Max Payne: The Beginning

by Kody Gedge

Read about the one incident that changed a man forever, and not for the better. August 22, 1998, Max returned home to find that a trio of apparent junkies had broken into his house while high on a new designer drug called Valkyr. Max rushed to aid his family, but was too late. His wife and their newborn daughter had already been brutally murdered.

Max Payne by Kody Gedge

By Kody Gedge

To make any kind of sense of it I need to go back three years- Back to the night the pain started. I was still in the force back then. NYPD, Manhattan, Midtown north precinct. Hell's kitchen.

I stood in my bosses office, ready to walk out for a week vacation to take care of my baby with my wife, Michelle.

"So, when are you coming to work for me, detective Payne?" My boss Alex asked me.

"You'd make me work undercover in some hell hole. Sorry Alex, Michelle and the baby come first." I said with a grin on my face. I can barely remember ever being that happy. I grabbed the ash tray off of his desk and held it in my hand.

"See! My last smoke. It's bad for the baby."

"That's you, Max. A regular boy scout." he chuckled.

I set the ashtray down on his desk and turned for the door.

"See you, Alex." I said briefly.

"Still on for poker on Thursday night, right?"

"Like taking candy from a baby."

Life was good. The sunset on a sweet summer's day, the smell of freshly mowed lawns filled the air joining with the sounds of children playing. My house, a house across the river on the Jersey side. A beautiful wife and baby girl. The American dream come true. But dreams have a nasty habit of going bad when you're not looking.

I arrived later than I expected. The sun went down with practised bravado. Twilight crawled across the sky, laden with foreboding. I didn't like the way the show started, but they had given me the best seat in the house. Front row center.

I stuck my house key in the front door and swung it open.

"Honey, I'm home!" I called out. There was no answer. Before I could call out again, something caught my attention. It was something ugly that had been tattooed on the wall, a map of things to come. It was a poison syringe, a magic tag full of diabolical meanings.

I heard the phone ring constantly. So like prey to a predator, I ran over stupidly and picked up the phone from the counter in a fury.

"Listen! Someone has broken into my house, call 911!"

"Is this the Payne residence?..." a voice replied.

"Yes, someone's broken into my house, they are still here, you have to-"

"Good. I am afraid I cannot help you."

"Who is this?" I asked. Nothing was heard except for a click. "Hello?"

And that was it. So much for the help. I'd have to act on my own. I opened the cabinet directly across the hall and pulled out my 12 gauge 12 gauge. Cocked and loaded, I proceeded up the stairs.

My feet pounded on the hardwood steps as I pounced up the stairs. I held the 12 gauge grasped in my hands as tight as I could, and expected the worst. As I ran up the stairs I heard my wife Michelle scream followed by my baby. The last thing I heard before I reached the top were gun shots.

"Michelle!" I called out in anger. My heart was beating faster than I could count.

My best guess was that it sounded like my family was being held in my bedroom. I could have gotten there the fastest by going through the bathroom, so I walked into the bathroom. I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of blood smeared all over the walls. I tried to push open the door that connected the bathroom and my bedroom, but it wouldn't budge more than a couple inches. It was jammed.

I heard my wife plead for her life from behind the door. Obviously from what I heard, the gunman didn't agree and fired at least four to five shots. I gritted my teeth in anger and ran out of the bathroom and into the hallway again. I'd have to go through the baby's bedroom to get into mine. I was certain that was where Michelle was.

I stopped as my daughter's bedroom door burst open while a man stood in the doorway. He held a 9mm handgun at his side.

"Freeze!" I yelled out at him. "NYPD, drop it!" he didn't stop. Instead, he moved towards me.

By now I had my 12 gauge trained on his torso, ready to fire. He didn't stop, and he fired a bullet that whizzed past my head and planted into the wall behind me. I pulled the trigger and saw the gunman fly back at least five feet. A gaping hole tore in his chest and blood flew around him like a rainstorm, raining onto the ground making the baby blue carpet soaked with a dark red tinge.

I walked into the room and saw another man charge out of the door on the opposite side of the room. He yelled out inaudible cussing and fired at me. Instinctively with my police training, I whipped my gun around and shot him down as well. Blood plastered the wall behind him and he was thrown down lifelessly on the ground.

It wasn't until all the action stopped that I realized my surroundings. The baby blue walls with cloud paintings in the room were covered with red splats of blood. The crib was tipped over with my daughter dead inside next to tumbled alphabet blocks still wrapped up in a blanket. A lullaby still played from the corner of the room.

"No, no..." I paused, quivering in shock. "Please God... no..." my eyes started to tear up. Never so fast had I felt my life completely shattered. Or until I entered the next room, that was.

I opened the door to my bedroom and another gunman stood at the corner of the room. He held up his gun and fired into the ground about a few feet in front of me. Pieces of carpet and shrapnel from the bullet flew up into the air in a miniature cloud of dust. I barely aimed before I pulled the trigger and the recoil pushed the 12 gauge back into my shoulder. There was enough stopping power in the buckshot that it sent him flying back into the wall with a crash.

I looked over on my bed and I saw her. Saw my beautiful wife, best friend, and soul mate, Michelle, slain on the bed. The bullet wounds looked like shiny rubies engraved into her torso, how each flesh wound reflected the light from the bedroom lamp and producing a sickening glimmer.

"No, no, no... oh God no..." I stood in horror. My life may have well have ended when theirs did. I knew I would never be the same. "Please, Michelle, baby..."

I turn around and looked at the gunman dressed in blue, slouched against the wall. It was the bastard that killed my family. In a sudden out burst of anger, I spat on him and threw my 12 gauge at him. It hit him in the chest and knocked him over.

I stumbled back over to the bed and held my head in my hands as I dropped down to my knees. I leaned my weight on the end of the bed feeling sick. I wanted to throw up, or even worse, to die and wither away. Seeing your dead family was an unimaginably terrible feeling. In fact, it was the worst feeling in the entire world, and almost felt as if you were being stabbed in the chest.

The tight, constricting feeling that spread through your lungs made it feel as if you couldn't talk, smile, or even breath. The depression washed over me like a giant wave of water on a beachhead. I couldn't control myself. I screamed out and pounded my first on the bed in anger as I cried the hardest I had in my entire life.

And that was three years ago. Everything ripped apart in a new york minute. It turns out that the killers were junkies, high on a previously unknown designer drug, Valkyr, V.

After the funeral, I told Alex I would be transferring to DEA.