15 Signs Of Murder (Fifteen thrillers)

by Luis Samways

  The men remain in formation as the man’s fist turns into an open handed gesture. Within a few seconds the men open fire. The bullets ride up the police cruisers like a wisp of wind, sucking the air out of the engines. A clunking sound of metal is heard as a barrage of bullets penetrates each car. The oncoming police cars swerve and crash. Some crash into each other, others crash into the expensive shop windows, imploding the storefronts with an echoing smash. The men stop firing after twenty odd seconds. The police cars in front of them remain motionless as each one of them house dead police officers. The man at the front of the group turns around to his men and nods his head.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ he says underneath his face mask.

  Twenty Three

  Ray had fallen asleep on the floor. It had felt like days that he had been underground, but in reality he was only there for less than twelve hours so far. The smell of the sewage had made him nauseas so he thought that getting some sleep would be advisable. After around ten minutes of sleep he is awoken to the sound of distant gunfire. In New York he’s used to hearing some occasional gunfire but on this occasion the gunfire seemed prolonged. It didn’t sound like handguns going off, it sounded like a machine gun, maybe even two or three machine guns. It worried him thinking about such things. Could it be that the world above was ripping its self apart. Could people be looting already? He wondered when the army would be coming. They always seem to show up in the movies when something happens. When Godzilla took over Manhattan, they were there. He just hoped that they would be there real soon. Rescue him and the survivors. Defeat the beacons or whatever they are. He was preoccupying himself with worry after worry when he heard something close by. He opened his eyes to be met with the end of a knife pointed directly at his right eye, inches above it. He tried to focus and when he did he saw who was holding it.

  ‘Uh oh, look who’s woken up,’ says Mitch as he brandishes the knife above Ray’s eye.

  Ray swallows hard as he tries to remain calm.

  ‘Now listen here boy, you got something I want,’ he says, still holding the knife above Ray’s eye.

  ‘What?’ asks Ray while trying to not sound scared.

  ‘I want you gone, that’s what I want’

  ‘But…You said you were okay with me…’ says Ray

  Mitch extends his finger and puts it on Ray’s lips

  ‘Shut your mouth boy, you’ll wake David. No, I want you gone, I don’t want you around my girls, and I certainly don’t want you around me, you hear me boy?’

  Ray nods his head, there’s not much he can do with a knife pointing at his eye, one wrong move and he could be blind in a blink of it.

  ‘Now, I want you to pack your shit and fuck off, or I’m going to have to put you down’

  ‘Okay, okay, just don’t do anything rash,’ says Ray, trying to keep his voice down.

  Ray hears something and so does Mitch; before Mitch could fully turn around he is hit in the back of the head with a large swing of a fist. Mitch’s body hits the floor hard, half of him dangles on top of Ray, but Ray pushes Mitch off and shuffles up to his feet. He sees David look at him with welcoming eyes.

  ‘You okay Ray?’ asks David

  Ray just nods his head, dust falls off as he does so.

  ‘You sure?’

  Ray nods once again

  ‘Look man, I would just kick his ass out of here but he has those two girls, I just can’t kick two girls out and risk them blowing up on the surface,’ David says as he looks at the two girls sleep across from them

  ‘I understand, I’m going for a walk, I need to clear my head,’ says Ray

  ‘Don’t go disappearing on us, we need you…I need you. We need to stick together, I’ll take care of Mitch, I’m sure I can teach him a lesson in manners,’

  Ray nods his head and grabs his stuff.

  ‘Why you taking your bags?’

  ‘I’m not leaving my stuff here for that asshole to trash when he wakes up’

  ‘Leave them with me, I’ll look after them’

  ‘Nah, you’re alright. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere, just need to clear my head,’ Ray says as he walks down the sewer. The light from the oil drum fades as he escapes into the darkness.

  Twenty Four

  ‘Any news from 48th street?’ Asks Mr Conway

  Mrs Harriet brushes her hair to the side and smiles.

  ‘Yeah, they got the job done. The estimated death toll is three hundred. They got some serious gunfire in,’ says Mrs Harriet

  ‘Any kids?’

  ‘No, fortunately all the kids were in school so just adults’

  ‘Good, I may be a revolutionary but even I don’t agree with killing kids. They should not have to suffer for the mistakes of their parents’

  ‘I agree,’ says Mrs Harriet

  Mr Conway gets up from his seat and stretches his arms. His bulk is evident from a good few feet away. The sheer sight of the man invokes fear into everyone, including Mrs Harriet.

  He walks over to Mrs Harriet and spins the chair she is on around, to face him. He starts to stroke her face in a menacing way.

  ‘You did good Mrs Harriet, real good,’ he says

  She blushes, trying to hide the uncertainty she feels.

  ‘I appreciate your support sir’

  ‘Now about that disciplinary action…’ he says, still caressing her.

  ‘I thought you said there would be no action taken against me?’

  ‘Well, a lashing is what I consider disciplinary action, what I have planned for you is a lot more enjoyable and whole lot less painful, you could even say you would enjoy it’

  Mrs Harriet closes her eyes and composes herself, trying to fight off the urge to break this man’s fingers. She can’t fight back, she needs to pucker up and knuckle down. The country is depending on her.

