DD # 9 : Untitled Zev Short

So, I have no idea if this is finished or not, but I started writing using one my characters, and this is where it wrapped up for the moment. It was mostly just trying to delve into his head and his (many) mental problems. Probably another one that reads "like walking through barbed wire, but in a good way." So here's Zev, in all his, er, glory.

It was simply a matter of waiting.

Zev if nothing else had learned patience in his years of working, and now as he lay on the rooftop of a long-abandoned office suite, he closed one eye to peer into the scope of the rifle. It was so tempting for a moment to let this asshole live, to kill someone else and take his head in for the money. Just because he could. The thought made the corner of his mouth twitch in a smile, even as his scope followed the stranger's progress. These people relied on him, paid him for death, and it would be so easy to just...not do the job. To get caught, to kill the wrong person, to tell that person who had hired him to kill them. Chaos all with one word, one action, one gesture. One squeeze of the trigger.

The rifle discharged, the sound deafening in one ear. The world disappeared, replaced by that ringing noise and the sound of screams from the street below. Pedestrians scattered away from the fallen body and the spray of blood that spread out from the stranger's head like some sort of twisted halo. He watched through the scope, waiting for that last echo of sound to die. When his own little world faded, he stood and slowly dismantled the weapon, humming tunelessly to himself.

Heading down the fire escape, he shouldered his bag, the black duffel concealing the weapon. By the time he reached the body, there were police cars with lights flashing, and caution tape blocking off the sidewalk. He skirted the uniformed men, who barely gave him a second glance with all of the people gawking and grimacing at the sight. Photos flashed from the crime scene investigators, and police men looked up to try and determine the trajectory of the bullet. Eventually they would find the roof top, they would dust for fingerprints, search for a weapon, look for any fiber or hair. But the wind was high and he remained unconcerned. Even if they were to find some hint of his existence, there were no records of him. There were advantages of being a ghost.

As he reached the end of the street, he stopped at the corner and reached into his jacket. One click could change the world. From the dark folds of his coat, he pulled out a Glock and aimed back at the crime scene. He emptied the chamber to the sound of renewed screams, running, chaos, and the thud of bodies hitting the concrete. By the time the police officers had drawn their weapons, Zev was gone, around the corner and down into the subway station. He squeezed into the train alongside an attractive young couple. The train was almost empty, and he found a seat, watching them neck and giggle out of the corner of his eye. A few other people sat hunched over papers or nodding their heads to their earbuds. As the train jerked towards the next stop, a man near the back of the car stood, and flipped out a long, nasty-looking switchblade.

“Alright, everybody,” he announced, his voice slurring some with a thick inner city accent, “wallets and purses. Watches and jewelry, and nobody gets hurt.”

One click of a switchblade could change this small world. Zev looked up as the young punk went down the line of the car, holding out both blade and an empty bag to collect from the frustrated passengers. The couple clung to each other, the girl trembling in his arms.

The idiot stopped in front of Zev, waving the knife in front of his nose. “You, too, old man.”

“Old man?” he repeated, looking mildly offended. His debate on letting this boy take his wallet and feel accomplished, or shut his operation down was decided for him. Zev was barely thirty—old man was not a name he was prepared to take lightly.

He shifted the bulky duffel from his lap, and stood.

“Wallet, now!”

Zev took hold of the youngster's wrist, shoving it and the blade aside and twisting it sharply until he heard a satisfying snap and a yowl from the would-be thief. The older man grabbed the back of his head, and cracked his face against one of the metal poles in the middle of the aisle. The robber went down on his back, groaning with a bloodied face and a limp, broken wrist. Zev put a foot on his chest to ensure he wasn't getting back up, and calmly took the stranger's bag, handing it to the young couple.

“If you would be so kind as to give everyone their possessions back,” he said quietly. The girl flashed him a brilliant smile. As the train hissed to a stop, Zev took his bag again, and exited, leaving the thief groaning on the car floor. The police could pick him up later, if they weren't all busy with a handful of bodies.

Three train transfers, two bus stops, and a taxi ride later, Zev at last stepped into his apartment complex. The convoluted route home was entirely unnecessary, but it gave him a sense of security. Any man attempting to tail him would be irrevocably lost, and the idea of some poor sap trying to keep up with him made him smile, only because he knew the frustration to follow. He climbed the stairs, stretching his arms over his head slowly, reveling in the ease of tension in his shoulders. Down the hall, he could hear one of his neighbors fighting. A gay couple, the pair yelled at each other almost every night, only to make up with some noisy tumble that to Zev sounded more like S&M than any more vanilla form of sex. Across the hall, the murmur of a radio came through the closed door, and the mechanical whirr of a toy car. The knob turned as he unlocked his apartment, and a boy of seven or so came out, holding his prize and a small remote control. The child blinked up at his neighbor, and smiled.

“Sir, Mama wanted me to ask you if we could borrow an egg,” he announced, glancing back over his shoulder to his mother to make sure he had phrased the request correctly.

