you were obsessed with vampirism and
cannibalism. Apparently the victim was
mutilated or disfigured in some way that further links her to you. Your picture has been in the newspaper. They're
convinced that you did it."
"I know, I know. But listen, I think we're real y onto something here!"
"We? I want no part of this. I'm cal ing the police as soon as you hang up!"
"You don't understand, Professor. I'm sick! I contracted this disease when I
was a kid. I was kidnapped by a child
kil er and I survived. Only, he passed his curse to me. Now I've passed it on to
someone else!" His rambling sounded almost delighted.
"What are you talking about, Joseph?
Where are you? You need to turn
yourself in."
"I can't. Don't you see? If I'm right and the disease is transmittable then there's a cure and I think I've found it!"
"Joseph, you are sick."
"Professor, you have to listen to me. There's this girl that-1-bit-"
"You bit someone! Oh my God, Joseph!"
"Yeah, but I didn't kil her. Anyway, last night she took a bite of human flesh and loved it! She has the hunger now just like me! I passed on the virus. That proves
my theory! Which means that al I have to do is track it back to the original host, the carrier, and I can put an end to it for good. I can cure us both and probably
others that he's infected."
"Listen, Joseph, the fact that your girlfriend took a bite out of someone and got off on it is not proof of a virus but only proof that you've passed your
fantasy to someone else and probably
screwed this girl's head up pretty badly. She identifies with you so she's sharing your delusion. It's a common occurrence in kil ers. Many of them work in pairs, from Leopold and Loeb to the Hil side
Stranglers and even Bonnie and Clyde.
There've been many cases of serial
kil ers using their wives or girlfriends to lure prey. They feel helpless and trapped and so they begin to side with their
abuser, to identify with them, even going so far as becoming their accomplices in future murders. It's a defense
mechanism, nothing more. Gary
Heidnick used a girl to lure other girls to his basement to be tortured, raped, and murdered. Without him she'd have never
harmed anyone and once he was locked
up she never hurt anyone again.
Joseph? Joseph, are you stil there?" The solemn whine of the dial tone
abraded his eardrums. He slowly
lowered the phone back into its cradle, then picked it up again and dialed the
Centers for Disease Control. He had
some research to do.
Thirty-one
After spending nearly an hour in traffic trying to cross the Bay Bridge during
rush hour, Detectives Montgomery and
Volario pul ed up in front of the modest upper-middle-class home of Lionel and
Virginia Miles, Joseph Miles's parents. The elder Miles had worked as a
construction superintendent for one of
the largest homebuilders in America for the last twenty-five years until his recent retirement, and his home had been built by the same company. It was two stories high with a dash stucco finish painted a solemn gray, with decorative stone
around the doorway and on the courtyard wal s. An ornate iron gate hung at the
entrance. The door was a sturdy
handcarved oak that must have cost wel
over two thousand dol ars, but he'd likely purchased it at a sizeable company
discount.
Detective Volario put on his most
endearing smile and knocked on the
front door. His warm, friendly smile hit a brick wal . Lionel Miles opened the door and stared down at him as if he were a
particularly annoying parasite in need of a good swatting.
It was readily apparent where Joseph
Miles had acquired his height. His father towered over the two detectives. Even
with his potbel y and graying hair he
looked as if he could give the two of
them more than they could handle. His
arms were thick with muscles hardened
by years of hard labor and his chest was broad. He looked like a professional
wrestler or an old-time blacksmith. His face was like a piece of worn leather.
"What the hel do you want?"
"Sir, my name is Detective Volario and this is Detective Montgomery. We need
to ask you a few questions about your
son."
and held it open. The old man pushed
against it but the detective held it firm.
"We stil need to talk with you. It'l only take a moment. Do you mind if we come
in?" Montgomery stuck a foot in the doorway but the old man moved to block
him from entering.
The large black detective and the even
larger old man stared eye to eye for a
long, tense moment. The air bristled with hostility. Lionel Miles had to have been in his midfifties but he was no less
formidable for his years. Veins stood out in his neck and forearms as his body
tensed. His eyes bore down on the
detective, sizing him up, then suddenly the old man wilted. He turned and
stalked back into the house, leaving the front door open.
"So, what do you want to know about my boy?"
The detectives looked at each other and let out a deep sigh of relief. For a
moment there they were sure they were
going to wind up going toe-to-toe with
the big guy, and they weren't exactly
confident how such a battle would have
turned out.
"Your son may be a material witness in a murder and we need to locate him." The old man's eyes narrowed in
suspicion. "You mean he's a suspect, don't you?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Why else would two detectives show up on my doorstep wil ing to take me down
to find out if the kid is hiding in here or something?"
