turn her face toward me. Her eyes were unfocused and
distant, but with a heroic effort she managed to gather
herself and look up at me. .
"Why, Junie?" I asked, tears in my eyes, overcome by
the magnitude of her sacrifice. "Why take a bullet for
me? We barely knew each other."
She was fading fast, blood bubbling from the corners
of her mouth, as well as from the grievous wound in her
abdomen. "Because they've hurt you enough," Junie
whispered. "I couldn't live knowing—"
That was it; the lights suddenly went out in her eyes
and Junie went limp, dead in my arms without the
strength to finish her sentence. She'd said all she needed
t o , though, and I pulled her closer to me and held her
tight as I wept for her, her crippled son, and her sense¬
less death. If I could have traded places with her on the
bed of forest leaves I would have gladly.
In a heartbeat.
I closed my eyes and prayed for the world to go
away.
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - F O U R
Surprise, surprise, my prayers went unanswered. W h e n
next I opened my eyes the world was still there, cold
and rotten as ever, and I had two dead bodies lying at
my feet to prove it.
I took a deep breath to steady my frayed nerves, then
climbed shakily to my feet. I spent a couple of minutes
covering Junie up with leaves and saying good-bye. She
deserved a better grave and burial than that, but time
was of the essence and the shroud of foliage was the best
I could do with no shovel or tools. Jackson, I left to rot
where he lay, j u s t as he'd planned on doing with me. Let
the birds pick out his eyes and the rest of the forest ani¬
mals and bugs have their way with him for all I cared. I
had to get moving. I wanted to put as much distance
between me and this spot as I could before anyone fig¬
ured out Jackson wasn't coming back.
I made it about a hundred feet farther down the for¬
est path, j u s t around the next bend, when I finally found
Drake's cemetery.
My God!
The path didn't widen out a lot, maybe twenty feet at
its widest, but there were grave markers everywhere,
little white wooden crosses stuck all over the path and
covering the forest floor to my left and right. I didn't
bother to count, but there had to be sixty or seventy of
them, easy—maybe as many as a hundred.
I hadn't expected to see anything like this. Why
would Drake mark the graves? D u m p i n g bodies was
one thing, the animals and the elements clean up the
mess in no t i m e , but to mark the graves seemed like a
silly idea to me. W h a t if the police ever found this
place? Drake would be sunk, Dr. Marshall too. I couldn't
believe he'd allowed this. Unless, of course, they were
both arrogant and brazenly stupid enough to think
they were so far above the law they could do whatever
they wanted and consequences be damned. That was
it—had to be. There was no other answer for this evil
place. And that's what it was—evil—a shrine to N a t h a n
Marshall's God complex, a mockery of the poor souls
unceremoniously buried here to appease Drake's de¬
ranged superego.
These were the men and women from before the
basement incinerator, Drake had said. How many more
had died since, their collective ashes dumped in the
woods for the wind to scatter. Probably more than
this—a lot more.
My God.. .all those people/
The full scope of Dr. Marshall's madness hit me
then. I'd known he was completely off his rocker, and
Drake was no better, but I'd never known j u s t how nasty
and cruel they truly were. This cemetery made me sick
to my stomach. It also royally pissed me off.
Somebody had to stop these bastards.
Somebody with n o t h i n g to lose, a person who be¬
lieved that retribution was for more important than
their own personal safety.
That sounded good. It was j u s t the thing the hero in
every big-budget action movie would say. Trouble was,
this was my life, not a movie, and I sure as hell wasn't
anybody's hero. Far from it. But then again, it was true
that I had nothing to lose. And somebody did have to put
a stop to Dr. Marshall and his crazy boyfriend, Drake.
Ah, man, how did it ever come to this?
Deep down I knew I'd already made up my mind. I
was j u s t trying to avoid it for another few seconds.
Freedom was finally within my grasp, but I couldn't j u s t
walk away. I knew I couldn't. My conscience, having
always been a right stubborn bugger, wouldn't allow it.
Too many people had suffered here. Too many people
called to me from their nameless graves, tormented
souls who whispered the word revenge in my ear. They
deserved retribution—all of them, but especially Junie.
H o w could I walk away from her?
Fuck it. Marshall and Drake are going down!
