knew that killing a woman was different somehow.

And he remembered a woman. And a word: mother. A face and a word, a voice and a warmth and a not-sour body smell ... she was dead. He didn't remember who had killed her. Somehow he thought she had been killed before everything changed, before the "bomb" fell; but he couldn't remember very well, and didn't know how she'd been killed or even why people had killed each other in those days.... Not for food, he thought; he could remember having plenty to eat. Another word: cancer. His father had said it about his mother. Maybe somebody had killed her to get that, instead of food. Anyway, somebody had killed her, because she was dead, and people didn't just die.

Seeing a woman, and such a little one ... it had startled him so much he had dropped his knife.

But he could still kill her if he had to.

She stirred, her eyes wide on his. She moved just an inch or so.

Steven crouched, almost too fast to see, and his knife was in his hand, ready from this position to get in under her stab and cut her belly open.

She made a strangled sound and shook her head.

Steven pulled his swing, without quite knowing why. He struck her knife out of her hand with his blade, and it went spinning into the leaves.

He took a step toward her, lips curled back.

She retreated two steps, and her back was against a tree trunk.

He came up to her and stood with his knife point pressing into her belly just above where the blouse entered the man's pants.

She whimpered and shook her head and whimpered again.

He scowled at her. Looked her up and down. She was wearing a tarnished ring on her right hand, with a stone that sparkled. He liked it. He decided to kill her. He pressed the knifepoint harder, and twisted.

She said, "Little boy—" and started to cry.

Memories assailed Steven:

Jump for God's sake, little boy....

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