Primal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  But first she stepped onto the balcony and surveyed the inviting expanse of ocean outside. How wonderful it would be to go on a pleasure dive or another excursion to one of the islands she hadn't as yet seen with Jim. She knew he'd love the idea, but she also wondered if she dared hang on here longer. She wondered, too, if she dared tell Zanek where to go when she next heard from him; wondered if she dared quit the bureau, remain here with Jim Parry, remain in paradise, made the safer for her being here. Wondered finally if the HPD needed a good forensics person on staff, or better yet on call, so she could have more time to wander the beaches. Maybe that young fellow who worked for the county here had the right idea: spend more time outside instead of inside the lab.

  She wandered back into the room and went toward the kitchen area to make that coffee.

  As she did so, she passed the Western Union envelope where it lay, still dangling on the ledge. She now lifted it and placed it beside her as she put the coffee together. It was a simple Mr. Coffee and the brew was bubbling in no time, sending out an aromatic wake-up call to Jim. Already, she'd missed her flight from Oahu, but she'd call later and book anew, maybe.... It all depended on Jim.

  She began peeling open the Western Union envelope along the dotted line, watching Jim turn over at the same moment, his fingertips groping, trying to find her.

  She pretended indifference, looking into her correspondence instead. She turned out the tight folds of the paper and read the typed message, someone having no doubt paid extra for the red ink:

  Warm thy blood Hawaii.

  Make ready for T.

  Make it good and tasty.

  More better for me.... Teach

  Her mind and stomach crossed in a dizzying somersault as she gulped down a palpable fear. No, it's impossible; can't be, she argued with herself. If this is Alan Rychman's idea of a joke, she'd send him a response he wouldn't soon forget. But then she immediately knew better. Alan was not so callous as to sign off as the maniac who had cut her. Teach Matisak. But who? Matisak? Christ, how could he have gotten out a Western Union from the federal pen in—”What's 'at?” asked Parry, interrupting her thoughts.

  —unless that idiot Dr. Arnold wired it for him, she silendy guessed.

  “What the devil is it, Jess... Jess?” Jim stood tall and lean in his underwear.

  “Sure, that's the only explanation,” she said aloud, almost convinced, almost relieved. “What're you going on about?” Parry remained confused.

  “Look at this crap. Do you believe they'd let a psycho like Matt Matisak send a Western Union to me here!”

  “Must be somebody's idea of a sick joke. Look at the origin. Where'd it originate from?” He was instantly alert, his face creased with anger. “Let me see it.”

  He examined the origin of the message. “Says here Norman, Oklahoma. You know anybody in Oklahoma?”

  “No, no one.”

  The phone rang and the coffee was perked at the same time. Get the coffee,” she said. “I'll see who that is.”

  “Right, sure.”

  “Coran,” she said into the phone.

  “Don't you pick up your messages anymore, Coran?”

  “What messages? Wait a minute, Paul. You send me a wire the other night?”

  “No, just phone calls, several.”

  “I've been away from the hotel, sorry, and some weird things've been going on here, and last night I got in so late I didn't stop by the desk, so—”

  “Jess, are you sitting down?”

  “No, why?”

  “Sit.”

  He said it with such command she obeyed automatically. “What is it, Paul. You're scaring me.”

  “It's Matt Matisak.”

  “What about the bastard?”

  “He... he's no longer in custody, Jess.”

  “What? What? Are you... is this some sort of sick joke, Paul?”

  “Wish it were, Jess... wish it were...”

  “But if he's not in custody, what happened? Did I miss something? Don't give me any shit about his lawyer finding some overlooked loophole or I'll—”

  “He escaped Arnold's asylum.”

  “A maximum-security prison and he escapes?”

  “He escaped from a hospital ward in another part of the prison.”

  “Hospital ward?”

  “He hurt himself... all part of his plot, we figure.”

  “Christ, Paul, he... the bastard... he sent me a wire! He's coming after me.”

