Slice

elusive phrase or word that's right on the tip of the tongue but refuses to hop out. He sensed that he was trying too hard and he relaxed.

Despite Dana's crudity there was a blackly laughable aspect to the formality of burying their dear friend's skimpy remains. The family had wanted a service of this type, which had surprised everybody, but Jimmie had made his fear of cremation well-known and they all understood the desire to pay tribute to a loved one, bizarre as the circumstances were.

The brief service began but Jack heard not a word of it. He was standing facing the woods trying to keep his mind in neutral, trying not to think of anything, and it came to him in that relaxed state: a dark shape sensed more than seen, a flash of light off something metallic perhaps, a discarded can, or just a trick of the weather. He'd spotted it as he and Dana had run for the umbrellas.

It came back to him the way a lost object can be found by retracing one's steps. He'd relaxed, taken his brain out of gear, and allowed the current of information and thought to pour over him. It was in the killer's frighteningly brilliant MO. He had studied it the way a kid studies his catechism—religiously, doggedly, committing it to memory, taking it to heart and soul. In that flash of light he saw the deeper reality. He KNEW that the man he wanted was out there in the woods somewhere watching and the knowledge of it fell across the back of his neck like that cold, itchy feeling he got when somebody was pointing a gun at him. He sensed the cross hairs, the foul breath, the pig eyes squinting through a high-power scope. It matched everything in Bunkowski's package: the precognate's unique vision, the killer's genius IQ, his coldly logical ability to analyze. It was absurd of them to think he would have fallen for a lame ruse like the airport theatrical. He would have found it child's play to stay a jump ahead of them as he always had.

Someone had mumbled to him.

He turned and said to Dana, “Huh?'

“What?'

“I asked you what you said.'

Chunk looked at him as he turned and replied, “I didn't say anything.” They were whispering back and forth as a man who hadn't known Jimmie spoke profound but profoundly meaningless words. Eichord realized that he was afraid, and he shivered again, chilled to the bone.

This would be the perfect place for Chaingang to nail the cop he hated, to scope him down with a rifle from those dense woods, beyond the protecting umbrellas and the federal marshals. The knowledge of this filled Eichord with a fiery hatred that suffused his face, leaving his cheeks flushed scarlet, and he could no longer contain the rage. A scream of defiant pain escaped. A howl of anger and sadness and loathing for the madman who had snuffed his treasured friend. A marshal started after him as he ran from the graveside into the nearby woods, dropping his umbrella, but Dana stopped the man, tears mixing with the rain on his face. “Let him be alone with his grief,” he told the officer, thinking Jack had screamed from anguish at the loss of Jimmie, and the marshal allowed himself to be turned away and led back to the service.

Eichord plunged headlong through the woods, the crazy amputation of a shotgun clutched in a death grip as he tore his best suit on things that reached out to snag him, and sunk his best shoes into the mud, and as he reached the center of the dense woods, he stopped and held his face up to the rain and shook himself like a black Labrador who had just jumped out of a lake.

“What a maniac. Dumb piece of shit,” he cursed himself aloud as he slogged on through the woods. That was really brilliant. Ruin the services for everybody else so he could play Hairbreadth Harry. Dumb fuck. He was freezing in this rain, but he didn't turn around. He had to satisfy his curiosity now that he'd made a total moron out of himself and he kept on going, drenched to the skin as the heavy downpour intensified.

Then he saw the car backed into the little opening between some trees on the other side of the wooded area and he started running for it, but he was too wary to get trapped and he stopped. Waited. Listened. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up just the way they had earlier. He knew somebody had a weapon on him. He stood motionless. He couldn't hear anything for the fucking rain and there was no movement. Only the empty car.

“Hey,” he said loudly, just to hear his own voice, and it sounded wet and hollow, the word swallowed by the rain and the trees.

“I know you're here,” he said, feeling like a fool. Nothing. No answer. No gunshot. He took a deep, shuddering breath, letting it pour out of him like a chain-smoker, trembling not just from the cold damp day, and he took a few slow and cautious steps as he moved around the car.

