Then the fireman did turn and drop to his knees, regurgitating.
"It looks like quite a bit of it is missing. There's hardly any meat on it at al ." Even with much of the flesh burnt away it was obvious that something else had
been at work on the body. Its chest cavity appeared to have been broken open
and gutted. Al of the internal organs
were missing and al the flesh had been cut away from the chest and pelvis,
making it impossible to identify the sex of the body without an autopsy. Volario held a handkerchief over his nose in a
vain attempt to stifle the stench of both the burnt corpse and the young fireman's vomit.
Two more firemen came out of the stil
smoldering building, carrying a halfmelted, misshapen, white box: a smal apartment-sized refrigerator.
"Uh ... detectives? I think you should see this," one said.
They opened the little refrigerator; it was stuffed with meat that had cooked inside it during the blaze. It took a second for Montgomery to notice what it was that
had the two firemen so spooked. Then
he saw it.
"It looks like we've found the rest of the corpse," Volario said as he peered inside. Montgomery just stared without
saying a word.
"Who-who would do this? I mean ... why would someone, why would anyone do
something like this?" The fireman looked to be in his midforties, though he
obviously spent a lot of time in the gym and could have passed for a much
younger man if not for the worry lines in his face. He'd probably seen a lot out
here during his many years with the
SFFD, maybe even as many bodies as
the detectives had, but this was
completely beyond his experience. He
looked from one detective to the other, waiting for them to offer some
explanation. They stared back at him,
equal y perplexed.
Inside the little refrigerator was a liver and kidney, part of what appeared to be a loop of intestines, thick pieces of meat that could have come from the victim's
back and thighs ... and half of a human face that had been neatly cut away and
removed in one piece.
Chapter Twenty-five
The night was completely black except
for the occasional headlights from
passing cars or the glare of the
overhead streetlights tossing eerie
shadows across the wal s. Frank's limp
body bounced and rol ed beside her as
Alicia lay in the back of the van headed up the California coastline, taking the 101 North toward Tacoma, Washington.
She was thirsty, hungry, and scared. Joe was getting worse. He had come back
twice in the last couple of hours to take pieces of flesh from Frank's buttocks,
which he greedily stuffed into his mouth without waiting until he was at least in the front seat and out of her sight.
Again she'd watched as he masturbated
himself to orgasm while chewing on the
thick chunks of human flesh. The little man that he was feasting on ejaculated
as wel and Alicia thought she would
scream. This was completely insane.
The last time the van stopped Joe
crawled back into the van with them
again and cut off the wounded little
man's remaining testicle, which she
assumed he later consumed as wel ,
though grateful y he'd done so out of her sight. Her fel ow captive had not lost his erection during the entire procedure and Alicia was certain that he would have
ejaculated again had he stil had his
testes. His screams of pain were
horrific, even more so for their similarity to ecstasy.
Frank was stil leaking blood from his
many wounds despite Joe's attempt to
cauterize the deep cuts with a Bic lighter. The flesh had curdled and blackened
and Frank had yel ed his vocal chords
raw while Joe held the flame to the
masochist's ransacked scrotum. The
screams had loosened the tape that Joe
had clamped over his mouth and Joe
had not replaced it before climbing back into the driver's seat and starting the engine. The slender little man drifted in and out of consciousness, mumbling to
himself as they drove along the freeway. Alicia kept reminding herself that
eventual y they would have to stop for
gas and then she would have her chance
to escape, though the restraints stil
presented a problem.
The van turned sharply and began to
bounce along what was apparently an
unpaved road. Alicia was sure that they were on some type of dirt trail. She and Frank accumulated more bumps and
bruises as they were tossed around in
the back of the van. Frank began to
mumble to himself again, delirious with pain. Alicia listened for a moment to his incoherent ramblings. At first it just
seemed to be random words thrown out
in no discernable order. Then she began to make sense of what he was saying.
"...Cut cleanly and swiftly. Remove from the chest as quickly as ... For the best taste it should stil be beating ... when seasoning is added ... Bay leaves, three garlic cloves, one whole onion ... one
beef bul ion cube, cook on a low ...
twenty minutes ..."
Alicia scampered away from him when
she realized that he was reciting a
recipe; a recipe for a soup made from a human heart. She hummed to herself to
drown out the sound of Frank's ranting
and tried to keep track of how long they had been driving off-road. When the van final y rol ed to a halt there were no
sounds from other cars. No gas pump
noises or sounds of pedestrian foot
traffic like you would expect to hear at a rest stop. There was only the sound of
crickets chirping to their mates in the distance.
Alicia heard the van shut off and the
driver's-side door slam. Joe was coming back again.
The van door opened and Joe reached
in and scooped Frank up like a sack of
dirty laundry. The terrified little man was mumbling about roasted thighs in garlic butter when Joe tossed him over his
shoulder and reached a hand out for
Alicia. Alicia wanted to tel Frank to shut up, not to give their captor any ideas. She'd seen that glazed look in Joe's
eyes often enough to know that it
preceded violence. She looked beyond
the big man and saw that they were
parked in a dark, heavily wooded area.
The ful moon shone overhead like an
omen. A werewolf's moon. There was not
another human being in sight. No one to hear them scream.
Alicia shook her head defiantly when
Joe motioned for her to take his hand.
Then she began to cry.
Something in Joe's eyes softened as he
watched the terrified woman sobbing in
the dark. She was so beautiful.
