Chapter Thirty

She had been thinking of a thousand ways to do it and finally settled on one that she felt fairly certain would go down painlessly, with little to no suffering.

She palmed the bottle of Valium in her left fist as she sat on her bed in her apartment, her mind wandering. Ever since Bernard's trial had ended, she had been inching closer and closer to this decision and now she had finally made it. It was a decision that would be permanent.

No turning back.

Carol Emrich stood up and walked into the living room. She turned her stereo on and then bent over to the CD rack that rested beside the stereo. She ran one finger along the spines of the CD's until she found the one she wanted to fall asleep listening to. She pulled it out and turned it over, her heart swelling with the memories this band's music had on her childhood.

The CD was The Best of Sweet, and it had all her fa vorite songs on it: "Little Willy," "Wig-Wam Bam," "The Ballroom Blitz," "Fox on the Run." She had been ten years old when she first saw them on some television show, it was either Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, or Saturday Night Live; she didn't remember which. But she knew the song they had played on the show-"Ballroom Blitz"-because they played it on the radio all the time in that long-ago summer of 1975. Sporting coifed, shoulder-length hair and flamboyant costumes, she'd fallen instantly into puppy-love with the band members. In an age when all her girlfriends were all either into David Cassidy, or the Bay City Rollers, or KC and the Sunshine Band, Sweet was both slightly bubblegum enough to win the respect of her girlfriends, but snotty enough in their lyrics to win the disdain of her parents, yet they weren't as threatening as, say, Alice Cooper or Black Sabbath, which her older brother Joey was into. She had had all of the band's albums and wore out the stylus on the turntable her parents got her so often that she'd had to retire it two years later. A few years later, Styx and Journey had taken Sweet's place, but they'd never entirely left that spot in her heart. They'd always remained in that one secret spot, a place she could visit again and again when the mood struck to reminisce.

Now she had this CD compilation, the only CD of the band's recordings she had. Weird to think she had been such a big fan of them when she was a kid-she'd had all their albums, all the magazine articles she could find, had even seen them on their 1978 world tour-but as an adult she was reduced to this one CD of their "greatest hits." How time flies.

She turned the CD player on and opened up the cradle that would hold the CD. She placed the disc in, pressed the button that retracted the cradle and set the compact disc into motion, then adjusted the volume. When the first song came on-"Little Willy"-she smiled and began to hum along with it. She stood there for a moment humming along, suddenly ten years old again and playing with her friends under a warm, Nebraska summer sun.

There were sixteen tracks on the CD, more than enough to provide the soundtrack for her send-off. She briefly debated on whether she should replace the CD with something else: Ozzy Osborne or Judas Priest perhaps? She had CDs of both artists. After all, how many people committed suicide while listening to bubblegum '70s glam rock?

She headed back to her bedroom and stopped for a moment, debating on whether or not she should change into something more comfortable. She frowned. She had read somewhere that when somebody dies that their sphincter muscle relaxes, voiding whatever is in the bowel. She didn't want to leave a big mess for whoever would come in to place her in the standard body bag, but then she supposed she shouldn't really care about that. After all, she would be dead. She surely wasn't going to be embarrassed by the fact that whoever picked her up off the bed was not only going to be dealing with picking up a rather attractive woman (and yes, she was attractive, she told herself this morning as she looked in the mirror and got ready; I guess I'm really not so bad looking after all), but they might have to be dealing with whatever she had involuntarily shit out of herself as she died. But again, she wouldn't be around to hear the complaints, or be embarrassed by it. She would be dead. End of story.

The decision to take her own life had been one she had wrestled with over the past fifteen months, ever since the evening of February 12, when Bernard Roberts had burst into their room just off the interstate in Springfield, Illinois and killed Mark Wiseman with four shots from a .38 revolver. Mark had died almost instantly, but he had still tried to fight Bernard off. He had fought bravely until the end, facing Bernard Roberts and the gun, lunging at him, taking him down as Bernard fired again and again into Mark's vulnerable belly.

