The Roar of The Dauntless: The Beginning

by Dale Leavitt

  Jason scurries back to his car and takes off without anyone even noticing what happened. Passing by a Walgreens on his way home, he decides to go in and pick up a few things. As he was in line to pay for his items, he notices decks of playing cards and remembers the jack of hearts that was left by Carl’s body. He giggles to himself, grabs one pack to purchase, then grabs another and says why not grabs one more.

  Thinking in his mind if these situations are going to keep finding him, I am going to have a little fun. Laughing to himself, he remembers calling Carl a Jackass and then giggles under his breath. Once home, he pulls out all of the jack of hearts from each deck. On each of them, he writes jackass above and below each heart.

  Unsure about all of the emotions that are going through his head, Jason decides to go back out and walk the streets. Is he going out looking for trouble or just going out to see if trouble finds him? As Jason was walking down the street, he could not help but notice Tyrell on the other side of the road breaking up a minor fight between friends and still preaching. The situation looked to be in control, he smiles thinking to himself, now that’s a losing battle.

  As he continues down the sidewalk, Jason notices a family of four outside enjoying ice cream at the parlor. The ice cream parlor had a few tables just outside the door right on the sidewalk so customers could eat their ice cream outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. He is especially interested in this family as the couple's kids were of similar age to his children. As he is walking towards them, he starts to reminisce about the last time he took his kids out to get ice cream.

  It was less than a year ago, a weekend day where the whole family enjoyed a day at the beach. They were riding the ocean waves that day with a new boogie board purchased for the trip to the beach. Each of his kids enjoyed riding the waves individually by taking turns. It was a competition for them to see who could ride the wave the best.

  After a long day at the beach, the family walked just across the street to visit the ice cream parlor. Jason remembered what each kid got that day. Julia enjoyed a chocolate shake, Maggie had cookie dough ice cream, Ralph had a rocky road, and Christina had a mint chocolate chip.

  As he comes back to reality, he is about to pass the family when a bike rider is going very fast for being on a sidewalk with people everywhere nearly runs over Jason. He lightly hits Jason’s side but, this knocked the rider off balance enough to where he is heading right towards the table with the kid's backs to him. The dad of the family sees the rider coming just in time and pushes his whole family out of the way as the bike rider crashes into the table. Some choice words were directed towards the rider. Instead of apologizing to the family, he just grabs his bike, checks out the damage, then gets back on and rides off like nothing ever happened.

  Seeing this ignites a fire in Jason, flashbacks of his family came to mind, sharply piercing his sanity. As the rider took off slowly, he made a quick right down an alley. Jason knows this shortcut only goes one way and comes out on the side where he could cut the rider off if Jason turns around. Jason runs back to the other side and meets the rider halfway through the alley. As the bike rider tries to pass, Jason throws an arm out striking him in the chest and knocking him off. Once down, Jason gets on top of him in the full mount position.

  He does not hit him, but, grabs him by the hair and says

  “Look man; we all have been to a dark place during our lives. The day you stop caring about others, shall be the day others stop caring about you.”

  Jason asks “Are you hearing me?” The rider without words shakes his head up and down as to say yes.

  Jason slowly gets off of the rider, pulls him up by his shirt and says

  “Now go show the world that you have some compassion.”

  As the rider gets up, Jason turns his back to start walking away. The rider pulls a knife out of his pocket and plunges his blade into Jason’s back. As soon as he stuck Jason in the back, he started to run in the opposite direction.

  A foot chase ensues, and Jason caught up with him quickly. The rider tries to stick him again, but, Jason was prepared for the attempt, and he twists the rider's wrist until the knife drops. As soon as the blade fell, Jason follows with a deadly uppercut with his palm, knocking the rider's nose into his skull. This blow turned out to be fatal. Before Jason leaves, he reaches into his pocket and throws down a jack of hearts card next to the body.

  As Jason slowly struts away, heading in the direction of his home he glances back to look at the scene and to see if anyone had noticed him or what happened. Not seeing anyone, he puts his hand on his back where he was stabbed to see how bad it was. There was a little blood, and the wound looks like it will need some stitches. When he gets home; Jason gets the alcohol, dental floss, and needle ready to stitch the wound up himself, but, the wound is just out of his reach. The wound is in the lower right hand of his back; he will need some help. Jason texts Laura, as it is close to the end of her shift. She comes over after she finished work and to help stitch the wound.

  As Laura is stitching the wound, she asks

  “How did you get this, it looks like a knife wound?”

  Jason replies

  “I cut it at a friends house helping him move and did not realize how bad it was until I got home.”

  Laura looks puzzled

  “Is that the story you’re sticking with?”

  Jason replies

  “Yep.” then looks back and gives her a smile

  Laura warns Jason she is about to stick the needle in, and that it will hurt. Jason takes a deep breath but is surprised that it does not hurt as much as he initially thought. Luckily, the wound was on the fatty part of his back. We call them the love handles, or handlebars ;).

