The screaming kept getting louder and the voice more panicked with each word. Freddy knew that someone needed help but he couldn't even lift his own head off the hard floor, how could he help them?

"Please!!" the voice pleaded "Please don't burn me, man. Please, I got a kid at home now" the voice was more urgent now, desperate.

"Are you done?" a cold voice responded in the darkness that filled Freddy's world. It seemed he couldn't remember a world that wasn't dark or filled with screaming and pain. Freddy tried not to think of that though, the pain that was literally tearing him in two.

Freddy suddenly smelled gasoline and knew that the man doing the pleading was going to be hurt and hurt bad. For some reason he felt like he had a duty to save this man, but why? Freddy himself was dead. He was sure he was dead. There was too much blood now for him not to be dead. How could a dead man have a duty towards another man who was about to join him in the darkness and the pain?

The screaming became louder still and somehow it helped to clear his fogged head. Suddenly everything came back to him and Freddy knew what he had to do. The gun. Where was his gun? In his hand, that's where Larry had put it. Good Larry, smart Larry, he thought to himself.

He opened his eyes to a sickening sight. The screaming man was tied to a chair, his face cut. To Freddy's horror he noticed the man was missing his right ear. He was drenched in gasoline and urgently pleading for his life. The other man, a big man, was standing in front of the poor guy with a match, enjoying the spectacle.

"Are you done? Are you finished?" The cruel man asked again with a slight smile. Then he lifted a lighter and started to flick it.

Suddenly the air erupted with bullets and the big man's chest exploded with holes. It took everything Freddy had in him to keep the gun trained on the man as he staggered back with each successive bullet. Finally Freddy's gun was empty and the man was sitting on the floor, dumbfounded. Freddy had emptied the clip but he kept his aim on the big man until finally he fell dead. Freddy felt the strain from the effort and his gun shook a little as he finally lowered it back to his side.

Then he looked back at the man in the chair, a uniformed cop. The cop was staring at him in shock and obvious surprise. Probably wondering how on earth he'd been saved by a corpse, Freddy thought to himself. He looked down at the mess that was his body and couldn't blame the poor guy. Weak and dizzy now from the effort of taking out Mr. Blonde, Freddy turned over and made a half-hearted attempt to push himself off the wooden ramp where Larry had left him. But it was no use. He tried using his gun to help push himself up but fell onto his side again. He had no choice now but to tell the cop the truth for he was going to need the guy's help to back up his story. The others wouldn't be happy when they found Mr. Blonde lying dead across the doorway. He had hoped to let the cop loose and somehow pin the murder on him once the guy was safely away. Freddy knew he had to wait for Joe before he could hope to get himself the medical attention he so desperately needed but he had wanted to let the cop go. It would have been easier to explain that way.

The cop was still staring at him wide-eyed and panting with adrenaline. Blood was dripping from the cuts on his face and he kept spitting more out of his mouth periodically.

"Shit" The cop said, softly.

"Hey you" Freddy said quietly, barely able to get that much out. He cleared his parched throat, swallowed and started again. "Hey you, what's your name?" he asked.

"Marvin" the cop replied, still staring at the talking corpse laying in a pool of blood.

"Marvin what?" Freddy queried

"Marvin Nash" the cop replied, growing quiet and looking away.

"Listen to me Marv…" again Freddy's voice betrayed him. Was this a symptom of bleeding to death, he wondered? He swallowed hard and tried to clear his throat again. "Listen to me Marvin Nash, I'm a cop" he said and waited for the expected surprised response. Instead he got a quiet nod in return.

"I know" the cop said, meeting Freddy's gaze again. It was Freddy who found himself surprised instead.

"You knew?" He asked hoarsely. This thought had never occurred to him. Freddy had been going in and out of consciousness for a while but had been aware when the cop had been brought in. In a brief moment of clarity he had heard them beat the guy while asking him who the "rat" was. The guy had maintained throughout the beatings that he'd only been on the force a few months and that he knew nothing. Freddy had completely and utterly believed him but hadn't been able to rouse himself to help his plight.

"Yeah. Your name's Freddy something" The cop replied, twisting a little in his binds to ease apparently aching shoulders. The guys had tied him to the chair using duct tape from Mr. Blonde's trunk.

"Newendyke. Freddy Newendyke" Freddy replied thoughtfully, still puzzled that this guy knew who he was.

"Frankie Freschetti, he introduced us abut five months ago" Marvin said.

"Shit, I don't remember that at all" Freddy said wonderingly. He looked down at himself again, noticing now just how much blood was surrounding him. His hands were covered in it, his entire shirt was red with it and there was a puddle gathered around his feet at the bottom of the ramp. The hole in his stomach was ugly and black from the burn the bullet made upon entry. He'd never seen someone shot before and it was almost interesting to notice what happened to a body when a bullet hit it. If not for the still unbelievable pain he could almost have detached himself from the wound and not thought of it as his own at all.

"Freddy?" Marvin's voice queried out of nowhere.

Freddy looked up from his private musings and met Marvin's gaze.

"How do I look?" Marvin asked with little hope in his eyes. He felt he knew the answer he was going to get and he also knew that he probably wasn't going to like it.

The question took Freddy completely off guard and to his utter surprise he laughed. The laughter hurt like a son of a bitch but he just couldn't help himself. Rolling over in a mixture of pain and mirth he looked back over his shoulder at Marvin, who was watching him anxiously. He studied the guy's face and the bloody stump that was once his ear, and smiled.

"I don't know what to tell ya, Marvin" Freddy gasped with a final chuckle and raised his arms in an eloquent shrug.

Marvin looked back at the bloody body of Mr. Blonde lying in the doorway and started weeping softly.

"That crazy motherfucker" he spat. "That son of a bitch!"

Freddy knew that he had to keep this guy together or they could both be in real trouble. He put on the best calming voice he could muster and tried to talk Marvin down.

"I need you to hang on Marvin" he said. "There're cops waiting a block away to move"

"What the fuck are they waiting for!" Marvin screamed, spitting more blood. "This son of a bitch cuts up my face. Then he cuts off my fucking ear and now I'm deformed!"

Freddy listened to this tirade quietly until Marvin mentioned being deformed. Deformed? He saves this guy from a horrible death while he himself was lying in a pool of his own blood and this asshole has the gall to worry about being deformed? Suddenly Freddy felt anger like he'd never felt before.

"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! I'm fuckin' dying here! I'm fuckin' dying!! He screamed.

Marvin looked properly contrite and quieted down immediately. Apparently realizing that maybe his own situation wasn't as awful as he'd originally thought. He looked at Freddy and almost seemed ready to apologize. Freddy wasn't really interested in hearing any apologies but he was satisfied with the look on Marvin's face.

"They aren't supposed to make a move until Joe Cabot shows up. I was sent in to get him" Freddy continued, quietly and a little hoarse now from his outburst. "Now you heard them, they say he's on his way. Don't pussy out on me now, Marvin"

Marvin just looked at him. He seemed resigned to his fate so Freddy continued in a slightly kinder tone.

"We're just going to sit here and bleed until Joe Cabot sticks his fucking head through that door" Freddy indicated the door with his gun and Marvin nodded

While they waited Freddy started to think about how he'd found himself in this situation. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen, not at all.