The ripper considered a long time, he considered, watched, waited, argued, fought; but in the end there was only one choice to be made.
 
And who was he fooling, really? Everyone is something. You can't run from who you are.
 
Anyway, once you're here, once the heat punches you in the nostrils and the iron stink sings in your bones, and the drooling wet trickling over the back of your hand is someone else's red water, it's a bit late to protest too much.
 
So no more protesting.
 
Delve stares enraptured and amazed at the hitchhiker, at the hitchhiker's frozen face, at his own shocked expression reflected in the rear-view mirror.
 
Most especially, at the knife handle protruding from the other man's abdomen.
 
He hadn't meant to do it, not really, not *yet* at least, not like *that* anyhow, but somehow he had parked, he had turned around to speak to the hitchhiker, and then it seemed the knife just happened to be in his hand, and when his passenger's eyes met his and it seemed the man might be about to scream, well ... the knife just jumped.
 
Really, that's what it felt like. Involuntary, external.
 
It jumped, bit, struck, and now the blade was sinking deeper like a steel fang, as if with a will of its own.
 
Now Delve's eardrums ring and jangle with the pressure of the hitchhiker's screams, the soft fabric of the man's shirt pressing damply against his smooth-furred hand as the blade sinks to the hilt and tries to go deeper.
 
Delve doesn't quite understand how he got where he is. Somewhere deep inside, some dark primal instinct screamed for satiation, shuddering through the half-coyote's spirit.
 
Disoriented, sensing that relief was but a single thin barrier away, the ripper rips. The knife struggles to remain where it is, blissfully buried in the belly of the bellowing bovine beast. But the pit bull mix exerts his will and his strength, and it twists but it comes, tearing sideways out of the hitchhiker's flesh with a disgruntled sound like a wet canvas sack being torn in two.
 
Almost immediately the knife jumps again, leaving a crimson bow spray behind it in the air.
 
The ripper finds himself living up to his type-cast again and again, sucking breath anxiously amongst the gasping bellows of his dying guest's last sickly attempts to continue screaming.
 
Blinking, he must wipe his arm across his face several times, as the blood gets in his eyes, stinging. He licks his arm unmindfully after, more focused on the surprisingly, delightfully active weapon than on cleanliness.
 
Silence drops heavily like a blood-soaked blanket over the car.
 
Delve feels much better, really.
 
But tired. Alone. And cold. So very cold.
 
The ruined corpse retains more or less the shape of a human body, but it seems now more like a snug, warm cocoon in which to hide, an edible tent with dead skin walls.
 
Lying within the shattered, tossed and investigated gore, curled up, soaking the warmth of the other man's blood and flesh into his own skin, the ripper wishes he could stay here forever.
 
Inevitably, however, the blood goes cold, the last vestiges of healthfulness leave the flesh, and it becomes something *other*, something unfoodlike and unlovable, an abode for flies, a den of beetles, a low-cost fixer-upper for worms.
 
Already, Delve feels the pressure building up again as his fascination with the corpse turns to disgust, to loathing.
 
So he must find someone else, and do it all over again...
 
He reflects that a burning car does not lend the most palatable of flavors to roasting meat.