Joe. He'd chewed off her nipples, kept
her chained in his apartment, murdered
another woman in front of her and ate
her while Alicia watched helplessly. He'd dragged her al the way across the state in the back of a van, cooked a man alive and forced her to eat human flesh, and
then he'd...
"Oh my God! My breasts! He ate my
breasts!" Alicia lifted the covers and stared at the bandages wrapped around
her chest. They were completely flat. Her breasts were gone.
"Who? Tel us who did this to you. Who don't you want us to hurt?"
Despite al of this Alicia stil could not bring herself to betray him. "I can't remember."
"Do you remember how you got here? To Washington? Were you kidnapped? Did
he bring you here against your wil ?"
"I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember!" She pounded her fists against the sides of her head and tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
Soon she was openly sobbing. A black
cop who looked like a detective stepped forward in front of the professor.
"Okay. Okay. We'l leave you alone. But if your memory returns, here's my card.
Give me a cal ."
Alicia turned away and continued to
weep into the pil ow. "My breasts are gone. They're gone. He ate my breasts!" She began to scream.
The detective dropped his card on the
nightstand and backed away just as the
nurses rushed into the room.
"Sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You're upsetting the patient and she's stil in guarded condition."
"We were just about to leave." The detectives and the two professors
stepped out into the hal with the captain.
"That was quite a show," Professor Locke offered.
"You think she was faking that? Did you see the look on her face when she
realized that she'd lost her breasts?"
"That part may have been real but I don't believe for a second that she doesn't
remember who attacked her. She's
protecting Joseph."
"Protecting him? But he's the scumbag who ate her titties off," Captain Marshal added, with his eyebrows raised
quizzical y. He looked both exhausted
and overwhelmed, as if he would fal
over at any second.
"Ever hear of Stockholm syndrome?" A sea of blank stares looked back at
him.
"It's when a prisoner begins to identify, even to sympathize and, in extreme
cases, to fal in love with his or her
captor. Who knows how long Joseph
had her or what he told her. His is a
pretty sympathetic tale if you look at it from his perspective. Here's a kid who
was attacked by a serial kil er and
horribly tortured and raped for hours. He survives only to grow up and discover
that this serial kil er passed some
disease on to him that's turning him into a kil er too and the only way he can cure himself is by murdering the man who
gave him the disease."
"So you think she bought al this bul shit?
"
"It may not be bul shit. As I said before, there is a possibility that such a disease could exist. That's what brought us out here. We just need to convince her that it's bul shit. That's the only way we're going to get her to cooperate."
Captain Marshal 's cel phone rang and
he excused himself to answer it. When
he hung up, his face was set in a hard
line that told everyone in the room that the night was not yet over.
"You think this wil convince her? We just got a cal from a motel manager a few
blocks away. There are two bodies down
there torn to shreds."
Marshal walked briskly out of the
hospital fol owed by Montgomery and the two professors.
"I guess you two eggheads had it right. He's on a rampage now. It's only been a few hours since he kil ed Trent and the Janitor."
"He didn't feed on them, Captain. He must have been hungry when he got
home. Not to mention his
disappointment when he found that his
cure wasn't working," Professor Locke offered.
"Wel from what my officers are tel ing me, he should be pretty damn wel fed
now."
They piled into two separate squad cars and raced the two miles to the motel
where Joe had been just hours before.
They slipped past the barricades and
police tape and into the room where the dismembered bodies lay strewn around
the room like wet red confetti.
"Jesus!" the two professors cried out in unison.
"Oh my God! He did this? How could anyone do something like this?"
"You tel us, Doc. Does this hold with your little theory? You stil think you can cure him with a few little pil s?" The captain was feeling surly. He didn't like the idea of a serial kil er in his town and he liked it even less that these two had known he was coming and hadn't said
anything. If they had thought to drop a warning there might be four people alive right now and one lunatic behind bars.
But instead they had tried to play heroes. It was al he could do to keep from
knocking one of them down. He knew
exactly which one it would be too.
"I'm even more sure of it now than ever," Professor Locke said, elevating his chin to look down his nose at the policeman.
"This escalating pattern of violence is consistent with the pattern of addiction. He's developing a tolerance for it so he needs more. More victims, and more
violence. If we don't get him into
treatment the victims wil just keep piling up.
"That is unless we shoot him down. Or lock his ass up.
"That would be one solution. At least to this problem. But what about al the other kil ers out there? This is bigger than one man and a handful of victims. We could
possibly put an end to this type of
sexual/rage kil ing forever."
"Get off your soapbox, Doc. I ain't buyin'
it. Now wait in the car while we search this place. You're contaminating my
crime scene."
