Disclaimer:

I hate disclaimers; they're just so lame. If I owned these things, it wouldn't be posted at a FAN FICTION site fer cryin' out loud! Is it a rule here that disclaimers are necessary? Doesn't the name give a hint? Has anybody here ever been sued? Hands up.

Thought so.

Sigh

Oh well, here goes:

Remedy owns Max Payne, Marvel owns Frank Castle and I own my imagination.

And there you have it folks, this will be the only disclaimer you'll see, so don't forget it. ;)

A fair warning; this story contains foul language and some pretty graphic violence; so if that offends you, I strongly advise you to leave.

Of not, then sit back and enjoy the fireworks… ;)


-Corpses-

By Steen Jung

AKA Conrack

Part 1:

Prologue


Max

They were all dead…

Again…

Woden, Vlad, Mona…

Mona…

The last, frayed string that had held on to my sanity…

Mona…

Like when the first tragedy of my life had came crashing down upon me, I could feel my brain trying not to do like an overheated computer; shutting down completely.

The staccato of camera flashes hit me like a point-blank shot to the face, the heavy downpour felt like a ton of bricks on my shoulders, and with the media screaming and howling at me like rabid bloodhounds, this seemed like a pretty good imitation of Dante's inferno.

But my thoughts were not on the sizzling chaos surrounding me, but at an angelic face floating on a sea of dark crimson, gentle eyes looking at me, crying, confessing their love… the same eyes that had seen the deaths of hundreds and never betrayed any emotion…

Mona…

…"I turned out to be such a damsel in distress"

Her final words was a crescendo in my skull, the final piece fallen into place, the final line in the tragicomical play that was my life, and this was where the audience would rise from their chairs and applause.

There was no applause.

The rain expertly camouflaged the tears on my face from the scavenging lenses of the mass media, not that I really cared anymore, my reason for existing had been stripped away like the wrappings of a present on Christmas eve, and now I just felt like a big waste of space, a black hole that should rightfully have been filled by a caring and happy family father.

For the second time this night, the entire story replayed itself behind my eyes, a linear sequence of lies, betrayal and killings with me as the centrepiece, a hurricane of chaos, pain and gun shots surrounding me, threatening to drive me mad.

I saw Vlad. The smiling demon in white Armani, the charming killer who had twisted me around his little finger, until he grew bored with me and decided to crush me in his palm. But unlike him, the lying bastard that he was, I had kept my promise to him. I had given him his gun back. One. Bullet. At a time.

I saw it happen again. I held the polished metal in my hand, and time slowed down as I watched the high-calibre bullets impact on his chest, tearing up organs and Armani alike, the sound of air gushing from his ruined lungs as he stumbled backwards.

"Max, dearest of all my friends…"

Even when dying he still clung to the big time gangster act…

"…I was supposed to be the hero"

His blood bubbled from his mouth as he forced the final sentence out.

He was no hero. Neither was Mona. Neither was I.

I was never a hero and I never will be. The sign of a true hero is that he always makes the right decisions. He always comes out on top. The cosmic rules of reality bend around them, so that he may make the right choice and still emerge victorious, unscathed and loved.

When I look back I see the choices that I never realised I had made, and I could never tell if they were right or wrong. It bled together, it was never completely wrong, nor was it ever completely right.

Somewhere in the distance I could hear I was being ordered to drop my weapons, so I did. I piled them in front of me in a small mountain of metal, like a memento to all the terrible things I had done. I looked at them. Had I really been carrying all that around? There were enough weapons and ammo there to supply a small army.

But then again, it seemed like that was what I had become. I had overcome the most ludicrous of odds, and it had all been thanks to those weapons and an overzealous trigger-finger.

Some nondescript police officer roughly shoved my into a car, and we sped off, the flashes and screams bled together behind me, and eventually disappeared; making way to a blessed silence as I was taken to my doom…

Frank

They were all dead…

The Saints, the Gnuccis, The Russians, Takagi and, most recently, John Saint, or as he was called after I'd re-arranged his face, Jigsaw.

All dead…

But no matter how many I killed, new ones seemed to spew out of nowhere, a new kind of evil spawned every minute, as fast as man could think them up…

It was a wicked circle, a never-ending crusade of death and bloodshed, the gaping maw of a terrible monster lurking in the shadows of my mind, waiting to consume me at every turn. It was what drove me on, stalking the night like a sleek predator looking for its next unknowing prey. For that was what I had become; A ruthless predator with an unquenchable bloodthirst and a very single-minded purpose.

I hated it.

And I loved it.

My training kicked in, and I deftly rolled to the side, hearing bullets impact on the floor where I had been only seconds before.

In one fluid motion I ejected the empty clip from my H&K Mp5 sub-machinegun and inserted a new one, and before the goons following me had a chance to adjust their aim their bodies were riddled with red-hot bullets, tearing through flesh, puncturing organs and caving in craniums. The blood and brains became a grotesque painting on the wall behind them, testimony the efficiency of super-sonic superheated pieces of lead slicing their way through the body, and the lethal skills of The Punisher.

