Author: Special thanks to Dierdre who beta this chapter. And thanks to people who are still reading Redemption. Hope that this chapter will be to your liking. Reviewing is encouraged.
WARNING: This chapter has swearing and is dark, to say the least.
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The darkness in the long, narrow alleyway was so overwhelming, it moved like it was alive. Long arms melted out of the shadows and reached for him, trying to pull him in, but he kept running. Faces formed in the walls, a mixture of former friends and enemies, all twisted in anger and hatred. Even through their graves their hatred reached him.
Behind him was an all-too-familiar demonic roar and the sounds of something large and heavy chasing him. He dared not look back, fearing that he would see those demonic yellow eyes. The path ahead became twisted, branching into a hundred different possibilities, each offering an exit, each a hundred times worse than the next.
It didn't matter which one he would take. In a nightmare, every decision made is the wrong one.
Picking one at random, he ran down the alley. The sky above held no sun, no clouds, just... nothingness.
The path became smaller and smaller, the walls moving closer. Arms suddenly sprung from them and grabbed him, starting to pull him in several directions. He felt a cry of pain explode from his mouth as the arms slowly twisted him. Up head, a creature literally melted out of the shadows as if it were stepping out of water. Its body was all deformed, with huge muscles almost ripping through its dark green skin. Its eyes were glowing white, and red skin was wrapped around its head. The thing's face twisted into a wide grin.
"...rrrreeeeeaaaddddyyy tooo... dddiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee?" It asked mockingly. The grin widened further as it pulled out two daggers, the blades wider than its arms and all twisted, dripping with blood.
Behind him, he could feel the demon's hot breath on the back of his neck as the thing in front of him came closer, raising its daggers and-
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
"Yo, M.J.! Open up! Now!"
M.J. woke up sprawled across his old couch, pale as a sheet with cold sweat all over his body. He breathed fast as he felt his heart pound behind his ribs, hands gripping the shotgun in his lap with his finger dangerously tight on the trigger.
BAM!
BAM!
"M.J. I know yer in dere! Open up now!"
W-wha..? Who the..?
"Piss off! I'm busy!" M.J. finally yelled. He shakily sat up on the couch and eased his grip on the trigger, but with the barrel still aimed at the door.
"It's me! Casey! C'mon, man! I know yer in dere!"
"Wha-Casey? The hell you doin' here?"
"Open up! I gotta talk to ya!"
Casey Jones pounded on the door again, this time causing small cracks to form on the old wood. M.J. quickly realized that Casey wasn't planning on leaving and that the door wouldn't hold out for much longer.
"Alright, alright, alright! The floor next to the door on the right is loose and there's a key beneath it!" M.J. angrily hid the shotgun under the couch, as the loud sound of wood breaking came from the door.
"Oy! There ain't no key 'ere!"
"The other right!" M.J. shouted angrily as he got up, still feeling a bit sore from the beating he'd received from that... thing.
"Oh yeah, here it is."
M.J. walked towards the fridge and grabbed a beer as the doors unlocked. Casey stormed in, although when he saw M.J.'s apartment he stopped dead in his tracks, wide eyes blinking as he took it all in.
"...whoa, dis dump is worse den my place!"
"Why thank you," M.J. replied sarcastically as he opened the beer and took a sip. Casey's attention went from the ugly apartment and focused on M.J.
"It's you, ain't it."
M.J. blinked, although it was because he had just woken up and not from actual surprise. "Me what?"
"You know what I mean! Da one dat killed dat Purple Dragon big shot last week, da one who's been killin 'em all dis year! Yer da one!"
"So?"
Casey must have expected me to deny it or try to argue with him, for he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Eventually he just left his mouth hanging open and simply stared at me.
"Yer...yer not even gonna deny it?"
"Why should I? It's the truth," M.J. replied coolly, taking another sip of his beer.
"But... is it... is it only you? I mean, no ones knows if it's been a group o' people or just couple of guys, but... is it only you who's been doin' it? An' no one else?"
"As far as I know, yeah. Wanna beer?" M.J. asked. He opened his refrigerator again and pulled out another beer, but decided at the last moment not to toss it at Casey, since he still looked too stunned to notice.
