

The Death Agreement

by

Kristopher Mallory

The Death Agreement

Jon Randon Series.

Copyright

www.StealthFiction.com

The Death Agreement

Jon Randon Series

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Kristopher Mallory

Cover Art Copyright © 2014 Kristopher Mallory

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ISBN-13 (EPUB Version): 978-1-31170-285-2

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Edited by Em Petrova

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eBook License Notes:

You may not use, reproduce or transmit in any manner, any part of this book without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical articles and reviews, or in accordance with federal Fair Use laws. All rights are reserved.

Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

Other Books by Kristopher Mallory

 I Know What They Are

 Master Stargazer

 These Bad Dreams Combined

 Mega Millions

What People Are Saying about Kris's Books

The Death Agreement:

"This is all so confusing and mind blowingly awesome.

" – Jesslikewoah

I Know What They Are:

"This is absolutely amazing. Has me a bit paranoid as I get deja vu quite a bit, hopefully not too many good futures have passed me by..." – Niamhel

Master Stargazer:

"Hands down one of the best short sci fi books I have read" – Ricky G.

These Bad Dreams Combined:

"No idea WTF is going on here, but I'm fascinated!" – Ali

Special Thanks

Amber Whelpley, Em Petrova, J. W. Zulauf, James Fincham, Janiel Escueta, Jonathan Hasara, Terry Colley, Thomas Thompson, NoSleep Readers

Shout out to the Hypnophobia Crew.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Book List

People Say

Special Thanks

SEVERITY

PREAMBLE

RECOUNT HISTORY

LOOK AFTER FAMILY

OBITUARY

ATTEND FUNERAL

SHARE FINAL WORDS

WISHES

CELEBRATE LIFE

VISIT THE DEAD

EX POST FACTO

FAMILY PORTRAIT

REMEMBERED MOST FOR

YOURS TRULY

A Word on Alan Goodtime

Message From Jon Randon

About the Author

What's Next?

More from Kristopher Mallory

More from Stealth Fiction Publishing

SEVERITY

"It's just a flesh wound."

~ The Black Knight

PREAMBLE

Dedicated to memory of Major Jesse Taylor.

We made a pact. He lived up to his end by dying. I tried to live up to my end by following The Death Agreement.

What you will find within these pages is a true recounting of a man's life as seen through my eyes. It's almost an impossible task when some of what you see can't be real and what is real you may refuse to see.

Human beings have a capacity to dread the truth, to distort facts when they don't fit our predefined notions of how the world should work. We forget that reality isn't what we want it to be. We ignore the signs that our universe doesn't care about us. It constantly changes to suit its own needs. Nothing is perfect. This includes the focus of my story. People come and go. Pieces don't fit neatly together. Doubt clouds judgment. Mistakes are made. All hell breaks loose when no one is looking. I guess that's how life is supposed to be.

For me, it doesn't matter anymore. What happened, happened, and I'm still bound by the terms set.

Please consider this dedication a warning sticker. Come in if you dare, leave if you don't. Some might call this experience horror. It is that, no doubt, but at the root I suppose it's a tale of transformation.

Speaking of transforming: Have you ever stood in a dim bathroom and stared at a mirror? For the past 18 months, I've done that every day. What I see in the glass consumes me. My silhouette fades into a thousand different terrifying faces; each sharpens to crystal clarity before morphing into someone else. I don't know who these people are, but I recognize them all. I've learned that what we see isn't a reflection. We are the reflection.

My name is Jon Randon and I'm going to tell you a story.

SECTION I - RECOUNT HISTORY

Taylor and I used to joke about dying young.

Looking back, it started as a way for us to show off to our friends in West Point—one of America's most prestigious schools. We wanted to project this fearless image like a lot of young cadets do. We were arrogant and had a smart-ass answer for everything.

"If we keep this up," Taylor said, laughing, "we're not going to make it past thirty."

"Not a chance," I agreed.

Driving a car down the highway at over twice the speed limit? Fun. Jumping off a cliff into shallow water? Hell yeah. Sleeping with another trashy barfly that cruised Highland Falls? High five me, brother.

The Academy professors all called us Cadidiots behind our backs. I'd say that's an accurate term. We knew we were young, dumb, and full of cum.

Even so, we lived by a code: A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those that do. And we took pride in our motto: Duty, Honor, and Country.

General Douglas MacArthur summed it up best: "In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country."

I first crossed paths with Jesse Taylor on Reception Day. The Commandant told us which platoon we'd be joining and assigned us a room in the Ike Long Barracks. Between the constant barrage of screaming and running around we had to endure that day, I don't think we had a chance to even say hello to each other, let alone the other new Cadets.

Death jokes started the first week of Cadet Basic Training. Though our backgrounds were extremely different we had the same morbid sense of humor. We quickly became best friends, and it wasn't just because some system of random selection told us we were going to be roommates.

Most days as a Plebe went by in a blur. None of us got more than four hours sleep each night, but people can get used to anything, or so they say. I guess to sum it up, we all had a tough time that first year.

Life drastically improved after we joined Corps Squads. We gained access to a team house. Someone knew a laid-back captain who on occasion would provide us with some booze. Not much at first, just a swallow here and there, almost as a dare to see who'd risk taking a shot.

Fast-forward to a night when we were sophomores: 50.5 miles from West Point, at a bar, attending a birthday party for one of the guys. The Corps Squads team captains were pressuring each other to see which squad could drink the most. I figured the row of tequila shots would kill us. Taylor figured we'd be executed via firing squad when the Tactical Officers found out we were drinking underage. None of us really thought we'd get busted, so we drank, and drank, and drank some more.

From then on that's how things were at West Point. We became juniors, and during the week, all us Cows studied hard and acted the part. Come the weekend we lost control of our ability to act like rational human beings, oftentimes nearly killing ourselves during our extracurricular exploits.

Somehow we made it through the four years of school without dying or being expelled. Only one of the guys in our company ever got punished for an alcohol violation. The poor bastard had to walk for 100 hours, marching back and forth on the weekends, unable to talk to anyone. It took him over six months to work off the time. I still laugh about that.

Taylor and I had both wanted to pilot helicopters, so we signed our names to our career selection sheet which contained sixteen careers that we'd wanted, then waited for Branch Night to find out if we would get Aviation. We'd passed the exams but knew only about ten percent would make it.

On branch night, we were ushered into one of the large briefing halls, where we waited for the order to reach under our seats. When the order came, I reached down and found an envelope. Inside was my branch insignia, but I didn't open mine right away, and instead watched the reactions of everyone around me.

Most guys cheered and shouted. They offered high fives and fist bumps to anyone willing to accept. Not everyone seemed happy though. Some cadets stormed away or cursed. No one dared to ask.

I'd seen enough. I swallowed hard, opened my envelope, and my jaw dropped. Despite all odds, I had been chosen to attend pilot training.

"Dude," Taylor said. "Congrats."

"I can't believe it. I never thought—" I paused. In my excitement I'd failed to register Taylor's somber tone, slumped shoulders, and half-hearted smile. "Aw man, I'm sorry. What did you get stuck with?"

He looked away.

I sighed. "That bad?"

"Yeah. Those bastards." He shook his head. When he looked at me again, a smirk had replaced his frown. "They're sending me to pilot training, too. Real bad news, right?"

We laughed like a pair of hyenas, then joined the others who had been chosen for the aviation branch, and went out to do keggers. I don't think I'd ever gotten more wasted in my life.

That night, Taylor and I did a blood pinning as well. We took the backs off of our insignia and punched them into each other's chest. As drops of blood dotted our shirts, we joked about dying of a tetanus infection.

Post night came that spring. We had known we were going to Rutger after we finished the Basic Officer Leadership course, but weren't prepared to learn that we would be going separate ways after that. It came as a shock that my best friend would be half a world away.

***

Then came Rucker. It wasn't the hell we had thought it would be, but it wasn't a vacation either. The training instructors were hardasses, and we were still a pair of jokers. Even during the annual combat exercise, they couldn't strip us of our sense of humor. After that day of crawling through the mud with live ammo fired over our heads, we still managed a few wisecracks.

We did have real problems, though. Most everything came at us in the form of tests and memorizing ridiculous amounts of information.

Taylor had nearly flunked out of the preliminaries, and I nearly got kicked out of the program for slacking off in the simulator.

Late one evening, Taylor stopped by my apartment and found me passed out on the couch with a stack of books across my lap. "Jon," he whispered. "Wake up."

"I'm awake...well, I was until I started reading through this shit."

"Listen, I got a plan to keep us motivated."

I raised an eyebrow. "Does it involve pictures of your sister?"

"I'm serious. Higher stakes. If one of us quits or fails, the other kills himself. Simple as that."

"Can we take out as many people as we want first?" I chuckled. The proposal was a joke, obviously, but Taylor stared at me like he had expected a straight answer.

He stood up. "Well?"

I bit off a piece of my thumbnail and spit it out. "You're saying if I get thrown out you'll put a bullet through your head?"

"I like to think I'm more creative than that, but yeah, you got the general idea."

"Fine then. I'm in."

"Good," he said. "I'll see ya in class tomorrow." He nodded and left.

I lay awake that night wondering if I'd said the wrong thing. What if he wasn't kidding? Would he really have gone through with it? In the end, I told myself it was a joke like everything else.

Funny thing...after we made the bet, my grades improved, as did his. Subconsciously I still worried Taylor would actually do it. Maybe he thought I would, too. It didn't matter. We both worked hard. In fact, his improvement surpassed everyone else's, and gets this: he finished at the top of our class.

The time we spent in Rucker ended up being the best of our lives. If the situation were different, if things happened how we expected, perhaps more of this story would focus on those fun days when we had to succeed or kill ourselves.

We parted ways after earning our wings. They sent me off to Alaska and sent Taylor to Hawaii.

I really wish I could go into details about how Taylor fell in love and married Lorie while I went through several crazy girlfriends. Or how Taylor bought his first home in the suburbs while I was content living in a rented, broken-down trailer deep in the woods. Career-wise, Taylor shined as an officer and promotion came easy. Things were different for me there, too. I hit a real rough patch and eventually got caught dating an enlisted girl, earning myself an Article 15. As punishment for fraternization, I received a General Letter of Reprimand, which pretty much meant that I'd never be promoted higher than 1st Lieutenant. So much for honor, right?

The way life shaped up, it looked as if Taylor had found his calling, while I considered resigning my commission the minute the contract expired. Through it all, we remained close, and we never looked back with regret.

It's nice reminiscing about times long past, but as much as I want to trap myself in those memories, I can't. Boys grow up, shit happens, and the story goes on.

Real change came three years later. I called Taylor to give him the latest news. Lorie answered on the third ring.

"Oh, Jesse's out right now," she said. "Say, when you going to come visit? It's been too long."

"I know. I want to. Maybe after I get back. I just got word...I'm heading off to some nameless airfield in Afghanistan."

"Oh, Jon. Be safe, okay?"

"Yeah...I'll try. Thanks. Tell him I called?"

"Sure. Talk to you soon."

"Bye, Lorie."

Taylor called me back an hour later.

"I hear they're sending you out to the sandbox," he said.

"It's my turn. Knew it was coming."

"Gonna get a lot worse before it gets better."

"I hope if it happens, it won't leave me broken. I don't think I could handle being disabled."

"Don't talk that way. A sniper is sure to take you out the day you arrive."

I chuckled. "Of course."

"Besides, you'll have someone you know watching your back. I got my orders today. They're sending me, too."

***

Each time the mortars dropped into our base, Taylor asked, "Is today the day?"

"Probably," I always replied.

We laughed it off after the shelter-in-place sirens stopped blaring, but I knew one or both of us might not make it home. So far we'd been lucky.

Close calls were common early in the war. On one flight, Lee Thompson, a better man than I ever will be, flew to my right. I saw a flash come from the mountain range and tracked the fast-moving corkscrew of smoke as I dropped altitude, deployed flares, and transmitted the location: "Incoming nine o'clock."

The S.A.M. had a lock on my bird and ignored the flares shooting from underneath the landing sleds. I took a deep breath and held it, waiting for impact. The missile rocked my cockpit, striking dead center, but it didn't explode.

"Randon," Lee said over the radio. "I called in an airstrike. Are you okay?"

"A dud."

"Lucky. I can't believe that just hap—"

Lee's bird exploded in a horrifying fireworks show. I screamed as burning debris rained down outside of Kabul. He had been watching me, and neither of us saw the second rocket. His luck had run out.

After I landed, I hid from everyone. Of course Taylor found me.

"It isn't your fault," he had said and passed me a bottle of whiskey that Lorie had discreetly sent him.

I nodded. There wasn't anything I could've done to save Lee's life, but I felt the heavy weight of survivor's guilt just the same. If the missile that hit me hadn't been a dud, I'm sure he would've seen the second one and made it home to his family. I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears still came.

Taylor sat next to me, quiet. We drank to Lee that night just as we had toasted to our other friends that had given their lives.

After a while, Taylor nudged my arm. "By the way," he said, "Lorie is pregnant. It's a boy, and we're naming him after you."

Despite everything that had happened that day, I couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. Before I knew it, the tears of sorrow turned to tears of joy. That was Taylor. He always found a way to make everything better. I was lucky to have him as a friend.

There I go talking about luck again. You want to know the worst thing about luck? It has a tendency to run out for everyone.

The next day, on a routine flight from Kandahar to Erazi, the rear rotor of my Black Hawk went haywire, thrusting me into an uncontrollable spin.

I chose to attempt an autorotation, a dangerous maneuver used as a last-ditch effort to land a crippled bird. I knew the blades were spinning too fast, and the odds of success were slim, but a small chance is a hell of a lot better than no chance at all.

I cut the power and prayed.

I don't remember the crash.

***

"Wake up, Jon. Look at me." Taylor slapped me in the face. "Look at me!" He slapped me again. Oddly, two of him hovered at the edge of my vision, but after another solid slap the images wavered then merged together.

"Where am I?"

"Field Hospital. They're taking you outta here. Not today, you hear me?"

"What happened?"

His lips moved. I don't know how long it took for me to comprehend what he was saying, but I do remember the pain that suddenly caught up to me. I looked down, saw my twisted, bloodied legs, and screamed.

"Don't look. You'll be okay. Today's not the day, all right?"

I searched his face. His eyes were stone and unreadable. Behind him, the tent flap blew open. I stared out at the clear blue sky and noticed a group of Afghan children kicking a soccer ball across the rust-colored sand. Their game moved from of my field of view and a strange fear came over me. I wanted to see those carefree kids one last time before I died.

The layers of dust began a miraculous dance, shaking and rolling, and I forgot about the kids. Then the sand blew up from the dead ground, swirling into a vortex. The beautiful patterns made little sense, even after the medical transport chopper dropped into view.

By then, the pain had taken me to the breaking point. I tried to focus on the good things I'd done in my life, but my mind kept returning to how it had all been a waste. Instead of enemy fire punching my ticket, I ended up on death's doorstep because of some bullshit mechanical failure.

I looked back to Taylor then down at my destroyed legs.

"Not today, Jon."

I shook my head, and absently whispered, "I hope it is."

The world faded to black.

***

I woke up in a real hospital, surprised to wake up at all.

People in white scrubs came and went in a blur. I never knew if it was day or night. Time had lost all meaning. The only thing I remember clearly is the suffering. The morphine never took the excruciating pain away, and I constantly begged for more.

A doctor wearing large glasses and a fake smile examined my legs. In a thick German accent, he said, "This is bad, but could have been much, much worse."

I replied between gritted teeth, "That's true of everything when your heart's still pumping."

"This is correct."

"Asshole," I added.

He shrugged and his fake smile grew wider.

I should've been happy to be alive, but to be honest, I was pissed. Not because of the helicopter malfunction that had led to a twisted, horrific wreck of a left leg. No, I hated everything and everyone, because my absolute biggest fear had always been becoming a cripple.

I couldn't live that way.

I wouldn't.

Faceless doctors poured into the room followed by a procession of menacing nurses, each pushing a tray full of surgical tools.

"You're not taking it, goddamn it! I'd rather be shot."

The German doctor nodded to a shadow at the head of my bed. "Hold him down. Don't let him pull out the IV."

I fought against the dozen hands pressing on my shoulders and arms, pain so intense, I thought it would kill me. "Don't do it!" I screamed. "Don't you fucking do it!"

"Relax, Lieutenant Randon. This will be over soon."

I continued to struggle, but whatever drugs they had pumped into my arm had started to take effect.

My strength faded fast and darkness crept into my vision.

The German doctor leaned over me, his breath smelling like pistachios.

Then I was gone.

***

In the end, the doctors managed to save my left leg, amputating my right leg instead.

I would've thought it funny if I weren't already plotting suicide. The hospital staff must have known. They kept my wrists strapped down and never left me alone.

A week later, the Army sent word I was stable enough to leave Ramstein and put me on a C-17 flying back to the States, destination: Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maryland—otherwise known as the prison where I had been doomed to spend the next eighteen frustrating months.

***

As an incoming WRAMC patient, I quickly learned no one enjoys being helpless. Though angry at myself, I took most of the bitterness out on the nursing staff.

I always felt like being a miserable little cuss. If anyone wearing a uniform came into my room, I screamed at them until they retreated.

Even the nurses changing my dressings or emptying my bedpan weren't spared my wrath.

The staff always kept their cool, even when I lost mine. They met my rants with understanding eyes and unwavering friendliness. Because of their impossibly kind treatment, my anger faded to depression, and regardless of the pity I wanted to feel, my attitude improved as the wounds healed.

Then the hospital staff felt confident enough in my mental state to transfer me to a private room, and that's when life became a little more bearable.

They call that the end of 'Phase One'. I still hated the fact I was alive but no longer thought about suicide every day. Though I didn't know it, I was well on my way into 'Phase Two', affectionately known as the 'Wounded Warrior Nothing Game'. It's the part of recovery when the mind has too much time to think and the body isn't capable of doing much of anything. Stuck in a bed for most of the day, I read books, played video games, and looked at too much porn.

When you are down a limb, what else is there other than fantasizing? At least it wasn't my right arm they cut off.

***

Months later, I heard a heavy knock at my door.

"Coming," I said, rolling my wheelchair over to the foyer. I opened the door to Taylor standing in the hallway holding up two middle fingers.

"Hey, Gimp!" He pulled me up for a hug.

"What in the hell are you doing here? I thought you were still in the sandbox?"

"Nope. I'm done with that. My promotion came through, and they offered me a Joint Task Force position at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. We're practically neighbors." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Damn good to see you, Jon."

"You too, Jesse. I'm glad you're back home."

We caught up over lunch, talking about the normal things friends talk about. Taylor told me Lorie and little Jon sent their love, as did the rest of his family, then he took out his laptop.

"You gotta see these," he said. "Look."

He clicked on a folder and pictures from Afghanistan filled the screen. As he swiped though, he gave a morose report on our friend that didn't make it out. After a moment of silence for the fallen, he flipped over to the next image and my heart nearly stopped.

A mangled and destroyed Black Hawk sat partially submerged in a glorified puddle of water. All of the propeller blades had been broken off and the cockpit smashed in completely.

"Is that...?"

"Yes. I went out to the crash site while you were in Germany."

I tried to speak but couldn't.

"Thought you might want it," Taylor said. He opened up his email account, attached the image, and pressed send.

I nodded. "Excuse me. I'll be right back."

"Sure."

I rolled my wheelchair to the bathroom, not wanting to break down in the middle of the dining hall.

Once I regained my composure, I went back to the table and broke the ice again by explaining how I could still wiggle my toes even though they weren't there.

Taylor suggested we join a group of Air Force guys playing cards at another table. We played, laughed, and had a good time. After a while, he looked at his watch and said he needed to get home.

Taylor stood up and reached into his back pocket. "Read this over," he said, handing me a thick envelope.

"What's this?" I asked. "Suicide note, I'm guessing. Is today the day?"

"Not for us." Grinning, he leaned down, hugged me again, and left.

I excused myself from the poker game and wheeled over to a quiet corner of the dining room.

THE DEATH AGREEMENT had been printed across the top of the first page. Confused, I browsed through the letter, a contract of sorts. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The pages talked of friendship and what it meant to be remembered, each section dealing with a different aspect of a person's death.

The letter Taylor had given me explained that he believed someone could stop worrying about dying if they knew a trusted person would tell their story after they were gone. He proposed we do this for each other. Nothing fancy, just the truth. If I died, Taylor would give my eulogy. If he died, I'd speak for him.

I thought that the contract was some sort of evolution of his original idea back at Rucker. I read it over a dozen times, studying all eight parts, each section containing a few stipulations. I scratched out an item here and there and added in others. The document could help us. It could remind us to enjoy life. It could propel us to leave a mark on this world.

