Prologue

Prologue

 

The two young men sat in the older of the two’s new Ford truck outside one of the many dormitory buildings on the college campus. The younger of the two was so nervous he sat there petrified, unmoving, ice cold sweat rolling down his face and neck, his palms cold and clammy. He knew of the evil that was about to take place tonight and was still wondering why he even agreed to come along. He was against this. Completely. But yet he was passively submissive to the other man. He was naturally dominate, but not so much as to be considered a dick. But he knew that. The older knew that the younger would submit to his wishes. That he wouldn’t rat him out because he would be to scared. So when the younger was told he was going to be his getaway he couldn’t help but agree to be an accomplice. Over the past week the younger voiced his concerns, his rejections to helping but to no avail. His friend wouldn’t listen, insisting that he drive.

Though the younger sat petrified the older of the two sat the calm, with his attention focused on one of the only lights on in the building at 2:36 am on a Tuesday night. He was taking the occasional long sip from his flask which was filled with whiskey.

Slowly the windows started to fog over inside the truck. The night outside was claustrophobically dark, the blackness seeming to press against the truck, almost as if it were trying to crush it. The moon hid tonight in the shadow of the earth so the only light to pierce the darkness came from the yellow glow of the sodium-vapor streetlamps but even their cones of light seemed constricted on the pavement.

Across the campus there were porch lights on dorm buildings softly trying to break into the darkness, the occasional light seeping from behind a curtain. But even with all the light fighting off its enemy the night still seemed to prevail.

The younger looked up into the sky for hope of twinkling lights high up in the heavens to aid in the battle of light and dark, but the heavens were eerily dark and he couldn’t find one star to put hope in.

Undoubtedly the clouds were obscuring any stars, as they had just released themselves across the earth, saturating the land. The light from the street lamps reflected off the asphalt and seemed to give it a shine of polish. But even the shine couldn’t hold back the night. 

            “Is this the one?” the younger man said shakily to the older one, referring to the dorm building in which they were parked in front of.

            “Yeah this is it.” The older man replied, taking a drink from the flask. The two men were both students at the college and were only 3 years apart in age; both attractive men - or so the ladies thought. The older one had the Californian surfer look about him. Puca shell choker which clung a little too tight to his neck, or so the younger one thought, and blonde hair that hung just below is jaw and a single small gold earring in his left ear.

            The younger one had short dark hair and looked more like a look of a teenager that belonged to a upper middle class family. He wore a polo shirt and a pair of dark blue Levi 501’s. The older one took another swig from his flask then screwed the cap on and set it on the dashboard.

            “You know the drill. I go in, take care of her; I come out and get in the truck. Then what?” the older one said, turning to the younger.

            “Then,” the younger one started to say. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He had never been this nervous before. He continued, “Then I drive to the city, fast but not too fast.”

            “That’s right.” The older one confirmed. He then reached over and pulled his .38 caliber revolver out of the glove box.

            “Wait.” The younger one said, scared. “Are you really going to do this? You don’t have to. Look, man she was drunk to. We all were at that party. Everyone makes mistakes”

            The older of the two pointed his weapon at the younger one lazily, but enough to get the point across. “Look,” he said. “The b***h, cheated on me. I was standing right there the whole time. She didn't say no to that punk. And they’re up there right now together. Again. I've had enough of her.” After that the older man stuck his hand which clutched his weapon in the pocket of his leather jacket only after he got out of the truck, his gaze never leaving the window in the dormitory.

            He then ran across the street and into the building. The younger one had decided before they arrived there that he wasn't going to have any part in this. He had decided a week ago but unable to over dominate the others naturally dominate personality he had to wait until this moment. He jumped out of the truck and went to the nearest pay phone and dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher answered with ‘9-1-1, what’s your emergency’ in a rather robotic voice. It sounded apparent that it was another long uneventful night and that this call was just another old lady complaining about the neighbors dog barking, wanting the police to come and do something about it. Maybe another call of a concerned citizen watching a group of teenagers walking down the street thinking they were up to criminal activity though there was no solid proof other than the caller’s gut feeling.

            “Come quick,” the younger man said into the receiver, “There’s a lot of ruckus going on in the room next to me. I think there’s a fight happening. There’s a lot of yelling and I think someone said ‘gun’.”

            The dispatcher asked for the address and the man told her then hung the phone up before she could ask another question. He wasn't going to answer any more of her questions.

