The day I was discharged, he was back. He rolled me out in the wheelchair. As I stood in the raw air and sunlight for the first time since I had died -- breathing the fresh air from which all hospitals hoped to insulate their patients -- he took away the crappy rubber-footed old person cane the hospital had given me. In its place he gave me a jet-black walking stick. In the top, for a handle, was a piece of hand-blown glass, with a skeleton on the inside. It was very beautiful. I thanked him.
“Just so you know, there’s no hard feelings,” Marsten said. “I don’t like to lose. I like to get the bad guy. When I don’t it just kind of eats at me and… It wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” I said, “maybe some of it was my fault.”
Marsten looked me in the eye for a long moment and then gave a nod. As if I had passed some kind of test. “You need a ride someplace?” he asked.
“Ride? I need a life someplace. What am I supposed to do now? I have no idea. Go back to working at an electronics store?”
Marsten laughed, cocked his head to the side and said “I don’t think that fits you anymore.” We walked.
My cane clacked the sidewalk and the parking garage grew closer. “So what are you doing now?” I asked him.
“Me, I hung out my shingle. I’m in business for myself. Got clients and everything.”
“Clients? I’m impressed.”
“Well, one client. The family of Stacy Unwin. They’re rich and powerful and devastated by what happened to their daughter. When I told them how the police were botching the case, they hired me to continue my investigation.”
“Jack is a…” I found I didn’t have any words to describe what I thought Auld Jack was. I settled for, “a dangerous man.”
“So am I,” said Marsten.
“I don’t think you--”
He turned and blocked my path, “You don’t think what? You told me that it was about will. It’s about belief. If you believe something hard enough, it becomes magic.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Look, he’s out there. Right now, he’s out there. And he’s waiting.” Marsten pointed to the afternoon sun, hanging low in the sky, “Waiting for the sun to go down. Waiting to kill another pretty girl for no reason. See, he’s not like a serial killer. There’s no pattern. He doesn’t secretly want to get caught. He’s not really sending us messages. He’s just killing. Like he’s got a hole in his soul and there’s not enough bodies to fill it.
“Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to do anything about it. They want to pretend it’s not there. Because if they can pretend hard enough, then maybe it’s not a problem. Maybe, nobody’s career has to get wrecked. Well, my career is already wrecked. And there’s more important shit in the world than careers. There’s a man – if he is a man – in my city, making people dead. And he’s going to keep at it. And not the cutesy I’m-dead-but-I’m-still-walking-around kind of dead like you. No, it’s the long goodbye.
“So what are you going to believe in? Hunh? You’ve been to the edge and back. You know there’s good and evil. You know there’s something at stake. Help me.” He held out his hand.
“Help you do what?”
“Help me find him.”
“But I don’t know anything about--”
“You know more about this than anybody I know. You’ve done some kind of magic. Hell, it’s kind of your fault. Help me find the girl. Help me find your friend the undertaker. You know you owe him a visit. Help me undo what you did.”
I gave voice to the fear in my heart, “But what if I’m not good enough?”
“None of us are. We get the job done anyway.”
I shifted the cane to my left hand and took his right hand in mine.
“You’re hired,” he said with a smile.
“Is the pay good?”
“No,” he said, “but the hours…”
“The hours are good?”
“No, the hours are worse.” He walked ahead of me on the sidewalk, impatient to get started. “C’mon, we’re late for work.”
###
About the author:
Patrick splits his time between making advertising and writing fiction. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his lovely wife Kristy and his lovely dog, Annie.
Connect with Patrick Online:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PatrickEMcLean
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/patrickemclean
Patrick’s Blog: http://patrickemclean.com
The Seanachai Podcast: http://www.theseanachai.com
How to Succeed in Evil: http://succeedinevil.com/
Unkillable: http://patrickemclean.com/unkillable/
* * * * *
UNKILLABLE
by
Patrick E. McLean
Amazon Kindle Edition
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Good Words (Right Order)
Unkillable
Copyright © 2010 Good Words (Right Order)
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About The Author
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About The Author
Unkillable Page 11