Days Inn Grand Strand, South Carolina Once Spider had taken what he wanted from the cemetery, he'd headed straight back to his rented room at the Days Inn Grand Strand, only minutes from Myrtle Beach International.
The act of grave-robbing had not given him a sleepless night. Far from it. It had exhilarated and exhausted him as much as any imaginable sexual marathon, and afterwards he'd slipped effortlessly into a full night's sleep.
Spider stirs now in his hotel bed and looks around the room to get his bearings. He wonders how the crummy joint managed to get one star, let alone two. Outside he can hear kids shouting and laughing as they jump in the pool and he longs for them to be quiet. He needs food, drink and much more rest, but such comforts will have to wait. Escape is now the only priority.
Although he is more than thirty miles from the desecrated grave, for him it's still too close for comfort. Despite the incredible desire to stay around, to mix with the locals and listen to them talk about what has happened, he knows he must leave. By now the cops are certain to be crawling all over the cemetery, and that in turn means that the story might be on every radio and television station. He's been scrupulously careful, and he will be even more careful before leaving the room, but despite all his precautions he's aware that there's always a chance that someone will see him, even if he hasn't seen them.
Spider uses the toilet and then takes a long, hot shower. There are two white bath towels. He takes one, partly dries himself and sits on the bed, wrapping it around him.
He notices that he's breathing hard and his hands are shaking. Even after all these years, after all the killings, he still gets 'the day-after shakes'. He knows it is only anxiety, the start of a panic attack. This is the time when the fear of being caught is at its most extreme, and experience has taught him that the further away from the crime scene he gets, the quicker the anxiety disappears.
When he feels a little better he goes back to the bed and sits down, flicking through the TV stations with a remote, zapping channels for any news from Georgetown. WTMA is finishing a warning about tropical depressions and hurricanes and WCSC is in the middle of a report on a Mount Pleasant woman who drowned while boating off Sullivan's Island. He flicks over to WCBD and instantly recognizes the video footage of the cemetery. After a few seconds a Hispanic-looking reporter appears on screen, talking to a news anchor back in the main studio: 'Here in this close-knit community of Georgetown there is widespread shock and outrage today, at what most locals regard as not just an unholy act but one of monstrous repulsiveness. Camera crews and journalists have been kept outside the cemetery, but as you'll have seen from our pictures, shot from the public highway, the desecration seems to be frenzied and extreme. There's speculation here that it could be the work of sick trophy-hunters or else of a highly disturbed individual who has some kind of mental illness that draws him to the graves of murder victims. The office of Georgetown's chief of police has today categorically stated that at this stage they see no reason to connect the incident with the so-called Black River Killer, the serial murderer believed to have been responsible for the death of Sarah Elizabeth Kearney.'
Spider is both amused and irritated. Does the press really believe such nonsense? Don't they have the intelligence to realize what is really going on? He doubts that the police are so stupid. Surely they won't misunderstand the significance of what has been done?
He lies back on the bed, his hair wet on the pillow. Next to him is the other bath towel, wrapped delicately around the object of his affection. The decapitated skull of Sarah Kearney. Spider turns on his left side and with his right hand gently strokes his fingers backwards and forwards across the smooth bone. Has it really been twenty years? Twenty years since he shared the intimacy of her death, and the secret comforts of her cool body?
'We'll have to go soon, my little Sugarbaby,' he says softly, kissing her lightly in the middle of the forehead. 'Sleep just a little longer, but then you and I will have to go. There's still much for us both to do.'