Tag
By: Nick Sheufelt
1
Like usual, it was another quiet day in New York City. New York really isn't that bad when you look at it, it's just a city with a lot of small time crooks. If you take a stroll down 5th avenue, it's really quite peaceful. But of course, crooks are crooks, so we still needed police teams. Ever since the fall of the world trade center, the New York City Police Department has been put on red alert. My name is Daniel Percy, I'm a young forensic in Precinct 7, You know, just a little police office for neighborhood scumbags.
Every time something big happens, I'm always there. During the world trade center attack on 9/11, I was there determine what happened. Of course, I nailed it- a terrorist attack. Well, there hasn't been an attack like that since then, but you never know, big city, big possibilities. Today, I was on patrol in the lobby of the empire state building, you know, just in case there was a... "BOOM!". Bomb? Well you guessed right- there was a bomb up top. I heard that strange rumbling noise. About 110 floors up from the lobby, the empire state building was blowing out smoke. I knew what this meant- out with the officer, in with the "Sherlock Holmes figure it out yourself" scenario. We found 35 people dead, and 50 people injured, all in all, that was 85 victims of the bomb. 15 floors were blown apart by the bomb.
It felt freaky being about 1,000 feet in the air on an un-secure building structure. I was busy snapping photos of the tragic incident. Since the top of the Empire state building was close to collapsing, all victims were evacuated in time and we were sent to do the dirty work. Luckily, the Fire Department declared it safe to walk on, otherwise I would be buried in rubble right now. Grace Milford, a forensic in training, came over to me. "Dan, you should see this" she whispered in my ear. She lead me into the room the bomb went off in. Surprisingly, the room was still intact. I went through bomb squad training, so I wasn't that surprised. But when I studied the walls, I became really surprised. The walls of the small office room were vandalized in red ink with the words "Stevie".
The vandalized walls were puzzling enough, now the bomber had to throw me evidence from hell. I recovered shocking photos. These were photos of what appeared to be a full grown ram. It's head was all that was in the picture. The head was a dark brown. But this ram looked weird. It's eyes were yellow. Pure yellow. And the pupils were shrunken. It's teeth were gritted, appearing to be smirking at me. So a satanic sheep is the bomber, and people call me sane. But even more shocking evidence- I recovered a DVD in a case. On the front was written "watch it, your life WILL depend on it." I was surprised to see "will" in all capitals, but I knew what he meant, the bomber was about to make a broadcast. And yes, viewer discretion is advised,
2
Of course, people were concerned, so CNN and other large press stations, were asking for the rights of the video. I watched it originally, and it scared me half to death, I can't see why they would want to show it to the public. It was 7:00 pm, and everyone was tuning into channel 4. The newscaster came on T.V. "today," he began, "our very own empire state building was bombed on the last 15 floors. 35 people died from the ordeal, and maximum security has been placed and all visits are cancelled. A man confessed to the bomb on a DVD and has been requested to be aired live on national television tonight.
The newscaster continued, clearing his throat, "Here is the message left by the bomber, viewer discretion is advised." The screen went fuzzy. About 30 seconds later, an image began to appear. It was the ram head I recovered in the photographs. Those bright, screaming yellow eyes seemed to stare at me. A voice filled the screen. It was a deep raspy voice. "Hello New York" It began, "This message is on behalf of your lives. This isn't over yet. Expect more fear, expect more terror, expect more suffering. The only way out of this, is to solve the mystery. There is two sides to every story, written in blood, or written in ink. New York is playing a game of tag with me, and right now, your it!"
The screen went fuzzy for a couple seconds and cut to a new image. This new face started laughing a high pitched hyena laugh like the joker. This face was scarred. He had two glass eyes, which made him blind, but his teeth were clean and seemed to grin at me. He had six tall liberty spikes. (The image was in black in white, so I couldn't identify their color). But most of all, those angry looking eyebrows made the complete psycho maniac. Now he didn't just sound like a hyena, he looked like one. The tape cut, and the newscaster came on with a blank expression.
Solving the mystery... well this message was the first clue. People across the city were shocked. The mask still puzzled me, what did it mean? Who was the Mohawk figure? I don't know. But I would imagine this- they are both the same person, and they are way beyond anything I have tried to handle before. The only way to end it is to solve the mystery, and I only got one clue.
3
All schools in New York City were closed for today. Most people took time off of work, just to be safe. The police department could not back down. Everyone in the precinct was on full time detective duty. I spent my time in the empire state building recovering clues. I did discover that stevie is the name of the bomber and both the Mohawk man and the ram head were the same person. A weird piece of evidence I found was what appeared to be a mask. But an even more shocking discovery: It was a mask of Liam Hart- our top forensic. The thing that made this even more interesting was that Liam hasn't been in for days.
I returned the mask to the precinct for examination. Meanwhile, I looked over the video clip again to see if I could find any information out of it. The ram must have been a mask, and the Mohawk man was stevie's actual appearance, and because his image was to noticeable, he made a mask of Liam to disguise himself while going in to the state building. But what happened to Liam? Why hasn't he been at work for a week? I gathered nothing from my first clue. I tried finger prints, but it seemed stevie didn't exist, no records, no dental charts, no form of I.D. or anything.
Everyone was just staying at home hoping their homes won't be bombed. Now, the empire state building wasn't the only place that got bombed, 3 party stores were found completely destroyed. I went to each scene to recover the exact same thing- the walls with "stevie" written in red ink, photos of the ram head and a rubber mask of the store's owner. Where was Liam? I remember when I first came to the precint for training, Liam taught me everything he knew about forensics. He was such a nice guy, I would have hated him If he was stevie the bomber, but I didn't think that, I thought something worse.
So, stevie's game of tag began, and we were it. I always loved the game of tag as a kid, and stevie is giving a bad name, using it to confuse us and cause more suffering. Grace came over to me again. "sir, I think I've found something" said grace, "what is it?" I asked, "see for yourself." She led me outside, right at our doorstep, was a pile of bodies. "what the hell?" I said out loud. I recognized the bodies- they were the bloods, New York's most dangerous gang, and every last recruited member was stacked in front of this very precinct. Written on the street in front of us was "stevie" written in red ink. For his next trick, no bombs or weapons would be used, all he had to do was scare them to death..
4
Around 3:00, T.V. networks across the city were experiencing signal disturbances. I had no idea what was going on, someone must have been hacking the signal. I was watching the precinct's T.V., waiting for something to happen. The screen went fuzzy and something else started coming in. "what's this?" asked one of the officers. "I don't know" I replied. Everyone's eyes were trained on the T.V. screen. The image of a local bank appeared on the screen. Captions scrolled underneath the images. "Have you tried out my fireworks?" it read, "No? well let's see a little demonstration, shall we?" About 2 seconds later, the building on the screen imploded and started collapsing. The clip was on every T.V. channel in the city. An officer replied "It was probably a hoax" "It wasn't a hoax" I said "It was him." I ran outside. And sure enough, 2 blocks away, the only thing left of Steven and company's bank and trust was rubble, dust and corpses.