light and woken up. That was it. No Prisoner, no priests, no nothing.
"Still, he's out there somewhere, Joseph," Laika said. "And I don't think it unlikely that he would try and get into contact with those people with whom he knows he has a link."
"It takes two to make a link, Laika. And I don't want to play."
D uring the next few days, the Prisoner moved eastward. He amused himself as he went, careful not to do anything too splashy or obvious.
It was very easy to hitchhike. All he had to do was to command a driver of an oncoming car to stop for him, and one out of every three or four would, often acting surprised and telling him that they normally never stopped for hitchhikers. He would smile and say that it must just be his honest face, and then he would talk to them until they had come to their destination. He did not try to force them where they didn't want to go, nor did he implant any killing commands in them. That way, he felt, he would not be connected with any violent acts. Those he saved for the evenings.
He found that families in campgrounds were ideal for his purpose. He would simply walk into one after dark and feel about mentally until he came across a trailer with a family whose members he could control. He preferred trailers over pop-up campers or tents. The sounds of slaughter carried too easily through canvas. Sometimes he afflicted the father, sometimes the mother, sometimes a grown son, and sometimes all. It really didn't matter. Everyone inside would be dead within minutes, the last person by his or her own hand.
He did this every few nights, when the hunger was great and the opportunity perfect. Afterward, he would walk into the night, with no connection between him and the family who would be found dead the next morning, victims of a tragic murder-suicide. There was no danger of his being discovered. He never set foot inside the trailers, and after all, how could there be such a thing as a serial suicide? Copycat killings, that was all. Sometimes people just went mad, and sometimes it was contagious.
A nd sometimes, when people who knew what to look for were looking, a connection, a pattern, a modus operandi, were all too obvious.
"It's him," Colin Mackay said, setting down the sheets of paper that showed a definite eastward progression of the murder-suicides that had been taking place in campgrounds. "Copycat killings, my arse. Only reason they say that is because they don't know what we know. Look . . ." The other three men in the room looked over Colin's shoulder as he punched his finger at different points on a map of the United States. "First one in Farmington, New Mexico, then three days later outside of Denver, then Omaha, then Davenport, Iowa. He's not going fast, he's taking his own sweet time, and he's having his fun along the way."
"What the hell's he goin' east for?" asked Angus Gunn. His voice rumbled within his massive body.
Rob Lindsay clapped a hand on his big friend's shoulder. "'Cause there's something or someone he's after there. So what we've got to do is intercept him."
"How we gonna do that?" Angus asked.
Colin Mackay leaned back in his chair and looked at Angus. "Well, lad, we could put a man in every single campground on the main motorway between Joliet and Pittsburgh, say, but being that there's nae but the four of us, I think we'd better depend on our secret weapon. How about it, James?"
James Menzies, perpetually glum, nodded in agreement. Colin knew that James hated to use the damnable link that he shared with the Deil, which was how they referred to the one Colin's father, Sir Andrew Mackay, and his fellow Knights Templar had believed to be the Antichrist. He was not that, surely, but he did have the potential for great evil, so the "Deil" or devil he had become for them.
Over the past few months, James had begun to feel, tentatively at first, and then more certain of it, that he could tune in to the Deil's thoughts somehow, something that they all knew
"Still, he's out there somewhere, Joseph," Laika said. "And I don't think it unlikely that he would try and get into contact with those people with whom he knows he has a link."
"It takes two to make a link, Laika. And I don't want to play."
D uring the next few days, the Prisoner moved eastward. He amused himself as he went, careful not to do anything too splashy or obvious.
It was very easy to hitchhike. All he had to do was to command a driver of an oncoming car to stop for him, and one out of every three or four would, often acting surprised and telling him that they normally never stopped for hitchhikers. He would smile and say that it must just be his honest face, and then he would talk to them until they had come to their destination. He did not try to force them where they didn't want to go, nor did he implant any killing commands in them. That way, he felt, he would not be connected with any violent acts. Those he saved for the evenings.
He found that families in campgrounds were ideal for his purpose. He would simply walk into one after dark and feel about mentally until he came across a trailer with a family whose members he could control. He preferred trailers over pop-up campers or tents. The sounds of slaughter carried too easily through canvas. Sometimes he afflicted the father, sometimes the mother, sometimes a grown son, and sometimes all. It really didn't matter. Everyone inside would be dead within minutes, the last person by his or her own hand.
He did this every few nights, when the hunger was great and the opportunity perfect. Afterward, he would walk into the night, with no connection between him and the family who would be found dead the next morning, victims of a tragic murder-suicide. There was no danger of his being discovered. He never set foot inside the trailers, and after all, how could there be such a thing as a serial suicide? Copycat killings, that was all. Sometimes people just went mad, and sometimes it was contagious.
A nd sometimes, when people who knew what to look for were looking, a connection, a pattern, a modus operandi, were all too obvious.
"It's him," Colin Mackay said, setting down the sheets of paper that showed a definite eastward progression of the murder-suicides that had been taking place in campgrounds. "Copycat killings, my arse. Only reason they say that is because they don't know what we know. Look . . ." The other three men in the room looked over Colin's shoulder as he punched his finger at different points on a map of the United States. "First one in Farmington, New Mexico, then three days later outside of Denver, then Omaha, then Davenport, Iowa. He's not going fast, he's taking his own sweet time, and he's having his fun along the way."
"What the hell's he goin' east for?" asked Angus Gunn. His voice rumbled within his massive body.
Rob Lindsay clapped a hand on his big friend's shoulder. "'Cause there's something or someone he's after there. So what we've got to do is intercept him."
"How we gonna do that?" Angus asked.
Colin Mackay leaned back in his chair and looked at Angus. "Well, lad, we could put a man in every single campground on the main motorway between Joliet and Pittsburgh, say, but being that there's nae but the four of us, I think we'd better depend on our secret weapon. How about it, James?"
James Menzies, perpetually glum, nodded in agreement. Colin knew that James hated to use the damnable link that he shared with the Deil, which was how they referred to the one Colin's father, Sir Andrew Mackay, and his fellow Knights Templar had believed to be the Antichrist. He was not that, surely, but he did have the potential for great evil, so the "Deil" or devil he had become for them.
Over the past few months, James had begun to feel, tentatively at first, and then more certain of it, that he could tune in to the Deil's thoughts somehow, something that they all knew
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