helgard
01-18-2011, 09:47 AM
‘How did it come to this?’
The police station was a madhouse. Phones rang a jarring sound, harbingers of chaos. Civilians, doing more harm than good.
‘How did we let things get so far?’
Gabriel stood in the chief’s office, listening to the disheartened voice of a usually optimistic civil service worker.
‘We’re still rounding up suspects chief. With all the dummy phone tips, its hard to keep track.’
Gabriel shifted his thick-rimmed glasses to meet his eyes.
Like an explosion the chief burst without warning. Picking up the first thing that came into reach, a desk lamp, which he catapulted to its final moments against the wall.
‘That’s the problem! People got wind of the story. Headlines are making noise. The media vampires are licking their bloody lips. We’ve got a serious vigilante on our hands, and the public is ready to throw him a parade.’
Gabriel took a chance, he knew he couldn’t risk anyone else taking the lead on this case, ‘I’ve got a sting operation in mind chief. Put a fictional criminal and location out on the wire and wait for the judge, jury and executioner to come to us.’
‘You have two days Gabe. Before we have an army of vigilantes. And don’t think the fact that most of the criminals who landed on your desk are now in the morgue escaped me. If I didn’t know you better I’d think you were the ‘Bringer of justice’. List your top five suspects and we’ll get the word out on the criminal that never was.’
‘On it chief.’ Gabriel played his best poker face. Not once did he give away what was eating at his brain, or the nausea in his stomach.
He sat back at his desk and opened the file with his top likely suspects. His mind raced. He didn’t want it to be true but the pieces fit too neatly. A suspect he knew had motive and means. Number one: Logan Barker. His son.
It was a conversation he had with Logan three weeks after his mother’s funeral that caused this suspicion to be planted inside his head. Logan had grown increasingly angry since her death. Gabriel knew there were five stages to death, but his son seemed to be stuck on anger.
Logan came home at one o’ clock that morning. Gabriel had just finished taking a shower after a late shift, before heating up a month’s old microwave lasagna and watching something on television. Anything to keep his mind occupied and his thoughts silent. Gabriel let his feet rest by sitting in his favorite lazy-boy while the lasagna was busy being thawed. His wife always kept a few as a last resort. She would always tease him that it’s the only dish he could prepare.
Logan opened the front door as silently as he could. He had expected Gabriel to be asleep. Gabriel just sat in his chair and they looked at each other without saying a word. He stared into Logan’s eyes, which the television glare revealed to be swollen and bloody. Logan diverted his gaze and crept past the television.
‘Logan…’ Gabriel stood up. Logan turned around with a blank expression on his face.
‘What in God’s name happened to you? Who’s responsible for this?’
‘Why dad? You want to start the paperwork? Maybe we can arrange an attorney and have this thing settled in five to ten years.’
Gabriel felt helpless. He had no answers for his son.
‘What do you want me to do son? What is it that you want from me?’
‘I want you to get ANGRY!!’ Logan shouted, ‘I want you to realize that the criminal and the corrupt are laughing at your red tape. The sirens on top of the squad cars might as well play the ice cream tune.’
Gabriel knew how to negotiate with hardened criminals but he had no idea how to defuse his son.
‘We have rules and regulations. That’s exactly what separates us from the animals. We break those, the line between cop and criminal start to blur. The system is there for a reason. We need to have faith in that system, believe that justice will prevail no matter how long it takes.’
‘That system is broken dad. It has been for a long time. The scales have tipped. Lawyers have political agenda’s. Evidence doesn’t get processed. Money passes hands under tables. It’s a mess. The victims never get closure. They are broken; they sit and wait for time to pass, while everyone involved is playing a game of chess. The monsters out there couldn’t care less about your system. Some men have no rules. Some men just want to watch the world burn. If every citizen in this city just stood up for themselves, picked up a gun and let their voices be heard, let them know we aren’t afraid of them anymore. They would know that they aren’t protected by the law anymore.’
‘You can’t have everybody walking around strapped. They would start killing each other.’ Gabriel put his hand on Logan’s shoulder, trying to connect with him. ‘I’m trying my best here son. What are you really trying to say?’
Logan took a breath. ‘I’m saying, the day will come, that even with all the red tape, the procedure and the so called “system”, when a monster stands before you with nothing to lose and the only way to stop him is to lift your barrel and pull back on the trigger.’ The microwave bell signaled the end of the conversation.
‘Are you going to stare at those files all day Gabe?’ The chief’s husky voice brought him back to the task at hand. Catching a monster.
