Before we go any further, I want to make it abundantly clear that Clarence’s mom and brother were never in any real danger—and they never will be. If Clarence falls off the wagon—which he most likely will—I would never harm them. They’re innocents, and they’re the exact people I’m here to protect—it’s why I used Clarence’s money to pay off their house. They don’t deserve to suffer for Clarence’s crimes which—in a way—they already have.

Don’t get me wrong, I will put three holes in Clarence’s head and never bat an eye because he is a piece of shit and the world would be a far better place without him—but I’d never hurt an innocent person for any reason. Sometimes, however, the fear of harm to loved ones motivates people who believe themselves to be untouchable. It isn’t pretty, but I’m certainly not above it. I don’t do this to make myself feel good, I do it to help people that have nowhere left to turn.

        I suppose you have some questions at this point. Why do I do what I do, and how did I become what I am? To answer those questions, we have to start at the very beginning. Origin story time!

***

        My name is Jack Fox, and I can’t die.

        Yeah—sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Long story short: I found out I was immortal in high school. I’ve got a big mouth and it got me killed. Or it would have, if that had been an option. I know it sounds insane—and it definitely is—but bear with me and I’ll explain.

        I was seventeen and it was my senior prom. It was held at a place called the Roostertail on the north side of Detroit. My date only agreed to come with me because she was from a different school and wanted to hang out with some mutual friends that went to mine. So, after the first five minutes, she bailed on me and I didn’t see her again for the rest of the night.

        I’d pre-gamed with a few alcoholic beverages in the parking lot before heading inside, so I had a healthy buzz to carry me through the crushing grief of losing my date. Truth be told, I wasn’t especially heartbroken because I didn’t really want to be there in the first place. I’d only showed up so that my parents wouldn’t think they’d raised some freakish, antisocial abnormality—which, of course, they had, but they didn’t need to know that.

        Breezing past the irrelevant bits: the dance sucked, I slipped on a spot of too-waxed floor and ate shit in front of a bunch of people, went back out to my car and put more work in on the bottle of Buffalo Trace I’d stolen from my dad’s liquor cabinet, and left before eleven o’clock.

        I got in my car—a sweet rust-and-red ‘94 Chrysler Le Baron GTC with a rod knock and a burned-out clutch—and figured I’d drive across the nearby bridge to Belle Isle and sit on the beach alone like the miserable little shit that I was.

        I had just polished off the rest of the bourbon and thrown the bottle into the river—let’s face it, you’d have to work damned hard to make the Detroit River any worse than it already was—when I saw two guys walk out onto the sand dragging a third between them.

        It was pretty dark, and I was sitting a good distance away, so they didn’t see me at first. I could hear their voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I figured them for a couple of guys who had taken their drunk buddy to sleep it off on the beach for a little while before heading back to wherever they were partying.

        Boy, was I wrong.

        I got up to leave as they dragged the third guy to the water’s edge. He was on his knees in a foot of water and they loomed over top of him. One of them pulled out a shiny, nickel-plated pistol and placed it against the back of the kneeler’s head. I decided then that stealth was a phenomenal idea, so I did my best impression of a statue and tried not to be seen.

        Without a word, the man with the gun pulled the trigger.

The gunshot was surprisingly quiet and hollow there by the water, and the reverberations dissipated so quickly that I could hear the dead man’s bone, skin, and gray matter splashing against the water. It was so similar to the sound of vomit splashing into a toilet that I was immediately reminded of how much whiskey I’d drunk and got a bit nauseated myself.

        They let the dead man fall face first into the river with a splash, and the strong current wasted no time in carrying him away toward Lake Erie.

        I prayed to whatever god would listen that they wouldn’t see me, but of course they saw me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be telling you this story.

        “Who the fuck are you?” the one with the gun barked, marching toward me through the sand. People ask me this question a lot.

        I looked behind me at first in a you’re talking to one of these many people behind me, aren’t you? gesture.

        “Me?” I asked, dumbfounded, putting a hand on my chest.

        “No, the fucking werewolf standing behind you,” he spat. “Yeah, you. What did you see, kid?”

        If it wasn’t for the bourbon, maybe things would have gone differently. But they went the way they did, as most things usually do.

