Note: This is the start of a new book that I am working on. The only character I do not own is The Undertaker.
Chapter One
I can't believe that this is happening to me!
Nestled in the backseat of a pitch black Yukon, Kristen Andrews, a cashier in her mid-twenties, found herself being driven away from her family, her friends, her job that she had been working at for several years, and her whole life in general after she had witnessed something that has put her life in danger.
It was a slow morning at the shop where she worked as a cashier, and started to have a conversation with one of the customers when they had come up to pay for their belongings. They were just discussing some things they had heard in the news when the sound of what seemed to be a gun going off out in the parking lot caught her attention and also alarmed the elderly woman that she had been talking with for a brief moment.
Her training had her to get to somewhere safe immediately with the customers, but her curiosity as to who it was that had pulled the trigger got the better of her. Kristen came around the front of the counter to where the woman was, and guided her arm gently around her body before she assisted her to walk around to the other side of the register and spoke to her in a soft yet firm tone of voice.
"Stay right here, miss. You will be safe here until I get back."
"Where are you going?!" The woman asked, frantically, highly scared at the thought of herself being left there.
"I am going to go to the doors, and see if I can identify who it is that is shooting outside in the parking lot." Kristen did her best to speak to the woman in a quick but caring way as to help her relax. "I will be right back once I figure out who it is."
"What if he shoots you?!"
"He won't."
On that note, she left the side of the elderly woman and made her move towards the sliding doors of the store. She inched her way up towards the doorway as the doors slid open for her, and peered outside into the parking lot to see if she could make out as to who it was that had been causing the noise.
Her eyes moved over towards the left side of the parking lot close to where the entrance to the property was, and discovered the sight of a man standing over the body of an elderly man who she thought to be the woman's husband. She looked from the dead man to that of the shooter that was holding the gun in his hand. He had on a hoodie and it was hard for her at first to tell who it was. However, her ears managed to make out who he was when he made a single statement over and over.
"That is what you get for not doing what I told you to do the first time, old man!"
Holy shit! That's The Devil!
There was a man in the area that everyone simply referred to as 'The Devil'. No one knew his name. He didn't have any family or friends from her knowledge. Everyone in town did their best to stay away from him since he was notorious for going after someone if he thought they did something to upset him. He was a loose cannon, and he had just went off on a man that probably didn't do anything to him at all.
She stood there a little too long because when she went to turn to go back into the store, her eyes found his looking right in her direction. Her throat pushed a lump down it as her body was frozen for a moment where she was at. She wanted to run back inside the store, but she was scared to do that out of fear of him making a rush to the store and coming in after her and the customer. From where she stood, her eyes could see his hand holding the gun in it to slightly be moving in her direction.
Is this how I am going to die? Am I am going to be shot dead at work, trying to protect a kind old woman who had come in to do a little shopping?
The sound of several police sirens going off in the nearby area gave her some relief as they made The Devil put his gun away inside his hoodie. She watched him make a gesture towards her that she would be the next on his list as he darted out of the parking lot to keep the police from getting a hold of him for what he had done.
Kristen let out a sigh as she watched the police cars come flooding into the parking lot. She stood there while the older woman walked out to find out what was going on. She had went to tell her what had happened when her fear about the woman being the wife of the dead man came true from finding her running forward with tears in her eyes. It took every bit of her resolve to not break down at the sight of the woman discovering that someone she loved with all of her heart was now dead on the ground.
It didn't take long for one of the police officers to come up to her and get a statement from her as to what she had seen happening. Kristen made sure to not leave out anything, including the fact that he had made a gesture in her direction that she would be next on his list of victims. She told them everything that she could possibly think of that might help with their investigation.
Unfortunately, she found that she was a little too good on the details that she had given to them.
Not long after she had spoken to the police officer, Kristen discovered herself being taken down to the police station by the same officer to meet with his boss and a few other high ranking members of the force to go over with them what she had told him. She told them word for word what she had told the officer from being at her job to having witnessed who it was and ending it with him having made a gesture towards her that she was next.
To her own surprise, she found that the men were not going to be letting her go back to her job or her home. They thought that she would be in too much danger if they did that with him being a local and knowing the area in their small town. It was the decision of the chief that she would be placed in a witness protection program, and taken out of the area to somewhere else for her to stay until they were able to capture him and she could testify against him. They wouldn't listen to her pleas for them to reconsider their decision, and kept informing her that it had to be this way or she wouldn't live long once she walked outside of the station.
Sitting in the back of Yukon, she held her hands in the lap of her white sundress she had been wearing at her job for the day with a denim jacket over top of it. Her feet tapped against the floor of the vehicle in the white flats she had been wearing. A light breeze blew to where she was sitting in the back area, causing her wavy hair to sway slightly. She watched the scenery going by her in a blur while she kept asking herself questions about the whole thing.
Why didn't I just go back inside the store a few moments before he had looked over? Why didn't I just leave out the part about him making a threatening gesture towards me? What is going to happen to my apartment, my car, and all of my other belongings back at my apartment?
The whole situation distressed her to the core of her being. She just wanted to be at her home, telling herself this was all a bad dream. Letting out a heavy sigh, she eased her eyes shut with the intent of trying to get a little bit of sleep before she had to meet the person that she was to be staying with. The police chief didn't show her a picture of what he looked like, but she did remember his name.
Detective Mark Callaway.