Carol hated thinking about that. Thankfully most of the incident, and what had happened afterward, would soon be gone from her memory.

She remembered the endless questioning. She remembered being taken to Springfield, a two-hour drive, and being interrogated at the police department there. She'd later learned that since Mark's murder had occurred in rural Springfield County that the state police had to be involved, hence the drive to the state capital. She had been hysterical and a day later she had talked to somebody from the FBI, a guy named Agent Strong. She remembered him as being very kind, if not somewhat confusedlooking and jumpy. He kept hedging around whether Mark and Bernard had known each other, if she knew of any possible criminal activity Mark might have been involved in. That had stopped her, made her evaluate her options. Her first instinct had been to deny that she knew anything, and she had done so right then and there. Agent Strong had asked her if she was sure. She'd said yes, nodding emphatically She had had no idea Mark and Bernard had known each other.

If that was the case, why would Bernard Roberts come two thousand miles just to kill him? Agent Strong had asked.

Carol had tried to come up with an answer, but Agent Strong had beaten her to the punch. I'm sure you don't want to be accused as an accessory to the murders of Mr. Samuels, John, and Krueger, nor to the attempted murder of Mr. Fielding. Because that's what this is shaping up to be, Miss Emrich. Frankly, I don't want to have to hold this over your head, but we need your cooperation. Mark Wiseman must have told you something, and if he did and you didn't do anything about it, that's called accessory after-the-fact. That could mean a tenyear prison term, Miss Emrich. So I think you should think long and hard before you answer any of my questions. We don't really want to give you any trouble, but we do need your help in helping to connect Mark Wiseman with the crimes that Bernard Roberts is being accused of in California. You do want him put away for a long time, don't you?

He had looked at her with a questioning gaze and she had been stiff with fear, her heart beating hard in her ribcage. She'd nodded. Agent Strong had smiled and patted her hands. Good. Thankfully, we have him on first-degree murder. That's pretty much open and shut. But if we can get him on the other murders, say as the mastermind behind them, we can put him away for a very long, long time, Miss Emrich. Surely you would like to see that, wouldn't you?

Carol had nodded again because she wanted to see that. She wanted Bernard Roberts to suffer for what he had done. That was when she had become the crucial witness in two cases: the State of Illinois versus Bernard Roberts in the first-degree murder of Mark Wiseman; and the State of California versus Bernard Roberts in embezzling, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to embezzle from a corporation, and conspiracy to commit murder.

Carol went to the closet and opened it. She decided she would slip into her nightgown. As long as she was going to go to sleep, she might as well dress comfy. She pulled out a red satin nightgown and laid it on the bed. Then she slipped out of her faded blue jeans, her white blouse, her bra, and her white cotton panties. She put the bra and panties in her laundry basket and then she folded the clothes and placed those at the foot of her bed. She went into the master bathroom and took out her earrings; then she slipped the one ring she wore off her right ring finger and placed it on the bathroom counter. She combed her hair and brushed her teeth, capping it off with a gargle of mint-flavored Listerine. She briefly debated on whether she should take a shower, but decided not to. She had taken a shower this morning and she hadn't really done enough to work up a sweat to justify a shower. Instead, she applied another layer of deodorant on her underarms and dabbed some perfume along the nape of her neck, between her breasts, and behind each ear. Just a touch. She stepped back from the bathroom mirror and smiled. She looked and smelled just fine. Of course that wouldn't matter if she was found two weeks from now and she smelled like rotting meat, but she was hoping that wouldn't happen. But then, why worry about it? She would be dead.

Sweet was blasting through "The Ballroom Blitz." Carol breezed back into the bedroom and slipped into the red satin nightgown. Then she went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. She returned to the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the bottle of Valium. She had gotten the prescription from her psychiatrist; she had been going for the last four months, and the Valium had been prescribed to help her sleep and to steady her nerves. She hadn't been able to sleep the past six months, especially during the trial. The Valium had proven to be a godsend.