By the time Taylor visited again, I had worked through several revisions of The Death Agreement. We went over everything and compiled a final version. Then Taylor had it printed on heavy stock paper in a crisp, legalese-style font. The finished contract felt heavy in my hands and looked more professional than any legal document I had ever seen.

Taylor had left plenty of free space to make notes and future additions. Even the United States Constitution had left room for improvement.

We sat across from each other in my small dorm as a notary public officer hunched over the two copies lying on the table between us. We signed and stamped The Death Agreement, making it official.

I popped open a couple of beers, and we drank to celebrate.

***

Taylor came to visit every other Saturday.

We hung out watching television or playing video games mostly, but when my pain subsided, and I felt well enough to travel, we began to explore around the closed-down sections of the campus.

Most of the facilities had been abandoned and off-limits by this point. In 2011, the government had ceased primary operations of the hospital under Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC as it's more commonly known, and most patients and staff were transferred to the newly-built location in Bethesda, Maryland. The public eye had been focused on the state-of-the-art treatment center, so hardly anyone paid attention to the old hospital, which had maintained a medical presence in case some unforeseeable event required MEDCOM to backtrack. A small group of patients still needed to be on-site to justify the skeleton crew. How they picked who got stuck with the sub-par care is anyone's guess. I think it had a lot to do with the attitudes of the wounded soldiers. The last thing command needed was some camera crew filming a disgruntled soldier in the lobby of their pride-and-joy pork belly project.

Fine by me. I preferred the quiet. Besides, it allowed Taylor to freely push my wheelchair down the empty streets while we listened to the sound of nature reclaiming the world.

Weeks passed. My attitude improved, and a prosthetic leg replaced the wheelchair.

Suddenly, I was able to do things on my own again, albeit with a little help from crutches. Stairs, for example, had become my nemesis. Though I was still in constant pain, I could stand, and that's all that mattered.

Bursting into my room one morning, Taylor said, "Get your lazy ass up! We got work to do!"

"Give me a minute," I said.

"We ain't got all day."

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a sec. I think I know where we should go first."

We had mapped the place during our previous wheelchair strolls, picking out which of the old, abandoned buildings we wanted to break into, but there was one place in particular that seemed like the best starting point.

I closed the book I had been reading. For weeks, I had dug into the history of the campus. Through my research I had discovered the hospital was originally been built in the early 1900s, the location chosen because President Lincoln had used the land as a field hospital during the Civil War. Gravely wounded Union soldiers were sent to that camp, most of whom had required amputations.

A few historians said that some of the original buildings still existed. They had been incorporated into the design of the main hospital building. Fascinated by each new fact uncovered, I wanted to go there. The more I learned, the more excited I became. I couldn't wait.

Taylor tapped his fingers on the refrigerator. "What the hell is taking so long?"

"Okay," I said, writing the down an interesting fact into a three-ring spiral notebook.

We left and began our first real exploration.

His motives were different from mine. He had believed the rumors that Walter Reed was haunted by the soldiers who died on the grounds. I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. Prior to the helicopter crash, I didn't subscribe to ghosts or anything paranormal. To be honest, I didn't much care to listen to him go on and on about the nonsense that some people had supposedly witnessed.

Did we see and hear things? Yes, I'll admit that. Was I scared? Goddamn right I was scared. But ghosts? Sorry, I wasn't buying it.

Out of all of the things we had seen on our expeditions, I was most shocked by what we discovered in the closed-off wing of an unnamed ward. Before getting into specifics, it's important to know how difficult it had been to access.

From ground level we couldn't find any way into that part of the building. All the doorways and windows had been filled in with bricks and painted over.

Taylor figured a basement hallway from the adjacent building connected them, so we looked all over, but still couldn't find a way.

"If there was ever a path, it was sealed off long ago," I said.

Taylor shook his head. "Uh-uh. There's a way in. I know it."

Undeterred, he led me up the levels, searched each floor in turn, and only found more bricked up doorways. On the top floor, we discovered something odd. It wasn't a door, but a nailed-shut window that led to the roof. On the other side, a small door above the closed-off section called to us.

We pried the frame loose and stepped into the cold wind.

I could tell that no one had been in there for decades. Lead paint peeled off the walls. Crude medical devices lay broken and scattered across the rooms. Instead of electric lighting, kerosene lamps lined the hallways.

We explored each floor of the dark abandoned ward, finding stranger and stranger things as we went. Though the atmosphere was ominous, and the old, torturous looking equipment sent chills down my back, none of it compared to what we discovered on the basement level.

Something seemed off as soon as we entered the large, open room. A rotted wooden wall caught Taylor's attention. It should have been against the foundation, but it seemed as if something lay beyond.

I tore away the wood, revealing a tunnel. Though my heart thudded against my ribs, it wasn't that strange—many government offices are connected below ground—and yet every part of my being told me to run.

I cautiously followed Taylor through the winding hallway. He stopped and said, "Whoa. Did you feel that?"

It seemed if the room had suddenly grown cold for a moment. "No," I lied. "Feel what?"

"Come on. I think we're near the other side."

We kept going, and a few minutes later we reached the end. Instead of linking to another building, the path abruptly stopped at a small sub-basement room, completely empty except for an old, rusted surgical saw hanging by a string tied to a peg in ceiling.

I stared at the strange discovery, admiring the white maple handle.

The saw began to swing. It started slow, almost unnoticeable, but then it began to move faster and faster.

Taylor stepped backward. "What...the...fuck?"

I backed away, too, pulling at his shirt.

We did what any sane people would do. We retreated.

Once safely back in my dorm room, Taylor carefully unfolded his copy of The Death Agreement and wrote about what we had experienced.

Though spooked, I searched my mind for a logical explanation of how something could move on its own. I shuddered. Instead of answers, I just wanted to forget it had happened.

Taylor didn't make that easy. He tried to convince me we had found proof of an afterlife, that the ghost of some surgeon still haunted the terrifying and secret operating room. He had jokes, too: "Jon Randon died today, ten pounds of shit found in his pants."

"Kiss my ass," I shot back.

"You can't deny that happened."

"Whatever," I said. "Let's just not go there again."

"The thought never crossed my mind."

***

As time went on we managed to gain access to most of the sites on our list: the fire hall, the smoke stacks, the morgue. While rummaging through the old abandoned boiler room, Taylor turned to me and said, "I found a place online where people posted photos of the abandoned locations they've visited."

I turned a large, galvanized steel wheel that creaked loud enough to wake the dead. "Making another list of places we can check out?" I asked. Urban exploration had become a real passion, but it was the darker places which really held his interest.

"Something like that. It led me to another site, a forum or something where people share disturbing stories, real things that had happened to them. Out of the ones I read, I don't think they're all true, but I would bet that some were. Jon, I read this one story. It's been bothering me ever since."

"Oh yeah? What's it about?"

"I have no idea. It's strange but I can't remember. I tried to find it again but..." He shrugged.

"It'll come to you."

"Yeah, all in good time, I suppose. I'm probably just being paranoid. But hey, I wanted to ask you something. Do you mind if I talk about this place? I've got all the notes and I think the people there would like to hear about what we've seen, especially about that room with the saw."

"Don't post anything that could get us identified. Remember what happened while on leave in Spain? You promised to not get me arrested again."

"Oh come on, how was I supposed to know her brother was a cop?"

I laughed.

"Thanks, Gimp," he said.

"Zip it. I'm almost done with the crutches and payback is hell."

Taylor sat in one of the hundred-year-old wheelchairs we'd found stacked up in the attic of the psych ward and updated his copy of The Death Agreement. I drank in silence while thinking about the places I'd like to visit once the doctors finally released me.

I remember thinking how I wished that day would've been more eventful. Out of the dozens of times we'd gone exploring, it had been one of the more boring outings.

In the end, that day became more significant than I ever could have imagined. It was the last time I saw my friend Jesse Taylor alive.

SECTION II - LOOK AFTER FAMILY

On the Friday after Taylor had last come to visit, he had called me.

"Hey, I'm really sorry, Jon. I know I'm supposed to show up tomorrow...I can't make it."

"Everything all right?"

"Just dealing with some personal issues right now."

"No worries," I said and waited for him to explain; he didn't. It was unlike him to keep me in the dark. We weren't supposed to have secrets. I cleared my throat and said, "Maybe next week? I think we should leave the base. Rosewood Asylum is in Owings Mills, not too far."

"Yeah, maybe," he said. "Look, I gotta go. I need to take care of a few things."

He hung up without saying goodbye.

I shrugged and did my best to put it out of my mind.

I didn't hear from him all week. When I finally decided to be the one to make the effort, his line rang until it finally went to voicemail. I hung up and sent a text instead: "You good?"

No return calls and no replies.

By the second week, I was a little pissed off. I sent three more messages, and in the last one, I outright cursed at him for ducking me: "This isn't how you treat a friend, dick. Call me, maybe I can help."

When the week ended without hearing from him, I went to dial his wife, Lorie, then remembered Taylor saying that it was a personal issue. If Taylor and Lorie were arguing, the last thing I wanted was to get involved. Even though I hated being left in the dark, I decided not to call. Whatever was going on with them had to be bad, and he'd reach out when he was ready.

I laid in bed that night more worried than I've ever been in my life. I don't know what caused it. Like a spider, it crept up on me throughout the day, and in the end, I needed to suppress the feeling that something serious was wrong just to fall asleep.

I remember the last time I glanced at the digital clock before drifting off. The red display had read 2:05 in the morning. I woke again when the alarm clock went off at 6:00, surprised to see a waiting voicemail on my cell. Taylor tried to reach me at 3:33 a.m.

Long voicemails are often a bad sign. I held the phone to my ear and listened but only heard ambient noise, and figured that he must have pocket dialed me.

After scrubbing through a few seconds, I listened, then skipped forward a little bit more. Every time I slowed the message, I heard the low hum of background interference mixed with breathing and little else. I jumped forward again. In the last few seconds of the recording, I heard Taylor say, "...saw everyone but you..." Then the message cut out.

If he didn't see me, then who did he see? I played it back again and listened more closely.

Taylor had been speaking the whole time. I maxed out the volume. His message was disturbing. The low, pained whisper sounded like he had had been speaking to someone else, but I still couldn't make out all the words.

Or maybe I just didn't want to.

When the message ended the second time, I called Taylor. It went straight to voicemail: "You've reached Major Jesse Taylor. I am unable to take your call. Please leave a message and I will get back to you in good time."

"Hey," I said. "I don't know what's going on with you, but call me as soon as possible." I paused a moment, then added, "I'm worried. Hope you're okay."

The day went by without hearing from him and I tried again but only got the same voicemail greeting.

"Seriously, Jesse, what the hell is going on?"

I decided to call Lorie. Her phone rang several times before going to voicemail, as well. Trying to sound chipper, I blurted out, "Hey, Lorie, It's Jon. Give me a call. Just wanna make sure everything's all right... Love you, bye."

I hung up the phone, knowing everything wasn't all right.

***

Later that night my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number and was in no mood to speak to anyone except Taylor or Lorie, so I silenced the call. Whoever it was chose not to leave a message.

An hour later my phone rang again. It was Taylor calling. I answered and screamed into the phone, "Where the fuck have you been? I was about to ca—"

"Sir, this is Detective Andrew Yang with the Anne Arundel County Police Department. May I speak to Lieutenant Randon?"

A sinking dread stabbed through my stomach. "Where's Taylor?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, I can't answer any questions until I know I'm speaking with Lieutenant Randon."

"I'm Randon. What's going on?"

"First name?"

"Jonathan Randon. Talk to me."

"Lieutenant, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this." He cleared his throat. "We recovered a body which we believe is Jesse Taylor."

I laughed. "Stop messing around. He put you up to this, right? Put him on the phone."

"This isn't a prank, sir."

"Bullshit."

"It was...I don't know how else to say this. We're calling it an act of God."

I scratched my head. "What?"

"Freak occurrences like this happen all the time. Major Taylor was struck by lightning."

I slumped in my chair. My mind fought back against the truth. How could Taylor be dead? I knew it had to be some kind of mistake and I wanted to say something, anything, but my voice had abandoned me.

"Again, I'm sorry," Yang apologized. "Normally we speak to the next-of-kin in person, but we had no idea where to find you."

"What do you mean next of kin? You haven't called his wife or parents?"

"We sent units to Mr. Taylor's residence. No one answered the door. We called from our office and from his cell. Still no answer. We tried his father and mother as well, then sister and brother. None of them could be reached. You're the only other person listed as family."

"This is crazy. Give me a number to get back to you. I'll get in touch with them."

"443-"

"Wait," I said, suddenly remembering The Death Agreement. "While I got you on the phone, did you find a letter or him? Something for me?"

"A Letter? No. Why?"

"You wouldn't understand. Okay, what's that number?"

It was the same number which I had ignored earlier, and I thought and about all that wasted time before hanging up the phone.

"No," I said to myself. "This is a game. Jesse's not dead."

I realized I was crying. More than crying, actually; I was in the midst of a breakdown, yet somehow still able to analyze the pain as if it wasn't happening to me, as if I were a scientist looking through a window of a cage and thoughtfully considering a lab rat.

Tired of my observation, I retreated into myself, allowing my body to grieve without my mind having to acknowledge the pain.

A pounding on my door snapped me out of the trance. "Randon! Commander Litwell says to keep it down. If you don't, some goons are going to escort you to psych." The soldier stomped away before I could reply.

After that, I was okay–in shock, and the world felt surreal, but I felt well enough to do what needed to be done.

***

I spent hours trying to reach anyone in Jesse's family. First I tried his father and mother, then his sister and brother. Like Detective Yang, I wasn't able to reach them. I called friends, employers, and anyone else I could think to call. No one had seen or heard from Taylor or his family for over a week.

Having exhausted all other resources, I dialed information and asked them to connect me to Howard Taylor, Jesse's estranged grandfather.

The phone rang twice, then someone picked up, and a pained voice said, "Huuuh?"

"May I speak to Howard, please?"

His words dragged out as if he were gasping for breath. "Whaaat dooo yooou waaant?"

"I'm a friend of Jesse, your grandson. I have bad news, sir."

"Whaaat baaad neeews?"

"I'm sorry to tell you but Jesse passed away."

The man went into a hacking cough for several seconds.

"Sir?"

He gave a pained sigh.

"Are you all right?"

"Nooo."

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you in person. From what Jesse told me, you're not very close with your family."

"Mmm."

"I called because I'm having trouble reaching his parents and siblings."

The man went into another coughing fit. I listened to his discomforting grunts and wheezes. The agonizing sounds reminded me of the time Taylor had told me his grandfather was a worthless drunk. He had spoken of how the man had abandoned Jesse's father when his father was just a boy, leaving him alone to care for his mother who suffered from tuberculosis.

Years later, Jesse's father had tried to reconcile. By that time, he had a wife and three kids of his own, and he thought the kids should know their grandfather. The reunion went poorly. Jesse had not talked to him since.

"On the off chance that a family member still keeps in touch..." I wiped my hand down my clammy face. "Have you heard from any of them?"

He didn't respond right away. Sobs, stifled screams, and more coughing punctuated the silence.

Finally, he managed to say in a wobbly drawn of rasp, "Ooover the yeeears. Biiits aaand pieeeceees."

"I understand. If you hear anythi—" The call disconnected. I tossed my cellphone onto the bed and kicked my dresser with my prosthetic. "Well, fuck you, too."

I sat for a while, wondering what I should do. I dialed Yang. Forty-eight hours of nonstop amateur detective work had led me to very little. All I had managed to do was verify the grim news that Jesse's family couldn't be located.

"Detective Yang speaking," he said.

"Please say you've reached them." I heard papers shuffling, then the phone went quiet as if Yang had muted his side of the call. "Detective, can you hear me? I need to know if you've gotten in touch with the family."

The ambient noise returned, and Yang said, "No. Nothing yet."

"This is wrong." I clenched my hand around the phone. "Is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all that might help?"

"We don't have anything new."

"With nothing else to go on, can't you at least open an official missing persons report?"

Yang breathed deep, then said, "Not at this time."

I gritted my teeth. "I thought you wanted to solve this case."

"I do. We can't talk about it over the phone. Would you mind coming down to answer a few questions?"

"Fine. I'll take a cab."

"We can pick you up. It will be faster."

"Okay, let me give you my address."

"We already have your address."

"Tell me something," I said. "I'm losing my mind here."

Yang just breathed into the phone.

"Detective...please?"

Yang clicked his tongue. "There is something. We found Mr. Taylor's car."

"Found it? I didn't know it was missing."

"Neither did we. It's what we found in the car that has me worried."

My heart skipped a beat, and I swallowed hard. "What?"

"Industrial-sized trash bags and a hacksaw. Your ride should be there soon. We'll talk more when you get here." Yang hung up.

The news hit me like a bat to the ribs. A sick, helpless dread washed over me and vomit rose in my throat. I covered my lips with my hand, retching. Puke filled my mouth, drops of acidic slime slipping between my fingers. I ran for the toilet...but didn't make it.

***

I took a scalding hot shower hoping to restore my wits. I hopped out of the specialized tub, reattached my leg, then wiped condensation from the mirror. I inspected my bloodshot eyes. After squeezing out a few drops of Visine, I stepped from the steam-filled bathroom.

"What the fuck!" I screamed, covering myself with my hands. Two uniformed officers stood in my living room, each resting a hand on the butt of their holstered service weapon. They looked at each other, back at me, then their eyes dropped to my prosthetic leg.

The larger cop said, "The door was cracked open. We let ourselves in."

The short, brawny cop added, "Hope you don't mind."

"What are you doing in my room?"

The brawny cop said, "Oh, we wanted to make sure that—"

"That you weren't in danger," the larger cop finished.

"Well, I'm not, and I would appreciate it if you would kindly wait in the hallway."

They looked at each other.

"Let me try it this way," I said. "Unless you have a warrant, I'd like you to get out of my living room."

"Technically," the brawny cop said, "we wouldn't need to give you a warrant as these are government quarters. That would go to the base commander."

"I'll be talking to Commander Litwell myself, trust me." I pointed to the open door. "Now, if we understand each other, I'd like to get dressed."

They still did not move.

"The way you're staring at my prosthetic leg," I said, "I'm guessing you'd like a good look at my naked ass, too."

"We'll wait outside," the larger cop said.

The brawny cop said, "Sorry for the inconvenience." The tone he had used translated the words into: Screw you, buddy.

The cops stepped back into the hallway, but left the door wide open.

***

When we reached the police station, the cops passed me off to a man wearing a button-up white shirt and an ugly green tie with a yellow mustard stain down the center.

"This way, please," the man said. When he turned to lead the way, I saw the badge clipped to his waist. He led me to a door marked: Interrogation Four. The walls were white-painted cinderblock, bare, except for what I assumed to be a two-way mirror on the far wall.

The detective motioned to the metal desk and chairs. I took a seat, glancing at the mirror on my right. "Just a moment," he said, smiled, then closed the door as he left.

After fifteen minutes, I got up and tried the door handle, finding it locked. I knocked twice but no one came to let me out. Without any other options, I sat back down and waited. Over an hour later, an Asian man dressed in a brown suit and worn tennis shoes came in carrying two cups of coffee.

"Detective Yang?" I asked, rising from my seat.

The man set the cups on the metal table and extended his hand. "Thanks for making the trip."

I refused to shake his hand but I took the coffee. "Thanks for making me sit here like I'm some kind of criminal."

"Lieutenant Randon." Yang sighed. Then he sat down across from me. "May I call you Jonathan?"

"Jon."

"It isn't like that, Jon. You're not a suspect."

"What's it like then?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you waiting. This case is spiraling out of control, and you're the only person close enough to Mr. Taylor who can give us insight into his motives. Unfortunately that leaves us with a problem."

"Which is?"

"Trust," Yang said. "New evidence has surfaced, evidence the police department would never share with the public. I've convinced my supervisors this information may help you help us."

"I'll do everything in my power. All I want is to track down Taylor's family, make sure they are safe."

Yang's eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened for a split second before he smiled slightly. "That's all we want, too."

"I know what you're thinking," I leaned back and crossed my arms. "He would never hurt them. Not in a million years."

"I understand your dedication to your friend. Believe me, I do, Jon."

"Good, so where do we start?"

Yang stood. He crushed the empty paper cup in his hand, then said, "The morgue. I need you to identify the body before we can release it to the funeral home."

***

The sun set as we left the station. Yang climbed in behind the wheel of a white Crown Victoria, and I jumped into the passenger seat. As we drove, he asked about my life, time in the service, and plans for the future. I answered his questions and asked some of my own. I learned he had been a cop for thirteen years, that he was married, though his wife had run off with his brother, and now he looked after his young nephew, and his nephew's mother that his brother had left behind.

"Sounds like you do understand what I'm going through," I said.

