Gonna try and get Chapter 2 done tomorrow, which is supposed to be Chapter 1... but I've decided to switch it!
Chapter 1: New York, November 17th
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The morning alarm rings. With each passing
beep the phone gets louder until Tom Jackson’s girlfriend Betty takes his phone
and turns it off for him. “Hun, time to wake up. It’s Sunday.“ She softly says
to Tom. When she doesn’t get a response she crawls on top of his athletic body,
sitting on his dark skinned stomach. “Wake up hun, we need to get ready. It’s
almost ten.” She pleads again for him to wake up, but gives up. Instead of
pestering him to wake up again she set the alarm to sleep mode, it’ll ring
again in fifteen minutes. She crawls off his body and out of the bed, stepping
in Tom’s oily, dirty, and greasy work clothes from last night’s overtime shift.
The bottom of Betty’s foot is
covered in black grease and oil from the car shop. She frowns, her perfect feet
ruined by Tom’s carelessness of putting away his dirty laundry before crawling
into bed. With her dirty foot she kicks the pile of laundry into the basket
across the room, having it hit the wall and falling into the hamper. She then
hops towards the bathroom attached to their bedroom. After almost losing her
balance several times, she finally makes it to the bathroom and balances
herself on the shower’s glass door. She leans in, turning on the hot water and
letting the shower run for a few seconds as she undresses.
Betty
peels off her sleeping t-shirt. The t-shirt is from Tom’s workplace that reads
“Expert Mechanics: Why would you let someone other than an expert handle your
car?” with a cartoonish picture of Einstein working on a car. It isn’t a great
idea for a shirt, and it didn’t flatter her form as lingerie, but it’s free.
She then pulls down her purple boxer panties before kicking both articles of
clothing pass the open door to the bedroom. She tries hard not to stain the
bathroom floor with her greased blackish foot as it is her who would have to
clean it later. Betty puts the dirty foot in first, and then adjusts the
shower’s dials until the temperature is just right.
The
simple pleasure of a warm shower is one of life’s best moments. In the shower
Betty isn’t a simple girlfriend who is a step mother to wonderful boys, but a
person who daydreams about their day and how great it would be to win the
lotto. Her thoughts often causes her to loose herself from reality as she
spends minutes in the shower letting the water run down her curvy and young
body. She jumps when she hears a disgruntled voice coming from the other side
of the steamed shower door. “Hey, why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Ahhh!” She wipes the steam from the glass
shower door with her hands. She sees her boyfriend’s naked body standing
outside the shower. “Fucksakes babe, you scared me.”
“Why
didn’t you wake me up? I need to get to the church to help set up, I’m almost
late.” Tom says in an urgent tone. He walks to the toilet, lifting up the seat
and begins to take a piss.
“Couldn’t you wait?” Betty screams, hearing
the stream of pissing hitting the toilet bowl over her shower. This is one of
the things she dislikes about dating an older guy like Tom, they didn’t seem to
care about personal boundaries such as these. “So what happened with you last
night? How was work?”
Tom shakes and flushes the
toilet. The water in the shower goes from hot to cold water and a small shriek comes
from the shower. “I’m in here.” Tom laughs, washing his hands. “Well get out, I
need to shower. I’m filthy. It was fine, I went to Kevin’s afterwards and
played a few round of cards with him.”
“Oh did you? I called Tamara last
night. She didn’t say you were over.” She comments, recalling the conversation
with Tamara from last night which is filled with gossip, and plans for today’s
Carnival at church. Most of the conversation was gossip, especially about what
the other women say about her. Ever since Betty joined the “God’s Divinity
United” out in Harlem when she started seeing Tom four years ago, she had
nothing but bad experiences with most of the females there except for Tamara.
Not only is Betty judged by the gossipy gospel girls for being too young for
Tom at the age of twenty-three, or the fact that she is white, but because of
the rumour that Tom cheated on his ex-wife with her. To say the least, the
group of gossip girls have a few creative nicknames for Betty.
