Peter Pan Must Die

Prologue. Long Before the Killing Began

There was a time when he dreamt of being the head of a great nation. A nuclear power.

As the president, he would have his finger on the nuclear trigger. With a twitch of that finger he could launch nuclear missiles. He could obliterate huge cities. He could put an end to the human stink. He could wipe the rotten slate clean.

With maturity, however, had come a more practical perspective, a more realistic sense of what was possible. He knew that the nuclear trigger would never be within his reach.

But other triggers were available. One day at time, one trigger-pull at a time, much could be accomplished.

As he thought about it—and through his teenage years he’d thought about little else—a plan for his future slowly took shape. He came to know what his specialty would be—his art, his expertise, his field of excellence. And that was no small thing, since previously he had known almost nothing about himself, had no sense of who or what he was.

He had so few memories of anything before he was twelve.

Only the nightmare.

The nightmare that came again and again.

The circus. His mother, smaller than the other women. The terrible laughter. The music of the merry-go-round. The deep, constant growling of the animals.

The clown.

The huge clown who gave him money and hurt him.

The wheezing clown whose breath smelled like vomit.

And the words. So clear in the nightmare that their edges were as jagged as ice smashed against stone. “This is our secret. If you tell anyone, I’ll feed your tongue to the tiger.”