A Crying Shame (124 page)

You just had to meddle, didn't you?” Ralph moved closer to an instrument tray, gleaming under the harsh light.
Just couldn't let well enough alone, could you? Just couldn't let us work it out ourselves. We were going to kill off the bad ones. Mamma told me so last time I saw her.” He smiled, then picked up a scalpel.
My real mamma, Blackwell. I don't think you'd like her very much, wouldn't have too much in common.” He chuckled.
But in my ... half-world, Mamma was—and is—considered a real beauty.”

Your real mamma? What the hell are you talking about, Ralph? No one knows who your real mamma is. You were found naked on a porch. You and—”

Ralph cut him with the razor-sharp scalpel; cut him across the face, a long slanting slice, from left eye all the way down to the angle of the right side of his chin. The blood leaped from his face, squirting from the gaping wound.

Blackwell screamed, staggering back against the cooler wall as Ralph sliced at him again, missing in his haste. Ralph moved slowly toward the newspaperman. Les grabbed the man's wrist. But his fingers were sticky from blood and sweat and he lost his grip.

Ralph brought the scalpel down hard, cutting the editor from shoulder to waist, the sharp instrument grating against bone. Blackwell screamed his pain and backhanded the smaller man, staggering him. Ralph stabbed him in the stomach then slipped in the blood on the tiled floor. Blackwell ran from the room, a trail of crimson following him. One eye dangled from an empty socket, hanging down his cheek. It gave him a very peculiar slant on where he was going and where he had been.

Ralph ran after him, the bloody knife in his bloody hand. Blackwell could swear the man was snarling and growling. Like an animal.

 

Dr. von Pappen?” Mike said.
Dr. Lewis? You both look grim.”

Close off this parish,” Walter said.
Block the bridges and roads and warn your fellow lawmen in the surrounding parishes.”

Mike wiped his sweaty forehead.
Warn them of what, sir?”

He wasn't really sure he wanted to hear the reply to his question.

It isn't rabies,” Karl said.
But it does create pockets of pus in the brain. We believe the suppuration literally alters the brain process. For a time. Then, we believe, it runs its course. Dies. We don't know—at this time—what causes the infection, or why it suddenly dies. The body produces some defense against it, would be my guess. In a properly equipped lab . . .”—he spread his big hands—”. . . in time, we would probably discover answers to our questions. But here . . .” He shook his head.