One More Body

Over the years, there’d been countless shots, countless bodies. It was what he did, and did well.

Prologue to The Plague.

A shot rang out, followed by the wet sound of a body falling boneless into a pool of its own blood.

It was a sound he’d gotten used to, over time. Over the years, there’d been countless shots, countless bodies. A fucking ocean of blood.

It was what he did, and did well. He was at the top of his game, in a game that didn’t tolerate incompetence or mediocrity. If you weren’t very good, you were probably very incarcerated, or very dead. He was very, very good.

Oh, it hadn’t been easy. He’d had to work his way up through the ranks, slowly. Prove himself, earn his bones, until he’d gained the grudging respect of the bosses. Along the way, he’d left behind his youth and everything associated with it: his family, his friends, even his childhood sweetheart. But now, he could afford the best of everything: fine clothes, finer food; fast cars, even faster women. He had a lifestyle he could only have imagined, back when he was starting out, before all those bodies, all that blood. He traveled the world, lived pretty much as and where he pleased.

Except home, of course. He could never go home.

Truth was, he’d already been contemplating a retirement of sorts when Stern approached him about one more hit. He didn’t really need or want the money, and his reputation had begun to precede him far more than was healthy for a man in his position. He didn’t give a shit about Stern’s turf or Roper’s power play—he had no loyalties, one way or the other. His instincts told him to turn down the job, and he’d always trusted his instincts before. But this time….

L.A. wasn’t home—nowhere near it, in fact—but it was the closest he’d be in… hell, he couldn’t remember how long. The urge to visit the old neighborhood was suddenly strong, a dangerously seductive, insidious yearning. It was probably his last chance to see his mother alive. Maybe even catch a glimpse of Velma, who still lived right down the block, with her little boy. Or did, the last time he checked.

Fuck, he was getting old and senile if he thought there was any way this could be considered a good idea. But it was there, somehow, planted deep in him, and he didn’t know how to uproot it. Maybe it was time he stopped trying.

Callendar holstered his gun and walked away from the lifeless corpse, his mind already on his next target. He automatically began working out the details in his head: the flights to get him from Italy to California, a place to hide out, an untraceable weapon…. He refused to think beyond that. Not yet. One more body, first. Just one more.

Chapter End Notes:

Written for the LJ me_and_thee1000 comm, to the prompt: A shot rang out, followed by the wet sound of a body falling boneless into a pool of its own blood.