"But... why? Most of 'em dese days ain't nuthin' but kids."
"If you'd seen what I've seen kids do, Casey, you'd lose your faith in humanity. And before you ask, no, I haven't shot a kid. So far I've been lucky." Even as M.J. said it, however, he knew he should have chosen a better word.
"Lucky? LUCKY? You call shootin' people an' gettin' away with it lucky! I ain't even gonna ask ya how many ye have killed, but-"
"I stopped counting when I reached twenty."
I lied. Counting B.B., my number has reached forty-two. But he doesn't need to know that.
"I, that is, I ah... uh..." Casey stumbled as he tried to remember whatever it was he had been planning to say. Finally, he shook his head in anger and started over. "Damnit, M.J., dere are other ways to do dis! Who's saying you gotta kill 'em? Can't you just, like, wound 'em or sumthin' an' call the police?"
"What, like the Vigilante?"
Casey's reaction was... odd. At first he froze, his eyes slightly wide, and then he tried to say something, but most of what came out of his mouth was, "Uh, well... that is uh... umm... ah... l-like the, ah... umm... yes! Just like da Vigilante! I-I mean, not dat I know much 'bout da way he thinks or anythin' or even know 'im for dat matter, but ah... well..."
M.J. raised an eyebrow. The show Casey was putting on was something he had never seen him do, which said something about the man's agitation. "Why the hell are you getting so worked up about it? It's not like gangbanging is something new in the streets of New York."
"It's entirely different when ya know who's doin' the killin', M.J.," replied Casey, looking more serious then M.J. had ever seen him.
"Well, what the hell do you expect? I'm a gangster. And gangs aren't exactly known for being some damn social clubs," M.J. said, feeling irritated. He turned his back on Casey and looked through the kitchen window.
"But dat's just it! You ain't no killer! I know 'cause I also grew up on the streets. I've seen some of da worst people, an' you ain't one of 'em, not by a long shot! Hell, I once heard ya saw a kid get shot an' nearly had a breakdown!"
At hearing those words, M.J.'s breath left his lungs and his grip on the beer bottle loosened, causing it to shatter on the floor. The noise didn't register to him, however. A memory M.J. had spent years trying to bury and forget had been dragged back to the surface.
"you bastard..." M.J. hissed, battling hard not to give in to the tears that were building up in his eyes.
"See what I mean? Ya were never meant to be in some gang an' hurt an' kill people, an' now look at ya! Nuthin' but skin an' bones an' ye look like ye ain't slept in weeks! What ya've been doin' just ain't worth it! But more importantly, they don't deserve it!"
A couple of seconds passed until M.J. spoke, his voice deadly calm.
"And here I thought you'd praise me on a job well done," he then slowly turned and faced Casey, his face twisted into a sneer, "considering they burned down your father's shop with him still in it."
A shocked expression transformed Casey's face, partly out of the memory that he had also tried to bury and partly because he never expected M.J. to say that. His shocked expression quickly changed into anger, however.
"Why you..!" Casey snarled and half charged towards M.J., pulling his right hand back for a punch. M.J. narrowed his eyes slightly and braced himself.
Then everything slowed down. Literally.
Casey's charge suddenly didn't seem to follow actual time, and his yell of fury slowed down like in some action movie, becoming deep.
That's not supposed to happen, a part of M.J. thought as Casey's fist slowly came closer, until he moved to dodge the blow. He also felt himself move slowly, and yet he was faster than Casey. He dodged the blow and his hand traveled to Casey's throat, where it struck his Adam's apple.
The moment it did, everything seemed to return back to normal time.
Casey fell on the floor, coughing and gasping for air, while M.J. breathed heavily, his mind racing in an attempt to figure out what had just happened.
And then the pain came.
It felt like his brain was a dish and someone was running a fork over it, creating an almost electric feeling of pain inside his skull. The pain so immense he swore he could hear it, M.J. grabbed his head. Warm blood flowed from his nose, and when he opened his eyes everything was blurry and he could barely see two Caseys sprawled on the floor. He tried to walk, but stumbled, and the last thing he saw before blacking out was the incoming floor.