Yang nodded as he pulled into a parking spot. After he shut off the engine, he looked at me and scrunched his eyebrows together. "By the way," he said, "when was the last time you heard from Mr. Taylor?"

"Um, well...I saw him a few weeks ago. The last I heard from him though, he left a message on my phone about him not seeing me somewhere, but that's it."

"Not seeing you? Did he expect to see you?"

"I don't know. It was strange. I'm not even sure he was talking to me. It sounded like the call was accidental. Like maybe he was talking to someone else."

"Oh." Yang opened the car door. "Can I listen to it?"

"Sure."

I pulled the phone from my pocked, navigated to voicemail, and pressed play.

—  Jesse Taylor Voicemail —

We sat in silence after the message finished.

"I don't know what to make of it, Detective."

Yang bit his lip. "Interesting. Odd, but interesting."

"What is?"

"If Jesse Taylor that left that message, my job just got easier. That's all."

"Of course it's him. But I don't see how that's important," I said, confused.

"What if that isn't him?" Yang narrowed his eyes. "Maybe someone left that recording so we would think it was him."

"What are you getting at?"

"Nothing."

"Besides, even if this was some kind of prank, it wouldn't have anything to do with Jesse's death."

"You're right, it's nothing." Yang stepped out of the car. "Come on, let's make this quick."

Stepping from the car, I shook my head, wondering what the fuck he was talking about.

"This way," Yang said.

Instead of going in through the front door, Yang and I walked around to the rear of the building. Graffiti covered the red brick and metal door. A security camera perched above the top right corner of the doorway peered down at us. Yang flashed his badge. The door buzzed and we walked into a dimly lit hallway.

"I hate this place," Yang said as we made our way through the maze of grey cinderblocks. We turned another corner and the area opened up into a waiting room where twelve foldable brown chairs were lined up in three rows of four. Dusty inspirational posters plastered the walls. In one corner, I noticed a display shelf filled with brochures about dealing with loss, all of which looked as though they had been printed in the seventies. One in particular showed a hand holding out a plain cardboard box with red packing tape. The caption read: Don't Pack Pain Away. Another showed two men with long hair and even longer sideburns, their faces pressed together and wet with tears. The caption read: Time Heals All Things.

I heard someone clear their throat and looked up to see an old lady with blue-tinted hair sitting behind a Plexiglas window. Yang walked over to her and slid a piece of paper through the small opening. She read it and pressed a button. Another door buzzed, which I opened and stepped through.

"Hello," a voice called from down the hallway in front of me. "Come on in!"

Yang pushed past me, and I followed him to a frosted glass door printed with the words: Cold Storage. Inside the room, a medical examiner stood over a stainless-steel slab covered in blood.

"Oh, sorry about the mess," he said. "You're here for the Taylor case, right?"

"Yes," Yang said. "Took us a while to find someone for positive identification."

"Used to that." The medical examiner walked over to a wall with nine mini-fridge-sized doors. "He's in three."

"You okay?" Yang asked me as the medical examiner opened the door and grabbed the handles of the tray.

"Yeah, let's get it over with."

The medical examiner pulled on the handles and a covered corpse slid out of the ice-cold mist. Yang grabbed the sheet and peeled it off the body.

"Jesus Christ!" I screamed.

"What? It's Taylor, right?"

I stumbled backward. "Oh God, what the fuck!"

"What's wrong, Jon?"

"What's wrong?!" I screamed as loud as I possibly could, then pulled up my left pant leg, revealing my prosthetic. "You said he was killed by a lightning strike..." I looked back down at Taylor's body. "His leg is gone, Detective! What happened to his fucking leg?"

Yang shot the medical examiner a surprised look.

The medical examiner clicked his tongue. He shook his head, then said to Yang, "You boys need to do a better job of reviewing the updated reports."

Yang raised out his hands, palms up. "What are you talking about? What report?"

"The reports my office sends over."

"Just tell me what it said."

I stared at Taylor's dead face. The corners of his lips were upturned as if he knew the punchline of a joke that he couldn't wait to share.

"Initially we reported Mr. Taylor's cause of death as a lightning strike. Most of his wounds were consistent with that conclusion. Upon further evaluation I determined Mr. Taylor did indeed suffer from some sort of electrical discharge, however this happened days prior to his actual death."

"You mean he was electrocuted but that's not what killed him," Yang said.

"Exactly."

"What did kill him then?"

"Blood loss," the medical examiner said. "As your friend here pointed out, the body is missing its left leg. Though rare, it's not completely unheard of for lightning to sever an appendage, but in this case...someone cut it off."

"What are you saying?" I asked. "Who did this to him?"

Yang stared at me, studying me through narrowed eyes.

"Actually," the medical examiner shrugged, "the angle of the wound suggests it was self-inflicted."

Yang spun around and faced the medical examiner once more. They spoke for a while in hushed tones but I was in no condition to comprehend any of what they were saying. The only thing I heard was the metallic humming sound of the cold storage cases. My gaze locked on Taylor's missing leg, and I stared, nearly catatonic, until Yang took me by the arm and walked me out of the building.

"Thank you for identifying the body, Jon. The department appreciates your assistance."

"Cut the bullshit!"

Yang flinched. "What're you talking about? I told you we needed your hel—"

"Stop. I know what that was, Detective." I said, walking up to the passenger side of his Crown Victoria. I waited, ready for any rebuttal, but all Yang did was open his door and climb inside. I followed his lead then slammed my door as hard as I could.

"I know what that was," I said again with more conviction.

Yang started the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot. It was several minutes before he spoke again. "I'm sorry, Jon. It wasn't my call."

"Yeah, but you agreed with it."

"We found out about the leg this morning. Before we even spoke, I had already sent that unit to bring you in." Yang took a sip of his coffee. "We thought you would slip up if given the chance."

"That isn't right. We're talking about my best friend and his family. How would you feel if someone did that to you?"

"Don't turn this around, son. I'm doing my job."

"Did you get what you want? Still think I'm involved? And don't call me son."

Yang took another drink of coffee. I hoped it was as cold and bitter as I felt.

"Sorry..." he said. "And no. We didn't have the news that it might have been self-inflicted, so I don't think this is on you. But that isn't conclusive. The department is still going to look your way until we can say for certain that Mr. Taylor acted alone."

"Look all you want." I shrugged.

"Jon, why does anyone kill? Affairs, money, revenge. Or in your case, they think you just snapped. The file the hospital had on you suggested you're prone to outbursts, perhaps even experienced a bout of temporary insanity after your accident."

"I don't care about what they think. Like I said before, my only goal is to help you find his family. I'm not going to stop. They're going to be devastated. I need to be there for them, Yang. Don't you get that? He was like a brother to me, and we made promises to each other, signed a contract. These things you wouldn't understand."

"Jon—"

"No. It's your turn to listen. Just know that it falls on me to look after his family. I can't afford to think of anything else right now."

"We don't need your help finding them," Yang said sullenly.

"I don't care. You can't stop me."

"No, Jon...they aren't missing anymore. We found them."

"What? Was that another part of your twisted game? Where the hell have they been?" My hopeful questions kept firing from my mouth, even though I knew better. "Why haven't they called me at all?"

Yang had to speak over me, louder, "No, you're not understanding. I mean...while we had you under guard in the interrogation room, divers were busy pulling body parts from the bottom of a pond."

Detective Yang's words crushed me worse than the Black Hawk had. He glanced at over at me.

"Six bodies, Jon," Yang whispered. "They're dead...all of them."

SECTION III - OBITUARY

Former NYC resident, Major Jesse Taylor, 33, died March 3rd, 2013, in Bloody Pond, MD. Major Taylor was born April 25th, 1979, in Cooperstown, NY. He graduated from Cooperstown Central High School in 1999 and went on to become a decorated pilot in the United States Army. When not in uniform, he spent his time coaching Pee Wee football for under-privileged kids. Major Taylor was preceded in death by his wife, Lorie; son, Jon; father, Hunter; mother, Christina; older brother, Kyle; and younger sister, Tiffany. He is survived by his grandfather, Howard Taylor of Williamsport, PA. A service will be held on Friday, March 15th, at Hardesty's Funeral Home in Annapolis, MD.

***

Mary Stallings of the Baltimore Sun newspaper sat across from me, shaking her head.

"How does that sound?" I asked.

"It sounds kinda—"

"Kinda what?"

"Emotionless. Sterile. Why don't you liven it up, say something about him as a person?"

"I mentioned he liked to coach."

"Don't you want to say something substantial, Mr. Randon?"

I took a deep breath and looked around her office. Two Excellence in Journalism awards, one from 2008 and the other from 2010, hung on the wall next to her diploma from Louisiana State University. All three plaques were caked with a layer of dust.

"I told you a dozen times, I'm not talking about the case. The only reason I'm here is for the obituary."

She frowned.

For the past three years, Mary Stallings had been the police liaison. Her primary job was to collect information for the Crime Beat section of the paper.

When she came poking around, I flat out refused to talk to her. That did nothing to stop her resolve. She kept coming back, day after day, trying new ways to pique my interest. In the end, it wasn't Mary's persistence which changed my mind; it was The Death Agreement.

Taylor had needed an obituary. Funeral homes usually take care of that kind of thing once payment is made and all the documents are in order. I didn't have the money to pay out of pocket right then, and the military was dragging their feet with Taylor's paperwork. Without his will, no one, not even the funeral homes, would help me with anything involving Taylor's estate. The one exception: Mary Stallings.

I had agreed we could talk but told her there was a big If attached. My terms were simple. She would help me write the obituary, and maybe I would tell her about Taylor. Of course that's the official reason why I had gone to see her. Unofficially, my life had unraveled past the point where I could pull it back together alone. Yang was all right, but I needed someone to talk to other than the police.

"Jon," she said and brushed her wavy auburn hair away from her brown eyes. "You asked for my help, remember?"

"I know."

"So let me help."

I met her eyes and admired the pale freckles across the bridge of her nose. I nodded, and wondered if she was sincere, or if she only saw me only as a meal ticket. Even if that's all I was to her, it wasn't so bad.

I knew the story would get out sooner or later. Fact is, the only reason it hadn't hit the newsstands was because Mary had left Taylor's case out of the crime section of the Baltimore Sun. At that point, all that anyone knew was the family had died.

"All right. If you want to help, tell me about those." I said, nodding to the wall.

"Okay. What would you like to know?"

"For starters, how did you go from an award-winning reporter to sloshing through piles of police reports?"

Her jaw clenched shut and her stare turned to daggers. I lowered my gaze to the papers scattered across her desk. "I didn't mean to be insulting. I'm sorry."

Her shoulders fell and she relaxed against her chair. "It's okay. Let's call it office politics. The editor in chief and I butted heads once too often and now I'm here."

"Sounds like the Army."

"Is your commanding officer a loud-mouthed son-of-a-bitch?"

"His name is Colonel Litwell, and yeah, he is, actually."

Mary laughed and it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I might have fallen in love right then. In another time or place I would have acted on the feeling, but the moment of relief had only lasted a second. Suddenly, I wondered what Taylor would think of her, wondered when I could introduce her to him. Then reality crashed down and the family of corpses weighed heavily on my conscience once more.

"The police still consider me a suspect," I blurted out.

In a serious, yet nonjudgmental tone, she asked, "Are you involved?"

"No."

"Why do you think he did it?"

"I don't know that he did. Imagine someone you've been close to for years waking up one morning and saying something like, Hey, today's a good day to kill everyone I love. It doesn't happen." I bit my lip. "I mean, it's not supposed to happen."

Mary turned in her chair and opened a file cabinet. "I have a story for you," she said, sliding files back and forth. "I wrote it back when Mr. McDonger was in charge around here. Ah, here it is." She turned back to me and placed a laminated front page article on her desk. The featured picture was of an alley crisscrossed with yellow police tape, the red brick buildings had taken on a slight blue grow from the light of the police cruisers parked on the street.

I picked up the laminate, but Mary had already begun telling me the story. Her eyes seemed focused on something far away, so I placed it back on her desk and listened.

"A few years ago," she said, "Natasha Banders, a woman living in Baltimore City, called the police to report her daughter missing from a crib. The detectives found a broken pane of glass on the back door. Less than three hours later, the dogs found her daughter's body in a dumpster.

"She had been tortured, Jon. Sodomized with a hot curling iron, then strangled. I was there covering the story. I don't have the words to describe the woman's agony as the police pulled the baby from the garbage.

"'My little girl! Oh god, someone murdered my little girl!' Rage filled her eyes, and she screamed, 'I'll kill you! Come out'n face me. I'll slit your throat.'

"Then she ran up to random bystanders and yelled in their faces, 'Was it you? I know it was you!' She went on like that, absolutely hysterical, until one of the officers wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and pulled her away from the crime scene.

"I felt her pain, every ounce. We all did. The horror she was going through, the terror the little girl had suffered....

"No one deserves that. This well-liked community woman had gone to work at the docks each morning to help feed her family. She had no enemies. She never had a run-in with the law. Why her? What could she have done to deserve the wrath of a monster?

"The worst part...a week later, when the police discovered a Chinese restaurant had installed a camera to watch the alley, it was Mrs. Banders who had dumped her daughter's body.... So don't blame yourself. Anyone can be fooled."

We sat in silence for a while, then I finally said, "I'm not blaming myself."

Of course I did. If Taylor had been harboring murderous thoughts his whole life, or if he had slipped into insanity during the war, I should've noticed. I should've protected his family. Their deaths were on me.

Mary reached across her desk and put her hand on mine. "Hey?"

"Yeah?"

"I might be wrong. Like you said, maybe someone set him up."

"But I'm the only one the police are looking at. Most of them are convinced I'm a killer."

Mary nodded. She looked at me much the same way that Yang had looked at me in the morgue—with hunger in her eyes. "Well," she said, smiling slightly, "now that would be a story."

SECTION IV - ATTEND FUNERAL

The Naval Station's legal department had finally confirmed that they had Taylor's will on file.

As stated in The Death Agreement, his will had been adjusted, the change small. In the event no immediate family members survived, I would become the executor of the estate. That meant I became responsible for burying my best friend, who may or may not have murdered his family.

Once I had Taylor's will in hand, I used it as proof to get his body released and delivered to Hardesty's Funeral Home. The funeral director needed a day to prepare, which was fine because I had other important duties requiring my attention. You see, the executor takes on the responsibility of asset dissolution. Because Lorie died before Taylor, he inherited everything, and since the rest of Taylor's family was also deceased, the whole estate went to me.

This, of course, didn't set well with Lorie's parents. To complicate matters more, Yang told me that the inheritance could be considered a motive, and I should tread lightly. It was okay, I told him. I already knew what to do.

The hardest thing I ever did was make that call to Lorie's mother. Like an idiot, I tried to offer my sympathies, and suddenly realized this woman probably wanted to see me burn, so instead of a heartfelt condolence, I began to spill my guts into the receiver:

"Ma'am, I understand that my voice is the last thing you want to hear. Nothing from me will ease your pain, but I swear to you, this wasn't my doing. Maybe Jesse...." I trailed off, unable to say the words. Lorie's mother hadn't said anything but she hadn't slammed the phone down either, so I continued, "Maybe someone else...I don't know. The police are investigating, and I am cooperating fully. Right now, the most important thing is getting Lorie and Jon sent down to Georgia. They need to be laid to rest by those who love them most."

I paused for a breath, imagining Lorie's mother on the other end of the line, listening to me rambling while trying her best not to give me the satisfaction of hearing her cry.

"The arrangements have been made," I said. "Once the assets are liquid, half of the money in the estate will be forwarded to your account. The other half will go to Jesse's grandfather so he can bury the rest of his family. I'll take care of Jesse myself, out of my own pocket."

By the time I finished explaining, I was sobbing into the phone, too.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said, "and I hope God is looking after them. Please call if there's anything I can do."

She didn't respond; she didn't need to. I waited patiently just to let her know I would be there no matter what. When I heard the soft click of her phone hanging up, I knew she had accepted the offer, and possibly my sympathies as well.

Next, I called Jesse's grandfather, Howard Taylor. He accepted my proposal in much the same way, only prior to hanging up he did say one thing: "Wiiilll seeend floweeers," he said as if gasping for breath, a hacking cough punctuated each word.

All in all, heart-ripping as it was, the whole ordeal went better than expected.

***

Taylor's funeral had been another matter altogether. The director, Mr. Hardesty, greeted me at the door. He was a black man with a short-cropped beard, and the way he held himself reminded me of a distinguished butler.

"I don't advise informing the public of the viewing schedule, nor do I advise printing the obituary until after the event takes place."

I needed to tilt my head back to look him in the eye. "What about his friends?" I asked.

"Mr. Randon, with all due respect, sir, it might be best to cancel the service. It's highly possible former friends will not attend. How can I say this delicately?"

"I'd appreciate it if you would just say it plainly."

"As you wish. The deceased has been accused of serious crimes, and to be blunt, sir, you yourself are the subject of an ongoing investigation. I implore you, don't advertise this funeral, or else you may regret it."

As he spoke, my first reaction had been to punch the pompous bastard, but then I picked up on the fear in his voice. The man was scared of me and yet he still gave his honest opinion, which I begrudgingly admired.

"Thank you. I respect your candor. It is good advice, but I made a promise, you see. Some contracts are written in ink and others are written in blood."

Mr. Hardesty nodded. "In that case, I will have him ready for tomorrow." He shook my hand and left the parlor.

As a man who deals in death, I knew he would understand.

After he had closed the door, leaving me alone with the soft jazz music playing in the small office, I browsed through the catalog of caskets, considering his advice.

The Death Agreement required an obituary. However, nothing in the document specified when it needed to be printed.

I called my favorite reporter, Mary Stalling.

"Jon?" she answered. "Is everything okay?"

"Hi, Mary. I'm all right. I wanted to ask a favor. Could you please delay Taylor's obituary? I think too many people would show up and none of them would come to pay their respects."

"No need," she said.

"What?"

"I never sent it to the editing department."

"Why not? We had a deal, didn't we?"

"Have a deal," she corrected. "But I knew you would call, so I changed it to go out next Tuesday."

"I, uh...I don't know what to say."

"Thanks would work fine."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. But Jon, I can't keep this under wraps forever. Once the obituary is out, I'll need to print a story."

"I know. You'll get a proper interview after the funeral is over. I promise."

***

The service began at three in the afternoon on March 15th. As expected, no one showed up. Mr. Hardesty had laid Taylor out in a simple maple wood box, the only one I could afford.

Howard Taylor had sent flowers like he said he would, but no other decorations adorned the cheap casket. That sole arrangement felt like a disgrace. Someone at the flower shop must have messed up the order. Instead of a message about loss, hope, or forgiveness, the pink silk banner around the large bouquet read: Get Well Soon.

"Damned idiots," I said, then sat there silently trying to piece it all together.

People don't just snap like that. That kind of thing doesn't really happen. In the back of my mind I knew it happened all the time. We've all seen the news: Teen stabs his parents to death. Mother drowns her children. Brother shoots his brother.

The world is fucked up, people are fucked up, everything is fucked up. We hang on to the illusion that reality is orderly, when in fact it is pure chaos. So who's really insane? The person that gives in to the madness, or the person that pretends the madness isn't waiting just below the surface?

A voice came from behind me, "The name is Goodtime."

I whipped my head around to see a man with bloodshot eyes and greying hair. He wore an old-fashioned, grey three-piece suit and brown wing-tipped leather shoes that had been polished to a mirror shine.

"Jesus, you scared the piss out of me."

"Didn't mean to startle ya, my boy." The strange-looking man smiled and reached out a hand. "Goodtime," he said again. "Alan Goodtime."

"Jon Randon. Are you a friend of Jesse Taylor?"

"Not a friend, per se." He spoke with a slight Southern drawl but I picked up a hint of English as well. Maybe there was something else too, as if the man had spent a fair amount of time traveling overseas. "We met online a while back," he continued. "Jesse read something I had written, and it turned out we had a few things in common. Real shame what happened, my boy. Whole family gone, just like...." He snapped his fingers, "That."

I nodded.

He said, "You're not related, are you?"

"Not by blood. How did you hear about the service?"

"That's for the best. Oh, I haven't spoken to Jesse in a while, so I did some checking, heard some whispers here and there. Thought I would come pay my respects. Like I said, real shame."

"Well, Mr. Goodtime, it isn't much of a service, but why do you say that?"

He cocked his head and squinted as if confused. "Say what now?"

"You said that it's for the best. Why?"

He grinned. "Figure of speech. Making conversation."

"Oh. I thought...I thought...no, never mind." I shook my head.

"No harm in admitting it if you're going to dismiss it so easily." Alan Goodtime laughed. "You're right, I did mean something by it. I meant it is for the best that you two weren't blood. He'd have done you in too, no doubt. Same as the rest of 'em."

