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“Excuse me, Borden,” said Gavin, “but it’s my understanding that Homer Gibbons was executed at Rockview Prison two days ago.”
“That’s what I’m saying. They kilt that boy deader’n dead and there he was getting out of one of those little Nissan thingamabobs. The Cube. Bare-chested, barefooted, bold as you damn please.”
“Homer Gibbon.”
“Yessiree bob.”
“Alive?”
“Well, sir, to be fair, he didn’t look all that hot. I think they must have messed him up some when they kilt him.”
Gavin looked at the producer, who was laughing silently on the other side of the glass. Gavin grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Tell me exactly what happened, Borden. This is absolutely fascinating.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
IN STEBBINS COUNTY
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
Lonnie Silk did not understand the hunger.
He was too hurt, too tired, too sick to even think about food, and yet it was all he could think about. With every staggering step he took, the need for something to eat turned like a knife in his stomach. It was worse than any hunger he’d ever felt. It was so much bigger than the pain of his wounds. So much more important than the disease that he knew was at work in his blood and flesh.
He was so hungry that he wanted to scream.
Or maybe he had screamed. Lonnie couldn’t quite remember. If he had, then the storm winds had blown it away.
He sagged against a wooden post at the corner of a big rail fence that bordered a field of swaying corn.
Corn.
He looked at it. He’d eaten raw corn before. Everyone who grew up in farm country had tried it.
Before he knew he was doing it, Lonnie climbed up onto the rail fence, leaned over, let himself fall into the mud on the other side. He landed hard and pain flared in every damaged inch of him.
It didn’t matter.
He was too hungry to let it matter.
Lonnie tried to get up. Couldn’t.
So he crawled to the nearest stalk, grabbed it, pulled it down, tore the ear from the stalk, ripped the green leaves away, and bit savagely at the kernels.
And immediately spit them out.
He flung the corn away, disgusted by it. This isn’t what his hunger wanted.
Needed.
Craved.
Lonnie cried out in frustration, and this time he heard his voice. It was not an articulate cry. There were no words. Instead it was just an expression of need.
Of hunger.
Lonnie looked wildly around as if expecting to see plates of food right there. Needing to see food.
