Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

As Grant continued to kill time in Hardscrabble, Mississippi, waiting for the paint to dry next door, he gave thought to Swantor.

Dr. Swantor had claimed to be in complete agreement with Grant against Cahil's notions on how to properly go about finding the cosmic eternal mind. After a while, Grant felt comfortable with Swantor, that they were of a like-mindedness he felt with no one else. Missing him in Florida had been disappointing, but Swantor had also said he'd be returning to New Orleans immediately after. Perhaps Grant and Phillip should look the man up.

Still, Grant wasn't certain he could trust Swantor or anyone else, for that matter, with the dark secrets he and Phillip shared. Grant put Swantor out of his mind for now. He instead focused on the garage owner. He had promised to pay the elderly man twice what the man asked for in an effort to keep him quiet about the van and Grant ever having been there.

He next returned to thoughts about his plans for California. It was a grand scheme his mind had devised and fixed upon, but already it was undermined by Phillip. Still, there was no dissuading Phillip, not anymore, not once he set his mind-their mind-to feeding.

All night long, Grant had lain in a state of dormancy, like a moth, sleeping as if cocooned up. Still, while his body had shut down, his mind raced headlong, planning his next move, wondering if Biloxi had a Greyhound station or a train station, certain it must have one or the other or both most likely with all its gambling casinos, advertised on every other billboard sign along I-10 in this and adjoining states.

Grant had found Sharon, Phillip's latest victim, at a bus station. Runaways. They made easy targets, but the kills would have been impossible without his van. If he hadn't had his van in Mobile, he wondered how he could possibly have handled the girl. He had expected everything to go smoothly, since he had assurances from a Bolinda that she was on her way. She lived close to Mobile, only a short bus ride away, she had confided. They had first met in Cahil's chat room and subsequently she had given up her E-mail address to him. She had been intrigued by him, she'd said on more than one occasion.

It turned into a long wait.

She wasn't on the bus she'd said she would be on. He waited for the next one. He had spent a suspicious hour in and around the Greyhound station, when finally a young woman got off a bus coming in from Nashville.

No one at the station hailed her or went near her, as others found their loved ones. This one stood apart, alone and vulnerable, like the last gazelle at a watering hole.

She looked the pan he had planned for her: young, naive, frightened and hungry. No one paid any heed when he went up to her and said, “Bolinda? Is that you?”

The young woman glared at him, not surprisingly. “No, my name's not Bolinda. You're looking for someone else.”

“ It's me, Seeker.” He didn't flinch. Instead, he offered her a meal and a place to stay for the night, along with any drugs she might like.

She stared back at him, her eyes wide. “I'm not Bolinda, and no, I don't think so.”

“ Well, whoever you are, you can't stay on the streets. A pretty girl like you? You'd be dead by morning.”

“ Get away from me, you creep,” she said, the words echoing about the room.

He looked up and raised his shoulders to anyone who might be staring, mimicking a lover's quarrel.

“ I only want to help you.”

“ What're you? The local pimp?”

Grant thought of how he pimped for Phillip. “I'd only do that for you if you chose to, if you wanted to make money. I wouldn't force you into it.”

“ You've got some nerve. You've got to be kidding,” she replied.

“ Just stay the night. There's other girls you can get to know. They'll tell you I never hurt so much as a fly, and that I only want what's best for them.”

“ I'm sure you have them all well trained.”

“ Well fed and well trained, and they get whatever they want.”

She stared at him, studying his features. “Just stay the one night, and by morning, you can make your decision.”

“ You say you've got some drugs?”

“ I do.”

“ What kind?”

“ Any kind, anything you want, sweetheart, for the taking… for now. Here, let me carry your bag. I'm parked just around the corner outside.”

She sheepishly followed. He confidently walked ahead of her, taking charge, asking, “If you're not Bolinda, what is your name, sweetheart?”

“ Sharon.”

“ Nice name. Nice.”

“ Who's Bolinda?”

“ Someone who stood me up.”

In a moment, they stood at the rear of his van, and he placed her bag on the curb. He opened the rear door on the black interior while she stood beside him, gauging the wisdom of her decision. He could feel her thinking, it was like a pulsing beam coming off her cranium. She was young and filled with a powerful energy, he decided. It was an energy Phillip craved.

As he opened the door with one hand, he grabbed and shoved her head into the metal with the other, knocking her into submission and jamming the needle into her arm. She slumped into his arms.

“ Everything OK here?” asked a Latino street beggar with his hand out.

Grant hefted the girl inside, lifted her bag and told the street man that he could have it and its contents. This gesture both stunned and pleased the beggar, who marched off quickly with the girl's things.

Grant then secured Sharon's extremities and head. He wisely locked the rear doors and climbed into the driver's seat, going for the secluded place beneath the bridge that he had earlier scouted for the work. Phillip later told Grant that he believed Sharon was sent to them, and that she had more soul in her head than Bolinda would ever achieve.

Reliving it here over coffee and the remnants of his late breakfast, Grant tried to recall the moment of touching that cosmic universal soul that Phillip had so guaranteed him. Phillip described it in beatific terms and was filled with excruciating happiness over it, but Grant had to be told about it, as by then he was no longer in the van. The operation was Dr. Grant Kenyon's doing, but the feeding and subsequent feelings of power and ecstasy belonged to Phillip.

Before leaving Mobile, Jessica had been assured by Agent Douglas that an alert on their killer there would go out. Unfortunately, the description of the van he used was a match for millions like it. Still, Douglas assured her that he would ask cities and towns dotting the map along I-10 west of Mobile, Alabama, to be on heightened alert for anything looking suspicious.

She and J.T. had talked about their next strategy during the plane trip back to Quantico.

“ Listen, J.T., before Daryl Thomas Cahil was labeled the Skull-digger, the FBI had amassed 6,511 tips from the public as to the identity and whereabouts of the Skull-digger.” Jessica spoke over the hum of the plane.

J.T. nodded. “Several of those tips pointed to Daryl. We had an army of agents across the nation looking into each tip, but since word Cahil got out… sorry, but all such tips were put in a holding pattern.”

“ According to Jere Anderson we now have a positive DNA match between Daryl's delicacy found in Morristown and Anna Gleanson from Richmond.” Jessica had checked in with the Quantico lab just before boarding.

“ Which implicates Daryl even more than ever. This fact alone will be enough to cement the case against Cahil in most minds.”

“ Most minds haven't seen what we've seen in Mobile, Alabama. We never had the Skull-digger in custody, John. He's still at large, a lunatic who likely took cues from Cahil.”

“ So what's next?”

“ We concentrate on the civilian tips,” she told J. T.

“ That's a lot of tips,” replied J. T. “We'll need a miracle to jump-start this case.”