The nighttime darkness overhead was just barely beginning to warm with the kiss of dawn's light far and away on the horizon. A quiet mist hung in the air, gently drifting over the winding highway road like a blanket lazily pulled across a bed. There, in that sleepy dark of daybreak, there was a palpable sense of serenity, of a quiet stillness that knew nothing of murder, knew nothing of conflict. There was road, and there was mist. There were trees. There was the chirp of crickets, and there was the roar of a distant engine. And beyond that, there was nothing else at all.

At least, for a time. Twin beams of light illuminated the mist, and then, with a roar!, a speeding car tore through the peaceful cloud and obliterated it, leaving only spinning tendrils of white in its wake. The car was a 1979 Mercury Cougar XR7, a blue-green thing with white accenting on the rear of the canopy. It sped through the winding, empty roads, its engine growl sending mice to their burrows and deer darting back into the deeper woods. A road sign that said 'Boone - 97' streaked past, prompting the driver's eyes to flash to the map he had splayed out across his passenger seat. He traced the line of the roadways he'd need to reach the small mountain town. Off the highway…. there. And then the state road, right up until that one… a right from that point.

The impact came so suddenly that his shocked reaction was nearly what killed him. The whole car jerked with a sudden thunk! and a mass of something was launched in the air to the left of the vehicle. His arms locked up as he watched that mass fly, leaving him turning the wheel unwittingly as he turned his head to watch its passing. Momentary clarity returned, and the man straightened the wheel as he slammed down on the breaks. Tires squealed and the car began to rotate uncertainly as it decelerated, a slow drifting motion to the left that quickly became a turn towards the right as he corrected and subsequently overcompensated. The headlights, which formerly illuminated the road, seemed to flick off… or was it just that there was no more road to illuminate?

The car pitched downwards as it slid free of the highway and into the lowered grass to the right side of the road. Off the pavement, the squealing of rubber on asphalt was quickly replaced with the chaotic, rumbling sound of locked tires on uneven grass and dirt compounded with the snapping of branches lying there in the sloping ditch. After a short distance, the car finally came to a halt, its engine hissing quietly.

Shaking, the man disengaged his seatbelt—he was fortunate he'd decided to wear that today after all—and he opened the driver's side door. He stepped outside and circled to the front of his car, eyes straining in the dark to see the full extent of the damage. He stepped into the headlights and allowed them to illuminate his shirt, which, in turn, cast a gentle glow onto the car. There, he could see the hood was dented in and slick wet with what he assumed was blood.

Shaking his head, he returned to the car and opened the trunk, removing the rifle he'd had stashed within. He loaded it and disengaged the safety as he set off across the still road, feet guiding him towards the high-pitched moaning noises that split the otherwise silent night. As his eyes adjusted to the faint, rising light, he soon saw the darkened mass there on the ground.

The deer's rear had been struck by the front of his car in a glancing blow, a collision that had evidently set the creature spinning along the asphalt. One of its legs was detached and unmoving on the ground, a small trail of blood leading from the leg to the rest of the deer as it crawled away with great effort and in great pain. The man didn't hesitate there and then, watching the grisly scene. He didn't lament the responsibility of the task at hand, nor did he wonder at the creature's chance of surviving the crash. He knew that it was suffering, which of course meant that time was of the essence. He estimated the range at 10 meters. The target was moving, and light quality was poor. He held his breath, took aim, and squeezed the trigger, a bullet ripping through the shambling deer's head. It slumped over and moved no more.

Horace would've liked to say a prayer before he fired the shot, as he'd always done in the past when he'd gone hunting, but he also knew that Jesus made exceptions for dire need. That poor deer had needed to die, and it needed it right then and there. Still, Horace took a moment to close his eyes and say the words of his prayer, even if it was delivered posthumously:

Oh, Father High, I pray to you,

that my one shot shall send out true.

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May it strike them without pain,

and send them high to Your domain.

He then switched to the second verse, the one usually saved for after the killing shot.

Oh Lord, let no kill be in vain:

To eat, to clothe, to save from pain.

This I swear until my death…

Respect all creatures You grant breath.