  Chapter 7. Giving Up On Humanity

  Even though the weekend has arrived and after spending another night with Laura, Jason still finds himself glued to the t.v. for all of the local news shows. With one news show on in the bedroom and a different show on in the living room, Laura finds herself roaming around the house viewing all of the pictures of Jason’s family. The pictures are still in the exact place they were when everyone was still here. Jason see’s her lurking around looking at everything, but, does not offer any explanations on the pictures like, who they are, where they were at, and so on. You could tell he feels uncomfortable with her being so nosy.

  As she works her way towards the hallway, Laura notices two doors with kids drawings on them and wanders over to take a closer look. As she was doing this, a segment on the news comes on stating police are looking for a person or persons involved in what they think are connected murders. They put a picture of each victim on the screen and then under their picture; they added the jack of hearts playing card left at the scene followed by the police are looking to hear from anyone that might have any information regarding the murders.

  As soon as the news segment ended, Jason’s blood pressure had risen after hearing how the police were pursuing him. He looks around the house trying to find Laura, the last place he saw her was in front of his kid's doors and notices the door was open. He jumps up immediately, calling out her name.

  “Laura where are you, he says?”

  He walks up to the room and see’s her inside, she was looking in Maggie’s journal. Seeing this enraged Jason, but, he did not act on his anger. He politely asked her if she could stay away from the kid's rooms and their belongings. Knowing that she had crossed a line that was not ready to be passed, she backed off slowly and apologized. After that, they both decided to go their separate ways for the day. Laura gave a kiss on the cheek, a little hug, grabbed her things and said she would call him later and then proceeded towards the door.

  Later on, that day, feeling like he needs a breath of fresh air, Jason decides to go for a walk in the city again. As he was walking down the street, Jason spots a familiar face. Tyrell, with a face full of life, was walking towards him. Tyrell remembers Jason and the two stop to talk to each other. Tyrell started telling him about an inci
dent, where he felt he needed to be involved. He was so proud of the outcome; he just had to share it with someone. Jason says that's great and I want to hear all about it. He offers to buy Tyrell soda inside of the nearby coffee shop so they can sit.

  After they had got their drinks, Tyrell says, man, I ran into a friend of mine that was arguing with a new kid in the area. I got between them to break up the fight and started asking questions about why they were arguing with each other. My friend Duane said that he and his two other friends were hanging out, doing some people watching, and having fun. All of a sudden this joker comes up and just starts talking shit with him. I asked him what his issue was and he said we looked at him the wrong way. One thing led to another, and they were fighting. Tyrell looks at Jason and says

  “Yeah, this all happened over someone looking at the other.”

  Jason replies

  “Yeah some people should not leave their house, and then laughs.”

  Anyways, I say to the new guy that Duane was my friend, and I know he did not mean any disrespect by looking your way. I asked the new guy his name, and he said it was Archie. He also stated his family just moved here. Tyrell welcomes him to the neighborhood, then introduces him to all his friends in hopes that this would alleviate any tension between them. It seemed to work, and Archie went on his way.

  Jason with a look of mesmerization of Tyrells morals, compassion, and commitment to peace. He gives the kid a high five and says keep up the good work. As the two were parting ways in the opposite direction, Jason yells out

  “You see, one man can make a difference.”

  Jason continues walking down the street, feeling encompassed by the chaos of big city life, when all of a sudden he hears two loud gunfire shots, coming from behind him followed by screams. He can tell it was pretty close and decides to duck behind a car while trying to see what happened. All Jason can see is a crowd of people starting to hover over an individual. He also notices a young man with a gun in his hand running from the scene in his direction.

  Jason hides behind a vehicle until the young man passes. Once the coast was clear, he ran back to see what had happened. As Jason got closer to the crowd, he started to see the ghostly remnants of a lifeless body laying on the sidewalk. Something inside him just gave him this feeling to go closer and to see who it was.

  inching closer ever so slowly, the face of the life lost was so unbelievable to Jason, that he had to turn away in disbelief.

  “Oh no, Oh no, Jason yells.”

  The body on the sidewalk was Tyrell, the beloved teenager, Jason just shared a drink. Once the shock of seeing Tyrell laying on the ground dead set in. Jason’s sights are now entirely focused on the kid he saw running away. Noticing one of Tyrell's friends in the crowd, Jason asked what happened and who the kid was that ran away with the gun in his hand. He said the guy just walked up like nothing was wrong shot twice and took off, I don’t know his name, all I do know is that he just moved here. No other words needed to be said, Jason knew who it was. It was Archie, the young man Tyrell helped get out of a fight and then introducing him to all his friends.

  Jason uncontrollably took off running in the direction he saw the shooter running. After an hour of searching, he gave up. The content in his eyes will not rest until he finds this kid. On his way back to the scene, the police and bystanders are still there. Apparently, the police have already ID’ed the suspect as he overhears one of the officers speaking with the suspects mother.

