I’m standing outside his house at 1:30 in the morning.  I pick the back door lock and step in.  I can barely feel how warm it is inside.  All the blood seems to have drained from my body…I’m ice cold.  I turn the flashlight on the floor and walk through the kitchen into the living room.  Furniture, pictures, a T.V. standing on a table.  Almost as if this man were a regular human being.  I see that there are no lights on upstairs, so I begin the climb.  Every step I take is slow and unbearably long.  Careful not to set too much pressure on a potentially squeaky step.  I see the top step getting closer and closer.  Now the adrenaline kicks in and I can feel the pounding beat in my chest.  Sweat beads form on my brow as I step up and turn down the hallway.  There is no more air in my lungs.  My stomach tightens as I put my light away and walk up to his bedroom door.  I put my right hand in my coat pocket and open the door with my left.  Slowly.  The door shuts, then locks and secures the room.  I look hard.  Forms and shapes begin to focus through the darkness.  I now see the outline of a man in bed.  His chest rises and falls as he breaths.  Steady, quiet…and peaceful.  I carefully make my way through the room.  Curtains drawn, no exit, no one else in the whole house.  Almost like fate. 

I take a pillow from the right side of the bed and walk around to the left.  Taking my time with every step.  Looking a man you intend to kill in the face changes the whole prospect.  I can’t do this.  I still have a chance to get away, no one knows what I’ve done.  What I was planning.  I can get away.  Sleep the rest of the night and then wake up with my conscience clear.  I take a step back to leave, then I see the collar on his bedside table.  Tunnel vision.  It symbolized every reason why I had to do what I knew was right.  It wasn’t about me.  This was about stopping the pain.  About exterminating one more parasite in our society.  It was about the mangled, life-less body of a six year old boy we found floating in Riley’s Bay one month ago.  I still remember how agonizing his mother was when I returned his belongings from that dreadful day.  The terrible pain she must have been in when she couldn’t find his Scooby-Doo watch his father gave him.  The cherry on Hell’s sundae.  Now it was all too easy.