Traces From A Gun

Attack
There was a knock at the bedroom door. Mark was in mid-stride going toward the bathroom when he heard the loud thud. He moved toward the door.

Mark was romantic towards everything. He viewed every relationship he had as a game that he could manipulate. Mark thought everyone loved him and he certainly acted like they did. He stood just over five-foot-nine and had velvet-soft black hair. He sported a Brad Pitt-type hairdo with a “just rolled out of bed” look to it. Not trying to show anyone up, Mark would always wear sweatpants or jeans and a solid-colored tee shirt. He made sure to match, always needing to look his best for any passer-by that wanted to admire him.

"Who is it?" he asked. There was no answer.
"Christina?" Mark questioned.
As Mark’s hand moved to unlock the door it was bashed open in front of him. Mark was thrown back from the door. He looked up to see the silhouette of a tall longhaired figure. As he brushed off the pieces of the door that were on his body, a hand grasped his throat. Grasping for air, Mark looked into the face of his assailant.
"Why?" He wheezed with his final breath, and everything slowly faded to black.

Rape and Murder
Slowly, Mark regained consciousness. The room was black. He was strapped to a steel-backed chair. Cold to the touch, the chair sent shivers ran up his spine. As he got his bearings, Mark noticed he was still in his room but where was his attacker? He heard footsteps behind him and as the figure came more into view he could see that it was a woman.

Finding the Body
Everything was calm in the small town of Martinsburg, MD on the morning of August 3rd. The sun had just set on the horizon and the townspeople were just getting up for their breakfast when a scream rang through the town.
It was Danielle Burrows, a nineteen-year-old sophomore who attended Western Maryland College, which was about two miles south of Martinsburg.

Danielle’s flowing brown hair fell gracefully down just past her shoulders. She mostly wore cutoff jeans with short shirts or tank tops to show herself off. A young lady of average height, Danielle felt the constant need to speak her mind. She always wanted to be the center of attention and never let anything get in her way of accomplishing this feat. Danielle was a fairly attractive female and wanted everyone else to know. Not at all afraid to speak up, Danielle was part of every conversation no matter the topic. Her opinion was always heard and it added to her already-growing self-image.

Danielle was rummaging through the shed outside of her house when she came across a horrible site, the dead body of her brother, Mark. Found completely naked on the shed floor and covered in wet leaves and blood, Mark had multiple bullet holes in his chest where the apparent murderer had done him in.
Mark, still drenched in his own blood, was lying flat on his back. Arms and legs spread out creating a pentacle with his head, Mark’s body created a horrific site that his sister was forced to uncover. It was obvious from the fingernail scratches on his chest and back that Mark had been brutally raped before he was shot. From the looks of things, he had been there since the night before. Mark’s glazed-over eyes gave an aura of despair as he lay there motionless with his dear sister weeping over his body.

Running Through The Town
The scream was heard throughout the small town like a cannon going off. Danielle ran out of her shed into the middle of the town and collapsed on top of a garden in the Town Square. Desperately weeping and screaming explicates, Danielle could not believe what she had seen. She started to wonder who had done the terrible act of raping and murdering her younger brother and became frighteningly suspicious of the entire town. Was it a ploy to get her to leave? Did the town secretly despise her? She couldn’t figure out the motive of anyone to kill her little brother.
One of her closest friends and another nineteen-year-old sophomore at Western Maryland College, Ben Cook, was the first to rush over to Danielle.

Ben was a shorter fellow of just under five and a half feet. His short jet-black hair was always wild on top of his head, as he never really bothered to tame it. He wore dark khaki shorts most days along with an array of tee shirts. Ben walked with a sense of inferiority, always trying to hold himself back and never being the center of attention. He liked being out of the spotlight as it allowed him to become very successful without others being intimidated. While supremely confident on the inside, Ben never showed his self-pride and always let others feel that they were superior to him.

“What’s wrong, Danielle? What happened?” he asked.
“Mark’s dead!”
“Dead? I saw him yesterday. We played poker in the afternoon.”
“I just found him bloody in our shed with bullet holes in him. He’s dead, Ben!” And with that Ben began to cry himself.
Peering through the window of the restaurant he was working at, Nate Evans saw two of his friends, one of which being his girlfriend, crying in the middle of the Town Square. Nate quickly ran out the door and darted over to Ben and Danielle.

Nate was an extremely shy young man. He said what needed to be said but never any more. Nate always doubted himself and that led to him being extremely under-the-radar in terms of popularity. He never did any daring stunts or death-defying tricks, as he was far too scared. His five-foot-six frame held his body very nicely; his shorter structure complimented his personality exactly. Nate had short blonde hair and would never leave his house without making sure it looked perfect. He always wore striped polo shirts and any dark-colored pair of pants that he could find. Not described as a metrosexual, Nate did care about how he looked.

He saw the blood that covered Danielle’s hands and started to question her.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Mark, he-he-he’s dead.”