Grave Instinct

TWO

FBI Headquarters, Quantico, Virginia The following day

It feels like a war being staged, thought Dr. Jessica Coran, medical examiner for the FBI, and she was fearful of how long and hard this battle might be. For now the human frenetic energy from activity and tension in the hallways as people made their way to the debriefing room rang like free-flowing electrical current. Everyone sensed something big was on the horizon, but so far only a handful of people knew precisely what that big item might be. Jessica and Dr. John Thorpe, her closest associate at the lab, were among the select few on a hastily put together psychological profiling team to deal with two back-to-back killings, which might be a kill spree that ends abruptly or the beginning of a serial killer's career that spans years-like none Jessica had ever seen before. In these two mutilation murders, the attacker had used medical knowledge to literally open his victims from scalp to ears and across the forehead at the eyebrow line, creating a surgically precise window on the forebrain. From there the victims' brains had literally been ripped from them. Speculation ran rampant as to why.

Some conjectured that he turned the brains into mementos of the kills, preserving each and so reliving the crimes over and over. Others in the profiling group said that he might be drying them out, pounding them into a fine powder in order to smoke the brains. Still others thought he might be bathing in the awful prize of his murder, turning them to oil as an aphrodisiac to rub onto his body. No one knew for certain just what use the monster made of the gray matter, and thus far no connection had been made between his two victims other than they were both chosen to die in a hideous manner-the vault protecting their brains cut into while they were yet alive.

Together Jessica and J.T. made their way to the meeting called by Chief Eriq Santiva. Jessica and J.T. had seen the autopsy results on the two victims only in passing and only via paper and photos. They had been on standby to drop whatever they were doing and report to Quantico's D-30, the largest, state-of-the-art debriefing room in the building. They were to come with anything they had on the Anna Gleason and Miriam McCloud cases-two cases so striking in similarity, they were immediately linked to one offender. The brutal killer called to mind no one Jessica had ever dealt with in the past, for his ghoulish need proved as horrific as any brutality that she had encountered in her career as a medical examiner and FBI agent. This particular monster wanted only one thing of his victims-their brains.

He took nothing else from them… nothing but their lives.

J.T. stopped at a bay of coin-operated machines for a Snickers and a cup of coffee, complaining of the date he'd missed the night before. “Sandy's already got some hare brained notion that I'm seeing someone else. This is going to kill our relationship.”

Jessica frowned and shook her head. “I'm not so sure you two are a good match, anyway, John.”

John Thorpe, in wire-rim glasses, still retained his boyish features and a shock of hair habitually covered his forehead. “Whataya mean? Not right for each other?”

“ You're a scientist, she's a Presbyterian minister.”

“ So?”

“ Seems a bit unusual.”

“ She is that…”

Jessica asked him to get her a cup of black coffee as well, and then she hustled Thorpe onward. The two old friends and colleagues hurried for the arena-sized debriefing room.

“ You look as if you're going to church yourself,” he commented on her appearance. Jessica wore her auburn hair at shoulder length, complimenting her heart-shaped face and piercing hazel eyes. She had removed her lab coat to display her well-cut, gray-green suit.

“ You lij^” she replied. “I mifft look like hell in winter.”

“ Not at all…”

She had been busy on other pending cases when this bizarre case had surfaced. Santiva had the unit locked down in a room for hours the night before in an effort to come up with some ideas about the killer, to develop a profile, and to create a rudimentary victim profile as well. Eriq believed time was of the essence, that the killer would strike again, and after seeing the evidence photos, Jessica agreed. As a result, she hadn't gotten much sleep. Despite this, she wanted to look her best since this was a major case, and since the computer visual linkups went to every field office in the country.

Chief Eriq Santiva already gaveled the meeting to order and had quickly informed everyone why they'd assembled. “No expense will be spared to catch this butcher,” he said, fists clenched, as Jessica and J.T. entered and quietly found their seats alongside the podium.

Eriq frowned at them but kept talking. “Headquarters is insisting, people, that every state field office east of the Mississippi be here today in person.” This was met with some boisterous cheers. The Cuban-American Sandra now waved down the crowd and again spoke into the microphone, thanking everyone profusely for hustling to get to Quantico. “You'll notice,” he continued, “the distinct absence of reporters. This is not a briefing for the press, and I want a lid kept on this case. Nothing goes to the press unless it goes through me first. Any leaks, you deal with me!”

Everyone murmured approval over this.

“ I'm sure by now the rumor mill has given you some idea of the problem child we're here to talk about, ladies and gentlemen. This death in Richmond-” Eriq paused to focus on the slide photo of the victim in profile, the side of her head cleaned of blood by the medical man who’d autopsied her in Richmond, Virginia. Even cleaned, the gaping hole only hinted at the size of the entire hole left in this woman's head. Although this was a mere third of the wound, the black emptiness of it proved terrifying to stare at, but stare everyone did. The wholly unusual nature of the crime displayed on the large screen over Jessica's shoulder made the room gasp in a collective venting of horror. The next photo displayed the frontal shot of the victim, and her wound-a missing forehead and scalp where the skull had been splayed open across the frontal lobe area.

