* * *
Mac felt the need, almost an itch, to hunt for more parts. He was their custodian, they just didn’t know it yet. The first school day of the week passed in an inhumanely slow manner, even for a Monday. He fielded queries from Charlie and Eric about his weekend whereabouts. The business of hunting, as he thought of it, had mesmerized him to the extent that he hadn’t given his lifelong best friends a single thought over the last two days. Even when confronted, he spouted some drivel about being out of town. They wouldn’t understand, nobody would.
The final bell hung over his head, taunting him before it finally clanged its familiar tones at three o’clock, releasing the cooped-up students back into the world to do with their afternoons as they wished.
The ritual commenced. Mac race