The suddenness of his opinion hit me like a punch to the stomach. Fists balled, I jumped up and sneered.

Alan Goodtime raised his hands, palms out, and took a step back. "Relax, my boy. I'd like to be friends."

"Who the fuck are you to say something like that?" My face twitched from a pure hatred I suddenly felt for the man. "Leave right now or I'll have you thrown out."

He grinned, pulled out an old pocket watch, and stared at it. "My, my, won't ya look at the time?" He said, taking another step back. "I must be going now. Have to get back to my shop. Busy, busy, busy, you know how it is. Truly a pleasure to meet you, Jon."

He shuffled over to the exit but paused a moment to sign the register. "You'll let me know if you find it, I hope? I am counting on you."

"Find what?" I asked, but Alan Goodtime had already turned away. He quickly left the parlor, slamming the front door behind him.

"Mr. Hardesty?" I called out.

Stepping from his office, he said. "Yes, Mr. Randon?"

"Did you see that man, by chance?"

"I heard him come in and leave, but no sir, I did not see him. May I ask why?"

"He just...I don't know. Sorry to bother you."

Hardesty nodded. "I did warn you," he said and returned to his office.

I walked over to the register. The signature read: Alan Goodtime. A thick envelope sat on top with my name scrawled across it. As I ripped it open, my heart pounded in my chest. I pulled out what I had thought was some kind of folded-up sympathy card, but it was a familiar pamphlet that looked like it had been printed in the seventies.

I unfolded it and read the full message written in a large, yellow, groovy font: Don't Pack Pain Away. Don't Let It Meld. Don't Let It Grow.

Below the headline, a smiling man held out a cardboard box kept together by red packing tape, only the flaps were open. I remembered them being closed before. My eyes lingered on the man's toothy smile. At first glance it had looked like happiness or relief on his face, but the longer I stared, the more convinced I became that his expression was actually one of madness and terror.

Suddenly I realized I was holding my cell, and with a shaky finger, dialed Yang's number.

"Detective," I said, walking back over to the casket, "do you have Taylor's computer?"

"I was just about to call you."

"Do you have Taylor's computer?" I asked again.

"Of course. It's in the evidence locker."

"I'm assuming you had your tech guys search it."

Yang paused for a moment before asking, "What's going on?"

"I'm also assuming you have a report on all his internet activity."

"Yeah, of course. Tell me where you are."

"I'm at my best friend's funeral, but you should know that, damn it. A police car has been following me for days. Now shut up and listen. My final assumption is you didn't find anything you thought was important, but I'd say it's because you didn't know what you were looking for. Have another look. See if there's anything about someone named Alan Goodtime. He was just here and I think you might want to talk to him."

"I'll check into it, but right now I'm coming to pick you up."

"Not necessary. I'm fine."

"No, it is necessary."

"Yeah? It sounds like you got something to tell me, and I think you know me well enough by now to realize I can't stand waiting on information."

"I'm breaking every rule we have, you realize that?"

"Yeah, you're a cop, so par for the course, right?"

"Don't be an asshole. I just spoke to the medical examiner. He finally got the bodies sorted." Yang took a deep breath. "Pieces are missing."

"What do you mean pieces are missing?"

"Well, Mr. Taylor's leg is still missing. I had assumed the police found it in the pond with the rest of the...parts."

I looked down at Taylor's body, the bottom of the casket covered up to his waist. He still had that same knowing smirk.

I shook my head and whispered, "Why did you do it?"

"What?" Yang asked.

I cleared my throat. "Nothing...sorry. Yang, we'll have to talk here. I can't abandon my vigil."

"The rules?"

"Yes. I need to attend his funeral until it's over."

***

Sometime later, Yang walked through the parlor doors.

"I don't know about you," he said and held up a large brown paper bag, "but I could use a drink." Then he sat next to me and used his wedding ring to pop the caps off of two beers.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"We've never seen anything like this before. None of the pieces fit together. I can say that you're officially off the suspect list. At least for now."

"Is that so?"

"Timelines don't match. We've got hospital staff claiming to have seen you on campus." He reached for a bag by his side. "You hungry? I brought a few burgers."

"No, the beers will be fine."

"Suit yourself." Yang reached into the brown bag and pulled out a cheeseburger. He unwrapped it and took a bite. "Tell me about this guy, Goodtime. I saw that he signed the register."

"Not much to tell, really." I pressed the bottle to my lips and finished off the second beer. "He showed up and said he knew Jesse. Did you find anything on him?"

"I did actually. Well, found a few people listed with that name. I'm going to look over the records tonight. Thanks for the tip. Taylor's computer might help now that I have a lead."

"So, Yang, why are you here?"

"I still want you to help me figure this out."

"I've been trying."

"Yeah, but I think we've been ignoring the elephant in the room for far too long. At first we had our sights on you. We had a theory that you cut off his leg because you felt that he was somehow responsible for what happened to you in Afghanistan."

"That's bullshit."

"The staff members at the hospital claimed you were angry, more than most. Some even said you were vindictive. You scared them."

"Maybe I did." I sighed. "So did a lot of other guys. You don't know what it's like being in that place, in that situation. It does something to you."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. I don't know. You do. Let me put it another way. While the department was convinced that you were involved, you were convinced someone else was involved. No one asked the right question: Why would your friend sever his own leg? I've seen crazy, Jon. This is well beyond, trust me."

"It's true," I said. "I don't want to admit he did it to himself."

Yang nodded. "When the medical examiner figured out his leg wasn't the only part missing, I was able to see it from another angle. It isn't about what we know or what we have found. It's about the missing parts. This case has a lot of missing parts, and I doubt we'll ever solve it."

"Speaking of missing parts," I said, taking another beer from Yang. "What's missing?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you. We never thought we'd find them all anyway. It's a big pond, too big to search it all, but we now know those parts aren't there."

"How so?"

"I can't say."

"Damn it."

"I know."

Yang and I both looked up at Taylor's body. The service would be ending soon and there was one last thing left I needed to do.

I stood up. "I agreed to say a few words. Another part of the agreement we had."

Yang nodded. "Would you like me to go?"

"Only if you want."

Yang sat still. I mouthed the words thank you as I walked to the podium. I looked out at the room and did my best to pretend it was filled with grieving people, those who had known Jesse Taylor, those who had loved him.

My imagination failed me. Only Detective Yang sat alone in the empty room, his head bowed, his hands folded neatly in his lap.

In my jacket pocket, my copy of The Death Agreement contained the eulogy I had written for Taylor months before his death. The words were heartfelt and truthful, just as we both had planned them to be.

Standing there in the cold funeral home, the body of my friend resting next to me, having fallen so far from the man I cared about...it would have been an insult to read those words. Even if the only ears to hear were Yang's and my own, those words were wrong. So I needed to say something else, something which was just as true.

I cleared my throat and spoke: "Taylor and I used to joke about dying young. It isn't funny anymore."

I stepped down and walked out the door, leaving Yang alone with Taylor's corpse.

SECTION V - SHARE FINAL WORDS

I lit a cigarette and walked into the alley between Hardesty's Funeral Home and a small flower shop named Maria's Memories. Discarded decorations and dead bouquets were piled high in an overfilled dumpster. Dead stems from dozens of funerals were stuck to the outside of the trash bin. The flower petals, once so vibrant, littered the ground, brown and decaying. I nearly gagged from the sweet stench.

There was still so much to do.

I removed The Death Agreement from my jacket and stared at it, looking through the words more so than looking at them. The first four sections were complete, but I couldn't continue on to the next part—share final words.

There hadn't been any witnesses to interview, though if I'm being honest, I suppose I should say there hadn't been any survivors. And there wasn't any audio, video, or a suicide note. Jesse hadn't left any record of his final moment, nothing I could use at all.

We had planned for that possibility. Inside that section, we had written a short message for the other person to use in conjunction with the last known spoken words.

As far as I knew, Taylor's last spoken words were in the voice message he had left about not seeing me: "I saw everyone but you..."

I wondered if I was supposed to record a meaningless phrase like that as his final words, knowing that if I didn't keep my word, I would end up tormenting myself for the rest of my life. Worse, I knew if the situation were reversed, Taylor would have never given up on me. It wouldn't have mattered to him if I had gone crazy and murdered half a dozen people.

His copy of The Death Agreement hadn't been on him, it hadn't been in his car, and it hadn't been in the house either.

"Where the hell did you stash it, Jesse?"

I took a drag off the cigarette and held it in until the smoke burned my lungs. I thought about the voicemail again. I had no idea who he did see, why didn't see me, or where he was when he saw everyone. So many questions and so very few answers.

The cigarette slipped from my fingers as a sudden disturbing thought took hold. Taylor's exact words and cadence were: "Saw everyone...but you."

"My god," I whispered. He had sawed off his leg and cut up his family. I wondered if he had wanted to kill everyone except me. Maybe he had tried telling me I was safe.

The idea should've terrified me, but somehow I found the possible revelation more interesting than frightening. My mind had been numbed to the whole ordeal, as if I knew there were still worse things to discover, as if Jesse Taylor had begun dissecting my soul from beyond the grave.

I ran back inside the funeral home, but Yang had already left. As I turned toward the exit, I picked up the faint, sweet-burnt odor that hung in the air and realized Taylor's body had also disappeared from the room. It was a smell I remembered very well. It was the smell of burning flesh.

Standing in the empty parlor, surrounded by the invisible fog of the incinerator, I tried to reach Yang's cell. It rang three times and then went to voicemail. I left him a brief message, "I think Taylor may have confessed to me. Call me back." Then I dialed the number for the cab company. It was late and the only thing left for me to do was to go back to my room and wait for Yang to call.

So much had happened, I felt as though I hadn't slept in days.

I yawned and my eyelids grew heavy as I waited on the steps of Hardesty's Funeral Home. I must have nodded off because the next thing I knew, the sound of a horn jarred me awake. I looked up at a yellow cab idling in the road, then stumbled to my feet, wondering why my leg felt so numb.

I climbed into the back of the cab, and the old cabbie turned around and smiled. "Where to, pal?"

"Walter Reed Medical Center." I slumped down, leaned my head back against the ripped faux-leather seat, and closed my eyes.

***

For a moment, the world was dark, calm, and silent. I felt myself drifting off.... Suddenly, every inch of my body exploded with pain. I tried to move but my chest had been strapped down to a military issue cot.

"What the...." My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and a shadow slid across the room. It paused as if looking at me, then it slithered in a spiral, drawing closer to the cot. Once near enough to kiss, it rose vertically until it towered at least eight feet high.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You crashed," the shadow replied.

"Am I dying?"

"Part of you is already dead. You know that, don't you?"

A tear slid down the side of my face. "Yes," I said.

The shadow trembled, then ripped like an amniotic sac. Teeth gripped the fold of one of the rips and tore the shadow more. Taylor's face, covered in blood spatter, struggled through the rip in the shadow as if he were pulling himself from the gravity of a black hole. The shadow trembled again, then fell to the floor like a pile of dirty clothes. Taylor smiled. In one hand, he held up my severed leg, toes wiggling. In his other hand, he held the white maple handle of a menacing, rusted, antique saw.

***

I awoke in a cold sweat, reaching for my leg but finding only the prosthetic. I wiped the sweat from my brow with my forearm, then looked out the window at the passing cars. I could still feel my severed leg so I clenched my missing toes and parroted what Taylor had said in the dream, "Part of you is already dead."

"What was that?" The driver met my eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Nothing. Thinking out loud."

"Pardon my saying so, pal, but you look like you've been through the wringer. Wanna talk about it?"

I shook my head.

He looked over his shoulder at me. "Ol' Frank's been drivin' cabs for twenty years; I can tell when people need to get somethin' off their mind."

"Thanks, I appreciate it, but I'm fine. Just tired."

"I'm just sayin' if you want, I can take ya to a meeting. AA? NA? Nine years clean myself. You gotta work the program. Know what I mean?"

I nodded.

The cabbie sighed. "Suit yourself," he said, and left me alone for the rest of the drive. When he pulled up to the front gates, I took out the last bit of money I had after paying off Hardesty and handed it to him.

"Sorry," I apologized while getting out of the cab. "I wish I could give you more of a tip."

"No worries. Oh, and pal?"

I raised my eyebrows.

"Thanks for your service," he said then waved as he drove off.

I smiled and waved back before flashing my ID to the gate guard. Once through security, I headed toward my room, but halfway there I stopped and considered going the other direction.

Something about the dream had me shaken.

"The saw," I whispered. It had been the same one that Taylor and I had discovered in the sub-basement of the closed-off building. Yang had said the police found a saw in the trunk of Taylor's car. "Could it be?"

It seemed unlikely. Probably just my subconscious trying to make sense of the madness. That's what I thought, but I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until I checked that room.

I turned toward the old abandoned wing of the hospital, sighed, then marched like a man heading to the gallows.

***

"Still be there," I whispered. "Please, please, still be there."

Making my way through the building in the darkness wasn't easy. Every shadow moved as if it was alive, and I felt as if someone had been watching me. Taylor and I had joked about ghosts on our excursions, and even though I never bought into the supernatural, each nerve tingled as if some kind of power radiated from the walls of the old hospital ward.

"It's not real," I said. Then a small voice in the back of my mind, the voice I had often ignored said: Yes it is, Jon.

I made my way to the passage that led to the sub-basement and stood outside the entrance for what felt like an eternity, remaining silent, listening for any sound at all. At that moment, if a pin were to have dropped, I would have gone insane and screamed for the rest of my life. I clung to my cellphone, imagining horrors outside of what the dim light of the phone provided.

Not knowing is the cruelest torture. Maybe that's why God gave us knowledge of our own mortality. Horrifying as it is, there's comfort in the certainty of death. It presents us with a clearly defined border—no matter what happens, death is the limit. If we weren't aware of that limit, terror would be infinite. Terror would be all we could know.

I found the courage to climb through the hole in the wall and continue on. I walked through the winding passageway, treading lightly. Thirty-three paces later, the walls opened up into the room that shouldn't exist.

Corner by corner, I scanned the room, expecting to see Taylor standing somewhere in the darkness, holding the saw, waiting to strike. But the room was just as empty as before, and my fear subsided.

I aimed the light at the ceiling. The hook was still there, and so was the string. I moved the light down the string to where the saw hung. Only, the saw was gone. In its place, hung an envelope. Scrawled on the front: FOR JON RANDON.

I had to jump to grab the envelope, and in the process of landing, my prosthetic hit the ground at the wrong angle and I fell backward, cracking my head on the hard ground. I reached back and felt the sticky wetness of blood. When I tried to stand up, I felt dizzy. It would be a few minutes before I could walk. I knew it was a bad idea, but I opened the envelope, knowing what would be inside.

Taylor's Death Agreement had been folded neatly into thirds. I slid it out of the envelope as cautiously as an EOD tech would dismantle a bomb.

Slowly, I flattened it out on my lap and began to read. Most appeared unchanged. Taylor's final entry in the history section talked about the prospect of a future promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and how he and Lorie were discussing having a baby. They had hoped for a girl and wanted to name her Leena.

I flipped through the pages and found an area that had a whole section scratched out. I recognized it as the passage that Taylor had meant to be his final words.

He had wrecked it thoroughly, as if angry, ripping the paper in places. The main points could still be seen through the deep pen scratches. To sum it up: He loved his family; he loved his friends; he wanted his children to know him after he was gone.

Below the carnage of the destroyed words, he had written something new, something chilling....

***

Final words:

They will say a lot of bad things about me, so let me address that first: It is all true. That was easy, was it not? But if you are reading, you are probably wondering how I got here. That is what you want to know, is it not?

It started with this feeling of dread. Something was very, very, very wrong. I could not figure out what and that made it worse. The dread dug under my skin. Then the voice came. It began as a whispering in the back of my mind. It kept me awake at night.

The voice said it could help me. I tried to ignore it. I really did. But it grew louder . . . and louder . . . AND LOUDER.

Eventually the voice overpowered my own. I had no choice but to listen. It spoke about the shadows and the secrets, about the good time. It named all of the evils which hide beyond our vision, all thirty million. It shared revelations of twisted worlds. It laughed as my feeble mind tried to hold it all in.

The voice never stopped, and as it spoke, the cadence sped faster . . . and faster . . . AND FASTER.

The voice sounded like someone had spun a record with their hand until the centrifugal force ripped it to shreds. I could no longer hear the words but I still understood and nodded along in agreement.

The voice said I knew a place tied to dark history. It said a presence in the black hole of time had been roused for another chance to exist again. It named the evil, though I cannot pronounce it in writing. It commanded me to serve. It told me what I must do.

I plugged an old radio into an extension cord. 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home,' an old Civil War song, blared from the speakers.

I sang along.

Get ready for the Jubilee,

Hurrah! Hurrah!

We'll give the hero three times three,

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The laurel wreath is ready now.

To place upon his loyal brow.

And we'll all feel gay when,

Johnny comes marching home.

As I sang, I filled the bathtub with water. I stepped in and then I dropped the radio. The song continued to play as an eternity of Hell flashed before my eyes. The voice said I would not die. The voice was right: I did not die. Living was a reward and punishment. Now I could see what the evil had done. Somehow it had gotten into my blood. It was a black and viscous, pulsing, crawling, as if it were alive. The voice named it the bad blood and it said the bad blood needed to be removed. It reminded me there is truth in every lie like there is a key to every horror. The key to mine is the hidden saw.

I am a believer, so as a believer, I retrieved the saw.

Then I did a man's work. A work which was not pleasant.

Little Jon was first. The bad blood had gotten into his little head. I used the saw. I wrapped him up in his blanket and then went downstairs and handed him to Lorie. I hoped he would get better once the bad blood was gone. He did not. Lorie let out a shrill scream when she saw. She ran, but she did not get very far. I held her down and planted my seed inside of her while she pretended to wither in agony. I thought it was love we shared but all I did was leave bad blood in her abdomen. So I used the saw. Lorie did not get better.

The bad blood must have infected ALL of my family. That is why Jon and Lorie were not getting better. I needed to remove the bad blood from each of them. The arms of my mother and sister were infected with the bad blood. I used the saw.

The neck of my father pulsed with the bad blood. I used the saw.

I beckoned for my brother. As I suspected, the bad blood was in his leg. I used the saw.

The screams lasted a long time. I missed them when they stopped.

I hoped my family would get better. None of them did. Why did they not get better? I asked the voice. The voice did not reply. Suddenly I remembered my bastard grandfather. It was a message from the voice. Surely my family will get better after I saw him.

But what of Jon? I asked the voice. I wanted to speak to him, to see him, to saw him if he had the bad blood.

The voice did not answer, so I went back to the basement. I reached out to Jon, yet Jon did not answer either. I knew time was running out. I knew I could not wait. Jon has no idea how close he came to feeling the saw.

Today is my day and I will leave The Death Agreement for Jon to find.

Time is short. I need to collect my grandfather. I need to discard the useless parts. I need to saw. There is bad blood in my leg. The voice wants me to use the saw because that is what the saw is for. Then we can all get better.

The voice promises.

Jon, you are family, but you are not blood. I saw the bad blood in everyone. I hope it is not in you.

Saw everyone . . . but you.

\- J.T.

***

The next page added to Taylor's copy of The Death Agreement was worse than the confession itself. The top of the paper read, "Family portrait." It showed what Yang had been unwilling to tell me.

"Pieces are missing," he had said.

The drawing was a segmented sketch of a person. Taylor had used a label maker to mark each section. Instead of words like "Head," or "Arm," he used names like, "Little Jon," and "Kyle." Taylor's whole family—all eight of them, including himself—was represented on the paper in a jagged, Frankenstein-like fashion.

Pieces.

Unable to look at it anymore, I turned the page. On the reverse side of the morbid drawing, he'd sketched a dead tree with long, claw-like branches and at the base of the tree were piles of leaves drawn in red ink. That little voice in the back of my mind laughed, then said: Blood.

I turned off my phone and sat in the pitch-black darkness, gripping The Death Agreement tightly. No matter how hard I tried, my hands refused to stop shaking.

Since learning of Taylor's demise I had clung to the hope that he had been a victim along with the rest of his family. Even after talking with Yang at the funeral home, part of me still refused to believe he had done the horrible things everyone accused him of doing. But this irrefutable proof, written by Taylor's own hand, sealed that possibility forever.

My hands continued to shake. I thought I understood insanity. I've seen war. I knew men could break. But that letter.... Words like crazy, or mad, or psychotic...words like those don't even come close to describing what Taylor had done.

Once I knew the truth, dying seemed like the best option. It would have been so easy to just lay down in the dark until my body starved to death.

"I'm nothing but a worthless fucking cripple," I said, not for the first time.

