Second Chance

By Ardy

Convicted murderer Robert Parker would like nothing more than to be able to change his past. Because of his true regret over taking a life he is granted a chance to go back and fix things. He goes back ten years in time in order to ensure that he never turns into the man who became a murderer, but he is still plagued by nightmares and guilt. As he works to build a better life for himself and change the man he once was, will his own selfishness ruin his second chance?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ardy
• Release date: Nov 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301873517

Ardy

I live in Northern New Mexico. My biggest influences include Stephen King, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Frank Peretti, and Trey Parker. I write mainly fantasy, science fiction, and horror, often with a Christian slant.Some of the things I write are just for fun, like most of my free short stories, which I will continue to produce as long as these interesting, and sometimes quite messed up ideas keep popping into my head. Some things I write because I feel that they are important. I don't intend to be preachy and try not to insert messages into my writing unless I forewarn the reader that they'll be there. My main intentions with my works are to entertain the reader, make the reader think, and sometimes just to give them a good little scare.Two things seem to creep into my writing often. One is my faith. The other is my proclivity for horror, which even rears its ugly head in my Christian pieces.Check my blog for special coupons and discounts that will be available exclusively at smashwords.com.I appreciate any review, and please be honest.

Book preview

SECOND CHANCE

Ardy

Published by Ardy at Smashwords

Copyright 2012

This free ebook remains the copyrighted material of the author. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

The creaking sound of the gurney’s wheels filled the empty dayroom as Rocky’s body was rolled out of the pod. Robert Parker watched from the door of his locked cell, as did the other fifty-eight men in the pod, thinking that next time it could be him on that gurney with a sharpened toothbrush handle sticking out of his throat and a white sheet thrown hastily over him. The pod was eerily quiet. Most everyone had liked Rocky, except of course for the man who had stuck him.

Robert had been through this before and he knew the routine. The prisoners would be locked down for a few days while the administration ran their investigation and unless there was a snitch in their midst, Rocky’s killer would go unpunished. That is, he’d go unpunished by the prison. But most likely they’d be locked down again within hours of the doors opening as one of Rocky’s many friends administered his own punishment.

In his year and a half in the penitentiary Robert had seen at least a dozen men rolled out on gurneys either dead or dying. Usually, these men had had it coming, but not Rocky. He was a good man, as far as criminals went, and he didn’t deserve to die that way. Why somebody would murder the big man was beyond Robert. Now somebody would have to call Rocky’s family with the tragic news. If Rocky even had a family.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this Mrs.…

And then it occurred to Robert that he didn’t even know Rocky’s real name. Prison nicknames were funny things, and there were about twenty guys in there whom Robert only knew by names such as Spike, Tex, Preach, Pops, or Killer.

Prison death was the fear of every inmate and the unavoidable fate awaiting most of the men in C-Pod, or for that matter the entire housing unit. Three hundred rapists, murderers, and thieves all with sentences of at least a decade and all thrown into an environment with a survival rate of only forty percent. Robert didn’t expect to walk out alive. He was serving a twenty-five year sentence for second degree murder and, at thirty-five years old, he knew his chances of seeing daylight again were slim. If a big teddy bear like Rocky could be killed, anybody could.

It would be a long night. Robert didn’t expect to get out of his cell for at least three days, and that only to go to the Captain’s office and claim not to know anything (this time, at least, he would not be lying). He lived in a two man cell, but his cellmate Charlie had gone home a few days earlier and no one else had been moved in. Robert had no TV, no radio, no book to read that he hadn’t already read three times. There were only