And Here It Lies...

Vardoger

[Creative Title Here]
I dunno. It's not great, it's more tell than show I guess. But I still have a soft spot for it.
It's an interesting premise anyway, I think.

Shooter with health problems evades police, crashes car, discovers traveling circus.

And Here It Lies...

Spew: The sound of a bullet going through the suppresser on an M40 rifle through an open window of a hotel room.
Flop: The sound of a now dead body hitting the floor.

Bornes, the man behind the scope on his stomach, lay still for a while. Somehow this seemed unbelievable. Too easy, even. His lips pulled into a small frown as he put his forearms on the floor.
This was getting boring.
It'd been going on for about a year, now. People paid him, he killed their enemies. He wasn't exactly the best in the trade, but he was a good shot. He was able to react on instinct rather than clicks or measuring windspeed. Sometimes he missed, but most times he didn't. And not one of his targets left alive. But still, there was no fun or adventure in it, anymore.

He almost... Wanted to get caught. And he knew that was a bad, dangerous thought. Pushing himself to sit up-right, his lean figure began to dismantle the rifle as he had done several thousand times before. Despite the darkness of his unlit hotel room, he wore sunglasses. Behind them sat forest green eyes that weren't even looking at the gun as he placed it into a violin case. Everything was habit, now. Muscle memory. Old. No more challenge.
But at the same time, trying to put in more challenge would likely mean years of prison time, and he couldn't have that.


BAM! BAM! BAM!
The door to his hotel room shook on its hinges as someone on the outside banged on it, trying to get in. "Police! Open up!"
And... There it was. The excitement. Everything quickened. The violin case snapped shut by experienced fingers outfitted with black shooter's gloves. His black pant legs rose, and old, worn boots of the same color rushed to the black canvas seabag in the corner. The six foot figure turned and swiftly lifted the bag onto his back, shoving his black long sleeves through the straps and stretching the maroon torso of his buttoned dress shirt. Before running toward the door, he bent over and picked up the violin case.

Yes, the same door that was being slammed upon by police.

The shooter's name was Quatre Bornes. But most couldn't pronounce it correctly, so he simply went by Bornes. If he felt like being cryptic, he'd tell them his name was Q. But he'd outgrown those days. He preferred "real" names, now. Quirking a dark-skinned ear, he waited. He visualized the people on the other side, slamming their bodies into the door. He could picture when their bodies lined up with the hard wood, and when they stepped back for more momentum.

And then, when the police were about to slam into the door once more, he opened it. There were only three of them, and the first two came tumbling through without their balance. Bornes gripped the violin case in both his hands and pummeled the base of the hard shell into each of the men's necks, knocking them out.

The third man was given just enough time to react, pull out his pistol, and try to fire at the shooter-- Bornes-- the man with the greyed hair and the huge scowl on his face. Two black "whisker-like" tattooes on either side of his chin made his look that much more fearsome. He let out a beastly, guttural growl and threw the violin case at the last policeman's face.

The cop misfired, and Bornes took his chance, running off with the huge bag on his back, leaving the violin case behind. He didn't need it anymore, and he was becoming lightheaded. He'd never admit it, but he was afraid, now.

He went down the stairs at a speed with which he was uncertain he could ever duplicate. The cop tried to follow, shooting at him here and there, but ultimately not making connections. Since the cop had radioed for backup almost immediately, Bornes expected to see a line of patrol vehicles at the entrance to his hotel.

There weren’t.

After flying through the fire exit door and finding himself without a waiting ambush, he ran to the nearest parked car –which happened to be a taxi-- and opened the passenger side door, throwing his seabag into the seat. He ran to the other side of the car and almost in an instant, the driver was pulled out with another roar of beast-like anger and Bornes replaced him, shutting the door, shifting into drive, and slamming his foot down on the gas.
Bornes wasn't that great of a driver-- he hated cars and streets in general-- but his vision was already blurring, and he needed to make his escape as quickly as possible.
He knew this one was going to be the last. After this, it was over for him.
In more ways than one.

