Dark America

[blackmage]

My first mask came from a pair of corduroy pants that I grew out of in youth and refused to throw away. I used one of the legs of the pants for the material and dang near suffocated the first time I went jogging with it on.

I learned a lot from that experience.

My first kill was the scariest act in my life. It was terror, grief, and a detachment from reality that has yet to be repaired within me. It’s something that I can share with no one and a time in my life that I find myself lying to myself about.

I learned a lot from that experience, also.

I like to help people, I really do. I originally intended on that as my mission in costume. I wanted to inspire others… especially the children. I found, over time that I volunteered more and did more good as a common person rather than in the form as my ‘other’ person.

I liked the things that I did to make people smile, but I loved the things that I do that are taking me to hell. I crushed the hand of a biker that pulled a knife on another guy for being ‘of the wrong ethnic persuasion’ as the others within the establishment. I left a drunk cheater in a bed of cactus outside of town naked; his girlfriend was fourteen, he was thirty-nine.

I carved the words, ‘DRUG DEALER’ into the back of a cocaine distributor I followed to the far side of town. He lived in a gated neighborhood and had two dogs. I couldn’t get the entire word, ‘DEALER’ spelled out on his lower back so I left the ‘E’ out making it, ‘DEALR’. I left him tied up at the foot of the bed screaming. I figured that whomever found him first would get the gist of my statement.

After that night, I knew that I was sick.

I retired my mask, my goggles, my jacket, and my tools. I prayed for change and begged for help… all the while volunteering to help children, the sick, and the homeless. I got a small dog, met a nice girl, and churned away at my studies and occupation. I wanted to help. I wanted to inspire others.

I wanted to…

I wanted to…

I wanted to get back into my jacket, my mask, and my goggles… and so I did. I wanted to feel alive again. I wanted to feel that I mattered again. I wanted to know, that the garbage that I stopped was helping those that they preyed on. I wanted to be the security that my nation promised to all of her citizens.

And so I became that.

My tools were incomplete without the will to use them with purity. I broke up with my girlfriend. I quit my job, and killed my dog. I had to fill the hole within me and that hole could only be filled through servitude – servitude to my nation’s promises.

Through this I would find my purpose. My purity. My right.

For the police there were those they could not get to and could not touch… for me, I would gladly die trying to make those individual pay. I would listen to the messages of those in law enforcement delivered in code within their interviews and statements made on television. I would only take the most extreme cases and I welcomed death and my journey to hell for those that would be killed in my wake.

The law knew what I was doing and sometimes, it seemed that they welcomed it.

I will serve the people. I will be what this nation promised. I have promised my life to this and all of this will end once I am no more and only when I am no more.

-Dark America

Attachments:

[The Muse]

A pure Vigilante through and through....an amazing glimpse into the mind of such an individual.

Well done....frightenting...but WELL done.

And AWESOME artwork as well.
;D

[delta]

Nice. It felt familiar yet alien at the same time. I'd be interested in seing more.

[blackmage]

The Garage Boy

That boy I just saved was fifteen years old… and he wasn’t a boy. He was just as scared as me and shaking just as bad. I’d never shot anyone before and I was sitting on the ground next to a man with a bullet hole through the bottom of his ribs.

He was bleeding to death and I shot him.
It was my fault.
It was wrong.

I was so addicted to the pain that I caused, until I could not see the control that I was losing. Breathing was even more difficult through my mask.

The boy crouched against the wall behind me in shock. He wouldn't say anything. His breath was short and each time I turned to check on him he flinched away from me. He knew that things were going to get worst, because the guy I shot had friends.

I’m not sure if I was too scared to reload my pistol of if I was too paranoid thinking that more guys would burst in while I was reloading… all I knew was that I called the blasted police twenty minutes earlier and they still were not here! I was too terrified to go outside and a part of me would welcome being saved by the police.

The boy spoke to me really low after he noticed the American symbol on my shoulder protector.

“A – Are you a cop?” he asked.

I tried to answer with confidence, but he saw the fear dwelling within me by my wide eyes peering through my goggles. My mouth was too dry to form words.

