Terror at the Fair

Chapter Twenty-Eight

This one was a little harder for me, Papa. First I had to sneak up behind him. I did not want to have to look into his face. As he did each night, he worked cleaning up garbage along the shore—fair programs and hot dog wrappers and such, and putting it all into a gunnysack. Fortunately, I think he may have been somewhat hard of hearing, and I wore soft-soled shoes. He didn’t make more than a slight groan when I hit him with a hammer.

I know the blow didn’t kill him, but he was so dazed the rest was easy in the darkness. I held his face down in the water. He struggled for a little while, not long at all, and then stopped moving. Like the others, Papa, he was old, and probably would not have lived much longer anyway…