Four of a Kind

Prologue In all the years of his life since his wife had passed on, Mark Evans had never heard the pac pac pac sound that sounded heavily like the puckering of the human lips either before or after a delicious meal in a hotel he was staying for a business trip.. It was around 2: AM that he had to wake up to the said sound while snoring away dreaming about the day his wife was killed accidentally by food poisoning. It wasn’t a pleasant dream he told himself whenever he woke to toss and turn, all the while trying to ignore the noise. But the sound just got more obnoxious to the point John got up to his feet like a soldier who got up with much enthusiasm even after a hellish 50 push-ups in fresh mud. He grabbed the flashlight by his bed and went down the house with a yawn. In the basement, now that John was a floor closer than he was from his bed, he could clearly hear the pac pac pac sound which really did sound like a mouth puckering. John didn’t fancy the idea of someone enjoying a meal in his basement, especially when he had nothing to eat in his house except stale noodles. He was supposed to go get groceries tomorrow and was actually glad someone came rummaging through his house to “sweep up” any leftovers from his house. This was actually his 23rd house. He had houses built all over the world which his company owned. He and his co-workers were free to use any one of them Nevertheless, he grabbed a bat with his free hand and went down the basement. Someone already flicked a light on, but that didn’t surprise John. He was hoping that whoever the culprit was, would just be a runaway kid who was simply just hungry. He saw a silhouette of a humped back behind the shelves. Wasting no time, he dashed towards it and raised his bat. What he saw was a sickening sight. He was right, without a doubt, there was some stowaway kid in his basement eating his expired noodles but that kid was beyond ordinary. His body was covered in tattoos but all in the wrong way. As if the kid asked an aging tattoo artist who was hard of hearing where he wanted the tattoos applied and made a stupid mistake. The boy looked monstrous. With needle marks behind his neck standing out. It didn’t look like something you see from drug addicts. No, this was different. "What are you-you doing in my house!?" John asked cautiously and surprised. “This message is for you.” He replied. “What message?” he asked annoyed. He stood up. Cleared his throat. And said in a booming voice. “John Evans you were charged with the murder of your wife among the many using one of your Bio-Arsenal Synedrate thus committing a breach of contract, but got a unconditional pardon from the civil world. My Player disagrees with the verdict and shall tell you what he thinks of it.” The way the boy said that clearly and fluently surprised the man but not more than what he was told about. He started sweating buckets wondering what the intruder could possibly mean. “Look here, I don’t know who you are but-” His words were cut short when the boy’s entire body split into two like a gaping mouth and devoured him and dissolved his body along with the boy himself.   Chapter 1 I don’t like our country in particular, to be honest there’s so many factors that’s causing disarray to our country. Every time I walk out to go into the city I see problems adding up just to make our country worst as if these people were disposing trash to an already full bin. Someone needed to be the garbage man to take out the trash. And I’m that someone. Except I’m gonna throw away the bin as well. To make sure no one ever keep adding problem to that cause. “Reeves! You’re going to be late!” My head house maid Heylian said. She was only 6 years older than me so it irked me she acted like my mother despite her being under my command. I sighed and grabbed my bad and made sure everything was in there for the day. My pencil case with all necessary stationary jammed. My one notebook for all subjects except math and English. My eBook for all the necessary textbooks and my phone and wallet. All black. Which made me feel cool. OK no, that was lame. Putting my shoes on, I walked towards the bus stop as fast as I could. I was really hoping I wouldn’t meet the friendly neighbor whose kid called Jude Evans shared the same classes as me. He was generally poorer and I couldn’t help in keeping a straight face when knowing I am richer than he was and was without a doubt better than him in all aspects. Yes, that included looks. No, that was purely sarcasm. So, it was tough treating him as my equal and when I would point out those facts bluntly, he wouldn’t take it like a good person and look hurt or sad. Instead he would be the type to look me dead in the eye and tell me plainly and abruptly that he doesn’t need our pity and that his family is doing just fine without my opinion. …Which was true, so why was this going through my mind as we got to the stop? I really need to have a therapy session. These vile thoughts are going to overwhelm me one day. I got on and plugged earphones in me and slept the rest of the way. I was glad to have a seat in the rush hour and it was easy to get off the jammed bus by the time we got to our station. Might be the only good luck that I actually appreciate. When I got to my tuition, we were early by a few mins. I took an empty seat and sat down to go through the negative thoughts that filled my head to let that s**t eat me alive again. At least that was entertaining than just crouching their necks over their phone hoping not to look awkward Must be the reason why girls don’t find me attractive. I look OK in general but kids my age only look at their phones whenever we sit down at a restaurant never bothering to look at each other and preferring the endless entertainment our phones had to offer due to no cyber law in our country. Which wasn’t good. I feel like an old man thinking like that. I wanted to do something. Something to help me feel better at night when I sleep and think about what I did for the day that was worth something. “OK! Everyone take your seat so we can begin the final chapter before we take our exams next month.” Exams were just over a month away and I had to give props to the teacher for actually educating us properly to this point. The teacher started teaching us about probability which was a subject I generally excelled in so I paid no attention to his lecture and started reading the question paper and doing them. I also had to make sure that the teacher didn’t catch me doing it early while he was still giving his speech. “Probability, in the end, all comes down to one conclusion whether