Two-time Bram Stoker Award nominated author Nate Kenyon's thir novel, THE BONE FACTORY, will be available as a Leisure mass market paperback next week. Here's a preview. When you've finished, check out Nate Kenyon's website.

THE BONE FACTORY
By Nate Kenyon


And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

--William Shakespeare, King Richard the Third


PROLOGUE: BLOOD

Winter's frozen fingers caressed Joe Thibideau's face, his breath twisting in great clouds of steam to ice his eyelashes. The moon was bright as he moved as quickly as possible across the three inches of fresh snow that softened the ground. Little 8 year-old Melissa had been reported missing yesterday afternoon, and that was a long time in this weather. The night was brutally cold, and she was almost surely frozen stiff by now, a ghostly statue in the blue-white moonlight.

He immediately tried to wipe the image from his mind, but it kept coming back again, and chilled him more than the cold ever could. As the deputy sheriff in the small town of St. Boudin, Thibideau had never had to search for death until yesterday. Anyone dead was right out in plain sight, in the middle of a nasty car wreck, or perhaps a logging accident.

But this was different than anything he had faced before. This time, they had a killer in their midst.

The first victim, a local farmer named Eddie Brosseau, had been discovered yesterday morning about three miles away, stuffed inside the front end of an abandoned truck out in his field. He was missing his head, a right arm and part of a shoulder. The reason for this gruesome dismemberment was anybody's guess; Thibideau figured personally that whoever killed the old man had trouble fitting the whole body into that little import's engine cavity. Maybe there were other reasons, but he preferred not to think about it any more than was absolutely necessary.

Then the girl had disappeared from her home while gathering some wood from the shed. He remembered the desperate voice of the mother on the phone: We usually fill the wood box together. I never let her go out alone, especially on a cold day like that .

Joe Thibideau had a daughter of his own. If Melissa had fallen victim to the same brutal bastard who killed Eddie, he only hoped he'd have the chance to nail the son of a bitch. Never in all his forty-seven years had he wanted anything so badly.

Of course, the girl could be a simple runaway, or she might have gotten lost. And yet he couldn't shake the feeling that they were linked together by a single savage thread.

He moved through a thicker patch of alders, and paused with his back against the rough bark of a tree. He had lost the others about twenty minutes ago. He should keep close by, he knew, but they had been searching in the cold for nearly two days. It was time to take a chance. He had a hunch. Just another hour or two couldn't hurt, right?

And maybe, just maybe, if the girl was still alive, he could do something to keep her that way.

A branch snapped and sent its burden of heavy snow thudding to the ground. He jumped, almost dropping his flashlight and hitting his head against the tree trunk, which only caused a fresh shower of snow to fall on top of him. Shaking snow from his collar, he pulled a compass and then the map from the left pocket of his parka and smoothed it out over his knees, holding the flashlight in his mouth. The areas already searched were circled in bright fluorescent green on the map. They had been over about four square miles directly behind the house. She could have been picked up by a car, could be fifty miles away from here by now. So far they had been betting against that, since the house was a good half-mile off any Provincially plowed road, and the driveway hadn't shown any fresh tracks. But they couldn't rule it out.

The map didn't have it, but the hydroelectric plant was less than a mile farther south. It was supposed to make use of the old mine shafts in the area to produce enough power to light up most of Quebec City and parts of Northern Maine into the twenty-first century and beyond. Construction on the new plant had been halted a couple of months back, but he was sure the old Jackson mine building was still there, and it might be just the place for a lost little girl to seek shelter. Or for a killer to hide a body.

The moonlight dimmed and a few fresh snowflakes began to filter their way down as Thibideau made his way through the bare patches and drifts. The trees here were spaced a good distance apart, their lower branches gray and stunted, and a snapped twig under his foot sounded as loud as a gunshot. He knew his way around well enough to keep from getting lost; in any case, the road down to the hydro compound was probably still impossible to get through by car. They'd stopped construction late that fall when the first heavy storm blew in. He never could understand the idiot who organized that whole project. Winters in this remote area of Canada were a bitch, and nobody but that special contractor (who was, incidentally, originally from California) thought they could get the place finished without building a quality road to it first. Now there was no doubt that contractor was out of a job, but it was too late for the road. The ground was rutted, frozen hard as a rock, and covered with a foot of snow. So the plant just sat like some huge, hibernating beast, waiting for the scientists and construction workers to wake it up in the spring.

