Shawn Inmon - The Vigilante Life of Scott McKenzie

Scott barely took time out to sleep the next three days. He hunched over his notes until his back ached and his mind felt like it would shut down. He used every memory trick he had. Formed associations with people and places. Created mnemonic devices. Created keywords for each crime. More than anything, he read and reread his final master list.

After those days of intense study, he had to admit that he couldn’t imagine forgetting any of what he had stuffed into his memory.

Like a man waking from a long nap, he looked around his cozy home.

I loved this place. I will miss it.

He grabbed the pistol from the drawer where he had kept it for the past ten years. He had only fired it once—the day he got it, to make sure it worked. At the time he bought it, he hadn’t been sure why he had. It made sense, living out in the middle of the woods.

Now. Where? Not in here. Don’t want to do that to Greta. If I had the strength, I’d dig my own grave and lay in it, so all they had to do was throw the dirt in on me. I don’t have that strength, though. I feel this cancer eating at me, spreading. Cancer lives by killing its host, which then kills it. Stupid cancer.

Scott walked out to the forest that ringed his house. There was a small seasonal stream twenty yards further on, but he was failing fast and couldn’t make it that far. He had expended the last of his strength.

Finding the old red maple tree that he had always loved, Scott half-sat, half-fell against its base. He dropped the pistol, but was able to retrieve it.

In an unconscious mimicry of his father, he opened his mouth and put the barrel against the roof of his mouth.

Pulled the trigger.

Scott McKenzie opened his eyes and sat bolt upright.

“Gah!”

A wordless exclamation that, loosely translated, means, “I never want to do that again.”

His hand reached up and patted the top of his head. Logic told him that his scalp was there, just where it should be, but he wanted to confirm that fact.

Okay. My head is all in one piece. And damn, every time I wake up back here, I forget how much it hurts to do anything.

Adrenaline coursed through him. He broke out in a sweat. His heart pounded as if he had run up three flights of stairs.

He took a deep, cleansing breath and threw back the comforter. Pain wracked his body, from his surgically repaired shoulder to the wound in his leg that would take several more years to fully heal.

I hope this will be the last time through this life. It’s going to take a little more getting used to this time—it’s been so long since I’ve been here. At least I never got addicted to having all the luxuries of what is now the future, so I won’t miss cell phones, GPS systems, and computers. I knew I was going to feel this crappy, but knowing it and actually feeling it are two different damn things.

He heard the toilet flush and his grandfather emerged from the bathroom.

Hello, Gramps. So good to see you.

Unexpectedly, he felt his throat tighten and tears spring to his eyes.

It’s been so long. I know you said you were ready to die, but I sure do miss you when you leave. Gotta remember that for you, Gram just died. You’re devastated, of course.

Scott gently swung his feet of the couch and sat up.

“Glad you got some sleep. I know you needed it,” Earl said as he eased into his chair. “Cheryl’s working on some dinner for us.”

And just like that, here I am once again.

A moment of panic filled him.

Wait. Can I remember everything?

There was a momentary void where all his memories about his studies had been. Then, the first page of his notes appeared in his mind and everything was there.

I made it. I’ve got everything I need. It took a lifetime to get here, but now I can get started.

SCOTT HAD METICULOUSLY planned for what he would do when he woke up again in this life. But he had dreamed it so often that actually living this life again felt slightly surreal.

The first eighteen months played out almost exactly as it had the last time through. He asked Earl to help him build a place to do his rehabilitation and spent many happy hours in the basement with his grandfather. Scott listened to him whistle tunelessly and tell him the same stories he had before. He didn’t mind hearing them a second time at all. Getting to spend more time with Gramps was a gift, and he recognized it as such.

Scott had a lot of other preparations to make in order to be ready. He knew he would want weapons with him as he went about his newfound vocation, but he wanted to avoid guns if at all possible. Guns were loud. No silencer ever worked like it did in television and movies. Plus, they left more information behind than he was comfortable with. He wanted to be as untraceable as he could be.

Finding a mail order supply house catalog for police departments, he ordered a collapsible steel baton. Small enough to easily be hidden on his body, but able to do serious damage when it was extended.

He also purchased a karambit, a weapon he had learned about in Vietnam. It was a short, curved knife with a finger ring on the end of the handle. That grip made it difficult for an opponent to dislodge the weapon during combat. Perfect for close combat, and potentially lethal.

The one question Scott couldn’t answer was, when faced with the opportunity, would he be able to actually do this thing? Could he kill someone even though they hadn’t committed the crime yet? Did he have enough faith in the way things had played out in his previous lives to actually put someone in a grave? He believed so, but he suspected that was something he wouldn’t actually know until he was faced with the decision.

In all his previous lives, he had burned his green canvas army jacket while he was rehabilitating himself—a way to forcibly separate his past. He chose not to do that this time, thinking that the jacket might allow him to blend in better in certain situations.

When his grandfather died once again, Scott knew his moment was almost at hand. While he waited for Cheryl to once again announce her engagement, he worked on getting into the best shape possible.

He bought a set of weights, set them up in Earl’s old workshop and spent several hours each day working on building up his muscles and improving his sense of balance. He also focused on his stamina. He started by walking a mile each time he went out, but by the time the wedding rolled around again in April, he was able to jog a few miles at a time.

He prepared Cheryl and Mike for the idea that he would be going on a walkabout when they returned from their honeymoon. They were once again planning the trip to Florida. The fact that their lives played out almost exactly the same, time after time, showed him how little impact he and his changing lives had on them.

Scott had taken the time to write down all the notes he had memorized. He knew they were hardwired into his brain by now, but it made it easier to sort through and plan when he could look at the specifics on the page.

For most of his previous life, he had known what his first mission was going to be.

Brock Allen Jenkins had murdered his wife and children in Waterville, Maine, on the 4 thof July, 1974. It had been a horrific crime that had made headlines around the country at the time. Jenkins had gone drinking with friends at a barbecue earlier that day. He had arrived home to find his wife Sylvia and their three children sitting in the front yard.