“Weird.” Tommy replays, opening the shower
door joining his girlfriend. He leans in giving her a kiss on the cheek and
wrapping his arms around her waist. She stays there, resting her head on his
chest as the shower’s water sprays on them. “I was just getting out anyways,
but next time you come home late can you not toss your clothes all over the
floor? Thanks.” She says, standing up on her tip-toes kissing his cheek. She
then gets out of the shower.
Breakfast isn’t any better. Betty
always cooks the Sunday traditional breakfast which consists of pancakes, eggs,
and bacon for their family. Between cooking breakfast, Tom’s odd behaviour, and
getting the pre-teen boys ready for church, it doesn’t seem like it is going to
be a good day. By the time Tom is dressed and comes downstairs, his breakfast
is a bit cold. When he brought it up to Betty, she just rolls her eyes. “Well,
we do have a microwave hun.”
“Where is this attitude coming from? What the
hell did I do?” Is Tom’s response, he continues to eat the cold breakfast
rather than getting up from the clean table and re-heating it himself. He is
careful not to stain his Sunday suit with the egg yolk as he puts some egg on
his fork and lifts it up to eat it.
“Oh you know what’s going on.”
Betty says, eyeing him from the sink as she finishes up with the dishes from
last night and this morning. Tom’s two kids, Tommy Jr. and Jason are busy
sitting in the front room playing video games, but they can easily overhear
their argument from the front room if they continue to argue. Both of them know
this back and forth bickering between their father and step mother have been
going on for a while.
“Can we not do this right now please? It’s bad
enough that you get on my back about every little thing. But not today,
please.” He suggests, finishing up his plate and carrying it over to Betty.
“Thanks hun, love you” He says, kissing her cheek. Betty just hums a sarcastic
hum to him. “I’m gonna get going, meeting Kevin to help set up a few of the
games. I’ll be manning the ring toss, make sure you play. Might win a big stuff
animal!” He says with a smile.
“Good maybe I’ll replace it with
you. Hope it’s an elephant.”
Tom drives off in his work’s tow
truck to the east side of Harlem where God’s Divinity United is located and
pulls to the opposite side of the street. The massive church parking lot is
where the Carnival is taking place, and it’s pretty much all set up from the
night before with the help of volunteers from the parish and community. Tom
gets out of his tow truck, dressed in his Sunday’s best and walks through the
Carnival’s entrance which is where cars would normally turn in to access the
parking lot. From there Tom can go left or right, left leads to the far end of
the parking lot where the Ferris wheel and bumper cars are and the right leads
to the carnival games, food, and the entrance to the church. The church is a
bit bigger than most community churches as it relies heavily on ad donations of
billboards around the community and donations from several of its patrons who
come in from the downtown area to Harlem. The all-day event kicks off in just under an
hour with routine church services at 3, 5, and 7pm ending the festive day at
about 9pm with fireworks.
It is hard for Tom to miss Kevin
as he walks to his booth he’ll be manning today. Kevin drew the short straw of
being the Carnival’s clown for the day. Although Kevin isn’t as dark or old as
Tom, it is still funny to see him dressed up as a clown. “Hey man” Tom says,
slapping Kevin’s hand and grasping it with his leading to a shoulder bump.
“Man I don’t want to be the
fucking clown.” Kevin complains as they walk along the Carnival’s game
boulevard. Tom laughs, shaking his head.
“So your girl sold me out last
night man.” Tom says to Kevin casually. They weren’t the only ones here in the
Carnival. All kinds of volunteers are about helping to get the Carnival open by
1pm so people of the church can enjoy the afternoon and evening together.
Kevin gives a look of worry to
Tom when he said that, “You think she knows?” Tom replies shaking his head.
“Nah, she doesn’t suspect
anything. Tell your woman to keep her trap shut okay? It’s all set up though
right? Was it hard to get it in there?”
Kevin shakes his head. “Naw, it
is easy, had Tamara help out with it but it should be good. It’s marked so you
know which one, come by next week and we’ll finish talking about this then,
okay?”
“Thanks man, you’re the man!” Tom
says, patting Kevin’s back clothed in clown overalls. Kevin continues down
towards the church and Tom enters the ring toss booth, ensuring everything is
ready for when the Carnival starts.