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While in the middle of an experiment, one of the computers suddenly started beeping. Looking away from his microscope, the large figure saw data filling one of the computer screens. Blinking in slight puzzlement, he walked closer to the screen… until he saw what kind of data was incoming.
His eyes widening in shock, he breathed, "Oh, no..."
With shaking hands, he carefully typed in a few cryptic commands. The screen changed, showing a human brain with several small red spots appearing in specific areas.
"No, what... what have I done to you?" He whispered, burying his head in his hands.
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M.J. felt like shit, and he hadn't even opened his eyes yet.
But when he eventually forced them open, he wished he had kept them closed. He was lying on the living room sofa, and even though there wasn't much light in the room, it pierced into his eyes like hot needles. Groaning sharply, he weakly moved his hand up to cover his eyes.
"An' here I was thinkin' about callin' the hospital or sumthin'."
Slowly lifting the hand away, M.J. saw Casey sitting in one of the chairs, facing the flickering TV screen and holding a beer in his hand.
"So... how ya feelin'?"
"...like shit..."
"Heh, yeah, no kiddin'. For a moment dere I thought ye were havin' one of 'em strokes or seizures. You know, the ones that make ye foam at da mouth and wet yer pants."
For a moment M.J. didn't say anything, until Casey's words sank in. He moved his hand away fast and rose up to check his pants, half expecting to see what he didn't want to see.
"Made ye look," Casey said teasingly, taking a sip of his brew.
M.J. grumbled something incoherent and slumped back onto the sofa. An uncomfortable silence lingered, the only sounds coming from the TV when it showed something other than static. From the sounds of things, Casey was watching some cartoon show.
M.J. tried to fight it, to toughen up like he had been doing all these months, but... it was just something that he needed to say, something that had been weighing on him for a long time. And with Casey reminding him of it once more, he was quickly losing the battle for control. And who knew, maybe that... that… pain in his head a moment ago was a... a sign. A sign he didn't have much time.
"I was fourteen when it happened."
There. It had started. Now the rest needed to be said.
"Hmm? When what happened?"
"When... when I saw that kid get shot."
Casey blinked in surprise, the beer bottle half way to his mouth, "...oh."
"I... I had only been in the gang about a month. I...we, that is, me and some other guys from the Grove, went to this place one night. It was one of those rare neutral events, where it was best to leave your gang colors at home before showing up, if you only wanted to have fun without risking violence from a rival gang or something. God, there were so many people there. White. Black. Spanish. But no one seemed to notice that, or care. In one place there were some guys on bikes and skateboards who were showing off; in another there was a car show. Hell, I even think someone brought a grill with him and was barbequing for people. In exchange for money, of course.
"And then... I can't recall how long I had been there, but... right there in front of me, this weird guy started arguing with another kid, who looked like he was only a year or so older than me. I remember how I thought the guy was acting weird; his face was all sweaty and he was constantly rubbing at his neck and twitching. I couldn't exactly make out the words, but I could tell the guy wanted something from the kid, and the kid didn't want to give it to him. Then the kid said something about the other guy's sister and... he... pulled out a gun and just shot the kid."
Casey's eyes widened in shock, and he nearly dropped the beer. With M.J. lying on the sofa, looking up with his hand resting over his eyes, he couldn't see what kind of expression M.J. had. But his voice had been steady, perhaps wavering once or twice, but steady.
"And then... then there was chaos all around. I got pushed forward and the kid grabbed me as he fell down, almost dragging me down with him. There was... so much blood and the kid's eyes were so… fearful. He tried to breathe, but it sounded like the bullet had pierced one of his lungs. I didn't have a cell phone on me and neither did the kid, and everybody else was too busy running away to make a call to the hospital. I tried to stand up, but the kid wouldn't let me go and... I saw that...he didn't want to be... left alone. I... I don't know how long we just sat there, but... eventually he stopped trying to breathe. I just stayed there until the sounds of sirens snapped me back to my senses. After that I just…left."