  ‘As you wish,’ she says while undoing her blouse.

  Twenty Five

  DeShaun is sipping on another hot cup of coffee, this time in his own office. He’s working some files on his computer when a man comes bursting through the door. He’s a tall man, slender build, wearing an officer’s uniform. He salutes DeShaun and stands at attention. All this is making DeShaun feel uneasy, he doesn’t like being saluted, he isn’t in the army after all, but the army people salute all government officials, for it is the government these men and women fight for.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ DeShaun asks as he sips on his coffee some more

  The officer looks at him and shakes his head, trying to excrete some words out of his own mouth.

  ‘There has been an attack on 48th street, Manhattan sir’

  ‘What sort of an attack? Planes?’

  ‘No sir, a group of armed men dressed in body armour opened fire and killed two hundred and eighty seven people, including thirty two police officers’

  DeShaun gets up from his seat, feeling woozy at the sound of the news he is receiving.

  ‘You’re kidding me?...What about the combusting people? Why are parts of New York untouched by this virus?’

  ‘I don’t know sir, but reports are coming in that after the attack, the Manhattan area is now experiencing the same viral symptoms that Brooklyn is experiencing’

  ‘So these armed men could be linked with this virus?’

  ‘It looks that way sir, there’s one more thing,’ says the officer

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Mayor is missing’

  Twenty Six

  Ray has been walking through the sewer system now for an hour. He’s walked past the ladder he climbed down yesterday and now finds himself exploring the depths of the sewer. Its dark and cold down there, a feeling that he has grown accustom to since all this has gone down. He feels as if his life is near its end. A life that maybe he didn’t live to its fullest. He hasn’t always been happy; hell he has never been happy. He was all too consumed with the mundane details of life to enjoy the true great things in it. His work had been his hobby. His money had been his l
ove. He never had a serious relationship. Many women would run for the hills after realising what type of man he is. A man that consumes himself with work ethic and drive. A man who doesn’t really see a women for more than a night’s work, and a lifetime’s burden. He nearly found the right girl back a few years ago, it turned into more than a one night thing but unfortunately his work got in the way again.

  Now he finds himself wondering those same things, is his survival getting in the way of what is really happening? Should he be concentrating on the mysteries of this strange time he is living in? That’s why he brought his laptop down with him in the first place. Maybe it’s time he starts to make something of himself. He gathers that there are many capable people up above that could be doing the same thing he is doing. Wandering what is causing this. He’s sure that there are people who are being assigned jobs in finding out what is happening up there. He can be pretty sure that the government its self is trying to figure out who is behind all this, surly it’s their jobs to find out why people are self-combusting everywhere, and why flashing lights are causing these combustions.

  Maybe it’s the government who is behind this. Maybe that’s why he heard gunshots earlier on, maybe the National Guard did show up, but they decided to finish off what they couldn’t finish with the beacons alone. Either way, Ray finds himself lost in more conspiracies. He’s used to thinking the worst, but for the first time in his life he finds himself living in the worst, living in every thinker’s worst nightmare. A world where power has overtaken and technology is obviously at fault. How else can he be safe underground? How else can these beacons not touch him under a hundred feet of concrete? It must be satellites, or a virus that hasn’t made its way underground, but surly if it was a virus then him and the people who were once up top, but now find themselves underground would have spread the viral pathogen around by now.

  Ray looks down at his wrist. The once flashing light is not flashing anymore. The flashing had stopped for the time he had been underground, so a virus is out of the question. He’s safe underground, and if this thing was air born, he wouldn’t be safe, consider the amount of open grates and sewage pipes would have let the virus in by now, his wrist would be flashing, and he would have exploded.

  The further he walks the more light he can see. It’s evident to him that he can see the maintenance area for the metro from here. It seems that New York’s underground tunnels of sewage and train tracks come quite close to each other. He already knew that anyway, it doesn’t take an historian to know that New York’s underground is just as congested as New York’s over ground’s skyscrapers and roads.

  After a few more minutes of walking he decides to make his way down one of the service hatches towards the metro. He is greeted with some lighting, as the train tracks remain silent with a distant echo of wind. The sight of the empty rows of tracks sends a shiver down his spine. He can see the dust in the air, a monument of the trains that not too long ago would rush down these parts at a hundred miles an hour. Some of them going to Brooklyn, others to Manhattan, all them going somewhere, now none of them going anywhere. He carries on walking straight down the tracks; he spots a faint light approaching. It startles him as he feels the tracks below his feet rumble. Could it be that his theory on the trains not running anymore be wrong? He stops dead in the center of the track and kneels down. He puts his dirty hand on the copper track and feels the vibrations. With every second passing he feels the vibrations grow stronger. The light that was once far away is now edging even closer to him, then the sound kicks in, a sound that Ray will never likely forget. It’s the sound of a speeding train accompanied by screams of terror. He quickly jumps off the track and rolls into a dirt ditch. The ditch is dirty with a distinct smell of wet concrete. He looks up and spots scaffolding. He realises where he is. They recently announced they were extending the underground rail network, he must be clamouring for his life in a workman’s pit. He can hear the train approach as he makes his way up to catch a glimpse of it pass by. Within seconds he sees the train pass just above him as he hugs the dirt. What surprises him isn’t the fact that the train is there at all; it’s the fact that the cabins passing him are on fire, each one of them ablaze with a tremendous heat. He can see the windows of the cabin and inside are terrorized faces of men and women screaming in pain. They smack their hands against the window as the train speeds by. The sheer heat of the train makes Ray burst out in a sweat. He can see imprints of blood on the train’s windows. Within seconds of the train reaching him, it had disappeared down the way he came, screeching in terror, on fire, while leaving a thick dense cloud of dust behind.

