One of his hands reached down to the white belt he wore around his waist, the teeth of the skull-emblem drawn on his black Kevlar uniform. From one of the tiny compartments, he pulled out a small syringe with a long needle, filled with an amber fluid. "First things first." He flicked the plastic cap off the needle, before, without fanfare, jamming it into the skin around the gunshot wound. Cue yet another burning sensation, but this time, the heat didn't feel like my flesh was melting.

"What did..." I managed to choke out.

"Instant blood clot," the Punisher said as put the now-empty syringe away. "It'll stop you from bleeding out. The bullet went clean through your shoulder, Schultz. I underestimated how thick your armor was."

"Circuitry makes it looks thicker than is it..." I mumbled as the pain in my shoulder was replaced by a dull ache. Constant pain, but it wasn't overriding my other senses.

"I shouldn't have wasted it on you, but I can't have you bleeding to death or going into shock." The vigilante leaned over me, a calm look on his Italian features. "Let's lay down the ground rules right now. I'm going to ask a bunch of questions. You're going to answer them." One hand unsnapped a side holster, and he smoothly removed the pistol hanging from his hip. Holding it close to my face for emphesis, he explained, "if you mouth off, get smart, or most important of all, lie to me, I'll jam the barrel of my .45 into that bullet hole and twist. You play straight with me, don't be a wiseguy, I'll keep the level of pain to a minimum. That's the deal, Schultz. You gonna play straight?"

Of course I was going to play straight. This was the freakin' Punisher, madman and psycho-killer. I had no illusions. He was going to kill me at some point. But by playing straight and not pissing the guy off, maybe I could buy time, figure a way out of this mess. That was my only hope. Time.

I nodded. "Yeah...yeah, I'll be on the up and up."

"Smart man." The gun still in his hand, he crouched down, kneeling in front of me. I had never actually had a run-in with the Punisher in my life. Sitting here, wounded, shot, run down...there's different types of scared. There's dread, that sense that things just aren't right, or that fear that something about to go horribly wrong. You don't know what's wrong, or if you do know, you don't know what exactly's going to happen to you. Then there's that adrenaline-driven fear, fight or flight, heart pounding, blood racing.

And then there's the third type of fear. The one where your entire body locks up, your mind shuts down, and you're pretty much beyond all capability for rational thought and action, because you know what's awaiting you. In that case, it was death, pure and simple. After all, the Punisher wasn't known for letting people off on a technicality. He doesn't care about good works, about fresh starts, turning your life around. You committed a crime? He'll kill you. Stilt-Man, of all people, volunteered to work for the government during the whole registration mess last summer. What happened? The Punisher got his hands on a LAW rocket and blew Wilbur out of his suit before putting a bullet in his head. Stilt-Man. The most harmless supervillain on the damn planet, and someone who actually decided to work on the side of the angels. It didn't matter to Frank Castle. Once a bad guy, always a bad guy, and the only good bad guy is a dead bad guy. There's nothing stopping him from putting two right into my skull. But he wants me alive for now, and that's the only thing keeping me breathing. I gotta play on that.

"We'll start with a simple question, Schultz. Why were you and Toomes fighting? I saw your little brawl up in the Village."

That one was easy to answer. "He blamed me for getting Electro killed. You pulled the trigger, but he says I was an accessory."

The Punisher nodded at my response. "You were. If it wasn't for you, it would have taken me a lot longer to nail Dillon. Tying his hands and putting him against the counter, you gave me a clear line of sight. Got Dillon and that guy screaming his head off in that chair."

"And what about the rest of his crew, the guy's trapped in the vault?"

"I figured they ran out of air seventeen hours ago. Don't worry about them, not even a bunch of those things could pry open a vault door." He said it so matter-of-fact. Four or five guys, running out of air in a vault, and what if one of them died...and came back...before anyone else? And Punisher just mentioned it like it was the score of the Raiders-Browns game in late December. "Next question. Why did you throw Toomes in a dumpster and not kill him or walk away?"

