Primal - By D.A. Serra Page 0,54

complicated. Help the good guys. Kill the bad guys. Follow the law. Simple logic and a definitive direction works for him. He likes the lines that society draws clearly. It is when the victims enter his world that his hands feel too big and his mind clumsy. He feels all stuffy and dense, like his brain is soaked and packed with insulation. Victims make it all so messy. You cannot afford to feel for them because that will cloud your judgment. He is thankful that it worked out for these two. He never can figure out what makes one couple survive and go on to live their lives and another wind up chopped into pieces and scattered around in trash bins. There is no way to guess in advance which of the ones in that little fishing group on the island were going to leave, and which of them would end there. Years of police work has taught him there is no rationale for what happens, no predictive tool. He has found it is just as well not to wonder about the why of it all because it is no different from wondering about God, or about what makes a joke funny. Hank looks up suddenly sensing someone watching him. He sees Thomas a few feet away through the windshield. Their eyes meet. Thomas nods. Hank nods. It is the period at the end of their sentence. Thomas moves on. Hank starts the car.

Jimmy and Hank tiptoe around Alison for the next few days as she sleeps nearly continuously. Deep in a flooded slumber, she dreams she is on a down-filled raft in a blue swimming pool of warm water, gently floating with the hot fingers of the sun kneading the tight muscles on her back, and the backs of her legs, and with a gentle cool breeze skimming her face. She is unaware that several times her little boy has sneaked in, his bare feet padding silently on the gold carpet, and he has knelt by the side of her bed when no one was watching and just stared at her face, the face of his mom that finally looks normal again. The two sharp strain lines between her eyebrows have softened and the tightness around her mouth has let go.

Jimmy Kraft knows things about life that no nine year old should know: evil is alive. He knows this because it physically grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him outside the lodge. Evil is a corporal presence with actual blood and bones and muscles to pull you, cut you, tear off your skin. It is not an imaginary spirit or fallen angel or apparition. It is not an ideology like they teach him in social studies class. It is not an empire, or a religion. It is human. It lives. It breathes. It spoke to him. And while that is terrifying to know, it also makes him feel like he can get it, reach it, hurt it, maybe kill it, and this is where the core of his healing comes from. Evil isn’t invincible if it has a shape, a head and a spine. He likes knowing that, likes thinking if he’s strong enough, and smart enough, he can defeat it, likes thinking that he can get his hands around the neck of evil and suffocate the life out of it when he grows up. When the police arrived on the island, Jimmy took some good hard looks at the dead Burne brothers. Others tried to shield him from the view, but they didn’t understand how badly he needed to see Kent with a hole in his chest the size of a basketball, Theo with his skull in two neat pieces, and Gravel stabbed, shot, completely pale and drained of blood. Jimmy has sublimated the visceral horror of that night and he has done a good job fitting himself back into the before time. A few of the games they play on the schoolyard seem dumb to him now, and all the injuries, the simple bumps and bruises that bring tears to the eyes of his schoolmates seem silly. Doctor Cartwell has warned Hank that there may be residual evidence of trauma as Jimmy grows. It could come in a lot of different forms. They would need to be alert and ready to help. Nevertheless, the doctor felt the prognosis was very good based on Jimmy’s ability to do his schoolwork and interact with his friends. They would