The captain and Detective Montgomery
cleared everyone else out of the room
except for the CSI crew. They
immediately went to work
photographing, bagging, and tagging
everything they found that looked even
remotely like it might lead them to the kil er. There was more than enough
physical evidence to tel them who the
kil er was and even to practical y
guarantee a conviction-his DNA and
fingerprints were al over the place. But there was nothing here to suggest where he might have gone.
"What about the telephone?"
"This one?" the captain asked, lifting the receiver from a cradle that was tacky
with blood.
"No. The one in the apartment he was renting. Let's get the phone records and find out who he was cal ing."
"That's no problem. There's a police liaison at the phone company who does
traces for us."
They were both more than a little
relieved to leave the murder scene.
"Where's that manager?" the captain asked one of the officers standing
nearby.
He pointed to a short, paunchy, balding Mexican with guilty, fidgety eyes. The
man stepped forward, looking from side
to side as if frantical y trying to plan his escape. He had the look of an ex-con
with the crude tattoos to match.
"Which one did Miles stay in?"
"Right next door ... uh, sir."
"Wel , then op
en it up! We need to check it for evidence."
They paused in the doorway of the
apartment, taking note of the handcuffs attached to the bed and the wide
bloodstain that saturated the mattress
and sheets. This is where Alicia had
been held, where Joe had performed his
radical mastectomy on her. The big burly police captain froze and turned to look at the young black detective with stunned, exhausted eyes.
"What the fuck are we up against here?"
"A man. Just a man."
The captain picked up the phone and
dialed the operator. Minutes later they had their information. He set the phone back in the cradle and let out a sigh of relief.
"Wel , it looks like Joseph Miles is your problem again. The last number he
dialed was back in the Bay Area.
Hayward, California. A Mr. Lionel Ray
Miles. He's going home to Daddy."
Lionel Ray Miles stood on his porch,
cradling the Mossburg pistol-grip
shotgun in his arms and peering out into the darkness. He knew he'd heard
something out there. Maybe one of the
neighbor kids was playing a trick on him, but he was sure he'd heard the sound of glass breaking. And it had sounded like it was coming from his garage. He crept around to the front of the garage and
saw that two of the windows had been
smashed and there was a huge dent in
the aluminum, as if something big and
heavy had crashed into it. He heard
shuffling noises coming from inside.
Lionel Ray jacked a round into the
chamber and crept around to the side
service door. He didn't make a sound.
He was not about to give whoever had
dared break into his property any
warning. Lionel didn't want to scare them away. He wanted blood. He imagined
himself creeping up on some teenaged
crackhead or speed freak and opening
up on them with the shotgun. One less
junkie, sneak thief, shoplifter, burglar, purse snatcher for the overburdened
court system to worry about.
The service door on the side of the
garage had been smashed in too. It
looked like someone had used a
sledgehammer on it. That door had cost
Lionel Ray two hundred dol ars at the
home-and-garden store. Not to mention
the time it had taken him to instal it and paint it. That alone was enough to justify him blowing away the intruder.
There was a shadow in roughly the
outline of a human body standing right
beside Lionel Ray's prized '69 Lincoln
Continental. The Lincoln was Lionel
Ray's dream car. Not a Cadil ac or a
Mercedes, but a Lincoln with its sleek
lines and suicide doors had always
symbolized success to him. He'd
purchased it on eBay with money from
his 401K. Had it driven al the way from Texas. And that speed-freak intruder
was using it as a shield.
The Lincoln had al its original chrome bought straight from the factory and
shined to a high gloss. Brand-new black leather upholstery. White-wal ed tires. Lionel Ray had spent countless hours
restoring the car to mint condition. It was his pride and joy and there was no way
he was going to risk a shot in the dark that just might spray the old girl with buckshot and ruin the new eighthundred-dol ar paintjob he'd just put on it. If need be he'd just walk over there and throttle the bastard with his bare hands. Lionel Ray Miles was tal with thick
muscles from years of hard labor rather than months in the gym. He had no fear
of the intruder attacking him before he could squeeze off a shot.
But the guy was big. A lot bigger than
he'd expected. Too big to be a junkie or a crackhead, though that stil didn't rule out a teenaged jock or a frat boy pul ing some kind of prank.
If this sonuvabitch tries to charge me
he'l wind up getting his neck broken just before I blow his damned head off his
shoulders, Lionel thought. I just want a better look at him so I can aim properly. Lionel Ray reached over and pul ed the
chain on the little keyless light that
dangled from the ceiling overhead. The
sudden burst of radiance dazzled him
and he quickly raised the shotgun in the direction the figure had been standing, afraid that the intruder might try to attack him in the seconds it took his eyes to
adjust to the light. The guy wasn't
moving, however.