Zev's smile didn't reach his eyes. “I'll see what I can find,” he assured, nodding politely to the frazzled woman beyond the open door. The pleasantries were normal, but they left him feeling irritated. He took off his shoes as he stepped into his own apartment, but didn't drop his bag yet. Fetching an egg, he slid back into his boots before he would go into the hall, handing the delicate treasure to the boy.

“There you are. Don't drop it, now.”

“Thank you, sir!”

The click of the closed door followed a satisfied sigh. For a moment, he leaned his shoulders against the old wood and closed his eyes, slowly toeing off his shoes for the second time. A part of him longed to drop the heavy rifle in its canvas duffel, shuffle to his bedroom and collapse in his clothes on top of the sheets. Never could he let himself indulge in such a simple pleasure—already the stillness and the weight on his shoulder nagged at him to follow with his routine, alarm bells ringing in his ears.

Heaving another sigh, he walked to his bedroom, first unloading the pieces of the gun, then methodically cleaning them before he locked them in specified compartments in a gun safe. Then the duffel was wiped clean, zipped up, and stowed into his closet. Only then did he allow himself to switch on the television, the sound low and already on a local news channel. He stripped out of his clothes, folding each piece before he put them in the laundry hamper. He brushed his hair, noted that the dark strands were getting a bit long, and turned for the bathroom. He stopped abruptly when the news returned, showing a roped-off crime scene.

“—the wake of one brutal murder, police were ambushed by a lone gunman who fired multiple shots into crime scene investigators and bystanders. Three people were shot dead on the scene, including two officers, and another died at the hospital. Two more people were injured, and are currently in stable condition. No names have been released, and police are encouraging any witnesses to come forward. They have only a vague description of the gunman: a white or Hispanic man between twenty and forty, wearing a black coat and jeans, with dark hair. A sketch artist has not yet been able to make a rendition, but police assure they will update us with more information as soon as they have it. It is yet unknown if the two killings are related, but it is unlikely based on the weapons used. If you have any information, please call the police hotline on your screen.”

“Hispanic?” Zev repeated skeptically, looking down at his nude arms. His skin had much more of a Mediterranean tan, in his opinion, but he supposed in panic people made assumptions. “And anyway,” he went on to himself, liking the sound of his own calm voice compared to the reporter's drone, “I wouldn't be surprised if they had claimed I was of African descent. People do like to encourage their own stereotypes, and they assume the minorities are the ones to commit murders. Not good, self-respecting Anglo-Saxons.” He was about to continue on to the bathroom to shower, but he paused again in the doorway, looking back at the television. It had cut to an on-scene reporter talking to a police officer. They spoke of motive.

“Motive,” he repeated, and licked his lips. Why had he opened his gun on the crime scene? A little frown furrowed his brows for the first time, and it wasn't from that nagging voice telling him to clean himself. The man brought down by the sniper rifle was a job, a contracted killing. Were he ever caught and taken to court, he would testify to that fact. It was nothing personal, just money. But what about those men and women that went down under his Glock? His teeth found his lower lip, but he only worried the tender flesh for a moment, speaking aloud again.

“Impulsive,” he said at last. “It was impulsive and childish.” He turned from the television at last, and stepped into the shower. “No,” he corrected, calmer this time as his brain fought to rationalize under the spray of hot water. “It was an experiment. How will police and pedestrians react to another murder following so closely to the first? How prepared are they at crime scenes to defend themselves from further onslaught? Clearly they need to rethink their procedures. This will teach them.”

Turning his face into the water, he smiled. Yes, that was clearly the reason for the killing. It had been an experiment, and he would be sure to catalog the experience when he had the time. He meticulously scrubbed his body, washed his hair, washed his body a second time, and then stood under the hot spray until at last the heater started to give out. Then came the long routine in front of the mirror to wash his face, brush and dry his hair, brush his teeth, check the progress of any healing wounds (of which there were none at the moment), wash his hands, and then take a moment to listen to the news prattling on from the other room again. The pause gave him time to go through his mental checklist, and make sure no part of him felt unclean still. Satisfied with one more examination of his naked body, he pinched the skin at his abdomen, and then in a few other places, calculating a Body Mass Index in his head. He had been showed once how to do it, and from that day on performed it every day on himself. Not that he had much to worry about—his body was as lean as an athlete's, and some days it received just as much training. When the number was satisfactory, he finally went to put clothes on. The local reporter had moved on to other stories of woe and catastrophe from across the globe, and he had lost interest. He flicked it off, walking barefoot to the kitchen to at last treat himself with something to eat and a kettle of hot tea.

His phone rang, buzzing across the table. His client, no doubt checking in to make the arrangement to deliver the rest of the money. He would deal with them later. For now, he took his tea and sat on a mat in the middle of the living room, relaxing his body into a practiced meditation. Murder could wait. For now, he wanted to relax. After all, the bodies would still be in the morgue tomorrow.