In the darkness of the early hours, Gabriel stood in a hidden corner of the warehouse with his service issued pistol in hand, praying that he wouldn’t have to use it. He heard the distinct rumble of his son’s V8-engine resounding in the distance, slowing down, then the engine being killed. He assumed he wouldn’t park too close to his mark.
The fictitious file that he left on his desk at home worked. Bringing his work home with home all these years were finally starting to come back to haunt him. Gabriel started having second thoughts. Maybe he should just let his son go. Logan had a positive effect on the crime rate. Maybe he should give him a medal instead. He knew he couldn’t. His son is a murderer. No matter which way he looked at it.
He heard Logan entering one of the conveniently placed entry’s that was highlighted in the file. The streetlights crept through the warehouse windows, which made Logan scarcely visible.
Once he climbed through the window and moved around the crates, he stood upright. Tall. His short black hair gave the impression of throwing shadows on his eyes, which was darker than his hair. Logan was equipped with two pistols, one on each thigh placed in holsters, an automatic rifle hanging by his waist on a body strap and another pistol with a silencer attachment. A soldier. A freedom fighter. A killer.
Logan crouched when he heard muttered voices in one of the rooms. He followed the neatly laid out path that provided enough cover and came close enough to hear the voices. Seeing his son in action almost made Gabriel proud but the heartbreak was too overwhelming. He would have made one hell of a cop.
The path led to a red door. He was a rat in a maze. Logan had ways to open locked doors but it was much more loud and less stealthy. He tried his luck by turning the metal handle as steady and quietly as he could. The door was unlocked, inviting anyone to come in.
Logan opened the red door as silently as he could. He drew one of the pistols from his hip and slowly opened the door to keep the element of surprise. When he opened the door completely that element was not lost on him. He stared at an empty room with a table in the middle. Its only occupants were the voices on the stereo that stood on the table.
The sound of realization for Logan came in the form of Gabriel’s gun cocking a few meters behind Logan.
‘It’s over son.’
Logan stood frozen. He managed to slowly turn around to look his father in the eyes.
‘You have to stop. What you’re doing isn’t right.’ Gabriel pleaded.
Logan’s face was finally able to express emotion. It showed anger.
‘What I’m doing? I’m cleaning up the city. I’m doing your job, only more effectively. I’m killing killers.’
‘That makes you a killer. I know your angry about mom, I am too, but this isn’t the way to go about it.’
‘Its not about mom’s death or the anger that came with it, it’s the fuel that keeps me going, yes, but my reasons are true. I may have taken many lives but I have saved hundreds more by doing so. I’m making a difference.’
‘They have turned you into one of them.’
‘No, I may be like them but I am not one of them.’
‘You have to stop. I can’t let keep going on with this crusade of yours’
Logan let out a wry smile. He looked at his pistol, released the magazine clip to check the bullets and clicked it back into the 9mm.
‘Well dad, we both know what you have to do then.’
Gabriel’s eyes widened. His glasses making them look even bigger.
‘I’m not going to shoot you.’
‘You have no other choice. Today I’m going to liberate you from everything that’s holding this city back. This was always how it was supposed to happen.’
‘Son…’
‘Its ok. You can do it. I may not believe in any system, but I do believe in you. Today you are going to kill a monster with nothing to lose.’
Gabriel kept his weapon centered on Logan the whole time. Logan lifted his pistol for what felt like ages.
‘Don’t do it! Don’t you do it! NO!!’
Instinct took over and Gabriel knew he was left with no other choice. He pulled back on his trigger, twice as the academy had trained him, putting two bullets in the chest of his only son. Logan dropped to his knees while Gabriel ran to him as fast as his old knees could allow him. Gabriel grabbed him in his arms and laid him back to cradle him as he did when Logan was an infant, before his innocence was taken from him. Gabriel knew he didn’t have much time left.
‘I’m proud of you son.’
Logan had trouble breathing. He managed to squeeze his father’s hand and use the little breath he had left.
‘I’m proud of you.’
A single tear ran down Gabriel’s cheek. He saw the final breath of his son disappear into the darkness. Gabriel could feel something building up inside him. Something he hardly ever felt before. It started all the way down in his toes, like a wave moving up into his stomach then bursting in his chest. Rage. He let out a blaring scream.
As he watched his son’s lifeless body on the warehouse floor he ran his fingers over Logan’s eyes to close his eyelids, preventing him from seeing any more darkness in the world. Gabriel noticed the smooth black 9 mm. in Logan’s hand, one of the enforcers of the crusade. He gently pried his son’s fingers off the pistol and gripped it fiercely in his own right hand. As he studied the weapon in his own hands, thinking about the history that came with it, he started to clench his teeth.
Gabriel looked directly in front of him with a deadpan expression. There were no more tears left. He cocked the gun forcefully. His face was finally able to express emotion. It showed anger.