It took me a few seconds to phrase my answer...

The sight at the end of the gun barrel scraped along the flesh on the inside of the bullet wound. I screamed, coming off the ground slightly, as the Punisher rotated the barrel, twisting the bloody layer of skin. "Don't think it over, Schultz. That just means you're trying to make up a lie."

"I'm...I'm not trying to lie," I exclaimed, panting from the pain. "I'm just trying to figure out how to say it!"

"Don't," was his reply. The wound made a nasty squish as he pulled the pistol back out.

"Ow...damnit, alright, alright...you saw in the bank Electro and I fighting, right?" He didn't nod, just stared at me with that neutral expression. I kept going. "Whoever Electro was working for wanted to kill me. When that didn't work out, he sent Adrian, who volunteered to come and off me. Since that two guys I used to work with wanted to kill me, I figured I'd ask him who sent him to do the job."

"And who is it?"

"I don't..." The Punisher was moving the pistol towards my shoulder. I did my best to pull it away, all of two inches as it bumped against the fountain. "He wouldn't tell me, damn it, he just kept taunting me!"

Gunpowder. This close to me, Castle smelled like blood and gunpowder. The .45 was hovering at my shoulder, the barrel more unnerving then the bullets inside. "So you don't know who Dillon and Toomes were working for? You're telling me that you took that bank job sight unseen? That's not your MO, Schultz. You usually have the angles covered."

"Bank job...no, Castle, I wasn't rob..." Oh, God. White flashes at the edge of my vision, before my eyes squeezed shut from the pain. "I WASN'T ROBBING THE PLACE," I bellowed, not caring if every zombie in the Tri-State area could hear me scream.

That didn't stop him. The .45 tore into the bullet wound, metal bouncing against bone now. "If I pulled the trigger now, you wouldn't have a shoulder. Or an arm. They'd have to amputate everything below your shoulder, Schultz, because there wouldn't even be enough gristle to cause phantom limb syndrome."

"Ok! Ok! I...I helped Electro crack the vault, but I wasn't there with him! His goons..." I cursed loudly, and since this is America, where blood and guts are ok but Lord forbid if you swear, we'll just cross out that part. "...frog-marched me into the bank to help him! I was just minding my own business!"

The gun was still in my wound, cold fire inside my body. The wound wasn't bleeding out, which meant I couldn't even pass out from blood loss. Shock was a viable option, though. But if I went unconscious, in the middle of zombie-infested New York City with the Punisher interrogating me, my chances of survival almost instantly approached zero. Biting down on my lip, I willed myself to stake awake, to fight through the pain. Unconsciousness seemed like a damn good idea right now, but so did...well, leaving the safety of my warehouse to get medical supplies, and we're seeing much of a goat rope THAT good idea turned out to be.

"So you just happened to be walking around Lower Manhattan, and just happened to come across Dillon's goons, and they just happened to walk you to a bank, and you just happened to be able to crack open that particular model of Stark vault with no prep work and the proper application of voltage?"

"Yes!"

Pause. And then the pain intensified for a second, followed by the absence of searing agony as the pistol was pulled from my body. Even though it felt like an elephant had just stomped down directly where I had been shot, it was lower on the pain scale, and I embraced the downward trend wholeheartedly.

"That's stupid enough to make sense, given your pattern of movement over the past few days." The Punisher pulled a dirty oilcloth from one of his belt's compartments, and as I groaned, he cleaned the barrel of his gun. Watching him wipe away my own blood was a bit surreal. "So you don't know who Dillon and Toomes are working for? You're not working for this guy in some capacity?"

I managed a low chuckle, my voice cracking at the effort. "I swear, Punisher, I ain't. I just want to survive this whole mess. Sticking my neck out just to rob a bank, when money ain't really worth a damn anymore?"

"So why crack the safe then? Just doing a favor for your buddy Dillon?"