“We gotta go.” He whispered.

My head flicked back and forth repeatedly as I went from him to the door of the garage expecting it to crash open at any second. It really stunk in here.

I struggled with all of my might to wet my mouth and speak. I needed answer his question and to give him an explanation. The only thing I could come up with was, “Okay.”

My cellphone signal was weak and the battery was near dead because I spent the whole night patrolling and forgot to charge it earlier. I had some First-Aid stuff in my side pouches, but honestly, I didn’t know what to do to a real gunshot wound.

The guy I shot was bleeding out all over garage floor and I didn’t know how to help him. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to or if I should. I couldn’t remember how Batman would handle something like this. The comic books leave this kind of stuff out.

“Hey,” the kid said again as he tapped me while staring at the bleeding guy on the ground. “We gotta go. They got some serious big guns and they’re gonna kill us.”

“WHERE ARE THE FRICKIN’ POLICE?!?” I said to the kid in an anxious and hurried hush.

“They take a while to come here after we have shootings. We gotta go.” Responded the kid.

“I’m not going out there!” I said. “I just shot one of their friends. They’re going to kill me.”

The boy looked at me then the symbol on my shoulder, “You ain’t a cop.”

“Hell no,” I replied. “Look I’m sorry about all of this. I was trying to save you.”

“C’mon,” said the boy as he grabbed the bottom of my jacket by the star.

He pulled me over behind the tool-stand on the wall and showed me a small hole behind it. We both crawled through and scurried over a berm and into the woods leading to a closed down recycling center. When we stopped, I had to pull my mask up to puke and breathe. The boy kept a look out over by the trash can as I tried to recompose myself.

A single pair of police lights… with no siren, finally appeared in the distance by the garage. My cellphone signal increased another bar as I thought about calling them again. I decided against it.

The boy just stood there staring at me, “Who are you?” he asked.

“An idiot.” I answered as I stood there on the verge of crying from fear. “I’m a dummy, a jerk, a fool, and I’m in over my head!”

The kid just stood there as I kept talking.

“I thought I could do something good. I thought I could save you. I thought I could be a hero. I thought I was tough by hurting people that did bad things… Now, I’m just scared as crap!”

He twisted his head slightly then looked at my gun. I held it up and that's when I saw the ambulance scream by and the flash of yellow tape going up in the distance. I dropped my hand with the pistol and looked at the boy in the darkness, “I’ll never use a gun again.”

We stood face to face for a moment longer beside the trashcan.

“They're gonna be looking for you." said the boy, "but, you saved me. I'll never say nothing.”

“I killed a man.” I replied.

He waited a moment more, then said, “I gotta go.” and ran off.


-Dark America

[John Reid]

Except for the grace of God, there go I.
Knight-Hood

[blackmage]

I'm intrigued, Knight-Hood... explain, what you meant.

[The Muse]

blackmage~ Knight-hood had ideas sort of like Dark America's when he first became a RLSH...He quickly discovered that those tactics were not for him.

Knight-Hood please correct me if I got it wrong...
;D

[John Reid]

No that's exactly right. I was feeling suicidal in 89 when my wife died and my house burned down and I was left living in my van. The 89 movie version of Batman came out and I recalled my boyhood dream of becoming a masked crusader for real. The plan in my head was a suicide mission in which I would become a terrorist to the untouchable crime lords that seemed above the law. I had no plans to survive, only to take as many of them out as I could before they got me.

I planned to work my way up the chain from junkie, to pusher, to supplier to the heads of organized crime. The flaw in the plan though required me to terrorize the junkies first to get the names of their pushers.

Once I began to meet these poor wretches in real life I discovered a world where people lived lives so horrible it shamed me to be feeling so sorry for myself. There was no way I could bring myself to terrorize such pitable creatures.

My heart went out to them instead and I found myself doing everything I could to save them from the nightmare of their everyday existance. In seeking to help those far worse off than I was my entire mission changed from a venegeance driven suicidal one to one of rescue.

