-Nightfall-

     Crisp air filled his lungs...his muscles ached from the exhausting work he had done in the prison work-yard all day.
     "File up!" cracked the harsh voice of McEnroe, the screw that had drawn his detail for the day. The men around him started moving towards the black looming gate in front of the institution that he had called home for the better part of the last decade.
     He noticed all the beautiful flowers bursting through the cracks in the pavement of the path leading to the courtyard doors. Thoughts of good intentions and paths to hell crept into his mind, and a trace of a smile crossed his face.
     The gangs in his cell block had made life exceptionally hard as of late. All the bad blood between the races was wearing thin on his nerves. He wasn't even sure of his own racial history, actually his entire past was as much of a mystery to him as it is to you.
     He marched with the rest of the bleak masses back to their cells, the old familiar swish, and then a CLANG as the cellblock went on lockdown. The whispers and rustles in all the cells that surrounded him, a few muffled sounds of torturous sex and the occasional outburst of insanity, were the sounds that accompanied any nightfall here.
     Tonight though, tonight there was another sound if you listen hard enough...it was the sound of a sane man in an utterly insane place, finally reaching his boiling point...
     Tomorrow would be different, tomorrow there would be blood, and mayhem, and hell will walk among these men of horror...but for tonight, now, there was time for rest...and he drifted to the best night of sleep he had, had, in the better part of a decade.

Chapter 1:

-And The Horse You Rode In On-

     He looked up into the Arizona, night sky. Stars glistened like drops of silver paint on a great blue-black canvass. He had been walking for what seemed like an eternity, and he still wasn't sure if he was heading anywhere...all he knew is he wasn't heading back.
     Any number of hours ago now, he had escaped from the hell he had been in. It took the perfect opportunities all coming together at exactly the right time. Like all of the heavens aligning at once.
     He had been in the yard, again, and had been doing his daily exercises, it had still been early in the morning, another hour or so before breakfast, he lifted weights, and did his routine of calisthenics. He was about to begin jogging around the inside of the high fence that surrounded the yard.
     Then it happened, somewhere in the desert, past the long stretching parking area in front of the prison, a lone wolf cried out in the breaking morning light...perhaps a bad omen, but it made his blood burn.
     He turned back towards the men in the yard with him, killers, thieves, arsonists, rapists...the dredges of society, and he knew he was above this.
     Not that he was a better person than them, for he was not here by accident, he had done his share of horrible things as well. No, he meant he was above them in -All- that he knew, know matter who was there, how strong they were, or how skilled, he was more than all of them.
     They were only sheep in a flock, and he, as the Shepard, would get his flock back in line...
     He walked silently, with purpose now, back towards the weight-lifting bench. He removed the pins that held the large steel plates in place, around the bench-press bar.
He shook the weights off both ends of bar, the plates fell to the ground, raising small clouds of hot dust around his ankles. Effortlessly, he swung the thirty pound bar around his body, and grasped it firmly as he walked towards McEnroe, who already had his shotgun drawn.
     "Put it down boy..." warned the guard, as he clicked off the safety on his weapon
He ignored the warning and kept advancing towards the astonished guard.
McEnroe fired off a shell right into his chest; he winced and balked, dropped to one knee, but then rose and rushed the guard.
     In seconds he was on McEnroe, he leapt and swung the bar, crashing into the guards ribcage, he felt the bones give way, and separate from the meat of the guard.
McEnroe crumpled, and fell; he was on top of him in a flash. Two quick blasts to the guards face with the end of the bar, and he wrapped the length of the bar around his throat and finished the job.
     McEnroe lay dead at his feet now. He reached down and grabbed the shotgun. He walked to the gate on the fence and without hesitation blasted three rounds into the locking mechanism. The doors lock failed and an alarm sounded instantly.
     The crowd of men swarmed to him and the now open door.
     Thunderous cheers erupted from the mob of convicts.
     He looked on them, sickened, and began open fire. Totally indiscriminate, no targets, no grudges fueled his act, they were weak, they could not stop him from doing this, that was his only reason.
     Once the shotgun had run dry, he turned it into a club, and started smashing faces, and knees. Crushing throats and snapping bone.
     Soon though, the weapon succumbed to his fury, and he began ripping the men apart with his are hands.
     He choked many men and broke many bones. He also tore out one mans eyes and then forced them down the man’s throat.

    Of course he could not get them all, some slipped through...to their own freedoms, or so they thought.

     He smiled again as he thought about his idea, he even laughed a little.

     More armed guards were arriving now...too many for now he thought. He crouched low to the ground and summoned all of his strength into his legs.

     He sprung from the ground, and leapt high into the morning sky. The guards arrived in the yard just in time to see him land on the other side of the fence and begin running into the vast desert around the prison.

     He heard the sounds of the sirens and knew what would happen now, the Arizona state police would issue a statewide manhunt for all 22 escaped convicts, himself included. This was his game. His goal would be to hunt down and kill all of the rest of the sheep in his flock that had gone astray. Before the police could hunt him down, and kill him...
     The clock was ticking now...the hunt was on.

Chapter 2:

 -Forgive us this day, our daily sins...-

     The 21 other convicts who had escaped from the prison, were scurrying through the state now. Some had run in packs, some alone.