The collective gasp turned into a collective, disjointed moan, followed by chattering confusion. They had all heard of the case, heard that the victim's brain had been “stolen” from its cranial cradle, but here were numerous shots being shown of the cleaned opening for autopsy. No one had expected this precise an incision. A good portion of the agents in the room had looked for a messy, cracked skull with a huge chasm atop the cranium, the results of a brutal attack from overhead. Most had expected to see the results of a killer's having ripped and torn apart the crown in a passionate, insatiable animal fashion to get at the brain below. As Jessica, J.T. and the unit had learned the night before-and the reason she'd gotten no sleep-nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, what stared back at the assembled agents was a huge dark cavity where the victim's forehead and forebrain ought to be. The empty open skull was proof of a dispassionate, deliberate animal at work, a thinking animal.

“ And then in Winston-Salem-” continued Eriq, swallowing hard as another mechanical pulop signaled a new slide had rotated into the viewfinder and was now projected against the screening wall. It proved a slide of such similarity that many took it to be the same victim now held in time against the large screen, her eyes mercifully closed, looking for all the world to be in an angelic repose if not for the satanic wound above the eyes-a rearview-mirror-sized hole in the head.

For a moment, even Jessica, where she turned in her seat to look over her shoulder, thought it the same victim, Anna Gleason. But no, this slide showed Miriam McCloud, victim number two. The ages were close and there were striking physical similarities in the two women; but it was the sameness of their wounds, like a fulcrum for the eyes, that drew the most attention.

The deaths had occurred within days of each other, and the authorities in North Carolina did not immediately know of the earlier such slaying in Richmond, Virginia. As a result, the two autopsies were done independent of the other. Only later did someone put the two cases together when a routine program on an FBI computer flagged them as being the same MO. Jessica knew when or if a third such body surfaced that she and J.T. wanted to autopsy the body themselves. Reading the entire case files on the first and second victims, viewing the autopsy photos and speaking with the doctors who had performed the autopsies, had all been heif^^ fill, but Jessica knew it was no substitute for firsthand knowledge.

Still, with the autopsy results in hand, she had spent many hours attempting to understand what kind of mind could conceive of such a crime. Trying to find reason in a mad hatter's reasoning. The two questions on everyone's mind remained: What is he doing with the brain matter; and why is he performing these deadly operations?

Behavioral psychologists in the Behavioral Science Unit working to profile the killer kept coming back to a simple case of brain cannibalism. She recalled the words of Dr. Linda Pearlman, a member of the team: “Everyone wants a ready answer to what the madman is doing with the gray matter. Everyone feels it must be for consumption, that this craving is an appetite for cranial matter. For now, since we reilly know nothing to the contrary, we're best served by simply agreeing with the common notion… at least until we learn otherwise.”

“ What does he hope to get from consuming the brains, if that is what he's doing with them?” J.T. asked Pearlman, who sat beside him.

Jessica stated, “For all we know, given what we see on the streets nowadays, he could be using them as dashboard ornaments.” “Throughout history, all cannibalistic tribes removed the heart and the brains of an enemy,” Pearlman replied, her glasses shimmering on the end of her nose.

“ But this guy's just into the brain.”

Pearlman put her glasses on the table, rubbed her eyes and added, “Cannibals fed on the heart, believing it the seat of courage, and the brain for its wisdom and power as a force within the fierce enemy derived from a divine source. In consuming these parts, the heart-eater and the brain-eater believes he can take oh the courage and wisdom of a fierce enemy and see into the invisible universal energy of a psychic cosmic mind that binds all matter as one.”

“ Here I always thought the cannibal saw the consumption of such parts as a gesture to affirm the life of the enemy, giving him renewed life inside the victor's own body and mind,” said J.T.

“ That's the common thinking.”

“ I know it's primitive thinking, but given our collective unconscious-that the memories of our eldest ancestors still reside in our genetic makeup)-well, it has a certain passionate power to it, doesn't it?” asked Jessica. “Kind of a quid pro quo?”

“ You could say that, yes. The two reasons do not necessarily negate one another-search for the universal mind and granting respect to one's enemies, or victims in this

“ A tough sell to the crowd,” said J.T.

Jessica believed that to put forth a formal stand on the killer's rationale so early in the investigation could harm the case more than help. Still, she had to convey to the assembled agents the majority opinion, and everyone had conceded that Dr. Pearlman's had made more sense than any of the other theories that had been put forth.

The open void of the massive but clearly surgical wound to Miriam McCloud's head had now brought on a deep silence that filled the room. All the agents present pondered the image and their individual response to it.

Santiva finally broke the silence. “I can't tell you how dangerous this… this brain-hunter is, people. And he is working Richmond, our backyard. We have to stop him before he strikes again, if he hasn't already done so. Both victims we know of were dumped in poorly secured watery graves, and found less than forty-eight hours after they were killed.”