  She is pleading with them to spare Archie’s life. She says they just moved here to get him away from the street gangs in their old place of residence. You see, Archie had trouble getting along with others, always getting into fights, that kept escalating as he got older. We wanted him to have a better life. She begged, please don’t kill him, give him the chance to give up.

  Jason knows that the police are looking for Archie and that he does not know too many people in the area, so he would most likely be hiding out in an abandoned building or residence, not too far from the scene. Jason goes back to his house to get his car in hopes of covering more ground. He drives around the area spotting a few abandoned buildings just a couple of blocks away from the scene. After parking, Jason carefully plans his entrance into these buildings as he knows Archie has a gun. Peeking through the windows of the first building, Jason gets a clear view of everything and determines that Archie is not in there.

  The second building would prove more successful as he looks in the window and spots Archie on the far corner pacing back and forth, talking to himself. Knowing this would be a good time to go in and surprise him as he was preoccupied with himself.

  Slipping in a door behind Archie, he went undetected and was able to sneak up on him without incident. Jason immediately neutralized the threat by stripping the gun out of his hand and delivering a knockout punch to the chin. Once Archie came to, Jason was able to find out why he shot Tyrell.

  Archie claimed that Tyrell was trying to be all big and bad with him by breaking up the fight. Then he disrespected me by acting like he was my friend. As Archie was saying all this, Jason could tell that this kid was not fit to be in society. His way of thinking was something he had not encountered before. Deeming there was no way to speak reason with him, Jason explained the way he saw what happened.

  “Here’s the way I saw it, you notice someone looking at you, and don’t know how to handle that so you want to fight them. Then a good kid breaks it up and tries to make you a friend. You being the idiot you are, could not deal with this, so you did the only thing you know. Which is kill the one kid that tried to help you and that everyone looked up to, that's what happened, correct?” “By doing this, it will make everyone fear you in your mind, am I correct, he says?”

  Archie looks at him with a stupid look and Jason says “I have heard enough.”

  Before taking any action, Jason foresees that if he does anything to Archie that he will truly be a killer.The other two deaths were actually in self-defense. There will be no turning back if he unleashes his wrath. Staring at the ceiling for a brief second, he made up his mind. He looks at Archie one more time with a fierce glare.

  One shot in between the eyes, delivered by Jason’s powerful pistol. A well-deserved death sentence for this outcast of society. He drops another jack of hearts with the word Jackass on it, next to the body and then proceeds home with Tyrell's death, tearing at his heart.

  Chapter 8. Unlikely Ally

  Disgusted with everything that's happening around him, Jason decides to take more time off of work in hopes of being able to try to understand society a little better and the role he wants to play in it. When Jason had his family to take care of nothing else seemed to matter. Now that they are gone, life looks a whole lot different.

  That night on the local news channel, the media announced the death of the killer that ended young Tyrell’s life. Not only did the media praise Tyrell for the life he was leading, but, they diminished the character of his killer, Archie, painting him as a menace to society.

  As Jason's attention was on the t.v., they announce that the police have confirmed that the person responsible for Archie’s death is in fact also responsible for the death of two other men. After showing the other victims, the news anchor Cheryl Wilson, with a slight smile, announced the individual responsible as “THE JACKASS KILLER,” and then a commercial came on.

  In establishments and residences all over the city, the sound of hearing someone say the Jackass Killer brought a reserved smile to most of the faces watching, followed with a glimmer of hope. The young crowd could not help but praise whoever this Jackass Killer turns out to be. Not only laughing and joking about the name but, also, his choice of victims.

  With all of the talk about The Jackass Killer that went on through the night online, on the t.v., and in public, Mark Timbers, the lead detective in the case, is not very happy with the newfound celebrity status and decides to hold a press conference with the media on the following day.

  As
the media finishes setting up for the press conference, a police spokesperson Todd Mendenhall walks out to the podium and says thanks to everyone, for coming out tonight.

  “Todd states we have decided to hold this conference tonight to make everyone aware of a serial killer roaming our streets. This killer we speak of has been dubbed, The Jackass Killer. Detective Mark Timbers will now introduce you to this dangerous man that is currently walking our streets”.

  “Hello, all, as Todd has stated, we are here tonight to discuss a dangerous killer in our city. Here’s what we already know. Our first murder victim was Carl Smoltz, a local handyman.

  Initially, we thought this was a road rage incident, but, with the emergence of the jack of hearts card, we are unable to establish a motive. The second murder was Alejandro Pena, he was a bicyclist found in an alley, and we also have no reason for that incident, as of yet.

  Although, we do think these murders were premeditated because of the jackass statement that was written on the jack of hearts card, found next to each body. And lastly, the murder of Archie Carter. Archie who also was identified as the suspect in Tyrell Benson's assassination. We think the Jackass Killer was somehow connected to Tyrell. Whether he was a family member or friend, we do think he was there the day Tyrell was murdered.