Authors from Everywhere! : Jack Parrish - Dark and Deadly visits us today!

Character Interview!

We welcome Jack Parrish today to our blog. Jack is the star of the Dark Retribution Quartet written by John Walker. We hope John wasn't upset that we invited Jack here today instead of him!

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My name is Jack Parrish. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because you’ll have heard about me on the TV news.

I’m wanted by the police for a string of murders. One I did commit – granted! – but the others I was set up for. The man I shot deserved to die. It doesn’t matter whether you believe me on this or not, but for what he did to those I loved, he needed to be killed.

You could say I’m one of life’s survivors. That’s how I view myself.

When my parents died as the result of a senseless car accident, on my ninth birthday, my life changed forever. I was in the back seat of the car when it happened and I never did find out exactly what caused the wreck. I was left without parents, a scar shaped like a horseshoe beneath my right cheekbone and suffering from amnesia for the following eighteen years.

As a young boy I was sent to live with Godparents. My godmother cared for me as if I had been her real son; but her alcoholic husband hated me from the start. Growing up around him was not fun.

In my teen years, I found an outlet for my anger and frustration at the local boxing club. Looking back, the club was like a gladiator academy, but it was through that sport that I made two great friends: Tony Morrow and Jake Callan. I grew up with Tony and we stuck by each other through many scrapes. It hit me hard the day I discovered his dead body. The police blamed me for Tony’s murder, too.

Death has prowled around me my entire life, sparing me, but taking everyone I’ve ever grown to care for: my parents, my twin daughters, my best friend, the woman I later fell in love with and intended to marry …

It’s one of the reasons I’m a loner now. I’m not totally alone; Jake Callan is the one man I still feel I can trust, but there’s no one else.

I could tell you where I live, but I won’t because the two cops I escaped from, the night they arrested me, have since made tracking me down a personal quest – especially after I left them both lying unconscious by the side of the road. I know they’ll never stop searching for me, but I also know that unless they are guided through a natural maze – they’ll never find me. I’ve become an expert at hiding in plain sight.

It’s enough to tell you that I have a safe place and a new identity that I acquired from a man I rescued from a mugging. He was severely beaten and in a bad way when I found him. I managed to drive him back to his isolated home, where he died soon after from head injuries. His tragic end became my way out: I took his identity and his home became my haven.

Now I have a German shepherd dog for company. I’ve become a misanthropist and a vigilante. The bitterness and anger that still burns inside me, I vent when I take my dog out with me onto the dark city streets as I hunt for criminals. Any that I find, I hit so hard they end up in hospital, beaten to within an inch of their miserable lives, and crippled so they never pose a threat to anyone again.

Right now, I’m in a period of calm … before the storm. I’ve been informed that everything that I was forced to endure in my life before this – was meant to be – to make me stronger, so that I can handle the worst of what is still to come. So now, during this interim, I prepare myself, both physically and mentally, for what I have been assured will be my own personal war.

It’s coming soon.

Something bad is coming my way.

Judge me as you will … but I know that I’m justified for the man I killed … and for those I still will.

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Dude - you are one series and dark guy! Talk about gritty!!! I have a few questions for you before I let you get back to your killing spree.

We all want to be different, so what is the one thing you wish your creator had done differently with you?

Would a peaceful life have been too much to ask for? These days, especially after everything that has happened, I try to be philosophical, but it’s a daily struggle. I’m torn by wishing that I had just been one of the multitudes of men who have passed through history quietly and without incident, while at the same time I have had to come to terms with the knowledge that it was all part of a larger plan. How I feel always relates back to those I have lost along the way. I was only nine-years-old when I lost my parents. From what I remember of them, they were both good people. If things had turned out different, I could have seen my daughters grow up and been there to help them achieve their individual goals and dreams, but that wasn’t meant to be. I know my marriage would have ended sooner or later, given the circumstances and the way Sarah was, but when I later became involved with Miriam Walsh – I knew she was special. I wished I could have had a life with her, but again that wasn’t meant to be. Tony Morrow was a great friend and I wish he could have found some peace in life.

I eventually found love again with Felicia Keller and I know I’ve been blessed to find another special person. I wish for a quiet, content life for us to share, but I don’t know what the future has in store and I know better than to tempt fate.

If you could have added something to the story, and your creator would have let you, what would that have been?

I would have some of Jake Callan’s quality for patience and logic. Rather than bulldozing my way through situations, I wish I could have planned things out better, in such a way that Miriam and Tony would have been safe. Frank Newham, the man I killed, wouldn’t have got to them first. My moves were second-guessed and it cost the lives of my friends. That’s also been hard to come to terms with.

Also, even though I pulled the trigger on Frank Newham, I still think he got off light for what he’d done. Remembering back to the night I executed him, I should have made him suffer first … I should have made him beg for their forgiveness.

What do you love best about yourself? What do you like least?

My strength is my greatest attribute, both in mind and body. Once I make up my mind that I’m going to do something, I always see it through no matter how long or hard the journey I have to take. The resolve I have has kept me from crumbling the way many weaker individuals would have done, and it’s enabled me to make a positive difference in previous years. In book 4 of the Quartet, you’ll find out exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of good men fell by the way-side in that situation. But if I wasn’t there, the outcome would have been a whole lot worse.

What do I like least about myself? That’s easy. I don’t like how strangers are nervous when I’m in their presence. It’s been useful sometimes, I have to admit. My life has been so turbulent that the violence has tainted me somehow. I’ve had to fight fire with fire. Jake and Felicia have both told me that I’m like a force of nature and I’m too intense for many people to handle. I know it’s true. Jake and I are polar-opposites in that respect. Jake is also a strong man. I sparred with him back in our boxing days and I know he can handle himself. But the difference between me and Jake is that he can pause long enough to calculate the options. He’s smart that way. I’m too emotive and I just react in the heat of the moment – often by brute force. I’m aware that others can sense it about me. Strangers sense the violence in me, along with the deep-rooted anger. When I look them in the eye they shudder. It’s as if they look at me and they can tell that my life hasn’t been good, that I’ve done bad things, and I have enemies who want me dead. Many will no doubt applaud what I’ve done … but they still wouldn’t want to be me.

What part of the book was the hardest for you and your creator to work through?

Losing those I cared about in such a terrible way. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think about them. I know I’ll see them again one day. I just have to endure whatever life still has in store for me first.

Now I know there are 4 books in this series, but do you think your creator will ever allow you to come back out? Has he talked to you about that at all? If he did - what would you want to see in that next book?

We talk often, but it’s a case of whatever will be – will be. If history has taught me anything, it’s that I’m targeted indirectly; the attacks come via those I’m closest to and care most about. If anything happens to them, or another bad situation occurs, then I’ll step up and do what I do best. If I have to die to keep them safe – so be it!

What I would like to see is closure, so that I would be able to live without having to look back over my shoulder the whole time. But I know that’s never going to be possible. Like I’ve already said: I have enemies who won’t stop until I’m dead and one in particular … the one who instigates it all … he’ll be hunting me right till the end. Believe me when I tell you this … you better pray you never meet him.

Jack - I appreciate you taking the time out of your hectic schedule and coming to visit us! I hope readers here today want to learn more about you and more about your creator, John Walker. I'm going to leave our readers with this information so they can come find you guys, just do me a favor and don't kill them!

To purchase books from the Dark Retribution Quartet: