The Graves

  A crossbow had been left behind and there were four arrows on the victim’s body, which had being killed by a chilly stream that had defrosted overnight. The body had been found far from any settlement and, although chief Jones and her officers scouted the area for several days, they didn’t find anything else referring to the murderer. Somehow, he had dropped the murder weapon but nothing else. The people in the lab found nothing on the handle of the crossbow either, which was a recent design, almost custom made. That would maybe be useful to find the manufacturer and, from there, the buyer.

 Jennifer jones had been the chief of police for only two years and this was her first big job. Working on an almost desolate county, most of her days she spent her time dealing with disputes over land and maybe a drunk driver. She had been in the force for fifty years and she had always thought the future might hold something brighter for her but that wasn’t the case. She lived only with her teenage son as her husband had been killed in the war a few years ago. Jennifer thought she had been promoted because of whom her husband had been but that didn’t matter anymore. The people of the county liked her and she knew them all.

 She supervised the work of Doctor Pike, the medical examiner who had to be very careful not to damage the victim’s body when extracting the arrows from his body. The dead man was kind of young, but something felt off about him. Maybe he was older… The doctor removed the arrows successfully and put them on a small tray on one side to check them later. Then, he asked Jennifer to help him. She often did as he had no assistants and it was a work that had to be done as a team. So the chief of police help him undress the body. It was then that she realized what was wrong with the body. On her shirt, some stains let her know that the body was wearing makeup.

 Then, Doctor Pike removed the clothes, both the shirt and the pants, and confirmed that the body appeared to be the one of a female. But Jennifer, seeing how he washed the body, thought the girl’s breasts were really small and then she had an idea. She left Doctor Pike for a moment, leaving for her office to call the medical center. It wasn’t a big hospital but it was the biggest one of the county. Then, she called every single hospital near town, even if outside her jurisdiction and went back to Pike’s morgue by night.

 The doctor confirmed what she already knew: the body was from a transgender person. She had been a female but had undergone treatment to change into a male. The breasts and muscular development were proof of that. Jennifer had called every single hospital to ask if someone had gone hormone treatment recently or if they had any sex change surgery scheduled for the coming months. And they did, all of that, but it was a list of at least twenty names, which had surprised her.

 This was a very remote part of the country and people were not very welcome of differences. Maybe that had been the reason for the assassination of this young girl. Or boy… She was con fused because this had never happened before and she had never known anyone like this victim. She left the doctor to finish his job and decided to go back home. On her way there, she stared from the patrol, looking at everyone’s face, just wondering if she had ever known someone else like the girl in the morgue. She couldn’t stop thinking of how hard it must have been for her and what hardships she must have undergone to end up where she now was.

 When Jennifer entered her house, her son Thomas was cooking dinner. For a sixteen-year-old boy, he was very resourceful and always started making dinner, especially when he noticed Jennifer was going to be late. Tonight, he had made pasta with meatballs and a very rich sauce. Jennifer kissed her son on his forehead and hugged him. They were very close and always tried to spent time together but that was hard because of her job. He had learned to cope with it and never condemned her for it but always supported her, even making small lunches for her to take to work.

 She had already discussed with him that she would do the impossible for him. The woman knew her son loved to cook so she had already started saving to put him in the best cooking school she could afford. Jennifer had gone online often to gather a lot of information about schools, costs, what he would learn and so on and would then email it to him to see what he thought of it. He was very eager to do all of it but he been very clear he would be miserable leaving her alone.

As she waited for dinner at the table, she remembered the young woman at the morgue and wondered if she also had a family to worry about her. Was she alone when she had been killed or was someone with her and then escaped the assailant? Nothing pointed to another person ever being there but it was comforting to think someone would have been there. Thinking of death was now common for Jennifer but she found the concept of dying alone much more frightening than anything else.

 Thomas came with two plates and she served some orange juice they had left. She realized she had to go to the supermarket, probably the next weekend before there was nothing left to eat. She forgot all about her case and asked her son for his day in school. He answered there had been nothing special as everyone was to busy talking about the person they had found by the stream, in the forest.

-       How do you know about that?

-       It’s true, then?