He took the handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped all the buttons and the receiver off on the phone. He knew that they could trace the number back to this phone and he didn't want them to lift his prints from the payphone. With any luck a vagrant or a drunken college student would pick up this phone next before detectives could lift fingerprints off of it.

He didn't want anything to do with what was happening. He just planned on turning around and walking away from this college campus and forgetting everything. Forgetting what he had done, and what he had agreed to do.

The younger man tried to turn, tried to walk away but his attention was drawn to the dorm. He looked up at the window where the older man was planning on going and he could see flashes of people’s shadows moving furiously through the translucent curtains and their muffled yells. There was suddenly a figure pressed against the curtains and the window. He was fixed to this spot, as if someone had nailed his shoes to the pavement. He willed his feet to move, begged them, but they would not.

The younger one could faintly see the person in the window put their arms out then he heard the gunshot. Simultaneously there was a splatter of some liquid hitting the curtain around their head, glass breaking though the pane stayed intact, and the victim slumped to the ground from view, blood streaking down the curtain from behind the persons head. Following that there was another gunshot out of view, then silence. Feeling the bile rise to the back of his throat the younger man put his hand over his mouth and choked it back down.

The younger didn’t think that his partner  was actually going to go through with it. The younger thought that the other would go in there and find out that they weren’t having an affair. Perhaps he would get in there and be overcome with emotion aided by the alcohol he had been drinking all night and leave, unable to pull the trigger.

But it was now apparent that his motive - even drunken �" was to violently end the affair.

The younger man was finally able to move from his spot rushed to the truck, ready to jump in and take off and then realized he couldn't leave in it, but it needed to be cleaned. He thought of everything he could have possibly touched and started wiping it down. Opening the door he wiped everything down on the passenger’s side of the car. The dashboard, the seatbelt buckle, both female and male parts, the entire inside of the door making sure he left nothing untouched.

He didn’t worry about the driver’s side because he has never been on that side of the truck. The older wouldn’t allow it until tonight after the murder. He regarded his truck as his woman and allowing any other man to drive his truck would be as though he allowed another man to sleep with his girl which tonight was a perfect demonstration that sleeping with his partner was indeed not allowed in his mind.

After the younger had finished wiping everything down on the inside of the cab he shut the door with his hip and proceeded to wipe down the outside of the door, not just the handle. He had little knowledge of the capabilities of the police and it was unknown to him what they would be able to get off this truck. He hoped that he had done enough to erase his history there. After he was content with his work he turned and looked towards the dorm.

The murder was complete but there was no sign of the older man. He wondered what was taking him so long to come back, but then abruptly dismissed that curiosity, thankful for the time to leave.

He turned around again, facing the opposite direction of the dorm and shoved his hands as deep into his pockets as deep as they could go and briskly proceeded to walk off campus. As he passed the back of the truck he stopped to wipe the handle of the tailgate down for good measure.

            As the younger man walked in the opposite direction of the college, his head down and still very nervous, yet trying to force a calm complexion on his face, two police cruisers zoomed past him, lights blazing and their sirens piercing the cool night air. The younger man was cold although it was a rather warm spring evening. But still he shivered. It was the humidity from the recent rain that chilled him. Or maybe it was the fact that he just witnessed a murder that chilled him. The thought that he could have done something sooner but didn’t. He went to the local all-night diner and ordered a coffee to calm his nerves. After sitting down and taking the first sip of his coffee he realized that he had gotten away. Barely.

                After this he would go back to his apartment and climb back into bed with his girlfriend. Luckily she was a deep sleeper and probably hasn’t moved since he left over an hour ago. And because of this he should have a solid alibi, knowing that if he did end up getting questioned by the police she would vouch for him, swearing that they were in bed together all night even tell them that if he did leave she would have known since she’s adamantly in denial about her heavy sleeping.

                He took another sip of his coffee and shivered.

                The night crept in even closer, pressing against the diner’s windows threatening to break through the glass and devour all that abided in the light.

 

***

            A month later the younger man was sitting in front of the TV in his apartment watching the news. The past month had been nerve racking for him. Not knowing what other evidence he left behind that he missed. Silently waiting for the cops to show up to one of his classes and arrest him. He also knew that the other man must have told him that he had help, surely telling them his name. But even as the court proceedings had started no one had ever came and asked him to testify or came to read him his rights, telling he was under arrest for being an accomplice.