     He noticed the first of the convicts just after the sun began cresting over the helm of the buttes and ridges that dusted the landscape. The convict was laying face down on the earth, drinking from a muddy pool of rainwater under an old pick-up truck. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed around the dirty water, the convict ignored the buzzing insects, and drank heartily from the pond. The convict was so immersed in his thirst that he failed to notice His approach.
     Calibrated, rhythmic footfalls should have alerted His prey. They did not, too bad, He loved a good chase. As it was He set upon the convict with a scorpion-like quickness. He grabbed the man’s booted leg and dragged him out into the baking sunlight. The convict whirled to see his assailant, only to be greeted by a sharp heel stomp to the eye. A swastika tattoo was looming across the convict’s bare shoulder. The Man smiled, He knew this convict.
     The con in question was Gregory Taylor. Inside, he had been the leader of the white supremacists. His gang of pure white, elitist hate-mongers had deep seeded hatred for all the other gangs that had diverse make-ups. Taylor and his group had been held accountable for numerous racially fueled murders and beatings inside.

     Taylor had been seen as a motivator and a leader for his movement, but now...out here he was completely at His mercy... and mercy, was one skill He did not possess.
     The pain in Taylor's eye socket radiated down into his jaw and into his neck. Taylor struggled to his knees, and tried to stand. The Man walked to the bed of the pick-up. Inside it was a tool set...what luck! He grinned, and selected the pipe wrench, just inside the box. He lifted it, "good weight" he thought. He turned back to the half blind Nazi, wrench in hand, He brought the wrench down into the front of Taylor’s knee, shattering the kneecap, and sending Taylor back to the ground screaming in agony. Blood sprayed from Taylor's wound, and small pieces of jagged bone, jutted out like tiny teeth searching for meat.

     The Man stepped hard on Taylor's wounded knee making him flail around in pain, The Man dropped His other knee onto Taylor's chest, pinning him still to the ground.
The Man flipped the wrench around in His hand and jammed the handle of the wrench into Taylor's injured eye, and forced it with all His strength until He heard it pierce into the convicts skull and then, finally, into his brain.

     Taylor was finished...He stood and wiped the dust from His hands. He couldn't have asked for a more fitting first target, Taylor had definitely deserved his end.
The Man walked back to the bed of the pick up and gathered up, a screwdriver, a hammer, a crowbar and a roll of tape...he let Taylor keep the wrench.

     The day had just begun, and already He was getting things started, His way. He felt like it would be a good day...He threw back His head and howled at the still raising sun...a bad omen...perhaps, for His prey.

Chapter #3

-The Warmth Of A Dragon's Wing-

     He walked for the better part of the rest of the day, always keeping the sun to his back, when he could. With the exception of a handful of lizards, the occasional tuft of hard grass, and the lone rattle snake He had seen, there had been no signs of life.

     Now in the horizon sat an old ranch-style home, no people could be seen as He drew closer to the building.

     He hefted the crowbar that He had been using as a walking-stick, and crept around to the back of the house.

     His foul breath fogged up the dirty, stained pane of glass, as He peered into the home. Still no signs of life here, it appeared that the house was empty for now.

     The Man took out the screwdriver from His boot, and began prying back the hinges of the old porch-door lock.

     Soon, He was inside the house. At first glance the home was obviously poor, but lived in. Dirty laundry lay strewn across the living room floor, dishes piled in the sink, dirty as well, but not left for so long that they smelled yet.

     Towards the back of the house He noticed the bathroom and headed for it. He opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged around until He found a roll of gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. He took them to the kitchen and searched around for a sharp knife that He found in the top drawer below the sink.

     He took the knife to the range-top and turned on the electric starter. A moment later a red coil surged to life and He laid the blade of the knife on the range until it glowed white with heat.

     Convinced His instrument was sterile He removed His shirt and examined the wound from the shotgun, just below His right shoulder. It had welled up huge and blood oozed all around it. Pieces of buckshot were being forced to the surface of His skin from the pressure of His blood flow. Carefully He removed all the shrapnel that He could, each tiny piece ripping out another fragment of flesh around His wound. After an agonizing half hour of removal, He was assured that He had done what He could here, and He took the blade from the stove-top, and placed the flat side of the nova-hot knife against his wound. The pain was non-existent. There was none because the blade had been so hot that it had seared away the exposed nerve-endings. He poured the bottle of alcohol on the steaming wound, and then wrapped the roll of gauze over-under, around His shoulder.
     Only the smell of burning flesh, like a saddle left too long in the sun, was left to prove that He had been there at all. After the cauterization, He had gone to the master bedroom and stolen a set of clothes that were nearly His size, and on His way out He grabbed a loaf of bread from the grungy countertop and a bottle of Pepsi from the refrigerator.

     He stepped off the porch and set back out into the darkening vastness in front of him. He had walked only a mile or so when He heard the low rumble of approaching motors. Quickly He made His way to an outcropping of fallen rocks, keeping His head low and His steps soft, He peered around the rocks and saw three state trooper cars off in the distance. This meant that the law was nearby, and so most likely there were more trophies to be had, nearby as well.

     He leaned back against a rock and took out another slice of bread; slowly He chewed it, as He watched the troopers taillights fade into the distance.

     Sleep would overtake Him soon, and His dreams would be filled with malice and hatred for the next days work.

     Once day broke again in this dusty wasteland He would rise again, and begin His hunt in earnest, none would escape Him now. It was only a matter of time before all would be reaped of what He was sewing.