I used the comments I recieved and made some changes. Tell me how you like it. It is has highly graphic...imagery, though, so proceed with caution.
Night hung thickly, like water, always everywhere. A single flashlight beam prevailed against the darkness for just a few feet, where it was then swallowed by the nigritude. But the short beam of light provided was adequate for the mission. A large man traveled low along the street, looking for a good house. The equipment on his belt gave no noise to betray its holder. The flashlight clicked off; he had found a suitable target.
The figure moved in closer to the house. He arrived at a window and began to search for a latch. He found it and manipulated it to open. The figure slipped through and shut the window, making as little noise as possible. So far, so good. Suddenly, a mass of barking broke out. The burglar swore quietly under his breath and let out a soft whistle. He heard the scuffling of paws from somewhere in the house. He had anticipated something like this. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a dog biscuit laced with a sedative. The dog lapped it up and was quiet for the remainder of his visit. But, unfortunately, it was not quick enough. There was a stirring deeper within the house. A light flashed on. He heard whispered words of anxiety and the grumbling of an angry husband. The burglar swore, this time more profoundly and more quietly.
"Hey!-"That was as far as the angry husband got. The mission had gone sour so quickly. The burglar had no choice and the angry husband died with fists clenched. The burglar tried to make a quick escape, but his attempt was in vain. The angry husband’s failure to return roused the frightened wife out of the bedroom and as soon as she saw the burglar, she screamed and dashed for the phone. She made it, but wasn’t quick enough, and the frightened wife died with a scream in her throat.
The burglar took a look around and delighted in what he found. It was not paydirt, but it would be a considerable amount of money. He went about the house, first checking to see if there was anyone else that would need to be taken care of, then selecting only the best things at his liesure. After all, he had all the time he needed. He was rummaging around in the cabinents adjacent to the living room where the bodies had fallen. There were figurines and silver trinkets all over the place. This would be a job he would not forget.
When he had finished, a hefty bag of loot in his hand, he made his way back through the way he had come, making sure he had left no sign of himself. He was wiping a smudge from a glass, when he heard a loud bark then felt pain shoot in his leg. The dog had awoken, much to the burglar's surprise, and was now clamped on his leg. With all of his might, he pried half of the dog's jaw away, and with his other hand, pulled the knife he had on his noiseless belt, and cut the dog's throat, who fell limp promptly after. He stumbled back out of the room, trying to hobble on his injured leg and find a bandage. He fell onto his back with a sharp crunch over the body of the angry husband. The husband's body crumpled further and blood squirted out of the wound which killed him. The sound was oddly entertaining. Forgetting his leg, he picked himself up and threw his weight upon the man, delighting in the fountain of blood. He took his knife and cut more and more into the man's body, increasing in his sadistic indulgence. Blood was everywhere, the man's body shredded. He stood up and heaved a deep breath. Then he turned to the little old woman.
Rain streaked across the window. Drops collected and fell away. The dismal essence of ‘rainy day’ had settled in for the long haul. It had been raining for three days and looked like it wouldn’t let up for at least another seven. Marshall was just stared dazed and mesmerized out the window, even though the splattered drops of rain made it near impossible to see out at the world. He looked down at the notebook in his lap, turned to the next available page and began to write down a few ideas and thoughts. That was what Marshall did. He wrote; it was who he was. Every stroke of his pen was like writing with his soul in liquid form. It defined him and it was him. When he wrote, he made an extension of himself; it was what he lived to do.
He sat for many minutes, smoothly writing down his ideas and opinions and life. When he was finished, he looked down at the drying ink and then looked out at the rainy streets that had just become a part of him.
Marshall practically wrote down everything. But he did not only write it down, he described it with such vivid articulation and detail that those who frequented the ocean could read Marshall’s description of the same ocean and could look at with new enthusiasm. Those who knew nothing of the ocean could picture it almost exactly. He had a gift, a supernatural and extraordinary power. However, it worked both ways. He could write good things and make people warm and delightful inside, but he could also write about darker things and thrust readers into utter despair. It was, at times, a terrible burden to bear.
A drop of rain hit his forehead and he looked up. Another raindrop fell between his eyes. There was a bulge protruding from the ceiling dripping water. Marshall grumbled as he rose to his feet. He trudged down to his garage to retrieve a bucket. As he opened the door, a cold air pushed its way through the doorway. The garage was dark, even with the light on, and smelled cold and rainy. It even felt so. It was a weird sensation to have essence of rain so readily available to every one of his senses. This feeling was not foreign to him, however. Every time he entered this state of heightened awareness, there was a myriad of fragmented and feelings in every part of his being; he not only felt what he wrote, it coursed through every part of his soul and mind, and it brought just as much consequence to his entire physical presence as well as his mental. And as he carried the bucket up to the leaky room, he began already to ponder and process the seemingly simple event into words.