She opened the bottle and shook a handful out. She stared at them in the palm of her hand, then looked up at the bureau and the large mirror mounted above it. She wondered if she should pee first before embarking on this last trip. Sometimes when she went to bed without going to the bathroom her bladder woke her up, even if she only had to pee a drop. She had to get out of bed and shuck over to the bathroom and squat on the toilet and let that one drop trickle out before she could drift off to sleep. Otherwise her fucking bladder wouldn't let her sleep.

She got up and went to the bathroom. Might as well have one last pee before the journey.

When she was finished she flushed the toilet, then came back and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Teenage Rampage" was coming out of the speakers now and Carol listened to the song for a moment, letting the memory of youth carry her away.

She had talked to Agent Strong that day at the Illinois State Police Headquarters in Springfield. She hadn't been sure if he would believe most of it, so she'd left out the bit about Mark's curse-there was no way he would believe that. She'd told him what she knew; that Mark had only told her about his involvement with Bernard in early January. She'd told him that Bernard had blackmailed Mark into committing the murders, that Mark had felt trapped. She'd mentioned the level of suspicion Mark had been under when his parents were murdered (of course, she didn't tell him that she believed Mark had killed his parents and if anybody had deserved to be killed more than Bernard, it was Mark's folks; they had been real bastards). Bernard had told Mark that he would fix it so that he would be arrested for the deaths of his parents despite the anatomical evidence that had showed they were killed by some wild animal. Mark had buckled; that had been a touchy subject for him, and furthermore, Bernard had made it clear that if he found out Mark had gone to the police he would have him killed.

Agent Strong had listened to her calmly, stroking his chin with his fingers. So he felt trapped, Agent Strong had said.

Carol had nodded. Trapped. That was the perfect word for it. Mark had felt trapped, with no one to turn to. He'd believed that Bernard had him on all corners, so he had given in. He'd thought that if he went through with it that Bernard would keep his end of the bargain, that he would destroy whatever circumstantial evidence he had dug up on his parents and that would be the end of it.

She'd told him the reason Mark had bungled the hit on George Fielding was because his conscience was getting the better of him, and that when Bernard had found out he had called Mark, threatening to kill him. She had told him of Mark calling her at her apartment and her coming over and hearing this for the first time. Of course she had suspected something was going wrong with Bernard for some time, but that only served to justify those feelings. She'd told Agent Strong about their flight to Three Rivers, how Bernard had somehow tracked them there, how Mark had ambushed him and managed to knock him out. How they'd fled before the police had arrived. She'd told the agent about her confusion during this time, the conflicting emotions of fear and love tearing her apart. But most important had been an overriding feeling that she'd had to help Mark, that she'd had to keep him safe.

Why was that? Agent Strong had asked.

Carol had shrugged. I don't know, she'd said. Of course, deep down inside she'd known, but she hadn't been about to tell him that. Agent Strong had looked at her for a moment, as if trying to read her thoughts, then had nodded for her to continue.

There hadn't been much else to tell; he'd known the rest. They had settled in Florence, Missouri and hidden out there for a month, then decided to head to Chicago. They had stopped at the Motel Six in Springfield for the night and somehow Bernard Roberts had tracked them. How, she didn't know, but he had, and now Mark was dead, and would he please just leave her the fuck alone?

He had left her alone that night, in a motel room with a guard posted outside her door. The next morning she had been interviewed by a couple of detectives, mostly about what had happened back at the motel. She'd begun to wonder if she would need a lawyer, but Agent Strong had assured her that she wouldn't face charges. As long as we have our understanding, he'd said, smiling.

Bernard Roberts had been held in Illinois on no bond. Meanwhile, prosecutors had wanted to extradite him to California so they could charge him with the conspiracy charges, but it appeared that Illinois wanted to hold him there until he'd been tried first. Meanwhile, Carol had been flown back to Orange County for interrogation by law enforcement personnel about her knowledge of Bernard's criminal activities in Orange County. As long as we have our understanding, Agent Strong's voice had whispered in her mind, reminding her.