I lost interest in becoming a violent vigilante and never left the streets, because the homeless, societies rejects, are an endless source of need.

What began as a suicide mission ended up becoming my reason to live.

So my comment was that the character you so vividly are describing is me in a parallel universe when I never found the light but spiraled downward into a sea of darkness. You are describing what I might have become.
Knight-Hood

[blackmage]

Okay... I'm officially scared. I didn't plan on that.

When I created Dark America, I designed him as an intricate attack character for things we interpreted as a people rather than as a person.

for Example, his original name was, 'Black America' with the equivocation on the word 'Black'. He wore an all black uniform while functioning as a vigilante... and yet doing good.

After much debate... I had to change his name to 'Dark'. Using the prefix, 'Black' on a solo, totally masked hero would be suicide for sales, mainly because black characters struggle in the industry to carry comic titles. Book stores in middle America (especially the South) are notorious for refusing to order comics with leading black characters. This affects distribution as well as endpoint sales.

Even though 'Black' America was really a white guy under his mask.

Now, as Dark America, he is designed to be a complex character, who starts from impulse, grows into realization, matures by dealing with consequences, and ends up gaining true wisdom.

For Knight-Hood to identify with that is pretty deep as well as moving for me as a writer. It is absolutely flattering and it makes me want to know more about the plight and strife in trying to maintain the level of hero when it is SO dang easy to drift to villain.

[delta]

I’d like to have a number of the younger RLSH (you know the type) read this and discuss.
Unfortunately I fear it would devolve into a series of ‘I’m too bad-ass for that to happen’ and they’d completely miss the point.

[blackmage]

You know what... that would be a GREAT experiment!! I can expect a bunch of false courage and negative remarks by the young one's as they pick it apart.

I've found that a keyboard, monitor, social site, and anonymity is as powerful as a child finding as gun. People are often quick to pull the trigger with sarcasm and hate long before realization and consequence takes a hold.

Let me see if I can figure out the new RLSH forums and I'll test the water by posting it.

[blackmage]

The Writing is on the Wall

I watched the news.
Nothing.

I read the paper.
Nothing.

I listened to the radio.
Nothing.

Everyone new about the ‘garage killing’ but not a blasted soul cared who did it. They merely called it, ‘a body found…’ then went into how bad the guy was in life along with all of his crimes.

I was scared to go outside… some hero I turned out to be. It was only a matter of time before the cops would get me – it was only as matter of time.

I covered my gun with a bunch of paper towels, shoved it in a large ziplock bag, and buried it in the back of my neighbor’s yard by their tree. They’re old, have no kids, no pets, and watch television all day. The cops would never check their yard.

I hid my uniform in a small cubby in the back of my closet. I was lucky. I won’t be going out as a hero ever anytime soon... if ever.

It took a month before I started to volunteer again. I got a job, down in the plaza by the mall, fixing broken cellphones and dealing with attitudes all day… so volunteering with the kids helped me to laugh and have purpose. I wrote a letter to my ex-girlfriend and apologized to God for killing my dog. I was trying too hard to be something that I wasn’t. I was SO stupid. I was trying to be like The Punisher, in the comics, and ended up discovering that I was more like Courage the Cowardly Dog.

As weeks past, it seemed that everyone had forgotten the incident and there was hope for me.

That was until a couple of months later when I noticed a spray painting by the park of a character that looked like my ‘other’ self on the wall. It had my goggles, my mask, my jacket and my stars on it.. I dang near crapped myself.

I tried not to notice it or speak of it with the kids that I was helping, but I needed to know.

“Hey, Terrance, who’s that on the wall over there?” I asked in a nonchalant manner. Terrance was twelve years old, lived with his mother, addicted to orange soda, and his imagination.

“That’s the ghetto hero that be around here protecting us.” He told me.

“What does he do?”

“He’s the one who took out Antney, way back.”

“Hunh?” I responded as my face went pale and my hands became cold.

Terrance continued, “I heard that Antney and his boy were gonna kill a kid in the garage and ole’ boy on the wall saved him. He kicked everyone’s butt and blasted Antney.”

