Another powerful short story from one of our talented authors.
DARK ANGEL by Shanna Murchison
It was a typical spring evening in New York City. The sky was grey, and huge shadows were cast over the entire city. The towering skyscrapers looked lifeless compared to the day before, when the sun had been shining, causing them to sparkle and glow with reflected light.
On Monday evenings, not much happened in the big city, especially not when it rained. It was coming down so hard that the drops bounced back up off the sidewalk.
Because of the torrential downpour, the streets were quiet apart from an occasional police siren wailing in the distance, and the mad shouts of a commuter desperately trying to hail down the few taxis still operating on such a miserable night.
A young, tall, handsome man was walking down Park Row, dressed in a dark trenchcoat and dapper panama hat. He pulled his collar high up around his neck in a feeble attempt to keep warm and dry as he headed home to his loft nearby.
He was unaware that he was being followed by a man in a black suit and black hat. The man had a jagged scar running down his right cheek, and was as muscular as a boxer. He was lurking in and out of the shadows, getting closer and closer...
My name is Aidan Burns. I'm in my mid-twenties, and a partner in a highly successful law firm in New York. I'm quite tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. I wear designer glasses for my poor vision, and like to dress well. I'm tall and muscular, the result of many workouts at the gym.
I'm originally from Ireland, Dublin to be precise. I worked hard all my life at school and university to realise my childhood goal of becoming a lawyer and moving to New York. I had managed to join my prestigious firm and had worked up to partnership level only a few short years before.
You might well ask, then, what I'm doing here writing this from a jail cell. I want to tell my story while it's still crystal clear in my memory, exactly as it happened.
I know no one wants to believe me. Even if I do manage to defend myself at my trial, I'm still a dead man. But I swear to you, this is the whole truth, and nothing but.
It was an ordinary spring night in New York City. I remember the weather was the worst I had ever seen. I had left my Park Row offices and headed home to my loft on Spring Street.
On the way home I stopped at the small corner market for some fresh fruit and various drinks, the same as I did every day. It seemed like a completely normal Monday evening. It just shows that you never know what is waiting for you around the corner.
After I paid for my groceries, I once again turned up the collar of my trenchcoat and started off on my short journey home through the pouring rain.
I had been walking for about five minutes when I was suddenly confronted by a man who jumped out at me from the shadowy alley way.
He was taller than me, and looked about thirty, with striking sharp brown eyes which seemed full of rage. The rain beaded on his light brown hair, trickling down his face, which was pale white, and free from any blemish, even razor stubble.
I shuddered as I looked at him, and finally managed to ask, "What do you want?"
"Keep walking! You're in grave danger!" urged the mysterious stranger.
"You must be joking! Who are you and what do you want?" I had replied increduously.
But the man didn't answer me straight away. He just grasped me by the arm, not violently, but certainly forcefully, and tugged at me so hard that I dropped my groceries onto the sodden pavement.
"Leave them!" he ordered, and began to break into a run, towing me after him as though I were as light as a feather, though I did try to put up a struggle.
"Please, trust me. Who I am is not important," he urged as he bundled me along. "What is important is that you come with me now."
Since the man looked vaguely familiar, I ceased my struggles, and walked on more quickly by his side.
"You're being followed by a man in a dark suit. He's one of the mob. He's been sent to kill you," the pale stranger informed me.
I turned around quickly then, and just as the stranger had said, I caught sight of a mysterious figure in a black three-piece suit moving along the wall furtively.
"Why on earth would he be following me? What the hell have I done?" I gasped, trying to catch my breath as my companion herded me along even more rapidly.
"Your firm is representing the guy who fingered him on a gangland murder charge last year, aren't they? The Joey Lambatta case. The mob are going to try to kill some of you to disrupt the trial. You're their top gun, pal. Get rid of you, and the case will crumple like a house of cards," the pale stranger informed me bluntly as we hurried through the rapidly darkening streets of New York.
I felt the blood drain out of my face, and a well of hysteria bubble up inside me. We continued to hurry, performing every evasive manoeuvre my companion could think of in an effort to shake off our tail.
But the stalker was like a bloodhound, and we were his prey. He came on unrelentingly, and I could feel him gaining on as with very stride.
Finally, my companion said to me, "If we can't outrun him, we're going to have to kill him."
"We can't do that!" I exclaimed in horror.
"Look kid, it's either you or him. Those kind of people don't mess around! I'll help you," he offered.
"Why should I trust you?" I asked suspiciously, staring at him intently as I tried to place where I might have seen him before.
"I was the one who warned you about the hit man in the first place!" he argued, shaking me as though I were a rag doll.
"But I don't even know who you are. Why would you want to help me, a total stranger?"
His expression grew grim. "Let's just say I have a personal score to settle."
After a hasty consultation with my new found ally, I did as he instructed and we split up. I headed over to the West Side through a murky alley, and then turned and waited for my stalker to come around the corner. The few seconds' wait seemed like a lifetime, but at last I heard footfalls nearby.
The hit man entered the alley-way. As he did so, a huge burst of steam shot up from the grating below our feet. He vanished from my sight for a brief moment, but when the steam cleared, he was standing in front of me.
The dim street lights lit up his scarred face, and the blue-black revolver he was pointing at my head. I looked behind him in the vain hope that my pale friend was behind him, ready to grab him, but I saw no one.
As the scar-faced man came closer to me, he began to laugh. I felt the cold steel press against my brow. I stood waiting for the gunshot that would end it all. But it didn't come.
When I at last opened my eyes, I looked down to see the scar-faced mobster dead at my feet. His forehead was a bloody pulp, and I saw my clothes were completely bespattered with gore.
Then I looked up to see the mysterious stranger who had helped me. He looked less pale now, and smiled sardonically down at the dead man.
"He won't harm you now," he said between panting breaths. He dropped the crowbar, and began to walk away into the misty darkness.
"What do you mean, I'll be all right! You've just murdered a man! Who are you?"
His echoing footsteps continued down the alley way without pause. "My name was John Hanna," said the stranger. Despite being so far away, his voice seemed astonishingly close to my ear.
I tried to run after his retreating figure, but lost him at the end of the lane.
I then made the mistake of going to the police to report the incident, and that was how I ended up here in this jail cell.
"Ha ha, very clever!"
"What?"
"John Hanna was the name of the guy Joey Lambatta killed two years ago," the police sergeant informed me with a laugh as he threatened to lock me up and throw away the key if I didn't come clean and admit my guilt.
"Come on, Adrian, do us all a favor. Tell us why you killed Joey Lambatta!" he demanded, flicking a photograph of my scar-faced pursuer onto the table in front of me.
I reached out to flip open the rest of the file, and stared in frozen horror at the picture that lay on top.
"I think I already know the answer, Sergeant," I said in a near whisper, as I gaped at the photo of the tall, pale man with brown hair and eyes who had warned me of the danger. "Could you tell me who this is?"
"Him?" the sergeant said, pointing at the snapshot. "That's John Hanna, of course."
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