"Partially," I said, giving an honest answer, "but also, he said if I cracked it, he'd tell me who he was working for. Hell, it was just gold, Castle, if he wanted it so bad, it was a fair trade."

"It's also grand theft," he answered, honestly. "So, did Dillon or Toomes tell you anything at all? I'll give you time to think on this one, Schultz, because this one's damn important with regards to how I'm gonna deal with you."

That was not as reassuring as it sounded, which may have been the entire point. I leaned my head back, eyes closed as I tried to think. "You don't think the zombies are gonna come and get us, Castle, while I rack my brain?"

"They shouldn't," the Punisher replied in a cold tone. "I thinned out their ranks while you were having your little chat with Adrian. You couldn't pick up the muffled shots from where you were sitting. Don't worry about them. They're just dead bodies. Worry about what you can tell me about this guy."

"Ok..." After a second, I nodded. "It is a guy. Electro confirmed that. Rough voice, and that's...hey, he said one sentence to me," I quickly spat as Castle's face hardened, "one sentence and that was to tell me 'goodbye.'"

"You recognize it?"

Wincing in anticipation, I shook my head. "No, I swear. Toomes said stuff, though...how he was everywhere, and I had worked with him before...but I don't remember anyone with a voice like that, teaming with them."

"Think, Schultz. Put your back into it. Rough voice," he urged.

"Castle...that could be anyone, man. It was one sentence over a cell phone...anything I told you would be speculation and I ain't dumb enough to waste your time."

As the Punisher mulled that over, one more bit of information came to light. "He told me who it wasn't...I don't know if Toomes was lying to me, Castle, but I asked him point blank if it was certain people. He said it wasn't the Kingpin, or Norman Osborn, or the Hood."

"It's not the Kingpin. I killed him about two hours after I offed Electro."

Blink blink blink. "You...Fisk is dead?"

"And Bullsye."

Kingpin? And Bullseye? Two of the most feared people in all of New York City, and the Punisher's treating it like he was ordering coffee at a Ihop. "How..."

"Don't mind them, Schultz. Anything else you got to tell me?"

Just like that. Never mind the world's deadliest assassin and one of the most powerful crime bosses on the planet were dead, and I had no reason to suspect the Punisher was lying. And that wasn't important. Just two more dead men to Frank Castle, and how many other dead men were there, men he cut and shot his way through?

I tried. I thought on everything that had happened. Any information I could have given him to prolong my stay of execution. But in trying to think of anything, I thought of nothing. And in thinking of nothing, I was thinking I was going to die. And apparently, so did Castle. He stood up, and the sound of him pulling back the slide on the .45 was a bell tolling for old Herman Schultz. I throw my hands up in the air as he lowers the gun. My gauntlets are clicking like crazy as they refuse to fire due to still being soaked. "Punisher, wait, wait!"

"Sorry, Schultz. You don't have anything else I want to know."

Click, click, click, come on, fire damn it, fire! Damn my eyes for building a fail safe system that actually WORKED. Well, I ain't gonna plead or beg. He's aiming between my eyes even as my thumbs keep pushing, keep clicking. The gun's held in place, and his finger is on the trigger. It's the look that he's wearing on his face. He's not angry, he's not joyful, and he's not remorseful. To him, I'm just another body dead. Well, I'm dying with my eyes open, and at least he's giving me the nicety of a head shot...

"Actually, I do have one question, Schultz." He could be ordering coffee at Starbucks from the tone of his voice. "Stop trying to blast me," the Punisher growled. "I know your gauntlets don't work when wet."

I don't know where I found the balls. "Lower your damn gun first."

*CLICK*

I lowered my hands as he cocked back the hammer on the .45, pulling my thumbs back. "I'm not the kind of guy to screw around, Schultz. I should just put a bullet in your skull now, which is more kindness then scum like you deserves. But I'm not going to risk you getting back up and hurting someone else. So I'm going to ask you one question. If you give me a good answer, maybe I'll consider walking away. Take all the time you need, Schultz, but make it good.

"Why were you risking your neck the past few nights?"