As Lionel squinted through the harsh
glare of the naked 100-watt lightbulb, he began to recognize some of the
intruder's features. The man was even
bigger than he'd appeared in the dark,
bigger than Lionel himself. He had short, neatly cut black hair parted down the
middle. Crystal-clear blue eyes. A strong chiseled jaw. High cheekbones and a
smile fil ed with rows and rows of
perfectly straight white teeth-teeth that had al been filed to sharp points. His body was armored with thick muscle
rippling beneath the yel ow polo shirt he wore.
"Joey? Is that you, boy? What the hel are you doin' breakin' into my garage?
Why ain't your ass in school?"
"I came to ask you a question." Lionel Ray lowered the shotgun and
stared at his son with that angry,
disappointed, and somewhat bemused
expression he used to get just before he would slap Joe around when he was a
"Boy, it is way too late for games. What is this, some col ege prank or
something? Some fuckin' frat boys dare
you to break into your dad's garage,
smash up my door and dent the damned
garage door? I hope they've got money
to pay for al of this or else it's coming right out of your hide!" Lionel Ray growled.
"How soon after they found me bleeding to death in the park did you realize that one of your chickens had come home to
roost? How long did it take you to
recognize Damon Trent as one of your
victims? I guess he was one of the
unfortunate bastards who managed to
survive, wasn't he? How many were
there? How many kids have you kil ed?" Tears streamed down Joe's face. His
father just looked annoyed and slightly amused.
"Wel , you final y figured it out, huh? I tried to tel you before, but I didn't think you could handle it. It looks like I was right. Look at you, standing there crying like some old woman. I can't believe
we're the same blood. But we are, aren't we? You've got my blood coursing
through those veins, don't you? My
curse.
"How many were there?"
"There were dozens! I don't know."
"What did you do to them? Tel me
everything."
Lionel Ray cocked an eyebrow at his
son. "Are you sure you want to know, boy?"
"Tel me! I want to know what I am."
"I would pick them up at parks just like that Trent kid picked you up. Sometimes I'd offer them a ride home or tel them that their mommy had sent me to bring
them home. Sometimes I'd just snatch
them. After a while it became easier to just snatch them off the street. Less
exposure that way. Then I'd take them
home. Yeah, right to this house. Down in the basement. I'd cut on them for a while. I didn't do sex with them. I wasn't into al that. I'd just cut on them. I liked to hear them scream."
"Did you drink their blood?"
"What? No! Yo
u mean like that fat freak who did you? I wasn't some pervert. I just liked to hear them scream."
"Did you kil them?"
"Some of them. Most of them, I guess. But I let a few of them go too. Mostly the real y young ones I let go. I knew they wouldn't be able to tel the police enough to send them after me. Most of them
were too scared to say anything when I
was done anyway. And if I was real y
worried about them talking I'd just cut their tongues out or put out their eyes or both. I should have cut Trent's eyes out."
"But why, Dad? Why did you do it?"
"For the same reason you tore apart that librarian at your school. Yeah, you didn't think I knew about that, did you? The
minute those cops showed up at my
door asking questions about you I knew
you were the one who did it. Like father, like son. I did it because it feels good, boy! Doesn't it, Son? Doesn't it feel
good to prey on those weak, pitiful little things? It feels like your body was
designed for it, doesn't it? Like you're fulfil ing your purpose in life. Kil ing off the weak. Cul ing the herd. They ain't good for nothin' no way except screamin' and dyin'. You happy now, boy? You got al
your questions answered?"
"Al except one," Joe replied, staring down at the shotgun stil leaning against his daddy's leg. He was calculating his chances of crossing the garage floor
and disarming his dad before he could
raise that shotgun and squeeze off a
round. Maybe he wouldn't even shoot?
Joe thought. After al , I am his son. But he doubted that. He knew his dad wel
enough to know that the man valued his
own happiness and preservation above
any familial love or responsibility. He would shoot Joe dead if he thought his
life was in danger.
Joe began inching closer to his father. The closer he was when he attacked the
old man, the better his chances would be of avoiding a steaming hole in his chest.
"So ask then. What else do you want to know about your old dad?"
Joe was now only a few feet away.
"I want to know if there's a cure for what we are. I want to know how to end this." Lionel Ray began to laugh. "A cure? You can't change what you are, boy! There
ain't no cure!"
"I think there is." Joe leapt forward, springing for his father's throat. Lionel Ray tried to raise the shotgun to shoot his only son. He was too late. The blast went over Joe's left shoulder. Joe noted without emotion that his dad had been
aiming for his head.
A few shot pel ets lodged in Joe's
shoulder, bicep, and chest, slowing him a bit but not stopping him. He tackled the elder Miles. His entire body slammed