  “He's extremely dangerous, Jess. He proved that two days ago.”

  “Was anyone... hurt?”

  Parry was hanging on her every word.

  “Arnold was killed, and a guard, and a nurse.”

  “How?”

  “Scalpel to the throat... except for Arnold whom he took his time with.”

  “He stopped to drink the blood, didn't he?”

  “He did.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “He left a message on a wall, a message in Arnold's blood.”

  “For me.”

  “For you.”

  “What... what'd it say, damn you?”

  “The real thing is good, but Coran is king... I want her blood.”

  “That bastard's free and he's after my blood, Paul. What the hell am I supposed to do? You got any idea what I'm supposed to do?”

  “You can't stay there, that's for sure.”

  “I'm going to be looking over my shoulder no matter where I am.”

  “Get back home, Jess. We can work out a strategy from here. If he thinks you're in Hawaii, he'll go there.”

  “Get back home for how long, Paul?”

  “It'll buy us time... time to work out some strategy, Jess.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don't know, Jess. Until we apprehend the bastard again.”

  “Start in Norman, Oklahoma.”

  “Oklahoma?”

  “He sent the wire from there.”

  “Christ, he's halfway across the continent.”

  “He's shrewd and deadly. He'll be killing as he goes. Set up a command post in Oklahoma. I'll... I'll join you there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, damnit, I'm sure.”

  Jim interrupted. “He could be counting on that if he's as treacherous as you say.”

  “What?”

  “That you'll come to him.”

  “Right, well, then he'll be right.” Zanek asked, “Who are you talking to?”

  “Jim Parry.” She imagined Zanek was checking his watch about now and figuring Hawaii time.

  “Ahh, oh, yeah,” he sputtered. “Sounds like he agrees with me, Jess, that it'd be best for you to return to D.C.”

  “Where I can sit on my thumbs? Wait and wonder and fear my own shadow? No, thanks.”

  “Let us take care of Matisak, Jess.”

  “I let you guys take care of him already, remember?”

  “All right, Jess. I'll meet you in Oklahoma, but not anywhere near the bureau offices. He'll be watching the offices, if he imagines you'll come.”

  “Or he'll be on a flight for here,” she countered.

  “What's it to be, Jess?”

  “Oklahoma for me, and Parry's people will watch the terminals here.”

  Parry stared across at her, seeing the determination in her eyes. She hung up after telling Zanek that she would wire him in Norman with her flight numbers.

  “I'm going with you to the mainland, to Oklahoma,” he now said.

  “The hell you are. You have a bureau to run here. You're... you're the goddamn linchpin here in the islands, Jim, respected by both sides. With your expertise and knowledge of the Kowona affair... well, you're just needed here; otherwise anything could happen to this powder keg you call paradise.”

  “To hell with all that.”

  “To hell with it? No way you're going to turn your back on what you have here, Jim; what you've accomplished and built. Hell, even Kaniola has renewed respect for you and the
bureau since—”

  “Don't B.S. me, Jess.”

  “He said as much.”

  “I can't let you fly off after this madman alone, Jess.”

  “Alone? Don't be ridiculous. The entire bureau's on alert. I'll have an army of willing bodyguards and Paul Zanek'll be at the lead.”

  “That's supposed to put me at ease?”

  “Come on. What we have found here together... no one'll ever replace, Jim. And maybe, when this is all over, I'll... I'll come back...”

  “And maybe you won't.”

  “Don't, Jim... don't make this choice any harder than it already is, please.” In fact, in her mind, there was no choice. He sensed this.

  Their coffee had gone cold and the Hawaiian sky at the windows had become overcast for the first time since she'd come to Oahu.

  She dialed for the airlines. He dressed. They went around one another like a pair of zombies as she packed. “Everything's changed now,” she finally said.

  “Everything?”

  “Circumstances, but not how I feel about you... just circumstances. I don't want to go. I have to go.”

  “Why, Jess? Why can't you just stay?” We're not kids, Jim. That would mean giving up my career. Besides, he knows I'm here. I'm... I feel vulnerable. I have to take the offensive.”

  “And if it's a trap, to lure you there?”

  “I've walked into traps before, once with you, remember?”

  He was hurt, his insides turning over.

  “Will you take me to the airport?”

  “If you're sure. Okay.”

  “Funny this should happen now,” she said.

  “Funny?”

  “I finally discard that damned cane, declare myself free of Matisak and the scars he inflicted on me. My nights were no longer haunted by him, and now this.”

  The flight out of Hawaii was long, tedious torture, the States half a hemisphere away, and it gave her too much time to wonder what might have been, too much idle questioning of her decisions until she was second-guessing herself. She thought of Jim Parry and how much he meant to her, about how dear he was, about what she was giving up.

  Maybe Jim was right. Maybe she should chuck it all, turn around and return to his arms and the paradise—or near- paradise—she'd discovered there in the lush islands of the Ohana.

  But if she remained it would be like a homing beacon for the evil of Matisak to invade there. If she returned to Hawaii, Matisak would be forced to find her there, and she'd be jeopardizing people there, even Jim. Matisak wanted to poison her life in every conceivable way, and how better to poison it than to destroy whatever and whomever she loved. She must never give Matisak that kind of power, the power of knowledge over her, of information that could harm her.

  She feared even corresponding or talking with Jim on the phone now, for Matisak's evil genius would leam of her lover, and he would plot some awful nightmare for Jim Parry, a night of torture and death in which the psycho would slowly drain Jim Parry of his blood. This tort 9 killer, this vampire, was cunning and cruel.

  She wasn't crazy or paranoid to feel this way toward Matisak. Over the years of his incarceration she'd had to make many visits to him, interrogating him, and he in turn had made numerous death threats, both direct and indirect, careful always to do so whenever her recorder ran out of tape. Still, she had fooled him once into threatening her by carrying a second, concealed tape on her person. It was useless as evidence to take to his parole board, which would be sitting in a matter of four years from now, as she'd smuggled it in and he was being taped without his knowledge, but it gave credence to her claim, and it had opened Paul Zanek's eyes to the monster.

  Matisak had been careful and controlled around others, and around tape recorders. He didn't want to slip up or say anything that could be used against him when his parole board sat, but everyone except Matisak knew that no amount of good behavior and cooperation with the FBI interviewers over the years was going to win him a free walk on the first go-round.

  Somehow, Matisak figured this out. Dr. Arnold, Matisak's keeper all these years, might have nastily explained it to him in a fit of his own, earning Matisak's undying hatred. Actually Matisak hated everyone, and in particular, his rage had fixated on Jessica Coran, who had unmasked him and caused his capture and eventual imprisonment.

  Here on the plane with the hum of flight in her ears, she now imagines Matisak's moves there in the asylum. He manages first to slip some small item into his cage, no small trick in the maximum-security nuthouse where all transactions are handled through a revolving door in a glass cell. Then comes the injury, self-inflicted. Though Matisak is wise to medical procedures, so he may have staged a masquerade, a supposed natural injury, say a bleeding ulcer or blood frothing from the mouth. Then comes the transportation to the hospital ward, and the subsequent lapse in security, ending with three deaths and the disappearance of Matisak, who, using a doctor's coat and badge, wallet and credit cards, waltzes out to a car belonging to the murdered doctor and drives off into the night without objection from anyone.

  She now silently curses the scenario she has painted in her mind, wishing to quell it, to rest for the long haul ahead, but her mind and Matisak play on.

  Then Matisak speeds across the country, no doubt leaving a trail of bloodless bodies in his wake. He exchanges cars somewhere along the way, and the fiend stops in Norman, Oklahoma, to send her a wire, having learned of her whereabouts through Dr. Arnold, who'd always taken some perverse pleasure in taunting Matisak with her comings and goings, always keeping him apprised of her whereabouts in some sick, childish game that had gone on between doctor and patient, captive and keeper throughout their relationship. This long after she had stopped visiting the asylum on a routine basis, refusing to deal with Matisak after the Claw Case, in which he had sought to undermine her confidence even from his asylum cell.