The police station was a madhouse. Phones rang a jarring sound, harbingers of chaos. Civilians, doing more harm than good.
‘How did we let things get so far?’
Gabriel stood in the chief’s office, listening to the disheartened voice of a usually optimistic civil service worker.
‘We’re still rounding up suspects chief. With all the dummy phone tips, its hard to keep track.’
Gabriel shifted his thick-rimmed glasses to meet his eyes.
Like an explosion the chief burst without warning. Picking up the first thing that came into reach, a desk lamp, which he catapulted to its final moments against the wall.
‘That’s the problem! People got wind of the story. Headlines are making noise. The media vampires are licking their bloody lips. We’ve got a serious vigilante on our hands, and the public is ready to throw him a parade.’
Gabriel took a chance, he knew he couldn’t risk anyone else taking the lead on this case, ‘I’ve got a sting operation in mind chief. Put a fictional criminal and location out on the wire and wait for the judge, jury and executioner to come to us.’
‘You have two days Gabe. Before we have an army of vigilantes. And don’t think the fact that most of the criminals who landed on your desk are now in the morgue escaped me. If I didn’t know you better I’d think you were the ‘Bringer of justice’. List your top five suspects and we’ll get the word out on the criminal that never was.’
‘On it chief.’ Gabriel played his best poker face. Not once did he give away what was eating at his brain, or the nausea in his stomach.
He sat back at his desk and opened the file with his top likely suspects. His mind raced. He didn’t want it to be true but the pieces fit too neatly. A suspect he knew had motive and means. Number one: Logan Barker. His son.
It was a conversation he had with Logan three weeks after his mother’s funeral that caused this suspicion to be planted inside his head. Logan had grown increasingly angry since her death. Gabriel knew there were five stages to death, but his son seemed to be stuck on anger.
Logan came home at one o’ clock that morning. Gabriel had just finished taking a shower after a late shift, before heating up a month’s old microwave lasagna and watching something on television. Anything to keep his mind occupied and his thoughts silent. Gabriel let his feet rest by sitting in his favorite lazy-boy while the lasagna was busy being thawed. His wife always kept a few as a last resort. She would always tease him that it’s the only dish he could prepare.
Logan opened the front door as silently as he could. He had expected Gabriel to be asleep. Gabriel just sat in his chair and they looked at each other without saying a word. He stared into Logan’s eyes, which the television glare revealed to be swollen and bloody. Logan diverted his gaze and crept past the television.
‘Logan…’ Gabriel stood up. Logan turned around with a blank expression on his face.
‘What in God’s name happened to you? Who’s responsible for this?’
‘Why dad? You want to start the paperwork? Maybe we can arrange an attorney and have this thing settled in five to ten years.’
Gabriel felt helpless. He had no answers for his son.
‘What do you want me to do son? What is it that you want from me?’
‘I want you to get ANGRY!!’ Logan shouted, ‘I want you to realize that the criminal and the corrupt are laughing at your red tape. The sirens on top of the squad cars might as well play the ice cream tune.’
Gabriel knew how to negotiate with hardened criminals but he had no idea how to defuse his son.
‘We have rules and regulations. That’s exactly what separates us from the animals. We break those, the line between cop and criminal start to blur. The system is there for a reason. We need to have faith in that system, believe that justice will prevail no matter how long it takes.’
‘That system is broken dad. It has been for a long time. The scales have tipped. Lawyers have political agenda’s. Evidence doesn’t get processed. Money passes hands under tables. It’s a mess. The victims never get closure. They are broken; they sit and wait for time to pass, while everyone involved is playing a game of chess. The monsters out there couldn’t care less about your system. Some men have no rules. Some men just want to watch the world burn. If every citizen in this city just stood up for themselves, picked up a gun and let their voices be heard, let them know we aren’t afraid of them anymore. They would know that they aren’t protected by the law anymore.’
‘You can’t have everybody walking around strapped. They would start killing each other.’ Gabriel put his hand on Logan’s shoulder, trying to connect with him. ‘I’m trying my best here son. What are you really trying to say?’
Logan took a breath. ‘I’m saying, the day will come, that even with all the red tape, the procedure and the so called “system”, when a monster stands before you with nothing to lose and the only way to stop him is to lift your barrel and pull back on the trigger.’ The microwave bell signaled the end of the conversation.
‘Are you going to stare at those files all day Gabe?’ The chief’s husky voice brought him back to the task at hand. Catching a monster.
In the darkness of the early hours, Gabriel stood in a hidden corner of the warehouse with his service issued pistol in hand, praying that he wouldn’t have to use it. He heard the distinct rumble of his son’s V8-engine resounding in the distance, slowing down, then the engine being killed. He assumed he wouldn’t park too close to his mark.
