PREY

Part I

By Tobias Christopher

The Louisiana Bayou

“$5 million? Are you fucking nuts?” asked Phillipe Johnson, the leader of the local Louisiana drug cartel. He’d been called to a meeting with his associates by someone they’d never heard of to propose a solution to their mutual problem.

“Do you want Frank Castle dead or not?” asked the large man as he sat cloaked in the shadows of the air conditioned building.

“Of course! That bastard’s been killing our clients left and right all over the country,” replied Phillipe. “It won’t be long before he heads here to take us out. There isn’t a man alive who can take on the Punisher and live, what makes you think you can do it?”

“I can do it, and when I do, I might just want 10 million.”

“But you said—”

“Castle don’t go down easy, you know that, and it ain’t like you can’t afford it. Hell, without Castle around to ruin things, you probably pull down 10 million without breaking a sweat. Now say yes before it goes to 15 million.”

“Fine,” agreed Phillipe as his associates nodded their heads in agreement.

“Good. Now just do everything I tell you to do and Frank Castle will be a dead man.”

Laramie, Wyoming
Two Weeks Later

The small cadre of terrorists had met in the small abandoned cabin out in an empty field. They had sealed the doors from the inside, only being able to unlock the padlocked doors with keys they had already swallowed so no one could back out of the meeting should they become chicken.

The plan was to fund and create the biggest terrorist attack that had ever been mounted on U.S. soil. No one beyond the four men in the cabin would know about the plan until the plans had been finalized. A strike this big couldn’t afford to be leaked before it was time to enact it.

“Are you sure it’s safe here?” the first man asked, nervous to be there.

“No one knows we are here,” the leader assured his group. “We took every precaution to make sure that we weren’t followed, and no one besides the four of us know of this plan to bring America to its knees. After today, we will show the American pigs that—”

The man’s speech was interrupted when he felt a sting in his forehead, followed a trickling of blood. His body crumpled to the floor as the others started to panic.

“The keys! We need to get out of here!” the second man said before a bullet shot through the window, straight into his heart, as he fell to the floor.

The remaining two men quickly tried to vomit to retrieve the keys so they could escape, when a third bullet penetrated the cabin and shot the third man in the neck, causing him to also fall to the ground as he slowly bled to death.

“Allah protect me,” the fourth man said to himself as he finally managed to vomit up the key to the door. He quickly unlocked the padlocks and opened the door, only to be met with a bullet to the head, causing him to fall backwards, dead to the world.

Not too far away, Chip Carter stood with a gun pointed a fence with several targets sitting on it. A fifth shot was fired from the gun, which also went astray like the four previous bullets before it.

“You’re not concentrating,” said Frank Castle as he sighed to himself. This was one of the longest days of his life. Not only was Chip incapable of firing a weapon correctly, but Frank’s injuries were still bothering him. “You need to focus on the target. And don’t pull the trigger, squeeze it. Keep both eyes open when you’re firing.”

“I don’t get why I have to do this,” said Chip as he tried to fire again, this time actually grazing the target.

“Because if you’re going to be a part of my world, you have to learn to protect yourself,” replied Frank as he took a drink of water. “The bad guys aren’t just going to be gunning for me; they’ll be coming for you, too, and I won’t be able to save your ass while I’m handling things elsewhere.”

“So you’re going to start letting me carry a piece?” asked Chip as he fired again.

“Hell no,” replied Frank as he stood behind Chip and helped him aim. “But you’ll have plenty of weapons in the car while you’re guiding me through a tough situation if it comes down to it. I may let you carry a .38, but you’ll keep one bullet on you, which is to remain in your pocket until you need it.”

“So I’ll be playing Barney Fife to your Andy Griffith? Cool,” said Chip as a black, unmarked car pulled up.

“Actually you’ll be more like Aunt Bea,” replied Frank as he saw his old friend and current FBI agent James Griffen approaching them. “I’d never trust Fife to handle my food. Griffen, what are you doing all the way out here?”