"We weren't going to-"
"Save it. We both know you were."
"Al right, so is the kid here?"
"I told you before. I haven't heard from him since he left for col ege. We ain't real close."
"Then you won't mind if we search the house?" Volario asked, turning to look around the room.
The living room was sparsely furnished
but clean. There was a fifty-two-inch flatscreen TV tucked into a built-in wal unit, along with a surround-sound stereo
system and DVD player. Across from
that was a leather couch and a plush
leather recliner. There were few pictures in the room. No family portraits. Not a single picture of their son. Not so much as a wedding photo. Knives adorned the
wal s, though. A samurai sword, a British saber, a Scottish broadsword, an Indian Ghurka. Montgomery took it al in without a word.
"Now if you want to search the place, you'd better get a warrant. Either that or you're going to have to knock me down."
"Relax, big fel a. Just a few more questions and we re on our way.
"You've got my attention. So go ahead and ask."
"You don't seem very surprised that we're here. Any reason you think your
son might be involved in something like this?"
"Something like what? You haven't told me what you think he's done yet."
"We found a librarian from his school murdered. Mutilated and sexual y
assaulted. He was the last person seen
with her before she disappeared."
The detectives were shocked by the
expression that burst onto the old man's face. His chest swel ed up and it was
obvious that he was struggling to
suppress a smile. At first Montgomery
was perplexed. Then he realized what he was seeing on the man's face. It was
pride.
"No, Officers. There's no reason I would think my boy would be capable of
something like that. Joe's soft. He used to wet the bed when he was a kid. He
ain't no kil er. Don't let al those muscles fool you. His momma spoiled that kid
rotten. I'm surprised he ain't turn out to be one of them faggots you see run-nin'
al over town, kissin' and holdin' hands. Now if you excuse me, the missus'l be
home from the market anytime now and
she's not real fond of visitors."
"Wel , thanks for your cooperation," Volario replied with a look of
disappointment.
The detectives walked out of the house
and were not surprised when the door
slammed shut behind them.
"Man, that guy was creepy as hel . Maybe we should be looking at him for
this? Did you see al the knives and shit on his wal s?" Volario's eyes were wide and he was breathing hard. His hands
shook as he raised a cigarette to his lips and groped in his pockets for his lighter. He looked as if he'd just been in a
gunfight.
"If Joseph Miles is our guy, then I can certainly see where he got it from," Montgomery added, looking over his
shoulder.
Thirty-two
The Tacoma skyline fil ed the windshield as Joe rol ed into town with Alicia curled up in the front seat, looking wel fed and content just as the first nine-to-fivers were beginning to scramble from the
nest to catch the early worm. Joe
stopped the van at a gas station and ran in to get directions to the psychiatric hospital.
"You visiting someone or checking in?" asked the long-haired, flannel-shirted, grunge-rock reject who worked the cash
register. He had beautiful greenish blue eyes like seawater. Joe wondered how
those vibrant orbs would taste and
those vibrant orbs would taste and
imagined sucking them out of his skul
like boiled oysters. The boy waited for a response to his little witticism and
seemed to grow nervous when Joe
merely continued to stare into his eyes.
"Uh, okay, yeah. The hospital's down past the airport heading toward the
center of town. You can't miss it." Joe smiled, turned, and walked back out to his van.
Joe drove the five miles into the center of town and had no trouble finding the
hospital. He drove past and continued
farther into the city. He needed to find a place to hide Alicia.
Alicia snuggled up beside him. She was
stil bound but Joe had al owed her into the front seat. He trusted her more now. Even as her heart fil ed with an affection that she assumed was love for the
monstrous predator beside her, shame
colored her cheeks. She had eaten a
man and enjoyed it.
She didn't know if Joe was right.
Perhaps he had somehow passed his
sickness on to her when he had bitten
her. But she doubted it. She had eaten
Frank only to be closer to Joe. She
wasn't exactly hungering to bite into
anyone else. There wasn't that
al consuming appetite working within her the way it had worked inside Joe,
twisting his guts as if he were starving. She couldn't have reached orgasm just
from tasting poor Frank's flame-broiled cock the way Joe had, not without Joe's organ pounding in and out of her. She
wouldn't have tasted Frank's flesh at al if she had not wanted to get closer to Joe, to understand the passions that drove
him and perhaps to share them, if he
hadn't made it look so sensuous. If he
hadn't looked so powerful and sexual as he stroked his huge cock and crammed
pieces of Frank into his mouth. If she
hadn't been such a slut to have lusted
after and now possibly to have fal en in love with the murderous psychopath,
there was no way she would have eaten
poor Frank.
