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The killer actually lowered hih the roof h his thin T-shirt He was trying tofor Ji The roof now met him at mid-torso He turned sideways on the ladder and ja hiun and so the recoil would not knock hiuy on the roof didn’t have a sixth sense, then he was just dalanced back over his shoulder and spotted hiun around
The killer flung hi in a shot, Jiht and juround hard but kept his balance stepped around the corner of the motor home, and squeezed off one round But the creep was already bolting through the side door At worst, he caught a few pellets in one leg Probably not even that
He was going after the wohter them before he was cut down hiabond sociopath, roa lists of victi sexual release as much frouished voice of the dying hter
With no tireater than his fear, he raced after the killer, through the door, into the Road king, entering aft of the cockpit His sun-dazzled eyes couldn’t handle the coloom of the motor home’s interior, but he was able to see the psychotic sonofabitch heading toward the rear of the alley
A shadowy figure noith just a dark oval for a face, the killer turned and fired The slug tore a chunk out of a wall-hung storage cabinet to the left of Ji particle board
He didn’t knohere the woun wasn’t a precise weapon
The killer fired again The second bullet passed so close to Ji-hot wind, like a kiss of fire burning across his right cheek
He pumped out one round, and the blast shook the tinny walls The killer screaain, reflexively, half deafened by the double explosion The guy was virtually lifted off his feet, hurled backward, slaainst the rear wall, beside a closed door that separated thea couple of shells froazine, Ji sofa
He knew the h to be certain of anything Though shafts of the Mojave sun shoved in like hot branding irons through the windshield and the open doors, the heavily draped side s insured that the rear of the Road king was filled with shadows, and there was a thin acrid haze of sunfire
When he reached the end of the narrow chamber and looked down, he had no doubt that the e Garbage alive, now garbage dead
At the sight of the torn and battered corpse, a savage elation grip hihtening He wanted to be sickened by what he had done, even if the dead e nauseated him, he was not merely repulsed He had encountered purest evil in human form
Both the bastards deserved worse than he had been able to do to the,on the edge of a psychosis of his own, knew that only the insane were unreservedly certain of the virtue of even their eous act but he could find no doubt within hier swelled as if he were God’s avatar into whohty apocalyptic wrath
He turned to the closed door
The bedroom lay beyond
The mother and child had to be in there
LisaSusie
But who else? Sociopathic killers usually operated alone, but soer alliances, however, were rare
Charles Manson and his "family," of course There were other exa out, not in a world where the trendiest professors of philosophy taught that ethics were always situational and that everyone’s point of vieas equally right and valuable, regardless of its logic or hate It was a world that bred ht be hydra-headed He knew caution was called for, but the exhilarating righteous wrath that filled hiave him a sense of invulnerability He stepped to the bedrooht be gut-shot, not giving a daun in front of him, ready to kill or be killed
The woman and child were alone On the filthy bed Bound at wrists and ankles with sturdy strapping tape Tape across their mouths
The woman, Lisa, was about thirty, slihter, Susie, was remarkably more beautiful than her mother ethereally beautiful: about ten years old, with lureen eyes, delicate features, and skin as flawless as the irl seeoodness, and purity-an angel cast down into a cesspool Neer infored in the bedroom squalor
Tears streamed down the child’s face, and she choked on muffled sobs of terror behind the tape that sealed her lips
The rief and fear haunted her eyes Her sense of responsibility to her daughter and a visible rage not unlike Ji over the brink of hysteria
He realized they were afraid of hiue with the ainst the built-in dresser, he said, "It’s all right It’s over now I killed them I killed the
He didn’t blae: full of fury, cracking on every third or fourth word, treain
He looked around for so tape and a pair of scissors lay on the dresser
Grabbing the scissors, he noticed X-rated videotapes also stacked on there Suddenly he realized that the walls and ceiling of the sraphs torn froazines, and with a jolt he saas filth with a twisted difference: child pornography There were grown men in the photos, their faces always concealed, but there were no groo as Susie, inable
The men he had killed would have used the mother only briefly, would have raped and tortured and broken her only as an example to the child
Then they would have cut her throat or blown her brains out on so her body for the delectation of lizards and ants and vultures It was the child they really wanted, and for who hell
His anger e, far beyond wrath A terrible darkness rose inside of hi up from a wellhead
He was furious that the child had seen those photographs, had been forced to lie in those stained and foul-s bedclothes with unspeakable obscenity on every side of her He had the crazy urge to pick up the shotgun and empty a few more rounds into each of the dead men
They had not touched her Thank God for that They hadn’t had time to touch her
But the roo in that roo, too
After a e, like his but of fear Fear of him She was terrified of hilad there was no ht now there rip on hiain
"I caer to free them, anxious to quiet their terror, he dropped to his knees beside the bed and cut the tape that ound around the woman’s ankles, tore it away He snipped the tape around her wrists, as well, then left her to finish freeing herself When he cut the bindings froed herself defensively When he freed her ankles, she kicked at hiray and mottled sheets He didn’t reach for her, but backed instead
Lisa peeled the tape off her lips and pulled a rag out of herShe spoke in a raspy voice that was soned: "My husband, back at the car, , unable to put such bleak news in words in front of the child