Heart-Shaped Box

by Joe Hill

People wondered how something like Columbine could happen. Jude wondered why it didn’t happen more often.

Jude had made up his mind to do whatever he had to. He just didn’t know what that was yet. And when he thought about it closely, he dreaded learning, was almost as afraid of his own possibilities as he was of the thing coming after him, the thing that had once been Craddock McDermott.

If hell was anything, it was talk radio—and family.

“All the world is made of music. We are all strings on a lyre. We resonate. We sing together. This was nice. With that wind on my face. When you sing, I’m singin’ with you, honey. You know that, don’t you?”

“You’re getting drenched. You’ll catch your death.” “Is that catching?” Reese asked. “Yeah,” Jude said. “There’s a wicked case going around. Sooner or later everyone gets it.”

If you didn’t have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn’t be any fire left in your life at all,”