Chapter 22 Chapter Four

Owen was driving on Route 236.Seven miles from Crofton, he saw a car parked by a holly bush. Ho, what a ghost! He passed the old Cadillac, slowed down, pulled the car over to the side of the road, and parked it in a clump of larch. He gambled once and won.Time to get lucky, he thought. At the scene of the Crofton murder, Owen noticed two small barns near the home where old antique cars were stored, all covered in covers.Only one parking space was vacant, and empty car covers were thrown on the ground.Owen thought it was impossible for Hurubek to steal such an eye-catching antique car as an escape tool, but thinking that he had even used a bicycle, Owen changed his mind.He scoured the ground a little and found a fresh trail of a car, leading from the barn to the driveway and heading west on Route 236.He left the residence and got into his car without saying anything to Crofton police.He didn't go to Boriston, but followed the track of the antique car.

Owen got out of the car and walked to the Cadillac.The noise of wind and rain muffled the sound of his footsteps.He stopped, squinted and looked ahead.Sixty or seventy feet away a tall figure, with its back to Owen, was urinating into a clump of trees.The man threw back his bald head as he looked up at the sky.He seemed to be humming softly. Owen bent down, gently pulled out his pistol, thinking about what to do next.If Hurubek went to Lingshang Town, Owen could follow him and hide in the house first.If a madman broke in, Owen could kill him on the spot.Maybe it would be better to stick a knife or iron bar in his hand - it would be easier to charge him in court.But now that Hurubek had a car, Owen wondered if Ridgetown might not be his final destination.Perhaps he intended to turn south, to Boriston.Maybe he'd drive the car all the way to New York along Route 236, or go further west.

Besides, Owen's prey was right in front of him, unsuspecting and alone—no matter where Hurubek planned to go, Owen would never have such a good opportunity again. He made up his mind: do it now. But what about that Cadillac?He could leave his off-road vehicle here, put the body in the trunk of that antique car, and drive to Lingshang Town.And dragging the body into the house— Oh no, of course not.What about the blood?The 0.357 bullet is very lethal.Court officers may inspect the trunk of the Cadillac. Better to keep the vintage car.Hurubek is a lunatic. He got scared halfway through the drive, left the car here, and walked to Lingshang Town.It suddenly occurred to him that Hurubek should not be killed here. The coroner might find that Hurubek died an hour or so earlier than what Owen said.

He decided to wound Hulubek now—shoot him in the arms and legs.Drag him into his Cherokee and drive back to Ridgetown. In this way, the huge madman came to the kitchen of Aitchison's house.When Owen ordered to stop, he refused to listen, so he fired two shots at him, and the third shot killed him. What about the blood in the Cherokee?It's a little risky.But he can park the car behind the garage.They won't see the car, let alone send someone to check it out. After thinking about it, Owen felt that although this plan was risky, it was worth a try. He pulled the trigger of his pistol and moved towards Hurubek's tall figure.Hurubek was done and was looking up at the sky, listening to the wind whistling in the pine treetops, letting the rain fall on his face.

Owen advanced five steps toward his quarry, only to hear the musket cocking as a policeman turned his gun on him. "Don't move!" The young policeman's voice trembled. "What do you want?" Owen yelled. "Don't move! Throw the gun to the ground! Throw it!" At this moment, Hulubek started to run, and the tall black figure ran towards the Dirac car. "I order you one last time!" the police shouted with horror. "You idiot!" Owen yelled.He walked towards the police. The cops held their guns higher.Owen stopped and dropped the gun: "Okay, okay."

The sound of the Cadillac starting came.As the car sped past them, the policeman turned his head in horror. Owen took advantage of the situation to put his gun aside and punched the policeman in the face with his right fist.The young policeman fell to the ground with a thud, and Owen immediately jumped on him, beating him with a rage.Owen gasped, gradually calmed down, and leaned over to look at the policeman's bloody face—he had passed out. "Fuck," he cursed bitterly. A few yards behind him there was a snap, like a gunshot.Owen knelt down and picked up the pistol.He heard nothing but the sound of wind and rain.A few bolts of lightning flashed across the sky.