A few more minutes of walking and he came to a break in the trees and the entire vast, unfinished compound spread out below him, a huge and gaping hole in the earth with several small buildings scattered around it, including the old mining building beside the frozen river. The river itself cut through the woods directly below, at the foot of a steep bank scattered with small saplings and naked shrubs. It sat as a silent warning, like a line drawn in the dirt by a childhood bully. Cross it and you're gonna get yours.

The scope of the thing was remarkable. Until now he had never seen the place, and standing here at the edge, he found it lived up to the stories he had heard in town. Hell, it blew the stories out of the water . Trees had been cut down for what seemed like miles in every direction; the place looked like the center of an atomic bomb blast, the half completed buildings dotting its edge like props for a toy train set.

Standing there gaping, it took him several minutes to realize that something seemed out of place, something more than just this alien blast site in the middle of dense woods. In another second he knew what that thing was, and crouched behind the trunk of the biggest tree he could find on the upper slope, trying to calm his thudding heart. Partially hidden behind the old wooden mine building just across the river was a snowmobile, cleaned of snow and with what looked like fresh tracks behind it.

He killed the beam of the flashlight and slipped it into his coat pocket. The flakes had stopped falling again, and the light of the moon was enough out here. He felt the sweat inside his mittens and the shake in his legs, and the fiery rush of adrenaline lit up his body like an electric shock. There's nobody else around, you could be dealing with the fucker right here, right now, just you and him, one on one .

He scanned the entire complex slowly, watching for any movement, or light, or bit of smoke. Nothing.

Come on now, she could still be alive . He unzipped his jacket, and pulled his .38 out of its holster, trying desperately to keep his hand steady. There was no time to get help; he might have been seen.

Slipping out from the protection of the tree trunk, he made his way down the steep bank, stumbling and sliding until he reached the ice at the bottom. Nothing stirred, and he hurried across the frozen river towards the closest structure, a half-completed building along the right edge of the pit. Out in the open, he was painfully aware of how vulnerable he was under the moonlight, with the snow crunching under his heavy boots. He would have to move fast.

He made it to the corner of the building without incident, and leaned carefully around the other side. The complex looked like a ghost town. The entire side of this structure was open, and great drifts of snow filled the inner section, its surface completely smooth. Moving out and around it, he kept the gun held out at arm's length, like he'd seen cops do in movies. He'd never pointed the gun at anything other than the targets at the range, and it felt uncomfortably heavy and awkward now.

He walked quickly along the edge of the pit to the left, making for the old mine building. At the wall he crouched and crawled under a window, then slowly raised his head and peered into the darkness. It was lighter outside with the moonlight, and he had to cup his hands to the dusty glass and squint. Even then he could see only shadows. His hand shook and rattled the gun barrel against the glass. Once again peering in, something caught his attention. One of those shadows, over in the far right corner, slumped over in some impossible position, looked like a body.

A little body.

Sweat began to roll in little beads down Thibideau's forehead, stinging his eyes. What if it's her? Christ, what if the killer's standing right there just out of sight, in one of the deeper shadows?
But she could be hurt, unconscious...

He crouched and ran along the wall until he reached its edge. Blood pulsing impossibly loud in his ears, he stuck his head around the corner. He found himself looking at the door of the building, shut tight against the cold. Cutting off his fear as best he could, he tried the handle. It swung open with a dull scraping sound.

It was the smell that hit him first--an overpowering, rotten stench that clogged the nostrils and made him gag, staggering backward until he could get his parka zipped up to cover his face. Even then it was there, the unmistakable smell of death.

Right then he almost turned and ran. But the thought of that little girl, maybe still alive and scared at least as bad as he was, made him take a step into the darkness.

The blackness surrounded him, swallowed him and welcomed him with the utter equality of the blind. He blinked stupidly, eyes adjusting to the deep black shadows around him, and stood frozen with his gun held out as things began to take shape. A dim patch of light from the window shone onto the floor, and he shuffled towards it, closer to the wall until his hands met with something hard.