“ This is so… so gross.” Someone moaned in response to the slide. Santiva meant to shock his audience.

“ Dr. Coran and Dr. Thorpe will fill you in on what we have so far,” said Santiva.

J.T. took the lead, championing Dr. Pearlman's notion for why the killer “stole and presumably consumed the quote 'enemy,' victim that is.”

Jessica took her cue from J.T. She pushed her seat back and stood to add, “What we have so far, unfortunately, amounts to very little since the offender has been extremely careful to leave no trace of himself. Now as to the incision, and what it tells us about our man.. This maniac literally carved out a major surgical incision from the scalp, beginning direct center of the scalp or fore crown, here.”

She used a light pointer against the picture of Miriam McCloud's remains, still up on the screen wall, to indicate where the incision began. As she did so, she noticed a strange marred area on the screen wall, and mentally noted that someone ought to get the screen surface fixed or replaced, since it was a so-called high-tech solution to using a pull-down screen-the wall itself had been treated with a finish made for perfect screening of videos and slides. The marred area in this slide was directly inside the dark hole at the victim's forehead, so it hardly showed. Jessica ignored it and continued. “The killer did leave a little something for us to decipher.”

J.T. picked it up, adding, “This guy operates like a surgeon. He clears the area where he cuts off any hair, shaving back the scalp and temple areas as well as the eyebrows.” J.T.'s light pointer followed his discussion of the giant missing cranial area, all round the wound. “It's the way he works, ladies and gentlemen, that tells us something about him.”

“ Chemical analysis tells us these red flecks are residue of red marker,” added Jessica, pointing with her laser light to the faint red dots showing up like mini-bloodstains along the cut lines of the bone.

“ And from the depth on the right and left sides of his lines-assuming the killer and not an accomplice made the lines-we can hazard a guess that the killer is left-handed or ambidextrous.”

“ How did you get that?” asked a young agent.

“ Handwriting analysis tells us that the more pressure applied along a constant line from left to right indicates this, rather than the other way around. Perhaps more important, after marking the incision lines, he next sliced into the flesh in the exact same order, side to side from the midpoint to each ear. The pressure again tells us something.” She demonstrated with her laser beam. “Along the crown, then the lower trapdoor cuts, as we M.E.'s call them, from each ear and back to center, ending right between and above the eyes. This creates a kind of door at the forehead and crown, from which the brain is lifted. And again, indications show a left-handed person at work, even our computers blessed this much.”

“ What kind of blade did he use?” asked an agent at the rear.

“ He begins with a scalpel of the type we use in autopsies,” interjected J.T. “The scalpel cuts also indicate a tendency toward more depth on the left side. Then he followed with a bone cutter, a small but powerful circular saw of the sort we use in the autopsy room every day.”

“ Wouldn't that… don't those things make a hell of a noise?”

J.T. nodded. “That they do, particularly when hitting bone.”

“ The final result of the madman's bone saw, ladies and gentlemen,” Jessica said, “was to create an incision going across the forehead above the eyes, thus removing the brow and bone covering the frontal lobe. Once exposed in this manner, well, it becomes relatively easy to reach into the cavity and pluck out the still-attached brain with forceps.”

J.T. added, “And since our man is not interested in any other organ or any other body part, time itself apparently- or hunger for his object-is of the essence for him. Get into the cranial cavity, get the brain, eat it or pack it away, and get rid of the body. In and out.”

“ This frontal assault on the victim is a medical procedure,” said Jessica, pushing back a strand of hair. “One that allows him to gain access to the entire brain in a relatively short period of time.”

“ Just reach in and remove the brain,” commented someone seated in the front row. “You suppose he takes time to weigh it and bag it like you guys in the lab do?”

“ This identical incision is done in autopsies, yes,” said Jessica. “But we always put the brain back-at least most of it.”

Again the audience contemplated the slide along with this information. A collective, quiet gasp went about the room. “Get that slide turned off,” Santiva sent out the order. The female civilian aide manning the projector responded by hitting the wrong button, going back two slides to the original slide, showing Anna Gleason's horrendous wound in profile view. Then it ran to Gleason's frontal view, and again Jessica saw the flaw in the screen, a tear, she thought, at exactly or near the same spot, buried in the shadow of the dark cavity. Then the slide disappeared and the lights went up, and the screen wall appeared fine. It must have been something on the print slide, she concluded.

Eriq thanked Jessica and J.T. for their “invaluable input,” which gave rise to a feeling of hives in Jessica. She knew they had nothing.

“ Any additional photos of the two crime scenes or autopsy information, contact the two jurisdictions, or come by our ready room located down the hall from here.”

A questioning hand slowly snaked up. “Agent Quinton?” asked Santiva. “What is it?”

“ Has VICAP been searched for similar crimes nationwide?” The agent referred to the FBI's main computer file for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.

