The Mark of Three

Blood was still dripping from the roses, painting the pavement a deep shade of red.

It had been like that for some time now.

The blood, I mean. 

It flowed like a tap long since forgotten.

Until the white pavement became red, and the red became black.

Lost in the blackness, the bleeding man was swimming, drowning, pleading with a voice so broken only gurgling sounds could be heard.

A dying man’s wish.

But Max knew it wasn’t.

A secret was being revealed. And in all that mess the young boy, no more than 5, leaned in to hear it.

Chapter 1:



20 years later......

“Right then, what do you make of it?” chirped the annoying, little camera fiend from the doorway.

Lying face down, with a large ass stuck in the air, was our very tall victim barely contained within the ridiculous, tiny Greenhouse. All around him was dark blood, covering him, the pavement ....and the roses. The place was trashed. Tables and plants were strewn about haphazardly and right in front of the victim’s head was a table lying on its side. The table had blood smeared as though something heavy had been dragged across.

Large, deep cuts were visibly scattered about the dead man’s chest.

I looked at the tiny girl, Jesse, taking pictures, and glanced away “body’s been moved, obviously.”

“Obvious only to you, Max” she retorted squinting and angling her camera for a better shot. 

Rolling my eyes upwards for patience, I pointed to the corpse “The body has been moved. Why? Well it’s simple you just have to look at the odd bent of the legs, the shoe marks on the blood and blood pattern on the floor. Ever seen someone die with their buttocks pointed to high heaven like that Tinker Bell?”

“Nooo”  

I crouched near the dead man “that’s because he died against this table” I said, pointing at the fallen table in front of the victim. “So conclusion? Factoring in rigor mortis, he died within 24 hours and someone moved him to his current position: face down -ass up.” 

Leaning closer to the crime scene, I whispered “but this is strange. Different....” 

A familiar feeling, I couldn’t quite name, crept up my spine like cold sweat. 

Jesse glanced at me alertly “different how?”

Ignoring the pixie and ignoring my racing heart, I closely examined the blood pattern on the floor, looking for signs that would tell the story.

She crouched next to me “so he was murdered?” 

I simply stared at her “the fact that he was stabbed didn’t make you think murder?”

Glancing down at the corpse, she replied “No. He could have fallen and accidentally stabbed himself or maybe suicide?”

Resisting the urge to shoot myself or her -mostly her, I muttered “no idiot, people don’t tend to stab themselves multiple times during accidents or attempted suicides”.

Rocking back on her feet to get up, she mumbled “maybe”

I looked up and fixed a glare on her “You’re distracting me. What is the point of you again?”

Returning my glare, the little thing snarled “you brought me here. The cops will be here any second making the very incorrect assumption that we killed ‘Mr. Elevated Ass’ here” she said, stabbing a finger at the corpse. 

Keeping my eyes on the body, I muttered under my breath “the cops are a bit slower than that, and I brought you here to break in, not follow me around like an obedient pet”.

The pixie practically spit out “I don’t care, believe it or not, I’m not salivating on the prospect of going back to prison”.

I stood up, looking around for something “Why? Personally I think the orange jumpsuits would look much better on you.”

Just then distant sirens pierced the air. Strange. How would the cops know already?

Hearing the evident sound, the munchkin stomped out the door and threw back “unless we leave now, you’ll be finding out just how good they look on you too. Now, let’s go.” 

I glanced at the tiny room “there’s no murder weapon.”

“Let’s go!”

I took one final look around to see if I could find the thing the murderer had obviously come back to look for. Finding nothing, I left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, you still haven’t told me how you knew about the dead body.”

Getting no reply from me, the sprite asked “Where to now?”

Pulling out my phone, I started down the sidewalk “I don’t know about you, but I’m going out to celebrate” 

Trying to keep pace with me, the munchkin gave me a glance that assured the whole world I’d lost my mind “are you celebrating murder?!” She whispered vehemently.

Suppressing laughter, I elongated my strides enough to lose the imp. Calling back, I yelled against the wind, “no I’m celebrating my birthday!”

Taking a sharp right in an alleyway I headed back towards the crime scene.

What I had kept from camera-wielding Tinker Bell was that I’d seen the same thing at least 20 times by now. The same murder. Tiny greenhouse. Multiple stab wounds. And ...roses. Like a painting, everything remained the same except the victim.

Each year. Every birthday. My birthday, January 9th. Over, and over, and over again. 

The first murder that happened was the day I turned five.

Burnt beneath my eyelids is the image of my lifeless uncle and blood everywhere. I’d slipped in the wetness twice trying to get to him and then he’d whispered something to me.

That whisper...it seemingly left as quickly as it came.

Closing my eyes, I can almost picture the shape of his lips as he’d spoken, but try as I might I never remember the words.

Since that day, each January 9th a murderer prances about a greenhouse killing someone, like clockwork. 

No matter where I go, it happens. No matter how far I travel, death follows. No matter what state, country or continent I live in, someone dies.

A paralyzing feeling that comes with a cold, familiar touch stalks me in my dreams. It paints a vivid picture of me lying in a pool of roses dipped in blood. 

Oddly enough, it is never me lying in the blood.

Someone, a killer, had followed me my whole life, and had been playing cat and mouse games with me for two decades. 

Like chess pieces we engaged each other, and made the world our board game. To even the playing field in my favor, I constantly altered my identity, my appearance, and the city we were in. And each year, I waited for the killer to make a mistake. But for 20 years, to my great frustration, there was no mistake. No difference. No change.

But this case, this very strange case- something had changed. 

A mistake had been made.