I blinked under my mask. That was it? That was the question? Why was I going around playing Good Samaritan? All that doubt, all those questions to myself, the conversations with Aleksei, with Spider-Man, with Abner, and with Fred...all of it. It had meandered through my thoughts since that first night outside the Bar with No Name...and it all may have led up to this moment.

So I began. "A couple of nights ago, this guy wanders into the Bar with No Name, and he's all busted up. Outside, the school bus he was driving was under attack by a couple of zombies. I heard the kids inside screaming, and a bunch of us dropped the ghouls and pulled the kids to safety. That was before any of us knew what was going on." I licked my lips, which were dry even though my mask was still dripping a bit with fountain water. "This older lady, probably a teacher...when I saw the thing attacking her, I thought he was trying to rape her...and that's one line I'd never cross, Castle. So I did what...maybe it came naturally, but it definitely was out of reflex."

It was the smallest possible facial motion a human being cold make as the Punisher barely sneered at me. "So because you thought this lady was being raped, you jumped in and saved her."

"And the kids on the bus. Then when we got back to my hideout..." I gritted my teeth for a minute as my shoulder flared up, the blood vessels throbbing just underneath my skin. "...and we saw the Wrecker trying to eat Nick Fury...and then saw those guys trapped in their cars...hell, Punisher. What the hell kind of human being would I be if I sat by and didn't do a damn thing?"

"You'd be just like most of the scum who either sat by, went into hiding, or tried to take advantage," he calmly retorted.

"Well, I didn't do any of that...ok, ok," I said as one eyebrow raised slightly, "Rhino and I looted a Walgreen's and a couple other drug stores, but that's because we have a whole bunch of survivors at my hideout, and we were planning on waiting this whole thing out. Hell, we found a whole bunch of Tombstone's guns and gave them away to some soldiers!"

"Right. And just because you handed some illegal weapons over to the US Army, and rescued a couple of people, and are taking care of them...that makes you a good guy?"

"Maybe...maybe," I spat. "It doesn't atone for everything I've done in the past, Castle, but given the choice to fish or cut bait, me and my friends got a whole bunch of dynamite and went fishing. This whole mess, it ain't about...it's not about Captain America vs. the Red Skull, or the Hulk vs. the Sentry, or hell, it's not about you killing the entire universe. Avengers, Defender, Offender, Sinister Six, Republican, Democrat...it's down to the line, Castle. The whole human race is down to the line against a whole bunch of ghouls, who are increasing at an exponential rate, and I'm not going down without a damn fight! I might have a way to go to balance the scales, but for the time being, I'm out there fighting the...I'm out HERE fighting the good fight because this is bigger than me, you, everything!"

For a few seconds, I thought I had convinced him. The pistol was still pointed at my face, and the eyes were still devoid of any emotion, but he was silent. Mulling over what I said. If he hadn't shot me yet, maybe, just maybe...

"Sorry, Schultz. You might not be top of the line scum, but you're still scum."

He took one step forward, and my hands came up, the only motion I could make with my body. I didn't have anything left in my system, or else I probably would have peed my suit with there as the barrel of his .45 loomed inches from my face. "Castle, no, don't! "

"Your rules might have changed, but mine haven't. Protect the innocent...punish the guil..."

One arm wrapped around his neck. From behind, the zombie attempted to sink his teeth into the throat of the Punisher. But this was the Punisher, whose uniform, of course had some kind of Kevlar collar. There wasn't any wasted motion as the Punisher reacted instantly. One arm came up and knocked the arm away from his throat, even as he was turning and bringing his other arm around to take aim. As soon as he had the shot lined up, he pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed off the stone surfaces as the zombie, a middle-aged man with a bloody Van Heusen shirt, dropped to the ground. Castle quickly scanned the area, his head craning left to right, and then he holstered the pistol. But the relief I felt was fleeting as the Punisher dipped to unsling the rifle from his shoulder, an old M14, 7.62 mm. He checked the chamber, before raising it to his shoulder. "I'll deal with you in a minute, Schultz," he said, dismissing me, before the rifle bucked against his shoulder as he fired