“ VICAP and every other program we have is in full function on the question. We didn't stop at nationwide. We went worldwide. If this guy has struck before, using the same methods, we will learn about it-when and where. We're praying, of course, that there haven't been any such previous cases sitting in cold case files somewhere out there, but that's why all of you here and on linkups have been notified. Look at your cold cases for any that have not been CAPed. Who knows, it could uncover a lead.”

“ One thing we do know about the killer,” Jessica added from her seat, “he's thorough and competent with his tools.”

“ Can you elaborate on that, Dr. Coran?” asked Quinton. “In both cases, he has lost or left only minuscule brain tissue from his victims. He wants it-his prize-intact, brain stem and all,” Jessica replied. “However, as for leaving anything of himself, sorry. He's crafty and neat about what he brings with him and what he takes away.”

“ As neat as a surgeon, you mean?”

“ We don't want to lock down on that just yet, but yes, he could be a medical professional,” said J.T. “If not, he may have some medical training. Certainly, his tools would suggest that.”

“ It's a fairly educated assumption,” added Santiva, “given his precision with the tools, and it fits with what little we have on the offender.”

Jessica said, “Unfortunately, there've always been a lot of Jack-the-Rippers among the medical profession. Equally unfortunate, we have only one possible witness, and her testimony is vague at best. A Viki Rollins claims to have seen a man force a woman into a van at gunpoint in Richmond. No crime scenes exist, as we suspect he's using a van. So no clues other than those left on the victim-meaning what he did to her, I'm afraid. There is no fingerprint evidence, no DNA, no complete profile of the lunatic monster, so…”

“ We have a psych team on the case as we speak,” Santiva assured his audience.

Jessica added, “We suspect he's a white male in his mid thirties-and we're pretty much agreed that this doesn't look like the work of an erratic kill-spree murderer, due to his behavior here, just methodical as hell. He will blend in as if invisible, just a normal-looking guy. No maniac eyes or Neanderthal brow. More like the neighbor next door.”

“ Will he be wearing suspenders?” asked Quinton from the floor.

Everyone laughed at this. “Most assuredly, Quint,” said Santiva.

J.T. added, “At the moment, profiling of the victims may be our best bet, although we're still compiling more on the young women each day.”

Jessica agreed with J.T.'s assessment. “Our victim profile that's coming around to you in flyer form has obvious gaps. After reading it, if anyone finds any associations or patterns and similarities between the victims, please let us hear from you. We've pretty much used up all the information forwarded thus far on the young women.”

Agents seeing the victim profile began to consult one another and a general clamor, fueled by concern, demonstrated their discomfort. The victim profile fit nearly every young adult female in the country, down to their favorite rock groups-Outta Sink, Buglebeee Blow and Rag Bushy. This only punctuated the youth of the victims.

“ Admittedly, it isn't much,” said Santiva, getting the doctors off the hook, “but at the moment, it's all we have. As noted, the killer is mobile-working out of a dark blue or black van, according to information gleaned from a near-abduction case in Fayetteville, North Carolina.”

“ With victim one in Richmond, two in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a possible later attempt in Fayetteville, North Carolina,” said Jessica. “This indicates that he has been roughly on a southerly course down the length of 1-95.”

“ Another 1-95 killer with a new twist?” asked Quinton from the floor.

“ After Fayetteville we can only assume he's on a southerly course-perhaps toward Georgia, possibly Florida,” replied Jessica. “If he stays his course.”

“ The dates of discovery bear this out.” Santiva looked beyond the audience again and called out, “Henrietta, the map.” Lights went out and a map of the southeast states appeared, marked at the two cities where the victims had died. “If not Georgia or Florida, he's likely to show up in Tennessee, going southwest from Winston-Salem instead of straight down 1-95 as predicted.”

Jessica added, “This… this brain-snatching bastard made his first kill within shouting distance of us, gentlemen, ladies, which means one of two things: He is either oblivious to us, or he is spitting in our faces.”

An undertow of anger erupted from the crowd, a low growl of collective derision.

“ What's this ghoul really doing with their brains?” asked one agent near the front.

“ Who knows, Birch?” replied Santiva. “Maybe he's making love to them, maybe he's freezing them for laboratory study, maybe the creep thinks they make good doorstops the way you use books, Birch. Who knows?”

This brought on some much-needed laughter.

“ Maybe he's doing like that guy in that old black-and-white sci-fi movie, the one where the doctor puts human brains into animals, chickens and goats and such,” said Agent Quinton.

More laughter followed.

“ Weren't there some Nazi war crimes involving brain removal and study?” asked a female agent midway back. “I seem to recall reading about it.”

“ Yeah, maybe Hitler's risen from the grave thanks to cloning,” said another agent.

“ Why don't you look into that, Mort?” said another.

