***
Police Officer Nick Mancuso didn’t hear the woman either. He was long past the ability to hear or see or feel anything. His only salvation was that he had been long dead by the time his head had been wrenched free from his neck and impaled atop a corroded metal spike. It stood there as some grotesque warning, but for just what, no one could yet know. Above the head, shoved violently through the screen, there hung the rest of him. His outstretched arms reached limply forward just as welcoming as that Dala Horse or the “Valkommen” banners that preceded it. The photo was framed by the famed Kingsburg water tower that rose a hundred twenty-two feet high above. In 1985, it had been transformed into a giant coffee pot, decorated with floral motifs in red, blue, yellow and green.
Now this city was being forever transformed.