Prologue
“Once upon a time, there was a dark and wicked sorcerer, who lived only to create evil in a world that he would never be a part of…”
The little girl blew her bangs out of her eyes as she lay propped against her pillows. “Grandma, can’t you tell me a normal fairy tale for once?”
“Normal?” her grandmother scoffed. “What’s normal, and what do you know about normal anyway?”
The girl sat up and looked down at her hands, playing with the top of her blanket. “Well, why can’t it be about a beautiful princess instead of something dark and evil? Why can’t the story end with ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”
“Because there are no such things as princesses and happily-ever-afters.”
“There could be,” the little girl protested in her small voice, not wanting to meet her grandmother’s eyes. She didn’t want reality, she wanted a happily-ever-after, fairy tale, bedtime story. Why couldn’t she have that?
“Well there aren’t, and you may as well face it now, instead of when you’re an idealistic young woman.”
The little girl heaved a great big sigh as she lay back down. That was her grandmother’s answer for everything: may as well face it now.
“Now, can I continue with the story?” her grandmother asked, slightly cross. The little girl nodded, as she stared at the ceiling, trying to imagine the story with a fairy princess instead of a wicked old sorcerer. It was kind of hard. She had heard this same story more times than she could count, though she couldn’t count very high. It was such an ingrained story, it was hard to imagine it being told differently than the way her grandmother always told it.
“Alright then. Now, this sorcerer worked in time with the blood moon so that he could have the greatest power when he decided to wreak vengeance upon the town that had scorned him…”
**********
(Twenty years later, October 21, 2002)
The Cougar watched as the group of boys danced their way across the stage, singing half to the crowds, half to the dozen or so video cameras circling them. From the Cougar’s position, he could see the wings of the stage, where a little boy sat on a stool with his nanny, waving to the five guys anytime one of them happened to look his way.
He looked like such a happy little boy…and who could blame him? the Cougar wondered bitterly. The child had everything that a two-year-old boy could desire. And for all intents and purposes, he had five doting uncles or parent figures. Bodyguards and babysitters to wait on his every need. The Cougar could foresee the day that the boy would become nothing but a wimp, a brat unable to fend for himself. Hmmm…it was just too bad that that day would never happen.
As he watched, the nanny lifted him off the stool. Apparently, it was the little boy’s bedtime. And it was time for the Cougar to go into action, to strike again. He had watched the sky, watched the moon as he had entered the arena, and he had known it was a sign. The sign. The one he had been waiting for. It was time to continue the game of cat and mouse. Time for these boys to suffer as he had. To go through the worry, the anxiety.
The Cougar smiled. He had enjoyed watching them go through that worry eight months ago; it wasn’t hard. They lived in such a public sphere that the media was only too happy to broadcast their grief on national news. The media had been so accommodating, making sure that the world over was able to see their grief-stricken faces as they begged for the monster to return the child. As they pleaded.
Such a pleasant sight.
The Cougar left the arena as silently and as unnoticeably as he had entered. He knew where he was going; he knew where THEY were going, and it was all he needed. He took one of the city buses to their hotel, smiling out the window. Oh yes. It was time for the Cougar to attack, to play with them just a little more. The signs were with him.