He sped down the highway, but lucky for him, this was a rather small town. As soon as he found a country-side dirt road -- and he didn't have to wait long-- he took it. Far and away off the beaten path and into the cornfields he went.

And then?

Black.

Bornes came to with a massive headache. His head was on the steering wheel and his dark sunglasses had mashed into his face. By some ungodly miracle, they hadn’t broken. He didn't know where he would've been if they had. But the payment for his undamaged prescription shades was a bloody face. His blood had run down between his eyes, all down the scar he'd already acquired on his face years prior. A long diagonal streak from about his left brow, across his nose, to the right side of his upper lip was now accentuated by dried lifeforce. His usual attempts to cover it up by a clever parting of his long grey bangs wasn’t going to work this time. The bangs, too, were also tainted by his crusty crimson.

At least a day had to have passed, because the car, which he slowly began to realize was stuck inside of a tree, was dead. And wasn't even smoking. All his blood was more or less dry, and it was mid-day.
And fuck, his head hurt.

When he left, it'd been evening. He could remember. Somewhat. Hotel, and... Getting his target.. Did he get his target? Maybe... Putain.

Bornes pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head, and rubbed his face, his green eyes closed. He seemed to be okay, nothing broken. Just a huge headache. Maybe he just passed out while he was driving. He'd been passing out a lot more frequently in the past few days... He couldn't remember why he was even driving...

He put his sunglasses back over his eyes and took a deep breath before he pried himself out of the car. After he was standing next to it, he heaved a big sigh of relief, and checked his pockets.

"Okay, good," he thought, as he took out a crushed pack of Benson & Hedges. His fingers, still shaking slightly, itched for one of them. Although it was bent out of shape, he put it in between his lips anyway. He checked his other pockets for a lighter. "Thank Fate," he mumbled in his mind as he found one, and lit up, taking a long drag.
At least God knew what things really mattered, here.

After a few drags, he was able to get more of his bearings back, and he walked around the car to the passenger side. With his smoke between his lips, he grunted and began to pull the seabag out of the broken passenger side window. Eventually, it came through and landed with a thud at his feet.

Bornes squatted down and went to the combination lock, opening it and then, subsequently, the seabag. As he pulled his entire home from the inside, over half of it appeared to be broken. He laid those things in the grass, not giving much care to them other than sporadic looks of disappointment of their now useless condition. Eventually, he came across his two unused shoulder holsters. He put them both on, not finding the small box with dual M9s- also severely underused - to go with them until several minutes later. He opened the box, checked the pistols, loaded them, and holstered them. He threw the box, which had a small bit of ammo left in it, to the opposite side of his pile of broken things.

This sorting went on for about half an hour. Bornes had gone through his entire pack of cigarettes and couldn't find any more. All his stocked alcohol had broken inside the water-tight bag and most of his clothes were soaked from it. He also happened to have a rather large sum of cash just sitting in the bottom of the bag, and it too, had been swimming in alcohol.

Once he’d poured all the liquid from the bag, Bornes restocked what little was still useable or he still wanted to keep. One of his jackets had dried while he'd been sorting, and this he wore to cover his shoulder holsters. But now he stunk worse than a wino, and he had to find a place to wash everything.

He took the half-empty sea bag, locked it, and put it on his back.
After a groan, he stood up. It was now evening again.

Just how long had he been in that car?

With the sun setting, Bornes finally took in his surroundings. Looking to one direction: Cornfield; another: pasture. Another: middle of nowhere... The last direction?

Circus tents?

Bornes had never actually seen a circus, before. By the look of the tents, it seemed they weren't done setting up, yet. Maybe this would be his chance to start a new life... If he had any life in him left, that was.
Circuses travelled. And everyone who worked there was a freak of nature. Bornes had mixed feelings. He was a little mistrustful, and somewhat uncomfortable.

But another part of him told him to suck it up and move forward. So he did.

Picking his aching feet up, he walked forward. And several minutes later, he found himself closing in on the grounds. By the time he got close enough, he grimaced to himself.

It was time to figure out who ran this place, and how he was going to form his words to ask for a shower and a new job.
 
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