sets of footsteps approaching down the hallway, and he felt a new layer of sweat drip from his pores.

They know. I don't know how, but they know.

Paul rebuked himself for his panicked thoughts. The Lancet Falls Police Department couldn't find their ass with a funnel, and even if they did know Paul was involved, they couldn't prove a damn thing. As far as they knew, he was only cripple.

"Do you boys need me in there? I'm afraid I don't have much to offer, and the kitchen is a pigsty."

"I'll call you if we need anything Ms. Neiman."

Although the mistake bothered her, Paul knew his mother wouldn't correct the officer.

Paul had grown up with a deep-seated contempt for authority figures. The incompetence of government institutions that were paid to uphold justice astounded Paul, so when Officer Perry Durant darkened his doorway, Paul was surprised at just how competent the man looked.

The officer had a pair of blue bullets for eyes that penetrated Paul's paralyzed facade to the man within. Perry's eyes skimmed past the burn scars on Paul's face as if they were of no consequence to what the officer had come to do. Paul wasn't sure if the officer was aware of it on a conscious level, but he already knew Paul was guilty the second he walked in the door.

Paul affected an ingratiating smile aware of the grease that had dribbled from his mouth onto his chin and down his neck.

"Good morning officer. Forgive me for not leaping to my feet and vigorously shaking your hand as is appropriate for a man of your station. I'm afraid my leaping days are over. What can I do for you this fine morning?"

Officer Durant wrinkled his perfect nose in distaste, "Where were you the evening of October 30th?"

Paul snorted with laughter at the question, "That was a Sunday right? I must've been training for the triathlon."

Perry's jaw muscles bunched, but he tried to hide his frustration, "Mr. Neiman, I can assure you the death of one our own is not a joking matter."

"Forgive me officer. I didn't mean to make light of a man's death, just your investigation. I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but harassing a fat man paralyzed from the waist down doesn't seem like the best usage of taxpayer dollars."

Perry looked over Paul's body once again, and his cheeks reddened with embarrassment, "I'm sorry Mr. Neiman. I didn't know."

"You think the reason I'm laying around at 11 a.m. is just because I'm a lazy, fat fuck? How very weightist of you officer," Paul said enjoying the look of the officer's growing embarrassment.

The man remained speechless trying to regain his composure. Paul could see the battle of guilt versus his clear distaste and annoyance at Paul's vulgarity. He chose the middle ground.

"Mr. Neiman, I have no doubt you'd be a lazy waste of flesh regardless of your BMI. I think it's safe to assume you didn't commit the homicide, but I do have a question for you regarding the events of that night."

"This should be good. Fire away officer. Pun intended, I can't resist an unlawful police shooting pun," Paul said wallowing in his wit.

"Without divulging the exact details, barbed wire was a prevalent factor in the crime scene, and may have even been the murder weapon. A source pointed out the fence by your house recently had its barbed wire looted from it. I was wondering if you noticed anything or anyone suspicious in the area?"

"Officer, the answer is staring you right in the face," Paul said.

"Enlighten me," he replied.

"I don't mean to sound racist," Paul whispered the word, "But I can't be the only one thinking it. You think it's a coincidence the second those people move in next door, and Lancet Falls has more murders than it's had in the past ten years put together? Food for thought.

Perry gritted his teeth, "Anything else unusual you noticed Mr. Neiman?"

"Fraid not," Paul replied shrugging his shoulders, "You should have everything you need."

The officer gave Paul another good long look, and Paul saw another flash in his eyes. He had something else he wanted to ask, but thought better of it. Perry turned on his heels and left the room.

"Leaving already Officer?" Joyce called from the kitchen, "Did you get everything you need?"

"Not quite. I'll be back if I have anymore questions. Thank you Ms. Neiman," the officer replied followed by the sound of a slamming door.

Long after he departed, Paul was still thinking about the eyes of Officer Durant. He was a breed above the pigs normally attracted to the badge and uniform, and that worried Paul. There was no physical evidence to tie Paul to the crime, and paraplegia was an airtight alibi, but somehow, Paul knew his interactions with Perry Durant were far from over.

The room wasn't particularly warm, but he noticed another layer of sweat had piled onto dried layers of sweat he'd been stacking since his return the night before. Paul tried to wipe sweat from his forehead, but all he managed to accomplish was smear grease around.

I could really use a sponge bath.