“That’s NOT true, Terrance. Where did you hear that from?”

Terrance paused as though I was disciplining him and I lowered my tone. I didn’t like the idea of the story getting so far out of hand, but I had to be careful not to give away my secret. My skin instantly became clammy as I found myself telling him things that I couldn’t believe that I was saying. “Look Terrance, there’s no such thing as real life super heroes or guys in masks beating up bad guys. That crap just isn’t true!”

Terrance turned away from me and kicked the dirt near the roadside leading to the park. “He called the police on drug dealers and wrote on the walls by the bus stop that he was watching over us." He then turned back towards me, "He’s real.”

“WHAT?!?” I leaned back startled. “What are you talking about?”

“He also bought Roddrick’s stolen bicycle back and left it on his front porch, last week.” said Terrance.

I became furious, “That’s NOT true, Terrance! You’re making this up.”

“No, I’m not. I’m really – really not.” He repeated while shaking his head from side-to-side. “He’s even got a name…”

This is how I knew that things were getting out of hand, I never gave anyone my name… mostly because I wasn’t sure what to call myself. I was debating between The Neighborhood Watchman, Captain Protector, or The Black Guardian. I wanted to wait until I got more experience and a reputation for myself first. Terrance just stood there anxious to tell me; I couldn’t help but to ask, “What is his name, Terrance?”

...
...
...

He smiled and said, “Dark America.”

[John Reid]

Cool. Enjoying this so far.
Knight-Hood

[Leviathan]

Fancy meeting you here Knight-Hood.

Hmmmm... Haven't killed anyone, and I haven't carved "Drug Dealer" into the back of anyone's skulls yet, just punched out a dealer and couple wife beaters, took a few more of both off the streets.

So.... The need to have something better than himself, and a sheer bloodlust after his first taste is what drives this guy? Sounds more like a sociopath rather than someone out for justice.

I get the anger, and the lack of restraint. But I also see it catching up with him at some point. When the taste for blood can't be arrested and he goes after the innocent.

[blackmage]

We Gotta Go

It’s not that hard to fix cellphones, you simply change the bad component. I fixed six bad screens, replaced a keyboard and did four full software updates before I had lunch. Everyone hated their plan, whined about their service, and swore that they should get a new phone replacement for anything under the sun that wasn’t correct. My manager would have to step in each time to explain the policies and to get them to leave their phones for repair.

That was until Joshua walked in with his friends. His pants sagged, his plaid boxers showed, his gold ‘blinged’, and his attitude… stunk.

He threw his phone on the counter while kissing his girl and told my manager to change it with a new one. I looked at him from the backroom and asked myself the same question that most men ask themselves when they meet tough guys, “Can I beat him?”

I’d been working out three times a week and I still practiced my martial arts training from years ago. My answer was pretty simple, “Maybe.” It’s his friend that I’d have to worry about, he had a knife on his belt.

The manager told me to change his sim card to a new phone, then disappeared into his office as Joshua and his friend walked around the store looking at other phones.

Customers began to quietly leave and I watched the brute slap his girl to the floor for saying some comment.

My manager stayed in his office.

His friend went outside as he hit her a couple more times then came to the counter for his new replacement phone. I gave it to him and watched him strut out of our store with his crying and bloody girlfriend in tow.

I know it was wrong, but I copied his info off of his sim card.

I figured it was time that someone made him pay.

Bully!

That night after I got off work, I parked my Volkswagen a street over from his apartment and crawled through a broken fence to the far side of his room. I didn’t have my costume, but I brought a pair of my fighting sticks. I climbed up to the second floor using the fire escape and waited for the right time to attack.

I saw him in the room arguing with his girl while she was crying in the kitchen. It made me furious.

That was when I felt the rails on the fire escape vibrate from a faint knock made by someone below.

“Can I come up?” he whispered.

I couldn’t believe my eyes! I said, “Yea.” And the figure began to climb up to my location. He was in an old ski-mask with a pair of lightly tinted round eye glasses on and a thin pleather jacket with a pair of poorly sewn on white stars near the bottom of it. He even had an American flag stitched onto the top of each of his arms.