Jesus the flashlight I forgot the fucking flashlight in my pocket.

How could he be so stupid? Holding the gun in his left hand, he pulled the flashlight out of his jacket and aimed it at the wall, switching it on.

The thing he had touched was an animal, or at least it might have been at one time. It looked to be the size of a raccoon, and it was covered in dried blood and frozen stiff.

There was no head.

Joe stumbled backwards, and the beam of the flashlight lit up the entire wall. It was covered with the carcasses of animals and bare bones, a grotesque and sadistic trophy case. Blood ran in drips and blotches down the wood, staining it a dull coppery brown.

He turned and saw the girl. She had been thrown into a corner, her body broken and battered and her clothes ripped to shreds. Her head was twisted at an impossible angle and her dull, dead eyes stared at him vacantly.

The doorknob was slick in his gloved hand, old and slippery metal, and then the door opened and he stumbled into the cold. The smell would not leave him, it followed him as he struggled across the snow, and then he saw his tracks and there were another pair, oh Christ, another pair, and he spun around wildly, losing his balance and dropping his gun.

Joe Thibideau never had a chance to get up. A shadow fell across his path, followed by a searing pain in his shoulder, moonlight flashing on a silver blade that rose up and plunged down again and again, speckling the pure white snow with his blood.



PART ONE:
PAST TRANSGRESSIONS

--1--

David Pierce walked into the office expecting the worst. A loud, balding man in an expensive suit, or an old bastard with nothing on his mind other than to keep a young guy like him from getting a job. The past few months he'd run into both; one he couldn't stand enough to work with, the other wouldn't give him the chance.

Third time's the charm. I wonder if they give out awards for this stuff? World's greatest ass kisser, professional job searcher. As long as they paid him, he'd be willing to get called just about anything.

But the guy was all right.

"Welcome to Hydro Development, David. Michael Olmstead. Call me Mike." He stuck out his hand, and David took it. The hand was smooth and dry, but the grip was firm. "Glad you could make it."

Olmstead released his grip and flipped through a file folder on a neatly organized desk. "Please, sit down."

David smiled and nodded, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. Showtime. Ass kisser. Not as flattering, but more accurate .

He sat in the wide, comfortable chair offered to him, and waited until Mike settled down in the leather seat behind the massive oak desk. He took a quick glance around, admiring the dark wood of the walls, the soft lighting and thick carpeting. Lots of money here.

"Let's get right down to it. We want to know what you can do for Hydro." Mike leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk, hands steepled in front of his sharply-defined nose. Every little detail of this man is sharp.

"Well, I've worked on two other hydropower plants, one right out of school, and one for six years which ended last July."

"EPC?"

"That's right. I was involved in development with them, primarily doing research on the possibilities of pumped storage and overseeing the reservoir construction plans."

"Well, this job will be overseeing exactly that kind of thing. We've been a little old fashioned in the past, but now it's time to take the big plunge, so to speak." Olmstead smiled.

"You're going to harness a portion of the St. John River through an underground storage facility."

"Done some research? That's good, we appreciate the initiative." Olmstead tossed a folder across the desktop in front of him. "There's a lot of hydro activity up in Quebec and New Brunswick, make no mistake about that. Most of the rivers coming off the North coast of the St. Lawrence have a big dam or two. But a lot of that power goes to the pulp mills. With the Jackson project, we want to supply New Brunswick with all the power it's going to need for years. Down into Maine too. And pumped storage is a safe and effective way to get that power. It involves quite a bit of manpower, but if we can pull it off, this will be one of the largest successful underground pumped storage hydro facilities ever. If you do work with us, you'll be getting all you can handle."

David flipped through the folder's pages, past engineer's notes, schematics and technical summaries. "Selling to Canadian Power and Light. Big company."

"That's right. You'd be involved directly with the planning and development of the lower reservoir and tunnel, and getting us back on track."

They discussed the plan details for a while before Olmstead took the folder back and stuck it in a desk drawer. "There are plenty of men working on this thing already, but most of them are at our branch offices in Quebec City at the moment. This is a major project, and we want to make sure everything's done right. After that, there would be an opportunity to stay on in the area and work with maintenance and the lease agreement, that and figuring out how to keep the damn tunnels from icing up. That is, if you're not bored to death by that time."