“ All kidding aside, Agent Sydney, since you brought it up, find out what you can about Nazi evisceration experiments, will you. Who knows, maybe our killer is a neo-Nazi with a plan to indoctrinate us all by stealing our minds.” More discussion followed and questions were hurled at Santiva now, and Jessica thought of her lifelong career as a man hunter. During her decade-long career as a medical examiner for the FBI, Dr. Jessica Coran had encountered the strange, the bizarre, the heart-wrenching and the gruesome. The monsters had come in all sizes and myriad forms, but now her sleep was disturbed by a killer who wanted something so out of the ordinary that it surprised even her. He killed to possess that single prize. The idea alone unnerved Jessica. Everyone held some object or place or attribute near and dear, but how many felt their very organ of will and mind and soul was up for grabs by some maniacal beast anxious to rip it from them? Carried within and protected by the skull lay this three-pound gift of God and nature, and now it was threatened by a monster who wanted to take it.

Precisely why he wanted it remained a mystery, but want it he did, and now two young victims had fallen into his hands.

Why did he want it? Was it a mad craving or a twisted fantasy that had revealed some magical potent power or elixir made from grinding the brain and beating it in a mixer to be consumed? Or did he like it solid and raw? All speculation. No one knew. No evidence collected thus far had pointed to what motivated him to kill others for the only sentient organ in the body.

Jessica had, in the course of doing autopsies since her first medical training in forensics, removed a lot of gray matter in her searches for cause of death. She had seen the brain destroyed by all manner of disease, toxins and slow poisons like alcohol. She had seen the results of massive trauma to the brain from highway accidents to dining-room murders. The dead brain itself always felt the same to her-inert matter with no life force left-a three-pound misshapen dodo bird shot down, lying wingless, earthbound, not so much as a feathery flutter of a nerve.

The fully developed brain always looked and weighed the same-three pounds, give or take. But looks deceive. Jessica knew from her readings and experience that no two brains were exactly the same, no more so than human fingerprints. In some distant future, she imagined a time when a John or Jane Doe might be “recognized” and given an identity through a brain-print or brain map. The brain in its infinite folds and fissures has a unique pattern all its own, not unlike any two mountain ranges or glaciers, no matter the outward appearance. Still, some brains were put to better or weightier use than others, so if not in scale, in power the brains differed. Was there something in this fact of individuality that had prompted him to murder?

She and J.T., along with her significant other, Richard Sharpe, had discussed these very issues the night before. But they had come to no meaningful conclusions. In fact, they had come away as confused as before. “If this brain chef is killing in order to feed on brain food,” said Richard, “if you will, then why cannibalize young teens who have amassed little or no knowledge of the world beyond rap music? If, of course, you are doing this deed for the reason put forth by aboriginal tribes and primitive peoples the world over. That is, to take on the qualities and intellect of the man or woman's brain you consume,” Richard said as he packed for a diplomatic mission to China to shore up the extradition proceedings to bring a suspected terrorist prisoner back to the States.

“ Good question,” replied J.T., sipping at his wine.

“ Suppose he's not doing it for reasons put forth by primitives,” said Jessica. “Suppose he's answering to a different, perhaps more personal calling.” “You mean perhaps his dead mother is telling him to do it?” Richard stared at her for a response.

“ Something like that, yes.”

J.T. nervously laughed. Richard continued to pack. His plane would soon be leaving from the Quantico airstrip. The evening quickly ground to a halt, and she shooed J.T. out and then drove Richard to the airstrip where they had only a short time to embrace and say goodbye.

“ I may not be here when you call. I may be in the field,” she'd told him. “If you can't reach me here, use the cell number.”

“ Jess, why must Santiva always send you out on the worst, most awful crimes the FBI has to offer?”

“ You mean like the time he sent me to London? Where I met you? Habit, I'd say.”

“ Yes, London, but also where you damned near got killed. Just be careful while I'm gone.” He kissed her and again they embraced. She had remained there, waving until the six-passenger jet transport took off.

Santiva's meeting now at a close, people filed out. Jessica lagged behind. She picked up all her notes and thought about how helpless they were in the face of the random violence brought about by spree and serial killers. When and where the Brain Thief might strike again must wait until it happened. Unless they could find a miracle in all the thousands upon thousands of tips already flooding in on who the Brain Thief was. “He's everyone's neighbor or lover,” as J.T. had put it.

In the now empty room, Jessica looked up at the wall where the slides had been. The blankness felt like a challenge they would not soon or easily overcome. It made up a clear metaphor for the case-not so much as a clue on the smooth surface of the manila wall.

“ Would you like to see the slides again?” asked a female voice from the back of the room.

“ Oh, Henrietta, it's you. I thought I was alone,” she replied. Henrietta was Eriq's technical assistant. “No, thanks to seeing the slides again. Maybe another time.”

“ Just putting all of this stuff in a safe place,” said the technician. “You people, you've got to catch this SOB fast, Dr. Coran, before he butchers someone else's little girl. That's what he is, a butcher, not a doctor, not like you. He kills people; you save people.”

Jessica thanked Henrietta for the vote of confidence and quickly left. And though part of her did want to see the slides again, another part did not.