M.J. took a deep breath, while Casey opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
"The thing is... I remember the look in the kid's eyes. At first, he was so terrified and then... it's like he realized this is it. You're not going to live any longer. And when he died, he looked so... goddamned disappointed. And I never even found out what his name was."
"Why... why did that guy shoot him?" Asked Casey, failing to keep his voice steady as his eyes turned watery.
"Found out later that the kid was selling drugs. The guy was one of his regulars, but didn't have money on him that night. He was caught the next day and sentenced to prison. Twenty to life. A month later I heard the guy got stabbed in his sleep. I guess child-killers aren't liked much in prison."
M.J.'s tale finally completed, the next fifteen minutes were spent in silence. As it got darker outside, it was Casey who spoke next.
"M.J., I, ah, umm... I'm...well, dat is..."
"...Casey... just go."
Casey didn't immediately move; he looked more like he wanted to say something. But in the end he simply nodded, finished his beer in one swig, and then stood up and went for the doors.
"How'd you find me, anyway?" asked M.J. as Casey opened the door. He half turned, seeing that M.J. was still in the same position on the sofa.
"I just asked aroun' 'till I stumbled on dat diner. Dat nice old lady who works dere told me where she thought you were. Turns out she was right. She was really nice an' thought you were okay."
"I think it has more to do with the big tips I always leave behind."
Casey didn't say anything as he left, closing the door and leaving M.J. alone.
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2 hours later...
M.J. sat on one of the few seats available in the subway-train, trying to look calm while he felt the shotgun beneath his jacket pressing hard against his ribs and the weight of the 9mm in his pocket.
I...I guess it was on that night I realized what kind of lifestyle was waiting for me as a gangster. It wouldn't be the last time I would see someone get killed, nor would I go to only one funeral. Casey may have experience with living on the streets, where running isn't done for just exercise, or where carrying a baseball bat is not just for sport, but he got off easy. He had the chance to live his life as his own.
Me, I grew up learning that you're either a part of something, or you're nothing and are treated as such. So yeah, I was more like drafted into Grove Street rather than joined willingly. But hey, there were a lot of worse gangs than Grove Street. A lot worse. At least Grove stood for something, even though it was a bit naive. And yeah, Grove was in the end just a gang, but I want to believe Grove was the lesser evil.
I guess I… just tried to make the most of what I had. Didn't make many actual friends; mostly because I didn't want to one day hear that some or all of them were killed by a rival gang or the police. I tried to live each day to the fullest, but the damn nagging thought that it might be my last always kept bugging me. Being a gangster doesn't exactly come with a long life span.
Suddenly M.J. grimaced and brought a hand to his eyes, gently rubbing them as the sudden pain slowly left again.
And what the hell was that back with Casey? I mean, when he went to punch me, everything just... slowed down or something. I feel like my brain got shoved into a microwave and set to fry. And my eyes still hurt, especially if there's too much light around. Should have brought my sunglasses.
But what happened? What happened back there, just... just doesn't happen! It's not supposed to! Maybe... it's a sign. Maybe I'm losing my mind. I mean, I've been slowly losing pieces of my soul, so why not my sanity, too? Or maybe it's just whatever grip I have on reality. I've always pretended that things were different or just looked the other way. Pretended that being a Grover was the best thing that had ever happened to me, pretended that I was okay with things that went on around me. Been pretending that what I've been doing is...okay. That it is justifiable. So who knows, maybe I've pretended so many times that I'm slowly becoming more and more incapable of separating what is real and what is fantasy.
Heh, maybe I should e-mail the Wachowski brothers. They seem to specialize in the human mind. And who knows, maybe-
M.J. snapped back from his thoughts as some nasty laughter sounded at the end of the train. Bending slightly forward, he could see a gang of thugs coming, obviously enjoying scaring the passengers and getting away with it. And when M.J. spotted a familiar tattoo on one of them, he sat up right in his seat and cursed silently in his head.
Purple Dragons! Of all the... wait, how long I have been on this train anyway?
M.J. checked his watch and nearly cursed out loud this time.
