The Ice Cream Man drove along Constitution Street, the strains of Greensleeves trailing a sweet discord in his wake. It was two in the morning and raining hard, but the Ice Cream Man had no need for lights and window-wipers. Truth to tell they disturbed his concentration and that was Bad For Business.

A muffled sob from the back of the van told him that they weren’t all dead yet. Never mind, they’d soon wish they were. The hunger was on him tonight, an appetite that was getting harder to satisfy. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure it was all worth it. In those darker moods that seemed to take him more and more these days, all he wanted was to burn the world down and him with it.

But not tonight, not yet.

A police squad car passed by, the occupants blind and deaf to the ice cream van’s siren song – unlike the unfortunates he’d caught and stacked in the back. It was too easy really and the boredom made him cruel. Take last night for instance…

He smiled to himself and began to whistle, the world beyond the windscreen a smeared blur of light and shadow. Another sob from the back but he was oblivious, lost in the downward spiral of his own thoughts.

But the instant she woke and came to the window, face a pale oval, smooth and perfect as an egg, he was roused from his reverie.