"My wife and I are easily entertained. We both read a lot, watch movies. And Jessica--she's our little girl--she's got three or four make believe friends by now, I think. Maybe this would give me some more time to spend with her. I don't do that enough."

That seemed to make an impression. "I know how it is. I was going to ask you about your family. It does get lonely up there, or so I hear. A close family unit is really important to us. We need to know you're intending to stay around for a while. Anyway, this place is pretty isolated. Bitch of a winter, too."

"Yeah, I read about the problems you guys had keeping it going." This seemed for an instant a little too critical, and David winced.

Olmstead just smiled, running a hand through his patch of well-groomed hair and sitting back in the relaxed pose of the successful businessman. "You got that right. What we really need is someone to be smart and work with people, not against them. We'll have a big crew on site eventually, and they all have to use each other to get things done. Know your stuff, and take advantage of it. Frankly, I think you can do it, looking at your job experience and schooling. You've been in and out of the business for what, ten years? You know what makes a plant tick by now. You've worked with pumped storage development. And your references are good, with the exception of the EPC job."

There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence. David cursed silently. Of course he knew it would come up, had to, but still he hadn't been prepared to face it so soon.

"I'm not going to lie to you. Your boss at EPC had some pretty loud ideas about how you handled yourself there."

"Look, I can explain all that." David paused, and found Olmstead had leaned forward again, studying him closely, waiting. He didn't look away. "The guy was a prick."

Olmstead raised one eyebrow in an almost comical expression of surprise, then laughed. "I admire your courage. I spoke with your supervisor myself, and frankly, I'd agree with you. Now I hope I'm reading this right. You had a difference of opinion, got tired of waiting around for real opportunity and decided to go out and get it."

David nodded. "That's about right."

"Again, I admire your courage. Not exactly what I would have done, not with the economy the way it is, but I understand. I think that shows some initiative that could be put to use. Of course, I'm not the only one that makes that decision."

David forced a smile. "I hope you'll put in a good word for me. I really want this job. I know what it takes. I worked in Alaska on my first project, so I've had experience with the cold. As far as Hydro goes, this has always been the place I've wanted to be." I just got three million interviews in other places for kicks . "And working in Canada might be just the thing for my family life."

"Could be. And the scenery's beautiful, believe me. I went up there to check the spot out before we started construction last summer. Thick pine forests and lots of wildlife. There's a hell of a lot of logging going on too, but you'd never know it in most places. And the water coming off the peaks is just about the most pure thing you've ever tasted."

"Sounds great." Of course, he would be spending the winters there too. Not saying much about those, are you?

Listen--" Olmstead stood up and stuck out his hand. David took it. "I have a couple other interviews, but I can say that you are the most impressive so far. If this works out, we'll need you to start right away. The place has been completely shut down for months, but we need someone to evaluate the current situation and advise on next steps. We'd take care of getting you a place to live, as soon as something opens up, and of course we'll pay for it. Salary's more than fair, but the benefits are fantastic--full health, dental, the works. Not that there are any dentists within a hundred miles of that place."

Olmstead grinned, and David felt a momentary touch of revulsion; just a touch, but nonetheless it was there. That grin had reminded him of the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"I'm ready. Thanks for everything, and give me a call if there's anything else you need to know."

David thanked him and left. The interview had gone pretty well, he thought. He had liked Olmstead, not counting that quick moment of distaste; nerves really, that was all. He had already dismissed it. His history with EPC was bound to come up, and with all the problems he had run into before, this time was a pleasant surprise. Olmstead didn't seem to care much about what McDougal had to say, which was lucky. McDougal could be a real son of a bitch.

As he walked out the doors and into the bright sun he considered Olmstead's last comment. A hundred miles--a little exaggerated, maybe, but it got the point across. A skilled doctor could be fifty miles away for all he knew. What if someone caught the flu, or worse, broke a leg? Thinking about the possibilities made him nervous. If he got this job, he'd have to make sure Jessie understood the rules. Have fun kid, but don't play in the woods.