The Man Named Doc

Witness

I nodded and cooperated. They took me to interrogation where I recounted everything I knew, except the parts about Al's ailment. Even if he'd gone crazy he was still my closest ally. They asked if I would testify and I agreed, placing me in witness protection for five years. That's how long it took for Al to find me, not to mention, how long it took to put most of the Mafias I'd interacted with behind bars.

I cleaned up my act. I was baptized into Mary's faith, and had sworn never to fall back into my old ways, but swearing and doing were two very different things. Al found me in August, and when he turned up on my front porch I was somewhere between relieved and terrified. He looked worn and ragged. It was actually quite sad.

I carefully stepped aside and with a wave of my hand invited him in. He limped through the door and fell heavily into a chair at my kitchen table. "Are you all right?" I asked lifting his pant leg to get a look at the wound. He hissed in pain as a jagged bite mark came into view. "What happened?"

"I made a mistake," Al admitted, "and I've been trying to remedy it for five years…"

"How many of them turned?" I asked, realizing this was the only type of mistake he could make that would result in an infected looking bite of his ankle. I stepped away from him to grab some cleaning materials, bandages, and stitching items.

"Ten that I know of," Al replied, "but I've recaptured and executed most of them…"

I nodded as I started rubbing his bloody, black wound. "That you know of?" I asked him, trying not to sound concerned.

"Daniel's body was gone," Al said, "I'm not sure whether he got up or someone took him…"

"And you've found most of them?" I asked as I waited for his injury to seal enough to stitch. Whatever had gotten ahold of him had taken a decent sized chunk of flesh with it.

"Striker is still out there…" Al said in an uncomfortable and frightened tone. I grimaced and started closing the skin. He didn't say much, not even in pain. "You don't have any open cuts, do you?"

I smiled half-heartedly and stated, "No, Al. Do you think I'm a fool?"

"No," Al said quietly. I then wrapped it up as gently as possible and looked up into his worried blue gaze.

I stood up and asked, "What else?"

"He blames you, Derrek. For everything… for getting so many of them arrested, for him becoming like me…"

I frowned deeply and realizing what that meant asked, "How did you find me?"

"Well, once I learned that the police had a star witness in the case against Daniel and Satch's ex-family it wasn't hard to put two and two together; but finding you through witness protection protocols, that was challenging. Especially since they were looking for me too, as one of Daniel's associates… I ultimately had to take what I could off rogue cops."

"Rogue cops?" I asked.

"Not all of them protect and serve 100% of the time," Al said, "but judging by your home and appearance I am guessing that the less you know the better. You look good, by the way… happy."

"I am," I said, "but that doesn't stop Striker from coming after me, so how close behind you is he?"

"Probably not far…"

I sighed and grabbed a letter from the fridge which rested just across from the table. I had received an invitation to Lotus College on planet Alpha with full tuition several days ago but had yet to decide if I was going. Now, it looked as if I had little choice. I handed the letter to Al and headed up to my bedroom to pack.