The first time I killed someone, it was an accident. That's a proven fact.

It was the middle of the night and it had been raining like crazy. I was making my nightly commute back from the office. Same route every night. I had never been in an accident before that. Hell, I hadn't even gotten a speeding ticket. I was always careful, figuring there was never anything worth rushing that much for.

When the guy half stumbled, half fell into my path, coming out of the light fog and the trees, there was only a split second before the front of my car hit him with a sound I thought I would never be able get out of my head. I drive a good-sized SUV, so when he got hit, he was forced under the vehicle, and I rolled right over him at more than fifty miles an hour.

There was nothing I could have done, it was agreed. And really, all that night after, I wracked my brain to make sure. But it was true.

The first interesting tidbit of information that was revealed about my unintenional victim was that he had stumbled into my path because he was probably delirious from lack of blood. From the stab wound in his left side. What with all the blood and carnage on the scene, who would have noticed, at the time, such a thing?

After some more investigation, it seemed I had done the world a favor. The dead man was named Rodney Moore, and my SUV had apparently ended his sporadic twenty year reign of terror as "The Invisible Killer." He had been dubbed the Invisible Killer by the media, after it became apparent that the serial killer the authorities sought was well-versed in forensics...and knew how to leave almost nothing behind that would lead back to him. In fact, every other murder would have items left specifically to muddy up any trail.

Moore was questioned early on in the investigation and although the police found him rather odd, they found nothing concrete to link him to the murders. Every six to nine months, there would be another body. Once Moore met his end under my tires, however, they went into his home and found his collection of trophies. The catalog of what they found was never revealed in its totality, or at least if it was, I never bothered to read up on it. Suffice to say that five additional bodies--disappearances never reported--were found on the premises. One, apparently an old vagrant, had been stuffed into an old gas oven and then the door had been duct taped shut. I don't think they ever determined to their satisfaction if he was dead before being placed inside the appliance or not.

After killing Moore, I had a headache for a good solid week. I saw my doctor about it, in case it was an after-effect of the accident, but he chalked it up to stress and gave me some painkillers for it. They helped. Some.

At the end of that week, I woke up one Saturday morning...and my headache was gone. My father always used to say about the really painful things that when the pain finally did end, the relief would be so good, you'd want to get hurt all over again just to be able to experience that blessed lack of pain.

I had swung my legs around and planted both feet on the floor when Rodney Moore spoke in my head. "There you are," he said coolly.

Like me, you probably hear voices in your head from time to time. But you know--at least I think most of you know--that it's just you, talking to yourself.

But this, this was different. I knew this wasn't me or some aspect of my personality. This was a stranger's voice. In fact, I didn't even know it was Rodney until he gave me his name. After all, when you're running down an injured man, there normally isn't time for a formal introduction.

"Who are you?" I asked it.

"I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present," he sneered. "Shithead. Who do you think? It's me, Rodney." Then after a second's pause, he added, "And don't play dumb with me, because I've been up here since you took me out. I couldn't talk, but I could watch. And even if I hadn't been able to see what had been going on, I could always go back through the archives and look it up."

At this, I experienced the most loathsome feeling: that of hands, a stranger's hands, pilfering through my brain. Even though I couldn't quite say where the sensation was coming from, I couldn't pinpoint where in my head this feeling originated. But I felt them all the same: cold, clammy, almost damp fingers, rooting around in my thoughts.

"This is impossible," I said out loud.

"That hardly matters, now does it?" I could almost feel his smile. "I was probably going to die after getting stabbed by my last victim anyway. My fault for getting careless. But now I'm alive and well and...we're going to make a great team." He paused, and I gritted my teeth as his slimy fingers went trekking through my memories, like some unseen filing cabinet with nerve endings. "Patty...that's your secretary's name, isn't it?"

"What are you...?"

"I'm lonely in here," he said softly. "I want a friend. She'll do."

Patty was probably the kindest woman you could ever hope to meet. Attended church twice a week, volunteered at the homeless shelter downtown and the Humane Society. Totally selfless and a joy to have working for you.

In the end, Rodney talked me through everything. How to cover my...our...his tracks. I couldn't resist him...how could I? Having my psyche groped while his slick voice, day and night, egged me on to do it...just do it.

And one week after we did it, she was there. I felt her wake up in my head.

"How do you feel?" Rodney asked her.

"I...feel...incredible," Patty said. No, she purred it. More than the strange feeling of eavesdropping on a conversation in my own head, more stranger still was Patty. It was her voice, yes, but...wrong.

After a few days of having to go through the motions of ordinary life with two dead people chatting away in my mind, Patty said, "My brother would love it in here. Be a dear," she purred at me, caressing my mind with repulsive hands, "and help us fetch him here, would you?"

"Patty, you want me to kill your brother? What's happened to you?"

She gave out a torrent of laughter and replied, "Why...I've been murdered. Or have you forgotten?"

My head rang with the laughter of corpses.

"Rodney, you did this to her. She was never like this," I accused.

"Don't pin this on me," he said, "it's your head she's in. It's you who made her change."

So I did it. It took almost a week for them to talk me into it, though. After all, her brother was only ten.

But I gave up. I always do. I still do. They wake up and want more company. They can never have enough. I don't know whether it's just my head or if all dead people are like this: selfish, insatiable, lonely even in a crowd of their own.

I keep hoping the next one will restore the order in there that I've lost. But it never works. They're always in there, night and day, pillaging my innermost thoughts and secrets and always with those hands, God, those cold, wet hands...and always, there's more of them.

And they keep telling me, Thank you for our new friend. But don't worry. Oh no, there's plenty of room in here. Always room for more. Always.