Something innocent remained
untouched within her. Something that her long procession of lovers had not
despoiled. Something that even Joe
could not corrupt. It humbled him. It was like looking at the face of an angel. He felt like a vicious savage ripping and
tearing through the Garden of Eden in
pursuit of Eve.
Joe's own face cracked with sorrow and
confusion. He withdrew his hand and ran it over his forehead and through his hair. He didn't know exactly what he was
about to do, but the monster was roaring and snarling within him, and he was
certain that at least one of his captives would not survive a trip into the woods with him. His eyes darted around as he
tried to make up his mind what to do. His eyelids shut and Joe let out a long slow breath, composing himself. When he
opened them he looked right into Alicia's watery eyes. The monster was quiet now. Now it was just Joseph Miles, looking at the pain and fear of another human
being. He tossed Frank back into the
van and slammed the door shut.
Chapter Twenty-six
The van stopped again and Alicia could
hear Joe step out of the driver's-side
door and shut it behind him. She listened to his shoes crunch the dirt as he walked toward the back of the van. She could
stil hear the sounds of traffic and when he opened it she could see that they
were parked in the breakdown lane
along the freeway. Joe climbed into the van and she and Frank both tried to
wriggle away from him. Joe's forehead
wrinkled and his eyebrows knitted
together. He looked as if it hurt him that they were frightened of him.
"I know how you feel. I didn't realize it
"I know how you feel. I didn't realize it before, but this looks just like the van that Trent stuffed me into when he kidnapped me. Even in midday it was dark back
there. I can only imagine what it must be like at night." He could barely look at her. He reached out and removed the gag
from Alicia's mouth. "I'm sorry about al this."
"Joe, you have to stop this. You need help. Look at what you've done to this
poor man-and that woman. That woman
that you ... you ate!" Alicia shuddered.
"I'm trying to get help. You have to believe me. If I had a choice I wouldn't be doing any of this but I have this curse, this disease! It's driving me crazy! I just don't know what to do!" His eyes
searched hers as if he would find the
answers within them.
"So you're just going to give in to it?
You're going to eat him too-and then
what about me? Joe, what if there is no miracle cure out there? What if you kil this Damon Trent guy and the hunger
doesn't get any less?"
"I can't think about that."
"You need to think about it! You need to learn to fight it or you'l just keep kil ing until they catch you and lock you away or kil you!"
Joe leaned back against one wal of the van, deep in thought. He reached out
and stroked Alicia's face.
"You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. You know that?"
"I don't believe you and I don't think it matters."
Joe reeled back with his eyes wide,
visibly stricken by Alicia's harsh words.
"Wel , if you weren't so beautiful I would have eaten you already. Believe that!" Now it was Alicia's turn to recoil. She stared at the huge man with the
superhero face and was surprised to
see him grin back at her and wink.
Suddenly she began to laugh. The
absurdity of a serial kil er who'd just eaten one woman and partial y
cannibalized the man she'd been riding
with for the last few hours, joking about her own probable murder, was the most
ridiculous thing she could imagine. Even as she laughed the tears flowed without relent. Joe reached out and wiped the
tears from Alicia's eyes as he continued to stare at her like an object of worship. Alicia smiled back even as fresh tears
ran down her face.
"I hope I'm more than just a pretty face to you? That's not enough to sustain a
relationship you know. I mean ... you
hardly know me," she said. Her voice stil shook with fear, but she was trying to
remain in control.
"I know that you've been hurt too," Joe said. "I could see it in your eyes from the moment I met you. You're one of the
walking wounded just like me. But you've overcome it. You're a fighter. Even in this situation you're holding up pretty wel . That alone tel s me that you've been
through a lot of pain in your life."
"Nothing like this," she said.
"Then like what?"
Alicia went silent.
"Tel me." He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips where he kissed them softly. She began to cry harder now. Her body shook with the force of it. Joe gathered her into his arms and held her.
"Tel me."
"I seduced my father and ... he-he kil ed himself. He shot himself in the head and it was my fault! I'm a fucking whore just like he said I was! I kil ed my own father!" Joe didn't try to pretend to know what
she was feeling now or what had
motivated her to have sex with her father. He knew that he could never understand
what had made her do such a thing any
more than she could understand what
made him hunger for human meat.
Instead he continued to hug and rock her in his arms.
"I forgive you," he said as he cradled her against his chest. "I forgive you." Joe cried with her as he held her tight against him.
Women were so beautiful when they
were sad. Her tears glistened on her
cheeks like a string of diamonds as the moonlight beamed through the
windshield onto her face. It broke Joe's heart. He leaned down and kissed her
dampened skin, licking the salty tears
from her eyelashes.
She pul ed away from him and wiped her
eyes with the back of her hand. She
looked up at her captor expecting to see that homicidal lust she'd come to know
al too wel , but instead she saw a
shocking paternal tenderness. His eyes
reflected her own sadness back at her
as if her pain had wounded him. It was a depth of compassion she would have
never expected in such a beautiful
monster.
"I forgive you too," she said and surprised herself by meaning it. She
knew what Stockholm syndrome was.
She'd heard of victims who'd begun to
identify with their kidnappers, even
fal ing in love with them, and knew that this was exactly what she was doing, but she didn't care. She was fal ing in love with a cannibal, a kidnapper, and a kil er and it was the most loved she'd ever felt. Whether the look in his eyes was love,
lust, or just hunger, no one had ever
looked at her that way before, with such passion and desire. No one had ever
needed her like that. She leaned forward and kissed him and once again they