His ability did contribute to his monumental success as a news reporter. No one knew how he could articulate such realistic and relatable feelings into ink, but he did it and people praised him for it. Of course, these random, sporadic moments of awareness had caused Marshall to restrict himself to the positive and less substantial topics. The unpredictability and vivid, morbid detail that occurred during such moments were he to delve into the darker sides of reality would drive him to death, insanity at the very least if he was lucky. Every year, he would report on canned food drives and Christmas celebrations and parties and with the articles he produced perpetuated happiness, joy, hope, and a feeling that maybe humans weren’t so bad.
And through the years, Marshall was comfortable; his life was light and warm. Friends were not a challenge; he had plenty. Topics and leads offered little challenge; he had a way of finding good in almost everything. He even got regular promotions, until he made it all the way to top reporter. He went whereever the editor told him and Marshall soon found himself accompanying a police team on an investigation. The investigation soon became a crime scene; the crime scene soon became the source of evidence for a gruesome multiple murder case. So, consequentially, Marshall was assigned to a total access story regarding every detail. He was to not keep it short; the media had all ready blown everything and captured the eyes and ears of thousands.
At first it was simple enough. He found out the lifestyles and previous records and backgrounds on the victims, but then as the demand for more relatively informative details grew, Marshall had no choice but to go into detail of the murders. He sat at his computer typing his article, giving only the most vague and least descriptive account of the actual murders. His whole body tickled with the essence of melancholy. It was tough and painful for him, it was so real to him, but he did it and sent it in. The stories were published strictly upon the necessity of information, but it pleased neither the editor nor the audiences.
Back at his home, Marshall pulled out the research of the crime scene, photos and records, et cetera. Clacking sounds generated from the keyboard as he wrote his last article. Then, when he thought he could bear no more, there was a tingling throughout his body and his eyes grew misty with the memories of what he had seen on the scene. He began to vividly depict the grotesque and morbid crime. He saw the corpses and the horrible ways they were mutilated, and every part of his body began throb with disgust. His fingers betrayed him; they continued to type his death. He described the victims’ dismembered bodies covered in blood, the deep slashes, and the empty, lifeless eyes staring into nothingness. Limp arms, missing heads…this was the work of a psychotic lunatic, still at large; images of the murders flashed through his mind like he was actually staring at the scene right there. Tears began to form in his eyes as he earnestly tried to stop his hands, but the attempt was for naught. It was his curse and his fingers kept on clacking away his life. He had captured the essence of death and could not let it go. It was like his fingers had a mind of their own and could not stop. His head was swimming with the vivid pictures, and the tears began to fall away from his face, and he could feel himself falling away, distant, like he was watching from underwater. Everything was slowly fading, his story ending. Perhaps it was not a newspaper he was writing for; perhaps it was for the victims, to write their stories, to tell the public what had been so cruelly been done to these poor people. But he watched as his screen began to fade and pull away from his eyes. His fingers had stopped typing and now they were helping him steady himself as he staggered around his room. He was no longer typing, but the memory still remained stronger than ever. With one hand he held his head from the blinding pain, and with the other was held outreached to catch himself when he fell. He blindly rushed about hanging on to his own consciousness, remembering everything he could. His life did not flash before his eyes; instead he remembered obscure things, things he would have forgotten had ever happened: buying a jar of peanut butter for a recipe he was trying, walking home in the rain, stepping on a thumbtack and thinking about mice… '
Barely hanging on, he made the way to his windowsill, and on his knees, he gazed blankly out through the rain-covered window. The water collected and fell away like so many times before. Marshall recognized this pattern as his life ebbed and fell away. Like so many things, the rain was like him. He could help things grow and encourage them to dance in the light of the sun, or he could destroy them, throw them so far deep within themselves and drown them. It was what he did, whether he liked it or not. Tears fell from his face and raindrops fell down the window. Finally the pain in Marshall’s head was too unbearable. The sun cast few rays of light through the clouds. From the clouds they descended through Marshall’s window, and, as the light passed through the raindrops, translucent shadows were cast into the room. It was under those shadows that the troubled writer died with terror in his eyes and death in his heart.
The front pages the next day did not display anything about the murders, but instead, the death of a local resident:
[pre:f4d1c63542]“A local journalist, Marshall Criner, 28, renowned for his extraordinary talents, had been found dead in his home by an employee of the paper, who was sent to check on Criner after he had missed a deadline. Criner was found in his home, dead. There were no signs of a wound on the body. Authorities have not given any guess as to how the journalist died. Criner was writing an article about a double homicide case that had occurred recently within the area…”[/pre:f4d1c63542]
There was a funeral held for Marshall three days later, and in attendance were many of the readers that had so aptly follow Marshall’s writings over the years. Many mourned him; others just showed up to pay their respects. Nonetheless, hundreds were in attendance, and all were sorry to see the journalist go. Marshall’s brother gave his eulogy; the talent for writing did not run in the family.
As people began to leave, a sea of black umbrellas trickled from the doors, down the steps of the church and dispersed into the world with the rain following above. The simple burglar, now wanted killer, had two counts of murder seeking him out. Marshall’s hands were now still, his mind, calmed, and the rain continued to fall and provide sanctuary for restless eyes.