“Who in the HELL are you?” I asked in total shock.

He scuttled up beside me, peeked into the window to make sure that no one saw us, then leaned back and said, “Dark America.”

I was dumbfounded. “You’re WHO?!?” I questioned, raising my voice slightly.

“I’m Dark America. Uh, I saw you park on the other street and come over here with those sticks.”

Literally offended to be meeting someone dressed similar to me, I instantly got an attitude and snapped at the masked man… no, more like, ‘boy’ in front of me. “Why is the heck did you follow me?” I asked sternly.

“Shush,“ he responded. “You don’t quite… ‘fit’ into this neighborhood if you know what I mean.”

I rubbed my eyes, “So what do you think I should do? This guy is a bully and beats his woman.”

The figure looked around again then locked eyes with me, “Look, you don’t understand how things work around here. This ain’t a fight that’s gonna make a difference. That’s Joshua. He’s been beatin’ her a long time and she keeps going back.” He placed his open hand over one of mine clenching my fighting stick.

“This ain’t a battle that you can win, sir. The cops have been here and she never presses charges. Look over there,” He pointed down the street. “Those are his boys and they’re all strapped with guns.”

I looked at him and said, “Then what good are you, Mr. Superhero? How do you save the day if you don’t have the guts to fight bullies like Joshua?”

“I don’t, sir. And I’m not a superhero. I am Dark America and I’m just trying to make a difference in places that it will matter. As for guns? I’ll never use them. I was almost killed by one and saved by one and neither result was favorable.”

That was the moment that the masked kid became familiar. He grabbed my wrist and began to lead me down the fire escape, “C’mon, we gotta go.” He said.

Once we got to the ground, he led me over to the trash bin and kept watch as I stuffed my fighting sticks into my leg sleeve. He grabbed a large potato sack from the trash bin and asked, “You feel like making a difference tonight, sir?”

I said, “Yea.”

He threw me the sack and I looked in to see it filled with tomatoes. “Hunh?” I inquired.

“We’re gonna go over to South Street to throw tomatoes at the johns pulling up to pick up prostitutes. It’s embarrassing and it sends them home to their wives with tomato stains.”

He smiled at me and I returned his smile with a sharp grin of my own. He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We gotta go!”

That was when I was sure that I knew him.

[The Muse]

*applauds* I am liking how this is going!!!

[Michelle]

I agree Muse.
It's very hard to make a difference in certain situations. But I do think that a few small changes will add up to one big one.

[John Reid]

To Lev; Yes I think that his journey from his black and white perspective to one of multiple shades of grey is what will make this an interesting read.

To Blackmage; Well done so far. I like stories where I can't predict what will happen next and so far you've got me hooked.

Knight-Hood

[blackmage]

Thanks again for the comments, Knight-Hood.