“Tracking your ass down,” said Griffen as he looked at Chip. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep track of you?”

“Yes…because I don’t want anyone to find me,” said Frank as Griffen looked the younger man over.” You remember Chip,”

“Yeah, I remember him,” said Griffen as Chip extended his hand to shake with the man. “You’re the little motherfucker that shot me.”

Chip slowly retracted his hand and stood behind the barrier that was Frank Castle.

“Got some info on a drug cartel you might be interested in,” said Griffen as he handed Frank a copied file. “They’re meeting in the Louisiana Bayou a few days from now.”

“What’s the catch?” asked Frank, knowing his friend wouldn’t just ask him to go kill a bunch of drug dealers.

“The catch is that you kill them before they try to kill you,” replied Griffen. “Our intel reports that these guys are about to take to the streets of New York to flush you out, no matter how many people die in the crossfire.”

“And the FBI doesn’t just go in and take them down because…?” Chip started to ask.

“Because Director Miller’s just sitting on ass, thinking it’s an empty threat,” replied Griffen as he turned his attention back to Frank. “I’m not going to sit by and watch innocent people die because that bastard doesn’t think these guys have the balls to do what they say they’re going to do.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Frank as he closed the file. “I take it there won’t be any FBI or police in the area when this goes down?”

“What little law enforcement that’ll be in the area won’t give a shit. They want the cartels out of business as bad as anyone else,” replied Griffen as he looked back at Chip. “The pup going to be up for something like this?”

“He will be by the time we get there,” said Frank as he shook hands with his old friend.

“I was never here,” said Griffen as he headed back to his car.

“Pup?” asked Chip as they watched Griffen head away. “Did he just call me a pup?”

“Enough talk. Get back to your target practice, we’ll head back to the city in a few hours for dinner,” said Frank as he turned Chip back towards the target range.

As Chip continued firing, he found he was actually getting better at hitting his targets, while Frank looked over the file. Something in the back of his mind was telling him that something was wrong with this whole situation, but he couldn’t figure out what.

Days Later
The Louisiana Bayou

Frank and Chip sat on the river’s edge, watching a house across the river on its own private island, where the cartel was meeting. Frank was watching the house through a pair of binoculars while Chip was hacking into a satellite to get an overhead view.

“Everything seems clear,” said Chip as he worked on his laptop. “I’ve diverted all the local law enforcement to places far from the party, and the cartel’s meeting far enough into the bayou to where only a few locals might hear the ruckus.”

“I still don’t like it,” said Frank as he looked out into the swamp with a pair of binoculars. “This almost feels like a setup. They’re having a meeting about taking me out with virtually no security whatsoever, and they’re not expecting me to show up, guns blazing? No, there’s more to this than we’re seeing.”

“So, what are you thinking? An indirect attack?” asked Chip as he continued to focus on his laptop. “The place seems pretty vulnerable all around, so I’m guessing the least likely entrance possible?”

“With you guiding me,” said Frank as he looked through his gear. “Find me a spot to get in that’s not guarded or guaranteed to be booby trapped.”

“On it,” replied Chip as he hacked away, finally finding an opening. “Got something: it’s a sewer entrance under the basement.”

Frank found some scuba gear and packed a waterproof bag. “Keep in contact and watch your back. You never know what’s going to happen.”

A few hundred yards away, someone watched Frank jump into the bayou and start swimming towards the small island house. He laughed to himself as he looked at his watch. It was almost time to make good on his promise to kill Frank Castle. Taking out the Punisher was something he’d wanted to do for a long time, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity today.

Frank made his way to the house with Chip guiding him from across the river. As Frank crawled through the sewer entrance and up into the basement, he quickly changed out of his scuba gear and assembled his arsenal. He knew how many men were waiting for him, as well as what they were capable of; knowing a genius computer hacker was starting to have its advantages.