  Jennifer hated speaking about work on the house but, for the sake of trust, she decided to tell her son everything, including the fact that the victim was a transgender person. Thomas, surprisingly, knew a lot about the subject and corrected his mother when referring to the victim as a girl. He told her transgender people prefer to be called the gender that they feel they are and not the one that they have been born into. So he said she should start talking about him and not her. But Jennifer was confused and responded that in order to know who he was, she had to ask for a girl. Thomas conceded in that aspect and told her that he had read a lot about it online.

 The chief of police was very curious about why her son was reading about the subject but decided not to ask further questions and preferred to praise him on dinner, which always made him very proud. After dinner, they went to bed and realized she was still thinking about the girl, who she now had to think of as a boy, which lay dead in the morgue. What did he do to deserve two arrows to the heart and one of each leg? Was he escaping from someone or did he do something wrong to the wrong person?

 The next day, surprisingly, it all became quite clearer. Doctor Pike had confirmed the crossbow had been custom made as the arrows and the structure of it were made to properly kill wild animals, so whoever used it to kill the boy had also used it for hunting. They checked the places that would make that kind of weaponry and there was only one for the next two hundred miles. She visited the store and the clerk, an old silent man, showed her the books and the name of his client: Robert Graves.

 Somehow, Jennifer Jones knew that name or at least felt she did. It wasn’t the name of anyone in her county, she was sure of that. That man didn’t leave nearby but somehow she was sure she had seen or read the name recently and they she realized where that had been. She went back to her office and checked the list she had made with all the hospitals, of all the hormone treatment patients they had. Right enough, there was a Graves in the list, under the name Pamela.

 Chief Jones went to the hospital personally and asked for the file on Pamela Graves. Apparently she was seventeen years old and had come to the hospital accompanied by her mother. She had begun treatment six months ago and had been scheduled for another appointment the day she had been killed. And it all pointed to her father being the killer. The next stop for Jennifer was the police of the county where the Graves family lived. She joined them to raid the house and found the man dead, with a bullet in his head. He was there, sitting on the sofa as if he was still alive but he wasn’t.

Then, checking the house, Jennifer realized there was heavy breathing coming from the bathroom of the main room. She opened it by force and discovered who must have been Pamela’s mother and Robert’s wife. She was covered in blood and her eyes were almost out of their sockets. She kept mumbling “my daughter” and staring at her blood-covered hands.

 That night, Jennifer returned to Thomas and told him how much she loved him and how she wanted nothing more but happiness for him. He thought it was a bit strange but accepted her words and hugs.

The Shadow

   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.

Murderer

   I stepped in the boat and sat inside. It was not a big space and it all smell like fish but, given the circumstances, I didn’t thought I should say or do anything about those two things. Little things, might I add, compared to the situation at hand. Onboard came the man that had been pointing at me with his gun all along but then the other one, the one that seemed less likely to shoot at any given opportunity, told him to step out of there and let him do it. There was no one else that could help me and it was too dark too distinguish anything more than the water, the boat and the armed man that had stepped out and disappeared.

 The man I was with had turned the engine and we were traveling fast. The sea was calm and there seemed to be no fishing boats or ferries that could see us. It was almost as if it was meant to be that way and, of course for me, that wasn’t so good.

 After what seemed liked an hour of journey into the open sea, the man stopped the engine and looked straight at my eyes. It was unsettling, as he was one of those people with very bright eyes that make you feel uncomfortable when you look directly at them. I had always wondered if they knew they made people feel that uneasy.

-       Did you really do it?

 There it was. It had been obvious; from the moment they had kidnapped me in my home that he wanted to ask that question so bad. Right then, he seemed eager to know the truth behind all of this, probably the truth about why he was with me right in the middle of the ocean, where no one will ever hear us talk or say the most amazing of truths. I could almost tell he was sweating, the stains beneath his armpits growing, his upper lip trembling at my sight.

-       What is that I apparently did?

 The man snored a bit, smile and kind of laughing. He was nervous. It was so obvious: his hand trembled when he wiped off his sweat and his smile wasn’t the one of a man that feels safe or sure about anything anymore. Maybe, after all, the wrong man had stepped in the boat with me.

-       We were hired.

-       I assumed as much

-       You killed a family.

-       Yes.

 The man seemed to tremble once more, due to my “confession”. To be honest, I’ve never really hidden anything about what I’ve done. I’ve made my peace with it all, specially then, when I seemed so close to death. Why lie to him when he was obviously so eager to know the truth, so eager to think he knew or that he understood what his task was all about.