it’s more to 1 or 0. You just need to convert the values in between to percentages or fractions depending on the questions and you’ll be fine.” He wasn’t wrong. I always wanted to be closer to number one. It was an optimistic thought, something I lacked a lot. On the way home I was glad to leave class early so I could take a detour to my favorite milk tea shop and sit there, swiping my cellphone which could entertain me for hours but only appropriately. Taking my time with my cheese milk tea I overheard the owner of the shop Marcus, who I was decently acquainted with talking on the phone in a loud whisper which was loud enough for me to hear. “There’ll too many dead bodies piling up at this rate, I can’t risk giving you more if you aren’t certain this would work!” Dead bodies? This was news. Most people in my country would technically ignore this and just go about their day like nobody’s business. The kind of people who would offer their seats to people would likely report to the police when they hear something as serious as this. For the first time in a while my adrenal glands started filling in their purpose and secreted adrenaline coursing through my veins. I waited patiently and extended my stay. I knew my folks were out for the night and won’t be coming back for a while. This was the perfect opportunity to get my eyes widened to see something I probably wouldn’t see again in this lifetime. The shop closes at 9 it was 7:30 so I still had an hour and a half to tail Marcus to wherever he went and I decided to move the factors that might play a role in preventing so I had to move them out of the way. First, I called up my house and told Heylian that I was staying over at a friend for the night. Once that was cleared, I called up Andrew who could be my ride, telling him about what I overheard. He had a hand me down convertible which he mod into a race car or so he claims. In my opinion adding a flame design paint-job won’t do s**t to the horsepower or whatnot to make it faster. I left the shop and waited across the street sneaking glances at the owner to make sure he didn’t bolt without my knowledge. When Andrew arrived, I hopped in the shotgun seat and waited. “What’s up man?” He said. “Andy… it’s time I start calling you Andy. Is that OK?” I asked him. I wanted to break into him slowly what I was about to do and telling him I got a special way of calling him might help convince him to tag along with me. “Sure, why?” He asked. “Well, it’s just I think you might now like what I have in store today, I want to do something crazy and I need you with me on this.” I told him. I like to be honest and telling him right off the bat was the best way to go with a guy that didn’t care if I cussed at him in the heat of a moment. “I heard Marcus talk about dead bodies on the phone and I want to tail him. once he closes the shop we go after him and see what’s he up to!” I told him truthfully. “So that’d we’d go to the cops once we have evidence?” Andy asked doubtfully. “Yes.” I said on a whim. I didn’t intend to go to the cops but if he finds out we were tailing him there was no way we were keeping quiet. So technically that wasn’t a lie Finally, the man closed his shop and with a cigarette tightly between his lips walked swiftly into the cold night. It wasn’t a minute after we started trailing him when he immediately put two and two together and realized he was being tailed. He turned a sharp corner into a dark alley. I didn’t know if he found out or we reached our destination. Andrew had no intention to come with me. Which was good seeing his clumsiness would make us more obnoxious. But I didn’t trust him. for all I know he could ditch me and leave me stranded with a murderer. I showed him my wallet and gave him a quarter of the cash I had on hand. I hoped this was enough to make him wait so that I could pay him the other three quarters. I hopped out the car and proceeded with caution. I had a stun gun in my bag which I didn’t think would be useful until now. I walked slowly through the dark alley keeping my eyes peeled for the slightest movement or sound and careful not to make any noise of my own. Everything I saw seemed abandoned. Dirty windows, unattended overfilled trash bins, dusty doors and walls daubed with dirt that would put a muddy wet mountain to shame. But something seemed out of place. And that was a door that seems to be recently used. Looking how there was no dust on the door handle but all over the door, it was probably a no-brainer this was the door the owner went into. I went inside the creepy room which didn’t seem something people would do. But just like in horror films where people seemed unbelievably stupid and daring, I went in. Maybe those script writers were on to something. The room was obviously dark. There wasn’t much to make out as light was only being emitted from the room the was also making distinct faint sounds. It sounded like someone was vomiting. Which was bad. And the sound of heavy glass breaking ruptured my eardrums in the silent warehouse. “Awe…. hey! hey! HEY!” A familiar voice broke out. It was Marcus. I didn’t know who the other guy was. But he was apologizing and wiping the floor. Apparently, he spilled water on the floor. A lot of it. I didn’t know what was going on, or what the other guy broke. But it must’ve been pretty massive judging by the fact that the water already reached me. And I was even a good distance away. “f**k this!” Marcus finally said sighing with frustration. Hearing the rustling of a jacket made me hide somewhere Marcus hopefully didn’t see me. I picked a room that didn’t have a door and went in and made sure Marcus couldn’t see me when he passed the corridor to the exit. He didn’t see me. I still heard the sweeping of the water, as well as the soft splashing of water made by Marcus’s speed walking. Hearing them jolt me out of my fear and whipped out my phone after putting everything to silent. I called Andrew and told him that Marcus was coming and he should move out. I didn’t wait for his reply, I walked very slowly and let my footsteps mesh with the waves of the shallow water. I knew if that other guy saw me it was all over, but it was not likely. I assumed he was a bit dumb and with the poor lighting if I stick close to the walls, I doubt he’d see me and just walk past me. And he did. I held my breath and was surprised when he came so close to me and didn’t realize I was there. He also followed Marcus and went out. Hoping it wasn’t locked from the inside I went in closer to the room where the unknown object smashed and couldn’t believe what I saw. Not dead bodies. The opposite.