Shit! Got so caught up in my own damn thoughts, I've been here for nearly an hour! I'm probably now at the heart of the Dragons' territory! And here I am, with only a 9mm, a shotgun and no ammo! And I was heading back to Emet to get some more. Talk about irony...
The thugs, around six of them, were almost on M.J., who did his best not to call attention to himself. Instead, he leaned slightly towards the passenger on his right, who was reading a newspaper. Well, probably pretending to read it like M.J. was, since his hands shook a little and droplets of sweat were forming on his face as the gangsters came closer.
They were snickering about something as they passed by and seemed to be heading to the next cart, when one of them stopped in front of one of the passengers, seated just a couple of feet away from M.J.. He didn't see who it was, but by the sounds of things the passenger was a woman. The thug tried some dumb cheesy pick-up lines and the rest of his buddies laughed stupidly. It went on for about a minute, and just as the train was slowing down, M.J. risked glancing away from the paper and at one of the thugs.
Who at the same time glanced in M.J.'s direction.
Their eyes met, and the thug's widened in recognition.
The thug froze and started slowly shaking, looking terrified. A dark spot slowly formed on his pants.
M.J. recognized him, too. It was that kid from Big T's crack house. He still had no Dragon tatts on him.
"Hey Billy, what's wrong?" One of his buddies had noticed Billy's odd behavior, and his eyes slowly moved to where Billy was staring. He saw M.J and their eyes met. The thug looked familiar, but M.J. couldn't remember where he'd seen him.
Regardless, the thug remembered M.J. from somewhere.
"Holy-! Guys, it's him! It's that Grove killer!" The rest of them looked at M.J., one or two of whom also had a look of recognition on their faces. After a few seconds had passed that felt like years, one of them reached into his jacket.
M.J. was quicker. As he rose up, he pulled out his 9mm and shot the thug somewhere in the chest, just as the train slowed down at the next stop. Screams of panic erupted among the passengers, some throwing themselves to the floor, while still others tried to get away as fast as possible. The train's doors slowly opened and by the looks of things, the people outside had heard the gunshot and were running away.
Without a second glance, M.J. ran out of the train and immediately spotted a security guard, coming towards him with a gun in his hands. M.J. turned to his left and ran alongside the train, ignoring the security guard's yell to stop, until he reached the opening of the tunnel. Jumping off the platform and into the tunnel, M.J. ran as fast as he could into the dark.
Meanwhile, back at the platform, one of the Purple Dragons pulled out a cell phone. Holding a finger to his other ear to muffle the noises coming from the panicking people, he almost had to yell into his phone.
"Hank! It's Will! You're not gonna believe this!"
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"Oh man, I'm not so sure 'bout this."
"Shut up, fool, and stay alert! That bastard couldn't have gone far!"
"B-but w-what if a t-t-train c-comes?"
"They won't start the trains in this section 'till the cops figure out what happened back 'dere. 'Till then, we got a couple of hours. Now shut up an' keep yer eyes open!"
The four Purple Dragons continued running in the underground tunnel, all of them armed. But then suddenly, one of them stopped and ran back. "Hey guys! I found something!"
The rest turned back to see what it was. In a small space between the tracks and the wall, there was a half-open manhole.
"Think he went dere?"
"Where else would he go?" snapped their leader as he pulled out his cell and dialed a number.
"Hank, it's Will again. Guess what; the dumb bastard is in the sewers. Spread the word to everyone. Dat guy's been killin' too many of us already. An' see if Hun will give us dat bounty he placed couple of days ago."
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3 hours later...
M.J., knee-deep in foul-smelling sewer water, waded through it as fast as he could without causing too much noise, constantly looking over his shoulder as he griped his shotgun tighter. Approaching yet another intersection, he suddenly saw flashlight beams up ahead and quickly took cover behind two large pipes.
No sooner had he done so, then nearly twenty Purple Dragons passed by, most armed with guns while the rest carried bats, chains and pipes. Almost half of them were also holding flashlights, and twelve of them broke off from the group and walked down the passage where M.J. had been coming from. Fortunately, none of them spotted the pipes or thought about checking them.
