Well, in your 3rd full paragraph, you kind of broke what actors call 'the fourth wall' by admitting that Peyton is your protagonist. Now, this story seems different from the first time up- longer? I know you rewrote parts, and that does tend to make the story longer...

Hello, and Happy New Year!

This is a good chapter, with some nice insight into Peyton's character, especially with his conversation w/himself. My favorite line would have to be, "You get death threats about four times a day".

On a technical note, the dialouge (can it even be called that when it's with oneself?) was flawless. The part with Peyton taking the pills had a nice rhythm to the prose.

The first line had too many prepositional phrases. 'On the lock, on the door, etc'.

Again, good chapter--I'm actually sympathyzing with Peyton for some reason, at the same time I'm absolutely disgusted by him. :-)

~Bitter Irony

Ohh... I'm not logged in... does that mean I'm not me? And if I'm not me, then who am I? Do I even exist anymore?

Hey, thanks for splitting these chapters up, though I already read them... but if I ever reread it, I guess it'll be easier.

Well, I liked this chapter... you're good with the whole suspense thing, though it seems kind of far-fetched that if he was really going to kill him, he would have postponed it to let him 'get his affairs in order', giving him a chance to escape and whatnot, but whatever, I'm sure you've got a good plan for it...

Well, peace... and keep rockin'... or whatever it is you do...

Too bad you can't reply to this! HA!

Sorry I didn't get a review in sooner. For some reason, FP wouldn't let me long on for the past day and half.

You might want to streach Peyton's disbelief even more in the opening paragraphs.

"It’s my life!! I don’t need your permission to do what I want " This whole part would actually be stronger without the distracting italics.

Very interesting reaction on Peyton's part. And it's nice of Joey to leave him time to get his affairs in order...not that he has many affairs left, if he's been erased off the government databoards.

I'm not entirely buying Joey's reasons for killing Peyton. No matter how much you love your family, I don't think you'd completely ruin your life and conscience for them. I doubt I could live with myself after preforming murder, even a mercy killing of this sort.

~Bitter Irony

Nice balance of action and description in the opening paragraphs. You might want to throw a few more short sentences in with the long ones, though: it makes it a little easier to read.

Interesting how Joey is so cheerful about all this. He was particularily polite in the last chapter, too. Nice contrast with Peyton. :-)

Is Poppy the father's nickname, or a woman's first name? Whichever, it seems to have given Peyton a spark of conscience he isn't very comfortable with.

Whoops, it happened again: I got pulled into the story and missed all chances to comment. :-) I really like this Joey character. Peyton's detestable. Good job on both.

And of course I love the last line. I can't wait to find out details!

~Bitter Irony

I love your introduction. It really pulled me in, especially the first sentance and the paragraph that begins "There was nothing fateful..." It seemed a tiny bit preachy in the second paragraph, though: not so much the mention of the Bible, but because of the adverb "heartlessly".

~"Well, that’s for you, the reader[,] to decide"

~"The tale is an ironic parable" by this point, the interest rush sparked by the first sentence is wearing off. I found myself thinking "Okay, okay, I get to be the judge! Let's get strait to the story! I want to find out if this guy if a villin or hero!"

~"The man " If we can read his thoughts, we should be able to read his name

~It's interesting how he doesn't remember the girl's name, or even who she is, but he remembers that she said she didn't sleep on pillows. I like details like that. :-)

~Woah, I just rolled through a dozen paragraphs without pausing to comment! That's a good thing: your story's really pulled me in. Your writing style is fluid and easy to read, and you move excellently from one point of interest to another.

The part that jolted me out here was the bit about Vernon, where it's located and all, just in case you were wondering.

~Why does Werthin think of people's voices in music terms? Does he have a music background? It just seems like a somewhat out of place description, if Werthin doesn't normally think about such things.

~"In Vernon, you couldn’t trust anyone unless you had a gun bigger than they did." Nice. :-)

Really great chapter. I'll be moving on to the next one as soon as I'm able to.

~Bitter Irony

Good job splitting these up. MUCH MUCH easier to read at my leisure. Now get crackin on more!!

SWEET! When did you write this thing? This is right down my alley, caters to my taste in stories. I enjoy this in particular because I wrote a book about two brothers who became arch-enemies; one standing for law and the other for "immoral justice."

Anyhow, the suspense factor is great, and as usual, your grammar and your style are more or less flawless. I only have two complaints. The first is that you posted this all as one chapter -- it's so daunting to tackle, and I'd rather review each part individually. The second is related to content--I love the characterization and the dialogue (very realistic), but I don't like how panicky Peyton is. I mean, is he supposed to be a killer (he carries a gun occasionally, right?). It doesnt make sense that he's so out of control.

Otherwise, keep writing, i'm gonna keep reading.

I love good old family values...

It's getting more suspenseful than it was before, and I like the introduction, though I'm not sure whether that was there in Punisher as well... either way, I like your gritty, descriptive writing style. I hope you finish this soon.

Peace...