It was dark night in the neighborhood. One of those nights without stars and the moon, the sky was gloomy and even in the darkness you could feel how gloomy the sky was. The darker it was the uglier crimes happened. Couple abandoned houses were burn down that night including the drug house on Justice's street. Criminals were changing selling spots because recently they got attacked by competitors. They were desperately trying to figure out who that was. The competitors were braking into their drug houses while those were empty of people what was very rare because somebody had to always be there at all times. That meant that the houses where watched by somebody and criminals couldn't figure it out by whom. Usually competitors destroyed all stashes of drugs and they precisely knew where those stashes were so somebody must have given them the information. And most of all if sometimes the occupants of the drug house were coming back they were killed in the most weird way possible. No gunshot wounds, usually it were stab wounds with knifes or sharp objects, sometimes it were blunt traumas from a baseball bat. The criminals and drug lords of the Zone Three were nervous and paranoid and they decided to burn all current drug houses and find new places to stash.
After that "Fire Night" how Zone's news channel on YouTube called it the streets of the zone became quiet for a while. It was taking sometime for criminals to find new places and get customers going there. From time to time drugs were selling on the streets; on the corners and in alleys. One dark night a news crew of volunteers was driving around the streets waiting for some crime to happen or any possible news to talk about. Everything was as usual, empty streets with lonely lights not always working not everywhere. Corner stores still were open and gathered around itself a lot of weird and poor looking people. Some streets were completely out of light even in the houses. Alleys going deep inside the Zone were looking like empty vines of a corpse.
- Looks like this night is about to be boring. – said the driver.
- You never know Jim, you never know. – said his passenger sitting next to a driver.
- I'm happy that recently it's quiet on the streets. Ain't you guys? – said a woman on the back seat.
- I'm …mmm… relived a little bit especially after that "Fire Night". It was truly hell I the Zone. – said a passenger next to the driver Jim
- Yeh. I agree. – nodded Jim looking on the road.
Suddenly, the shots were fired somewhere deep in an alley the news crew car was driving by.
Shit. We jinxed it. Go there!
How? It's an alley. It's full of bushes and garbage. Impossible, Logan! – said Jim
Fuck! They keep shooting, go around. Park on the street we will go through an abandoned house or something.
Come on hurry! – screamed the woman from the back seat.
They drove around and parked the car next to a destroyed curb covered with grass and shattered glass.
Let's go. The camera ready? – asked Logan leaving the passenger seat next to the driver. – Jim, stay here just in case!
Camera is ready! – said woman who was following Logan into the bushes of a front yard of an abandoned house.
They walked through the bushes and saw a small burned down long time ago house with a caved in roof and empty holes instead of windows. The shooting stopped when the crew parked their car, so Logan and a camera woman just tried to see if there was anybody alive. They quietly came to the back yard and there was the dark alley. Trees and bushes were growing over the knocked down fence. Logan turned on a pocket flash light and a small circle of light started to move on the ground until it caught something in the bushes.
Oh God! It's a dead man. – whispered a woman with a camera.
Maybe he is still alive, Ilham. Stay here.
Logan came close to a dead man but he was definitely dead. His face was full of terror and it was a big kitchen knife sticking out from his chest exactly in the place where the heart was.
Help. – somebody weakly called from the nearest bushes.
Ilham, somebody is in there. – said Logan pointing on the bush.
Both man and woman came closer to the place where the help was called from.
Hey? Do you need help? Can you get up and we can take you to a doctor? – whispered Logan.
A man in the bushes didn't say anything but he moved. The light of a pocket light finally found somebody between branches and garbage. Both the dead man and the lived one were definitely gang members. They had some jewelry and purple shirts on.
Help. – squeaked the man and stretched his arm towards Logan.
What happened? – asked Logan trying to pull a man's arm.
A man didn't answer but he tried to push himself towards Logan. It took them ten minutes to pull the wounded guy on the open space of a backyard. He was stabbed many times and bleeding nonstop.
Take me to my house. Five three eight Donald Street. I fucking wanna die at home. – begged the wounded man.
Logan and Ilham looked at each other. Taking him to a doctor wasn't a good idea. The only hospital in the Zone was working with only three doctors and five nurses and had very little of medication to help. The dying man knew it as well as Logan and he didn't want to die in a corridor of the empty hospital.
I'll call Jim, he can drive the car on the front yard it would be closer to us. – said the camera woman and left to call the driver.
Who did that to you? Your competitors who are they? Reds? Underbridgers?
No. The White Shadow. – whispered the man on the ground, the strengths were leaving him as the blood run out from his body.
What is your name? – asked Logan trying to hold a jacket on top of the biggest wound the guy had on the left side of his body.
No names. The White Shadow is a woman, man. It's a woman. – the wounded guy coughed with his blood dripping out of his mouth.
The car engine was roaring closer and closer in a moment the front yard was full of flash lights of the news crew's car.
Come on. You need to walk a little to the car. We will take you home.
Jim and Logan picked up the guy and dragged him to the car, he was squeaking and moaning. Ilham opened the door of a back seat and the pushed the guy in.
Let's go. Five three eight Donald Street.- said Logan running around the car.
I know where it's at! – said Jim.
The camera woman set on the back seat trying to hold Logan's jacket to the wound in the victim's body.