M.J. waited ten agonizing minutes before daring to step out of his hiding place. With no signs of more Purple Dragons, he took the path to the left, where the Dragons had already passed.
I hate the sewers.
It's not just the smell; it's the thought of all the germs and shit that I got all over my clothes that really freak me out. I swear, if I get out of this one alive, I'm gonna burn these damn clothes and donate all the money I got to some city project that aims to seal up all sewer accesses.
M.J. suddenly stopped and listened for something. After an almost nerve-breaking minute where he detected nothing strange, he resumed wading through the water.
These damn Purple Dragons are everywhere. There must be hundreds of them all over the area. Guess I really must be at the heart of their turf. Been trying to find some way out, but it's all guarded, and only the thought of going up and walking around right outside Hun's place makes me just stay down here. For the past hour or so I've tried to just walk a straight line, hoping to end up near the ocean or at least out of the Dragons' turf. 'Course, since their turf is so damn big, I got no clue whether I'm out or not. For all I know I'm just going deeper and deeper into the Dragon's lair, so to speak.
One thing's for sure, though. Aside from getting spotted by a group of Purple Dragons, things can't possibly get any worse.
Up ahead, M.J. saw a footpath next to the walls. Climbing up to it and trying hard not to see what was sticking to his pants and shoes, M.J. was rather grateful that he no longer needed to be in that dirty water. After walking for a while along these narrow lanes, he noticed another passageway intercepting the one he was walking in, forming an X shape. M.J. walked up the corner and glanced to his right. He was about to check left, when he spotted some strange figures…
And totally froze. Partially out of surprise, but mostly out of total fear as a nightmare became real.
"Oooooh, shiiit... just how many are you!" M.J. half-yelled, a part of him surprised that his mouth somehow managed to work. And somehow, the thought of aiming the shotgun at those things never even occurred to him.
For almost a week he had tried to figure out just what had attacked him on the roof that night. A demon, an alien or something else entirely, he just couldn't figure out what the hell it had been. And the nightmares hadn't helped one bit. In the end he had just decided to try and forget about the incident, to forget about it, but that plan was blown right out the window as soon as he saw three of those things standing there, almost half hidden in the shadows. There were signs in their body language that they, too, had been taken by surprise at M.J.'s sudden appearance, though he doubted they felt the same fear that was running through him at that moment.
No one moved or said anything, and the tension slowly built. M.J. looked at each of these creatures, and the pure white in their eyes was extremely unnerving. There seemed to be a subtle difference in their skin colors, but what made them really stand apart were their bandanas. The one at the front had a blue bandana, while the other two sported purple and orange, respectively. When the variety of colors registered to M.J., he almost blinked in confusion.
Wait, I remember the one who attacked me had a red bandana. Where is...
With speed that he didn't know he had, M.J. reached into his jacket with his left hand and pulled out his 9mm. Aiming the shotgun at the group in front of him, he half turned to the left, leveling his pistol at whatever was there. He had planned on giving the unseen corridor a brief glance, panning back to the freaks in case they tried to attack and then back to the left in case there was something there.
But what he saw next made his quick plan blow right out the window.
There, on the other side of the small tunnel, was a four-foot-tall, hairy… thing, wearing something that looked like an old brown bath robe. It was leaning on a wooden cane, its stern eyes fixed on M.J. He blinked several times, unsure of what the hell he was seeing and totally forgetting what his shotgun was aimed at.
Without a word, the thing lifted it's... hand, paw, off the cane and made a stopping gesture. Blinking in surprise, M.J. suddenly remembered the other creatures and quickly looked back. Indeed, it looked like the green dudes had been about to charge at him, with their weapons in their hands and everything, but were stopped by the... hairy one.
Remembering it one again, M.J. quickly looked back. It was still there, standing on the same spot, with a certain stern, warning look in the eyes, somehow silently saying that should he try anything, he would regret it.
And then, without thinking and totally forgetting the situation he was in, M.J. closed his eyes and pressed his left hand against his head, feeling the cold metal against his temple just above the headache that was slowly forming.
"I need a drink."