Chaingang

“The man, a known sexual degenerate, began abusing the boy, who was forced to eat and drink from a dog dish, which was also kept under the bed.” The atmosphere in the room had grown extremely oppressive. The correctional guards had become more apprehensive as the doctor spoke, and some of them could imagine body odor smells in the small observation room. Coughs sounded loud as gunshots. There was more movement as the men and women grew tired of standing, and the brown steel and beige concrete, compliments of that uninspired interior decorator—the federal prison system—was becoming increasingly threatening.

“A little dog was also tied there with the child, and the animal became the boy's only friend. As with the boy, whose name was Daniel, the dog was beaten and kicked when it made noise, and so both of these poor creatures learned to be obedient together. The punishment that was meant as humiliation, presumably, was a godsend. The child and the dog helped one another survive.” The doctor had little need of notes. The occupant of Cell Ten had been his pet project for a long time, and he knew the man's history as he knew his own.

“One day when the child and his companion had been locked in the dark punishment closet, the boy could hear a fight—not unusual in this home. The man, whom the boy thought of as “The Snakeman” because of tattoos that he had, was giving the woman one of her frequent beatings.

“The man threatened to throw the dog out the window of the apartment house they were living in, and perhaps the boy as well. He said he was getting rid of the dog and the boy, and the boy heard him and believed him.

“The child snuck down into the basement of the building, where he had once seen acid stored, found the bottle—which proved to be hydrochloric acid—and poured it into the eyes of the man while he slept.

“The child is now nine years old, and once again he is institutionalized. He becomes the target for more abuse in the reform school—a natural victim, one might say. There are older boys, one bully in particular, who continue to make his life a nightmare.

“The child grows taller, bigger, stronger—and at age twelve he has the appearance of a full-grown man. He kills his tormentor, and that is the point where young Daniel Bunkowski is seriously imprisoned. There are two more killings in prison. He escapes. He runs loose—killing at random. Killing for pleasure. He becomes the worst serial killer in American history. Growing bigger and stronger all the time. When he was captured in the sixties, he'd become a giant, huge—over four hundred pounds and nearly six feet eight inches tall. He had the beer belly of a power lifter who has gone to fat, but with legs like cannon barrels.

“At age eighteen he weighed four hundred and fifteen pounds, had a twenty-two-inch neck, and wore a custom-made size 15EEEEE shoe. By that time he was also perhaps the most accomplished killer alive.

“From the time of his earliest reform school incarceration, he'd devoted himself to mastering countless martial techniques, learning all he could about small arms and demolition, toxicology, man-trapping, camouflage—virtually anything that related to what he considered to be ‘the killing arts.'

“He was also a genius. His raw intelligence was such that it could not be accurately tested. His intelligence quotient was so high, it went off every chart—warped every graph. He was technically brilliant beyond measure.

“But his mind did not function in any previously observed manner. He was worse than an animal in some ways, superhuman in others. Clearly he was presentient. He'd developed the ability to sense impending danger. It is his greatest survival instinct. I contended then, as I do now, that he is that rare form of human being called a ‘physical precognate.'

“I came across his case history because the government was looking for individuals who would be emotionally, as well as physically and mentally, suited to be trained for special work in the military—hazardous work involving sanctioned assassinations. We were at war in Southeast Asia at the time, and the work was of a most sensitive nature. To put it simply, the government wanted expendable killers. As distasteful as such a program was, it was necessary for our country's prosecution of the war effort.

“Daniel epitomized the sought-after profile: a proclivity for and incredible proficiency in killing, in tandem with prodigious raw intellect. His hatred for human beings was—and is—absolute. He had a built-in survival system that could withstand blast furnace heat, long periods of claustrophobic isolation, or whatever hardships might inflict themselves. On top of all this he had a defensive mechanism that forewarned him of danger. He was the ultimate killing unit.