I had no idea what I was possibly going to do, or if I
had it in me to pull something like this off, but as I
turned and started walking back toward the castle, I felt
good about my decision. I was scared, hell, who wouldn't
be, but in a good way that made me feel alive for the
first time in years. Today I had a chance to be more
than j u s t an expendable bum or a patched-together
sideshow freak. Today I could be the great equalizer,
the h a m m e r of justice—a hero for the dead and down¬
trodden everywhere. That was taking it way too far,
crazy talk, but I needed to believe in myself again—really
believe—something I hadn't done since before the car
accident that destroyed my family.
Back where Junie and Jackson had died, I stopped to
see if the security guard had anything on him that
might be useful. I grabbed his gun, of course, happy to
see it still had nearly a full clip of bullets. I also found a
small black penlight and a Bic disposable lighter, but
the thing that shocked me and made me shake with an
equal mix of fury and fear was a white, wooden cross
tucked into his jacket pocket.
Another grave marker.
Mine!
I put the flashlight and lighter into my pocket along
with Junie's switchblade, but the cross had a ten-inch
vertical shaft and it was too big to fit. I considered j u s t
throwing it away but it had a point on one end that
could maybe be used as a weapon. I stuffed it inside my
jacket and decided to take the damn thing with me.
The gun I kept in my hand and at the ready. Believe it
or not, I already had the beginnings of a plan forming
in the back of my mind. I didn't force it, j u s t letting it
simmer for a few minutes as I kicked some leaves over
Jackson's body. People would be coming to search for
him soon and covering him up might give me a few
extra minute
s before my best weapon—the element of
surprise—was gone forever. In the m e a n t i m e , I had to
get my ass moving.
I took off at a run back down the forest trail. Well, it
was more of a fast limp but it was the best I could do. I
had to make it back to the outer edge of the forest be¬
fore Drake sent the reinforcements to look for me. He
would t o o ; I had no illusions about that. Surely he'd
have heard the shot that had killed Junie. My ears were
still ringing from the gun blast. Drake would presume
that shot had been Jackson shooting me, but if the guard
didn't show up at the castle to give Drake the gruesome
details, he'd know I'd somehow turned the tables on
Jackson and immediately send out the guards.
How much time did I have? Junie had been killed
about ten minutes ago. It was about a thirty minute
long and winding walk out to this part of the woods, so
I had another twenty minutes before Drake even started
to worry. Say, another ten or fifteen minutes after that
before Drake went bat shit and started screaming. A
few more minutes to rally the troops and then I'd be
public enemy number one around here again. All in all,
that gave me about thirty-five minutes, which was loads
of time to get to the edge of the forest and find some¬
where to hide. I hurried anyway, not wanting to take
any chances.
I made it back to where the path exited onto the field
beside the castle without seeing anyone. Good, luck
was still on my side. N o t wanting to be seen by anyone
who might be watching from out of possibly a hundred
windows on this side of the building, I stayed back
from the opening and set off on a course through the
woods that would allow me to stay hidden when the
guards arrived, but also stay close enough that I could
keep an eye on what was going on. I walked a safe dis¬
tance off the path, dropped to the ground, then wormed
my way toward the edge of the forest on my belly. Just
shy of the tree line, I scooped leaves over my legs and
back, lay as still as I could and waited for whatever
came next.
It felt great to lie down and rest. I was exhausted and
j u s t about every square inch of my abused body was ach¬
ing, screaming out for my daily dose of painkillers. That
thought made me think about Junie and how she'd never
be bringing m e — o r anyone else—any more pills to
make them feel better. A few tears ran down my cheeks,
tough guy that I was, and as I lay there crying I started
to have second thoughts about this wild vigilante cru¬
sade I was about to undertake. I mean, who the hell was
I to take on Drake and his entire security staff? I'd
killed Jackson in self-defense, but would I really have
the guts to kill again j u s t ibr the sake of justice? If the
answer to that was n o , I'd better turn tail and get the
hell out of Dodge.
Drake walked out of the castle, his eyes scanning the
forest and seemingly looking directly at me. I knew he
couldn't see me from where he stood, and was probably
watching the m o u t h of the forest path for signs of
Jackson's return. He kept glancing down at his wrist,
checking his watch, then shaking his head. Even from
this distance I could see how agitated the chief of secu¬
rity was, pacing back and forth and working himself
into a slowly simmering rage. Another few minutes
and j u s t as I'd called it, Drake was screaming into his
walkie-talkie and looking like he was ready to breathe
fire.
Good on you, you bastard. Hope you have a heart seizure
right in front of me.