  Tiny sparks ignite in the air as he looks up at where the train had passed. He quickly gets up and climbs out of the ditch. He turns back to see the blazing train race down the tracks. He watches it disappear into the darkness. The screams fade away but the smell of burning metal and seared flesh remain stagnant in the air. Ray turns around and is met with a startling scene. A woman is making her way down the tracks towards him; she is dragging a man with her. Ray rubs his eyes, not sure of what he is seeing. He then realises what he is seeing is real. He rushes over to the struggling woman and helps her with the man. He immediately notices the injured man has been shot, and then realises the man is wearing a police man’s uniform.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks the tiered looking woman

  ‘I found him on a stairwell next to the metro entrance on 50th’

  ‘He’s been shot, it looks bad,’ says Ray out of breath

  ‘Yeah, I know, I’m an intern’

  ‘A doctor?’ asks Ray

  ‘Yeah, well sort of, I’m Donner’

  Ray smiles

  ‘Nice to meet you Donner, I’m Ray’

  ‘We need to find somewhere safe, the train tracks aren’t the ideal place right now’

  ‘You’re telling me, I can take you somewhere safe. A place where there are people. It’s in the sewers, there’s five of us’

  ‘Lead the way,’ Donner says while grasping the policeman’s arm, trying to stabilize him.

  Luis Samways

  Beacon of Light

  Episode Two

  One

  ‘You’ve got to control the bleeding; it’s a clean shot but a shot none the less. Put down pressure like this,’ Donner says to Ray as she shows him how to apply medical aid.

  Ray follows her commands but feels overwhelmed at the sight of the police man dying in front of him. He was fine for a few minutes. They had managed to carry him off of the train tracks, but as soon as they got down to the sewers, that’s when the man started going into shock. Donner had told Ray what was happening to him but through all the excitement he can’t quite remember the exact name of this man’s condition, besides from a gunshot to the sternum, which that much is obvious at least.

  ‘Hold down tightly Ray, we need him alive,’ she shouts as she continues to try her best to save the man with what little supplies she has on her.

  ‘You got that bag from where exactly?’ asks Ray, spotting her shoulder bag wrapped tightly around her chest.

  She continues to work on the man, bandaging him up.

  ‘From the hospital I worked in’

  Ray nods, feeling as if it was a stupid question. She obviously has medical experience judging on how calm she is around the wounded man she’s treating.

  ‘Well you’re going to have to make those supplies last you know….God knows when we are going to come across more medicine,’ he says as he pushes down hard on the policeman’s chest.

  ‘I thought you said there was a group of you down the sewers?’

  Ray nods again

  ‘Yeah there is, but we don’t have any supplies like that. I mean between the group of us we have like ten bottles of water and some minor food supplies, like candy and that. No medicine though, I should have thought of that before’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now. We will have to make do with what we have,’ Donner says as she relieves pressure on the man’
s chest.

  She stays there, kneeling. She watches as the policeman on the floor with the gunshot wound struggles for air. After a few seconds his once heaving chest slows down to an idle state.

  ‘He’s dead. Bullet must have nicked an artery. He bled out. I’m sorry,’ she says as if she is used to that sort of outcome,

  Ray looks on at his new companion and feels an overwhelming sense of sadness. He could see how much this woman cared about saving lives. He gets up from his kneeling position overlooking the downed officer and extends his hand. Donner looks up at Ray and smiles a sad but warm smile. She grips his strong hand and gets herself up on her feet. She looks around at their surroundings and quickly refocuses.

  ‘How far away is the camp?’

  Ray laughs

  ‘It’s no camp…but it isn’t that far, maybe a ten minute walk if we hurry’

  ‘Good, I want to meet the rest of them,’ she says

  ‘You will, don’t worry. I’ll get us there’

  Donner picks up her bag of supplies and lets Ray lead the way into the dark tunnels of the New York’s sewer system.

  Two

  The Black Ops style army commander looks through the viewfinder of his night vision binoculars. He sees a group of armed United States marines patrolling the south bank of their barracks. The night sky glistens with stars and satellites. The US marines seen through the viewfinder don’t look like they are in a war setting, and that is because they are not. They are domestic marines. They patrol their barracks not because of the fear of attack but because they are told to by their drill instructors.