A good-sized mob of ghouls were shambling towards the fountain. Twenty, maybe thirty, spread out in a semi-circle. They were approaching from the south, passing the still-smoldering wreckage of the tractor trailer. The flames had died down, but smoke still rose into the sky. The wreckage had shielded them from view as the Punisher had interrogated me, both of us with such tunnel vision, we had been ignorant of the approaching threat

The closest one was ten feet away when the Punisher had fired. As that one dropped to the ground, he switched targets, pivoting on his foot to take aim and blow away the next one, a blonde whose head snapped back as she fell like a lumberjacked tree. Each motion was mechanical, no wasted efforts or energy, years of practice and execution coming into play. Rifle stock set in his shoulder, eye sighting down the iron notches, it was like watching the Angel of Death coming to reclaim the souls who had escaped him. Frank Castle sent by the seraphims to have words with whoever or whatever was screwing with the cycle of life and death.

I watched him drop two more before my survival complex kicked in. He had classified me as holding no threat, ignoring me to take care of the approaching horde. I was too tired to be offended at the dismissal. Instead, any anger I felt, I used to try to climb to my feet. Just like before Castle had tried to drown me, I had managed to get off the ground. My good arm pushed off the fountain's edge as the Punisher pulled back on the M14's bolt to chamber another round.

"Stay down, Schultz," he warned me as another zombie dropped. "I'd prefer to head shot you, but a gut shot will just mean these things kill you instead of an instant, painless death."

"Yeah, well, if you're gonna live to shoot me in the head, you're gonna need my help." I was lying through my teeth, but I lifted the gauntlet on my good arm and took aim at a ghoul about twenty feet away. "Damn it," I tried to grouse convincingly, "circuitry's still soaked. I can't get a shot off."

He didn't respond, instead pouring more fire into the mob. I couldn't have tried to run...walk...limp...away. He just turn and shoot me, one more zombie to him. He was on autopilot, maybe flashing back to another place, another time. His lips were tight, his breath slow and steady, as the Punisher settled into a steady pattern. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Bolt. Fire.

"Maybe if I switched the battery packs..." Whether or not he heard me, he didn't respond as I took a step backwards. Pretending to fiddle with my gauntlets, I kept a keen eye on the M14. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Fire. Bolt. Fire. Bolt...

Click.

As the empty clip of bullets was ejected from the M14, his hand was already reaching for a compartment on his belt. That's when I made my move. As soon as his hand was inside the compartment, temporarily trapped, I dipped slightly and rammed my shoulder into the small of his back.

Well, that's what I intended to do. In reality, I caught him below his right shoulder, possibly on one of his kidneys. He probably didn't even feel it through the Kevlar, but it did knock him off balance. As I moved in to follow up, the Punisher brought the butt of the rifle around. I managed to get my arm off to block...

Bam. Fist right to my sternum. Right on top of all the assorted wounds and injures I had taken tonight. My turn to stagger a little bit, though I somehow managed to choke down the scream I wanted to make. As I stumbled, he was reloading. As the clip slammed home, my head lowered, and I rushed him again. My bad shoulder hit him first, but I kept going, my feet never stopping, like a running back in a scrum. I felt a fist come down on the back of my neck, but by that time, the two of us were falling to the ground. He hit first, the M14 bouncing from his hand and scattering away on the concrete. As we landed, his fist slammed into my jaw, barely being absorbed by the soaked fabric. The Punisher was down. I had to keep him down. No matter how badly he was going to hurt me, or probably kill me, if he got back up, I was toast.

For a guy with vibro-smashers, I was getting into way too much hand-to-hand combat. Electro, Vulture, and now the Punisher. The only way I knew how to fight hand-to-hand? Dirty. My thumb went right for the Punisher's eye. I had to use my good arm to hold myself up, and trying to jam my thumb into his eye socket was like playing a game of whack-a-mole, and my metal gauntlet was the mallet.