Saying the words set him back to missing his father, just as those words always did… It was his father that taught Horace how to wield a rifle, how to steady his aim, how to skin a deer and cook its meat… he even taught him to light a fine cigar after a succesful hunt, something to help him enjoy the quiet calm that finds a man after a job well done. Horace was pretty sure the hunters' prayer was his father's own invention, always the humble and grateful man that he was. Horace was nearly 70 now, a decade that his father had never manged to clear. It was certainly a weird feeling, knowing that you've reached a stage of life that those pillars of authority—your parents—never passed. Seeing the bleeding deer carcass before him, and noting the rifle in his hands, Horace decided this was a strange place and time to be getting all sentimental.

He produced a cigar from a coat pocket and leaned forward, shielding his lighter from the sleepy breeze of the summer night. The first inhalation was always the deepest, bringing the full front of the flavors gently roasted—but not yet burned. Then the first exhalation billowed before him, and he exhaled the stress of the spin-out with that breath—sent it out into the night. His heartrate at last returning to normal, he walked back to his car and unloaded his rifle before storing it back in the trunk, placed gingerly next to the box of ammunition and the case of papers and documents he'd brought. He set the car in drive and drove back up the embankment, testing the car's handling and responsiveness as he did. Finding it satisfactory as he reached the top, he rolled back onto the stretching highway and set off as the sun began to rise in earnest. He switched on the radio and scanned through it, finding a suitable station in seconds. The ominous-yet-melancholy synths of Phil Collins's "In The Air Tonight" began their slow song, setting a wave of goosebumps across Horace's body.

Phil sang about that certain feeling hanging in the air, and Horace knew he could feel it too. And as Phil sang about a moment he'd awaited all his life, Horace felt a second wave of goosebumps ripple across his arms and back. Moments long-awaited were indeed approaching.

Horace instinctively reached for the envelope tucked away in his coat pocket, primarily just to make sure it was still there. That thing had become something of a compass to him of late, its mystical authority a source of equal parts awe and fear.

The letter's instructions were specific. Its details would be hard for most to take seriously, but Horace was no stranger to trusting belief when the world required belief. After all, he had even kept the faith when he lost both his first and second wives to cancer all those years ago. It was tough, though, to look at the loss and know that somehow this was all for the best, that God's plan would deliver him to the right place at the right time to do His bidding. He had that same unshakeable faith in this letter, faith that its words were true and that following its instructions would do some good for the world. After the past decades of his life, and all the cripple's promises that came true, how could he not?

He ran through the mental list of the machines it described. Six of them, all said and told. There was the mind-reading one, which Horace didn't think he ever wanted to use. Felt too invasive to him, truth be told. Then there was the emotion manipulating one. That one also set Horace uneasy… he was a firm believer in the sanctity of the mind, and a man's right to privacy and control over what went on inside his own head. What he felt, what he thought… man didn't have any business messing with that.

There was then the ring, the one that somehow boosted the mind. Horace wondered what it might be like to slip it on and think in an entirely new way, somehow brighter and faster. He wondered if any of that persisted once taken off. Once you thought in a particular way, how could you forget how to do it?

Number four was the invisibility tool, which Horace knew would be useful for the rest of the job. He wanted to get to that one first, but the letter's instructions were quite specific on that front. It told him that he needed to focus on the protection one first before all others, because the safety it afforded him would be irreplaceable. Then there was the last one, the watch, which the letter told him to avoid at all costs. Dangerous thing, to play with time, the cripple had told him. Horace felt inclined to agree. That one felt the most like stepping on God's toes and taking power that only He should possess… it'd be better to leave that one alone outright.

Tucked in his other coat pocket was the list of six names he'd been given. A couple even had addresses given. As the sun climbed higher in earnest, and Phil Collins chanted his "Oh, Lord, oh Lord," Horace felt that clarity of purpose that he enjoyed before each and every hunt. His quarry was something far more dangerous than the average deer or boar this time, but the necessity of the hunt had never been greater. The Lord helped those who helped themselves, and Horace had much work ahead of him.

The 1979 Mercury Cougar XR7's engine roared, barreling him closer and closer to the Boone city limits.