. . .

Mr. Loggins bowls Tom over and he falls on him. He scrambles along Tom to the neck; he beats Tom’s head backwards into the floor with an inescapable brutality; he seizes the back of Tom’s collar with his wrists crossed in front of Tom’s neck, leans in, and digs both wristbones of him directly into Tom’s throat.

Tom’s world goes red and raw and fuzzes over.

He can hear Mr. Loggins whispering something. He cannot make out the words. He can only hear the savage triumph of them, the rough righteousness in them, the something almost like exultation in them; then Tom’s sensibilities slip away into the dark.

At least, he thinks as he dies, at least I died human.

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