The Punisher still had the upper hand, though, even if I had him pinned on the ground. One, the bastard had both arms. And two, he was much better at hand-to-hand combat then I could have ever dreamed of being. One hand pushed against my chin, getting my head up and exposing my face to a solid right hand. He wasn't Thor or Miss Marvel, but the Punisher's punch sent stars shooting past my eyes as it connected with the soaked fabric of my mask. My response was just to push down harder on his face. His legs kicked behind me as I mashed my glove into his nose, even as a second punch rocked my world. No, there wasn't any way in hell I was letting him up, especially now. The fabric soaked up the worst of his punches, and I could hang on, just a little longer.

The horde had grown as Castle and I fought on the sidewalk. Right now, I was a sitting duck if those things got close enough to fall on us. Even in the middle of this life-or-death struggle, their moans were raking across my ears, sending my hackles all the way up. But I needed them closer. Just like earlier in the evening, a trap...

My world exploded. White and red flashes across my eyes, and jagged bolts of lightning streaked from my shoulder. Through tears (manly, manly tears of pain, I need to point out), I could see the white glove of the Punisher, and his thumb jammed into the bullet wound. His digit twisted and turned, each slight motion a white-hot bolt of agony. Yeah, I screamed, and I screamed loud enough to wake the dead. But my response was to ball up the fist in his face and smash it down on his nose. His response was to touch bone, pushing his thumb in as far as he could...and I punched him again.

And again.

"You tried to shoot me! Hell, you tried to shoot me in the bank!"

Pause.

"And you probably planted the car bomb underneath my Hummer, you stupid mother..."

He never responded. Not a word, not a grin, not a smirk. His eyes stared at me as his thumb dug at the gunshot wound, but they never connected. Even as I punched him with a metal glove, he didn't flinch, or show any reaction when he started to bleed from a split lip. He wasn't looking at me, or if he was, all he saw of Herman Schultz was one more walking dead that needed put down. Autopilot. The Punisher was on autopilot, going through the deadly motions without any type of feeling or emotion. All he wanted to do was kill. And kill. And kill.

Every time I punched him, the downward motion of my swing drove his thumb further in. Well, if he was an emotionless zombie, I was all about finding the willpower to hang in there. I shouldn't even be conscious right now. Bleeding, burned, shot, exhausted, and just mentally worn out, being surrounded by zombies...curling up into a ball and just dying? Screw that. I've lived the past few days on my terms because I wanted to live. I wanted to survive this. No matter what got thrown at me. Zombies, Wolverine, Electro, Vulture, and now the Punisher. I've dealt with more crap over the past three nights than the rest of my life combined. I dragged my ass this far. I risked my ass so far. I'm pulling myself across the finish line, even if I have no idea what I'm living FOR. Long nights over black coffee and Raman noodles planning a heist? Drinking with Fred and Aleksei. Getting turned down by hookers. Being the laughing stock of the superhero community and dismissed as a minor threat. Hell, being considered by some people a hero. None of that really mattered to me right now. Nothing tangible. I just wanted to live.

And that's all I needed.

As soon as I saw the red flats to one side, I sprung (as best I could in my condition) into action. Both hands went to the Punisher's arm. He swung and glanced a punch off my jaw, but the focus of pain came from me extracting his thumb from my bullet wound. I gritted my teeth, biting off the scream, as the white glove, now caked with red, slowly came out of the hole in my shoulder. He didn't try to force it back in, his free hand already going for the holstered .45. The yell finally came, a choked gargle, as his thumb popped out of my shoulder. And I mean that literally, a loud, wet pop. I felt warm blood pour out of the wound as I used his arm to help shove me away from him. I half pushed-away-from and half rolled-off-of the Punisher as he pulled the pistol from his holster. That's when the girl in the red pumps fell on his hand. The shot snapped off early, ricocheting off the concrete, sending stone chips into the air. She was trying to bite into his Kevlar covered wrist as the Punisher spun the gun in his hand and put a bullet into her eye socket. The whole time, I was on my butt, scuttling away as best I could, trying to get to the only piece of cover there was; the fountain.

