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Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: New York
Posts: 14
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Mark
Contains some violence
This is the first chapter/ministory of a series of stories involving mark and a few other characters. All comments welcome.
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Mark's footfalls were muffled by the snow as he raced along seventh street, chasing after the only visible taxi. He screamed for the driver to stop for him, but the taxi kept going, glowing red taillights fading into the distant night. “God dammit! I hate walking to Ricky's,” Mark muttered to himself as he stopped to catch his breath. When his breathing was back to normal Mark turned and headed south down the alley at a leisurely pace.
As he proceeded down the alley Mark was like a specter, seeming to float from shadow to shadow, visible for mere seconds before blending into the darkened corners. His black coat enveloped him, as though he had torn down a piece of the night sky and wrapped himself in darkness. The only evidence of his passing was the trail his coat made as it dragged along the snow covered ground.
The power in this part of the city had been turned off as the energy crisis continued, forcing the mayor to prioritize who received electricity. When the city's hydro-electric power plant was shut down for maintenance city officials were forced to ration energy. The first section of town to lose power was everything south of 6th avenue. Mostly closed warehouses, low-rent housing, and housing projects. The city had said that the power outage would be short-lived. After two months the residents south of 6th avenue decided to take matters into their own hands. They had started rioting over a week ago, when the first people started to freeze to death in their homes.
Mark neared the end of the alleyway and stopped. Slowly he crept forward with his back against an old warehouse and quickly glanced up and down the street. With no electricity it was hard for him to see but the road looked clear, the rioters moving deeper into the city in search of more expensive loot. The ground was littered with broken glass that crunched under Mark's feet as he dashed across the street to hide in the shadows created by a decrepit billboard. The wood of the sign was rotten and had fallen out in large chunks, creating a checkerboard of shadows upon the moonlit snow.
Mark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, something didn't feel right. The street was deserted, the only sounds that of the wind whistling through open windows and rattling the shattered glass. Reaching behind his back Mark quickly checked the placement of his weapons. Two 9mm Beretta pistols were strapped to his lower back, held in place with a leather holster that wrapped itself around his midsection underneath his shirt. The guns felt like ice against his back, sending shivers along his spine.
Mark was disdainful of guns, he felt they were too easy, the weapon of lazy men. But at this point they were necessary, only a fool would try to run across town during a riot without some sort of protection. While Mark had been in plenty of bar brawls and knew he could handle himself in a fist-fight, he wasn't foolish enough to think his opponents would be unarmed.
A womans shrill scream ripped through the night, echoing off the broken glass windows and empty brick doorways, stopping Mark in his tracks. Looking down the street behind him he could see a group of men shuffling haphazardly down the street, carrying a large bundle on their shoulders. Mark faded deeper into the shadows, sliding away from the road until he had his back against a building. Again a womans terror filled scream split the silence, louder now as the group of men made their way down the road towards Mark's position.
Mark squatted down, drew one of his pistols from behind his back and made every effort to remain completely motionless. The bundle that Mark had seen the men carrying was the source of the horrible screams. They had bound her hands and feet with duct tape so she would be easier to manage and a piece of tape dangled from the side of her face where her gag had fallen out. The group stopped twenty yards from where Mark was crouched in the shadows and dropped the woman to the ground.
As Mark watched, the three men descended upon the woman with the ferocity of wild animals, they tore and ripped at her clothes until she lay naked and bound in the middle of the snow covered street. The woman's screams had turned into sobs as she realized that no help was coming, and she wailed uncontrollably until one of the men slapped her hard across the face. As the three men took off their coats Mark saw that all three were armed, their guns hidden by their bulging coats. The men stood in the moonlit road, looming over their helpless victim with grim smiles upon their faces.
Mark thought about helping the woman. The men didn't know that Mark was hiding, he had the element of surprise. They were armed but their guns were not within reach, and if Mark waited until they were involved with the woman they would have no time to respond. Mark knew he could get a shot at all three of them before they knew he was there, but he was not a man to make hasty decisions.
The three men however were not waiting around. They had picked the woman up and moved her listless form onto the hood of a nearby Volkswagen. Two of them now stood naked in front of her, their clothes laid out in small piles around the woman's whimpering form. The third man had crouched down and was whispering to the woman. Mark couldn't hear what he said but the woman once again burst into a fit of sobbing and writhed on the hood of the car.
From where he was Mark could see the black spiderweb patterned veins snaking out from their elbows and down their forearms. It was the same pattern that Mark saw on his arms when he stood naked in his bathroom. They were addicts, the heroin dulling their senses, allowing them to ignore the cold.
Mark crept towards the three men, staying in the shadows as much as possible, until he was close enough to hear their breathing. The men, occupied by the woman didn't notice Mark standing right behind them, and proceeded to cut the tape binding the womans legs together. Mark raised his Beretta and took aim at the man nearest to himself, flicking the safety off with his thumb, and froze.
From his previous hiding place Mark hadn't noticed the tattoo that the moonlight revealed on the mans shaved head. Near the nape of his neck the man had the tattoo of a bloody angel, its wings spreading out and circling along his collarbone where they met just below his Adams apple. It was the symbol of the “Fallen Angels” one of the roughest and most influential gangs in the city. The Fallen only recruit men that have served at least ten years in prison, mostly for assault. They controlled over ninety percent of the heroin market in the city, and were constantly competing for territory with Ricky and his dealers. Mark himself had never run into the Fallen, but he knew people who had, and all of them were dead.
As he was staring at the mans head Mark caught movement out of the corner of his eye and when he glanced downward he was startled to see the woman was staring directly at him. The three men were too preoccupied to notice that she had stopped whimpering, and was now staring over their heads straight at Mark. Her bright blue eyes were bloodshot and wet with tears. Her makeup was smeared across her face and mixed with blood from her nose and mouth where she had been slapped. Not wanting to speak and alert the men she captured Mark with her eyes, begging him to help her, to stop the men. Mark met her gaze calmly, his brown eyes so dark they appeared black, and mouthed, I'm sorry.
The woman's eyes froze as she read his lips and the last shred of hope left her mind. She opened her mouth to scream, to alert the men to Mark's presence and possibly make an attempt to escape. The only sound that came out of her mouth was a muffled scream as the man closest to Mark placed his hand over her mouth.
Mark dropped his hand to his side and slowly holstered the pistol as he turned away from the men and shuffled back into the shadows. There was nothing he could do, she was on her own, he wasn't crazy enough to make enemies with the Fallen.
Mark slowly made his way down the street, dodging from shadow to shadow until the screams of the woman faded into the silence of the night.
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