            The commercial ended and the 7:00 news came on once again and the news reporter started with the top story of the night. “Jake Harrison has been convicted today of the murder of two innocent people- Ellen Peck and Fred O'Hara.” The news reporter said to the camera. The news reporter was on the county’s court house’s front steps. Other camera crews and reporters from other news stations were behind him, as well as photographers and journalists taking into small hand held tape recorders. The reporter continued. “As you all know one month ago Jake Harrison went into Ellen’s dormitory room where he shot Ellen and Fred at point blank range with a .38 caliber revolver,” the reporter started. He didn’t know if she was talking to the others in the news room or to the general public. “The police were notified by an anonymous caller a few minutes before the first shot was fired then more tenants started calling 9-1-1 reporting they heard the shots in their building. Over the course of the case Jake Harrison pled guilty and never once seemed to have lied about his motives or action. Well today his honestly seemed to have paid off as he has been sentenced to life without parole, instead of capital punishment.” The news reporter started to say something else but he was cut off by the flurry of flashes from cameras and the rush of reporters and photographers to the front doors of the court house. Jake Harrison was being lead out of the building by two officers of the county’s Sheriff’s Department with wrist and ankle shackles on.

            Jake looked into the crowd of cameras, turning his attention back and forth between all of them and only spoke a few words before being shoved into the cruiser, his eyes wild with hatred, his speech flying out of his mouth with spittle which some clung to his chin, “I know you’re watching! You promised! YOU PROMISED! I swear I will find you and gut you alive!”

            By then he had been shoved into the cruiser, but the younger man felt an ice finger crawl down his spine. He was scared. There was nowhere he could run now. Nowhere.

Reviews

[bob, small b. aka invs]

in all, it's not a bad beginning but a few things bothered me: first, the constant referring to the characters as the young man and the older man. 'the older man' conjures up a picture in my mind of someone middle aged at least, not a college aged person and contemporary of the 'younger man'. perhaps you could give them names and use them instead? second, a minor thing, but calling a gun a "weapon of death" just sounded corny. it would work in a film noir 1940s setting maybe, but it just felt wrong in this. thirdly, and this is an important one, in your story you have him hear the gunshot before the blood splatters. that's simply wrong. since light (and therefore vision) travels faster than sound, he would SEE the event before hearing it. and one last thing, this one also minor. the phrase "the murder of two innocent lives" is just poor syntax. it should either be "the murder of two innocent people" or "the taking of two innocent lives." i hope that i wasn't too picky, but these are things that bother me when i read a book. good luck with your writing.

[Walker Andreasen]

Thank you! When i get a chance to sit at my computer i'll fix some of those things because they do sound better. As for the names I was going for keeping them kind of a mystery so it wouln't give away a lot of the plot to early and leave some mystery for the reader to get them hooked. I do know it sounds redundant and confusing like you said. But thank you very much for your review!!

[Walker Andreasen]

Is that better?

[bob, small b. aka invs]

smiles. well, it's better for me, yes.

[SpeedyHobbit Armstrong]

Wow, what an action packed prologue! I love it

[Walker Andreasen]

Thank you!

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good introduction. I like the description of the characters. I like the way you led the reader into the event of killing and the set-up. The story got better and the ending was very good. Always good to end a tale of mystery with a threat. Thank you for the excellent introduction.
Coyote

[Kevin S.]

The ending was incredible. It hooked me when Jake said his last words before being sent to jail. Great job!

[Walker Andreasen]

Good! I love hearing I have people hooked! Please let me know how the rest of my book is!

[TheGrayOutcast]

Well... That's much better than the prologues I normally see in a lot of books. Kudos sir! Kudos! Intriguing and mysterious from the off, I can't wait to have time to read more :D Only a few nit-picky things like word choice but it was between 'his' and 'the'... I think I'm just being horribly pedantic. Overall, pretty damn amazing.

[Walker Andreasen]

Well thank you ! And you should read more! :]

[Matt Evans]

This isn't the kind of story i'd normally read, but i have to admit it had me hooked. I really enjoyed the descriptiveness of it. My best criticism is to try and separate some of the larger paragraphs, into two. For readers and publishers it like subconsciously makes it a faster read. Guess it looks less 'intimidating' lol

[floopes]

This is very well written.

[papercut]

wow, very good prologue. i am hooked...WIN