Why do I let myself do these things? she wondered, and was shocked when Joe
answered as if he had been in her head
listening to her doubt herself.
"You know why you get off on being with me? Because you're a slut. But that's
why I love you. I'm a slut too. We're both whores and so what? We are what we
are. Fucking makes you happy so why
shouldn't you fuck? Why should you feel guilty about it? Is there anything that makes you feel more alive than having a fat cock between your thighs? No.
Nothing except maybe having one in
each hole. And what's wrong with that?
You've let society make you hate yourself for your appetites. You hate yourself for enjoying life. That's stupid. Be a slut and be happy," Joe said, waving his hand at her dismissively.
Alicia was shocked. Part of her wanted
to listen to him and to know the type of freedom he was talking about. The other part was appal ed and wanted to slap
the shit out of him.
"I'm not a slut!" she hissed, eyes glistening with outraged tears.
"Yes you are, Alicia," Joe replied without taking his eyes off the road. "And I love you for it. We could never be together if you weren't."
"Bul shit! This fuck-society crap is just another way for you to justify giving in to your own appetites. Eating people,
people that you know and claim to love!" Her eyes raged over his face as if
seeking a way into his head. Joe held
his eyes fixed on the road as if afraid to face his accuser. "You're just saying al this shit because you don't real y want to change! You're starting to like it. You're addicted and you're afraid of how boring life would be without the high you get
from eating other human beings. I know. It's the same way with me and sex. It's the only thing that makes life worth a
damn to me and I can't imagine living
one night without it. And you're afraid. Now that you're here you're scared to
death of confronting that crazy man
again."
Joe's face darkened and his jaw
tightened. The muscles flexed as if he
were biting down on something too hard
to penetrate. Now that she was real y
looking at him, his jaw real y did look like it had gotten bigger.
Thirty-three
Professor Locke had been on the
telephone for hours and was amazed at
what he was hearing. "You mean it's possible?"
"Theoretical y? Yes. But there's simply no proof. And you say a col ege kid came
up with this theory?"
"He claims to suffer from it."
"Fascinating."
"They think he may have kil ed someone. Ate them alive."
"My God!"
Doctor Wilfred Dougherty worked in the
Neurology department at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Locke's cal had been transferred to him after the
professor had been laughed at or hung
up on by nearly everyone else.
"You know, there was a police forensic psychologist who put forth a theory that brain trauma in the early developmental years could be found in as many as 73
percent of al serial kil ers. You could see increased activity in the limbic system of the brain. It even showed up on CAT
scans."
"So what happened with that?"
"There were an equal percentage of normal, non
homicidal people in the
community who showed the same brain
abnormalities. Almost every kid fal s off a swing or gets hit in the head with a
basebal at some point. But they don't al grow up to be serial kil ers. But this is the first time I can recal hearing a theory of a bloodborne pathogen that affects the
limbic system so severely that it
stimulates the human prey-drive,
basical y creating a human predator. It's like something from a horror novel."
"But you say it's possible?"
"Wel , the area of the brain that we cal the limbic system, actual y the limbic
basal-ganglia thalamocortical circuit or visceral brain, controls our flight-orfight emotions as wel as our sex drives. It's involved in storing memories and
creating emotions and is thought to play a central role in processing al impulserelated information. A disease that could affect the limbic system and increase
serotonin levels in the amygdala, the
rage center, could lead to severe rageimpulse related disorders perhaps severe enough to account for ninety-nine percent of al serial kil ers. Add to that the trauma of having been assaulted by
a serial kil er in the first place, with the virus that his body fluids passed on to you affecting the hippocampus where
that memory is stored, and you could
easily have a situation in which one
serial kil er creates another simply by biting him. But al that hinges on the
existence of a disease that could affect the amygdala in this way. So far there's no proof that such a thing exists."
"Shit." It was al the professor could think to say. "Could it be cured? I mean, if it existed?"
"The brain is a tricky place. Brain cel s are the only cel s in your body that don't reproduce. Once they're dead they're
gone for good. This fragility tends to
make any changes to the neurological
system rather permanent."
"You said that an increase in serotonin levels might be responsible for the
violent sexual behavior? It's an impulse-control disorder, in fact an obsessivecompulsive disorder. Only in
this case it's the compulsion to kil . They use serotonin inhibitors to treat other addictive compulsive behaviors, drug
abuse, alcoholism, even compulsive
gambling. This is basical y another
addiction we're speaking of, an
addiction to sadistic sexual homicide.
Why couldn't it be treated the same way as other addictions?"
"I thought of that, and theoretical y it would work. If the rest of the theory held up, then the administering of serotonin reuptake inhibitors should do the trick. Unfortunately, the success rate at