Once in a killing field where he had gone alone he had discovered one of the major tunnel complexes. First he had found the entrance, a tiny spider hole that he couldn't get more than his leg through, and then some sixth sense led him to the blue feature that ran two hundred meters to the north and he had removed his ruck and shirt and pants and gone in the cold water, diving down with his blade and chain, a waterproof flashlight tied to him, diving down looking for the other hole.
He found the exit on his third dive. He was a powerful swimmer and could easily hold his breath over two minutes, and he feared nothing. He knew Charlie loved to dig down next to blue and make a slanting escape tunnel that would exit out below the water table. Depending upon the season of the year they could be impossible to detect. But inside the tunnel complexes there were traps, blind alleys, secret passageways that only the little people could squeeze through. He found the exit but he could see there was no way he'd be able to cram his bulk through the tiny exit hole. But it was here that he devised the beginnings of his plan.
Yet it was not until he had escaped their efforts to terminate the spike team and destroy him, escaped back to a warm, green place where he licked his wounds and by the sheer effort of his will brought himself back up out of the pit of raving lunacy that still reached up to claw at him, it was not until then that he began to transfer the dream to paper. The plan didn't totally crystallize until he'd finally reached the comparative safety of the mainland "back in the world" and was roaming, killing again as before.
He had been inside the car for a long time and it was cold and noisy in the foulness of the car, but his thoughts were elsewhere. For long hours he'd daydreamed of the woman he had killed and the amazing and stunning luck of the draw in choosing her. She had proved an incredible, rich, spectacular choice, a truly beautiful woman whom he had been able to keep alive for many hours as he took her down into his hellish horror of unspeakable filth and terror and then killed her with delicious restraint.
Cody Chase was her name. He whispered it to himself inside the darkness of his pyschopathia. Cody . . Chase. Imagine someone being named that. A bright, animated, physically breathtaking young palomino who thought for so long that she could outthink him, outrun him, outguess him, outfox him, outsmart him, outwait him, and then as it went on perhaps just outfuck him, outsuck him, outbeg him, outcry him, outbleed him, and then—she'd finally run out of outs. And that was when his pleasures began. When he could look into those dazzling blue soul reflections and see them turn tombstone gray with fear and know that she was now vulnerable to him the way he wanted. She at last realized that there was no exit. And in her vital, strong, willful abandoning of that last hope he let her rally then and began playing with her, teasing, showing her some of the first, simplest steps in the sometimes stately sometimes frenetic always awesome last dance of death.
He fantasized about another Cody Chase and the refinements of what he now practiced as an art form, nuances and embellishments, small improvements, little tricks to make the next bitch's hell all the more depraved, the more unendurable. Cody . . . Chase the outrageous untouchable bodacious temerity of the cunt to have a name of such lithe, sensual, elitist elegance and to flaunt herself in front of this great, fat, waddling blimp so far beneath her station in life, this disenfranchised, disgusting slob of a wretch who actually had the gall to breathe the same upper-class air as she. Cody fucking Chase in her Neiman's haute whatever, bathing him in fashionable scents and promises flirting with him simply by her bold and undisciplined movements taunting him with her long, shaggy, impeccably coiffed blondness, enraging him with her waspish, tight-pussied, high-assed, firm-breasted, long-necked, slim-legged, pampered, fastidious, God God dammmmmmmmmake her crawl make that bitch eat the foulest shit hurt hurt hhhhhrrrrrrrrrtttttt her and then kill her slow easy slow easy make it lassssssstttttttt ohhhhhhhhh the white-hot waves were coming now and he must be very careful.
The words echo around inside that snake pit of a mind. Cody . . . Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssse . . . . sibilant and snaky slithering syllables sliding around the twisted corners and crashing on the rocks. To find her like that and as always to move her to motivate her so easily the ultimate ego stroke to a monster man like him to gently cover her in a blanket of confidence masquerade and lies to play with the bitch that way proving himself that way simply turning her head around and then turning her again leading her so easily, she was so sure he was one thing and she was so maneuverable as he put her in exactly the position he wanted all the time making the cunt think it was her decision, selling her, closing the deal, getting the slut's name right there on the dotted line. And then taking her as he had planned from the first.
He could hardly breathe at the thought of it. The excitement of the kill had got him hot again as he relived it for the third, fourth time, remembering every tiny detail, running it back, playing it over again in his thoughts.
"Why would anybody get in a car with somebody like that?" he'd once heard some ignorant ass ask during an imbecilic television program that never even began to touch on the real guts of the mass-murder phenomenon. "Who would get in a stranger's car?" some nitwit had asked. Why, YOU would. ANY- BODY would, you dumb, arrogant, insipid ignoramus. If the right strings are pulled, anybody will do anything. If a more powerful mind, a masterful and dominant intelligence, decides you will do something, you will accede to the wishes of the greater being. Because you are SHEEP.
No one had ever refused him. If he wanted to convince you that the sky was orange instead of blue, he would simply first put on his orange sky coat. He could pull on a characterization, a personality, a facade, the way you pull on your clothes. It is something any good actor can do. You can see the difference between genuine acting and reacting very simply: just turn down the volume on your TV Set and watch the players. Most of them are unconvincing without the dialogue and a supportive story line to propel them. You have no sense of who or what they are. But the good ones—that's another thing. And they can even do more than react. They can act—alone—in a vacuum.
A true actor, a good one, pulls on a character and motivates that persona from an inner wellspring of some kind. And the reality of their own lives may be used in whatever the outlandish personality they are adopting for the moment. You can see the difference in the convincing sureness of the portrayal. He had the actor's skills, but learned the hard way, learned as survival tools as a baby, learned in dark, stifling, deadly places frightened out of his mind, learned so that he would please, and so that he would survive another tortured day. He is a chameleon when it suits him to change outwardly.
So you first see the same great, huge, waddling, terrifying bulk but not the same at all because this creature means you no harm,—au contraire, he is a friendly, lovable, jolly fat man of great need and somehow has had the luck and taste to know that you of all God's critters out there in the swim this day, that you alone can help him in his dilemma or need. And all of this before a word is spoken. All of this in the posture, the diffident stance, the crinkled, dimpling smile, the radiant and puffy Pillsbury Doughboy cheeks all full of innocent, gigantic, Santa-caring and tenderness, or reflecting wonderment, confusion, loss, opportunity, the marketing need of that second's sales pitch.
And then the words come. A river of noise a flood of information a rushing inundation of data a damn ocean of input that you are suddenly awash in, all this raw verbiage lapping at the shores of your mind, saturating your thoughts, a tidal wave of talk assails you and the actor is never off the mark with the words. First the word. The word is always right, apt, mesmerizing, in character, convincing, captivating, so flattering to you, custom-designed to lull you, stimulate you, make you forget the simple reality of this frightening specter suddenly inserting itself into your life, always reasoned, impenetrable in its logic, unwavering, so certain that you will respond like so, and perhaps a gentle physical pat from this behemoth, guiding you, nudging you, HANDLING you as the stream of words hits you and you drown in the linguistic undertow of this powerful and evil intellect.