Closure

“The Unsolved Murder of Harold Oakes”

22nd October, 1983

It was pelting with rain. Hidden away from the drenched, neon bleached puddles that scattered the lane behind the towering city car park was Jason. He patiently waited in the shadows, passing the time smoking a cigarette. Glancing at the countdown window, he noted the time - 00:04:58 - then made his way across the street towards Echo Lane car park.

The stairwell was dirty and decaying. The strobe lights flickered and buzzed. Jason entered the stairwell and drew his pistol. Clasping it with both hands, he cautiously took to the stairs and headed upwards.

Nearing the entrance to LEVEL 6, Jason stalled at the foot of the steps to calm his nerves. Suddenly, behind the door, he heard a voice yelling. Then, BLAM! A shot was fired. The echo of the blast rang around the stairwell. Jason was taken aback. Confused by the sudden, unexpected violence, he looked at the countdown again - 00:02:08! - Too early?

Suddenly, the heavy metal door to LEVEL 6 swung open and slammed against the wall, and the shadowy figure of a man stormed into the stairwell with a smoking gun in his hand. He looked old and bone skinny. Jason clocked the man, “Shit!” and went for his Red Eye.

The man turned and fired blindly at Jason. BLAM! The bullet ricocheted off the wall and scraped a chuck of flesh out of his shoulder – forcing him to retaliate in agony. The man ran down the steps towards Jason, who thrust his pistol towards him. The man booted him swiftly in the face and knocked him back down the steps before he could open fire. In the chaos of the tumble, Jason’s gun went off – blam, blam! Both shots stabbed into the man’s chest, blowing him back up the steps in a cloud of red dust!

Scrambling to his feet, a cut and bruised Jason headed back up the steps, checked the man was dead with a vicious kick – he was – then cautiously entered LEVEL 6. As Jason departed, the man suddenly awoke and touched the side of his neck, deactivating the Shifter device. Suddenly, his body started to glitch like a bad TV signal and morph into Agent Preece, a young Taker that was very much alive and kicking, thanks to his body vest.

Under a haze of city light, Harold Oakes lay face down on the ground in a puddle of sticky blood. The car park was desolate and eerie. The overhead lights hummed nervously, as the torrential rain storm outside engulfed the night.

Jason moved tentatively towards Harold, constantly checking all angles for any sign of a threat. Arriving, Jason looked down at the bloody corpse and sighed anxiously, “What the fuck is going on?” Prodding Harold with his foot, Jason was convinced he was dead. He then booted Harold over onto his back and looked down at his blood smeared face. “What the fuck are you doing dead, Harry? What the fuck are you doing dead?”

A sudden clatter in the darkness, shadows shifting and echoed footsteps grabbed Jason’s attention. He thrust his pistol towards the darkness, ready to fire, “Shit!”

Very slowly, he inched towards the darkness, away from Harold’s corpse... only to stop dead. “Wait a... Harold Oakes?”

Behind Jason, Harold’s corpse started to glitch and morph into...

Jason twigged, “Hoax!”, then snarled through gritted teeth, “Hitcher, you son of a bitch, you,” Click! The hammer of a pistol snapped back and he felt the cold barrel of a gun pressing into the back of his neck, “Set me up!” He cursed himself, “Dammit!”

Task Agent Kesler stepped out of the shadows behind him and toyed with the trigger. “Hello, Jason – long time no ’shoot ‘em up’!”

Jason gripped the trigger of his pistol, “Oh, don’t worry, Agent Kesler – I’m about to make up for lost time!”

Kesler smirked and then pressed the barrel in harder, “Lose the gun.”

“What, ‘come quietly’ – you’re kidding me, right?”

“Please, Finn – don’t make me shoot... I’m getting tired of washing blood off my hands.”

“Then I guess today’s your unlucky day, because they only way you’re taking me out of here is in a body-bag!”

Kesler shifted the barrel of his gun and pressed it hard into Jason’s bloody shoulder. Ouch! “It’s over, Finn. Now put the gun down and get on your knees.”

Jason knew he was cornered, but he couldn’t let go. He’d come so far and seen too much to throw it all away now. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why?”

Jason closed his eyes, dropped his cocky façade and confessed, “Because doing this shit... Witnessing murders... It’s the best shot I’ve got at solving hers... at saving her!”

Kesler was intrigued, “At saving who? Whose murder are you trying to solve?”

Jason saw her so clearly. She was all he ever cared about and loved. Without her, life was murder. A tear welled in his eye. “What does it matter?”

“It matters, Jason – a great deal. You’re stabbing holes in history. What you’re doing could end time itself!”

Jason didn’t care. “If that’s what it takes to save her, then it’s a risk worth taking.”

“No – it’s not. This ends now.” Steely eyed, Kesler pushed the barrel in harder. “Last chance, Finn – you’ve got three seconds to drop the gun before I drop you.”

Jason glanced at his pistol and took a long, deep breath. Then – he smirked. Screw it! “You know, I always promised myself that when it was my time to go, I’d go out with a bang!”

Before Kesler could blink, Jason pointed his pistol at the ground and pulled the trigger. Blam! The almighty blast jerked his arm back and whacked his elbow into Kesler’s face – knocking him onto the ground with a crunch! Jason swung around and aimed his gun at Kesler and was about to shoot, when, “Take him!”

Kesler’s yell echoed around the car park.

Suddenly, a swift succession of blinding flashes flared up around Jason and distorted into dozens of gun toting Takers. Jason was surrounded, but leapt into blistering action. Locking his pistol from one Taker to the next, as they appeared in turn, he shot at a Taker’s Crowbar; a t-port device strapped to his arm, blam, blam! The device exploded and wiped out three Takers with one fierce blast of fire that sucked their bodies into the screaming vortex. Kesler was blown clean off his feet by the blast and thrown like a ragdoll into a car windscreen – smash!

In the chaos, Jason ran at Agent Preece, grabbed him by the throat and dragged him towards the barrier wall. A burning Taker fired off a few rounds as he fell to the ground – rat-a-tat-a-tat!

Pounding towards the barrier wall, Jason yelled and hurled himself and Agent Preece over the side! Plummeting towards the busy road below, Jason snatched at Preece’s Crowbar and tried to activate it, as Kesler dragged himself out of the windscreen, raced to the barrier wall and locked his weapon on Jason. Blam, blam, blam!

The bullets dug into Agent Preece, as Jason triggered the Crowbar inches away from striking the stream of traffic below. Suddenly, the fabric of time tore open in a blinding flash of electrical light below Jason and Preece. Whoosh! The fierce blaze seeped back like a pair of curtains being drawn and swallowed Jason and Agent Preece. They had vanished.

Shattered and bleeding, Kesler dropped against the wall and looked down at the traffic below. His eyes were like steel. This shit was far from over.