Marion, Illinois—30 years later
Some believed he was retarded. Some said he was a genius. They said he had a raw intellect that zigged off of every chart, zagged off every graph. He was said to possess a mind that was incredibly keen and a sociopathic brutality. They called him the Beast.
Dr. Norman headed the R and D team that found him, and hid him in a special kind of housing. A place from where it was believed, prayed, he could not escape.
Norman had first learned about the Snake Man, and the tortures Daniel had suffered in the loving care of his foster mother, during one of their initial hypnosis sessions in which he'd employed the experimental drug known as Alpha Group II.
The software containing that memorable interview resided in a secret place, inside a smudged, worn Manila envelope marked Bunkowski, and what appeared to be a man's name Max D. Segmarion. A closer inspection revealed that the label read Max/D Seg/Marion. Shorthand for "Maximum Security, Disciplinary Segregation, Marion Federal Penitentiary"—the most dreaded, hardcore solitary "hole" in the prison system. A violent unit designed for the only man ever given a level-7 danger rating: Chaingang Bunkowski.
The cassette in the old envelope was a working copy, a second-generation dupe of a master which resided with the other treasured matrices in a vault. It was on this interview tape that he'd speculated that he might have taken down one "monkey man" for every evil pound of blubber and muscle on his then 420-some-pound carcass.
The heavy hitters who were on the subscription-distribution list for this bizarre information, planners in the clandestine intelligence think tanks, came to an immediate consensus: He was running a gigantic shuck on his case handler.
Only Dr. Norman there in the Marion "shop" believed. He felt the power of Chaingang's aura in the same way that a woman feels a man's vibes and attunes to it, calling it love. In a sense, he loved Daniel, whom he felt was the oddest of deviates—a physical precognate. A genius who could physically foretell peril to himself. Norman was certain that his strange and mysterious early warning system was what had allowed him to murder so wantonly for extended periods, in spite of law enforcement's concerted efforts to stop him.
Now Daniel Bunkowski, a mountain of fat, hard muscle, and kill lust, sat moldering away inside the Max, while Dr. Norman's colleagues tried to decide if he was for real, and Dr. Norman worked on a plan to watch him in the field.
The first time Norman managed to break through, his "proofing session" as he'd later call it, was Alpha Group II Interview #8, in which for all to hear he captured the true essence of the beastly killer on tape.
"Daniel?"
The doctor's voice. No response…the tape reels revolve but there is only the light machine hiss of the playback.
"Daniel, can you hear me?"
"Rrra." The lion coughs on tape.
"Daniel, it's your friend, Dr. Norman." Norman knew this tape from memory—it had played inside his head many times. "You know you can trust me." There is the sound of breathing. Deep, relaxed breaths of the drugged, hypnotized mass murderer. "Daniel? Can you hear me?"
"Mm."
"Daniel, do you feel good? Are you relaxed?"
"Mm. Feel good."
"Daniel…Dr. Norman would never hurt you the way that your foster mother and her friends hurt you when you were little." He could recall the way the beast clenched his hand into a huge, hard fist and how he was so thankful for the chains and straps that restrained him. "Those bad people hurt you. The Snake Man. He did things. Awful things to you, Daniel, and you had to punish him for it. Remember?"
"Mm."
"You learned many lessons when he hurt you, Daniel. Lessons about survival. How to remain still. You learned how to control yourself inside, didn't you?" No response. "You could lower your—Daniel, you learned to regulate your heartbeat and…breathing rate, didn't you?"
There was a loud and frightening noise as if an engine had started or the lanyard on a chainsaw had been pulled. But it was a human bark. Daniel's laugh chilled anyone who heard it.
"I agree." The doctor laughed gently. "Your friend Dr. Norman agrees that it is very funny, Daniel. I am pleased you were able to construct these defenses against the bad people. Remember how you told me about you and your little dog? How you'd stand in the closet hiding from the Snake Man?"
"Mm."
"You learned to get revenge, didn't you, Daniel?"
"Yes." Very clear, the deep basso profundo like a steel column in the listener's ear. "I poured acid into his eyes and listened to his deathscreams." Deathscreams? But the Snake Man was blinded, not killed.
The noise again. The coughing bark of the lion's laughter.
"You know all about acid, don't you, Daniel?"
"Yes."
"Chemistry, math, the general sciences, engineering, physics, biology, biochemistry, you know many things. I am proud of you, Daniel," he said on the tape, meaning it. "Your new friend Dr. Norman is quite proud of Daniel. How did you acquire so much knowledge? Do you read a lot?" No response. "You don't tell just anyone about how smart you are, do you, Daniel?"
"No."
"It is our secret, Daniel. I know you camouflage your intelligence but you know many things, don't you, Daniel?"
"Yes."
"Tell Dr. Norman, your friend. Tell me your secrets, Daniel. What do you know?"
"Many things."
"What things?"
"Chemistry, math, the general sciences, engineering, physics, biology, biochemistry, I know many things." Daniel played with him. Repeating his words back to him. Teasing him. Buttfucking the doctor in the brain. Showing him his eidetic recall.
"I love it when you share your intelligence with me, Daniel. Your friend Dr. Norman loves to see how smart his friend Daniel is. You have a wonderful brain. Dr. Norman is proud of you."
"Chemistry, math, the general sciences, engineering, physics, biology, biochemistry, Safar, Rabi I, Rabi II, Jumada I, Jumada II, Rajab, Sha'ban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhu'l-Qa'dah, Dhu'l-Hija…"
"That's right, Daniel. You have a wonderful brain."
"Cold chisel, blacksmith's chisel, bricklayer's chisel, box chisel, floor chisel, beveled firmer chisel, socket paring chisel."
"Tell your friend, Daniel, how you predict—uh—tell Dr.Norman how you know when something is going to happen? Can you tell me that?" No response.
"Daniel?"
"Mm."
"Tell me."
"Nnn."
"Tell Dr. Norman more of the things you know." No response. "Please tell your friend Dr. Norman about how you learned to punish the Snake Man?"
"Yes."
"You know many things, don't you, Daniel?" He thought he'd lost him.
"Many things, Dr. Norman, such as but not limited to the following: paramagnetic resonance and the spectra of diatomics, the role of the mystagogue in televangelistic fund-raising, procambium, protophloem, and cellular phenomena, theoretical fluid mechanics, noncyclical phylogeny and cenogenesis in numerical humankind, orthogonal polynomials, classic profiles of psychologically externalized business failures, elliptical intuits and precognitives, friction, viscosity and hysteresis, application of quantitative prediction to the 'Rossler Effect' in found objects, fundamentals of resupination cosmology, employment of steerable null processing group equipment, statistical mechanics in orbital angular momentum theory, field expedient timers utilizing piezobuzzer voltage pulses, analysis of EMP frequency radiation, quotient grouping in vector algebra, countermeasures to defeat clue sprays and detection powders, half-rhombic directional theorems, DNA intermediaries from the cosmic ocean, hypno-inducing properties of crystalline hydrates, behavioristic variationals in catabolism."