Welcome aboard, Leviathan!!! It's nice to have a new 'face' in the community!

~~~

This is a sketch of the younger version of Dark America as the story is changing and evolving. I placed him in a similar pose as the original and simplified the line work. He has a 'happy face' long-sleeve shirt under his jacket, along with combat boots that are too big (to be explained later in the story).

I also made his hand open so that it appears that he is releasing his grip on the gun, if you view the pictures side-by-side. Everything about the kid is shabby with good intent while the original is more refined and 'classic'.

Attachments:

[blackmage]

Park cleanup

It was after they found the graffiti painted over at the bus stop, making the walls beautiful again.

It was after they found donated Christmas lights set up in the alley ways to make them less scary.

It was after the prevention of a dog attack by adding a chain to a broken gate that the owner was too lazy to repair.

It was after a beaten homeless man was cared for until the ambulance arrived.

It was after all of that, when the name ‘Dark America’ leaked from neighborhood helper into a local newspaper column as a 'Real Life Superhero'… and out into the world.

I hadn’t seen him in over a month and yet I found myself driving through the neighborhoods every other night hoping to get a glimpse of him. I just wanted to see him again. I wanted to talk to him.

I found myself placing more energy into locating this kid, than repairing my relationship with my ex-girlfriend.

There was a flyer in the announcement box up at the church stating that Dark America would be at the park on the weekend for a community trash clean-up project. It would be his first daylight… public showing. There was no way in the world that I would miss it.

I traded workdays with Steven, at my job, in order to attend the clean-up. I had to work half a day so I didn’t make it until the end of the project; there were so many people there.

Dark America stood in the middle of the kids as they ran around with full bags of trash, wide eyed with amazement, and cheers of excitement. Their hero threw the last bag on the pile by the road as the preacher shouted something with a grin causing everyone to chant a strong gospel praise while heading into the tent they set up at the front of the park.

There was fried food, baked food, barbecue, and a major weakness of control as everyone satisfied their hunger as only a blessed community could. It was a joyful time.

Dark America stood up on stage as the preacher awarded him a plaque and spoke to the crowd. It made me pause. The masked kid seemed more nervous of this attention than running around at night with criminals hating him. I noticed that he did a double-take when he saw me in the crowd which brought a smirk to my face. It made me ease closer to the stage.

I actually felt proud.

Out the side of my eye, I saw two figures enter the tent from the back with rifles. Just as I turned my head, I heard one of them yell, “This is a donation from Mr. Deal-R!!”

He and his partner fired at the stage hitting the preacher multiple times launching him forward into Dark America, as a bloody mess of a man now gone. People started screaming and fleeing in all directions. They began trampling each other and capturing themselves in the sides of the tent forcing it to come to a strain.

The wood making up the stage jumped and splintered as each assault rifle round impacted it in search of their prey. The young hero was curled up in the back of it flinching with each strike while one of his hands was clenched onto the dead preacher. He was still trying to pull him to cover.

I tugged at the dirt and pulled myself below the bullet spray and stage deck then called out to the kid, “He gone, Dark!! We’ve got to get out of here!”

The kid was totally frozen.

The tent collapsed from the weight of the crowd as the shooters backed out through the entrance in an attempt to reload.

“Dark… Dark, listen to me, they’re changing magazines! They’re after you! You’ve got to get out of here to draw their fire from the crowd!” I said.

He just sat there in a daze.

I pulled his arm and continued to crawl towards the back of the tent forcing him to release the preacher.

He began to come to, “Y – You’re right. You’re right! I gotta go!”

“No, Dark… WE’VE gotta go! I’m with you!! C’mon!” I shouted.

We got to our feet just as the gunmen finished their reload. We ran through an alleyway, over a fence, into a warehouse, across a field, through a large concrete pipe, and down by bridge before stopping.

I work out two to three times a week like a religion and I could barely keep up with this kid. It felt, like my heart was going to explode.

While coughing and huffing he asked me, “Why did you come with me?”

I tried to answer, but found myself swallowing down air just to stay on my feet. It took a minute to a moment for my heart rate to calm down and my body to relax. “Because I believe in you.” I replied.

The kid went down by the water and sat with his back against one of the concrete pillars while taking his gloves off. He pulled his eyeglasses from his mask and face then started to cry.

“Did you see that?” He asked without seeking an answer. They killed Pastor Davenport for no reason.” He placed his face in his hands. “I didn’t even know them!! I ain’t never seen them in my life… and… and they just started shooting everyone… shooting to kill me.” He cried harder. “I didn’t do nothing to them!!”