Me

An urban legend come true, the criminals worst nightmare, all the clichés…

It was flatter, I was nothing but a man with blazing guns and an even more blazing hate.

Hiss.

The familiar sound of a bullet screaming past my head, and my body reacted before my mind, sending my flying towards the nearest cover.

I could hear ragged gasps coming closer, an unwitting goon bumbling into his certain death, and before he knew anything a single lethal lead discharge impacted upon his forehead, sending the rest of the cranium exploding out of the back of his head.

I felt someone trying to sneak up on me, but before he knew what had happened, his left eye-socket was greeted by the business-end of a 9-inch buck knife, and before he hit the ground, two more goons were granted some extra ventilation.

That left one. This one was panicking, and judging by the desperate 'click-click-click' he was also out of ammo. I slowly advanced, making sure the little shit saw me. With a roar like a wounded animal, he tried to tackle me with a clumsy manoeuvre. It was almost too easy blasting his nose-bone up his brain with a well-placed palm-hit. He slumped to the ground with a gurgling noise.

Judge, jury and executioner, all in a day's work…

I stood up and surveyed the scene in front of me.

Mangled bodies were laying everywhere, mug-shot faces staring accusingly at me with their lifeless eyes their precious lifeblood decorating floor, walls and furniture alike.

My gaze fixed on a specific body, Thomas Punchinello, eldest son of the late Angelo Punchinello and the one to inherit the family fortune and the title of Don.

Lucky him…

He had moved into the mansion owned by the Punchinello's, recently rebuilt from the ruins it was after the massacre that took place here a few years back, and the Don had really made a name for himself for his ruthlessness and cunning. He had been quick to either get the other families under his banner or out of his way, and he was well on his way to becoming one of New York's most powerful mob bosses.

Lucky him…

I had lured the men of one of the Don's fiercest rivals, Carlo Verlini, into the Dons' territory and, of course, made sure that the Don was tipped about this, and when the warehouse in which the Don stored some of his 'merchandise' became a live-ammo shooting gallery, his mansion was left with fewer men to guard it, and that was when I made my move.

Unlucky him…

I could hear the wail of sirens getting closer like a thousand screams telling me that I should be long gone by now, and I silently cursed my stupidity.

Like a shadow I floated through the bullet-riddled rooms of the house. It was like the lights had gotten a sharper gleam, and the dead eyes of the slain seemed to followed me as I went. I gingerly avoided stepping on the carcasses. Many of them were blown wide open, and it was hard enough to disappear in the city without my clothes being soaked in blood and whatnot.

I made for a window. It was a two-store fall, nothing I hadn't done before, so I slid the window open and let myself fall.

And that was when my luck ended.

A flicker of red caught my eye through the howling wind in my ears and the rapidly ascending ground, and as I threw my body in a roll when I impacted, I knew that the lethal stare of laser-sights were all over me, showing where exactly the bullets would carve themselves into my body, should the guns at the other end decide it.

"Freeze! NYPD!"

I felt relief course through my body. Had the ones in the other end of the laser-sights been anyone else than the cops I would be taking a lead shower by now. They had been on to me like bloodhounds since my spectacular escape from Ryker's three months back. Looks like this was their lucky night.

"Drop your guns and lie face down!"

And so I did. I shred my weapons like a snake would shred its hide, and the sound of metal hitting soaked dirt in a rhythmical patters was the only thing that could be heard.

Thump! The Mp5…

Thump! The sniper rifle…

Thump-thump! The two .45 handguns…

Thump! The sawed-off shotgun…

Thump-thump-thump! Three hand-grenades…

Thump-thump! Two flashbang-grenades…

Thump-Thump! A pair of fist-irons…

Snikt! And a large bowie knife…

The entire SWAT-team stared at me

"Holy shit" One of the younger officers uttered. Grotesque as it sounds, I, a single man, was now intimidating an entire SWAT-team, but I decided not to take any chances, to laid myself face-down in the soaked mud like an obedient citizen.

The masked men exploded into action around me, and like angry bees they buzzed franticly around me, taking my weapons and securing me.

A grizzly of a man hauled me to my feet, and I could almost see him smirking behind his mask. A younger officer ran up to him and whispered something to him, but my sensitive hearing caught it easily; "Sir, it's a real mess inside, at least forty corpses, probably more."

He threw an uneasy glance my way

"The Don's there too, and I think it's safe to assume he's dead; a big chunk of his stomach was missing, like…"

"…he had been shot point blank with a sawed-off" I interrupted the youngster.

I could sense the smile on the grizzly's face had evaporated into the thin air, and they all gave me wide berth as they shoved me into a nearby police car.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, trying to block out the noises from the outside as I was taken to my doom…


So, there's the first chapter for you ladies and gentlemen. In this story, The Punisher is based in the new pc-game, so some of the back-story might confuse you if you haven't played it yet.

And why haven't you played it yet? DO it! It's AWESOME :D