He walked back to the policeman, handcuffed his hands behind his back, and drew out the policeman's leather belt to bind his feet.He looked at the policeman in disgust, wondering if he saw himself clearly.Maybe he didn't see clearly, he thought.It was too dark.He himself did not see the policeman's face at all.He might think it was Hurubek who hit him. Owen ran back to his truck.He closed his eyes and punched the front of the car. "It's over!" he shouted to the sky. The left front wheel of the car was flat. He bent down and found the tire had been punctured by a medium-caliber bullet.As he ran to get the spare tire, it occurred to him that in all his plans for tonight, it had never occurred to him that Hurubek would try to defend himself.

with a gun. The Cadillac was running on the asphalt road, and Mike Hurubek still had lingering fears when he thought about the scene where he met the spies twenty minutes ago.These dog things!He escaped by chance, but his hands were still shaking and his heart was still beating.He often lost his mind and couldn't remember where he was and what he was going to do.He could still hear the gunshot and feel the vibration of the gun in his hand. He sang loudly: "Cadillac, the tyrant deserves what he deserves...Doctor Annie, when will you be back here?" After the death of Dr. Anne Muller, Hurubek began to wander, mostly on the streets, relying on social relief workers for food handouts, or picking food from leftover bins outside restaurants.

After months of wandering in the Northeast, Hurubek came to the capital, Washington, intending to apologize personally to Andrew Johnson or the current president for his past crimes.He came to the White House and knocked on the door of the guard room. "Mr. Guard, I have to talk to you about the murder of the President. It's urgent!" He was caught by the secret police and put in prison. The police didn't torture him to extract a confession, as Hurubek thought.They just asked him some questions and released him after two hours.Believing that the police must have inserted a radio tracker into his body during the interrogation, he jumped into the pool in front of the Washington Monument to short-circuit the tracker's batteries.

At last he got tired of staying in the capital, and wandered north again, looking for his father.A month later in Philadelphia Mike thought he had found his home.He went through the gate to see if anyone was in the house.Someone, but not his father, but a detective's wife. He was arrested again and put in jail. Later he went to Princeton, New York, Hartford... . In January of this year, he was arrested for smashing a store in a wealthy town fifty miles away from Lingshang Town.He called himself Mike Booth.The court found him severely mentally ill and sent him to Coupstown State Insane Hospital.

