was located in a commercial area that closed up at night and he never went there during the day. There were nothing but derelicts and drug addicts down there at night after al the businesses closed and they would not be inclined to speak to the police. That's why he had chosen it. He didn't have to worry about nosy neighbors. Stil, everyone knew he stayed at the library late almost every night and he was sure Emma had told others about the type of stuff he read. Besides that, he just hadn't done a very good job at concealing his sexual peculiarities.
No one knew for sure just what his malfunction was, but the general consensus was that the huge psychology student definitely wasn't quite right. His sexual deviancy shone like a beacon whenever he stepped into a room. In many cases it had worked for him, attracting women looking for a new thril, but now he was sure it would work against him once they found Emma's half-eaten corpse in the apartment next door to the one he was squatting in.
Everyone would point the finger at him. Before he left for his trip, he would meticulously wipe down everything in the little apartment and then burn the whole thing to the ground. Everything would be okay. By the time the cops sifted enough evidence from the ashes to connect him to the crime he would be long gone.
Joe started to whistle as he made his way across campus to his psychology class.
Chapter Eighteen
Everyone turned to look at him as Joe walked into the room. The cops had been there. He could tel. They had been asking questions about the librarian and his name had come up. That meant they would be back.
Joe slipped down into his seat and stared defiantly at the professor, waiting for him to begin his lecture. They had nothing on him, not yet anyway, so he stil had every right to be there. The professor stared back at him with an expression that was ful of questions and suspicion. His hand shook as he raised it to scrawl on the blackboard. it to scrawl on the blackboard.
The eyes of his fel ow students crawled over Joe's flesh. He imagined he could feel each of their curious stares like a legion of worms trying to wriggle their way into his mind to harvest his thoughts. It made him itch. He scratched the back of his neck as if to rake their stares from his skin. The professor kept looking back over his shoulder at him as he wrote on the chalkboard. Joe knew he had burned that bridge. It was obvious that everyone, including Professor
Locke, suspected him of having done something to the librarian. Professor
Locke had spent most of his career profiling and apprehending serial kil ers. If anyone could spot the monster in their midst it would be him. There was no way the professor would help him now.
'There have been many theories that have tried to link the compulsion to kil to brain abnormalities. There was once a theory that murderers possessed an extra Y chromosome. This was, of course, disproven. There have been theories that have sought to link early head trauma to violent criminal behavior. Neurologists have even presented CAT scans that actual y showed increased brain activity in the limbic region of violent sexual offenders and decreased activity in other areas of the brain. They have found that most signature sex murderers were themselves victims of physical or sexual abuse or at the very least mental y abused, but then there were others, like Ted Bundy, who had very normal and happy upbringings. And then there are, of course, people who have been abused, who have had brain traumas, and who have active limbic systems that don't grow up to murder strangers. So what makes them do it?' The professor turned to look directly at Joe.
'Are they just evil?' the professor asked. Joe raised his hand and he felt the students on either side of him flinch.
Professor Locke stared at Joe's rising arm then looked around the room as if seeking the class's approval before cal ing on him.
'Yes, Joseph?'
'Is it possible that it is an evolutionary mutation?'
'A what?'
'An evolutionary mutation, part of natural selection. Man is the only creature on the earth without a natural predator, except other men. Perhaps as our population explodes Mother Nature has felt the need to select certain individuals to act as population control. Perhaps giving them drives and instincts that other humans don't have, which genetical y predisposes them to mass murder-to cul the herd, so to speak. In the wild the weak and the helpless would have died off, kil ed by other animals, other predators, but civilization and our technological advancements have made for the possibility of even the weakest human beings surviving and flourishing. As a result, a world that was adequate to support smal tribes is now populated by nations of mil ions, smothering the earth and draining it of al its resources; kil ing it like a cancer. Just three hundred years ago there weren't even a bil ion people on the planet and now there are six bil ion. There are more people alive right now than have ever lived. Perhaps nature is just seeking a remedy for the plague. Isn't it possible that murderers are the natural antivirus?'
Joe didn't care about the stares and the whispers. After today he would have to get out of town. This would probably be his last opportunity to pick the professor's brain before the cops came knocking on his door.
'Wel, Joe, if what you suggest is true and signature kil ers are just men who are higher up the food chain than us, not a glitch but an advancement in the natural selection process, then there would be no hope to cure these individuals. There would be no need for the psychiatrist, only the policeman and the executioner.'
'Perhaps that's why no one has ever cured one,' Joe replied.
'I think I liked your virus idea better. At least that one contained a little hope.'
'Yeah, I liked it better too.' The class ended and Joe left the lecture hal and walked quickly to his sociology class. He scoured the campus for signs of police. They had no evidence that the woman was even dead, just that she was missing. Someone probably cal ed when she hadn't shown up for work and they couldn't get an answer at her apartment. He'd parked her car down in the projects at Hunter's Point and caught the bus back home. By the time they found it the car would probably be completely stripped and they would assume she'd been the victim of a carjacking. Except that half the fucking campus was probably tel ing the cops that Joe hung out at the library every night and he was sure a few of them had seen them at the coffee shop. If they somehow found his apartment they'd find the body. But by then he'd be in Seattlekil ing Damon
Trent.
Chapter Nineteen
Joe's sociology class seemed to be exploring darker and darker subjects.
His constant questions were certainly a major impetus behind the trend but he could not take sole responsibility for it. They'd begun by talking about Indian folklore and the subject of the Wendigo had come up.
'Both the Chippewa and Ojibwa tribes tel a similar story of a fierce warrior who would cut off a piece of his enemy's flesh after defeating him in battle and eat it to gain strength. This warrior soon developed a taste for human flesh and began to prey on his own tribe. He began to prey on his own tribe. He ceased to hunt animals and sustained himself solely on other humans. So the
Master Of Life, the Great Spirit, decreed that if he chose to live as a savage beast then he would forever appear as a monster and transformed him into the
Wendigo. Now he is said to prowl the forests and frozen wastelands of North
America, starving for human flesh.
'They say that anyone who commits the sin of cannibalism wil likewise be cursed with the spirit of the Wendigo, becoming a monster that must now eat other humans to survive.'
The students were silent as kids sitting around a campfire listening to a real y good ghost story. They seemed to be waiting for the traditional shock ending. Most of them were looking at Joe as if expecting him to suddenly grow hair and fangs.
'Once you become one of these monsters, how do you reverse it? Does it say how they're cured?' Joe asked. The professor shook his head in exasperation and sighed deeply.