“COME ON YOU FAT YELLOW SHIT,” he shouted into the rain. Not caring how ridiculous he looked or who heard him. He felt a momentary pain in the vicinity of his heart. Gas. A little morning heartburn from all the anxiety and the aggravation. No response. He allowed himself to cast his eyes downward, looking for the huge, fifteen quintuple-E footprints of the monster's feet in the muddy earth. Nothing. No sign of anything but Eichord, and the empty car.

He moved closer to the side of the vehicle. The water-soaked cardboard box that held his sawed-off shotgun was collapsing in his hand. The outline of the gun felt hard and dangerous in his grip. There was no movement. No noise. No sunlight to flash on metal this time. And he just stood there by the car, wondering for a second or two if he'd given in to professional paranoia. This could be somebody who had car trouble and left their...

And in midthought the thing was on him, roaring, crashing out of the woods on its tree-trunk legs, huge and powerful and blindingly terrifying as it charged out at him with something in its hand. Eichord saw it just as he had leaned over toward the car and spotted the little newborn baby in the seat. The thing in his hand flashing again suddenly, as the lightning cracked down around them close by in the dark woods, and he saw metal, and the enormous thing was coming at him, but he jerked the car door open with one hand pulling the baby out roughly holding the sawed-off Master Disaster Blaster to the baby's infant head on instinct, screaming, “ONE MORE FOOT YOU UGLY SHIT!” Not even knowing why he did it. Why not just shoot the sonofabitch? Shoot the man charging toward you this beast that will not stay dead. But his brain was at some level analyzing that thought and telling him. Hey, no way. Too far. A shotgun, especially a hacksawed shorty, has no carrying power. This guy is like an elephant. You've got to let him get close and make sure this time.

“PUT IT DOWN,” that bass voice growled.

“ONE MORE FOOT THIS BABY IS DEAD!'

“I'll RIP YOUR HEART OUT,” he bellowed back at Eichord, but the thing stopped in his tracks.

“JUST ANOTHER FOOT YOU SHIT! I'll BLOW THE HEAD OFF THIS BABY!” What if he didn't care? Then he'd shoot the son of a bitch. He didn't see a gun. No telescoped hunting rifle after all. Just that THING he carried. He jammed the twin death hurricanes against the infant's head. “I MEAN IT.'

“YOU CHICKENSHIT FILTH!'

“You want this baby splattered all over these woods? Listen to me goddammit I MEAN IT YOU COCKSUCKER STOP MOVING I WILL BLOW THE BABY TO BITS. YOU THINK I'M BLUFFING?” He screamed it with a cracking voice, scared out of his wits at this second, as much as anything because at that very instant he meant it. He would pull those triggers all right, but not with the gun aimed at the newborn. He'd blast Daniel Edward fucking Flowers Bunkowski out of his looney misery once and for all. Oh the sweet feel of those triggers and the power of the poisoned loads at his fingertips. He wanted to kill the son of a bitch. HE WANTED TO SHOOT HIM AND SEE THE MONSTROUS HEAD COME OFF AND ROLL INTO THE WOODS. HE WANTED...

“I'll KILL A THOUSAND OF YOU WORTHLESS SHITS IF YOU TOUCH A HAIR ON THAT BABY'S—'

“FUCK YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH, COME ON IF YOU THINK I'M BLUFFING I'll KILL THIS BRAT,” he said, spitting out the word, “and then I'll blow your crazy ass all over crea—'

“Listen to me, listen you arrogant garbage. Listen to what I'm—DON'T HURT THE—don't,” forcing himself to speak normally. “Would you trade your desire for revenge against me, the desire to see me suffer retribution which you think I have coming, if it would spare the lives of many?” Moving slightly as he spoke, trying to get close enough to make a move.

“Come on you piece of shit. Keep coming. Get a little closer.'

“I thought about killing you for a long time. Making you pay for what you did to me. I missed. I killed your friend. So we're even.'

“Bullshit.'

“The score is tied.'