Ice In My Veins

Downtown Chicago was making a racket tonight. The noise is drowned out by the rain. A storm is blowing. There is mist in the air, and I stare intently at the pages in my files, placing a certain dankness in everything he touched today. He has been sitting upright in his Ford Explorer in the parking lot of an apartment building for some hours now. There are practically fissures in the backbone of the building, and it does not look fit to last many more years. My back starts to give me a piece of it, so I decide to put the paperwork aside. I kick back his seat and close his eyes, and begin to ruminate, hoping to connect some dots in this case. In retrospect, I had almost always managed to scrape a win in life. In anything I did, I would give the minimum amount of effort to reach my goals. There was this one time, in my final year at the academy, when I studied for two days for an end-of-term exam for a subject I was oblivious to. Without much effort in any sport I played, I would rise to the top, and for the majority of times, I was the subject of envy for so many I knew. But in the last couple of days, there was something I was not able to achieve; it was a case revolving around a killer. An evasive killer that is. Presently, the raindrops pound hard on the car's top. My eyes flicker between the files and the traffic outside. I catch something of interest. A black van silently pulls up a few car spaces to my side. A man, whose features can not be made out in the rain, approaches the backside of the van. After that, my view is obscured, so I leave my car with a pistol latched to my belt, and I deftly corner around the van. "Boss, what happens with these now?... throw them out and don’t attract attention, OK, gotcha,” I overhear. Furtively, I peer into the opening in front of him, and I see my target. A lanky middle-aged aged with thinning hair wearing a blue hoodie, maybe not the ideal criminal, but that’s for the movies, I decide. “Don’t move,” I say, pointing the standard issue straight at the suspect's heart. I close the distance between us. The guy, startled, throws his hands up in a frantic fashion, “Hey? What’s going on?” “You’re coming with me, we’ll talk soon. I’m from the FBI. “Where are you taking me? This has got to be some misunderstanding!” The person points to his van, “I’ll show you the van, sir; it’s clean.” I open it to find boxes filled with food and groceries. I question him, and he explains how all these are expired items and how his boss wishes him to dispose of them. Satisfied, I let him go, apologizing for acting on my instincts. Just then, it sparks in my mind that on the phone, he talked about something about ‘not attracting attention.’ I turn around and call him. He looks back over his shoulder. “Yes?” says he while clasping his hands together firmly in a large ‘clap!’. My mind processes for a mere moment, and I immediately know what he means and, like a prey fleeing from a predator, I make half a lunge and throw myself to the ground. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, a dark window in the apartment building scintillates, and I see a blinding flash. Lying on my face with a sort of grimace on my face, I think perhaps it's true what they say, that every split second can make a difference, but it's just then when I feel the searing pain. The excruciating pain of a bullet. A loud gasp escapes my mouth, and I prepare myself to look at the inflicted area, but providentially, I find it's a bullet scrape. “I’ll live,” I say to myself. I get up with strenuous effort to find myself looking at that acquaintance again. Thankfully, I still have my wits about me, and I’ve gripped the pistol in my hand and am pointing it, if somewhat shakily, at the presence ahead of me. He simply smiles, “You shoot me, he shoots you. You have a pistol; he has a sniper. Simple. What’re your chances, officer? Tsk tsk, all these days you’ve been sniffing on our trails, and this is the best you could think of? For sure, I imagined the great Officer Peter Sloanes to be better than this!” He rasps. And all the crimes connected to this case make sense to me now. For now, I see a new face in that person. I see that vicious hint of insanity in his beady black eyes. It’s all silent now, and the whole world seems to be subdued, maybe captivated by this standoff in which I will eminently fall, and who doesn’t like to see the hero fall? I consider for a moment, then speak up with newfound tenacity, “You do know that if I get killed, you guys will get the heat, right? Your little gang will fall with me. So think hard.” “Officer, you ought to know we’re not master planners, we don’t think much before we pull the strings. So I’m gonna give you a countdown, and you can go run, and leave your job, and forget us. Alright?” I scoff at this petty resolution. The ice-cold droplets of rain drop on my forehead. Maybe at that moment, I really have ice in my veins. I’ve made a final reckoning. I feel sick. “Here goes 3…. 2.…..1!” I shoot, he shoots. Four shots were fired. Three drop dead.

THE NEXT PART WILL BE RELEASED SOON, SO STAY TUNED. I will just fill up the word count to one thousand words, so please don’t mind this. Also, let me know what type of story you want me to write later. I think I’m well-versed enough to write in at least five different genres. Okay, I think this will suffice.