She had lost her apartment upon fleeing with Mark, but with the help of her parents, who had been supportive during the ordeal, she'd found a new place in Huntington Beach. She'd cooperated fully with the FBI on the fraud and embezzling charges and also in the three murder-for-hire plots, as well as the attempted murder-for-hire on George Fielding. She'd been interviewed and interrogated so much that she'd soon lost count. With the help of her parents and the salary from a job she'd started six months later at a small computer firm, she'd re tamed a good lawyer who had sat in with her on several interrogations. As the months had drawn on, the lawyer had been able to arrange a deal with prosecutors: Carol Emrich would reveal all she knew as their star witness; she would testify against Bernard Roberts in both trials. In return, she would get full immunity. The deal had been struck and even after the documents were signed Carol had still felt troubled.

Bernard hadn't budged in questioning. All the evidence gathered against him in the fraud and embezzling had been largely based on circumstantial evidence and testimony from Carol, based on the nine months she had been dating him. They had still been debating on whether to admit into evidence the private conversations between Mark Wiseman and Carol about his involvement in the killings and Bernard's confessions to Mark, when Bernard's murder trial had come up in Illinois.

It had been a three-week trial, held at the Springfield County Courthouse. Bernard had been represented by a lawyer from Mission Viejo, a criminal defense lawyer named Jim Weinstein who had worn big flashy gold rings on his fingers and a large gold chain around his wrist. The defense had tried to paint the picture that Bernard was a spurned lover, that Carol had dumped him for Mark, and that Bernard had travelled brokenhearted to Illinois to try to patch things up and had been attacked by Mark. "My client may very well have been stalking Mark Wiseman for the better part of two months," Jim had said during closing arguments. "I admit, he was acting like a lovesick kid. He was devastated by the break-up between he and Ms. Emrich. But he was also scared for her, because he suspected that Mark harbored a violent streak and he feared Carol was in danger. That's why he was armed the day he went to their motel room in Springfield. He didn't go armed with the intent to kill, but to protect himself from the possibility of Mark turning violent. And unfortunately, that's what happened."

It had been the most ludicrous piece of owlshit she had ever heard. The jury hadn't bought it either, and after deliberating for two days they'd found Bernard Roberts guilty of murder in the first degree. As the penalty phase of the trial had gotten under way, Carol had found herself besieged with media inquiries. The stress had been too much and that was when the urge to check out had started to clamor. She hadn't been able to get away from the images she'd seen on TV and magazines: The defense had painted her as she had been painted during her employment at Free State, as a castrating, money-hungry bitch; she had not only sent Mark Wiseman to his grave, but she had ruined the career of a brilliant businessman. Carol had almost committed suicide in the two weeks during the penalty phase of the trial, but couldn't. She'd had to see it through; she'd needed closure. Vengeance.

The jury had voted for life without the possibility of parole, striking down a possible death sentence. The judge had sealed the jury's decision with the pounding of the gavel and the case had been closed, pending appeals. Bernard hadn't even looked at Carol as he'd been led by a bailiff toward the rear of the court that took him down a long hallway to a waiting car, where he'd been transported back to the county jail. From there he had been transferred to Joliet State Prison where he shared lodgings with such masterminds of crime as serial killer John Wayne Gacy. And all because he'd wanted to cover up his evidence of fraud and embezzling.

Carol looked down at the pills in her hand, then took a deep breath. She looked around the room and smiled. Then she popped the first two pills in her mouth and chased them with the water. Against the soundtrack of "Fox on the Run," she fed the pills to herself one by one, chasing them with the water until she emptied the bottle. Almost thirty-five pills. She set the empty glass down on the nightstand along with the empty bottle. Then she settled back on the bed and lay down, closing her eyes, listening to the music.