Hurubek was placed in an "intensive ward" without being examined by a resident doctor.After three hours in a cold, dark room in his tights, a man entered.The man was actually taller than Mike. "Who are you?" Mike asked. "Are you a paramedic? Are you from the government? I've been to Washington, the capital of our great country. You fucking—" "Shut your stinking mouth." Mr. Nursing punched him against the wall, and knocked him to the ground with another punch. "Don't bark, don't make noise, don't talk back. Shut up and relax." Mike shut his mouth, but he couldn't relax.Coupston is a tense place.When the patient comes in, don't expect anything, and can only let his condition develop to the bad.Mike sat alone most of the time, looking out the window, shaking his legs, humming the same song over and over again.Only night brings the hope of rest, and in this terrible hospital only the hours of sleep can give him peace. In Cupstown, nurses locked two female patients in the same ward, left a greased Coke bottle, and ducked outside the door to observe. In Coupston, Mike Hurubek's consciousness is further removed from reality, and he is more convinced that he is living in the time of the American Civil War.During the month in the intensive care unit, Mike read only one book, which was about reincarnation.After reading it more than a dozen times, he finally realized that he was John Booth who assassinated President Lincoln.The soul of the assassin possessed him.John Booth is a third-rate actor, but a first-rate killer. That March, Mr. Big Nurse pushed Mike into Susie's ward, closed the door, and pointed the video camera inside through the window.Susie was twenty-four, with a very handsome face, except for a scar in the middle of her forehead.She looked at Mike carefully, and seeing that he was a man, she immediately lifted up her skirt, took off her shorts, and knelt down on the ground. Mike knew that Mr. Order was right outside the door, and knew that he should drop his pants and get on the floor like Susie.He and she were waiting there naked, when a doctor suddenly arrived and the orderly fled.The doctor glanced into the room, opened the door, went in, and asked the patient what he was doing. Mike Hurubek replied, "Wait for the orderly. She and I are ready. The orderly, like all medical staff, has a big dick." "Oh, my God!" As a result of the investigation, five orderlies, two nurses and two doctors were fired from Coopston Hospital.Mike was immediately transferred to the general ward of the hospital.The report on Mike Hurubek reads: "As his condition has stabilized, he is expected to improve." In fact, Hurubek was in a more serious condition than when he was admitted to the hospital. Investigators sent. A month after the scandal, Hurubek is still in the general ward.One Saturday night, his agitation suddenly became more intense, and he felt the walls around him closing in on him, suffocating him.Mike suspected that the secret police were playing tricks again. In fact, this had nothing to do with the federal government. His illness was due to a doctor's medication error-he had not been given haloperidol for four days. Finally Mike Hurubek remembered that there was only one person who could help him.He had accused Dr. Anne of being a spy, and had cursed her hundreds of times to be damned.Mike believed that the only way for him to be relieved was to withdraw his relentless curse and apologize to Dr. Annie in person.That night he planned a careful absconding plan, including using arson to divert attention, using disguises and other techniques.However, this careful plan was not necessary, because he walked out of the hospital door wearing jeans and a T-shirt on Sunday morning. The guards did not know that he was a seriously ill patient living in the general ward. Mike Hurubek didn't know that Dr. Anne was there, but he knew that Mount Verdant was in the south of the state, so that spring morning he started running south.He soon lost his way on a country lane and became increasingly agitated.He hid in the bushes by the side of the road, waiting for what he thought to be his pursuers to pass by.He worked up the courage to sneak up into the back of a truck, and after an hour of driving it pulled up in front of a restaurant, he jumped out and fled down a country road. At noon Mike came to a large parking lot.He ran across the parking lot into a forest, and there was a large wooden sign beside the forest, on which a line of words appeared to be branded with a large soldering iron: Welcome to Indian Sacrifice National Park While thinking about the past six months ago, Mike Hurubek drove a black Cadillac to the top of a mountain road on Route 236.In front of him was a smooth downhill road leading straight into the distance where the lightning flashed, leading to a faint light-there might be Ridgetown. "Betrayal," Mike said bitterly.He repeated the word, suddenly feeling restless. "Betrayed Eve!" His pulse suddenly rose to 175, his body was sweating, his teeth chattered, and his mind went blank.He forgot Ridgetown, he forgot Liz Aitchison, he forgot Eve, the Secret Service, Dr. Anne, Dr. Dick... he forgot everything but cold fear. The hand holding the steering wheel was trembling, and he stared at the front of the Cadillac, as if he woke up and found himself riding on the back of a galloping bull. I'm going to hang on, he thought.God help me. For a brief moment Mike held on.He gripped the steering wheel tightly and steered the car into the correct lane. For a moment Mike Hurubek was not a useless lunatic, a husk possessed by an old murderer.Lincoln was just a great, tragic figure in history whose face is engraved on coins, and Mike himself was just a tall, strong young man driving down the highway. But the illusion quickly disappeared. Mike couldn't take it any longer.He tried to brake, but put a big foot on the accelerator pedal on the right.He blindfolded and shouted for help, but still pressed his foot on the gas pedal.The car flew up, disappeared behind a clump of larch trees, and rolled somersaults all the way down the slope.