-       And you say it like that? So… So cool and casual? Are you crazy?

-     I’m not mentally unstable, although the fact that I’ve killed makes me very likely to have one of those fancy disorders every murderer seems to have these days.

-       How many more?

 I couldn’t contain a smirk when he asked this. Not only because I knew it would make him tremble again, but also because people were always like that, wanting the morbid little details of how I had done something or the other. It was so typical of every single person in the world to apparently feel disgusted and scared but deep down, been utterly interested in what I had to say about all the corpses I’ve created. They sometimes seem even more interested that I was when I did what I did.

-       I don’t know. I’d rather not count.

-       The people that hired told me you raped their…

-       No. That’s not true.

 The man appeared to want to leap over me but he contained himself. Apparently he thought that I was denying the truth and that made him even more frustrated and confused but the truth was, and still is, that I never raped anyone. I’ve heard the stories, on the news and so on. They said I was ruthless but then they began to say I raped people and that’s just incorrect. If I had any more feelings I would be hurt.

-       They said…

-       You trust too much on your clients. Never thought for a second they could be lying?

-       I talked with them and…

-     Oh yes, because people are incapable of lying when they hire a hitman. Is that what you are because you seem pretty bad at this?

 There. Shaking like a leaf. I know he’s scared of me, thinking I’m some kind of animal, a beast that has to be put down. But the fun thing is that he knows or feels he cannot contain me for long and, most curiously, he seems to think I’m not guilty of this all. Because, why else would he be asking all these questions? Then again, it might be only that he’s fucking scared and he’s just stalling, avoiding the killing.

-       Are you going to kill me anytime soon?

-       Shut up.

-       It was you who began the interrogation.

 The man seemed to be thinking. I bet he was trying to decide what to do next. Maybe he thought that I might be more valuable dead than alive. The police were looking for me, that’s for sure, and I had a reward sign on my head. Apparently he wasn’t as stupid as he looked, thinking of the best way to profit properly from this assignment. He could even surrender me to the police and collect the money all by himself, leaving the other idiot to mend for himself, thinking I was dead.

-       You killed many people.

-       I know.

-       And you don’t regret it?

-       No. Why should I?

-       You’re not sorry? Not even for one of those murders?

 I looked at him carefully, trying to decide what to say. There was something more in all of this, something that had eluded me from the start. The moment they had taken me from my home it had been all about the other guy, the tall one. He had threatened me, put a bag on my head, and pointed the gun straight to my heart. This guy I was with had only driven us to the dock and then had decided to kill me, at the very last minute. And then, it became clear.

-       Don’t tell me that I killed your wife or brother?

 The man went crazy when I said those words. He threw himself at me and started punching me all over: on the face, the chest, the stomach and the head. My hands were still tight behind my back so there wasn’t much I could do except moving violently, in order not only to drive him away but also to make the boat turn sideways to escape swimming. He couldn’t chase me through the ocean.

 But nothing of the sort happened. He just stopped beating the fuck outta me and decided to breath heavily, as far as he could from me. It hurt; I’m not going to say it didn’t. But there was no damage that he could do that would really hurt me. I was beyond all of that at that point. He could have stabbed me and I wouldn’t have cared at all. My lips were cracked, bleeding and all my body was numb from his punches but I wasn’t bad enough to look at him from my corners and smile.

-       Predictable.

-       Shut up…

-    You know, even if you do kill me, nothing is going to bring anyone back? It won’t happen.

-       Shut up!

-       The dead are done. Believe me, I know.

 Then, the guy pulled out the gun and pointed at me. He no longer trembled but he was still sweaty and his eyes were wide open, as if he wanted to be sure of what he was doing. I cleaned my face a bit from my blood without breaking the link between our eyes. Maybe he was going to kill me, maybe this was it for me but it didn’t matter. He was one more of my victims and that was enough for me. So I laughed.

 The bullet pierced right through my brain, coming out the other end and falling in the water. The man pushed my body to the water and left. He knew my body was going to be found and that everyone would know a murderer was now dead. And no one would be interested in knowing who killed me because I deserved it. But, in the end, I knew that just before the end he had been mine and that was all worth it.