_Paul
08-16-2012, 11:51 PM
Silently, and with the clinical authority of one trained to an unprecedented level in his art, the hitman paused and raised his head cocking it slightly as though straining to hear some message in the warm night air. He could feel a humidity that defied the coolness of the day before. The air seemed to suffocate, stifling the night sounds of birds and car engines and sending foxes scurrying, forlorn, back to their nests whilst overhead the stars became fewer and fewer, blotted out by grey and purple clouds being blown over by a strong easterly wind. The static in the air heightened and the hitman could sense a sudden change in the weather, a storm was brewing. He moved silently on. His pace steady as ever.
First Dover Street, lit up by sporadically placed street lamps and the occasional light glowing out from a bedroom or living room window. Then Newton Avenue, full of decaying houses whose ability to stand seemed some trick of the eye. The stones, weather worn and turned a pale grey by the calcium deposits of incessant rains, were held together by cement that crumbled at the touch giving the impression of a beaten legion of some long lost army making a valiant last stand against an irrepressible tide of military power. It was at the front of one of these defeated bastions that a man stood in the midst of an unkempt garden and held the hitmans gaze just long enough to render silence inappropriate.
“Good evening”, the man offered, plaintively.
“Evening.”, replied the hitman, in a voice that seemed to arrive in the air as an echo, as though it had come reverberating from a fathomless abyss.
“Are you from round here?”, enquired the man, compelled into asking by the curiosity of the hitmans strange appearance; the hitman having long black hair slicked back into a pony tail that contrasted starkly with his pale complexion and a drawn face that gave rise to a notion he had insufficient skin to cover it.
“No. I come from a long since destroyed village”, replied the Hitman, who in turn was entirely unsurprised by the mans rural appearance of colourful but dirtied clothes, large boots and friendly but worn face.
“May I ask where, only we don´t get much in the way of visitors. Up until recently that is.”
“It´s far from here. Thousands of miles.”
“I see, well I´d be careful, us locals tend to stay indoors after dark there´s some queer folk around here”, advised the man, noting that his counterpart in conversation was the epitome of those he had grown so wary of.
“I´ll keep an eye out”, replied the hitman, curtly, in a manner that suggested further conversation was neither desired or necessary.
“Right you are”, said the man, and with a final glance in the hitmans directions and a courteous nod of farewell he went inside. The hitman heard the sound of a door being locked and the rattle of chains. He moved on.
Two more roads and he was nearing his target. A sensation of a small isolated coldness arriving on his face and exposed hands indicated the rain was beginning. Exponentially, the isolated droplets increased dampening his clothes and hair, a sharp crack of thunder, lasting five seconds in length, and reaching its peak with a deafening boom in the middle, saw the floodgates open. Cold, heavy rain splattered down at a thirty degree angle drenching everything around rapidly creating puddles in the stone pitted road, creating small rivers of dirt that congregated together and rendering the houses nearby blurred as though seen through a tv screen struggling for reception.
Still the hitman walked on. The thunder, occurring more frequently now, sounded as though a band of giant drummers were beating a monotonous, imposing tune in the heavens. And then, a fork of lightning stretching from high in the night sky to the bottom of the horizon illuminated the hitmans target. Like those on Newton Avenue, this house was made from stone, but it was newer, unlike the previous ones it appeared sturdy, vast in size, it was writhed in ivy and looked to be a symbol of wealth and power. The inhabitants had tended to the garden, or hired someone to, as the lawn was cut short in length and the bushes, isolated as decorative break-up points in the stone drive or acting as borders to the houses acreage, were all cut to perfection. The gate, ten feet high and composed of steel with a semi-circle at the top layered with spikes stood as a deterrent to intruders.
Once, in a distant past, when he stood outside the place his target was located, it would cause in him an undesirable reaction. His stomache would knot together, his hands would shake and a slight nausea would blighten him. Now, there was nothing: no heightened pulse, no butterflies in the stomache, no loosening bowels. Instead, a calm spread from his head throughout his body. He felt alive, his senses were sharp, like those of an experienced surgeon prior to an incision.
