The Mysterious Assassin

3:02 AM, May 17th, 2013



A woman stood tensely at her desk, waiting. It was three AM; they had been up all night working this case. The most notorious killer the department had seen in all the years she’d been chief, had been sighted about five hours ago, downtown, entering a bar. Without hesitation, she had dispensed six officers to scope the scene. Whenever it seemed they were going to catch this psychopath once and for all, he just vanished! The whole thing gave her the creeps. She wanted the ordeal to end tonight!



Suddenly, her door banged open, jolting her into reality. Her head snapped up. She had been waiting all night for this! Her head detective stood before her desk, adjusting his tie. She took his agitation as a grim outcome.



"Well, McCrimmon?!" She shouted, flustered. McCrimmon braced himself against her desk.











8:31 PM, New Year's Eve, 2011



"Where's the chips!?"



"Yeah, coming, coming!" * Ross was throwing his own New Year's party this year, and the guests were proving to be a bit more demanding than he had expected. He grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard and poured the bag of chips into it, muttering crossly under his breath. Irritably, he stormed into the living room. All of a sudden, his cell phone vibrated in the pocket of his less than designer jeans.



"What the---" Ross jumped a mile, managing to spill the chips and trip over the rug in the process. His face (uncomfortably close to the hardwood floor) heated as he heard the guests guffaw at his blunder. He tried to stand up and dust himself off, only succeeding in tangling himself in someone's coat, tossed carelessly on the floor. Boiling over with fury, he shamefully crawled to the kitchen to the kitchen and slammed the door. Still he heard laughter! * Oh. It was his ringtone. In an attempt to make his pathetic life a little more cheerful, he had changed his ringtone to a tacky laugh track. Sighing, Ross snapped his phone open and angrily barked “What?”



“Detective-I need you to get in your car and drive to 988 Heathrow Drive IMMEDIATELY. We got a call and all our officers are off tonight!” A sharp voice ordered.



“Will I have any backup, Chief?” He replied worriedly, but all he got was a dial tone. Ross McCrimmon’s detective instincts kicked in at once. Something was wrong. He glanced anxiously at the party through the window of the kitchen door. They’d live without him. He made up his mind instantly and departed through the window above the sink. He sprinted to his silver Lexus and drove to the address spoken via phone as swiftly as possible. Pulling up at the house, every warning bell in Ross’ system was going off. No one seemed to be there, and the house was dark. Cautiously, he parked. Ross clambered out of the car, trying to make as little noise as possible. As he approached the house with care, his hand instinctively reached for his beloved Glock 22, strapped into his holster. As he reached the door of the ramshackle dwelling, he restrained from calling out. He knocked on the door and winced as a splinter entered his knuckle.



“This is the police, please open your door.”



*“If anyone is there, please open up!” Still no answer. ‘Alright, I’m going in.’ Ross thought. He clutched his pistol and extended his leg to knock the door open. The second he threw his leg at the door, it slowly groaned open. As if in slow motion, Ross went flying through the doorway head first. His face collided with the floor for the second time in one night. He yelled as his gun slipped from his hand and skidded across the floor. As quickly as if nothing had happened, Ross began pick himself up off of the slivery floorboards, but a figure in the corner of his eye made him stop. What was that? Then, out of nowhere, a crushing weight fell upon his spine, nearly crushing the life out of him. Ross cried out as if he had been slapped. Inhaling, he smelled something sweet in the air. Was that… Chloroform? Black.



9:42 PM, New Year's Eve, 2011



“Mmmfff… Whht hpnnd??” Ross mumbled. His tongue brushed fabric. What? His eyes snapped open. A gag! And he was bound to a chair!



*“Mmf! Mmf!! MMF!! HELLLLPPPP!” Ross yelled. Panicking, he wriggled around in his bindings until the chair tipped and, his face again greeted his old buddy, the floor. Realizing that he was only making things worse by struggling, he thought back to his days at The Academy… He racked his brain for lessons on hostage situations. Why couldn’t he remember?! Darn you short term memory lapse!! He tried to remain composed and decide what to do. His throbbing face made the choice for him. He squirmed, trying to rotate the chair into a more comfortable angle. There. He could think more clearly now. Now what had his professor said about hostage situations? He could… He could… Um… Do nothing!! His professor had said there was nothing to do but sit and wait for the department to come find him. Ugg! This couldn’t be worse! Ross hated nothing more than being in a crisis situation and not being able to do anything! Well, he had done all he could. He closed his eyes.



Minutes passed. Minutes turned into hours. Hours might have even turned into days. He couldn’t be sure. Ross drifted in and out of an uncomfortable sleep.  He woke to his growling stomach. It had been days, and it rumbled with the intensity of a monster truck.  his mouth felt like sandpaper. Why had his captor just left him here to rot?  Suddenly,  as if by magic, the blinds of the musty, dank prison snapped open, flooding the room with sunlight.

“Hiiiiisssss!!” Sunlight can be painful when you’ve spent days in the dark. Blinking, Ross’s burning corneas adjusted to the change in environment. He surveyed the room, drinking in every little detail. To his horror, a ring of what looked suspiciously like gunpowder and gasoline surrounded his captive body. Ross watched, open mouthed in fear as, out of nowhere, a flame appeared, and in seconds, surrounded him  in a ring of swirling, ferocious flames. Automatically, he shied from them and yelped as the fire licked up his back. He frantically scooted his chair into the middle of the  ring.  Ross could feel the heat from the flames on his skin. His mind raced., and just as he was coming up blank, a cell phone seemed to drop out of nowhere. He scrambled for it.