He waited with the most resolute patience outside the sill of the second story.  The fire escape had been an easy climb, and the window was half open; the hole agape and vulnerable, like the mouth of a baby bird that begs for a scrap of food from its mother.  Oh how foolish they are!

    The danger and carelessness made perfect sense.  It was the dead of summer, and they needed a soft, cool breeze to bring them comfort while they slept.  A cool breeze was not granted.  It was a stifling, hot blanket of air that stuck to the dampness of sweaty skin.  It was just the way he liked it.  There was something about the heat that made him move.  It aroused him; the pressure pushing thickly over the sensitive pores of his flesh, and the sky black as pitch without a single star to shed light on his presence.

    This was his time now, his season.  Verily he could taste it on his tongue.  He crept among the homes of unsuspecting victims searching for a nightly prize, an object of his desire.  He was adept at the craft, and had practiced it for so long he could barely remember his prior life.  It sustained him, this hunting thrill in the summer darkness, and his skin was the color of night.

    He pressed his body against the hot bricks of the apartment, and waited…  Patience was the key to it all, and he knew that very well.  Most prowlers were desperate and foolish, stumbling into a new home to seize their booty while their hearts raced with the fear of capture, or even death.  Not so for him.  It meant so much more.  It surpassed the vulgarity of a simple violation.  To him it was the performance of an art.  He was so skilled in the method he felt he was well-justified in the intrusion.  The threat of detection was a game to him, and he had always won.  From time to time he had been spotted, that much was true, but he had always escaped, always.  There were none that could ever catch him or hold him in sight for long.  For this reason he prolonged the act, savoring it, sometimes spending several hours quite comfortably until he was satisfied.  Once he had entered, he became the horrid outlander, the invisible parasite, the one who takes and takes without the compromise of others.

    The activity on the street was sparse and weak below him.  The curtains of the window blew back and forth in the hot breeze, providing an easy distraction to his movement.  It was time.

    He slid quietly through the aperture, and lowered himself onto a slick floor of a checker-tiled kitchen.  A patch of shadow lay near his entrance, and he crept over to hide himself among its shade.  Again he waited…

    The first movement is always the most dangerous.  If the victims are light sleepers then they may hear you.  However, if only one sound is heard then they will usually wait to hear another before they investigate.  If no sound comes again, then they will most likely disregard the noise and return to their routine.

    He stayed in the shadow for close to an hour.  It gave him great pleasure to wait that long.  Oh how patient I am!  He pretended to be a part of the shadow itself, blending to it, anonymous; in bliss to imagine himself without a body.  He knew he had total control now.  He held the power to cross every inch of the property and take whatever he wanted, and in whatever manner he chose.

    Still, he held himself to the strict discipline of slow movement.  Oh how slowly I move!  He preferred to crawl on his stomach, using the low level to his full advantage.  His muscles flexed and released in pulsing, hypnotic rhythm.  His excitement turned to ecstasy, for his eyes were upon the object of his desire!  His heartbeat quickened, his mind raced toward the glory of its capture. He began to accelerate now, gaining speed, force, momentum, and then…

A blinding flash of light burst into the room and he felt the pressure of an iron grip upon his neck.  The fat man stood in the kitchen wearing nothing but an old t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.  He held the snake firmly in the palm of his hand, while his pudgy face flushed with fascination.  “Margie!  Margie!  Wake up! I’ve got it!”

  The woman entered the kitchen in haste, equally obese and wearing a cheap nightgown with her hair crowded with curlers.  “Kill it! Kill it!” she screamed.

  The man ignored her, as did the mouse that scurried back to the hole from which it came.  “I bet this is the critter that old man Walleye saw on the third floor last week,” he said proudly.

  The snake writhed and twisted furiously in his clutches but could not break loose.

  The woman swiftly opened one of the kitchen drawers, and retrieved a shiny meat cleaver.  She held it out anxiously to him with a trembling hand.  “Kill it!”

  The man again ignored her, and reached high upward with his free hand to a cupboard shelf, and brought down a mason jar that was free of any contents.  With careful coordination, he unscrewed the lid and stuffed the creature into the cavity and closed it.  “I gotcha, you little devil.”

  The black serpent coiled himself defensively, and raised up his head with his large, glassy, hateful eyes, and stared.  Oh how hellish this is!

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