We sat together for the next half hour just trying to calm down. I let him know that everything would be alright. We didn’t say anything for the last twenty minute.

Watching the stream below us pass made things better as his next question broke the silence by making thing worse.

“Who is Mr. Deal-R?”

Something in me stirred from that question as I prayed to be wrong.

[blackmage]

A Knight in the Park

The park was as lonely as the night. The sky had no interest in the moon, and so its depth appeared endless. The mud collected within the boundaries of the park fence from the rain earlier, that day, filled no footprints because there were no children who had visited in the last two weeks. There was just a single set leading to the wet-wooded bench in the back near the merry-go-round.

It was a set that led to a twenty-some year old woman staring off into the night, named Donna.

She didn’t hear the youth entering the park slowly to check on her with a mask on. She didn’t care. He stopped a full ten feet away and held his hands up, “Don’t panic, Ma’am. I won’t hurt you.”

She didn’t respond. Her eyes were soulless and her spirit broken.

The masked youth eased forward with his hand forward as though he wanted to shake hands, “My names Dark America, but most people call me, ‘Dark’.”

The woman was untouched by the presence of the youth.

“Do you mind if I sit beside you?” he asked. Hesitantly, she shook her head a single time and whispered, “No.”

The couple sat quietly as the night ached on to the silence of hurt without pain. The youth needed her as much as she needed him. With his back tilted slightly away from hers and his shoulders drooped, he tried to sound heroic through a failing voice, “You shouldn't be here. It’s not safe.”

Once again, there was a pause, and finally the woman spoke, “Mr. Burbank died yesterday.”

Dark America shifted his face towards her, “Who’s Mr. Burbank?”

“The guy that lived over there.” replied Donna as she pointed to the worn out apartment building cornering the park.

“Oh, you’re talking about Bear. Yea, I heard about it. Y’know he was locked up for a long time, right?”

“Yea,” Donna said softly, “He was in prison for twelve years.”

“Bear was crazy, people used to throw acorns at him when he was on crack. He was…” realizing his brashness, the youth caught himself and changed his tone. “Oops, I’m sorry. Was he related to you?”

“No.” the woman said as the darkness crawled over her eyes making her as anonymous as his mask made him. “He raped me.”

The youth froze. His mouth dried. His muscles tensed and his understanding fled. He was only fifteen; he’d never dealt with something like this before. In fact, his understanding of sex was limited. The chill down his spine only allowed a single word from his mouth, “What?”

The woman dried her hands on her jeans then repositioned herself to face Dark America who still had his back towards her. The park seemed even colder than a few minutes ago. She was a woman without tears. She spoke in a wavering voice as though she was crying, “I loved Mr. Burbank when I was young. I didn’t know anything. He was the daddy I didn’t have.”

The masked youth turned his waist towards Donna and began to fiddle his fingers together. He didn’t know what to do and so... he listened.

“When things… happened. I cried and I loved him. I said it was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But, I loved him. I was so young.” said Donna.

Dark America turned completely around to face the woman then reached out and held her hands. She was taller than him and slim. He saw that she was a pretty woman who felt ugly by this secret. With his eyes as wide as they could be, he asked, “What happened?”

“I found out I wasn’t the only one.” she replied. Donna became as silent as her young companion who was still in shock as to what he had just heard.

He thought hard to himself then breathed in slowly before speaking, “I don’t know much, Ma’am, but you might be blaming yourself for something you didn’t do. He was bad… no, he was evil and he did what evil men do.”

He dared to rub her face and said, “You’re beautiful. You just have to keep living and keep trying to do good. God loves you.”

The woman smiled through the darkness.

Dark America stood up and stepped away from the woman then looked around the park. “This is my first time out in two weeks.” He pointed at the bits of yellow tape bordering the edges of the park, “People got killed here because of me and I don’t know why. This guy sent two guys with guns to shoot everyone up… and it was my fault.”

The youth fell to his knees as Donna came before him and dropped to hers beside him.

She whispered, “I may not know much, Dark, but you are blaming yourself for something you didn’t do. They were evil and they did what evil people do.”

She dared to rub his masked face and said, “You’re noble. You just have to keep living and keep trying to do right.”

The woman finally allowed herself to cry before standing up to walk away. Just before the nighttime embraced her as a shadow of love, she told Dark America that God loved him.



(-this Chapter was dedicated to Lev)

[delta]

"The sky had no interest in the moon, and so its depth appeared endless."