Even as the zombie was falling to the ground, the Punisher fired at me again. And again, the shot went wide. Before he could line up another shot, though, two zombies grabbed at him from behind, one on each shoulder. God, it was...it wasn't like anything out of the movies, or TV. Nothing fancy, nothing tricky. He just leaned back, and two rapid shots dropped both zombies. And then he ejected the clip. The reloading time, that's when I found a burst of adrenaline. I pushed myself around the side of the fountain as the Punisher slammed a new clip home into the pistol. The last thing I saw before getting out of his line-of-sight were those eyes, dead and emotionless, sizing me up. Behind him, twenty more zombies were advancing towards him, in a rough semi-circle. A silent, non-verbal threat assessment, like a bouncer in an Irish Pub in South Philly, that's what he was giving me. Who was the bigger problem right now? A wounded Shocker without his vibro-smashers? Or a horde of the hungry dead?

Thank Christ, he picked the zombies.

I could hear the report of the .45 as I pushed off the edge of the fountain. A steady staccato of gunfire let me know the Punisher was standing his ground and not chasing after me. Still, I kept my head down as I limped away from the fountain, heading towards the trees. This side of the park looked zombie-free, which probably meant they were hiding among the branches, waiting to drop down on me. Of course, this side of the park bordered New York University, which the Army had cleared out earlier. So yeah, the number of zombies on this side of the park was hopefully null, but probably miniscule.
The gunfire paused for a moment, but then picked right back up. It still eminated from the opposite side of the fountain as I reached the treeline. Now, I could use the trees to keep me upright. My goal was to reach the east side of the park, hotwire a car, and get the hell out of here. And once I was back home, probably weld the damn entrance to the storm drain shut so I would never, ever, EVER consider going back outside the warehouse walls for the duration of this crisis. The trees were my support, and I moved from one to the next. Again, the sound of the .45 tapered off, only to resume after a few seconds. I managed a sigh of relief as the street came into view in front of me as the gunfire continued behind me.

Part of me, a damn small part, wondered if I had left the Punisher to die. I considered that as I came out of the trees. Yeah, he had tried to kill me. So had Electro, and I planned on letting Max live. Same with the Vulture, and all I was going to do was leave Adrian to slice his way out of the dumpster. But I knew those guys. Once, I would have considered them colleagues. Castle, I had left for the wolves...but the gunfire told me he was alive and putting up a fight. Screw it. I had gotten away, and if there was anyone on this damn planet who had enough safehouses and armories to survive a zombie apocalypse, it had to be the god damn Punisher.

The street between Washington Square Park and NYU was abandoned. No zombies, that I could see. And very few cars. But, there were cars. Including a Hummer, parked on the sidewalk near a stone gateway leading into the park, the driver's door wide open and facing me. Man, did everyone in New York own one of these, or was there some kind of "IT'S THE END OF DAYS, EVERYTHING MUST GO" sale going on somewhere? Anyway, that was the first car I headed for, after ducking down to make sure there wasn't a zombie OR a bomb waiting for me underneath. Neither was present. What was present, however, was a body in the front seat.

My euphoria at finding a Hummer was mixed as I took in the dead body. In a nice three-piece suit, the kind you see on magazine billboards, a young man sat behind the wheel of the vehicle. Both hands clutched the grip of a .45 pistol. The barrel rested in his mouth, and what was left of his head was splattered all over the back seat. What the hell made him commit suicide, I had to stop and wonder, even if I was on a bit of a time crunch. Did all those bodies in the park get to him, watching the citizens of New York City crackle and burn, forgoing the dubious comforts of a funeral service? Did he see a friend die, jumped and devoured by the living dead? I've mentioned just giving up before, but suicide...never an option.