No one would have missed me. Hell, no one would have found me. I wondered how long before every memory of me disappeared? How long would it be until Jon Randon became just another missing person poster, another lost piece?

Self-loathing and depression, my two old friends, tore at me. As hope faded, Taylor's words came to life and began to play like a movie in the darkness of my imagination.

I watched Taylor sawing off Little Jon's head then handing the corpse to his unsuspecting wife, only to rape her before the terror of seeing her decapitated little boy had even fully registered. Next he happily cut through the flesh of his mother and father, blood spraying the room. Then I saw his brother and sister begging for their lives while the saw ripped off flesh and limbs.

Each slice, so vivid in the nothingness. The bodies piled up and the blood continued to flow like a never-ending waterfall. The corpses pumped out black and rancid liquid until it filled every corner of the perverse setting. Even Taylor couldn't escape the onslaught. He laughed hysterically as the tide rose around him, inch by inch, until only his wild eyes remained visible in the sea of death.

The container of my mind couldn't hold all of the horror. I don't know how anyone's mind could. When the pressure went past the maximum, the scene burst, exploding outward.

Blood rained down and faded from dark red to pitch black to the color of dirty water. The walls of the kill room dried like clay and crumbled in the wind. Then six corpses, Taylor's discarded trash, his useless parts, materialized in that new pond, some floating, others sinking. Then I saw Taylor's body. He lay dying not far from water's edge, leg gone and losing blood fast, resting under a large, white maple tree, surrounded by leaves soaked with blood. And yet that fucking smirk was still plastered on his face.

My visualization didn't match up perfectly to Taylor's words though. I realized the timeline he described contained a flaw. Six bodies were found in the pond—six, not seven. Jesse's grandfather was alive and well.

In the confession, Taylor claimed he would be seeing his grandfather next, before going to the pond. The plan must have changed. There had to be a reason why Taylor let him live.

"Yang," I said to the empty pitch black room that shouldn't exist. He needed to know. I owed him that.

"Jon, can I call you back?"

"Wait. You'll want to hear this. I found Taylor's confession."

"That's great, but I can't talk right now."

"That's great? Really? What the hell, Yang?"

"Listen, I need to call you back. I'm in the middle of something."

"Oh, I also found a picture of what he did. He drew a fucking picture."

I heard Yang talking to someone else, shouting an order. Lots of commotion, the sound of picture's being taken.

"Taylor was going to go after his grandfather."

"I know." Yang said. "I'm here now."

"What? How did you know?"

"Do you think detectives just sit around and blow each other all day?"

"I'm serious. How did you find out he had planned on going there?" I asked, annoyed. Then added, "And how is he doing?" I tried to sound concerned for the old man. Though I really didn't care about Howard Taylor, I cared about what Yang thought of me.

"I followed up on that Goodtime lead. The techs didn't have much from the computers, a forum post and some web searches for a pawn shop, dead ends mostly, so I checked on the newly-arrived batch of credit card transactions. A change in habit tipped me off."

"What kind of change?"

"For the past nine years, Howard Taylor had gone down to the corner deli each morning for a cup of coffee. Yet, no charges had come through in weeks. As for how he's doing...well, not much better than the rest of his family I would say."

My stomach dropped. "He's dead?"

"Yes, and he's missing a part, too."

"Then who..." I swallowed hard. "Who have I been speaking with? Who sent the fucking flowers?"

"We'll figure it out all in good time, but really, I gotta go. Once this crossed the state line, the FBI had to come in to serve the warrant. I'll be up in Williamsport, PA for the rest of the night."

"But—"

"Listen," Yang said, "fax over what you got, the number is on my card. Still got it, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'll either send someone to pick up the original tomorrow, or I'll collect it myself."

"Yang?"

"Yeah?"

"Taylor wasn't working alone."

"I know," he admitted, then let out a deep breath. "We'll talk tomorrow."

"Christ, Yang. I don't like this."

"Me neither. Goodnight, Jon."

"Goodnight."

SECTION VI - WISHES

I tried not to think as I walked back to the barracks. I had spoken to Taylor's grandfather on multiple occasions. Or at least I thought I had. Every question spawned more questions. Like, why was his grandfather's body left behind when he'd dumped the rest of the family in the pond? Maybe he loathed the old man so intensely that those remains weren't good enough to share the same trash bags.

"You're beginning to think like him, Jon."

Laughable, I know. Oftentimes what I say isn't what I think, even when I'm talking to myself. I wanted to cast my thoughts away as lies, but I knew better. I wasn't beginning to think like Taylor. Truth is I had always thought like Taylor.

Best friends share a certain mental link, a bond that doesn't easily break. If Taylor had the capacity to snap then so must I. Maybe it had already happened. Maybe I just hadn't realized it yet?

Before I knew it, I had climbed the steps and stopped at the front desk. I asked the young night watch soldier to send a fax for me, then handed him Taylor's drawing. Next, I took out the handwritten confession, and when I went to hand the soldier the letter, I could see that the blotches on the pages were not ink—they were bloody fingerprints.

I folded the letter and put it back into my coat pocket. I don't think the soldier noticed. He seemed focused on the picture, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. When he realized I was staring at him, he tried to hide the revolting look on his face, but failed miserably.

"L.T.? Are you sure you want to send this?"

"That's what I said, Corporal. Is there a problem?"

"No, sir. No problem at all."

The soldier sent the fax without taking his eyes off me. I didn't blame him for being spooked. A picture like that would put anyone on edge. I'm actually surprised he didn't call the MPs. Funny what a brass stick of butter on your shoulders can get you.

I heard the fax receipt rip from the roll of paper. He handed it to me along with the original document.

"Thank you, Corporal."

"Anything else, sir?"

"Yeah. Keep this to yourself. I'll know if you don't."

Before he could respond, I turned toward the elevators and strolled away. Too much had been dumped on my plate that night, and the last thing I needed was Colonel Litwell getting involved.

I made it to my room and nearly collapsed the moment I walked through the door. It felt as though more had gone down in that one day than all my days in Afghanistan combined. I looked at my bunk like a starving man looks at a medium-rare steak.

I couldn't recall the last time I'd had a full night's sleep. The nightmares had been getting worse, more vivid, and rest had become a rare commodity. It's amazing I hadn't developed hypnophobia, or whatever it's called when you're afraid to close your eyes.

Tired or not, it made no difference. I couldn't allow myself to fall asleep. One last item remained on my list of things I needed to do—a game of Wishes.

Instead of heading toward the comfort of my pillow, I went into the kitchenette and reached for the cabinet above the refrigerator. When the door swung open, I expected to find a wide variety of high-proof spirits, but instead I found the space nearly empty.

"Damn."

Taylor and I had decimated the collection, and I had never made it back to the Class 6. I had hoped to find a half-full bottle of Jameson, at least. St. Patrick's Day was only a day away, and it would have been perfect for the occasion. Then I recalled a vague memory of finishing that off weeks ago, back when I had first heard that Taylor had died.

I considered the available options, none were as appetizing as whiskey, however. The choice was between a bottle of cheap vodka and a bottle of cheap tequila. Both contained less than a swallow each. Those wouldn't do at all.

I pushed them aside, reached back into the shadows, and my fingers gripped the glass neck of something near the corner. I pulled it into the light.

"Ha!" I smiled at the uncovered hidden gem, an unopened bottle of Disaronno. "Classy."

I grabbed several shot glasses from the dishwasher and took a seat at the table. While I poured the caramel-red liquid into each shooter, I thought about the first time I had played a game of Wishes.

***

Fort Rucker, the month before senior spring break. Taylor dropped a full duffle bag by the door and stared at me with his arms crossed.

"I know you don't have anywhere you want to go," he said. "Come stay at my parents' house."

"No thanks. I'm too busy this week."

"You're full of shit."

"No, I'm serious. I have to study."

"Won't take no for an answer," he said. "They live on Blackbird Bay. We can take the boat out."

"I'm good. Really."

"This isn't a request, Randon. Besides, I can't leave you here alone." He cocked an eyebrow. "Knowing you, you'll hang yourself in the showers. Actually, the depression you're radiating is likely to make everyone kill themselves. I'm tempted to slice my arm open just standing here, so stop being a miserable cunt."

"All right, fine. But I'm warning you, I'm not good at the whole family thing."

"So you say. Now pack. We're already running late."

The trip took three hours. The sun had set by the time the cab pulled into the driveway.

Mrs. Christina, Taylor's mother, ran outside to meet us. She grabbed Taylor before he could even get out of the back seat. She kissed him on both cheeks then pulled him to his feet and took a good look at his uniform. I exited from the other side and walked around the car. Her face lit up when she saw me, and she pulled me in for a hug. The way she held me had made me feel as though I was her son, too. It was a warm, loving embrace. All my hesitation and anxiety melted away, and I felt welcomed.

"Jon," she said, "it's so nice to meet you. I'm Christina, but you can call me Chrissy. Come on, let me introduce you the rest of the family." She grabbed me by the hand and led the way around to the back yard.

Kyle, Taylor's brother stood over a flaming grill. He introduced himself by handing me a cheeseburger on a paper plate. "Enjoy!" he said, then he went back to work flipping the next batch of burgers.

Taylor's sister, Tiffany, swam in the pool with two of her friends. When the three girls saw us come around the corner, they whispered and giggled to each other.

"Tiff, say hi to Jon," Mrs. Christina said. "He's going to stay with us for the week."

"Hiii, Jooon," she mocked, her voice comedic and flirtatious. "You can share my room."

"Tiffany Ann Taylor! Manners!" Mrs. Christina shouted jokingly. "Oh, don't mind the harlots, Jon." She laughed. "Come on, Hunter's on the porch."

I let Taylor and Mrs. Christina take the lead. Once they were in front of me, I looked back and winked at the girls, who then broke out in another fit of laughter.

Taylor looked at me suspiciously.

"Sorry, bro," I said, unable to hide my smirk.

"You're gonna be if you keep it up."

I cleared my throat theatrically then gave the Boy Scout salute. "Yes, sir."

Mr. Hunter sat in one of the oversized picnic chairs, laid back with his arms folded behind his head.

"Boys, take a seat," he said. "Babe, bring a couple cigars? Thanks, love."

"Hey, Pop," Taylor said, "meet my friend, Jon Randon."

"Nice to make your acquaintance, Jon."

I shook his hand. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Taylor."

"Please, call me Hunter."

"Sure thing, Mr. Hunter."

Mr. Hunter sighed. "My, you two are green as grass, but you'll grow out of it soon." He put a hand on Taylor's shoulder and squeezed. "Jesse, how are things at school? Behaving, I hope."

"Great. Glad we're almost finished."

"You're just getting started. You both realize that, right?"

Taylor and I looked at each other, then back at Mr. Hunter. We nodded.

"Well, you think you do, anyhow." He turned toward the house. "Chrissy! Where are my cigars, woman?"

"Hold your horses!" Mrs. Christina shouted back.

"Bring the Scotch instead! Let's make this a real party!" Mr. Hunter looked back at us and smiled. "All right, boys, I got some advice. Listen closely. Rule number one: Officers should always keep a bottle of high-quality liquor around to share with the enlisted folk. Got that?"

"Got it," Taylor said.

"If you slip 'em a fifth of decent rum and grant 'em a night off-duty from time to time, they'll respect you three times as much, and they'll bend over backward for you when you need them. At least that's how it was back in my day."

"That's good advice," I said.

Mrs. Christina walked through the open glass doorway and set the Scotch on the table. Tiffany followed her out of the house, still dripping wet, and carrying several snifters on a tray. Kyle, now done with grilling, snatched up the bottle and poured a few fingers' worth into each glass.

Mrs. Christina sat next to her husband. Kyle and Tiffany sat on either side of me.

"Daddy?" Tiffany asked.

Mr. Taylor raised an eyebrow.

"Becky and Monica just left. Can I have a glass too?"

"Just a little, if it's okay with your mother."

"Sure, sure," Mrs. Christina said. "Not a peep to anyone though."

We all raised our glasses.

"To the future," Mr. Hunter said. "Salud! "

We drank.

"Jesse," Mr. Hunter said, "your mother is proud of you." He leaned forward and lowered his voice, "You went green instead of blue, but the world needs grunts just as much as it needs airmen, so I suppose I'm proud, too." He laughed, raised his glass, and we all took another drink.

Time flew by as the six of us enjoyed each other's company. At some point Kyle and I knocked Taylor into the pool. As retribution, he threw me in, too. While the three of us goofed around, Mrs. Christina cleaned up the mess, and Mr. Hunter and Tiffany gathered wood for the fire pit. Eventually we all settled down by the warm glow of the flames. We sipped from our glasses and looked out toward the darkness of Blackbird Bay.

"Hey, Jon, where do your folks live?" Kyle asked.

I shrugged. "They're dead."

"I'm sorry." Tiffany said. "What happened...if you don't mind me asking?"

"Well, my father was a banker in New York City. His office was in the World Trade Center."

Mrs. Christina gasped.

"It's okay," I said. "I never knew him. He ran out before I was even born. As for my mom, she raised me until I was thirteen. Then they took her."

"Someone took your mother?" Kyle asked.

"Why don't we change the subject?" Mr. Hunter took another sip. "You're prying into business that isn't ours."

I smiled. "It's not a problem. Even Jesse doesn't know the whole story."

Talking about my family was something I had always avoided growing up; maybe it was the warmth of the fire, or the warmth of the liquor, but for the first time ever, I wasn't afraid to open up.

I looked each of them in the eye, then said, "My mom was different from most of the other parents. I noticed it for the first time when I was four. I asked the question: Where do babies come from? She gave me a very strange interwoven answer, and I knew something wasn't right."

Kyle leaned forward.

I quickly said, "'The Stork. No! Fertilized zygote. Sperm enters the egg creating an embryo and.... No! The stork drops off a bundle onto a doorstep of mommies and daddies and.... No! The cells multiply during the gestation.'"

Jesse's jaw dropped.

I laughed. "It was like that most times I asked her questions. She was fully functional otherwise."

"Wow," Tiffany said.

"By age nine tough, she had developed other...quirks." I took a long drink from my glass. "I came home from school one day and found she had made dinner. It was a feast. A real feast. Plates were laid out all over the house, enough for a hundred people."

"Schizophrenic?" Mrs. Christina asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"That must have been tough," Kyle said. "How did you two get by for so long?"

"My father had set up a trust account when I was born. I used to get a monthly draw. I don't anymore. I send it all—"

"He took care of you financially." Mr. Hunter shook his head and waved his finger. "But money doesn't replace a father."

The breeze from the bay brushed against my face and carried along with it a gust of guilt.

"Yeah, you're right, Mr. Hunter. Money doesn't replace a father." I lowered my head and sat quietly for a while, hoping someone else would pick up the conversation. No one did.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, Mom realized she couldn't take care of me anymore and had herself institutionalized. Spring Grove was okay, I guess. I visited her whenever I could...but she died six months after being committed. An aneurism, they said. Officially it was complications with the anti-psychotic medication. But I think it was from a fight she'd gotten into with another patent, some violent woman named Sally."

Tiffany wiped her eyes. "You were on your own?"

"No. Aunt Sara took me in."

Patting my arm, Mrs. Christina said, "At least you have her."

"Actually, I don't. She died during my first year in West Point. She had gone on a cruise, and her heart gave out while trying to scuba. They don't tell you how dangerous that actually is. You'd be surprised at how many people die on a cruise ship." I laughed.

Mrs. Christina shook her head. "Poor thing."

"Hey!" Tiffany shouted. "I'm sorry, but this is really depressing. Let's play a game instead."

"We can go into the kitchen. I got a deck of cards," Taylor said.

"No, we can play out here," Tiffany said, smiling. "It's a drinking game."

Mr. Hunter squared his shoulders. "What do you know about drinking games, young lady?"

"Shush, Dad." She smacked his hand. "It's called Wishes. Everyone takes a small drink then declares a wish. The others decide if it's a real or a fake wish. Once everyone chooses, we tell the truth. If someone guesses wrong, they take another drink.... Now, if a wish is true, and everyone's guess is right, that person vows to make their wish come true. Everyone has to help if they can."

"All right, let's do it." Kyle raised a glass to his lips. "Cheers!"

We all followed his lead.

"I wish I could sing," Tiff sang her wish, badly.

"I wish your father wouldn't snore so loud," Mrs. Christina quipped.

"I wish your mother wouldn't snore at all!" Mr. Hunter shot back.

"I wish I had Monica's number. Tiff, your friend is seriously hot." Kyle nodded.

"I wish I hadn't subjected Jon to this torture." Taylor slapped his forehead.

"I wish all your family get-togethers are as fun as this one." I smiled.

For my wish, everyone guessed true.

It was true.

***

When Taylor and I had first written The Death Agreement, he thought it would be a good idea to include a section on what our last wishes would be so that the surviving party would see them through.

My wish had been simple.

One day I had said, "I want you to deliver a message to someone special. Just go to the address in Texas and hand them a letter...and let them know I'm sorry. Would you do that?"

"Of course. Who's it for?"

I shook my head. "Her name is in my copy of The Death Agreement for when the time comes."

"You're not going to tell me?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Fine." He shrugged, seemingly uninterested. My refusal to tell him had stung, I knew, but even best friends have to keep some secrets from each other.

Earlier, when I said we both never looked back with regret. That wasn't true. The regret I felt about one aspect of my life had been too great to talk about then and even more so now.

Taylor though, he never had regrets, at least none he had ever mentioned to me.

His last wish: Get the family to play a game of wishes. He had said, "I hope everyone plays it straight. I want everyone to share a wish and then I want you all to make those dreams come true."

But corpses don't have wishes. Corpses don't have dreams. As the last man standing, despite only having one leg to stand on, it fell to me to play the game in their place.

Eight shot glasses sat in front of me, filled to the rim. One by one I poured them into my mouth. The liqueur, sweet and heavy, fought to come back up.

"Little Jon wishes he was still alive...." Drink. "Lorie wishes she was still alive...." Drink. "Your mom and dad and sister and brother all wish they were still alive...." Drink, drink, drink, drink.

I threw Taylor's still-full shot glass across the room and it shattered against the wall. After that, I took my own shot, picked up the bottle and let several long swigs slide down my throat, then slammed the bottle onto the table. "True!"

***

I woke to someone pounding on my door.

"Police! Open up."

I cracked my neck and sat up on the couch. My head felt as though it had been hit with a sledgehammer.

"Hold on!" I yelled. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on my bed. A lock of auburn hair poked out from beneath the blankets, and I nearly screamed.

"Tell 'em to stop banging," a woman said. "I'm sleeping."

I knew the voice: Mary Stallings.

In a state of utter shock and confusion, I stood but immediately crashed to the floor, cracking my head. I looked down and saw I only had one leg.

"Fuck," I whispered, scanning the room while the police continued to pound on the door. My other leg rested against my bed, far out of reach. It must have been some party.

"Hand me that, would ya?" I pointed to my leg.

Mary rolled over, grabbed my prosthetic by the foot and tossed it to me.

"Thanks."

The police banged on the door again.

"Just a second," I called out, then strapped my fake leg to my stub. I got up slowly, unsure of my balance. When confident I wasn't going to fall back down again, I limped into the foyer and unbolted the lock, leaving the chain attached.

I cracked the door open, and instead of seeing the pair of county cops sent by Yang like I had expected, I was surprised to see two military police officers standing at attention.

"Can I help you, Sergeant?" I asked the higher ranking of the two.

"Colonel Litwell wants you in his office at zero nine thirty."

"Colonel Litwell could have damn well called or sent an aide. Why are you here?"

"Do I need to answer that, L.T.?"

The memory of the soldier at the front desk shot through my mind, and I knew that punk had said something about the fax.

"No, Sergeant," I sighed. "I guess you don't."

"You have ten minutes, sir. We'll be waiting right here."

"Thanks, Sergeant."

I closed the door gently and turned around. Mary sat on the edge of the bed. "What's that all about?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea."

"You do look a bit confused."

"I am," I admitted. "And not just about the guys outside my door, either." I scratched my head. "Mary, did we...?"

She smiled. "Not for lack of trying, stud."

I winced. "Oh, god. I'm sorry."

"Relax, Jon. I'm kidding. You were a complete gentleman."

"I remember calling you last night...vaguely."

"You did. A little after 1:00 a.m. Offered to give me the interview."

"Shit."

"Yeah, you sounded like you needed someone to talk to, so instead of asking questions over the phone, I decided to come here and keep you company."

I looked into the kitchen. The bottle of amaretto sat drained next to the empty bottles of vodka and tequila. Six crushed beer cans were on the floor.

Rubbing my eyes, I said, "I had way too much to drink."

"You think? We ended up staying awake until four or five."

"Ugh."

"Don't worry, it wasn't all you. I helped, too. You wouldn't let me drive until I sobered up."

"I stayed on the couch the whole time?"