The ring toss booth is as busy as
Tom expected it to be. For four hours people have been coming up to Tommy’s
booth and winning, everyone seems to be a winner as the game isn’t really that
hard. The church modified the game just a bit to make it easier so that
everyone can win, but the addition of that one little tweak is causing Tom to
run out of prizes, he only has one left and he is saving it for Betty.
“Man where is she?” He says to
himself. He takes another look at the fair from his booth and everyone seems to
be enjoying themselves. Everyone is eating some sort of food be it mini-donuts,
deep fried mars bars, or cotton candy. In the distance he sees a funny looking
clown and whistles him over, “Hey Kevin, come here.”
The Clown walks towards Tom
carrying a sign that reads Balloon
Animals by Donation, the sad part is Kevin doesn’t really know how to do a
good balloon animal. When he approaches Tom, he wastes no time in asking him,
“Hey, where’s Betty? Have you seen her?”
“She just arrived, she went to
Tamara’s for the afternoon. Don’t worry, she’s fine. I had Tamara say that you
were at the house last night. She’s coming by as soon as she says hi to
Reverend Bill.”
“Thanks man, see ya in a bit?”
Kevin nods and left Tom to his ring toss booth. He spends the next twenty
minutes telling people that they can play the ring toss for free but the prize
that is remaining can’t be won. Only one customer seemed to have been annoyed
by it.
“Can I have a go at it? That
elephant looks neat.” Says a tall hunched back white man. The man appears
skinny from the facial features, but his coat is thicker than any coat he’s
seen. It looks like he is wearing a few t-shirts, and a sweater underneath the
large puffy jacket. The man’s eyes are a blue colour and they look up to Tom’s
eyes. “Why not?”
Tom shrugs, “Sorry mate, can’t.
Waiting on one last customer. Can’t give out this prize.” The man seems annoyed
by Tom’s answer and wobbles off, walking slowly as if he has a massive weight
on his back. Tom didn’t seem to like the interaction with the odd man, he only
seen him a few times in the church but helped out a lot with last night’s
decorations for the carnival. His actions lead Tom to believe he’s a nice guy,
he’s just presenting himself wrong. His thoughts about the odd interaction are
laid to rest ten minutes later when Betty came by to his booth.
“So everyone is telling me I have
to win this game. Well let’s do this.” She says with a smile, Tom gives her a
few rings and steps aside. Tom shows her how to play by throwing one of the
rings himself, it went over and missed the sealed Champaign bottle, which
replaces the empty on they’ve been using all day. The ground around the tent
gathers as most of the people attending the carnival knows what is about to
happen with Tom and Betty.
“So normally it is three bucks to
play, but since you’re so cute you can play for free” Tom winks, stepping aside
giving her a chance to throw her rings. The first ring misses, going over the
bottle. The second ring hits the bottle but doesn’t go over the top, and the
third ring is thrown wildly to the right as Betty’s body falls to the ground.
Tom is so focused on the ring toss, his arms already reaching for the stuffed
elephant he doesn’t hear the gun shots. It isn’t until the screaming of people
around them and of Betty that he realizes what’s happening.
Bullets pierce the bodies of
Carnival goers as blood gushes from the bodies and splatters all over the
carnival grounds. People are already running, pushing other people to the side
making it hard for Tom to see where the shooter is. He jumps over his ring
booth and bends down to pick up Betty’s body, she’s still breathing.
“Where’s the kids?” Tom says,
holding her close to him and gently shakes her body. She attempts to answer but
blood just pours out of her mouth as she gargles something. “Where are they?”
His body rattles with panic and worry for his kids and for Betty’s wellbeing.
Just as he stands up with Betty in his arms the ground shakes and he’s thrown
back on the ground as explosions rock the carnival. The force from the
explosions coming from the church and throughout random spots of the Carnival
causes most of the attendees to fall to the ground. Fires are ignited in tents,
and people continue to scream. People near the tents and the church are the hardest
hit by the explosions. A few seconds after the explosions finish, the church
collapses, the Carnival turns into outright chaos.
Tom remains on the ground holding
his girlfriend close in his arms. He prays that his children weren’t inside the
church just now when it collapsed. Tom continues to scan the area for the
attacker. From the smoke gathering from the fires and the dust from the church
collapsing large metallic wings glimmer from the destruction, and as the cloud
settles a naked castrated man holding a G36 automatic assault rifle appears.
