Praying for Sleep

They followed the dogs, still short-lined because of the traps, only three miles east before Hrubek broke away and turned north, onto a small dirt lane. A hundred feet away they found a filthy roadside diner, which looked bleaker yet because of the sloppily taped X’s on the windows.

Thinking that Hrubek might be inside, Fe

Heck and Fe

“A posse,” the waitress exclaimed, drops of viscous gravy falling from the tilting plate she held.

But, no, nobody here had seen Hrubek, even though to judge by Emil’s scenting he’d passed within feet of the window. Without an explanation, or a farewell, the men and the dogs vanished as quickly as they’d come. Emil picked up the scent once more and led them northeast along the dirt road.

Not two hundred yards from the diner they found the spot where Hrubek had taken to the fields. “Hold up,” Heck whispered. They stood beside a small grass-filled path-an access road for mowing tractors. The drive darkened as it passed through a dense stand of trees.

Fe

Fe

Heck was so excited to have found Hrubek that he forgot he was a civilian. He began communicating to Fe

“I’ll take over from here, you want,” Fe

The Boy, who with his fiery eyes and a big automatic in his fingers didn’t look so boyish anymore, circled around to the side, north of the trees, as Fe

The moaning grew louder. To a man, it chilled their hearts.

When Heck saw the truck-a long semi, parked cockeyed in the shadows-he felt a burst of queasiness, thinking that the moaning was not Hrubek at all but the driver, whom the madman had attacked and gutted. Perhaps he was listening to a sucking chest wound. He and Fe

Then Heck saw him, an indistinct shape not far away.

Michael Hrubek, so thick around the middle he seemed deformed.

Moaning like a moon-crazed dog.

He lay on the ground, trying to get up. Perhaps he’d fallen and hurt himself, or had been hit by the massive truck.

Maybe he’d heard the Labs and was feigning injury, waiting for his pursuers to get close.

Opposite Heck and Fe

10

“Freeze!”

“All right, don’t you move!”

For the love of Mary, Trenton Heck thought, his legs weakening in shock, what’s happening here?

The madman, lying on the ground in front of the three lawmen, was shrieking like a bluejay. He suddenly split clean in two, half of him leaping into the air, white as death.

What is going on here? Heck trained the flashlight on the part of the madman that remained on the ground-the part that was now grasping about for something to pull over her ample breasts.

“Shit, son of a bitch!” the man’s upper half shouted in an edgy tenor. “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

The Boy started laughing first then Fe

“Don’t hurt me,” the woman wailed.

“Son of a bitch,” the ski

In a Kentucky-mountain voice Charlie Fe

“Sooo-eee,” Heck called. “Here, piggy, piggy, piggy!”

The woman wailed again.

“Oh, shit…” The young man fumbled with his pants.

“Calm down now.” Fe

“That wasn’t fu

The woman had calmed in proportion to the amount of clothing she’d pulled on. “My idea? I’ll thank you not to make me sound cheap.”

“I didn’t want-”

“That’s your all’s business,” Fe

Heck too understood that this is what had happened and he was angry at himself for not thinking of it sooner. Hrubek had clung to the back bumper guard or loading platform of the truck. That was why the scent had been so weak, and why it had never wavered from the road.

“Jesus, that fellow at the truck stop in Watertown? The big guy? Oh, my everloving Lord!”

“You’re that truck driver?” Heck asked. “He asked you about going to Boston?”

“Shitabrick, maybe he’s still on the rig!”

But the Boy had already circled around and checked out the truck’s roof and undercarriage. “He’s not here, nope. And the back’s padlocked. He must’ve took off into the fields when the truck stopped.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the driver whispered reverently, “he’s a killer, ain’t he? Oh, Jesus, Jesus…”

The woman had started crying again. “This is the last time, I swear. Never again.”

Fe

“Fifteen minutes, I’d guess.”

“You love bu

“Nothing, not a single thing,” the driver said, eager to please.

“I didn’t hear anything either,” the woman replied, sniffling, “and I don’t like your, you know, attitude.”

“Uhn,” Fe

“Take her home? Forget about it.”

“You prick,” she snapped. “You damn well better.”

“I think you ought to do that, son,” Heck said.