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Back The Bone Factory
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. The Bad Man
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUEBLOOD
  5. PART ONE
  6. CHAPTER TWO
  7. CHAPTER THREE
  8. CHAPTER FOUR
  9. CHAPTER FIVE
  10. CHAPTER SIX
  11. CHAPTER SEVEN
  12. CHAPTER EIGHT
  13. CHAPTER NINE
  14. CHAPTER TEN
  15. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  16. CHAPTER TWELVE
  17. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  19. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  21. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  22. PART TWO
  23. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. PART THREE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  44. CHAPTER FORTY
  45. EPILOGUE
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. High Praise for Nate Kenyon’s
  48. Other Leisure Books by Nate Kenyon:

Flint’s footsteps echoed a ghostly beat as he walked towards the very last door, the only one with a bright window. He felt a little like a player in a cheap horror flick, descending into the depths of the mad scientist’s laboratory. With all the money spent on the place, you’d figure they would have made it more pleasant, he thought. He was glad that he was not one of the men who had to work down here all day. As he neared the door, it opened with a soft whooshing sound, and a man in a suit stepped out. He held the door, and nodded curtly as Flint went past him into the room.

Inside, it looked more like a zoo than anything else. The larger cages lined the back wall, and contained a variety of animals from cats and dogs to chimps. They leaped and paced about the confines of the cages, whining and scratching at the bars. Under and in front of these cages were several smaller ones containing guinea pigs and rats, and scattered in various places around these were the tools of the trade; microscopes, vials, scanning equipment.

Several people in white lab coats were huddled over a table in the center of the room, and he heard something snarling, though he couldn’t yet see it. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to keep himself calm and detached from whatever was going on, and found that he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to see what was on that table anymore, to hell with Jackson Hydro. To hell with his job. He had a feeling that, once he looked at this, he wouldn’t be able to turn back, wouldn’t be able to stop whatever was building inside, even if he wanted to. Right now, he thought that maybe he should just turn away and walk out that door, just be a coward and do it. He didn’t know why, but the feeling was there.

He was being a little melodramatic, he decided. This was his job, after all.

He walked up, pulled two of the white-coated techs aside, and peered in at the thing chained to the table.

The lab boys didn’t say a word. They didn’t have to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

After they finished some ice cream (a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee HEATH Bar Crunch from the local store), Helen dropped him off outside O’Leary’s office, which happened to be in downtown St. Boudin, next to the police station.

Downtown, David thought. What a joke. The streets collided about a half mile back in an “L” formation, one continuing on to who knows where, the other stretching along this few-hundred-foot length of tiny buildings and concrete.