Still hiding in his Jacksonville, Florida, motel room, Grant Kenyon assessed his situation: thirty-nine years of age, facing forty, and somehow his life had been turned over to this insidious other self that he found his body, mind and soul contracted to-his damnable brain. A thinking organism living within him and fighting him for dominance; a thing telling him even as a child to consume brain matter. He had fed on small animals in this way as a child, working his way up to larger animals, and he had fed on the brains of medical cadavers when in medical school. No one had ever discovered that he'd had anything to do with the two missing brains there. Another kid, accused of pulling off a fraternity stunt, was expelled but no one had pointed a finger at Kenyon. In later years, he had fed on several fresher dead brains in the hospital morgue where he worked after earning his degree. None of it involved murder, no more so than the Jersey Ghoul, Daryl Thomas Cahil, had murdered his victims in '89 and '90. Now all that had changed-gone was any semblance of concern for where he got the brains. His mind now insisted he take them while they were still warm. Now he committed murder in the name of this craving, and for such a leap, his brain had had to concoct a perfect rationalization about glimpsing into the cosmic mind, one he'd first learned of from Daryl Thomas Cahil. Kenyon had followed the man's case from his first grave snatching to his apprehension, incarceration and release from prison. Using a fail-safe system with a firewall, he had remained in touch with Cahil from the moment he discovered the man had a website called Isle of Brain, which Cahil had begun in prison. The website had toned down over the years, preaching the use of symbolic tools such as animal brains instead of human brains to reach the cosmic over mind, but anyone reading between the lines knew that this was Cahil's only way to remain free to communicate. Even so, he had animal-rights activists working diligently to shut him down.

Cahil had abdicated the thrown of the brain-master, and Grant Kenyon's other brain had latched on to it, promising itself that it would surpass anything Cahil had ever attempted.

Still, a relatively new development had come-an aberration as if out of nowhere. His other mind/brain wanted to bond with him over this obsessive craving for the living, warm brain. He had already killed and consumed such. At least his altered self had, but to do so, it had had to collaborate with the part of his mind that premeditated selecting and attacking a victim. The uncontrollable urge belonged to the other within, while organization and carrying out of the specifics belonged to him. Highly unlikely that anyone but himself would or could see the distinction, save perhaps a competent shrink like those who had found some redeeming quality in Daryl Thomas Cahil. Grant didn't know where the original obsession plaguing him had come from, what its roots might be-whether genetically based or something that had occurred at an extremely early moment in his life. Perhaps it'd begun in the womb inside his forming brain, perhaps just after. He didn't know how deeply the fixation extended, or how long it would go on; nor did he begin to understand the need to consume human brain matter. Yet the necessity-according to the one within, calling himself by Grant's father's name as some kind of cruel joke-grew more powerful and insis-tent with each feeding. And as the need grew, he felt more and more of his own identity waning, flickering like the last moments of a candle until soon it would be extinguished, consumed by Phillip altogether.

The words of an old professor somehow filtered through to Grant Kenyon. “Our present understanding of the brain leaves us in the dark, and we may as well say the encephalon is filled with cotton wadding as anything else.”

Since then, as a medical man, Dr. Grant Kenyon had learned that the brain had no parallel, and that it was a supernatural organ that bridged the gap between physical and psychical realms. “Look at what it's done to me,” he said to the empty room, his now-distant reflection winking at him in the dark created by the closed drapes. “The bastard thing's got me on a scavenger hunt for immortality.”

“ I've told you, Grant. I'm not seeking immortality for you or for me,” Phillip replied.

“ What then? What do you want?”

The man in the mirror across the room shook his head as if disappointed in Grant. “The cortex is equipotential…” he said.

“ What do you mean?” asked Grant.

“ Capable of learning and operating under unique and unforeseen-often unimaginable-circumstances doubling and quadrupling its capacity for memory and storage. Don't you see? Anything can happen.”

“ It-you learn exponentially?”

“ Every new generation is evidence of this. There is no end to the wisdom to be gained when we finally locate the perimeters of-”

“ Stop it! Stop it! Enough! Goddamn you.”

“- perimeters of the mind in this inner solar system.”

At what price? Dr. Grant Kenyon asked himself, silence filling him. But his brain had to have the last word. “At any price, Doctor… at any price.”

Kenyon knew only that there was one merciful element to his bloodletting and cannibalizing of brains. He had no conscious memory of it, only what the other within him wished to tell him; he had to be informed of it after the fact, like an amnesia patient after a train wreck. He was aware of planning it, even executing the initial phases of abduction, but the actual murder? The taking of the victim's brain? No, he had no conscious memory of killing young women for what Phillip prized. Perhaps, he reasoned, this partition his mind had created between his victim and himself was the only way he could accomplish the task. Still, Phillip made sure that Grant always heard about it. His brain told him about it afterward like a story read to him from a book.

Grant knew he had killed three times now; Phillip had relayed the details in unfailing and excruciating minutia- every detail. But his mind did not replay these details in the ordinary sense of memories. He got no visual images other than what he imagined after hearing it rendered in words. Only then could he feel, hear, smell, taste and see the “pictured” killings and feedings.