Somehow the people at her new job had gotten wind of what had happened and it wasn't long before the rumors had begun plaguing her there, too. She'd tried to dodge it, tried to simply keep her head down and do her job, but it had been so hard. Accusations had flown, hurtful, hateful words had plagued her, and she'd been forced to quit and look for another job. The recession had been running deep and she'd taken temp jobs. She'd thought that she could be anonymous at the companies the temp agencies sent her to. But for some reason the men that she worked with had all begun to sniff around her like hungry wolves. She had batted down their advances while trying to focus on her job. Then the accusations had come again: cold bitch, cock-teasing cunt, then-Hey, isn't she the chick that testified in that murder trial, the one where the guy she was dating, some CEO, killed her boyfriend because she had dumped him?

Yeah, that's the one. I heard she fucked her way up to that job and that she fucked him, too. Claimed to love him and everything. Then she dumped him. Went after some other guy and the guy she dumped just went ape-shit. He had proposed marriage to her, bought her a big engagement ring, bought her all kinds of shit. Fucking golddigging bitch is what she is. And now he's doing time for killing that crazy boyfriend of hers because he attacked him when he tried to talk to her. That sucks.

The accusations had chased her from job to job and then Bernard's trial for conspiracy to commit murder and embezzling had come up. Once again, Carol had been the prosecution's star witness. The prosecutors had told her that with her testimony they had an open and shut case. They had the support of the surviving board members, Bernard's colleagues in the executive suite at Free State, and her testimony, not to mention the paper trail they had been able to wrestle out of the Cayman Island accounts, a paper trail that led right back to the Free State coffers.

So Bernard had been flown out to Orange County and stood trial for conspiracy to commit murder and embezzling in the Santa Ana Courthouse. Two weeks later he had been convicted on all counts and a month later he was sentenced to three life terms, plus seventy-five years with no possibility of parole. Once again, he hadn't even looked at her as he was led out of the courtroom by the bailiff.

During that trial she'd been treated coldly by the people she had known; former coworkers who had come to the trial to either testify, or to watch the proceedings. She had almost gotten the feeling that they were silently blaming her for the mess, that if she hadn't gotten involved with Bernard-and Mark for that matter-it wouldn't have happened. The only two people who hadn't snubbed her were two board members, Frederick Johansen, who had given a good, strong testimony, and George Fielding, healed up fully from his attack. Both men had approached her separately to offer their condolences and to express their sorrow for what had happened. Frederick Johansen had even said that if she ever needed anything-and I mean anything-to give him a call. He could help her get a job at one of the companies he owned, no sweat. He had given her his card and she had taken it, smiling. She'd thanked them both, then went home alone.

And now she was home alone again with the music of Sweet blasting through her speakers. It was all over and soon all the grief and hurt and guilt she felt over Mark's death would be gone, too. Soon she would be with Mark Wiseman again; it was all she dreamed of. It was what had kept her going these past fifteen months. To make sure that he was avenged.

She felt the dark pall of sleep come over her and she smiled, welcoming it. The music she most loved as a child was playing in the background and she tried to conjure up visions of that long-ago time, when the world had seemed so bright and innocent, when she had been unmarred by the harsh cruelties of the world. She was ten years old again and playing in the warm, Nebraska sun. It was late afternoon and her friends were somewhere-she didn't know where-and she was in her front yard playing with her Barbies and her tea set, her portable turntable on the front porch, "Little Willy" blaring out of the tiny speakers. It was a beautiful day, the sun warm, a nice cool breeze blowing from the north, and the shadows were long on the sidewalks and the front lawn, which was a deep green. She played, humming the song under her breath and when she heard Mark call her name she looked up and smiled, surprised to see him. He was standing at the bottom step that led up to the front porch and he was smiling, looking like he had when she'd first met him at that night club, his hair combed back and resting on his shoulders, his face clean-shaven. He smiled at her and held out his hand and she reached her hand out to him and suddenly she wasn't ten years old anymore, she was twentyeight again, but she was still in that world of her childhood, where her childhood memories gave her the warm, comforting feeling of home.

Epilogue

He had been exercising in the yard by himself now for the past three years. He preferred it. It gave him time to think.