I would have passed by the Hummer and found another car on the street to hotwire, if I hadn't seen the keys dangling in the ignition. Ah, damn it...ok, Herman, don't look a gift horse in the damn mouth.

Carefully, I put my arms around the body's shoulders. To save the sanity of whoever's reading this, I'll sum up. Chest hurts, shoulder hurts, legs hurt, tired, exhausted, whaa whaa whaa, but it had to be done. Even with the rush, I was trying to be respectful as I gently pulled the body out of the car...except that it wouldn't budge. I pulled on his arms, trying to make the young man come my way, and get him...

Oh, yeah. Seat belt. Even in death, this kid was obeying traffic laws.

After popping the belt, the body, stiff after who knows how long of sitting there, slid easily out of the car. I pulled it away, making sure there wasn't a single possibility that I could run this guy over when I pulled away from the curb. Hey, the guy was a truly, "didn't get back up and walk around" dead body. That deserved some reverence in my opinion. I eased him on the sidewalk, leaving him in front of the stone gate before going right back to the Hummer. Alright, Herman, time to blow this pop stand and get the hell home.

With the door closed and locked, I turned the key in the ignition. The engine, after one hair-raising, ball-tightening moment of catching, turned over, roaring to life. Just a drive across the island and down the West Side Highway. I'll be home in...

Even as the window shattered, my hands were coming up. The quick movement out of the corner of my eye saved me as the glass imploded. Through the falling shards, the knife's tip sliced through the air before both hands caught the forearm of the guy holding it. I pushed out, but the assailant's second arm came in, putting added pressure on the butt of the knife. One guy with one good arm is going to lose to a guy with two good arms, and slowly, the tip of the knife advanced towards me.

"I'm out of bullets because of you." The bloody, scratched face of the Punisher stood outside the broken window, staring at me as we fought over the knife. "That was a nice try, Schultz, but whatever you have planned, it ends here."
I didn't have time to respond. I couldn't move a hand away to put the car into drive, or else the knife was going to plunge right into my chest. When I tried to slide to the right, one of the Punisher's hands, grabbed the back of my neck, holding me in place. The knife kept coming closer, and I could see, as my wide eyes stared at the killing stoke, the wet blade streaked with black blood. I pushed and flexed, but my arms just couldn't compete with the vigilante's. Closer, and closer, and...

The arm that grabbed the Punisher wasn't gray, or streaked with blood. It was tan, and powerful, pulling the Punisher away from the side of the car. The knife clattered to the pavement as my hands grasped now-empty air. It wasn't a sigh of relief so much as several gasps of relief that I let out, my chest rising and falling as the tension left my body not that it wasn't threatened. I turned my head to look at my savior...

...

...no way.

My rescuer was holding the Punisher up with one arm, and giving him the best possible "what the hell" once over. With no bullets, and no knife anymore, the Punisher, whose entire uniform, still in one piece from what I could see, was caked in blood, simply stared. Where my face held shock and wonder, his face, showing emotion for the first time this evening showed something completely unexpected. Annoyance.

"Are you bit, Castle," my rescuer asked.

"No," was his short and bitter reply.

"Good. Then I can do this without worry." With ease, my rescuer spun in place. Three times, like a discus thrower, they whipped Frank Castle around, holding both arms, lifting him away from the street. After two more spins, they let go. I had to lean forward and watch as the Punisher flew into the air...pretty damn fast. The phrase "blasting off again" came into my head for some reason as Castle soared into the night. I quickly lost his black uniform against the sky as he disappeared from sight.

Now, my jaw had dropped as soon as I saw who had saved me from the Punisher, and it stayed right there as I witnessed an incredible feat of strength. "How...isn't that going to...how did...why..."

"Do not worry about Frank Castle," the voice managed to boom without raising in volume. "He will land, unharmed, in the Hudson River. Your concern should be on yourself, Herman Schultz."

He knew my name. Oh my God, he knew my name. THIS GUY knew my name.

The God of Thunder knew who I was.