Eive minutes later, seven security guards were zip¬
ping up their jackets against the cold and loading
identical guns to the one I was holding, while Drake
barked orders at them. I couldn't hear what was being
said, but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. They
were being informed about Jackson and told to find
me as fast as they could. All of them were in big trou¬
ble if I made it out of the forest and found my way to a
police station. There was no way Drake was about to
let that happen. I'm sure he even gave the guards some
sort of incentive—cash or time off, something—for
whoever put the first bullet in my head. By the time
Drake sent his men after m e , they were r u n n i n g like a
pack of mindless bloodhounds trained to follow the
scent of raw meat.
I'd expected as much, but Drake surprised me by
pulling out his gun and r u n n i n g off into the forest after
his men. Either he didn't trust them to get the j o b done
right, or he had worked himself into such a frenzy he
wanted to make the kill himself. Whatever the reason,
it was an unexpected bonus for me. I'd worried how I
was going to get past Drake and into the building if he
had j u s t stood there and waited for his men to return.
Now, there was no one to stop me from slipping out of
the woods and getting inside. There was always the
chance more guards were waiting inside the building,
but my gut told me all of them were in the trees with
Drake, all anxious to be the one to make their deranged
boss happy.
I waited until I couldn't see or hear any of them any¬
more, then j u m p e d to my feet and started j o g g i n g
across the field to the castle. My body ached too much
to run, but I covered the distance fairly quickly and
without incident. If everything went as I figured, I
should have at least an hour, maybe as many as three or
four. They'd find Junie and Jackson's bodies easy
enough, probably within twenty minutes if they ran
the whole way, but after that they'd have no idea where
I went.
I was counting on them searching farther into the
forest, thinking I was r u n n i n g through the trees in a
blind panic to get as far.away as possible. There was no
way they'd think I'd doubled back to pull a one-man
Rambo on t h e m — n o t even Drake would think me ca
pable of that. So they'd be forced to split up and search
the woods, maybe form a line fifty yards apart and look
for me that way. That could take a long time. The best
part was, for every step they took deeper into the
woods, they'd eventually have to take every one of those
steps again to get back here once the search was called
off.
W i t h my back pressed against the brick wall, I moved
to the end of one side of the building and checked around
the back to see if the coast was clear. It was, and I
dashed around the corner, breathing a small sigh of re¬
lief to be out of the line of sight of anyone that might
return from the forest path. There were several win¬
dows and one door that I could have tried to enter the
castle, but I'd already spotted the place I wanted to go
and made my way over to the sma
ll basement window a
third of the way along the wall.
I dropped to my knees and took a second trying to
peek inside but it was dark in the basement and there
was n o t h i n g to see. I took that as a good sign no one was
down there, so without hesitating I broke the pane of
glass with the handle of Jackson's gun. The glass shat¬
tered easily and with less noise than I'd expected, but I
had to waste several minutes clearing glass away and
making sure I got rid of any shards left sticking up in
the frame. The last thing I wanted to do was slice my
wrists or neck open trying to clumsily crawl through a
half-broken window.
I spun around, slipping in the window feet first and
slithered backward until I was hanging off the inside
wall with only a four-foot drop down to the floor. This
was the point of no return and truthfully I wasn't sure
I should let go.
In for a penny, I thought, having to rely on cliches to
find some courage within me. W h a t was that other one
Dr. Marshall had teased me with? Out of the frying pan,
into the fire. Shit, I'd gone way beyond that. This wasn't
into the fire—this was going straight to Hell.
I took a deep breath, and dropped to the floor.
1
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - F I V E
Let's face it, any way you sliced it I made a woefully
pitiful James Bond. I'd also misplaced my jazzed up
Aston M a r t i n sports car, my Rolex watch that doubled
as a laser torch, and my attache case filled with all my
other neat superspy gizmos; so with only my brain
and what limited brawn I could summon from this de¬
crepit monster suit I called a body, I was forced to
keep my plan simple. I had neither the t i m e , skill, am¬
bition, nor the luck required to pull off anything too
complicated.
With those thoughts in mind, I pulled out the small
penlight I'd recently taken off Jackson and set to work.
The beam of light, was surprisingly bright for such a
small flashlight, easily illuminating the path ahead.
"Nothin' but the best for Drake's boys," I muttered,
using even the little things to fuel my anger into what I
hoped would give me the required adrenaline boost to
carry my abused body through whatever tasks lay ahead.
I started looking for the furnace. It was cold outside,
but comfortable in here, so obviously Dr. Marshall's
medical facility had an adequate heating system. W i t h