His blonde hair, blue eyes and slightly bruised face looks like a super model
compared to the rest of his scared body. An adrenaline rush powers Tom to get
up to get a better glimpse of the man, but is met with more bullets firing from
his gun.
The bullets spray towards Tom
piercing him in multiple areas; some are hitting Betty who is still lying on
the ground. As Tom falls backwards looking up to the sky he can see the bullets
hitting the stuffed elephant causing it to fall apart letting an engagement
ring hit the cement floor of the church’s parking lot.
Nearly twelve hours after the
attack and a proper perimeter has been set up encasing ten city blocks around the
attack. People are outraged by the New York Police Department’s slow response
time to the attack in Harlem, and their inability to catch the guy who did
this. News of the man dressed as an angel slaughtering people with a rifle has
already been announced to the world as details of what caused the explosions
seconds after he opened fire is still to be determined. The police repeatedly
say they have no comment at this time, and an address by any political body has
yet to make an official announcement. The crime scene is covered in tape,
literally and figuratively. While lower officers, reporters, and people who
live around the crime scene can’t get access the area until police are done
with their searches, it doesn’t stop a red Sedan pulling into the crime scene.
The Sedan belongs to New York’s hero cop and greatest police commissioner Paul
O’Healy who only retired a few years earlier due to a falling out with his
protégé Michael Morrow, who is now a top investigator for the New York Police
Department.
Paul walks around the Crime scene
dressed in a flannel sweater and sweat pants. He wears running shoes even
though he doesn’t do much running anymore. Everyone on the scene knows him and
didn’t bother him as he walks around looking at the destruction. Not only is
the church destroyed and several people are dead with a lot more injured, but
store windows are shattered from stray bullets, car tires are blown, and even
debris from the church fell onto a nearby road. Bodies of the dead have been
pushed and moved to pile for people to examine and try and determine their
identities. This is the second ugliest scene he’s seen in this city, and it
disgusts him.
Unlike
the hundreds of officers working OT to help clear this section of the city up,
Paul is here for his own selfish reasons, information. He walks along the
sidewalk going closer to ground zero with every step. He notices medical tents
being set up a few blocks away from the church for survivors of the explosives,
the Tents looked full which is a good thing, it means more survivors than they
are expecting. Still the blast hit home and reminded him of his time overseas
in Vietnam. He looked for any evidence that this is done by the Angel, he asks
local officers and eyewitnesses to what happen several questions until Michael
Morrow spotted him at his crime scene.
“Who the fuck let you in?”
Michael Morrow asks. While Paul O’Healy is an older style cop believing in the
greater good, Michael Morrow is a shark looking out for his career and he does
this by doing everything by the book. He
also dresses sharp and doesn’t smell like a drunk and a smoker most of the
time, unlike Paul in his retirement days.
“Looking for you actually, I
wanted to be the first to tell you the good news.” Paul says with a sarcastic
smile. Paul doesn’t have much to smile about, especially in the past few weeks
but being a thorn to Michael’s plans and daily life is a great way to cheer
himself up. They both walk towards Michael’s car. After a few minutes of
silence between them, Michael finally speaks.
“What news? I haven’t heard
anything yet.” They were both standing a few meters away from where the
Carnival was held, just outside the parking lot and on the empty road. Michael
is leaning against his cop car and Paul is just standing on the road with a
smile on his face.
“The mayor is bringing in a
specialist for this type of job to help you and the FBI capture this Angel,
since your guys let him escape.” Michael grew visibly upset at the news. He’s
been on the force for fifteen years, and all of his hard work is going to mean
nothing because of this guy.
“Angel? Are you the fucking media
now to Paul? You know there isn’t anything tying this to any of the other
shootings.” Michael argued, he knew Paul is looking to wrap a noose around his
career for a while, and he can already feel the rope tightening around his
neck.
“Just letting you know, I’m about
to give him the call. Just figured you wanted to be the first to know.” Paul
finishes the conversation and picks up the phone as he walks away. He hoped the
boy is still up wherever he is up north.
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