Weapon of choice? Well, he never really
needed one. Every single job he was asked to do, he did it with his hands. He
had learned most martial arts techniques and many other ways to kill without
the use of weaponry. It was dangerous when he encountered armed victims, but
nothing that speed and wit couldn’t solve. People were always scared when he
appeared, apparently out of nowhere. He was practically and urban legend, the
silent assassin. His real name was Gideon.
But that name had been long forgotten, as he
was not that person anymore. Now, he only went by his nickname, Shadow. It
suited him, as every person that hired him knew of his skills and ability to
make anyone his victim. Not even the strongest or smartest had escaped. He
collected bounty for his work and disappeared, never working for the same
person more than once in a year. If he was to attract the attention of the
authorities, he had to keep his outings to a minimal.
The rest of the time, he just kept on training
and lead a quite life away from all the turmoil of the city. Thanks to his
grandparents, he owned a farm, which sold milk and other diary products to
local stores. In the farm, he lived only with the animals and no one else. He
had decided, long ago, that he didn’t want to endanger anyone else due to his
secret life. Besides, he had never felt a connection with anyone so pulling the
plug on romance and a relationship wasn’t all that difficult.
One night, the Shadow was hired to kill a
corrupt policeman hat had escaped justice for too long. The wife of a fellow
policeman had hired him for the job, as her husband lay in a bed in the
hospital, in a coma, due to the actions of his former partner. The Shadow
located him fast, in a warehouse, where he was supposed to receive payment for
his help from a criminal group. He wouldn’t be able to attack right there but
he would follow the subject quietly and then kill him away from all the fuss.
But that wasn’t possible. The moment the man
arrived at the warehouse, he was ambushed by many criminals and finally killed
by a shot on the head. The Shadow, seeing something was off, was about to leave
silently but then he realized the place had been sealed and then a hoarse voice
called at him. Knowing he had nowhere to go, the Shadow remained where he was
and asked the voice who had hired them.
Then, someone else appeared from behind two
thugs. It was the woman that had hired him to kill the man that was now lying
on the floor, his brain all over the place. The woman identified herself, and
her husband, as the head of a criminal organization. She had hired the Shadow
to capture him and not to kill anyone. He thought of his chances but knew he
wouldn’t be able to defeat so many men, without at least one pulling out a gun
and killing him. He asked then, what it was that she wanted.
The woman, called Helena, told him that he had
killed his son a year ago. He really didn’t need any more information than this
because he knew who it had been. A young man who he had been hired to kill
related to a rape. He proceeded to tell the woman about this but she refused to
listen, telling him the man who had hired him was dead, as well as his lying
daughter. The Shadow then asked her to kill him fast because he didn’t like to
chat without reasons to do so. But the woman kept telling him that she wanted
revenge, because her husband had been shot in pursuit of him, only a few weeks
ago.
Fed up with it, the Shadow decided to engage
the men. He was too fast for most of them, although a couple of bullets burned
his skin. He finally toppled down one of the men, took his gun and shot Helena
straight to the head. With the same gun he downed another couple of guys and,
as they regrouped, he broke a large window and escaped through there. He never
knew how but he made it back to his home, sleeping in the barn instead of the
house. If he had been followed, they look there first and he would notice.
But no one came. He woke up to the licking of
one of the cows and decided to cure himself in the bathroom. They were only
scratches so it was rapidly done. He decided to lay low for a couple of weeks
or more, in order not to attract attention and destroy both his lives. The
radio news informed about the incident in the warehouse and attributed it to a dispute
between criminal groups. They also informed of the detention of several
policemen and others related to the criminal gang.
The Shadow, who went by the name of Barney in
this town, decided to turn of the radio and instead work on his animals. He
spent all day grooming them, changing their spaces and giving them fresh new
food. He even had time to fix one of the milking machines that had not been
working correctly. He did that for the following months, never suiting up again
in order to take on a mission. He had enough money now and didn’t need to kill
anyone else to live decently until the day he died.
Anyway, Barney had other dreams. He wanted his
products to be sold all over the country and, honestly, he wanted a life of
peace. The incident in the warehouse made him realize that he couldn’t afford
putting his life at risk for reasons unknown anymore. It just wasn’t worth it.
So he put it all behind and, for a good year, he was at peace with himself and
the world. He hired new employees to help in his small factory and the business
grew better and wider, buying more cows and buying new equipment. It was all
going too good.
One night, after closing the factory, Barney
decided to go through the books and check his financial state. He did it every
week because it distracted him. The people working for him were well paid and
were all every honest and trustworthy but he just needed to be distracted by
something. Too often, before going to bed, he recalled all of those times he
had killed people. It was something awful to live with; even been convinced
that most of them deserved their deaths. The others were just victims and he
did know he was a murderer.
Then, after he had finished doing the numbers
and he recalled one more murder, he heard a knock downstairs, in the small
store he had put up. Maybe it was the wind but the knock sound grew louder and
it was obvious someone was there. He went downstairs but did not open, instead
going through the back to surprise his nighttime guest. He grabbed a shovel to
do so but was himself surprised when it was a young girl, who screamed like
crazy when he almost slammed the shovel on her head.
She started talking loud, like crazy, saying
many words in a single second. Barney lowered the shovel and tried to calm her
down, asking her why she was there. Asking her if there was some kind of
problem. She shook her head negatively and said she had come to speak to him.
Taking a look around, Barney invited her inside through the back door, to the
kitchen. He poured some tea on two cups and told her to speak freely.
The girl then told him her name was Florence.
She had been looking for him for the last couple of years. As she put it, she
was a clever girl and put it various clues together to get there, because she
knew Barney was actually the Shadow. Barney spilled some of the tea on him as
she said this. He automatically looked around, expecting people to come in from
everywhere but that did not happened. Florence then confessed that her father
had hired him two years ago, to kill her rapist.
The Shadow was shocked but then he remembered
the woman in the warehouse saying she had killed of that family. Florence
explained that the men had tampered with the gas supply in her home, so to
create an explosion. She was the only one in her family to notice the smell,
coming down the house and then coming out to check the gas register. She was
there when whole house exploded and she saw, before passing out, the men who
had killed her family.
The Shadow looked at her and understood
instantly. He told her that he wasn’t accepting any requests or jobs in the
meantime and that she should go and look for other family members to help her,
if that was what she needed.
But Florence was confused. She told Barney
that she had no need for help as her family money was on an account that she emptied
the day following the explosion. She had changed her name and, since the
tragedy, she had been looking for him only to thank him and to ask a small favor,
which had nothing to do with death or revenge.
The Shadow didn’t even ask. He only stared at
her and she started to cry in silence. Florence then said she had survived two
attacks on her life, out of pure luck. And now, she wanted to learn how to
defend herself. She wasn’t going to seek revenge but, if someone else did, she wanted
to be prepared. And who better to prepare her that the legendary Shadow?
He finished his tea and, without any word, he
left for his room when he tried to sleep but couldn’t. In the morning, he
realized Florence had not slept a minute, instead making breakfast. They didn’t
say a word, not until she followed him to the backside of the barn, where he
showed her a small space where he did a demonstration of his skills. There, the
first relationship he had had in years finally began.