Frank started making his way up the stairs, being quiet as a mouse, ready to strike down anything that moved. He was starting to notice how light the security was on the inside as he moved upstairs, which set his senses off any further.

“There’s definitely something wrong here,” said Frank to his partner as he looked around. “Anything on your end?”

“No, it’s all still clear out here,” replied Chip as he looked across the river at the house. He looked down at his computer screen to get a wider view of the area. “There’s nothing out here for—”

Static filled the earpiece as Frank tapped it. “Chip? What’s going on?”

Across the river, Frank’s car had been blown up, having been destroyed by a rocket launcher several hundred yards away. Inspecting the damage, the person responsible got into a small boat and made his way toward the house.

Frank hoped that Chip would able to handle himself against whatever was happening until he got back. He heard noises coming from down the hall, and prepared to spray the room with gunfire when he kicked the door in. Standing just outside the door, Frank counted to three and burst in, but held his fire upon seeing the sight in front of him.

Sitting around the table were all the members of the local drug cartel, their throats all slit as they sat slumped in their seats. A tape recorder was playing in the middle of the table, making it sound like the men were having a conversation and, next to the tape player, was a small bomb which was just a few seconds away from detonating.

Chip came above water, having jumped into the icy cold river upon seeing that a rocket had been fired at him via the satellite transmission. Crawling onto the shore, he breathed heavily to catch his breath after being underwater for so long. Rolling onto his back, he looked across the river at the house just in time to see it explode in a fiery ball.

The leap from a third story window didn’t help Frank’s sore body any. He’d landed in a grove of bushes just as the house exploded, leaving him with nothing more than a few cuts. It was now abundantly clear that it wasn’t the cartel that wanted him dead, but someone else who knew how to lure Frank in for the kill. Trying to pick himself up from the bushes, Frank suddenly felt a sharp sting in his neck and he realized he’d been hit by a dart.

As Frank turned around, a meaty fist plowed into his stomach, which would have crippled a normal man. Frank coughed and wheezed, but quickly regained his balance and returned the punch in kind, although he couldn’t see what he was hitting.

Something was wrong.

His vision was starting to blur and his reflexes weren’t what they should be. The dart that hit him, it must have been—

The combined fists of Frank’s attacker came down onto his back, sending the man to the ground. It couldn’t end like this, not being taken out by God knows who. Frank tried to get what remained of his strength and rolled out of the way as the man’s large boot stomped down to the ground. As he crawled toward the river’s edge, he heard the man laughing behind him. Frank knew the only way out now was to try to swim for it. He could hear the man stomping toward him. There wasn’t any time to lose, so Frank rolled himself into the water, hoping he’d have the strength to swim to the other side.

[Frank, are you there?]

The man bent down and picked up the radio receiver Frank had used to keep in contact with Chip.

“Frank?” asked Chip as he dug through the rubble of the car to find the battered radio. “Frank, can you hear me?”

[Naw, little bitch, Frank can’t hear nothin’ but the sound of his ass drowning, Now I can’t make him suffer like I wanted to. I’m just glad I already got my money for this job. Now all that’s left is to kill the Punisher’s little bitch.]

Chip looked around, but didn’t see anything on the island but the smoke from fire that was engulfing the remainder of the house.

[But I’ll tell you what,] the man on the other end of the radio said. [I’m in a good mood right now, so I’ll give you a head start before I come to hunt your ass down and make you suffer in all the ways that I couldn’t make your boss before he bit it. You have ten minutes, boy.]

“Who is this?” asked Chip, trying to remain calm. Frank couldn’t be dead. No, he had to be somewhere, getting ready to take this guy out.

[Who am I?] the seven foot tall, overly muscular black man asked with a smile, his golden teeth scrawled with the word ‘FUCK’ along the top, and ‘YOU’ along the bottom.

“I’m motherfuckin’ Barracuda.”

TO BE CONTINUED