War Zone Origins: Revenge #1-2

It was a dreary night in the middle of May. The only sound to be heard was the splash made by a lifeless body falling into a puddle. A shadowy figure walked out of the nearby alley and leaned over the body, examining it for signs of life. The fallen man had lacerations on his torso, his shirt had been torn clean off and his eyes devoid of emotion. After a few kicks to the side with no reaction, the shadowy figure concluded the man was now dead. Now that he was certain he had killed him, he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and began writing on it.

“Everyone’s story must be told.” He mumbled to himself. He looked up into the dark sky, thinking to himself “This is only the beginning. Justice must be had.” Once he was finished writing the details of his encounter with the now-dead criminal, he shoved the paper back into his pocket and slowly disappeared into the night.

The light of dawn illuminated the sky, drying the puddles of the previous night. It was around that time that a shriek was heard. A woman had been taking her routine early morning walk when she noticed the corpse of a man lying near the street. Within minutes the cops had arrived and were examining the body.

“What happened here ma’am?” asked the officer.

“I was just jogging through the street like I always do…” she tailed off as tears flowed down her face, horrified at the site before her.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to continue you with your story. This is very important to us, and we must know everything you know about this” the officer persisted.

“I’m sorry, it’s just…I…can’t believe this. I know this man…but I was just on my way back and I saw this body laying here. That’s all I know officer, I swear!” the woman exclaimed before falling into a fit of hysteria once more.

The officer finished taking notes of her testimony, thanked her and headed back towards his car.“Can you believe this Mike?” asked the cop’s partner. “I’ve seen this guy dozens of times in prison. But he always gets out on good behavior. It’s tough to think anyone could bring him down…I mean this guy had to be a legit 6’5 250 lbs and I can tell you from personal experience that he’s no pushover. I didn’t see any stab or bullet wounds, so someone took this guy down barehanded.”

“It’s definitely out of the usual” Mike replied. “Take the car back to the station; I’ll meet up with you later. I’m going to inspect the body a bit more” he proclaimed. His partner nodded and left the scene. Mike had seen this man before as well. Eddie O’Neill was a criminal that many were familiar with. Mike had brought him into custody for a multitude of charges. Possession of narcotics, numerous assault charges, and he had once held up a gas station. He knew this man never should’ve been on the street is the first place. As he walked back over to the body, he noticed something on the wall near the body. At first he’d just assumed it was graffiti, but after another look, it certainly looked more like suspicious. Five simple words were all it was, and they read: One down, everyone to go.

@y2g: Strange short opening, but I am curious to see what happens next

Up above on a nearby rooftop the dark figure had been watching everything. It had taken hours for the woman to stumble upon the dead body of Mr. O’Neill, but he had remained patient upon the rooftop, laying back against an enlarged chimney. He calmly reread over and over again what he had written earlier as the time passed, making adjustments as he saw fit. When the woman had finally screamed for someone to help, he shoved the note in his pocket and began to observe the scene below, taking another sheet of paper off of his small notebook.

She was a beautiful girl, probably in her mid to late 20’s. He couldn’t tell for sure but she seemed to be about 5’4” and roughly 100-100 lbs. Her body was in a perfect hourglass shape and she had tied her long brown hair into a ponytail for her run. He recognized the brand of her short-shorts and tank top, which were only sold at one place in town a few blocks away. She had kept her phone in her left pocket, and dialed with her left hand as well. He wrote the word ‘lefty’ down. She had not yet begun to sweat, which probably meant that she had just started her run, so most likely she lived within about a mile of the area considering what type of shape she was in. He couldn’t tell the color of her eyes from the distance he was at but it made no difference. He had written down enough so that he would always remember if he ended up seeing her again.

He had seen the cops first arrive about five minutes later and this is what he had been waiting for. He was anxious to see exactly what he was up against. Not only that, but this was ahis chance to judge cops and deem them worthy or not. He began focusing on the cars arriving below.

“Three…four…” he counted to himself the cop cars at the scene.

“Six…Seven…”

They stopped arriving after that, and he recorded the numbers on each car present. When they had first arrived it had been pandemonium. The cops were scrambling everywhere looking for evidence and taping up the area. The street was crowded with what seemed like hundreds of citizens gathered around the taped boundary trying to figure out what he happened.

He had remained unseen to the public, but this wasn’t a difficult task. He continued to observe the cops looking for anything of value, but there was nothing.

“Fools. They won’t find anything. At least not anything I don’t want them to” he thought to himself.

He was hoping someone would find the message he had placed on the wall near his victim, and finally someone did. The cop was immediately recognizable. Officer Michael Granville, the man who had once stopped the kidnapping of the Mayor’s daughter, and had been a local celebrity ever since.

He had arrived late with his partner, but the partner had left within twenty minutes. After that the number of cops decreased gradually and the body had been taken away. Within two hours, only a few remained, one of them Granville.

“Officer Granville, there really isn’t anything left to see here” said one of the few officers remaining.

“Maybe not to you, but my job isn’t finished until I catch the bastard who did this. I’ll find something. I know I will.” Granville responded.

“If you say so Sir. I’m going to take the rest of the guys back to the station. I’ll leave one of the cars here for you.” the Officer said as he tossed the keys to Granville.

“Thanks.”

And with that the rest of the Officers left. It was still light out, but it had now been three hours since his arrival at the scene and he was still baffled at who could’ve killed Eddie O’Neill. However, Granville continued to observe everything about the scene. He went through everything dozens of times, before coming back to the message on the wall.

“This son of a bitch hasn’t left a trace.” He said aloud in frustration. “The only thing here is that damn message and by the sound of it, this guy isn’t anywhere near done.”

It was beginning to get dark. Granville took a few samples he collected near the body and started heading over to his car. Once he reached the car, he paused. He took a few seconds to look at the sky, and thought to himself “This is only going to get worse.”

He then heard a familiar yet annoying sound; it was the ring of cell phone. He opened the door to the car and picked it up. “Officer Granville speaking.”

“Hey it’s Randall, your partner. We need you down at the station right away.”

“What for?”

“Peters did it again. He won Sheath’s case and now he’s free to walk. It’s unbelievable man. Peters can’t lose in court and now a guy who committed double homicide is back on the streets. This is getting way out of hand, he has to be paying witnesses off or something.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! I’ll be right there.” Granville hung up the phone enraged at what was happening.

Bradley Peters was the only big time lawyer in the city, and he seemed to have an agenda against humanity. He took the worst cases possible and defended the scummiest of the cities law-breakers. Not only that, but the more damage done, the less he charged for his services. Whenever his cases got to court he’d manage to get a key piece of evidence thrown out and tarnish a cop’s name in the process.

The force had been nearly depleted of all of its best cops in the past two years due to Peters’ acquisitions against so many of them. Only a handful of those in the force had been around longer than five years and even then it seemed that they were fortunate they had that many left.

The figure above saw Granville about to leave and quickly reached into his pocket. He grabbed the crumpled up notes he had written earlier and threw it over the edge near Granville’s car.

Granville was just easing off the brakes when the piece of paper caught his eye and landed right on the car’s front hood. He stopped, and got out to retrieve it. He opened it up and read it aloud to himself. To his horror it was exactly what had happened to O’Neill and how it had been done, down to the last detail, including times. Bewildered he looked up at the rooftop above, but no one was there.