Carlos was not dismayed. Contingencies were a factor in such work. Besides, Carlos figured he’d be paid more, maybe even double. He also wasn’t concerned about the stranger’s size and probable strength. Carlos had experience and the benefit of surprise, and, most important, he had his favorite knife, which at the moment he was holding in his right hand up alongside his head.
Cautiously Carlos eased his head out into the opening so he could see into the kill-floor area. It was easy to keep track of the stranger now, thanks to the flashlight. Carlos saw the man straighten up from the grate at Carlos’s workstation.
All at once the flashlight shined directly at Carlos. He retreated from the beam. careful to keep the knife blade from flashing in the darkness. He held his breath as the stranger edged closer, again probing the kill floor with sweeping motions of his shaft of light.
Carlos flattened himself against the wall and tensed his muscles. The stranger was coming into the boning room as Carlos had anticipated. The searching flashlight beam flickered around the room in a progressively brighter fashion. Carlos could feel his pulse sky rocket as adrenaline coursed around his body. It was a sensation he loved. It was like popping speed.
Kim knew he was in a slaughterhouse that had been in operation that day, so finding blood shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Yet the blood he’d found was unclotted and appeared fresh. He hated to think it could have been Marsha’s; the chance that it was brought back his familiar fury. Now he wanted to find her with even more urgency than earlier, and if she were indeed injured, he wanted to find the individual responsible.
After having searched the kill floor, Kim decided to widen his search to other areas of the huge plant. He headed to the only open passageway he’d seen, on guard against the person or persons who had already spilled blood.
In the next instant it was his wariness that saved him. Out of the corner of his eye, he detected sudden movement coming at him from the side. Reacting by reflex, he leaped ahead and used the long flashlight to parry what he perceived as a thrust.
Carlos had lunged from the shadows, hoping to skewer Kim in the side with a quick stab, withdraw the knife, and retreat. He’d planned to finish Kim off once Kim had been weakened. But the knife missed its mark and only succeeded in producing a shallow cut across the top of Kim’s hand.
As Carlos tried to regain his balance, Kim hit him with the flashlight. It was a glancing blow to the shoulder that didn’t hurt Carlos although, catching him off balance, it knocked him to the ground. Before Carlos could scramble to this feet, Kim took off. He ran through the head-boning room into the main boning room. This next room was almost the size of the kill floor and somewhat darker. It was filled with a maze of long stainless-steel tables and conveyer belts. Above was a web of metal-grate catwalks where supervisors could survey the butchering of the carcasses into known cuts of meat on the tables below.
Kim searched frantically for some kind of weapon to counter the long knife. Having turned off the flashlight and afraid to turn it back on, he could only grope blindly along the tables. He found nothing.
A large, empty, plastic trash barrel fell over when Kim stumbled against it. Desperately, he reached out to keep it from rolling around and further giving away his position. Looking back at the passageway into the head-boning room, Kim could see the silhouette of the man with the knife. He was backlit for a brief instant before silently slipping into the shadows.
Kim trembled with fear. He was being stalked by an obvious killer armed with a knife in a dark, totally alien environment with no way to protect himself. He knew he had to stay hidden. He could not let this man get near him. Although he’d managed to elude the first thrust, Kim was smart enough to understand that he probably wouldn’t be so lucky a second time.