by J. D. Martin
Taking her hand, they walked together along the sidewalk with the setting sun painting the sky orange and pink. The romantic nature of the colors was like the gods blessing their union. There could only be one thing that would end this night with perfection. He’d been thinking about it for a while, and tonight felt like the perfect time to take the plunge.
He opened the gate to her front yard and prepared to wish her goodnight, but he paused as he searched for courage. Usually he’d get a small peck on the cheek before she went inside, but tonight felt like it was time for more. It was an experience he’d yet to experience with anyone, and his nerves started to get the better of him.
As if she could read his mind, Shana didn’t immediately lean in to kiss his cheek like usual. Instead, she played with her house key and told him how much funs she’d had tonight. She stared at the keys as she fidgeted with them and bit her lip as she waited.
In that moment, Shana was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Courage swept over him like a wave as he admired her and he threw caution to the wind. Placing his hand on the small of her back, he stepped in closer to her. As her gaze rose up to meet his, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. As her eyes penetrated into his soul, he seized the moment and pressed his lips to hers. With the explosion of flavor from her cherry lip gloss, they each experienced their first real kiss.
Two blocks from home, the boy was still smiling ear-to-ear after leaving Shana. A first kiss was a landmark occasion every youth experienced, and tonight had been his turn. It was softer than he thought it would be. He’d been given plenty of kisses on the cheek and given in return, but it was a different feeling when it happened with another pair of lips. He was on cloud nine with the greatest night of his life.
Rounding the corner, he saw an empty police car parked in front of his apartment building. He wondered what could be going on, but shrugged it off as he entered the lobby. As he was on his way towards one of the elevators, he heard the lady at the front desk say his name. Next to her was the police officer that probably belonged to the car outside.
“Son,” said the officer as he walked over to join him, “I’m going to need you to come with me.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, something has…happened to your parents.”
Taken aback by the insinuation, the boy volleyed a barrage of questions at the officer as he was escorted to the squad car. “I don’t have all the information, son. Once we get to the station, someone will be there that can tell you more.”
“But are the ok? What happened?”
The officer insisted he wait until the ‘someone’ he mentioned was there to speak to him. The ride felt like an eternity as he circled over all the possibilities that sprang into his head. They ranged from a traffic ticket that got out of hand to an abduction by aliens. The lack of details was excruciating, but there was a light in the tunnel when Rae greeted him at the station.
Rae was a family friend that used to babysit him a lot when he was younger. She was a friend of his parents mainly, but she had spent so much time in his life that she was like an adopted aunt. He was happy to see her, but the tears in her eyes filled him with dread. Along with a detective and an assigned social worker, Rae struggled to get the words past her lips as she told him the news about his parents.
While he was having his first kiss, they were being ripped from this world. What he thought to be the best night of his life had become the worst. The feeling in his legs escaped him and he wobbled before collapsing into Rae’s arms.
“That place was delicious,” said Erica. “We should go there all the time.” She looked at her husband tapping on the steering wheel with his thumb as the light allowed cross traffic to pass.
“You say that every time we eat there,” Douglas laughed. “They should just have a table for us on standby at all times as often as we’re there.”
“Hey, do you think they’d do that?” She looked at her husband with an incredibly wide smile. She was putting on a show for him, and he knew it. Their marriage was a collection of inside jokes, innuendos, and just plain goofiness. The way she always made him laugh was one of the things that made him fall in love with her. And if he didn’t love her already, he would be falling now with how radiant the orange of the setting sun made her look that evening.
Douglas leaned over to kiss her as they waited for the light to turn. She smiled as his moustache tickled her cheek. Pulling back, he started to say how much he loved her when Erica’s face filled with panic. As she screamed, he turned to see the person leaning in his window and the gun he held.
“Get out of the car,” the man said as he aimed the pistol at Douglas.
“I’m not giving you my car. I’m a city prosecutor and the best thing for you to do right now is to turn around and walk away.”
“Wrong answer.”
The bullet exploded through his temple, snapping his head to the side with such force that his body fell into Erica’s lap as she screamed. His blood covered the windshield, the dash, and her dress as more spilled out onto the floor around her feet. His death had been instantaneous and the terror she felt was brought to burn as the gun turned towards her.
The bullet sliced through her chest like a burning coal that melted the flesh in its path. As the man was about to pull their bodies from the vehicle, he heard shouts and noticed someone at a payphone calling the police. Spooked, the gunman ran off and left the couple to deal with the aftermath.
Erica choked on her own blood as she stared into the lifeless void that had been her husband seconds ago. Her eyes filled with tears as visions of the boy she left at home flashed through her mind. As unconsciousness swallowed her, a lone droplet slid off her eyelash and down her cheek.
“Mom, please don’t leave me,” the boy said as he held her hand. Paramedics had arrived in time to get her to a hospital. Doctors worked relentlessly to save her life, but after hours on the table, there was nothing else they could do. She was dying.
“I need you,” he said through sobs of despair. “Who’s going to watch over me when I’m sleeping?” He stroked her hand and buried his face in the side of her leg as he wept.