  She had made pilgrimages to the maniac for only as long as he had useful information to convey, and for as long as her own tortured psyche could withstand the visits. She had made the examinations and taped interviews for the same reasons she'd conducted interviews with Gerald Ray Sims and other serial murderers, for the good of the cause, to carry on Otto Boutine's work and only because it had fallen on her to do so; Matisak would only communicate through her, at his deranged insistence, and so she had gone, playing along with his prurient game in her official capacity only in order to learn what the FBI might from Matisak about his fatal and instinctive working methods, his selection of victims, and the way his mind worked. Matisak got off on it, sitting opposite her, having her there to gaze at and lust for, giving him a sick sense of hope for the future, hope that he might taste of her blood a second time. She normally wouldn't have subjected herself to such an ordeal, but she knew the necessity of learning as completely as possible the inner psyche of a creature like Matisak. Besides, it proved a useful shield against certain of her superiors who sought to remove her at the time, claiming her incapacitated, not physically but emotionally. But she had shown O'Rourke and she had proven to Paul Zanek what kind of metal lay beneath her skin. At the same time, her superiors had a case file on Matisak the size of the D.C. phone book, and they knew as much as humanly possible about how the madman had created such an elaborate fantasy: “I am descended from vampires, and genetically coded a vampire from birth.” The sickest thing about the belief was not that he believed it, but that he acted on it every chance he got.

  Now his chances are excellent to stupendous. Now here he is in the year 1995, taking every opportunity to drink the blood of others, not content with medications to control his urges, ill content with the idea he could feed his cravings with ox blood, chicken blood, or any number of other substitutes. No, this one is bent on feeding in the manner of his supposed forebears! He should've gone the way of Lopaka Kowona, but the state of Illinois didn't see it that way.

  Now, no doubt, bloodless bodies litter the trail he has blazed to Norman, Oklahoma.

  Now, Jessica thi
nks with renewed awe, this obsessed lunatic, enraptured with me, is out there in the heartland, hunting me as if I'm some sort of filthy carrion for him; his throat and tongue and taste buds are watering for my blood a second time. It isn't going to happen.

  “Warm thy blood Hawaii,” he said in his sardonic message. It is clear to her that Hawaii in the poem means her, that he meant the word to mean Dr. Jessica Coran. “Warm thy blood Coran... Make ready for T—”

  A demented, psychotic vampire is after me again.

  She can think of nothing else.

  She wonders if she can stand the long flight back to the mainland. Her ankles, which have not troubled her since the trek to Kahoolawe, begin to throb, and she wishes she'd kept her cane for something solid to hang onto, if for no other reason.

  Matisak's insane eyes fill her mind. He's already gaining control. She feels a silent shiver run through her nervous system and she imagines the plane filled with ghosts that would crawl up from within her the moment darkness descended.

  She remembers the madness of Lopaka Kowona. She recalls the insanity of Gerald Ray Sims, who'd killed himself in his cell, claiming demonic possession. She recalls Simon Archer, the notorious Claw. None of them frighten her.

  But Matisak does.

  She can think of nothing else...

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Robert W. Walker is the author of more than forty published novels, beginning with SUB-ZERO in 1979. He has millions of books in print. You can visit him at www.robertwalkerbooks.com.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  THE INSTINCT THRILLERS featuring FBI forensic pathologist Dr. Jessica Coran

  Killer Instinct

  Fatal Instinct

  Primal Instinct

  Pure Instinct

  Darkest Instinct

  Extreme Instinct

  Blind Instinct

  Bitter Instinct

  Unnatural Instinct

  Grave Instinct

  Absolute Instinct

  THE EDGE THRILLERS featuring Detective Lucas Stonecoat

  Cold Edge

  Double Edge

  Cutting Edge