At first he could not be made to believe the images real; not part of his memory. Yet, it was real-the simultaneous attack on all his senses proved it so. It had in fact happened; he had to believe his brain was telling the truth. After all, his brain must know, and it was the only explanation for the dried gray crumbs of brain matter he had found in his van alongside the bloodied tools he remembered gathering up for Phillip. At times he would stop long enough to clean his tools and the rear of his van. He'd left nothing behind at his home in Holyoke, New Jersey, nothing but Emily and the baby, Hildy. Once Phillip had killed their first victim in Richmond, Grant had not dared go back home. Instead, he'd gone to a gun show and he'd purchased a shotgun and a. 38 snub-nosed Smith amp; Wesson.

The first killing in Richmond signaled the end of one life, and the beginning of his new existence. He had taken that first life, had taken the prize and run away. Knowing that Phillip would never be satisfied with only one such meal, he knew he had to at least protect his family by putting distance between Phillip and them.

Wishing to rest his mind, he clicked on the television and Oprah gave way to the local Jacksonville station, an advertisement for a local watering hole called The Stacked Deck where the young could find gaiety in the pounding music overlooking the ocean. Phillip insisted that Grant write the name of the place and the address down. They'd go hunting tonight. Last night, before settling in, they had scoured the area for a safe dumping ground for Phillip's third victim. After locating an abandoned place along the St. John's River, they had scoured the bus station for a victim without result. Prior to that, they had scouted out the local library where Phillip insisted on checking Cahil's website to see if he'd received the strip of brain matter Phillip'd sent to his mentor-to prove there was nothing like the real thing and to implicate Cahil should a time come when he needed a scapegoat “Time we roll, boy.” Phillip's order spiraled through his brain. “Enough wasted time.”

Grant stood and stuffed his pockets with his keys, wallet and loose change. From the door, he looked back at the mirror and, from the angle at which he stood, there was no one in the mirror.

Outside, Grant and Phillip found the waiting van rigged with all that they needed to subdue and gut a victim of her brain. They drove away from the Jax-Town Motel and into the Jacksonville night.

Public library, Fayetteville, North Carolina July 5, 2003

The keystroke took her to the Internet, and from there she typed in the website address and opened it. She began her much-needed transfusion of knowledge-information on the inner workings of the human mind. It was a subject that held a never-ending fascination for Juliet Sims. Besides, she had met many weird and wacky people in the chat rooms to discuss the “ultimate” subject-how the mind worked. One of them, she had set up a date with. He was on his way to Florida, he had said, and could stop over in Fayetteville, to meet her, if she liked. The meet had been arranged. She'd planned to sneak out because it was late, and she had to rely on a Greyhound Bus to get her to downtown Fayetteville from home, and it all would have worked out if her father hadn't caught her. She was embarrassed now and somewhat fearful of contacting her computer pal to let him know what had happened. She had stewed for a few days now, trying to come up with a better reason than the truth. She had concocted a story about a lightning strike and a flood at the house, but it could be checked. Then she came up with a story about how her parents abused her and sometimes when they got real angry, they'd lock her to a bedpost in the attic. Yeah, that would work. She logged on to the Isle of Brain site.

Chicago Public Library, North Ravenswood Branch Same time

Mark Alex Ziotrope had gone to the search engine and keyed in the words “brain” and “mind.” His screen immediately filled with possible trails to follow. He'd been given an assignment by Dr. Stephens to locate and report on some unusual facet of the mind-body relationship. It was punishment for having missed an exam because of basketball, an away game. He loosened his tight jeans at the belt, unbuttoned them and eased off on the fly, breathing a little easier. He had come back to this assignment several times now, and each time he found it excruciatingly boring. He had pleaded with crotchety old Stephens to allow him another area of inquiry, but the old professor would not hear of it. So here he was. He chose a selection entitled “Origins of the Brain and Nervous System.” His screen filled with an encyclopedic tale that read:

As the central part of the nervous system, the brain is the most highly organized substance on Earth. Lying within the protective helmet of bone, it is distinct from the body, which is built in vertebral fashion-soft tissue covering a bone structure. The head is built in crustacean fashion- bone covering soft tissue, like a crab. Some have called the human brain the giant crab.

“ Hmmm… like old Doc Stephens himself,” Mark muttered. He put the stuff about its being like a crab in his notes, along with the line about its being the most heavily ordered stuff on Earth. He read on:

The brain consists of the forebrain or cerebrum, the inter-brain or thalamus and the hypothalamus, the midbrain, consisting of the brain stem, that is medulla and pons, and the hindbrain or cerebellum.

Beyond bored out of his mind, Mark decided to bail and locate another site. When the new list came up, he skimmed it and liked the one called Isle of Brain. He'd hit on it before, and he found it a lot less stuffy and pretentious-and a lot more readable. The Webmaster was an ex con who'd managed to get himself released from a facility for the criminally insane. Mark thought that was cool. Not even Manson could get himself released from prison. This dude had to be sharp.