The fictitious file that he left on his desk at home worked. Bringing his work home with home all these years were finally starting to come back to haunt him. Gabriel started having second thoughts. Maybe he should just let his son go. Logan had a positive effect on the crime rate. Maybe he should give him a medal instead. He knew he couldn’t. His son is a murderer. No matter which way he looked at it.
He heard Logan entering one of the conveniently placed entry’s that was highlighted in the file. The streetlights crept through the warehouse windows, which made Logan scarcely visible.
Once he climbed through the window and moved around the crates, he stood upright. Tall. His short black hair gave the impression of throwing shadows on his eyes, which was darker than his hair. Logan was equipped with two pistols, one on each thigh placed in holsters, an automatic rifle hanging by his waist on a body strap and another pistol with a silencer attachment. A soldier. A freedom fighter. A killer.
Logan crouched when he heard muttered voices in one of the rooms. He followed the neatly laid out path that provided enough cover and came close enough to hear the voices. Seeing his son in action almost made Gabriel proud but the heartbreak was too overwhelming. He would have made one hell of a cop.
The path led to a red door. He was a rat in a maze. Logan had ways to open locked doors but it was much more loud and less stealthy. He tried his luck by turning the metal handle as steady and quietly as he could. The door was unlocked, inviting anyone to come in.
Logan opened the red door as silently as he could. He drew one of the pistols from his hip and slowly opened the door to keep the element of surprise. When he opened the door completely that element was not lost on him. He stared at an empty room with a table in the middle. Its only occupants were the voices on the stereo that stood on the table.
The sound of realization for Logan came in the form of Gabriel’s gun cocking a few meters behind Logan.
‘It’s over son.’
Logan stood frozen. He managed to slowly turn around to look his father in the eyes.
‘You have to stop. What you’re doing isn’t right.’ Gabriel pleaded.
Logan’s face was finally able to express emotion. It showed anger.
‘What I’m doing? I’m cleaning up the city. I’m doing your job, only more effectively. I’m killing killers.’
‘That makes you a killer. I know your angry about mom, I am too, but this isn’t the way to go about it.’
‘Its not about mom’s death or the anger that came with it, it’s the fuel that keeps me going, yes, but my reasons are true. I may have taken many lives but I have saved hundreds more by doing so. I’m making a difference.’
‘They have turned you into one of them.’
‘No, I may be like them but I am not one of them.’
‘You have to stop. I can’t let keep going on with this crusade of yours’
Logan let out a wry smile. He looked at his pistol, released the magazine clip to check the bullets and clicked it back into the 9mm.
‘Well dad, we both know what you have to do then.’
Gabriel’s eyes widened. His glasses making them look even bigger.
‘I’m not going to shoot you.’
‘You have no other choice. Today I’m going to liberate you from everything that’s holding this city back. This was always how it was supposed to happen.’
‘Son…’
‘Its ok. You can do it. I may not believe in any system, but I do believe in you. Today you are going to kill a monster with nothing to lose.’
Gabriel kept his weapon centered on Logan the whole time. Logan lifted his pistol for what felt like ages.
‘Don’t do it! Don’t you do it! NO!!’
Instinct took over and Gabriel knew he was left with no other choice. He pulled back on his trigger, twice as the academy had trained him, putting two bullets in the chest of his only son. Logan dropped to his knees while Gabriel ran to him as fast as his old knees could allow him. Gabriel grabbed him in his arms and laid him back to cradle him as he did when Logan was an infant, before his innocence was taken from him. Gabriel knew he didn’t have much time left.
‘I’m proud of you son.’
Logan had trouble breathing. He managed to squeeze his father’s hand and use the little breath he had left.
‘I’m proud of you.’
A single tear ran down Gabriel’s cheek. He saw the final breath of his son disappear into the darkness. Gabriel could feel something building up inside him. Something he hardly ever felt before. It started all the way down in his toes, like a wave moving up into his stomach then bursting in his chest. Rage. He let out a blaring scream.
As he watched his son’s lifeless body on the warehouse floor he ran his fingers over Logan’s eyes to close his eyelids, preventing him from seeing any more darkness in the world. Gabriel noticed the smooth black 9 mm. in Logan’s hand, one of the enforcers of the crusade. He gently pried his son’s fingers off the pistol and gripped it fiercely in his own right hand. As he studied the weapon in his own hands, thinking about the history that came with it, he started to clench his teeth.
Gabriel looked directly in front of him with a deadpan expression. There were no more tears left. He cocked the gun forcefully. His face was finally able to express emotion. It showed anger.