Best line I've read in a while.

I love the truly human characters you've been bringing to this story.

[The Muse]

*agreed*

[John Reid]

"just before the nighttime embraced her as the shadow of love..."
That's a good one too.

Knight-Hood

[blackmage]

Guilt, the Dead, and an Angel

If guilt was a fruit, it would grow on the dying tree of expectation while being nourished by the grim sunlight of failure. It seemed to be the only fruit in my refrigerator and hunger demanded that I eat it.

I thought about the shooting in the park every day for the last week and knew that it was my fault.

I thought about the looks on the faces of those who were killed and knew that it was my fault.

I thought about the masked boy playing super hero while dressed like me and knew that it was my fault.

I thought about the shooters…

I hated them all that much more than I hated myself.

I had to get them.

It took a couple of weeks for everything to die down, but what sickened me the most was the news coverage on the entire incident - which spanned two-days, including a late afternoon talk show. For the last four days, the news had been covering a hit-and-run on the friend of the Mayor’s daughter… across town. The girl was in the hospital with light injuries to her legs; the media felt that this was a better story to cover than the park shooting.

I became a source of rage.

I plugged into every phone that came into our shop and began a list of those who contacted one another. My web of contacts bled and grew from the ignorance of those who were addicted to social media. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, picture sharing, text messages, video sharing… it all ran from the ‘plugged-in’ virtual world like a waterfall of sh!t feeding my fruit tree of guilt.

I saw phone cam videos of the shooting and the dead. I heard recordings that were shared. I read texts that gave names. I saw faces ‘tagged’ online with funny pop-up boxes identifying the shooters. I read their names.

…And the cops couldn’t find anything?!? This was destined to be another cold case file within three months.

I refused to allow that!

It was nothing for me to don my uniform and goggles, in fact, it felt like ‘home’. I left my guns buried in the neighbor’s yard, but it wasn’t easy because I really wanted to hurt these shooters. I needed to be careful because they’d already proven that they were willing to go to the extreme… and I never wanted to take another life again.

The first shooter was Justin Jones Junior, they called him Triple-J on Facebook. He was an hour’s worth of internet research that resulted in a crap life, crap parentage, and crap decision-making. His apartment was a stink one room dwelling in the back of the local corner store just beside his coffin which happened to be a wet newspaper trash pile under an old truck. He had a needle in his arm, a missing sneaker, a dingy coal-gray jacket with a cell-phone repair slip in it, and a pair of ‘soiled’ plaid boxer shorts; if it wasn’t for the boxers, he would’ve been naked.

I arrived in time to meet the yellow tape and to observe, the nonchalant officers smoke and joke as they cleaned up the body of the older-aged boy, from the distance. I removed the ammunition magazines from the pouches on my war-belt and replaced them with other tools that would help me to become better at my new trade. For this, I whipped out a 41-megapixal camera phone that I had been working on for one of the clients at the store. From my location across the street, I snapped images of those watching within the crowd as well as the officers standing around assigned to the case. I wanted to leave nothing to chance.

I sat in my second floor hiding perch until the scene cleared and the night was on the verge of being consider the next day. I watched as life moved on all around the yellow tape. The dealers returned to their spots, pointing at the taped off area and occasionally laughing. The junkies visited them as gnats hovering around a sweaty man, the prostitutes whispered between the chews of their gum and the quick rides from their clients. The residents who had learned to survive in this world, lived as best they could.

When I left, I changed from my uniform back into my civilian clothes and walked to my car which was two streets over across from the park. I saw the most amazing thing on the way to it.

I saw the masked young boy dressed as me in the park with a woman. He sat with his back more towards her than his front and they didn’t speak much. I stopped on the far side of the park just to watch him. He wasn’t out hunting the killers like me. He wasn’t out taking down drug dealers or trying to stop crime. He was in a park talking to a woman.

He was nothing like me.

I watched him fall to his knees in the mud.
It moved me when I watched her follow suit.

She said something to him then vanished into the darkness as the messenger angel that she was supposed to be to him… and to me.

I just didn’t understand why.

The young masked boy, that park, that angel, and this entire incident made me truly understand why he chose the name… Dark America.

The boy was truly good. Out of all the things going on, he knew what to do and I didn't. He sought an angel and found one.

I sought revenge, saw the dead, and found him.

I felt like crap.

I still had so much to learn from this... Dark America.