Young teenage girls, he concluded, they're the ticket, girls who were just a few feet past puberty, like fresh eggs. Time, that wicked thief, had less opportunity to steal their radiance, make it duller, coat it in minutes and seconds and hours, thicken it over with days and weeks and months until they were so old, you had to scrape away to find the glitter.
Now he would go to a different supermarket in which there was nothing older than sixteen. He would hang around schools. He would stalk the Brownies and the Girl Scouts, or he would simply wander through malls. They gathered there like birds on telephone wires, chattering, giggling, parading, and flirting, trying out their wings.
Maybe he would never need to sleep now. Sleep was really to refresh oneself, to rest tired limbs, to restore and rebuild dying cells. He did that instantly so why sleep? He would truly be a shark, always on the hunt. What an advantage he would have? They had to sleep. They grew exhausted. They were more like vampires than he was, crawling back into their temporary coffins every night. He was the mythical bird that never lighted, pausing only to consume its nourishment.
He actually felt as if he had grown inches, widened, thickened. He was truly bigger than life. Still, he recognized that he had to be cautious. They would be coming after him again, more intently, more determined. He was no fool. If anything, his mental capacities were as heightened as his muscles. Too little time had passed. That picture in the paper was still vivid in the minds of some people, he concluded.
Memories of the motel owner returned and he nodded at an idea. As soon as he came upon a mall, he pulled in and went to the large drug store. He bought black hair coloring and then he returned to his motel room and washed it in. He decided that although it still looked artificial, he had done a better job than the motel owner. It was passable. At least people wouldn't spot him from a distance, he thought. He even colored his eyebrows.
There weren't really all that many people who could recognize his face with certainty -- our face, he thought. When he gazed into the mirror, he did see himself twice. He saw a duplicate of himself just under the skin as if he wore a mask. He'll always be with me, he concluded. As long as I live, he lives. Yes. Now it was time to protect him, to protect us, he decided. When you pursue a shark, don't lose sight of him, he warned the predators. If you do, you will soon find yourself pursued. Predator will become prey.
I'm standing behind you, he thought and sang, I'm standing behind you, on your dying day.
It made him laugh so hard that he had tears in his eyes. Suddenly, he became serious and went to the telephone. He found the telephone book in the drawer beneath it and looked for the number. Then he punched it out and waited.
"I'd like an appointment with Dr. Barnard today," he said as soon as he heard the office identified.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Dr. Barnard is on vacation this week."
"Vacation?"
"Yes. I do have an opening with Dr. Templeman at four-thirty, if you would like."
"No, I want to see Dr. Barnard. Where is she? When will she be back?"
"About a week. I'm sorry. The best I can do for you is schedule you for a week from this coming Wednesday. Would you like a morning or afternoon appointment?"
He just hung up.
And sat there, fuming with frustration. One of the consequences of being at so heightened a level of activity was the difficulty of slowing it down, stop going in one direction and take another, pausing. The urge to keep moving burned like a hot coal in his stomach. He raged, threw the phone across the room after tearing the wire from the wall, and then kicked over the chair. Nothing stops me, he thought. Nothing stops me. He walked to the front windows and looked out. The day was grayer than he had realized. It might rain here. There was light traffic, about seven other cars in the motel lot, but no one walking about, no real activity around him. How dull it all suddenly looked. Why stay after all? He could get into his car and drive off, forget about it all, just go on. Maybe he should.
No, he heard and turned.
He was standing there shaking his head.
What?
We can't just go on. They'll come after us, armed to the teeth with information, pictures, witnesses. They'll hunt us down and they'll stomp on us. He saw that his hair wasn't dyed.
"Your hair isn't dyed, too," he said.
He smiled back at him.
"Doesn't have to be. I'm inside you most of the time, remember? Thanks to you, that is."
"Oh. Right. Well, what do we do?"
"You'll know what to do. Just go on," he said nodding at the door.
"Right. I do know what to do."
He opened the door. The rush of cool air washed over him and despite the clouds, the light made him squint. He pulled up his shoulders. He could feel him slipping back inside him, strengthening, supporting. He was confident again and started for the car.
Yes, he thought as he opened the car door. I know what to do. I know exactly what to do.
Curt sat beside her when she made the call. It took quite a while to track Will Dennis down, and at one point his secretary tried to talk her into calling later.
"No, I must speak with him now. You have to get to him," she said firmly.
"Well, I'm trying. He hasn't responded to the page yet. You want to continue holding?"
"Absolutely," Terri said. "We'll hold until hell freezes over." She heard the secretary blow air through her lips and then the elevator music began again, periodically interrupted by messages and information from the district attorney's office, the county clerk's office, and the tax assessor's office.
"He's busy composing what new lies he's going to tell you," Curt said.
"My next call will be to the newspapers and radio and television stations," she threatened.
It was nearly fifteen minutes before the secretary came back on to say, "Please hold for Mr. Dennis."
Terri sat up.
"Before you start, let me tell you I've been on the phone all this time with Dr. Stanley's people," Will Dennis began.
"And?"
There was a truly pregnant pause.
"Apparently, we sent Dr. Stanley back in a body bag and not, what shall I call him, It?"
"What? How could that be?"
"You know he's a perfect duplication. If I had any doubt, which I didn't at the time, you would have ended it when you described how you had struck him in the forehead. Both of them had head bruises, and practically in the same place. He wore Stanley's clothing. He responded to everything the way I expected Doctor Stanley to respond. There just wasn't any way to tell," he claimed, his voice now high-pitched.
"What do you intend to do?" she asked.
"I'm working on it with the higher-ups," he said. "They're bringing in everyone they can. There hasn't been a manhunt like this since we went after bin Laden." Curt, who was sharing the earpiece, pulled back and shook his head.
"Tell him, they have to have a press conference and let the public know it all," she told Will Dennis.
"It's not my decision, Doc. I've made that suggestion myself. It's out of my hands."