Death Without Parole #1

  Cover Design by Ten21 Design Company

  An affiliate of BSIC Publishing Company

  Cover Copyright ? 2012 by Ten21 Design Company

  Cover Copyright ? 2012 by BSIC Publishing Company

  Death Without Parole

  A Short Story

  By

  Christopher Lee Cousino

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Death Without Parole

  A Short Story

  Copyright ? 2012 by Christopher Lee Cousino

  Copyright ? 2012 by BSIC Publishing Company

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  About the Author

  "I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow."

  Bela Lugosi?(1882-1956) Hungarian Actor and star of Broadway play and Hollywood movie DRACULA (1931)

  Death Without Parole

  Chapter 1

  NOW

  "Lights out Noel." The guard smacked the bars with his nightstick, then moved on to the next cell to tell it's occupant it was bedtime. Patrick Noel didn't like the guard. His name was Ralph, and he was a real douchebag. The pompous, arrogant prison guard enjoyed the power his job brought him a little too much. Ralph liked to pick on, not to mention beat on, the smaller inmates at Cook Penitentiary. Patrick was one of Ralph's favorite victims. Of course, it wasn't as painful for Patrick as it was for the others, at least not physically. Mentally and emotionally, however, it was draining and extremely frustrating.

  He could barely control himself and his anger?his urges. Every time the roided-out Ralph decided to use Patrick as a punching bag, it took everything the smaller man had to avoid the instinctual hunger that bubbled up inside him. It would be so easy to just give in?to feed. But Patrick had made himself, and more importantly his late wife and son, a promise. That he would never give in to the monster. He would beat this curse?or find a way to kill himself, whichever came first.

  Grabbing the family picture off the wall next to his bed, Patrick held it close to his face to see it in the dim light. It wouldn't be long before the prison went black. As always, he liked his family's faces to be the last thing he saw before the darkness enveloped him?not that it hadn't already. The picture had been taken on one of their many camping trips, this one just last year. So much had happened since then. His mind began to wander to the horrific events that led him here, but he stopped himself. Returning his thoughts to happier times, Patrick refocused on the picture in his hands.

  His son Michael, or Mikey as Patrick called him, had caught his first fish. The little guy, 8 at the time, had been so proud he'd wanted the whole family to take a picture with it. Patrick remembered asking another camper at the site to take a picture of them. Himself, Mikey, Patrick's wife Mandy, and their daughter Isabella. Well, technically she was their adopted daughter. But Patrick had never considered her anything but his own flesh and blood, even if she wasn't really. She had been 6 when the picture was taken. They all had ear to ear grins plastered on their faces. That had been a good day, check that, a great day. They'd been so happy. Life had been so happy. Staring at their faces, Patrick's vision began to blur as he felt his eyes tear up. Then the lights went out.

  Sticking the picture back onto the wall, Patrick rolled onto his side. His hip and elbow took the brunt of the pressure from the rock hard mattress, but he didn't try to reposition himself. Patrick had long ago given up the pointless battle of trying to get comfortable on a prison bed. Besides, he never slept anyways. He didn't think his kind could, but since he'd been forced to kill the only others he knew of like him without the benefit of a question/answer session, he wasn't sure. Staring into the abyss of his cell, Patrick let memories wash over him, reliving the nightmare that he had never woken up from.