Death, Love, and Sin

A story I wrote for 11th grade English class, we read "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the assignment was to write ourselves in a bad or "sketchy" situation. This is my story.

*WARNING*
IF YOU ARE NOT 14+ BE WARNED THIS IS GRAPHIC
Death, Love, and Sin
Joseph Grier

My name is Joseph Grier and this is my story into my fall into the world of illegal gun trade.

This story starts with my 28 year old self talking to a person once known as a friend, we will call him Luke. "Hey man, I've got a proposition for you," He said, "How about I bring you into the underground gun trade?"

"Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Why?" He continued, "because in this you get paid, you can drop your real job and get paid much better."

Well, needless to say, I took that deal. The tax dollars enough to make an honest man examine what it means to be a criminal who's getting paid. When I took this deal I never ever thought it would lead to consequences as bad as the ones I'm facing now.

After this day I went into the underground gun trade, this was my first mistake of many to come. It was just the way he could persuade people, he was very good at it. Luke was a strange man, a lot of the time he kept to himself a lot, but if he ever needed anything he was never afraid to ask for whatever he needs. He was, in a way, just like myself. Luke always had a strange air about though, even when we were children, he felt off.

We were on our way to the safe house about a week after that first meeting we had. Apparently Luke is the leader in all of this, he is the one who started this and as he needed more and more help, he got more people like myself to come and help him. “Say, Luke, do you think we will ever get into any gun fights?” One of the other men asked, I never bothered to learn their names.

“I suppose so,” Luke said as he was checking papers. “Today is our first gun run with our new guard, Mr. Grier.”

Fear went through my body, “guard,” I thought to myself, “he never told me I was going to be a guard and he said “new” guard. What happened to the old one?” I thought to myself.

“Let's get started people!” Luke shouted. He designated me with an M4a1 and a Barreta M9. I liked to go shooting in my off time, so I had experience with both weapons.

We began to travel to the first location where a shipment of firearms were being delivered to a PMC or Private Military Company. We drove there in two cars, both being black sedans. When we reached the location everything went quickly. Luke knocked out the guard, as I kept watch and the three other workers were hauling crates into their vehicle and ours. In a short amount of time we were packed back into the vehicles and speeding back down the highway to the safe house. Once there I stood watch to make sure that no one came wandering up to the location. After getting unpacked and everything stored away, we packed up for the day and met back two days later. It was fall time, a season I love, but have now grown to hate because that was when too many things happened at once, death, love and sin.

I worked as a guard for the gun running group for a little over nine months, I met a woman, who we will call Kate. Kate was a beautiful woman and one that had trouble with the law in the past, that is probably the reason I had done some of the things I had done. She had dark brown hair and was pale, she was short, about 5’3. When I met Kate, we instantly clicked she was beautiful and very “appealing” in some areas. She was 26 and very intelligent, I don't know why good people go bad. Late during the night as we slept together in my high rise apartment over Philadelphia, I heard some noises inside my house, I quickly reached into my gun holder and pulled out my personal defense weapon, a shiny black Taurus Judge, that fires a .410 long colt shell. I took a defensive position in my room, taking cover behind a dresser. As I saw that door open, I knew who it was, it was Luke. He walked through that door, with a small silenced weapon. He pointed that weapon towards Kate. I stood up and pointed my weapon towards him, lining the sight up with his temple. “Stop right now Luke.” I said, he turned quickly and pointed his weapon at me. He lowered his when he saw me, but I did not lower mine.

“Joe, this woman is a detriment to your work and our business as a whole.” he said.

“How,” I said, “why her, out of all people Luke?” I asked confused.

“Joe, it has be like this.” he said.

“NO!” I screamed at him.

“Fine, if this is how you want it to be,” he said “I will leave her alive until the day comes when she must die.” I lowered my weapon, as he said, “Get some sleep, there's going to be a big operation tomorrow.”

I slid back into bed and looked at Kate. I put the Judge on the nightstand and put my arms around her. I kissed her cheek as I fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning, she was still in my arms, I got up and got showered and dressed. Body armour was on, and two layers of Kevlar, you can never be too careful. As I headed out the door I looked into the room and saw her still lying there, at peace. The operation went well, not too many mishaps, I had to kill a few people, but it's all in the name of business right?

Fast forward about two months, an operation goes sour, Luke has been telling me I've been not focused and to get my a** into shape. We were having a shootout, I myself, laying down most of the fire. We have fought off the guys as they made a retreat. As I was reloading my M4, I see something out of the corner of my eye, it was Luke and another man, dragging Kate into the middle of where the firefight was. They dropped her on her face and they looked at me.

“Shoot her,” Luke said as she looked at me with a bruised eye and a bloody mouth, “SHOOT HER!” Luke yelled. I pulled my M9 out and took aim. One shot rang out.

I shot her in the head that day. She was dead by my hand. I took a break from “work". There was no turning back from here. I can still remember what Luke said, “There we go, now our security problem is solved,” he had said “maybe now you'll focus more on your work.”

I found myself sitting in my apartment looking out over the balcony, contemplating if I should jump and finish what has been started. I went back inside and I heard someone knocking on the door. I opened it and for a second I saw the devil himself. I rubbed my eyes and Luke was standing there. “Hi.” I said

“Hello,” he said “I brought you something.” he said as he produced a small box. The box read, Smith and Wesson M&P 9mm pistol.“Don't worry,” he said “it's completely legal.”

I took the box and set it on my counter. “Thank you,” I said “why did you come over so suddenly?” I asked.

“I wanted to tell you that there is going to be a huge operation tomorrow,” he said

“Our biggest one yet.”

“Ok.” I said.

“Be prepared for tomorrow, I will brief you and you brief the other people on the security detail.”

“Yes sir.” I said.

The next day, he said we will be running weapons from a PMC known as Gryphon. I went and talked to the security detail and told them what I was told. I brought the Judge along just in case I needed it and I did.

We went to the location and my team and I scouted the place out. We had snipers and SMG teams. About an hour into the run we went through hell because when the clock struck 8 a.m. the floodgates opened. There was a whole battalion of Gryphon soldiers who flooded inside the building next to the dock. The operation went sour quick, people were getting shot left and right. I rushed for cover to get to my wounded men, I kept fighting for what seemed like hours. I never thought this job would turn out like this. The firefight lasted for a couple hours, this location was remote so no one would have heard us. By 11 a.m. the last shots were fired by us as we took down the battalion of soldiers. We loaded the rest of the weapons into the vehicles and Luke walks up to me while I'm healing a wounded friend. “Let him die,” he said “he will not make it.”

“Yes he will.” I said

“He will not.” he said with a twisted smile of satisfaction. It was at this point when I pulled out my Judge. It was loaded with .410 Long Colt Slugs. I pointed it right at his head.

“You won't make it either then.” I said as I pulled the trigger at point blank range. It was all over after that. He fell over dead in an instant, lying on the ground and bleeding from the head. I patched my friend up and went back to the safe house. “Alright everyone, we are going to have a quick meeting,” I said “That was our last run, this company will be disbanded, no one will say a word about any of this to anyone,” I said “We will sell theses weapons to our regular buyers and we will disband, no questions about it.”

About a week later everyone was given their last paycheck and I disbanded the Hellrunners.

Around seven months after the disbandment of the group, I found a woman to settle down with. Her name is Ashlyn, it has been about three years since the last firefight. I'm 32 now and have a baby boy on the way, I will teach him to never make the same mistakes that I did.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading lads.