Chapter 1

Waking up brought a violent assault down onto my senses.

Bright and burning light pierced straight through my eyes, burning into my brain. Blowing wind violently assaulted my ears, echoing throughout my mind. Uncountable scents of earth, wood, smoke, animals and plants overwhelmed my nose. The sour taste of stale vomit and sweet coppery blood filled my mouth. The course feeling of tightly constricting rope grated painfully at my wrists.

Only the surprise and suddenness of the sensations kept me from screaming out loud in pain, fear and confusion. And then, it all gently faded away ... my senses slowly returning to normal.

I groaned, blinking my eyes open and shaking my head slightly as to clear it. My head was pounding and I had a serious case of cottonmouth. My thoughts seemed muddy and stubbornly slow to form. Little by little, I gradually started to take stock of my surroundings and make sense of my situation.

I wasn't at home in my bed as I had expected, or hoped. Staring through the dark, blinking away what was left of unconsciousness from my eyes and mind, it gradually dawned on me that I had somehow fallen asleep in an old, abandoned barn. The lack of animal smells told me it hadn't been used for some time. There was one large opened door directly in front of me, as well as a few missing boards, planks and sections of metal siding, giving me an occasional and unobstructed view of the night sky above and of the tall grass covered field all around with trees in the distance. Over to one side there was a hint of flickering light, as if coming from a distant campfire.

I must have been really out of it, because only after that did I realize that I wasn't even lying down. I was suspended by my wrists in the middle of the building, at least two feet from the dirt and straw covered floor by ropes tied somewhere in the rafters above me. I must have been here for some time, seeing as I was starving and thirsty.

Yet, somehow I wasn't all that uncomfortable.

Don't get me wrong, it was no day at the beach, but I didn't feel any joint or muscle pain from my unnatural position.

"What the fuck..." I croaked out.

Needless to say, I was pretty damn confused and just a bit pissed off. I wasn't much of a drinker, and definitely not to the point of blacking out. This whole situation was a definite first for me.

"What the hell did you do Desmond?" I asked myself.

Memories came to me, but they were blurry and disjointed, and a serious boost to my headache followed right behind. Working through the pain and concentrating as much as I could, I remembered being dragged behind a motorcycle and severely beaten, with a crowd of people looking on, yelling and cheering. There were too many people and too much noise to make anything else out. Tired, broken, bleeding and in great pain, I was then taken to this barn and strung up.

Some time later, I have no way of knowing how long, a man came to me. For some reason I could remember him perfectly. A good looking guy, with dark tanned skin, clean shaven face, long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and cold, ice blue eyes. I could see dark and intricate tattoos on his exposed arms. He was built like a heavyweight boxer and was dressed in denim and leather – a biker. Others gathered silently around him, but they maintained their distance. He was obviously the leader.

He asked me questions in a calm and surprisingly cultured voice - "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" and more of the same, always repeating. I don't know what exactly I answered, or even if it was at all coherent ... all I know is that occasionally, when he apparently didn't like or believe my answers, pain would follow.

Eventually he was satisfied. Or maybe he was just bored or even angry ... I honestly couldn't tell. All I could see was his expressionless face and cold, unmoving eyes. The interrogation ended abruptly as he pulled a gun from behind his back, pointed it at me and pulled the trigger.

Even greater pain blossomed in my chest. I tried to breathe, but I choked on some thick liquid. The panic seemed to last for an eternity, until I thankfully passed out.

Oh God ... I was shot...

As if the situation wasn't terrifying and life-threatening enough.

Struggling to suppress my growing panic, I quickly looked down at myself trying to assess the damage. Only tatters of my shirt remained around my arms, my jeans had several gaping holes and were missing the last foot or so of each leg, and for some reason, my shoes and socks were missing. Try as I might, I couldn't see any wounds, or even feel them, but the vast amount of dried, dark blood on my chest, body and clothes, as well as in drying pools below me, told me I was in serious trouble.

But I was still alive. Maybe the bullet missed everything vital. I'd heard of stuff like that before – against all odds, would-be fatal wounds end up being relatively minor ... or at least survivable.

Still ... it was the lack of pain that really threw me. I felt pretty damn good for a guy who had been beaten within an inch of his life, strung up and shot in the chest, all in one night. At worst, I was a bit weak, had an empty stomach and a dry throat.

"Shock ... I'm in shock..." I mumbled, hoping that saying it out loud would make it so and staying focused would keep me alive. "That's what it is ... I have to move while I can. I have to call 911 ... I need to get to a hospital."

Unfortunately, it seemed that I wouldn't be going anywhere, anytime soon. Seeing as I was suspended in the air, there was no way to get the leverage to pull on the ropes binding my wrists. The only thing that I could do was swing myself, trying to gain enough momentum to stress or even break either the ropes or whatever they were attached to.

I was distracted from planning my escape when I noticed the near and approaching sounds of footsteps and a light coming through the gaps in the barn walls.

My first impulse was to desperately call out for help, but I stopped myself before I could make a sound. Whoever was approaching could very well be with the people who beat me and left me here to die. I decided that my best bet was to play dead and to wait and see, so I relaxed my body, let my head fall forward toward my chest and held my breath.

