Crimson Cross (short story)

I wrote this for my creative writing class my senior year. This story was actually dedicated to my friend who was murdered earlier that month.

Crimson Cross

   The sound of shattering glass is heard at the far end of a dark alley. Shortly after a dark figure can be seen sprinting down the alley, his head peering over his shoulder every five seconds as if he were being pursued. This man was holding his arm, and from the stray light that fell into the alley, illuminated a crimson fluid trickling down his arm, from a gash in his shoulder. On one of the times the man looked over his shoulder, he thought he saw a red coat following him, but just as the coat appeared it disappeared. The man immediately dismissed the coat as being something of his imagination from all the running he was doing. He slowed to a steady jog, and took a deep breath trying to relax his body. He dropped his head letting out a deep sigh, “I finally lost him.” He muttered to himself. As he picked his head up, all he could see before something blunt drove into his face, was a red coat. The cracking sound is heard from the man’s nose, as blood now flows from it like a stream. The person in red walks over slowly, his long red coat swaying back and forth, the tails looking as if they were mere shadow’s attached to the ground. “Holy shit, please just let me be ” The man with the newly broken nose and gash yells as he is now pinned up against a double door that so happened to be locked. The man in red did not respond, just continued his slow march towards the man. In a last ditch effort to survive, the already injured man tries to throw a punch, but before it could connect, a silver spike was driven through his wrist and pinned the man into the door behind him. The man let out a blood curdling scream and attempted to fall to his knees, but he was held up by the spike that was now placed in his wrist. The man in red brought out another silver spike, and looked at the man who now began to reach for the spike so he could remove it. The man in red then made another quick movement and rammed the spike through the man’s other wrist and slowly lifted him until his arms were stretched out making his body appear like a cross, then shoved the spike into the other part of the door completely pinning him there. “Oh God, please let me go.” The man pinned to the wall cried through his agony.
   “God is the reason I am here.” The man in red replied. His voice was booming, and obviously commanded respect. Due to the poor lighting in the alley, his face and most of his other features could not be seen.
   “Wha… what are you talking about?” The man asked now crying as he realized his fate. He was standing on tip toe trying to get the pressure off his wrists as best he could. Even with that he only stood about six feet three inches.
   “By God’s law you have been deemed unworthy of life, just as you have killed others you will be killed here today.” The man in red told him as if this was a common occurrence. The man in red then took a step back; his face was illuminated by the little light coming from the street perpendicular to the alley. His face was cold, seemingly void of all emotion, inhuman, stone-like. He was no older then eighteen, but seemed to have the experience of a retired war veteran. Storm grey eyes pierced into the man’s very soul.
   “You are sad you know that,” The man on the wall chuckled through his pain; “You think you can truly get rid of all of us?”
   “This is what I was made to do, I have nothing else.” The man in red answered.
   “You will never accomplish your goal, you can’t possibly get rid of all of us. You are nothing more then a lap dog for the church.”
   “That may be true, but it is still my purpose and I can try.” The man in red replied. He removed the black glove on his right hand, to reveal a mark like a burned in cross on his hand. “I, the taker of sins, the voice of God, shall return this impure soul to you, the Almighty Father, but will remove their sins so they may return to you as pure as you created them.” The red-coated man then placed his hand on the man on the wall’s head. The mark began to glow a fierce orange, then after a few seconds stopped and lowered his hand. “May you rest in peace.” The man in red then jerked his arm; the sounds of chains could be heard as a gun dropped out of the sleeve of the man in red right into his hand. The gun looked like an oversized glock. It had a red cross right down the middle of it. The bottom of the handle had a gleaming silver chain attached to it. The man in red then raised the gun, “In the name of the father…” he then fired a shot into the mans head, “The son…” then another one into his heart, “and the holy spirit,” The last two in each of the mans shoulders, He lowered his arm and twitched his arm once more, and the gun retreated back into the sleeve, “Amen.” He finished up as he turned around; the man’s body then seemed to glaze over and then just broke up into tiny crimson like crystals. A wind picked up and swept the crystals out of the alley as they danced along the ground. The man in red turned back around to face a newly formed cross stain on the doors. He walked over to the doors and began removing and wiping down the spikes then placed them back into holsters on his waist. He turned and began walking to the end of the alley towards the street.
   A black car pulled up to the alley and stopped blocking any other way out, the window rolled down, not enough for anything to be seen, but just enough so sound could escape from the car, “Chrome, hurry up we have to get going.” A female’s voice said from the window, then it rolled back up.
   Without response Chrome walked to the car and opened the back door, He slid into the back seat, and Chrome’s red jacket vanished into the car just as all evidence of him being in the alley did.