He couldn't think in the bullpen of the Joliet State Prison. He couldn't think because the bullpen was loud, ringing with the voices of the three hundred plus men in the wing where he was imprisoned. Men that were serving time for grand theft, bank robbery, aggravated assault, rape, first-and seconddegree murder. Between the hours of one and three p.m., they were out of their cells and congregating in the recreation area, or they were watching television, or they were in their cells writing letters, or they were lined up at the pay phones talking to loved ones. Those that were on some sort of work duty were slaving away in the laundry, or in the prison library, or in the factory making license plates. And between the hours of two-thirty and three, Bernard Roberts was allowed thirty minutes of exercise in the yard by himself. It had to be this way; he was a danger to others and he was often the target of danger.

Bernard Roberts grinned slightly and looked up at the blue sky, clouds dotting the horizon. It was hard to believe that he had been behind bars now for nine years, but it was true. How time flies. When he'd first come to Joliet to serve his term he had still been lean and handsome, with hardly a speck of gray in his hair. Now he had put on eighty pounds, especially around the midsection and the hair along the crown of his head had completely fallen out. It had gone gray around the temples and he now wore glasses to correct his vision. But his mind was still sharp; he supposed it always would be.

Three years was a long time to have solitary exercise duties, but it had come at a price. He had been offering a fellow con financial advice, which had been passed on to the con's family on the outside. The market had taken a downturn and the man's family had lost twenty thousand dollars. The conwho was serving a life sentence for killing three people in a robbery-had gone after Bernard in the yard. The fight hadn't been that bad; the guards had broken it up, but the worst had come three weeks later after they'd both come out of solitary.

It was pretty much common knowledge that Bernard was serving time for first-degree murder and that he had been convicted in California for a bunch of embezzling and conspiracy-to-murder shit. Only in the day following his and Bruce Taylor'sthe guy he had fought with in the yard-release from solitary, Bruce had let the word leak that there was one charge the DA in California hadn't been able to pin on Bernard: child molestation. Bernard didn't know how Bruce had been able to successfully convince the twelve or so cronies he hung with that he had almost been tried on seven counts of sexual molestation of a child, but somehow he had. The rumor had gotten around. It was dismissed in most circles; everybody was trying to fuck everybody else in prison, so those cons that were seasoned veterans had picked up on the lie. However, there were others that hadn't dismissed it so easily. Many of these men were those with children themselves, but not all. Men who weren't above a little torture themselves.

A big lunkhead named Jaime Wills had tried it first, coming at Bernard one morning at breakfast. He'd come at Bernard with a shiv and Bernard had been fast enough to bring Jaime to the ground, twist the shiv out of his hand and stab the motherfucker in the back. He'd spent another two weeks in solitary for that, but when he'd gotten out there was more waiting for him.

The first time Bernard had been gang raped in prison had been two weeks after he'd first arrived at Joliet. It had happened in the shower. Bernard had been apprehensive about showering when he'd first arrived at Joliet, but then he'd seen that not much really happened. All the stories he had heard about gang rapes in prison showers must have been bullshit, because they surely didn't happen at Joliet. For one, there were guards all over the place. That seemed to be the main deterrent. Bernard had started chalking that one up as an urban myth, but then it had happened to him.

He had been in the shower and for awhile everything had been normal. Then he'd suddenly noticed that the showers had emptied out. The minute he'd realized that two things had happened: the first, he'd noticed that the guards had all suddenly vanished; the second, he'd felt something long and hard probe between his buttocks from behind. He'd started and was about to turn around when a hand had clamped around his neck. "I been wantin' to fuck yo ass since I laid eyes on you, homey," a rough voice had whispered in his ear. The hand around his throat had clamped down harder and then everything had become a blur.

He had been beaten and raped by four hardened men, gang members, real hardasses. All of them big and muscular and one of them with a violent fetish for sexual torture. Bernard had spent a week on his stomach in the infirmary after that, with the prison doctors telling him that another attack could permanently damage his rectum. Therefore, when he'd gotten out of the infirmary he'd changed his tactics; he'd begun hanging out with the Aryan Nations assholes that he had always hated, and because Bernard had a keen business mind they'd begun using him as a resource for their activities outside. They'd also protected him. He would never be raped by another gang of niggers and wetbacks again.