It took only a few moments for whoever the stranger was to enter the barn. With my eyes closed and head down, I couldn't see him, but I could easily follow his progress by sound. I really shouldn't have been able to hear him mumbling complaints under his breath, but I did, almost as if his gravely voice had been whispering right into my ear.

"Damnit, why am I supposed to do all the work? Dig a fucking hole in the middle of nowhere ... cut down the stiff and burry him ... one of these says I'll get even with that fat fuck..."

He kept complaining the entire time he made his way toward me, making a short detour on the way. I was momentarily worried that I would not be able to hold my breath long enough, or that he would somehow hear my beating heart, but I noticed something weird - though I was understandably scared, I was nowhere near the panic that I should have been, my heart wasn't hammering in my ears as expected and my lungs weren't straining for oxygen. I don't even think that I sweating.

He stopped before me and, after a creaking sound of straining wood, he was suddenly level with me and uncomfortably close.

I needed to know who he was and what were his intentions, so I decided to chance a look squinted eyes. It took just a mere moment for my eyes to adapt to the sudden presence of light, coming from the electric lantern now hanging from a nail on a wood post some yards away. The man was standing somewhat unsteadily on an old wooden crate, while lifting a knife over my head to cut at my bonds.

He was older, in his forties or fifties, dressed mostly in old and worn denim and leather, with long and greasy-looking graying brown hair tied back in a ponytail and close cropped beard. His was face marred by several scars and severely weathered by a lifetime spent outdoors. A fuzzy memory focused into crystal clarity. I recognized him from my beating. His face had been twisted into an ugly sneer as he ground a lit cigarette into my forehead, his eyes showing plainly that he was enjoying my fear and pain.

I suddenly felt a rage I had never felt before wash over me. I didn't merely hate this man who had taken such great pleasure from my suffering, I wanted him to know pain. I wanted revenge and I wanted it by my own hands.

Something changed in me, or maybe the change had always been there and it had simply been awaken, let free by the circumstances I found myself in. My fear evaporated and I simply acted, unhesitatingly and violently. Before his knife could completely cut through the rope, I kicked my knee straight up into his crotch, with as much force as I could muster, while letting out a growl of such pure fury and ferocity, that I even frightened myself somewhat.

I didn't let it stop me though ... I had work to do.

As the blow landed, I swear that I could hear and feel a crunch. His eyes shot open in surprise and then shut tight from the excruciating pain. He let loose a very uncharacteristic squeal as he was projected back off the box some several feet away.

With a violent jerk of my arms and body, what was left of the rope keeping me aloft snapped and I fell to the ground. As soon as my feet landed I was moving, rushing the still airborne man. The same instant his body thudded dully on the floor, I was upon him pummeling his face over and over again.

The first punch crushed his nose, bloodying my fist and his face. The second broke his jaw and sent some teeth flying. He tried to struggle, to fight back, but he had dropped his knife with my initial blow to his groin and his clenched fists just seemed to flow ineffectually off of me. I think the forth punch much have reached his brain, because he convulsed suddenly and violently, blood gurgling out from his shattered mouth. He died somewhere between the sixth and tenth blows. I'm not exactly sure, since I wasn't exactly focused on what I was doing.

Still crouching over the now dead man, I finally regained a semblance of control over myself, understandably shocked at what I had done ... at what I had undoubtedly enjoyed.

I had admittedly thrown a punch or two in real fights several times before, but it had mostly been in my youth and teenage years. I had never actually injured someone so thoroughly, let alone kill them. I know that I had lost control in a fit of fear and righteous anger, but how had I done it?

Though my mind and soul was troubled, I peripherally noticed that I was physically fine. There was still no pain in my body and there was no strain or trembling to my muscles, from the incredible effort I had put in or from the adrenaline that had to be coursing through my veins. I had been holding my breath this entire time, but there was still no burning ache for air in my lungs.

I finally took a deep breath in through my nose, hoping that this simple act would center me. The smell of stale sweat, cigarettes, alcohol and some other unidentifiable chemicals assaulted my nose, but through it all what really caught my attention was the coppery sweet smell of blood. Something writhed deep within me, a craving more primal than any other I had ever felt, and I involuntarily licked my lips in response.

The taste of a few drops of his spattered blood hit me then, and I lost myself in the unexpected sensation, closing my eyes in sudden pleasure and relief.

I felt something strange in my mouth, as if it was suddenly too full. I slowly and unconsciously lent down toward the fallen man. I wanted ... no, needed something. I didn't know what though.

No ... that's not right. I think I knew even then, I just couldn't yet admit it to myself.

"Hey Al! What's taking so long with the stiff?" The nearby yelling voice effectively broke me out of my trance and refocused me on the situation at hand.

I wasn't safe yet.

I turned my head in the direction of where I suspected the voice had come from and focused my attention. Through the wooden planked walls of the dilapidated barn, I could hear footsteps approaching from no more than ten yards away. They were slow and ponderous, sounding like the steps of someone big, and would reach the entranceway in moments.

I needed a plan, maybe a place to hide. Before I could finish my line of reasoning, I realized that I was already in motion. With more swiftness and coordination than I ever imagined having, I rushed towards the lantern hanging from the wood post and struck it. It broke easily with just one hit, small shattered pieces now falling to the ground, and the barn's interior was once again blanketed in thick darkness.