Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

Then he saw the silhouette of a gun in the man's hand. James silently cursed, wondering what he should do, what he could do, but he was without an answer. One pretends to know what one will do in such a crisis, but one can't really know what one will do until one is in such a crisis, his mind said. Fuck that, he told himself, what do I fucking do?

He'd never imagined that such a crisis, if it were to come up, would catch him nude, but even if he had clothes on, he suspected he'd be just as paralyzed.

He held back, trying to muster his courage. Hadn't Lara said the guy had strange and bizarre ideas about getting even with her? What would he do to me? the new lover wondered.

When he stood up, James gazed out at the storm and down at his naked body. The only way off the island was Lara's transport, and that would strand her, but he could say he was going for help. He imagined sneaking about Lewistown in his birthday suit.

He took a deep breath of air and turned back to the interior of the house, still clutching the bottle of wine. Not much of a weapon, he thought. What the hell do I do after I hit him over the head with the bottle?

Then he began searching the kitchen for something to defend Lara and himself with. As he quietly searched for a knife, he lifted the telephone off the wall in the kitchen as well, dialing 9-1-1, but the line was dead.

Sheriff Danby Potter moved toward the sound of a man in anguish. As he did so, he passed through the living area on the boat, amazed at what he found. Computer screens displayed a room with a woman who had been butchered, lying chained to a bed, the sight making Potter ill, a healthy fear of the monster he was now chasing coming over him. On another screen, in another room, paced a man chained by one ankle.

Potter recalled the phantom figure he'd seen up at the house. The man on the screen, alive and in pain, was not Jervis Swantor. Potter had seen Swantor at such places as the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the mainland on more than one occasion. He had heard rumors that Mrs. Swantor had taken a lover, and he had seen a man slip from sight when he had visited Mrs. Swantor the day before to ask after her husband's whereabouts. Potter now wondered if the man chained on the boat might not be Mrs. Swantor's lover, and he bloody figure in the other room with half a face, poor Mrs. Swantor.

He realized now he had stepped into a horror house, and he needed backup. He saw that the call he'd cut off had been from the FBI on the Coast Guard cutter who had called for Mrs. Swantor's number. He hit return dial to reach them. Meanwhile, breathless, he'd made his way toward the cabin to help the man there, stopping at the door when he got through to Sorrento.

He told Sorrento where he was and what he had found. “I need you people to get here as fast as you can. I think Swantor's inside the house. Phone line to the house is dead now. Think I'll be safe till you get here. It's too late for his wife. Located her mangled, disfigured body on the yacht, and he's chained her lover here, too. Can you get here before daybreak?”

Sorrento shouted back, “No, I mean yes, we can, but Potter, you need to get off that boat and to a safe distance. And whatever you do, don't touch anything on that boat or release-”

“ He's already killed his wife! Cut her head open here on the boat.”

“ No, that's not the wife, and the chained man-”

But Potter wasn't listening. “And he's got some poor guy locked in a room down here. I'm going to get him free. Get him to the mainland, and we'll wait to hear from you there.”

“ No, no, Potter, don't go near the other man! That's-”

But Potter had cut Sorrento off. He pushed open the door and said, “Don't worry, son. I'm going to get you out of here.”

“ The leg iron,” said Kenyon. “This maniac plans to cut me up like he did the woman. There's a key. Find the key.”

Potter rushed back to the living room area, frantic and searching everywhere for the key. He finally located it in a drawer below the computer, and looking up, he again saw the mutilated body on the screen but he could not look too closely at the horror. He grimaced and then rushed back to Kenyon. His phone began ringing again, but he ignored it for the moment.

“ Swantor's a madman,” said Potter.

“ Hurry! He could come back at any moment,” said Kenyon. “That maniac wants me to suffer before he kills me,” he continued as Potter worked the ankle bracelet off Kenyon.

“ My name's Potter. Sheriff from over on the mainland,” he said, still stooping, tossing the ankle chain away when he grabbed for his ringing phone. As he opened the line, Potter's phone was drowned out by the sound and pain of the bone cutter that split open the back of his skull, the thing sinking its teeth into the old sheriff s brain.

Potter went down like a stone statue, his every fiber stiff, his eyes thrown wide open.

Kenyon said to the dead man, “Thanks old-timer. Now, where's that motherfucking Swantor?”

Kenyon soon stood on the boat deck staring up at the mansion with its lone light. Bone cutter in hand, his angry features were lit up when a lightning bolt streaked across the sky overhead. “Swantor,” he muttered, staring up the long flight of stairs that spiraled their way up the hillside and to the house.

He began his long walk up the steps, thinking of what Swantor had done to him, how the man had ruined his plans, how the man had exposed him and used him. The bastard had displayed Kenyon cutting open a woman and feeding on her still-warm brain. Grant had had no control to stop Phillip at that moment, and certainly Phillip had had no control over himself once Swantor provided the venue to feed after withholding Selese from him for so long. By then, the hunger had again taken over, and the Seeker had no resistance once she was within his grasp.

By now the murder video was being beamed worldwide. Even if he could escape the FBI, he could not hide anywhere in the world, thanks to Swantor.

He had only one thought now. He wanted to kill Swantor and feed on his brain as his last act before being apprehended. Until then, he would remain here on this island to await the inevitable end.

Jessica impatiently paced the pilothouse as Captain Quarels's ship moved against the storm, the small crew pushing the cutter to its limits. Every man aboard had heard the news of what had happened on the computer screen, and a healthy hatred of their prey-both Kenyon and Swantor- had welled up inside them all.

Sorrento's phone call had determined that indeed Sheriff Potter had gone out to Swantor's island home, and that he'd found Swantor's missing yacht. But Sorrento's final call to Potter returned an ugly sound, the sound of the bone saw.

They had long since left the canal behind them and were now in the safer waters of Grand Isle Bay.

“ How close are we?” she asked the captain.

“ Quite close, a matter of twenty minutes perhaps. I'll have a launch ready for you and Agent Sorrento to board. I can't risk the cutter in this weather, and I don't think you want us taking time to make depth soundings. It can get extremely shallow along the banks.”

“ Where do we board?” asked Sorrento, turning from watching the storm.

“ Below decks. My first mate, Mr. Konrath, will guide you and take you ashore with two of my best men.”

A tall, uniformed officer with a boyish face, Konrath stepped forward, handing them each a rain slicker and saying, “This way, please.” Like the FBI agents, Konrath was armed and prepared to use deadly force.

Jessica and Sorrento followed him out into the storm, down the steps and past a bulkhead, and finally through a hatch and down into the ship. While topside, they had seen men working to lower a boat over the side. Konrath now directed them to an interior hatchway. On the other side of this door, they heard the pounding water and the thud of the lowered lifeboat.