said to the empty room, his now-distant reflection winking at him in the dark created by the closed drapes. “The bastard thing's got me on a scavenger hunt for immortality.”
“ I've told you, Grant. I'm not seeking immortality for you or for me,” Phillip replied.
“ What then? What do you want?”
The man in the mirror across the room shook his head as if disappointed in Grant. “The cortex is equipotential…” he said.
“ What do you mean?” asked Grant.
“ Capable of learning and operating under unique and unforeseen-often unimaginable-circumstances doubling and quadrupling its capacity for memory and storage. Don't you see? Anything can happen.”
“ It-you learn exponentially?”
“ Every new generation is evidence of this. There is no end to the wisdom to be gained when we finally locate the perimeters of-”
“ Stop it! Stop it! Enough! Goddamn you.”
“- perimeters of the mind in this inner solar system.”
At what price? Dr. Grant Kenyon asked himself, silence filling him. But his brain had to have the last word. “At any price, Doctor… at any price.”
Kenyon knew only that there was one merciful element to his bloodletting and cannibalizing of brains. He had no conscious memory of it, only what the other within him wished to tell him; he had to be informed of it after the fact, like an amnesia patient after a train wreck. He was aware of planning it, even executing the initial phases of abduction, but the actual murder? The taking of the victim's brain? No, he had no conscious memory of killing young women for what Phillip prized. Perhaps, he reasoned, this partition his mind had created between his victim and himself was the only way he could accomplish the task. Still, Phillip made sure that Grant always heard about it. His brain told him about it afterward like a story read to him from a book.
Grant knew he had killed three times now; Phillip had relayed the details in unfailing and excruciating minutia- every detail. But his mind did not replay these details in the ordinary sense of memories. He got no visual images other than what he imagined after hearing it rendered in words. Only then could he feel, hear, smell, taste and see the “pictured” killings and feedings.
At first he could not be made to believe the images real; not part of his memory. Yet, it was real-the simultaneous attack on all his senses proved it so. It had in fact happened; he had to believe his brain was telling the truth. After all, his brain must know, and it was the only explanation for the dried gray crumbs of brain matter he had found in his van alongside the bloodied tools he remembered gathering up for Phillip. At times he would stop long enough to clean his tools and the rear of his van. He'd left nothing behind at his home in Holyoke, New Jersey, nothing but Emily and the baby, Hildy. Once Phillip had killed their first victim in Richmond, Grant had not dared go back home. Instead, he'd gone to a gun show and he'd purchased a shotgun and a. 38 snub-nosed Smith amp; Wesson.
The first killing in Richmond signaled the end of one life, and the beginning of his new existence. He had taken that first life, had taken the prize and run away. Knowing that Phillip would never be satisfied with only one such meal, he knew he had to at least protect his family by putting distance between Phillip and them.
Wishing to rest his mind, he clicked on the television and Oprah gave way to the local Jacksonville station, an advertisement for a local watering hole called The Stacked Deck where the young could find gaiety in the pounding music overlooking the ocean. Phillip insisted that Grant write the name of the place and the address down. They'd go hunting tonight. Last night, before settling in, they had scoured the area for a safe dumping ground for Phillip's third victim. After locating an abandoned place along the St. John's River, they had scoured the bus station for a victim without result. Prior to that, they had scouted out the local library where Phillip insisted on checking Cahil's website to see if he'd received the strip of brain matter Phillip'd sent to his mentor-to prove there was nothing like the real thing and to implicate Cahil should a time come when he needed a scapegoat “Time we roll, boy.” Phillip's order spiraled through his brain. “Enough wasted time.”
Grant stood and stuffed his pockets with his keys, wallet and loose change. From the door, he looked back at the mirror and, from the angle at which he stood, there was no one in the mirror.
Outside, Grant and Phillip found the waiting van rigged with all that they needed to subdue and gut a victim of her brain. They drove away from the Jax-Town Motel and into the Jacksonville night.
Public library, Fayetteville, North Carolina July 5, 2003
The keystroke took her to the Internet, and from there she typed in the website address and opened it. She began her much-needed transfusion of knowledge-information on the inner workings of the human mind. It was a subject that held a never-ending fascination for Juliet Sims. Besides, she had met many weird and wacky people in the chat rooms to discuss the “ultimate” subject-how the mind worked. One of them, she had set up a date with. He was on his way to Florida, he had said, and could stop over in Fayetteville, to meet her, if she liked. The meet had been arranged. She'd planned to sneak out because it was late, and she had to rely on a Greyhound Bus to get her to downtown Fayetteville from home, and it all would have worked out if her father hadn't caught her. She was embarrassed now and somewhat fearful of contacting her computer pal to let him know what had happened. She had stewed for a few days now, trying to come up with a better reason than the truth. She had concocted a story about a lightning strike and a flood at the house, but it could be checked. Then she came up with a story about how her parents abused her and sometimes when they got real angry, they'd lock her to a bedpost in the attic. Yeah, that would work. She logged on to the Isle of Brain site.
Chicago Public Library, North Ravenswood Branch Same time
Mark Alex Ziotrope had gone to the search engine and keyed in the words “brain” and “mind.” His screen immediately filled with possible trails to follow. He'd been given an assignment by Dr. Stephens to locate and report on some unusual facet of the mind-body relationship. It was punishment for having missed an exam because of basketball, an away game. He loosened his tight jeans at the belt, unbuttoned them and eased off on the fly, breathing a little easier. He had come back to this assignment several times now, and each time he found it excruciatingly boring. He had pleaded with crotchety old Stephens to allow him another area of inquiry, but the old professor would not hear of it. So here he was. He chose a selection entitled “Origins of the Brain and Nervous System.” His screen filled with an encyclopedic tale that read:
As the central part of the nervous system, the brain is the most highly organized substance on Earth. Lying within the protective helmet of bone, it is distinct from the body, which is built in vertebral fashion-soft tissue covering a bone structure. The head is built in crustacean fashion- bone covering soft tissue, like a crab. Some have called the human brain the giant crab.
“ Hmmm… like old Doc Stephens himself,” Mark muttered. He put the stuff about its being like a crab in his notes, along with the line about its being the most heavily ordered stuff on Earth. He read on:
The brain consists of the forebrain or cerebrum, the inter-brain or thalamus and the hypothalamus, the midbrain, consisting of the brain stem, that is medulla and pons, and the hindbrain or cerebellum.
Beyond bored out of his mind, Mark decided to bail and locate another site. When the new list came up, he skimmed it and liked the one called Isle of Brain. He'd hit on it before, and he found it a lot less stuffy and pretentious-and a lot more readable. The Webmaster was an ex con who'd managed to get himself released from a facility for the criminally insane. Mark thought that was cool. Not even Manson could get himself released from prison. This dude had to be sharp.
The site was far less scientific, far more philosophical and speculative, and Dr. Stephens had wanted something unusual, not generally known about the brain in the report. The Isle site was unusual, its master believing that the brain was altogether a separate dimension in which lived the cosmic mind.
Reacquainting himself with the site, Mark went to the welcome page to get the vital information-Mr. Cahil's full name and the name of the prison he had spent almost twelve years in. Cahil had begun the site while in the Pennsylvania Federal Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane, yet here he was on the outside and running a website. Cahil, convicted of a string of ghoulish grave robberies in Newark and in Morristown, New Jersey, between 1989 and 1990, openly talked about this fact and his crime-grave robbing for the brains of children, and in particular one strip of tissue in the brains that he fed on, believing it gave him some sort of eternal life and put him in touch with the “cosmic mind.”
“ This ought to rock Stephens. This is my report,” Mark said aloud, drawing the attention of a librarian who