"The whole time."

I shook my head. "At least I didn't make a complete fool out of myself. Thanks for coming over. I need to see the base commander. Please stay as long as you like."

"Is that the loud-mouthed son-of-a-bitch?"

"Yep."

"Good luck." She smiled, then rolled back into bed and covered her head with the blankets. "Wake me up when you get back. We'll get lunch or something."

"If I get back," I whispered and walked into the bathroom.

The shower didn't help clear my mind. I wanted to turn off my brain, but my thoughts kept returning to Mary.

"There's a beautiful woman in my bed. Does it matter how she got there?" I grinned.

That little voice spoke up again: The Death Agreement needed you to speak with her.

The police weren't interested in a detailed history of my friendship with Taylor, and they already knew about the events surrounding his death. Even Yang wasn't interested in the intimate details of his life. All Yang wanted was facts.

If the futures of so many hadn't been derailed, I would've put it all in a letter and handed it out at an after-party to remember the departed—Section VII: Celebrate Life.

It occurred to me then that there would be no party. I couldn't bring myself to share what I knew. It would have tainted the good memories. Taylor would've understood why the party couldn't happen.

Even so, I needed to tell his story and satisfy the first few sections which I had been ignoring. Motives aside, Mary had been the only person to express an interest in Jesse Taylor. She wanted to know about the man he had been and about the monster that he had become. It made sense that I had called her.

I wished I hadn't picked up the phone and dialed her number in a drunken stupor, though. Clearly I had said enough, but I worried that perhaps I may have said too much. Not that it mattered anymore. She came over, we spoke, and those particular terms of The Death Agreement were satisfied.

Other good things were happening, too. I had found proof of my innocence; Yang would catch the guy that had been pretending to be Howard Taylor; Mary would run her story. Eventually the whole nightmare would be over. Somehow I'd made it through the worst, and as crazy as it sounds, I even made a few friends in the process.

I sighed. There's nothing in the world like having a huge weight lifted from your shoulders. I felt as though I could breathe again, and I realized things would be okay after all. Certainly everything wouldn't be like they used to, back when I had a surrogate family and two legs, but this new life could be livable if I tried to make it work.

There was still some more to do before it would all be over. The Death Agreement's final section called for a graveside visit. I wanted to finish the whole ordeal by paying my respects to Lorie and Jon.

I stepped from the steaming bathroom and found Mary still sleeping. I put on my dress uniform as quietly as I could, then slipped out the door, careful to shut it softly behind me.

The two MP escorts greeted me with a quick salute and we walked to the commander's office. The door was closed, so I knocked once and waited.

"Enter," Colonel Litwell called out in a gruff voice often reserved for career soldiers.

I opened the door and marched to the center of the room, half turned, and saluted. "Lieutenant Randon reporting, sir."

Litwell returned the salute. I dropped my arm and stood at attention.

We weren't alone. Two people wearing dark suits sat next to Colonel Litwell's globe bar: a dark-skinned woman and an older man with grey-white hair. Out of the corner of my eye, I couldn't make out anything else, and resisted the urge to turn my head. I felt them staring at me but neither one spoke. Litwell stared too, unflinching. The seconds ticked by in an uneasy silence.

Normally a commanding officer will tell you to stand at ease immediately after you salute. If they don't, it usually means you've got some serious shit stuck on your shoe and you're going to hear about it.

Drops of sweat formed on my brow. My leg began to throb and an extremely painful shock ran up my back. The longer I stood, the more Litwell's treatment ticked me off. Thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes...I couldn't take it any longer.

"Sir," I said through gritted teeth. "May I sit?"

Litwell eyes bulged. "You want to sit down?"

"If you prefer I can collapse on your floor? I've gotten quite good at falling."

The woman raised a hand. "This isn't necessary, Colonel. Let him rest."

"Take a seat," Litwell growled. "I can hardly wait to hear you explain all this garbage you've brought to my doorstep, son."

I sat next to the white-haired man. "I don't even know what this is about, sir."

"Lieutenant Randon," the man said. "I'm Agent Rossenkants and this is Agent Porter. We're with C.I.D."

"Criminal Investigation Division? What do you want with me?"

"We're assisting the FBI and local P.D. on the Taylor case," Porter said.

"There's something we need to check, Lieutenant. We're better equipped to handle it than anyone else."

Rossenkants lifted his briefcase onto his lap and opened it. Porter leaned over, reached in, and took out a small device.

"Lift up your leg," Porter said. "The...um..."

"Fake one?" I asked.

"Yes. The fake one."

I shrugged, then lifted my leg. Rossenkants grabbed the plastic ankle and held it steady. Porter switched on the device and waved it around the bottom of my foot.

"Hmmm," she said. "You can put it down." Porter turned toward Litwell. "Is it possible he has another one?"

"No," Litwell said.

"Could he have stolen a different one?" Rossenkants asked. "Taken a leg from another serviceman?"

"Excuse me," I interrupted. "Care to tell me what this is about?"

"That's doubtful," Litwell said, ignoring my question. "They are custom made to fit each soldier." He looked at me. "Where were you last night, Lieutenant?"

"In my room, sir. I have a witness if necessary."

Litwell raised his eyebrow. "A witness?"

"Who, Lieutenant?" Porter asked.

"A lady friend kept me company last night," I said, leaving out the fact she's a reporter. "If you don't mind, I'd like to know what's going on, or I'd like permission to leave."

Rossenkants bit on the end of a pen.

Litwell pointed at Porter. "Tell him. You two did your test. He's not the guy you're looking for."

Porter nodded. "You are familiar with a Detective Weise Yang of the Anne Arundel County Police Department?"

"Yang? Yeah. He was supposed to come by today to collect some evidence."

"What evidence are you referring to?" Rossenkants asked.

"I found some of Taylor's things. Yang was out of town last night, so he told me to hold on to them."

"Tell us what you found," Porter demanded.

"Better yet, show us." Rossenkants added.

"You're welcome to take it with you for all I care. I'd be glad to get rid of it."

"We would also like to talk to your witness. Just to verify you were where you say you were last night."

"Fine by me." I stood up and looked at Litwell.

"Dismissed, Lieutenant," Litwell said. "Clean up the mess. I don't want to hear about any more problems. Are we clear?"

"Crystal, sir. Thank you."

I saluted and walked out of the office. The two C.I.D. Agents followed.

***

"My room is on the other side of campus," I said. "I'd like some answers though. You can fill me in as we walk." Neither of two agents seemed willing to talk, so a few minutes later I decided to be less than helpful. "Hey," I said, stopping in the middle of the abandoned street. "What is it with cops and information?"

Porter scowled. "What do you mean?"

"If everything is on a need-to-know basis, no one would ever know a goddamn thing. Arrest me if you want, but I'm not moving another step unless you tell me what's going on." I stared at them with my arms crossed, waiting.

They stared back, dumbfounded.

"I'm serious. Take me to jail if you want to keep playing these games."

Rossenkants regained his composure first. He tapped Porter on the arm and they walked a few paces away. I heard them whispering but couldn't make out what was said. A moment later, they walked back over, and Rossenkants said, "What we tell you can't go any further. Got it?"

"Sure." I spat on the ground, then walked at a slow pace to ensure neither of them would hold back.

Porter said, "Detective Yang was detained last night."

"What?" I asked, surprised. "What the hell for?"

"Assault. Theft." Porter said.

"After leaving the scene in Pennsylvania, there was an incident," Rossenkants said. "Detective Yang and another individual entered an evidence locker. The unidentified man assaulted the clerk, stole evidence, then fled."

I stopped and turned to the C.I.D. Agents. "You thought it was me! What did Yang say?"

"Yang claimed he had been held hostage and convinced the officer holding him to remove the cuffs. He joined the chase for the other man, then slipped away. Innocent men do not run, Lieutenant." Porter nodded. "As for the other man, while making his escape, he ran through a muddy field before fleeing in Detective Yang's vehicle. He got away, but the police were able to pull his boot prints."

"That doesn't give you any reason to suspect it was me."

"It does," Rossenkants said. "The shoe sizes did not match. That means either the man has one foot much larger than the other."

"Or," Porter chimed in, "he has a fake appendage, like you. The shoe size isn't right and the spectrophotometer did not show a match, but there's something about you that I don't like."

"This doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't," Porter agreed. "That's why it is imperative that we find Detective Yang." She smiled thinly. "And I think we'll be confining you to your quarters until this is straightened out."

"Do what you got to do. Can you tell me what the other guy took?"

Porter and Rossenkants exchanged a look.

"What did he take?" I demanded.

Rossenkants took a deep breath and let it out. "A rusty, old saw," he said. "Does that mean anything to you?"

I felt the blood drain from my face and my mouth suddenly went dry. I turned away from the agents and started walking again. "No," I lied. "Doesn't mean a goddamn thing."

SECTION VII - CELEBRATE LIFE

The C.I.D. agents followed me through the winding hallway. I turned the last corner and found the door to my room partially open.

"Huh, that's strange." The hinge creaked as I pushed it the rest of the way inward.

I leaned my head inside and looked toward the empty kitchen, then toward the dark bedroom. "Mary? You still here? Decent?" When she didn't respond, I stepped over the threshold. "Mary? I've got company."

I turned to the agents and shrugged. "I guess she decided to leave."

Rossenkants narrowed his eyes. "What did you say Mary's last name is?"

I motioned for them to follow me into the kitchen. "I'll give you her business card. Don't mind the mess," I said, stopping to pick up a crushed beer can.

The agents stepped inside and waited as I threw away the rest of the trash from the night before.

Porter stared at the three empty liquor bottles. "Would you say you're a heavy drinker?"

"I've had a rough few weeks."

"I see," she said.

I shook my head. "Lady, you don't have slightest idea."

Rossenkants took a step forward and held out his hand. "Business card?"

I removed Mary's card from under a magnet on the fridge and handed it to him. "That's her office. Her cell is written on the back."

Rossenkants looked at it and nodded. "Thank you."

"Give me a second, I'll get the rest." I tried to walk past the agents, but Porter grabbed my arm.

"Lieutenant," she said, "why don't you stay here with me while my partner has a quick look around."

I shrugged off her hand and made a waving gesture. "By all means, knock yourself out."

Rossenkants smiled and left the kitchen.

Porter looked me over. "What is it you're not telling us?"

"You probably won't believe this, Agent Porter, but from the moment I heard that Jesse had died, all I've tried to do is keep from losing it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I hadn't even recovered from the news that he was gone before I learned about what else he had done. Not to mention everyone thinking I had any part in this. I'm not a murderer. I'm not an accomplice. I'm not anything."

She frowned. "All of this is happening around you, yet you can stand here and tell me that you're not involved."

I stared at her for a moment before responding. Finally, I said, "Because it's true. I didn't ask for any of this, and all I want is for it to end."

"You're very convincing, but where there's smoke there's fire."

From the living room, Rossenkants called out, "All clear."

Porter smiled and left the kitchen. "Now, about that evidence...."

The jeans I'd worn the night before were piled at the base of the couch. I picked them up and rummaged through the pockets looking for Taylor's letter.

"Damn," I said.

"What is it?" Rossenkants asked.

"It's gone. The drawing...the confession...both copies of The Death Agreement."

In a mocking tone, Rossenkants asked, "Is it possible you put them somewhere else? Maybe in your bedroom?"

"No. I had everything in my pocket." I threw the jeans across the room and nearly fell backward. "That bitch stole it for her goddamn story!"

Porter and Rossenkants watched me pace back and forth. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed her number. The call went to voicemail, of course.

"Why, Mary? You didn't need to steal from me. I would have given you copies."

Ending the call, I sat on the couch and lowered my head.

"She's got what you want," I said to the agents. "So leave me alone and go bother her."

I felt their untrusting eyes stare through me for what seemed like an eternity before Rossenkants finally walked back into the hallway. Porter followed him. From the hall, Porter said, "You'll be seeing us again soon, Lieutenant."

I listened to their heavy footsteps fade away.

For months, I had constantly been in the dark, and when I finally felt like I had gotten ahead of the game, the game thrust me to the back of the line. I knew right then that I was done with The Death Agreement, done with Jesse Taylor, done with the military, done with everything. As for Yang and Mary, they could go to hell. I didn't care why he had helped some psychopath take that saw, and I couldn't give less of a damn why she had thrown away my trust for a story.

It dawned on me how long I had allowed all the hurt, anger, and sadness to flow into each other, strengthening over time until the meld became a perfect storm of pain.

I crawled into bed and screamed and thrashed and cried and cursed and kicked. At some point I forgot about the troubles of the world. At some point I forgot about Jon Randon.

***

The blades of a helicopter sliced through the air somewhere in the darkness above.

"Jon?" Taylor whispered. "Come and play with us."

I opened my eyes and sat up on a blood-covered cot. Taylor's shadow danced away, and I stood, amazed both of my legs were made of flesh. Looking around the empty medical tent, I felt a sense of disorientation, as if the world had begun spinning in the wrong direction.

"Jesse, I don't know what to do."

The steady cadence of a helicopter engine distorted into a sickly whine that grew louder and louder.

"Come," Taylor said.

I followed the shadow to the front of the tent and looked up at millions of maple tree helicopters slowly falling to the ground.

"Beautiful," I said.

When the first pod landed softly onto the sand, a terrible crash of twisting metal and shattering glass filled the air, and a sudden blast of heat blew back the tent flap, burning my face.

I marveled at the red fireball roiling high into the pitch-black sky.

The shadow circled around me like a vortex, then slid from the tent into the hot desert air. "Come play with us," Taylor said again.

Several other shadows, silhouetted by the blaze behind the dunes, slid across the black sands. They were laughing and kicking a ball. I knew them all. Mr. Hunter, Mrs. Christina, Kyle, Tiffany, Lorie....

Mary Stallings said, "Kick it to me, kick it to me!"

"No," Yang replied. "It's Jon's turn."

"Hello, everyone." I waved, and they all waved back.

Taylor pointed in my direction.

Yang kicked.

I ran forward and stopped the ball with my right foot, feeling the soft texture give slightly under my weight.

"It's mine," Taylor said. "Kick it over to me."

"Okay." I readied myself, drawing back my right leg, then stopped. "Wait. Something is wrong."

I rolled the roundish object under my foot, twisting and turning it. "The ball has hair on it."

After giving it another roll, the face Taylor's infant son, Jon, came into view. His milky, dead eyes stared up into his head, and when I screamed, the baby looked at me and blinked.

***

Each time I woke from a nightmare, I noted the color of the sky seeping through the window shade before forcing myself back into oblivion. The ambient light had changed from blue, to orange, to red, then finally to the dull eggshell color of the street lamps.

Eventually my mind refused to shut back off, and instead of restless sleep, I listened to the sound of a clock ticking the hours away.

My stomach growled. The pangs of hunger had caught up to me, and I couldn't recall when I had last eaten.

I knew it was past midnight by the sound of the generators. They only kicked on after the solar power batteries fully depleted, which usually happened around two in the morning.

I fumbled to get myself out of bed, making sure to securely attach my leg before attempting to stand.

In the kitchen, I found the refrigerator nearly empty. What little was inside didn't appeal to me in the least, but my stomach rumbled again, telling me to eat something anyway.

I inspected the quarter loaf of bread, looking for signs of mold. Then I opened the container of lunch meat and sniffed. "Borderline." I shrugged and dropped shiny turkey slices on what had been left of the rye, then devoured the sandwich. After, I drank a glass of tap water and wiped my lips on the sleeve of my wrinkled dress uniform.

Appetite pacified, I opened my door to see if the newspaper had been delivered. Sure enough, the St. Patty's Day edition of the Baltimore Sun had been propped up against the door frame, rolled up in a transparent yellow sleeve.

Kneeling, I noticed specks of blood that led down the hallway, and wondered which patient's leaking bandage had messed up the carpet.

I sat down at the kitchen table and flipped the paper open to the obituaries. Mary had kept her word, at least in terms of Taylor's death notice. The tidy history of Major Jesse Taylor lay before me in black ink on the dull grey pulp.

'Sterile', she had called it.

Yeah, well maybe it had lacked soul. I didn't care. The message was honest, and that was enough for the general public. The firestorm would come, no doubt, but I didn't want to be the one to throw the match.

While I read over the good parts of Taylor's life, a transformer exploded somewhere far off, and the lights in my room dimmed until they finally extinguished.

Sitting in the dark, I considered trying to go back to sleep, but then I heard the unmistakable loud pop of a second transformer failing.

"Gotta be a power surge," I said.

Then the silence was shattered again by a third explosion, a foundation-rattling blast.

"What the...?" I walked to the window and peeked outside. The whole campus seemed to be without power. The crescent moon provided the only light for miles. Though I had hoped to see several electrical crews working, the street was deserted, and a sudden need to go outside overwhelmed me. I felt my way through the darkness to the door, hoping that when I opened it, I would find light on the other side.

The hallway was just as dark, and after I closed the door behind me, cutting off the dim moonlight, the pitch black felt viscous. My throat tightened and my breathing quickened. I pulled in each breath through my open mouth to make as little noise as possible. When the floor creaked below my feet, dread like I've never experienced stabbed through me.

Every step was deliberate, careful. I did not know why I was so frightened, but fear is immune to logic, so I walked slowly toward the faint red glow of the exit sign at the end of the hall. I sensed the doors to my sides as I went, and my jaw tightened in anticipation of them bursting open. Absolute silence would be my only protection from what may lie ahead, sneak up from behind, or attack from either side.

I stared at the glowing sign and watched it grow larger with every small step. It felt like a lifetime, maybe even longer, but I finally made it to the door and let out a relieved sigh as I pressed on the latch and pushed. The door creaked open, and I stepped out onto the fire escape, looked up at the starless night sky, and took in deep breaths of the cool March air.

Light from the fingernail moon reflected off of the fog, creating a broken halo effect. The parking lot below the fire escape was mostly empty, and at the far end, the seemingly black leaves of the maple trees swayed, beckoning me forward.

I descended the rusted staircase, scanning for signs of movement. The campus was supposed to have a couple dozen people stationed, and soldiers were always outside regardless of the hour...yet everything was eerily still.

I kept looking back down to the parking lot, then my attention fell on a car and I couldn't pull my gaze away. There was something about it.

I racked my mind trying to find a reason why that car seemed so familiar, then a memory flashed: Me standing on the fire escape, calling out to Mary, letting her know to come up that way to avoid the soldier at the front desk.

The car belonged to her.

I quickened my pace. Once off the steps, I ran through the parking lot, hoping I had been mistaken. As I approached the front of the car, a figure standing in the grass at the edge of the parking lot darted into the shadow of the building. "Mary?" I called out and heard footsteps running on pavement, drawing closer.

I rounded the corner of the car and had a fraction of a second to register the butt end of a rifle before it slammed into my face.

***

I opened my eyes and my vision cleared on a pair of loafers standing on the pavement. A hand came down and slapped my cheek, then one of the shoes kicked me in the ribs, rolling me onto my back. I heard the unmistakable chi-chink of a pump-action shotgun, then a barrel appeared inches from my eyes.

The gun moved aside. Yang stood over me, eyes wide and bloodshot, jaw clenched and trembling. "I thought you were one of them," he said, hold out his hand.

I stared at it, but didn't move.

"Get up, Jon," he insisted. I gripped his hand, and he pulled me to my feet. "You all right?"

I spit out a mouthful of blood. "Think I swallowed a tooth," I said, rubbing the side of my face.

Yang smiled. "You're lucky I didn't blow your head off."

"How do I know you're not?" I held my hands up, spreading my fingers. "You helped a mass murderer steal evidence, and you're a fugitive. And what the hell do you mean you 'thought I was one of them?'"

"We need to go somewhere safe to talk."

"We can go up to my room. We'll call someone to sort this out."

Yang rested the shotgun on his shoulder and shook his head. "It isn't safe there. Come on." He turned and began walking away.

"Wait!" I yelled. "This car belongs to a friend of mine. I can't leave until I find her."

Yang stopped and looked back. "Trust me, you don't want to."

***

Yang peeked into the window of the headquarters building, the room was cast in a dull red glow from the emergency lighting system.

"Did you kill the power?" I asked.

"No. Most of it had already been cut by the time I got here. Transformers have been going off all over the base."

"I heard three go."

Yang nodded. "The whole place is dark now." He looked through another window. "Okay," he said. "It still looks safe. Let's go see the base commander."

I followed Yang around to the back entrance. The door hung open, broken from the frame.

"Inside, move," Yang ordered.

I stepped into the building, sure that he intended to blow a hole through my back. When the shot didn't come, I said, "Colonel Litwell wouldn't be here this late."

"He's...." Yang sighed. "He's not. Jon, I'll tell you everything, but you won't believe me unless you see with your own eyes, all right? We just need to get to his office."