Instead he had gotten it from an Aryan Nations skin, one of the new leaders of the gang inside the prison. Two days after being sprung from solitary after stabbing Jaime, this skin had come into his cell, flanked by two blond men with crew cuts and multiple tattoos on their arms and shoulders. The skin, Doug Simpson, had grinned and his beady little eyes had gleamed with a hollow stupidity. "Didn't know you liked to butt-fuck little girls, Bernard. If we had known that fourteen years ago, your ass would have been dead a long time ago."

The beating that he'd received in his cell was almost fatal. One of the cronies Doug had brought with him had had a piece of lead pipe in his fist, and that was what had fractured his skull and crushed his nose-he still had nasal problems because of it. He'd also received two broken ribs, a ruptured spleen which was removed in surgery, a shattered right eardrum which had led to complete deafness in that ear, and a massive concussion. Oh, yeah, and he had also had to rely on a colostomy bag for doing his business, too. It seemed that Doug Simpson was hung like a horse-twelve inches long and three inches thick-and they'd stopped beating him just shy of blacking out so Doug could make sure Bernard had felt every inch of that huge cock plow up his nether regions. It had been the worst pain he had ever felt, so bad that he had finally blacked out from the sheer intensity of it.

When he'd come to they were still there, standing over him, grinning. Then they'd beaten him again. The last thing he remembered them saying was "This is what we do to fucking child molesters!"

He'd spent nearly a month in the infirmary.

When he was healed he'd been placed in a different cell block at the request of his lawyer and with much pressure. The cell block he was put in was for prisoners under protective custody. He spent most of his days in his cell reading quietly, or writing in his journal. He also got to use of one of the computers in the prison library, and he surfed the Internet, perusing the various law sites in his never-ending quest to have his sentence overturned. His appeals had gone all the way to the Federal Supreme Court, which had turned him down, refusing to hear the case. Still, he was undaunted. He would persevere.

Now, three years after the vicious beating and rape that had almost taken his life, he was simply trying to get by. At fifty-five years of age he looked ten years older. On cold nights he sometimes got headaches and the joints in his hip sometimes hurt, but he was alive. At least he was alive.

Bernard coughed lightly and began heading toward the southeastern corner of the yard. He walked with a slight limp due to the injury to his rectum-he suppose he would be walking bowlegged for the rest of his life due to that fuck Doug Simpson-but at least he could walk. Despite what he had feared, there was actually no feeling down there at all anymore. He later found out that in addition to being raped by Doug Simpson's monster cock, they had used a piece of lead pipe on him too; that was what had caused the permanent damage to his rectum and the sphincter damage. The nerves had been damaged during surgery to remove his rectum and lower colon, so Bernard could sit down quite normally and not feel any pain. He just couldn't take a dump like a normal man anymore.

It was a cool, crisp afternoon and the leaves beyond the high, chain-link fence of the yard were turning brown on the trees. It was late October and it was already cooling down, with a cold wind blow ing briskly. Bernard had always liked the fall the best, in fact-

"Bernard."

The voice was a whisper, but he heard it loud and clear. It was behind him and he whirled around. Standing in front of him was a naked man who appeared to be in his late sixties or early seventies, his belly a paunch, his gray hair longish and wispy around his head. He had a small goatee and he smiled. "Don't you recognize me, Bernard? It's your old boardroom buddy. George Fielding."

Bernard blinked, recognition setting in. It was George Fielding. Nine years older, and looking it, too. But what the fuck was he doing naked here in the yard? And how the fuck had he gotten over the fence and inside the yard for that matter?

