Take that death within you

And then I saw that I would not be able to escape. The police were at the front of the building. The sniper was waiting in the back.

Noise from out front. Yelling, barked orders, car doors slamming. The police were making a commotion, hoping to scare me into the running out the back door. It was a standard tactic. They didn't know how much I knew of their methods.

That knowledge was part and parcel of me now thanks to one cop who'd come too close. I had eaten Joseph's mind, I had tasted his experiences; seen what haunted his dreams. A trunk slammed shut, a crate thunked to the ground, latches unsnapped, and I imagined the SWAT team pulling out weapons, jointly hoisting the battering ram, over and over, only the backdrops changing, emphasizing the city's willingness to go directly to excessive force.

All my neighbors had fled except tiny Agnes Bromling on the fifth floor. Agnes was ancient, but sweet, as long as you never gave a hint of disliking cats. Ah, Agnes, forgive me, I thought. 

And then I looked within, to the death within my soul. We all carry it, but most of us are afraid to look at it. I'm afraid too, but I keep going back to that precipice. 

When the cops burst into the front room, I was there waiting for them. I looked at them, and they died, and their souls joined mine.

Four of them, anyway. Four was as much as I could take, but the bodies blocked the doorway; it would give me some time. Now was the hard part: escaping from the building. I'd have to disappear....down the rabbithole.