Erica held on for three days before succumbing to her injury. In all that time, the young boy never left her bedside. Despite what the surgeons had told him, he had waited expectantly for her to open her eyes. He needed her to wake up; to hear her voice tell him that everything was going to be ok. But she never woke, and her words never came.
The next few days were a blur as Rae took care of everything for him. In a foldout chair under a green canopy, he felt the freshly mown grass crunch through the soles of his wingtips. His suit which was bought only yesterday was tight on his shoulders as his hands rested in his lap. On either side of him was Rae and his Aunt Cheryl who’d come in from Arkansas after hearing about her brother and his wife. Coming from a small family, she was now his only living relative.
Standing near the pair of oak caskets, the priest spoke to the gathering of friends mourning Douglas and Erica’s passing, but the boy wasn’t listening. His eyes rested on their names that had been etched into the large gravestone along with the inscription ‘Beloved Mother & Father’.
As the ceremony ended, he placed a single tulip on each casket as he struggled to contain himself. Saying his goodbyes, he turned and left behind the two people that could no longer guide him through the labyrinth of life. He walked through the crowd of onlookers and noticed Shana waiting for him. She reached out her arm to draw him in, but he passed by without saying a word.
In the passing weeks, Cheryl made the preparations to move him to Arkansas with her, but he wouldn’t have it. During that time, his sixteenth birthday had come, and so she made a deal with him. As long as he stayed with Rae, she allowed him to emancipate himself so he could stay in the city where he’d grown up. But by the terms of his parents will, the estate would be governed by his aunt until he reached 21 years of age. The terms were agr
eeable, and so he moved in with Rae, but that wasn’t his only problem to overcome.
The police hadn’t found the man that murdered his parents. Their loss had drained him of his lust for life and left a gaping hole that he didn’t know how to fill. It also drained into his personal relationships as he gave up his ties of friendship to be left alone. Shana tried to be there for him, but he was too deep in sorrow to take notice or deal with anything else.
Reluctantly, she eventually moved on when she could no longer bear the cold shoulder. After waiting for him to open up for months, it tore her apart to leave him but that is what she had to do. Shana wished she could have done more for him, but she had reached a point that she couldn’t continue spending nights crying for the boy she loved. She could see the anguish he felt each time he looked at her and was reminded that they were dying while he was having his first kiss. He would always be her first love, but it was time for her to move on.
Things got worse when he learned that the police knew who was behind his parent’s deaths but weren’t doing anything about it. He didn’t care that the witness had recanted their stories about what they saw, nor did he want to hear about the rumor that it was because they’d been threatened. Without proof, there was nothing they could do about it, but all the boy heard was that Phillip Donner wasn’t going to be punished for his crimes.
Even with his priors for assault, the case dissolved without witness cooperation. And without the weapon for ballistics match to the murders, the investigation died with his parents. The boy spiraled further into his seclusion and began to show violent tendencies towards others. As this was going on, Rae searched for a way to help him snap back. It wasn’t until she found plans in the boy’s room of how he was going to set the world right that the idea came to her.
Initially she was appalled at the idea, but she’d been hurt by the loss of Erica and Douglas too. As she tried to reason with the boy, he actually won her over to his side, and that’s when the planning began. Rae taught the boy everything she had learned about laws, city regulations, and how to become invisible. He spent over a year learning tracking methods, biology, forensics and martial arts. He trained both his mind and his body to gain the knowledge and strength for what was to come.
As he learned all the concepts he would need, a philosophy of life began to form in his mind. There were many ways to punish the wicked, and his way was the swiftest of justice. He also came to realize that staying hidden meant not leaving traceable clues. Guns were loud and bullets could be traced through ballistics. A clumsy tool such as that was not right for what they were doing. They needed something more precise, and the boy chose a scalpel from his mother’s tools as a surgeon.
With this newfound philosophy came a mantra to keep his vision forward. It would steady his hand and mind to know that his actions were to balance the scales. He would tell the man who murdered his parents that his despicable actions were being returned in kind, and he found this in his father’s books of Latin. He recalled a phrase his father had used many times when telling his son why he’d become a lawyer. If you do nothing to make things better, you ally yourself with those causing the problem. He who is silent is taken to agree.
The day finally came on the two-year anniversary of his parent’s death. He knelt in the bushes in front of a house across town and heard the television blaring inside. He looked up at the stars as he steeled his courage before peering through the window at Phillip Donner washing down a burrito with a bottle of whiskey.
They boy bode his time well as he waited in the dark for the man inside to pass out. When he watched Phillip’s eyes close, he still waited. It was when the empty glass slipped from his fingers and bounced across the floor without waking him that the boy knew it was time. As Donner slept in the recliner, the boy picked the lock on the front door to gain entry.
Wearing latex gloves like his teacher taught him, he kept his fingerprints to himself as he entered the home. His heart began beating rapidly as the adrenaline seeped into his body while he stepped through the living room. It felt like his heart could jump out of his chest at any moment, but a few deep breaths kept him in control of his actions.