I nodded and led the way to Litwell's door, finding that it had been ripped from the hinge and lay on the hallway floor.

"What the hell happened here?"

The commander's office had been destroyed. Glass and broken furniture covered the floor. Sitting behind the battered desk, bathed in red light, Colonel Litwell lay with his head down on top of his folded arms.

"Sir?" I took a step forward.

Litwell did not move. I stepped closer.

"Sir? It's Lieutenant Randon," I said, reaching out to shake his arm. I touched him and pulled my hand away from his ice cold skin. "Oh, god."

"He got to him before I could," Yang said, walking up beside me. "I knew he'd come back here, and I wanted to warn the colonel to lock the base down. Couldn't risk calling." He grabbed Litwell by the shoulders and slid back his chair. "I think he came here for the station list to find out who else would be on base and where they would be." He pointed to a crumpled sheet of paper clutched in Litwell's fist.

Yang swung the chair around so that I could see Litwell's whole body. Only Litwell didn't have a whole body. The bottom half of him was missing, entrails and thick, black gore spilling out onto the floor, terror etched on his dead face, frozen in a final scream. The blood-red light illuminating what was left of his corpse perfectly conveyed the agony that he must had felt.

I turned away and threw up. "We have to call for help," I said, wiping away the spittle hanging from my still-sore lip. "We have to go to the MP station."

Yang shook his head. "I found the guards at the front gate dead when I arrived. Went to the station next. They're all dead, too. It's a bloodbath. I came across several other bodies while making my way to your room. All of them butchered, parts missing. Some were still alive...I shot them."

"What—"

Yang held up a hand. "I had to. They were helping him."

I had been stepping away from Yang without realizing it. My back hit the wall, and I said, "You're telling me you killed wounded men?"

Yang nodded. "That's why we're not calling for help. Not yet."

"Just let me go. I won't tell anyone I saw you." I lowered myself to the floor, noticing all the broken picture frames, each containing a photo of Litwell smiling and shaking hands with politicians. I tried to reconcile the man in the photo with the mass of butchered dead flesh in the chair.

Yang walked over and sat down next to me. He leaned the shotgun against the wall in the space between us. I thought about grabbing for it, but Yang's expression told me he knew what I was thinking.

After a moment of silence, he began his tale in a slow and even tone:

"Howard Taylor's residence...I knew the bastard we've been after was nearby. He'd been staying in that house, hiding, planning, whatever.

"Once the Feds took over the scene, I left the house to head home. Keys in hand, I approached my car, but I sensed someone watching me. I noticed my trunk lid bent then saw a streak of blood on the handle, so I pulled my gun. 'Come out with your hands up,' I shouted, then glanced toward the house, hoping someone could back me up. The trunk flew open, catching me off guard. I fired...once, twice, three times. I had to have hit him, but he was fast. Somehow managed to knock my gun away and grab me by the throat."

"Was it Alan Goodtime?"

Yang shook his head and laughed. "Goodtime! Oh, the good time will come for me, but not yet. Not yet."

I stared at him, furrowing my brow. Yang had lost his mind. Trying my best to remain calm, I asked, "What happened next?"

Yang closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "I tried to fight.... Hooded, long grey jacket. Military issue, but old. I couldn't see his face. He was strong. Then I wake up in the rear seat of my car, hands tied behind my back. We're parked outside of my apartment. He's going through my wallet and holds up a picture of Lin and Brandon. He tells me what he wants, and he tells me what he's going to do to them if I don't help him get what he wants."

"Your brother's wife and nephew?"

Yang nodded. "I agreed to help. I took him inside the station, and he walked behind me, pressing the gun against my spine. When we got to the evidence locker, instead of killing me, he only knocked me out. I don't know how he managed to get away, but what choice did I have, Jon? What choice?"

"You needed to protect your family, but why did you run? The other cops would have understood that you were being forced."

"No. They wouldn't have listened."

"Why not? Now they think you're guilty."

Yang turned toward me, his eyes wide and wild. "They would have asked if I saw the man's face and I wouldn't have been able to lie."

I met his stare. "Why would that make you think you needed to run? Who was it, Yang?"

He opened his mouth to speak, lips trembling, and then he answered both of my questions with a name: "Jesse Taylor."

SECTION VIII - VISIT THE DEAD

A window shattered in the next room. Yang held his finger to his lips then whispered, "It's one of them. We have to move."

I nodded, got to my feet, and stepped back slowly. Glass shards from broken picture frames crackled like popcorn between the sole of my shoe and the hardwood floor. The sound seemed to amplify in the quiet command building.

Even though I struggled to process the absurdity of what Yang had told me, I still trusted him. Jesse was dead. Jesse's body had been cremated. What Yang had said was impossible.... Whoever had helped Taylor kill his family, whoever had threatened Yang, was somewhere on the base. If it wasn't Alan Goodtime, it was someone that knew Taylor well enough to impersonate him, someone who knew him as if he were family.

Yang held the shotgun against his shoulder. He stepped into the hall. "This way."

Blood dotted the hallway in a series of splatters leading toward a room two doors down. I tore off a large shard of wood from the broken frame. "I noticed a blood trail like that outside my room."

"Then everyone in there is dead," Yang said and walked slowly down the hall.

I followed him with the makeshift stake trembling in my sweaty palm.

We passed two more dead in the next room. Both bodies had been stripped naked. One of them looked like the young desk guard from my building. His neck had been slashed, and his hands were missing, severed at the forearm. A woman lay next to him with the top half of her head hacked off. Her brains spread across on the floor like someone had dropped a bowl of oatmeal.

For a moment, I thought she was Mary, then I noticed the dog tags around her neck and let out a relieved sigh.

A scream came from the next room. Yang followed the blood and approached the closed door cautiously. I waved him back, tried the knob, and shook my head.

"Go in after me," I said. Yang nodded, and I slammed my shoulder into the door. As it flew open, I fell to the right, and Yang rushed forward, sweeping the room. A man slumped on the floor, facing a shattered window. At first, I thought it was another corpse and before my mind could register what was happening, the man reached for the window ledge and tried to pull himself to his feet. Halfway standing, he screamed and slid back down, fingernails tearing free from the sill.

Yang turned and aimed his shotgun at the back of the man's trembling head.

"Don't!" I screamed, and tried to stand, but the strap for my prosthetic had loosened, so I quickly crawled forward and grabbed at Yang's part leg. "Don't!"

Yang, with the barrel pressed against the man's skull, kicked my hand away. "Get back. You're too close."

"Don't shoot! I know him!"

Though I had only seen the figure from behind, the curly white hair and dark business suit had made me nearly sure that it was Agent Rossenkants. The sleeves of his jacket and shirt had been torn off, and his arms were much darker than that of the face I remembered.

"No, Jon," Yang said. He kicked the person in the ribs so hard that I heard them crack as the man flipped over.

Rossenkants wasn't himself. Or wasn't all himself. Instead of a pale, white grandfatherly face, I found myself staring at the dark brown face of Agent Porter. From the hairline to the top jaw, black blood dripped from the transplantation lines where Rossenkants' face had been hacked off and replaced with Porter's.

"Jesus Chr—"

Porter's eyes snapped open and her lips pulled back in a snarl. Arms shot forward, grabbing at my chest with bloodied fingertips. I clawed backward, stabbing it in the face with the shard of wood, but the Rossenkants/Porter thing had a strong grip and pulled itself on top of me.

There was a loud bang, and the back half of its head exploded into gory confetti. The rest of it fell on top of me, followed by a light rain of atomized blood. The dark arms twitched one final time before becoming still. I realized they were the same shade of brown as Porter's face.

"This can't be happening, Yang."

Yang held out his hand. "Now do you see?"

"Yeah." I pulled myself to my feet, looked Yang in the eye, and added, "I fucking saw."

"Where do you think it was trying to go?"

I ripped open Rossenkants's suit jacket and reached for the holster. "Guess we need to find out," I said, then grabbed the Glock and checked to make sure the clip was full.

Yang stared out the window. I used the gun to break away the remaining shards that were still stuck in the frame. Once the glass was cleared away, I swung my legs over the edge and dropped to the flower bed below.

"That's my car," Yang said, pointing to a dim light up the street. I squinted at the white Crown Victoria parked half in the grass and half on the sidewalk, the driver's side door wide open and the interior light on. "Jesse Taylor used it to escape the police station."

"Yang, it can't be Taylor. Even if he had been one of those...things...his body is gone, cremated. I was there."

"Did you see it happen?"

"No," I admitted.

Yang climbed out of the window and hopped down. "I saw his face. I'm not sure how this is possible, but I know it's him."

"Listen, none of it matters right now. We won't be able to explain any of this without them locking us both away for life."

Yang said, "Let's just find the bastard son-of-a-bitch. Then we'll call for help and deal with the rest of the shit storm. How does that sound?"

I nodded, then followed Yang toward his car, aiming the pistol at every dark shadow along the way. We crept closer, Yang taking the passenger side door while I went to the driver's side. Though I didn't expect we'd find anyone in the car, I inched forward slowly, matching Yang's pace.

The interior light still burned bright. My mouth dropped open. It looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of gore across the front seats. Blood dripped from the door jamb into a large puddle and bloody, mismatched footprints continued on up the street.

Palm on the hood of the car, Yang said, "Still warm."

"Then he's close."

"But where?"

I looked around, trying to get my bearings. "I think—"

"Jon, get down," Yang kneeled and motioned for me to come around to the back passenger side. "There's more of them up there."

At least half a dozen figures seemed to be huddled in a group outside a red brick building, and suddenly, I knew where we were, and where the man had gone.

"That's the building," I said. "Taylor and I found the saw inside that ward. You can't get in from the ground level. Those things must not know that."

Yang learned forward and put his right hand above his eyes as if to block out a light that wasn't there. "They don't seem to be moving."

"Think they're dead?"

"Maybe. Some of the bodies were like the one in the headquarters building. They didn't attack like your friend, only twitched. I followed another after it disabled a transformer, hoping it would lead me back to Taylor, but it fell down in the road as if it remembered how to be a corpse...I think they run out of juice."

I bit my lip. "Would explain why it couldn't make it through the window. What do you want to do?"

"Make sure they're dead," he said.

"You got enough shells in that shotgun?"

"No, and save your bullets. I got a better idea." Yang banged his fist against the broken trunk latch and the lid popped open. "Unscrew the gas cap," he said, then reached in and grabbed a red fuel container along with a clear plastic hose. He handed me the hose and I snaked it into the car's gas tank.

He put the other end of the hose in his mouth, sucked in sharply, and gas filled the hose. Yang turned his head, gagging as the amber fuel flowed out onto the cement, so I quickly adjusted his aim into the refillable tank.

Once the can had filled, we crept through the shadows, avoiding the small glow of the outside emergency lights above each door.

From twenty paces away, I saw naked bodies, the sea-green colored scrubs of the nursing staff, the thin patient robes and camouflage uniforms. All of them looked as if they had taken a bath in blood. Thick, black liquid oozed from amputation points.

Over a dozen people huddled in that mass of bodies. They weren't separate individuals any longer; a tar-like substance stretched between the wounds of the missing body parts.

Two of the men were orderlies who had taken care of me when I had first arrived at Walter Reed. The sides of their heads were pressed close, and gooey black strands connected them where their ears and cheeks should have been, blood dripping from the exposed portions of skull. Their arms and legs had been severed as well, each stump connected to a missing portion of someone else.

I began to feel as if I were about to pass out until I realized that I had been holding my breath.

Yang cleared his throat. The stench was barely tolerable.

I looked for Mary in the pile. "They aren't moving," I said, inching closer.

"Let's burn them," Yang said.

I tucked the gun into my waistband and opened the gas can. Yang covered me while I dumped half the fuel on the mass. He lit a match and tossed it. I stepped back and covered my eyes as the flames engulfed the bodies.

The mini mushroom cloud of roiling fire rose, and the skin of the corpses blistered and charred. One of them shrieked and tried to claw out of the pyre, but I shot it in the face.

The rest burned quietly. Yang made the sign of the cross, and after the fire died down, we left for the entrance to the old, abandoned ward.

***

Yang and I did not speak as we made our way through the quiet corridors of the hospital. Like the command center, everything was cast in the red glow from the emergency power system. We avoided several other dead, most in hospital beds, life support machines whining. Corpses lay across the stairway entrance. One man's genitals and eyes had been taken.

Yang pointed. "Up?"

"Yeah."

We climbed the stairs and exited on the third floor.

"This way," I said, walking toward the window leading to the closed-off ward.

Yang put a hand on my shoulder. "Wait." He stepped into the room first, shotgun raised. Something snapped under his shoe.

"What was that?" I asked.

"All clear."

I went into the room. Yang was knelt down inspecting small, white, roundish objects that were scattered on the floor. He held up a tiny sliver to his squinting eyes. "Pistachio shells? I found these at the pond, too. Right where Taylor's body was spread out under a maple tree." He dropped the shell, wiped his hand on his shirt, and stepped through the already-open window.

Before I made it through, a scream pierced the silence and a blur ran past. "Look out!"

I dropped the gas can, leaned out the window, and shot at the hulking figure running toward Yang. I wanted to shoot again but didn't for fear of striking the detective. He turned and fired his shotgun twice but the thing kept coming and plowed into him. I pulled my way through the window and ran to help. They were too far away and much too close to the edge.

I advanced toward the two sparring bodies. Yang's foot slipped backward off the edge, and he gripped the thing by its t-shirt. Just then it dived forward, sending them both cartwheeling over the edge.

"Yang!" The crash came a second before I made it to where they had fallen over the side. It was too dark to see the ground below. "Yang!"

The small door creaked open, and two eyes shimmered in the dim light for a moment before fading back into the darkness. I gritted my teeth and clenched the gun tight in my fist.

"I'm coming for you, motherfucker!" I charged for the door. From inside the ward, someone whistled an old Civil War tune, and the lyrics played in my mind.

***

I went in as fast, catching a glimpse of a hooded figure turning the corner. I paused for half a second, confused by the soft yellow glow coming from the kerosene lamps hanging in the hallway. I gave chase and when I turned the corner, my feet slipped on something wet, sending me sliding into a pile of body parts that littered the floor. From around the next corner, I heard a laugh fade into the distance.

"Oh Christ," I said, stunned by the carnage in front of me. I went forward slowly, stepped over arms, legs, torsos, and heads. I couldn't help but to step on them. The human remains were laid out like cookie crumbs leading me deeper into Hell. I followed the footprints, and by the time I made it down to the basement, I was covered in so much blood and gore that I could have easily lay down and fit in perfectly with all the discarded pieces.

As I entered the room with the false wall, someone whimpered. I placed my finger on the trigger, muttered a quick prayer, and entered the room.

A wool blanket lay propped up against the far corner in the shape of a person sitting on the floor, legs crossed. It had moved slightly when I had approached. Behind the huddled form, on the peeling plaster walls, was a painting of tiny stick figures hanging from a massive maple tree.

I slowly made my way over and reached out with my free hand to pull away the wool, letting it fall into a pile on their lap. The last of the cloth slipped away, and a woman sat there hunched over, head down, long auburn hair obscuring her eyes.

"Mary?" I touched her warm, trembling skin. Her head rose slowly, and I raised the gun toward her temple.

Her eyes met mine, confused and terrified, but then her face softened. "Jon?"

I lowered the gun and let out a breath. "Mary, thank god. I thought you were dead." The front strands of her hair had turned bright white and stood in stark contrast next to the rest of her auburn locks. "I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"

"He came and took me from your room."

"Where is he now?"

Her head turned toward the pitch-black opening in the middle of the broken wall. "Waiting for you."

I stared into the void, then said, "We need to go."

Tears welled in her eyes. She smiled, shook her head, then looked down at the blanket. "I can't go. He's got me."

I pulled the blanket away from her lap. A brown cardboard box sealed closed with red packing tape lay across her folded legs. She held it steady between her right hand and a bleeding stump where her left should have been. Bones protruded from the wrecked flesh. Satin bands were tied in a tourniquet around the crook of her arm.

Mary nudged the box with her stump. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"My god."

Mary cocked her head to the side, her eyes appearing vacant. "I'm to give you a message, Jon."

"You're in shock. I have to get you some help."

"You need to listen."

I swallowed hard. "What are you talking about? Message from who?"

"From the one who understands," she said. "He wants you to take the box in exchange for his property."

"What property?"

"The saw. It's of the tree, and he wants it back."

The box seemed to bulge as if something inside was trying to break through. I said, "I know what it contains and I don't want it."

Mary laughed. "Maybe I'll open it then."

"No, Mary. Don't."

She nodded.

"I need to go now. Will you wait for me?"

She nodded again.

"Okay," I said then brushed back the strands of white hair and kissed her forehead. "You'll be okay. I promise."

It took every ounce of willpower to turn away from her. I walked slowly toward the tunnel, feeling Mary's stare burning into my back, and I paused...just a moment...before stepping across the threshold to face whatever fate awaited below.

***

Thirty-three paces later, I entered the hidden room where Taylor and I had first discovered the saw. Dozens of burning candles sat on the floor along the edge of the four walls. A figure with his back toward me stood in the center. Over top a black zip-up hoodie, he wore a Civil War coat with the collar propped. His arms hung at his side. One hand held Mary's severed wrist, and the other...the saw.

"Hiii, Jooon." The man's voice sounded like Jesse's grandfather, Howard Taylor.

I raised the gun and fired. Bullets tore through the man's back until the Glock's slide finally locked back, clip empty. He didn't fall. I let the useless gun slip from my fingers, then stood there and waited to die.

Back still toward me, he raised the saw above his head. "Goodtime wanted me to collect this for him," he said as his voice changed into one I knew well. "It belongs in his shop, he had told me. I was too weak, the power too strong, so I kept the saw for myself, not understanding what it would mean."

The man turned around.

I stumbled backward. "T-t-taylor..."

"Hey, gimp!" He moved closer, opening his arms for a hug.

"Taylor, you...you're dead. I saw your body."

He stopped three feet away, smiled a knowing smile, then shrugged. "I got better."

"You killed your family," I said. "You killed everyone I cared about."

Taylor raised his eyebrows. "Did I? That's a lie." He glanced at Mary's arm. "This piece doesn't fit." He dropped the arm, reached into his jacket pocket, and withdrew my copy of The Death Agreement. "But this one might."

I drew in a sharp breath.

Taylor waved the Death Agreement back and forth. "I know your secret. Shame on you, Jon," Taylor said. Only now it wasn't Taylor standing in front of me in the trench coat, it was his mother, Mrs. Christina. "You should be ashamed," she said.

"W-w-hat the fuck?"

Mrs. Christina stepped forward and handed me the envelope. As she did, the figure morphed again, bubbling into Mr. Hunter. "Money doesn't replace a father," he said, waving his finger at me before changing into Tiffany. Her soft voice said, "Do you remember taking me out on Blackbird Bay, Jon? Why didn't you kiss me? I wanted to be the one."

Kyle's features pushed through, replacing his sister. He said, "When you hit your low point, I tried to help you. We were friends, too. If only you had let me help. You could have told me about the girl."

Lorie faded in, holding Little Jon in the crook of her arm, "Children stay young forever." She cocked her head and cooed down at her son.

Taylor reappeared in her place and laughed. "We're all so much closer now. You are family too, Jon. But you're not blood. That's why I couldn't saw you. I'm sorry you couldn't join us."

Taylor walked in a circle around me, dragging the tip of the saw across my midsection. I wanted to pull away but was somehow frozen in place, unable to move or speak. The teeth of the saw tore through my uniform, and I felt them bite into my flesh, scraping across muscle.

"The voices had said we would all get better if I removed the bad blood." Taylor tapped the side of his head. "I had it wrong. It wasn't the parts that were bad, it was all the excess. It's the parts that needed to come together. Tell me, when you look at me, what do you see?"

Taylor let the long coat and hoodie slip off of his shoulders, revealing his naked body beneath. The flesh shimmered in the candlelight as jagged lines appeared and crisscrossed his body, seeping a black fluid.

The true form stole my remaining sanity. Eight pieces: legs, arms, torso, chest, neck. They were all different parts of the Taylor family...and god help me, little Jon's tiny head lulled to the side, milky white eyes rolling back, and his blackened tongue hung loosely between tiny, toothless gums.

The lips moved, and Taylor's voice emerged. "Blood is the secret. Blood made us better. That's why the children I created tonight all died. They were tied by the bonds of military brotherhood, but they weren't tied by blood. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get any pieces to stay together. Oh, I wasn't the first to try either. The saw has been around for a long, long time, cutting and cutting until someone finally locked it away after the Civil War." The Frankenstein's monster-like corpse changed once again into Jesse Taylor. "None knew the secret to making things...stick. Now that I know...I can saw all the right pieces and make others. Just...like...me."