The site was far less scientific, far more philosophical and speculative, and Dr. Stephens had wanted something unusual, not generally known about the brain in the report. The Isle site was unusual, its master believing that the brain was altogether a separate dimension in which lived the cosmic mind.

Reacquainting himself with the site, Mark went to the welcome page to get the vital information-Mr. Cahil's full name and the name of the prison he had spent almost twelve years in. Cahil had begun the site while in the Pennsylvania Federal Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane, yet here he was on the outside and running a website. Cahil, convicted of a string of ghoulish grave robberies in Newark and in Morristown, New Jersey, between 1989 and 1990, openly talked about this fact and his crime-grave robbing for the brains of children, and in particular one strip of tissue in the brains that he fed on, believing it gave him some sort of eternal life and put him in touch with the “cosmic mind.”

“ This ought to rock Stephens. This is my report,” Mark said aloud, drawing the attention of a librarian who looked over at him and put a finger to her lips. He nodded and quietly considered his choices. He could play up the fact that anyone. And that anyone, even a kid like him of an impressionable age, could log on to Cahil's website and become a disciple to the prophet for the cosmic mind, a con. Mark read:

Cosmic consciousness or the cosmic mind-also called “cosmic psyche”-is the extrasensory-spiritual element in the cosmic ether. It is all pervasive as it coexists and merges with matter, and is the source of all mental power and vigor-or psychic energy-which constitutes all knowledge and awareness that all objects and elements share in a universal mind.

The human mind is fed from this great cosmic mind, a limitless reservoir. The human mind is part of and channeled into the vast mind, and the area of its operation in you and me is a kind of supra-consciousness that lies dormant in us-unless we choose to awaken it!

In other words, in every man, there is a region where all-all-can be known.

The site then went into a sales pitch for “symbolic” brain tissue to be consumed by serious seekers of truth and the cosmic intelligence. It all sounded crazy to Mark, but he found the pitch and the product as curious as the site itself, and he knew he had to include it in his report. Maybe he'd contact the Newark and Morristown newspapers for accounts of Cahil's crimes, add some pictures. Fact is, if he purchased the product Cahil sold as “substitute” gray matter to be cooked and consumed, he'd have something for show-and-tell.

Mark breathed in deeply and sent off an E-mail of thanks to the webmaster, expressing appreciation for his insight into the natural power of the human brain. He added that it would make a great report for his college project. He then logged off, stood and returned his little number card to the information desk, where the librarian-pencil nose and sunken cheeks red with embarrassment-quietly suggested he zip up his fly. With apologies he did so.

“ You do realize you can be expelled from ever using our facilities if you can not abide by our rules, young man.” She pointed to a sign that read:

No Pornographic Surfing!

Anyone breaking this rule will lose library privileges.

“ But… I only needed to loosen my pants, ma'am, a bad stomach. I was doing a boring research paper on the brain, honest. No porno stuff. Look at my notes, if you don't believe me.”

She glanced at what he held up and told him to be on his way. She then glanced at a report on the most popular sites being visited by patrons of the library. One that was coming up a lot nowadays among the young demographic was the website called Isle of Brain that the young man had listed in his notes. She decided she had to find time to review this site herself. The public library detested censorship of any kind; however, times had changed dramatically.

“ What was all that about?” asked the head librarian who'd watched the exchange between the desk librarian and Mark.

“ I don't know yet. Says he was on this site.” She pointed to the one she'd highlighted with yellow marker on her list. “But he was playing with himself over there.”

The head librarian bit her lip and shook her head. “People want to build a bomb, they log on to bombs. com. People want to murder someone, they go to palladin. com for a how-to manual on assassination. Porn's gotten so rampant on the Net that you can trip into it without knowing it. So, what is this Isle of Brain business?”

“ Not sure. I'll get on it soon as I find the time.”

“ Do that, and let me know what you find, Gladys.”

Outside, young Mark breathed in a deep mouthful of fresh air, free of stuffy and decaying books. He said a kindly goodbye to the library and walked calmly toward his car, secure-for the moment at least-in the knowledge he and his own brain were in sync with the hunt for the cosmic mind- for his report. He rested his notebook on the top of his car as he worked the key to open the door. He laughed, recalling how anyone with the courage and determination can find the cosmic soul and tap into it by symbolically eating some weird-shaped gray noodles that were supposed to represent the piece of brain tissue called “the real stuff,” and thereby no harm would come to animals or other living beings in the pursuit of one's ultimate quest for a glimpse into the universal mind-God's mind.

Cahil's site also sold weird clay-molded brains that the customer could break open, and within them a cache of oddly shaped, crosslike noodles rested on an island within. Cahil shipped these to buyers, who in turn fished out the noodles, boiled them one at a time, and ate them in lieu of eating the real thing that was supposed to house the soul of a living creature.

“ Weird shit… unusual? Sick, man… this is sick. Yeah, Dr. Stephens is going to love this.” Mark slipped into his car and drove away with his notes.