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[b]Part II[/b]
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[b]
La Araña Discoteca
El Paso, Texas
1995[/b]


"The fuck are you supposed to be?"

The bouncer outside the nightclub didn't have time to get his answer. A powerful fist struck him in the face and drove him to the ground. The man looked up, his sunglasses astray, and right into the blade of a butterfly knife. The clubgoers standing outside watched on in shock.

"Carlos Fring," Frank Castle said, placing the blade of the knife under the bouncer's eye. 

"Fuck off!" The large man yelled.

"Wrong answer," Frank said as he quickly raked the blade up the bouncer's face. The bystanders recoiled and horror and began to scatter.

"Ahhh!" The bouncer screamed. He held his bloody face with both hands. "He's in the back office!"

Frank flicked the blade back into its handles and slid the knife back into the holster strapped to his thigh. He stepped over the bleeding bouncer and into the club, a sawed-off shotgun hidden under his coat.

Strobe lights flashed and heavy, techo music blasted out the club's speakers. Frank navigated through the jumping and bumping throng of people towards the club's back offices. He saw plenty of club kids high on coke. Even after its 80's heyday, the shit was still a plague across the country. The new stuff coming across the border from Juarez was courtesy of the Mexican cartel and their leader.

A few hundred feet away from Frank, Carlos Fring sat at the desk in the club's backroom. He had his pants around his ankles and a woman's face buried into his crotch. While Carlos "relaxed", twin brothers Rob and Roy James were busy at a folding table in front of the desk. They were counting and weighing the half dozen bricks of cocaine and marijuana that were stacked on the table.

"This all?" Roy asked. "This ain't shit."

"Times are tough," Carlos said as he titled his head back and closed his eyes. "In a few more weeks we will have a full shipment. Relax. For now, get your people to...," Carlos lost his train of thought as the woman between his legs rolled her tongue. "... Just, business as usual. Smaller supply, cut it more."

On the main dance floor, Frank started to climb up a flight of stairs when a pair of powerful hands grabbed him by the shoulders. He was spun around and brought face to face with a large, Latino man in a dark suit. He tried to shout over the music, but couldn't be heard. While he was shouting, Frank leveled his shotgun at the man's stomach. The gun kicked in his hands and knocked the man back, but the sound of the music masked the sound of the blast. The dying man tumbled down the stairs and came to a stop on the bottom step. One gyrating young girl saw the dead body and screamed before running towards the exit.

Frank turned around and quickly climbed the steps. Another guard was waiting at the top of the stairwell. Before the man could react, Frank brought the butt of the shotgun up into his face. He drove the cartilage from the man's nose into his brain. The guard collapsed to the ground, spasming from the brain injury as he died.

Frank calmly walked down the hall leading towards the backroom. He was almost there when a black man jumped out at Frank and knocked his shotgun from his hands. The man drove Frank into the corridor's wall and slammed up against him. The guard pummeled Frank with blows to the face. Frank shook off the blows and headbutted the man in the face. The man stumbled backwards and Frank whipped out his knife, flicking it open as the guard charged. Frank took a glancing blow to the shoulder, but managed to drive the blade of his knife into the side of the man's neck. He cried out and fell to his side. Frank loomed over him, his face bloody and bruised, and kicked the hilt of the knife further into the man's neck. He went to scream, but blood bubbled out of his mouth and ran out on the floor.

Frank picked up his shotgun and kicked in the office door. Rob and Roy James looked up just in time to be hit with a shotgun blast. The twin brothers fell to the ground, their heads and chests covered in blood and buckshot. Carlos cried out in pain from behind the desk. The sudden shock of the gun had caused the woman between his legs to bite down.

"Crazy bitch!" Carlos yelled. He rolled back and the woman underneath the desk popped up, blood and chunks of flesh coated her mouth. "You bit it off! ¡Oh, Dios. Me voy a morir! Maldita perra."

"Go," Frank growled, looking at the woman. She scurried off and Frank walked over to Carlos. The Cartel member was holding on to his bloody crotch and moaning. Frank looked down at the bloody member laying on the floor. "I guess it's true what they say about men with little feet... I had planned to shoot you, but I think this is worse."

Frank kneed Fring in his crotch. "¡Dios mío," the man howled in pain and sobbed. Frank grabbed him by his shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"Now that I have your attention, you're going to deliver a message to Don Eladio..."



[b]Boston
Now[/b]


Frank came to at a bus stop. It was the middle of the night and he was alone, thankfully. His clothing -- no tactical gear with white skulls on it anymore -- was adequate to battle the cold, though the cold hadn't been a problem for him since his return. He didn't really need things like shelter or food, he just stuck with them mostly out of habit. Habit made him felt human. It was an odd thing, trying to be human. Frank had always thought he willfully gave his humanity up thirty years ago when his family died. But now that he was something other than human he saw how wrong he had been and how much he clung to things like simple ritual.

He rose off the bench and started down towards an all night diner. He had been dreaming of a past life, but the Spectre was fully awake. He'd spent the past night roaming the streets of Boston in search for the Bunker Hill Butcher. Five women had died at the man's hands. Frank knew it was a man, a short balding man with thick glasses, and that he had a kill pad in Charlestown. But that was all he knew.

After a cup of coffee -- the ritual continued -- Frank walked through the streets and let the Spectre guide him. They passed through downtown and he got on the T train to the outer parts of the city. It was late enough that he was just one of a few people riding the T. There was a woman at the other end of the car from him. Frank flashed on her life and saw she was a prostitute -- formerly a high class call girl but now sunken low and hooked on drugs -- he also knew something she didn't.

His stop was coming up so he stood up and walked to the end of the car to where the woman was. She started to get nervous. Frank saw the fear in her eyes. He was an old man, but he didn't look like a harmless old man. He held his hands up palm out so he could see he wasn't a threat.

"Go to the doctor," he said as the doors opened. "You've got HIV. The next customer you sleep with will get the virus. You don't want that on your conscience." Frank's eyes glowed green. "And if you don't stop hooking, I'll find you and make you stop."

She was out the door in a hurry, cursing in Spanish. Frank followed behind slowly, following the whispers and suggestions from the Spectre. It led him ten blocks into Dorchester. He came to a stop in front of a townhouse with a fenced in yard. Frank passed through the fence and up the stairs and through the front door. It was a family home, Frank saw that the second he stepped in and saw the toys in the living room. Photos of kids and parents were tacked on the walls. The dad of the family was the man he'd seen in his vision.

Frank levitated and floated up through the ceiling to the house's second floor. There he was, sleeping soundly in bed next to a woman. More scenes flashed through his head: The man kidnapping a woman on the street, her fighting back, a gun, rope, a hammer and knives. He wondered if the woman beside him knew exactly what it was her husband did for fun. If she knew, how could she stand to sleep beside him?

Chis O'Keefe.

That was the name the Spectre fed him. It would be easy to kill him now. Jerk him from the bed and strangle the life out of him. But no. He needed to watch and wait. The world had to know what Chris O'Keefe was, what type of monster lurked under his skin. After he told the world what he was, Frank would kill him.