He didn´t hesitate. His experience had taught him against it. He jumped over the fence in a move reminiscent of a ninja, walked briskly to the side of the house, not pausing to check if he had been seen and found what he was looking for. A window, on the ground floor, the chink in this houses armor. A week prior, this window had been fitted by a sub company of the one the hitman worked for, built with a design flaw it could be eased off effortlessly. He entered the house and stood, quietly, listening for noise.
First Dover Street, lit up by sporadically placed street lamps and the occasional light glowing out from a bedroom or living room window. Then Newton Avenue, full of decaying houses whose ability to stand seemed some trick of the eye. The stones, weather worn and turned a pale grey by the calcium deposits of incessant rains, were held together by cement that crumbled at the touch giving the impression of a beaten legion of some long lost army making a valiant last stand against an irrepressible tide of military power. It was at the front of one of these defeated bastions that a man stood in the midst of an unkempt garden and held the hitmans gaze just long enough to render silence inappropriate.
“Good evening”, the man offered, plaintively.
“Evening.”, replied the hitman, in a voice that seemed to arrive in the air as an echo, as though it had come reverberating from a fathomless abyss.
“Are you from round here?”, enquired the man, compelled into asking by the curiosity of the hitmans strange appearance; the hitman having long black hair slicked back into a pony tail that contrasted starkly with his pale complexion and a drawn face that gave rise to a notion he had insufficient skin to cover it.
“No. I come from a long since destroyed village”, replied the Hitman, who in turn was entirely unsurprised by the mans rural appearance of colourful but dirtied clothes, large boots and friendly but worn face.
“May I ask where, only we don´t get much in the way of visitors. Up until recently that is.”
“It´s far from here. Thousands of miles.”
“I see, well I´d be careful, us locals tend to stay indoors after dark there´s some queer folk around here”, advised the man, noting that his counterpart in conversation was the epitome of those he had grown so wary of.
“I´ll keep an eye out”, replied the hitman, curtly, in a manner that suggested further conversation was neither desired or necessary.
“Right you are”, said the man, and with a final glance in the hitmans directions and a courteous nod of farewell he went inside. The hitman heard the sound of a door being locked and the rattle of chains. He moved on.
Two more roads and he was nearing his target. A sensation of a small isolated coldness arriving on his face and exposed hands indicated the rain was beginning. Exponentially, the isolated droplets increased dampening his clothes and hair, a sharp crack of thunder, lasting five seconds in length, and reaching its peak with a deafening boom in the middle, saw the floodgates open. Cold, heavy rain splattered down at a thirty degree angle drenching everything around rapidly creating puddles in the stone pitted road, creating small rivers of dirt that congregated together and rendering the houses nearby blurred as though seen through a tv screen struggling for reception.
Still the hitman walked on. The thunder, occurring more frequently now, sounded as though a band of giant drummers were beating a monotonous, imposing tune in the heavens. And then, a fork of lightning stretching from high in the night sky to the bottom of the horizon illuminated the hitmans target. Like those on Newton Avenue, this house was made from stone, but it was newer, unlike the previous ones it appeared sturdy, vast in size, it was writhed in ivy and looked to be a symbol of wealth and power. The inhabitants had tended to the garden, or hired someone to, as the lawn was cut short in length and the bushes, isolated as decorative break-up points in the stone drive or acting as borders to the houses acreage, were all cut to perfection. The gate, ten feet high and composed of steel with a semi-circle at the top layered with spikes stood as a deterrent to intruders.
Once, in a distant past, when he stood outside the place his target was located, it would cause in him an undesirable reaction. His stomache would knot together, his hands would shake and a slight nausea would blighten him. Now, there was nothing: no heightened pulse, no butterflies in the stomache, no loosening bowels. Instead, a calm spread from his head throughout his body. He felt alive, his senses were sharp, like those of an experienced surgeon prior to an incision.
He didn´t hesitate. His experience had taught him against it. He jumped over the fence in a move reminiscent of a ninja, walked briskly to the side of the house, not pausing to check if he had been seen and found what he was looking for. A window, on the ground floor, the chink in this houses armor. A week prior, this window had been fitted by a sub company of the one the hitman worked for, built with a design flaw it could be eased off effortlessly. He entered the house and stood, quietly, listening for noise.