Bernard opened his mouth to say something: What the hell are you doing here? would have been appropriate. George Fielding stopped him by putting his finger to his lips, silencing him. He grinned. Bernard blinked again, not really believing this was happening. The guards would have noticed an elderly, naked man trying to get over the fence in a heartbeat, they would have been rushing him before he even got to the fence, they would have fucking shot him, for Chrissakes! Bernard glanced quickly at the guard tower-the one guard was looking out over the north side of the yard, away from him. Either he hasn't noticed or this is a setup, this is a fucking setup and-

"Can you keep a secret, Bernard?" George asked, moving forward like smoke billowing from a fire. "You aren't going to believe what happened to me. You aren't going to believe what you have inadvertently done to me, you son-of-a-bitch."

Bernard took another involuntary step back. "What?" It came out as a strangled croak.

"This." George grinned and the change was so immediate that for a moment Bernard thought he was hallucinating. It was like watching one of those action-adventure movies they let them watch in the entertainment room inside, the way motion-picture special effects had graduated to improve computermorphing of people into monsters. That was what was happening with George; he was morphing seamlessly into something bigger, something hideous and animal-like and monstrous and-

The change fully complete, the wolf-creature opened its mouth, seeming to grin a mouthful of fanged teeth. The implication of what George had said hit Bernard fully now as he took another fumbling step back, his throat trying to unlock so he could scream. Oh God, why didn't I think of that before, George Fielding lived through the attack, he lived through the attack of a fucking werewolf and what was one of the ways you become a werewolf, you had to survive a werewolf's bite, holy shit-

George Fielding interrupted Bernard's thoughts by lunging quickly and silently at him, his elongated, wolfish snout snaking in and ripping Bernard's throat out with one vicious rip. Blood flew outward in an arterial spray, drenching George's grayish coat and the grass.

George gulped down the bloody mass of Bernard's throat and stood back, his brown eyes narrowed in canine slits as he watched Bernard wobble on his feet, hands clutching his ruined throat, his head flopping on what remained of his neck, his eyes growing wide as all the color drained out of his face, turning him a pasty gray. He opened his mouth as if to scream and then fell forward, landing on his face on the blood-soaked grass. George stepped back and dropped to all fours; if the guard had turned around, he would have seen what looked to be a large dog or wolf straddling the body of Bernard Roberts. But the guard wouldn't glance this way at all; George had spent the past two weeks watching the movements of the guard. The guard had the same routine every day. And the routine was that he looked out across the Illinois landscape as he stood at the top of the guard tower while Bernard was free to smoke, read, exercise, or jack off. Bernard wouldn't have had the time to make an escape and if he did the sensors along the fence would alert him to it.

It took under twenty seconds for Bernard Roberts to die. When he was dead, George headed toward the corner Bernard had been walking to before George had snuck up on him. He wriggled his way through the trench he had dug under the chain-link fence, his lithe wolf body not even touching the bottom of the fence. Once on the other side he trotted off toward the woods that lined the outer perimeter of the prison.

The guard saw him retreat into the woods and thought to himself that there was nothing more beautiful than seeing a wolf running free in this part of the country again.

From Horror's greatest talents comes

THE NEW 1PcE Of FEM.

Terrifying, sexy, dangerous and deadly.

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SNAP ESI I K by J. F. GONZALEZ

JANUARY 2008

I I E /'1i (T%AL? `ER by THOMAS TESSIER

FEBRUARY 2008

1 Y E1 / G U S by RAY GA RT O N

APRIL 2008

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"Brian Keene is the next Stephen King!"

-The Horror Review

BRIAN KEENE

Something very strange is happening in LeHorn's Hollow. Eerie, piping music is heard late at night, and mysterious fires have been spotted deep in the woods. Women are vanishing without a trace overnight, leaving behind husbands and families. When up-and-coming novelist Adam Senft stumbles upon an unearthly scene, it plunges him and the entire town into an ancient nightmare. Folks say the woods in LeHorn's Hollow are haunted, but what waits there is far worse than any ghost. It has been summoned... and now it demands to be satisfied.

DARK HOLLOW

ISBN 13:978-0-8439-5861-4

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