The saw tore deeper, and I felt blood running down my legs. "You can't do this. I'll stop you, Jesse."

Taylor laughed. "Stop me? Your parts are going to be used for the next one."

"No!" I screamed and pushed Taylor away. He swung the saw in an arc at my head. I slapped my palms around it, stopping it inches from my face. I fell backward, pulling the saw free of his grasp, but Taylor toppled on me, his body morphing into the jigsaw of corpses. Black gore dripped from his mouth into my eyes, and an inhuman voice boomed, "E pluribus unum!" Then the Taylor family screamed like a chorus of the damned, "Out of many, one!"

"Mary! Run!" I struggled to get my fingers around the handle of the saw and felt a power surge through me. Once I had a firm grasp, I ripped it from the thing's grasp. It tried take it again, but I slashed at its hand, severing three fingers.

Footsteps echoed through the dark corridor.

"Go!" I screamed. "Leave me!"

The thing that had once been my family looked up into the hallway and screamed. Liquid sailed over my head, covering the monster which morphed back to Taylor again, eyes burning with rage. The room that shouldn't have existed exploded in flames, and the thing tried to climb over me. I drew back my legs and kicked it into the fire, feeling the wound on my stomach rip.

A hand grabbed me under my arm and pulled me up the tunnel.

Taylor screamed and tried to climb out of the inferno, but I held him back with one foot. My pant leg caught fire and I wondered why I couldn't feel the pain.

"Joooooon!"

Someone continued to drag me further into the tunnel, and my prosthetic separated from my body. I felt a warmth spread over me and color faded from the world.

Taylor screamed and struggled, flailing to make it out, but the prosthetic seemed to have wedged against the ground, pinning him in the burning room.

After another tug up the tunnel, a deep cough erupted from my lungs. I screamed in pain and wrapped my arms around my blood-soaked midsection. Heat came not just from behind me, but from ahead, too. Black smoke flowed from both directions. The entire basement was burning.

"Jooooooon!" Taylor screamed. "Jooooooooon!"

"Wait," I said, remembering the saw. I looked at my bloodied hands, wanting to feel the power course through them. I tried to reach back toward the hellish saw but it was out of reach. "Goodtime," I said. "What about Alan Goodtime?"

The hands pulled again...and my eyes closed.

EX POST FACTO

On the last page of The Death Agreement, Taylor and I had added a section titled Ex Post Facto: Latin for after the fact.

Like the Preamble, this section had remained a mystery to us at the time. Like staring into a dark mirror, possible futures are in constant flux, and you can never be sure what will be thrown your way.

I had believed the Preamble would turn into a brief overview of the role other people play in the lives we live, but instead it became a warning to those who might read this tale. I apologize for that.

As for Ex Post Facto....Well, I still dream about meeting with Taylor's family one last time. I imagine they've all gone on to complete the wishes they vowed for themselves. I find myself talking with them, asking about life's simple joys, all the while I'm transcribing what they say into this section.

In one scene, one lost future, we're sitting in their backyard in the sunshine, looking out at Blackbird Bay, laughing together the way that only families can.

Little Jon bounces on Lorie's knee. Mr. Hunter and Mrs. Christina hold hands while they lie in matching lawn chairs. Kyle and Jesse are skipping rocks. Tiffany is building a house of cards on the picnic table. Even Howard Taylor is present, but everyone calls him Grampa Howie. He's a happy old man doing backstrokes in the pool.

It feels right. It feels like home.

But the smiling faces fade to terrified distortions as limbs begin to fall off. One by one, body parts drop to the ground until the Taylor family is nothing but piles of flesh and bone.

The pieces are still alive. Severed heads look to me with their dead, pleading eyes and scream out in soul-crushing pain. "Heeelp usss!" I stumble backward, slipping on blood. "Heeelp usss!" Others join their crying. Hundreds of voices, thousands, ring out from the dark. I see their faces on every surface, faint, superimposed shadow images. They beg for help, for salvation. "Heeelp usss!"

I back away faster, looking for an escape. The shouting continues to grow and resonate until I can't hear my own thoughts. The pain is unbearable. I press my hands to the sides of my head in a feeble attempt to block out the screams of the condemned, but it grows louder still, louder until I hear a ripping, and warm liquid begins to flow from my ears.

I turn in a circle, slowly at first, then faster and faster, desperately looking for a place to run.

When you're in Hell there is no place to run.

***

I woke drenched in sweat, heart pounding violently in my chest, and I realized I wasn't alone. A pale-faced, blonde haired woman lay next to me. Her naked body, partially covered by a white sheet, looked perfect and inviting. Frost-blue eyes fluttered open and met mine.

"Good morning, Superman," she said, and smiled.

"Morning."

She reached a hand over and scratched my back. "Sleep well?"

"No."

"Nightmare?"

I nodded. "They feel real."

"Shhh. It's over now. Relax."

Her name is Erika. We've been seeing each other for three weeks. This was the first time she'd slept over at my place, the first night she'd had to deal with the aftermath.

***

A lot has changed in the months that followed the events at Walter Reed. Within twenty-four hours of the incident, the base shut down under BRAC and control of the grounds was transferred over to the State Department.

Once the transfer happened, all information related to the facilities became classified top-secret and any requests for information were systematically denied under the umbrella of national security.

I've done my share of searching and the most I could find was information about the closure. There isn't a single mention of the dead or the fire. It has all been swept under the rug. Coincidentally, the names of several people I knew to have been killed that night at Walter Reed show up on the passenger list of a transport helicopter that crashed in Iraq.

I'm surprised Mary and I weren't on that list, too.

I was charged with several counts of murder. The FBI tried to get me to confess and to get Mary to testify against me. If either of us had cracked, I suspect some kind of fatal accident would have befallen us, but we were both smart enough to stick with our Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

Whoever ran the conspiracy had decided to leave us alone. Maybe our disappearances would have caused one too many questions. Broken the camel's back, or so they say. Maybe something else was going on that we weren't aware of. In any case, testimony from us would have resulted in a one-way ticket to Spring Grove Mental Institution, at best. Since I had no desire to end up like my mother, no matter what threats the agents threw at us, I kept my mouth shut. Eventually they relented and dropped the charges.

***

Erika stroked my hair while I smoked a cigarette. Her soft caress relaxed the tension in my shoulders, but my heart refused to slow down. It was by far worst anxiety I'd experienced since that night. I was shivering like a dog in a thunderstorm.

***

Mary had used me for the story. It's difficult opening up to someone once you feel like your trust has been betrayed. She was sure that I wouldn't mind that she scanned the documents. She said that she would have told me as soon as I returned from Litwell's office.

Right after copying Taylor's confession, Taylor had come knocking.

I'm glad she at least managed to get that bit saved. Later on I found the fax receipt of Taylor's family portrait. It was tucked into the jacket I had been wearing the night I asked the soldier to send it out. Those are the only records I have.

The police refuse to admit ever receiving a fax. I guess all it would have done was open up additional questions they weren't prepared to answer. Then again, maybe someone put the pressure on them, too.

As for Mary's story, it died on the editing room floor. She'd have been insane to run anything after everything we'd gone through. You know what? I bet she tried.

Everything else is gone. It all burned.

***

Erika's hand began to wander lower and lower. Her finger traced the scar on my stomach, the severe reminder of a saw tearing deep. Then she kissed my neck as her hand slipped farther still.

***

People say traumatic experiences draw people closer. Unfortunately for Mary and me, it didn't work out that way. We stood at the edge of the abyss and stared into the face of evil together. Once something like that happens, it's too difficult to put aside. You always see the darkness before the light.

We did try.

On the trip to Lorie and Jon's gravesite in Georgia, the budding of a romance appeared, but it wasn't meant to be.

***

Erika rolled off of me and stretched out on the bed, gasping as she tried to catch her breath.

"I'm hungry," she declared. "Want some breakfast?"

"No thanks." I said. "Going to lay here for a while."

She smiled then left the room without bothering to put on any clothes.

***

As for the local investigation into Taylor's accomplice, the Feds and Anne Arundel County Police said Weise Yang was dead. Case closed. His was one of the unidentifiable bodies pulled from the charred building. They had found his badge and his shotgun in the ashes of the ward.

None of the investigators knew that Yang had fallen from the roof. None of them knew he pulled me from the fire. If he's still out there, I hope he knows I'm grateful to him for saving my life.

The feelings I have when I think about Yang are tough to put into words. I sensed he was falling into the same kind of darkness which had overtaken Taylor, yet the demon he would need to face wasn't the same as the one Taylor had unleashed with the saw. If there is any truth in the confession written on Taylor's blood-covered pages, there are thirty million evils out there looking for a way to drag humanity into a chaotic hell, and there's a man named Goodtime who may or may not want to see that happen.

There's more out there than our narrow view of reality permits, so regardless of if Yang is dead or alive, I hope he can overcome what stands before him. He was a decent man, a friend, a hero.

***

Erika prepared eggs. I heard them sizzling and wanted to get up but couldn't shake this sense of impending dread, a remnant of the nightmare.

***

When I'm not dreaming of Taylor's family, I'm dreaming of a helicopter falling along with a storm of maple seeds. I'm trying to save myself but there's nothing I can do to stop the crash. PTSD, I'm told. It's not an easy thing to admit, though I think they may be right.

I do my best to cope, and Veterans Affairs has been a huge help. The road to full recovery is long and hard.

That's another thing...I'm out of the military now. Once I was sure that I wouldn't be sent to jail, I formally resigned my commission. It had been a long time coming.

***

"Babe!" Erika called out. "How about some toast at least?"

My stomach twisted in knots. "I'm fine," I said. "I'll eat something later. Thanks."

***

Without steady pay I needed to find work. Flying was the only thing in the world I was good at. I had no idea what to do with the rest of my life and felt worthless without the Army. I needed something low-stress, something that would allow me time to internalize my state of mind while working.

I had thought about the people I knew outside of the military. Then I thought about the people I had met during the events of The Death Agreement. I remembered the coroner, funeral director, newspaper people, etc. No. I thought about Yang, wondering if I would make a good cop but knew they wouldn't hire a cripple let alone prior murder suspect.

I thought about the nicest person I had met. Surprisingly the first person to come to mind was the taxi driver that had taken me from the funeral home back to Walter Reed. The man, Frank, had been friendly and caring. He was the type of person I wanted to be. Jon Randon: Driver...it was perfect. I learned all I could about limo services then began applying at places around the city.

Nick, the guy who finally hired me, said he did so because his clients prepaid and I had a lead foot. Even though the actual foot is plastic, I couldn't argue with him.

***

Erika walked into the bathroom holding a plate in one hand and my phone in the other. "You got a call."

"Who is it?" I asked, rinsing the toothpaste from my mouth.

She shrugged, gave me a quick peck, and handed me the phone.

"This is Randon..."

***

Life can change in an instant, a fact I'm well aware of by now.

***

I went into the kitchen and told Erika she needed to leave. I didn't sugarcoat it. She had been mid-bite when I threw her clothes at her. "Get out," I said.

She furrowed her brow. "What?"

"Get out!"

She wanted to know what she did wrong. Nothing wasn't the answer she was looking for either. We had a short, tear-filled shouting match. She called me a bipolar nutcase and slammed my front door on her way out.

I packed a bag of my own clothes and called Nick to quit my job. He wanted a reason, too, and I answered by hanging up the phone. I retrieved my still-wet toothbrush, careful to avoid the shards of glass from the shattered medicine cabinet.

I don't know how many faces I saw in the dimly lit mirror before I punched it, how many voices I had heard in my nightmares.

Next, I called Mary. I told her to run. I hope she does.

Even after I finished packing my limo, and all the loose ends of my life were cut off, I still felt as though something was missing.

There was something else I needed to do, something important.

I had dropped a critical piece before, dismissed it as unimportant. Damned if I make the same mistake again. Taylor had taught me that you must have all the right pieces for the thing to come alive. My situation wasn't much different.

I racked my brain but couldn't concentrate. Any logical or rational thought got stuck in a repeating loop. Everything muddled together, as if someone had forced my head into a blender.

I did the only thing which made sense. I began to write down the whole thing from the beginning, hoping it would get my mind in order.

Once I found a rhythm, the fog lifted. I couldn't stop. At first it was just broad strokes, the main points, boring fact. But as the hours melted away, I realized the whole story would need to come out if I wanted to be sure I hadn't missed anything else.

So I wrote and wrote and wrote.

***

I'm still writing. Though now that everything is in the open, and the first rays of dawn have lightened the sky, I know I'm about finished. I also know that by the time anyone reads these words, I'll be driving to Texas or already dead.

I made a promise to fulfill the terms of The Death Agreement, you see. I had signed it in blood.

Truth is, I thought I was finished. I really did...but after going over everything, I see how badly I fucked it up.

I had told Mary all about Taylor's past; made sure his wife and son were properly laid to rest; printed the obituary; went to his funeral; gave my speech; read his final words; played the game of Wishes; visited the graves. All eight sections complete, right?

Wrong.

Section VII called for a celebration of life, an after-party for us all, but that would have only brought misery, so I had skipped it. Now that mistake is being used against me.

***

"Hiii, Jon," the raspy, hellish voice of Howard Taylor said.

"No, please God, no."

The voice switched to Tiffany's. "You didn't complete the Death Agreement."

Kyle's replaced hers. "You broke the contract and now you'll have to pay."

Mr. Hunter faded in and added, "Come find me to make this right."

After a pause, Mrs. Christina said, "She's so, so sweet, dear. I'm glad to have met her."

Then Lorie yelled, "It's been too long, Jon! You need to visit!"

Finally, Little Jon whispered, "Miss you."

While they spoke, a loud chorus of screams came from the background—thousands of voices, thousands of pieces. I wondered how many families it had converted on its murderous rampage across the country. The background noise reminded me of cockroaches scurrying inside the walls of an infested home.

Jesse Taylor, my best friend, laughed. "You have one week. Meet us all on Rustic Ridge in Texas...."

I shut off the bathroom light and looked into the mirror. I listened to everything he had to say as the faces changed in front of me, all the people who he'd taken.

I'd failed and now I needed to pay.

***

What Taylor doesn't know is that by writing all of this down, I've closed that loophole, fixed the mistake. By sharing this story, I've invited every reader to celebrate with me. If you've followed along, I thank you for your time.

The terms of The Death Agreement have now been met, and I don't owe Taylor a fucking thing.

I'm so sorry it isn't just Taylor out there. These things are real and very dangerous. I'm terrified to even guess how many monsters he's created. You need to know that these things will kill you and everyone you love. They will completely wipe out your bloodline and turn you into one of them. Look after your families, run if you need to, and be willing to fight to the death. Most importantly, listen. Listen close and you can hear the people screaming within the black blood.

Now that I'm finished, I'm putting it out for all to read.

Taylor had learned the biggest regret of my life by reading through my copy of The Death Agreement: I had become just like my father. To have a chance at redemption, I need to go. There's nothing else left now for me to say except that Texas is a long drive from here. That bastard has taken my daughter, and I'm going to get her back.

Jonathan Randon

October 2014

ADDENDUM A - FAMILY PORTRAIT

ADDENDUM B - REMEMBERED MOST FOR

ADDENDUM C - YOURS TRULY

***

A Word On Alan Goodtime

Jonathan Randon had encountered a man name Alan Goodtime. After Jon stopped replying to emails, Kris began searching for more information on the mysterious man. He found over twenty stories that may have something to do with the events that led to Jesse Taylor's madness.

You may not find the answers you're looking for on NoSleep, but this is the list of suspected encounters:

http://goo.gl/V94vdj

Please be careful. Some of the content is quiet shocking, and you may experience disturbing feelings which grow stronger all in good time.

Message From Jon Randon

Jon Randon reached out for help getting his story published. The Death Agreement may just be the start of his story. He's gone missing somewhere in Texas. Maybe one day we'll hear from him again and learn how his run in with Jesse Taylor ends.

This message was attached to the manuscript he had sent:

"I would appreciate it if you took a moment to remember the service men and women fighting for their country. Many soldiers come back seriously wounded, some much, much worse than myself. If you would like to find out how you can help, please visit the Wounded Warrior Project."

http://woundedwarriorproject.org

A special Tumblr page has been created to keep track of Jon's story. Inside, you'll find a freely distributable PDF and more:

http://thedeathagreement.tumblr.com

Password: Goodtime

About the Author

Kristopher Mallory has no interest in mastering kung fu or underwater basket weaving, but he does enjoy throwing out the occasional random non sequitur. As for favorite animals, he's a big fan of sloths and hedgehogs. In fact, he once owned a hedgehog named Princess Pokey. He hasn't devised a plan to obtain a sloth...yet.

When it comes to writing, Kris enjoys horror and sci-fi. He's actively trying to be a gooder writer and hopes to one day join the SFWA. Another focus is the Daylight Dims horror anthology, and Stealth Fiction publishing.

Outside of writing, he traveled the world while serving as an aircrew member in the Air Force and currently works in I.T. around the D.C. area. He lives with his Wife, Son, Daughter, German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Beta fish, an imaginary Easter Bunny, and with luck someone will give him a Sloth.

You can connect with Kris at the following locations:

Website: KristopherMallory.com

Social Media: Facebook

What's Next?

LET ME TELL YOU HOW I LOST MY EYES

A Short Story Collection by Sammy Fowler

Coming this February from Stealth Fiction Publishing.

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More from Kristopher Mallory

THESE BAD DREAMS COMBINED

This suspense thriller is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Stealth Fiction Publishing website.

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A man struggles to deal with severe nightmares. A new medical trial is his last chance at a normal life.

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Praise for These Bad Dreams Combined:

"Twisted. Had me hooked from the first nightmare." – Anonymous

MASTER STARGAZER

This sci-fi story is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Stealth Fiction Publishing website.

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Deep below the polar ice cap, the last great research station stands on high alert. Hundreds of the station's personnel fiercely do their part to manage the impending disaster. They had practiced countless times, every worker drilled repeatedly until they were able to perform their duties with a cold robotic grace.

Now the time for drills is over; the culmination of the Stargazer's Thousand Cycle Plan is finally upon them. To the relief of all, the training held. There's no hesitation. Not a single worker deviates. Each member knows the consequence of failure is total destruction.

While the station's personnel fight to save the planet's population, the forty-second Master Stargazer stands over his garden, watching drops of water bead across leaves. He gently touches the seed pouch of his favorite flower, and the realization that the time has come hits him with unimaginable force. Fully aware that his heart is beating dangerously fast for a man of his age, he repeats the familiar mantra:

I must calm down if I'm to see this through.

As the research station commander, Master Stargazer's job is to ensure all aspects of the Thousand Cycle Plan remain on schedule, and yet, he's the only staff member not where he's supposed to be. His place is on the command deck, but grief had overtaken him, so he had slipped into his office to give a final farewell to his beloved flora. For years, those plants had reminded him life exists somewhere high above the ice cap. Even now, they remind him it needs to be preserved.

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Praise for Master Stargazer:

"Great piece of sci-fi." – Jack H.

I Know What They Are

This short horror story is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Stealth Fiction Publishing website.

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A young woman interacts with the city's homeless population as she walks to work each morning. Her life takes a turn into strange territory when she meets a homeless lady wearing a lab coat and holding a sign that reads: I know what they are..

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Praise for I Know What They Are:

"This gave me chills." – Jason W.

More from Stealth Fiction Publishing

DAYLIGHT DIMS

VOLUME TWO

This horror anthology is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Daylight Dims website.

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Darkness descends Again. Daylight Dims Volume Two features thirteen stories that cross the genres of surreal, dark fantasy, and heart pounding dread. This annual horror anthology is guaranteed to twist your perception of the horror. From the common, comfortable tropes, to the more taboo, these handpicked tales have a literary aspect designed to showcase what true horror can be.

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Praise for Daylight Dims Vol. 2:

"This was probably one of the most entertaining collection of horror stories I've ever read. And I don't say this to suck up or to stroke any tail feathers. I was happy to have the opportunity to read through this before release and I implore anyone on the fence about picking up this up to do themselves a favor and take the plunge into the abyss. You will not be disappointed." – Human Gravy

DAYLIGHT DIMS

VOLUME ONE

This horror anthology is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Stealth Fiction Publishing website.

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The editors chose 13 stories of of over 100 premium submissions. DD contains some of the best horror around.

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Praise for Daylight Dims:

"This is a fantastic horror anthology. All 13 stories are exquisite. The book was not what I expected initially as I thought that it might be all vampire or werewolf tales. Not so! These are original stories from authors of the macabre. From dark fantasy and pure suspense to classic horror tales, it shows the extraordinary scope of fantastical fright fiction. The stories in this anthology are a tour de force of fear, which will haunt you, terrify you, and stay with you." – S. Mahaffey, "neverjudge"
