Phantoms

hunched and his head low. He shuffled along listlessly, as if he were a broken, beaten man.
    Except for him and the deputy, the parking lot was deserted. Just the two of them. Perfect.
    All the way to the car, Kale looked for the right moment in which to make his move. For a while he thought it wouldn’t come.
    Then Joe shoved him against a car and half-turned away to unlock the door—and Kale struck. He threw himself at the deputy as the man bent to insert a key into the lock. The deputy gasped and swung a fist at him. Too late. Kale ducked under the blow and came up fast and slammed him against the car, pinning him. Joe’s face went white with pain as the door handle rammed hard against the base of his spine. The ring of keys flew out of his hand, and even as they were falling, he was using the same hand to grab for his holstered revolver.
    Kale knew, with his hands cuffed, he couldn’t wrestle the gun away. As soon as the revolver was drawn, the fight was finished.
    So Kale went for the other man’s throat. Went for it with his teeth. He bit deep, felt blood gushing, bit again, pushed his mouth into the wound, like an attack dog, and bit again, and the deputy screamed, but it was only a yelp-rattle-sigh that no one could have heard, and the gun fell out of the holster and out of the deputy’s spasming hand, and both men went down hard, with Kale on top, and the deputy tried to scream again, so Kale rammed a knee into his crotch, and blood was pump-pump-pumping out of the man’s throat.
    “Bastard,” Kale said.
    The deputy’s eyes froze. The blood stopped spurting from the wound. It was over.
    Kale had never felt so powerful, so alive .
    He looked around the parking lot. Still no one in sight.
    He scrambled to the ring of keys, tried them one by one until he unlocked his handcuffs. He threw the cuffs under the car.
    He rolled the dead deputy under the cruiser, too, out of sight.
    He wiped his face on his sleeve. His shirt was spotted and stained with blood. There was nothing he could do about that. Nor could he change the fact that he was wearing baggy, blue, woven institutional clothing and a pair of canvas and rubber slip-on shoes.
    Feeling conspicuous, he hurried along the fence, through the open gate. He crossed the alley and went into another parking lot behind a large, two-story apartment complex. He glanced up at all the windows and hoped no one was looking.
    There were perhaps twenty cars in the lot. A yellow Datsun had keys in the ignition. He got behind the wheel, closed the door, and sighed with relief. He was out of sight, and he had transportation.
    A box of Kleenex stood on the console. Using paper tissues and spit, he cleaned his face. With the blood removed, he looked at himself in the rearview mirror—and grinned.
     

Chapter 28
    Body Count
     
    While General Copperfield’s unit was conducting the autopsy and tests in the mobile field lab, Bryce Hammond formed two search teams and began a building-by-building inspection of the town. Frank Autry led the first group, and Major Isley went along as an observer for Project Skywatch. Likewise, Captain Arkham joined Bryce’s group. Block by block and street by street, the two teams were never more than one building apart, remaining in close touch with walkie-talkies.
    Jenny accompanied Bryce. More than anyone else, she was familiar with Snowfield’s residents, and she was the one most likely to identify any bodies that were found. In most cases, she could also tell them who had lived in each house and how many people had been in each family—information they needed to compile a list of the missing.
    She was troubled about exposing Lisa to more gruesome scenes, but she couldn’t refuse to assist the search team. She couldn’t leave her sister behind at the Hilltop Inn, either. Not after what had happened to Harker. And to Velazquez. But the girl coped well with the tension of the house-to-house search. She was still proving herself to Jenny, and Jenny was increasingly proud of her.
    They didn’t find any bodies for a while. The first businesses and houses they entered were deserted. In several houses, tables were set for Sunday dinner. In others, tubs were filled with bathwater that had grown cold. In a number of places, television sets were still playing, but there was no one to watch them.
    In one kitchen they discovered Sunday dinner on the electric stove. The food in the three pots had cooked for so many hours that all of the water