From the backpack he’d once used for school supplies, the boy pulled out a fresh roll of duct tape and secured sleeping beauty to his chair. The liquor had done a good job of keeping the man asleep as he did so, but it was time to wake the beast. The boy raised his hand and slapped him as hard as he could muster. The blow shook Phillip awake and he struggled against his binds when he tried to sit up.
“What the hell?” He looked down at the duct tape and shook with all his might before noticing the boy. “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in my house?!?”
“I assure you we’ve never met, but you knew my parents for a brief time. You see, you shot both of them two years ago today.”
“I didn’t shoot anybody you crazy fuck.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Donner…you know what, I don’t think we need to be formal, do you?”
“How do you know who I am?”
“Well, Phillip, you murdered my parents when they wouldn’t give you their car. Their names were Erica and Douglas.” Donner watched the boy intently as he was putting the pieces together. “The witnesses were ready to put you away, but once they received threats on their lives…” the boy trailed off as he saw recognition in his prisoner’s eyes. “Ah, so you do remember them, don’t you?”
“Yes…I mean no…look he should have just got out of the damn car; just like you need to get out of my damn house. Bad things happen to those who don’t do what they’re told, boy.”
“It’s strange making threats from the position you’re in. How could you possibly follow through with anything? I’ll tell you what, I’ll even give you an easy target.” The boy turned his back to him and placed his hands on his head. He waited a moment before slowly turning back around in mock shock that nothing happened.
“Oh, wait, you’re all tied up, aren’t you? Since your threats are meaningless, how about we keep having our conversation?”
“What do you want?”
“I think I’d rather show you.” The boy ripped open Phillip’s shirt before covering his mouth with duct tape as a precaution. Then, he cut into his flesh with his mother’s scalpel as the man squealed in pain through his gag. “R…E…U…S…,” the boy spelled out as he cut the letters into Donner’s chest.
He stood up and admired his work. “You know, it’s not bad for my first time. What do you think?” The boy waited for a second and then bonked his hand against his head. “Duh,” he said, “you can’t talk through the tape. Let me help you with that.” He pulled the tape from his mouth as it fought to hold onto Phillips skin, but it eventually released its grasp.
“Please, you don’t have to do this,” he begged.
“This mark shows that you’re among the guilty, and you will be dealt with as such. It shows that you will never hurt anyone else like you did my parents.”
As he stood there, he thought he should say something more. Making it all the way here to simply spill his blood and leave would make him no different than any other murderer. If he was to do this, he had to stand out from the rest. Remembering his father’s philosophy on life, he thought of his mission statement.
Stepping behind Phillip and placing the scalpel to his throat, he ignored the man’s begging as he whispered, “Qui tacet consentire videtur.”
As Phillip gargled with his own blood as it spilled out onto his chest, the boy ran out of the house as fast as his feet could carry him. He ran from the porch and down the street taking wild turns until he reached an abandoned field where his chest heaved to catch his breath.
Stripping down to his underwear, he tossed the clothes in a pile and pulled out new ones from his pack. After he’d dressed again, he sprayed the pile on the ground with lighter fluid and burned them. The flames took instantly to the fuel as the fabrics began to crackle.
He watched the embers float up from t
he disappearing evidence and realized how much he’d enjoyed righting the wrongs done by Phillip Donner. It wouldn’t bring back those that had died, but it was a step towards preventing it from happening again. It sparked an idea as the fire burned up the clothes and started to die. Why did he have to stop at just one?
With the skills he spent that last year honing, the boy decided to work both sides of justice. He joined the police force to carry on his father’s memory of upholding the law, but when the law came up short, he had other means to protect people. The emptiness he’d felt since the loss of his parents refilled with the lust for life that he’d thought gone forever. He had discovered his purpose.
Twelve years later, that boy was now a man clutching at his bleeding shoulder as he looked up at Detective Delgado putting all the pieces together. He stared at the blood on his hand and then back to the man lying on the ground. With confusion in his eyes, he asked, “Alex?”
Chapter 34
This revelation had Marcus dumbstruck as all the facts slid into place to form a path that led directly to me. The fact that the vigilante seemed to have access to so much information on his victims, it made sense that he would have access to the police database. Then the murders stopped on the night that Peter Davidson broke into my home and held me hostage. The clues had been in front of them the entire time, but the idea of a cop hadn’t occurred to him.
“Alex?” he asked still trying to come to grips with reality. As he looked down at the man he’d trusted, he became wrought with anger. “Alexander Saint?!? What the hell? It’s been you the whole fucking time?”
Pulling myself up to a seated position, I let my hood fall back and removed the face mask. When the ambient light reached my face, it revealed what the detective had already deduced. “Well,” I started as I unzipped my jacket ripped fabric from my shirt to tie around my bleeding arm. “I’m not really sure what to say here. After my parents died, their killer went free without any jail time. The short version is that it put me on the path to becoming the city’s vigilante.”