Walking down the street on a cold sunny day, you see things differently. The light is so sharp it cuts your eyes and every highlight feels a blade trying to slash you open, bringing visual life to the stabbing chill in the air. It made Frank anxious. He already had a fight with Morgan and was trying to take his mind off it, going CD hunting in Beaverton. His efforts were primarily to get something for Serena, since seeing her smile and say "thanks uncle Frank," always did put things right. They were fruitless and he sighed on the way out of the store. Down the road he went towards the bus stop, cars zooming pass on Cedar Hills Boulevard, kicking up noise and breeze in their wake. The stop ahead was occupied and immediately Frank felt suspicious of the couple sitting under the enclosure, waggling a shopping cart full of trash. Homeless? Worse, he realized. Addicts. Junkies. He planned to carry on but sight of their animated conversation got him curious. Must be talkative. But as he neared, he heard them talking to a third, saw their eyeline, and then followed it across the street to the sister stop of the #20 and #67 busses. A woman, dressed in normal clothes of coat, jeans, scarf for the winter - she stood waiting for her own bus. The words of the junkies was at her and he trembled at their vocal poison. "We aren't trying to be mean! But your face is a fucking dog!" The girl, blonde, was the one to strike first. The boy, dark skinned and scraggly haired, added to it. "You need to STOP looking so fucking bad!" Their shouts were not lost by the rumble and roar of cars. The woman was scared of them. And Frank felt empathy. In his childhood, his parents told him that bullies were bad children who didn't feel love so they only felt hate. They had to rip joy from people to satisfy them. It made the bullies at school feel like monsters to Frank. His first kill was a bully. And he looked at those two as the bullies they were and realized what he was going to do. He moved on from the stop, same as he intended to when he saw their presence initially, and by the time he crossed the street the woman was walking away as the junkies wanted but they weren't satisfied yet. They stood up, abandoned their cart, and started to follow. And so Frank slowed his step and followed as well. There was an ocean of asphalt between the woman and the pair of street trash, but their words were just as bad. They would have to meet at some point and it was during a traffic lull that Frank saw the pair jumped and ran across the way as fast as they could. They ended up about 20 feet behind the woman but they were gaining. Frank had to hurry to catch up and his hand was already on his knife. He barely used it and Harry would be pissed. But they were coming up on another bus stop. Enclosed. He could put them there and it'd take time for someone to find the pair. It would work. It had to. In fact, when the blonde spoke again, Frank didn't care anymore. Fuck'em. The boy made a move first, pulling up a gangly, intoxicated arm to the woman and putting the hand on her shoulder. She gasped and the blonde pulled out a small blade. Frank got her first. Two stabs, lower back. Then he turned to the boy and gutted him in the stomach so many times he lost count. It felt good. Righteous. Frank hated killing most of time, but when his rage flared he was a mess of violence. It was personal and horrifying and once in a while he was real fucking great at it. There was guilt afterwards, always. But this he could live with. Same as taking out competition, traitors, and scumbags who had it coming. He slipped the bodies onto the bus stop bench, the woman crying but in so much shock she wasn't sure what happened. Frank looked at her serious as the deaths he just caused. "You saw nothing." He finished stashing the bodies, stuck his bloody hands in his pockets, and carried on. Nobody had seen it clearly, his wide frame, the enclosure, all of it helped keep the movement a secret. And why would anyone care? It was the burbs. He walked the whole way home with cooling blood on his hands, but it was worth it. The woman made good to disappear. Harry was pissed. It took time to clean up. But Frank, through his guilt and feeling bad about putting his friends through the work of it, honestly didn't care too much.
