Price laughed at the crude police composite sketch that was prominent in both papers. The eyes and mouth were all wrong. Gangbang was even fatter and uglier than the drawing. He read the other account in which he was described as a "motorist."
"The so-called Crucifixion Killer," the caption under the drawing began, "as described by witnesses to a high-speed car chase that ended in gunplay in midtown Kansas City Thursday."
After killing at least six more persons with what are believed to be rifle grenades, the giant-size mass murderer attempted to shoot another motorist, who was able to elude him after the killer first tried to ram his car, then fired at him as he fled on foot.
Shortly after the car chase, the escaping motorist's car was struck by a truck, in the vicinity of 28th and The Paseo. At this point, the killer fired approximately fifty rounds from a silenced machine gun, failing to hit the fleeing motorist. The driver of the truck was not injured.
Witnesses told police that the huge man, who wore a dark blue shirt and green trousers, then threw a grenade into the motorist's empty vehicle, and sped away in a late-model red car. No one was injured in either the attempted shooting or subsequent explosion.
Shell casings found in the vicinity may be tied into the recent biker-gang slayings as well. Detective Sergeant Marlin Morris told reporters the abandoned car's registration is being checked to determine the motorist's identity."
If Chaingang wanted to find him, he thought he'd make it as easy for him as he could. He'd bring the fat piece of shit out in the open and blow him into a million pieces of rendered lard.
He called a cab and asked to be driven to a car-rental agency. After he'd fixed himself up with a ride, he loaded his best girl and drove to the concealed sniper hide near Hospital Hill Park.
Oddly, he thought, it made him hot to consider how much power he had at this moment, assembling the weapon in his camouflaged gun pit. The cops wanted him, SAUCOG wanted him, fucking Chaingang wanted him, but he was like The Invisible Man—untouchable, unseeable, and all-powerful. What a turn-on! He could do any damned thing his heart desired and get away with it. Who was left to stop him?
"This round is particularly effective against vehicles, buildings, walls, barricades, and other hard targets." He loaded a SHARP-HEX round into the breech.
"Red Rock Match Grade ammunition…" His mind went blank. He felt a wave of nausea that came over him and vanished as quickly as it had lapped up against his senses. He peered into the Laco scope.
He saw a youth in a black car, maybe a Trans-Am, gone now behind a truck. A black man wearing a dark jacket; a fellow in work uniform, standing on the bumper of a trailer truck. Another peered under an open hood. He moved to other visions: a couple of people talking on the street; a nurse; the crimson of a sweatshirt on a jogger attracts him like a red flag waved at a bull, and as he focuses he spots a movement near a cement mixer. A man steps out and Price flings him into the air from a mile and a half away. "Way to get some!" What was once a man has now become paint, and it drips from the blasted belly of the cement mixer. The exploded man has become a red-and-silver streak. They sound like comic-book superheroes to Shooter: The Exploded Man and The Red and Silver Streak, in this adventure-filled issue of Gangbang Comics! He loads an antipersonnel round and peers into the 40X scope. A used-car salesman stands with a prospective customer under a row of pennants in front of a dealership. A woman walks to her car flanked by a Safeway bagboy. Shooter lets the crosshairs touch him. Keeps moving. Passes over a maintenance man in shirt and jeans, working beside the roadway.
"I exorcise thee, unclean spirit…tremble, 0 Satan, enemy of the faith, thou foe of mankind who hast brought death to the world." He sees the chocolate-over-beige prefab of an armed forces recruitment center. He sees a uniform and squeezes. He prays for Chaingang to find him now. "In nomina patris…" His mind wanders.
"The removable accessory vault, located in the butt of the stock, forward of the shoulder recoil pad, is accessed by removal of the butt base plate, and by releasing the serrated latch detent which is housed in the upper edge of the recessed butt chamber. Slide the base plate forward and grasp the lip inside the base plate, pulling the accessory vault down and out."
"That's how I get into your butt," he whispers into the black hole of his own madness.
The implant was all but forgotten for the moment. It was less than a sublevel awareness, excepting those moments when he felt a fleeting tingle of alien discomfort somewhere between the giant roll of fat at the back of his immense neck and the top of his scarred, hard skull. He would take these ones who needed killing step by step: Mr. Price, Mrs. Garbella, Dr. Norman—his sissy friend The concept that Norman would be monitoring his movements on a distant electronic screen could have upset his gyro, and he would not let that happen again. He was doing Dr. Norman's bidding, on his team for the moment, and their immediate goals were not antithetical.
Chaingang knew that he would prevail over the sniper with his miracle gun, all else being equal. But it was vital to act with celerity now, since Shooter Price was obviously far over the edge, and the police were under the impression that he—Daniel—was the sniper. One more preposterously intolerable event in a chain, which he would now begin to break.
There was no real wilderness anymore. Not this close to urban civilization. You could still find rough, raw chunks of empty space, but not true isolation. There was always the chance of running into somebody. It was no longer possible to get back of beyond—vestiges of humanity appeared everywhere. He hated them so, the stupid monkey men on this planet of dumb apes. He loathed their loud noises, happy laughter, and blank faces full of self-assuredness and herd mentality. He longed for the cleansing of isolation.
He had found a momentary pocket of quiet, where he could plan, plot, prepare—soak up the stillness and solitary joy of seclusion. The monkeys were far away.
The building was stone, a small rectangular structure approximately the size of a small tool shed. Solidly made, but for the roofing, which he had easily restored. The railroad spur that had once existed through these woods was long gone and Mother Nature had reclaimed the bed on which the tracks had rested. Thick near-impenetrable woods surrounded him.
There were others in these woods, but he sensed no monkeys at the moment; rather, there were roving packs of dogs, wild mongrels he imagined, coyotes and their cousins, coyotelike hunters, whose signs and conversation he'd seen and heard nearby. Deer. Other small animals. Humanity had been limited to a single light plane flying over the distant treeline. It was perfect for him.
He felt alone and rather safe in his cozy hideaway, and was pleased he'd discovered it without undue exertion. He found such places by logic, processes of education/deduction, luck, vibes, and something transcending intuition but akin to it. These places pulled him.
Neither vehicles nor mantracks touched the surrounding woods near his small stone sanctuary. No hoof or boot prints gathered water in 15EEEEE super-extra-wide heel marks. No sign of human life hung twisting in a bush or tree limb, to place his safety in possible jeopardy.
If you knew where to walk and were extremely cautious, you could go a few hundred meters and find the red Buick sedan registered to the late Eileen Todd's parents. It resided under a car tarp, inside a rotting barn that hadn't been used for anything in many years. The barn was decorated in rusting POSTED NO TRESPASSiNG and KEEP OUT warning signs. Obviously private property. Again, the structure had been restored by its latest occupant. If you dared you could breach his security system and find the vehicle, camouflaged, hidden inside. But you would have cause to regret such a discovery.