        “I’m pretty sure I just saw two dudes murder another dude. But it’s dark, so I’m not a hundred percent on that one.”

I hiccupped.

        The gunman sighed, looking back at his silent partner for the smallest of split seconds.

        “No, that’s not what you saw.”

        You’re right. I didn’t see anything. I’m actually blind and wandered away from my tour group at the aquarium and I’ve been lost for hours. Have you seen them—bunch of people with huge sunglasses and canes, nice old lady explaining in detail what all the fish look like? –is what I should have said.

        “No, I’m pretty sure that’s what I saw,” is what the alcohol made sure I said instead.

        And, without further ado, he shot me in the face.

        When I woke up, I was still on the beach, but it wasn’t dark anymore. The sun was rising—or setting, I never remember which direction is which—and I was still in my shitty rental tux. It was covered in blood. I’m talking saturated. I had a little bit of a headache that I assumed had come from the alcohol until I remembered that I’d recently been shot in the head and left for dead on a dirty beach.

        I scrambled to my feet and looked at the scene of carnage around me.

        The sand had been sprayed with blood and what looked like little bits of gristly gray meat. There was a misshapen chunk of metal lying next to the divot were my head had been. It was a hollow-point bullet.

        I panicked.

        I ripped off my jacket and started scooping handfuls of the gory sand into it. When it was full, I dragged it to the river and let the current take the evidence away. It took two more trips and a creative shuffling dance routine, but eventually I was able to make the beach look like it hadn’t just been the scene of a double homicide. As an afterthought, I put the bullet it my pocket; it was too weird not to keep.

        When I got back to the Le Baron, I changed into a hoodie and jeans that I’d packed in the car the night before. The tuxedo, however, was a complete loss so I wedged it deep into a garbage can near a picnic table. Either nobody would find it and it would make its way to the dump, or one of the city’s many homeless people would find it and wear it. I didn’t particularly care at that point.

        I finally had the presence of mind to look at my reflection in the rearview, and I was startled to see a fresh pink scar directly above my left eye.

        So, it was true, I realized: I’d actually been shot in the damned head.

        And my fucking brain had regenerated; I’d thrown chunks of it into the river, but I didn’t feel any dumber—I didn’t feel like I’d lost brain cells. Everything seemed to be in its proper place. Somehow, the bullet had worked its way out of my head while I was unconscious, and the world had stopped making sense.

        It was insane. I couldn’t believe it. But I did believe it because I’d lived it.

        It took some serious finagling to explain the scar and the missing rental tux—which I had to pay for—but eventually I put that night behind me and didn’t breathe a word of what happened to anyone.

        Still, I knew what I was and what I could do. So, being an asshole, I decided to push the limits whenever I could. Once, I broke my collarbone swinging on a rope in the woods with my buddies and I didn’t say a thing. Hours later, it was good as new. Broke an arm in a car accident and actually hid that fact from the police because I knew that it would be fine before all the glass was swept out of the street. Took a bullet to the neck in Afghanistan and told my squad mates that all of the blood on my BDUs was from a nosebleed—you know, dry desert air and all that. Missed out on a Purple Heart for that one.

        Over time, my regeneration became even faster. A cut that should require stitches would seal up and be nothing more than scar tissue within minutes. The scars would be gone by the end of the day. Hell, even the scar from the bullet that killed me was gone within a week.

        Along with the regeneration, I became very fast and incredibly strong—freakishly strong without even having to work for it. I was by no means a car-lifting superhero, but I could put a linebacker from the football team flat on his ass and I’d never even been in the same room as a bench-press setup.

Consequently, basic training was a breeze for me when I enlisted in the Army. Ranger School was a joke when I was promoted. I never got winded, tired, or sore. Some of the other recruits were less than enthusiastic about my abilities.

        All these changes got me thinking: had I ever been sick? I honestly couldn’t remember a single instance. Had I ever even needed a Band Aid? I didn’t think so.

        Pain, like I mentioned earlier, eventually lost all meaning. My mind, having disconnected the sensation of pain from lasting damage, made it something that could be easily ignored. Even the pain from grievous wounds such as gunshots could be disregarded as simply as if it was a mild itch, since I knew that no injury could cause me any permanent harm.

        Being an immortal definitely came with perks.