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Once upon a time in New York City, New York, my life sucked. Why, you ask? Death. It wasn’t always this way, but the cold chilling stench of death had slathered itself upon my family, and it took no prisoners. It could’ve left us alone, but Death had its duty, and as usual, it wasn’t going to do the job half-heartedly. No, Death is one of those things that always does its job to the fullest. It wasn’t cutting me a break. Why should it?

Grimly, I stared down at the two sleek black coffins, resting side by side. Father and son. Dad and Pete. Just as the evils of Death intended. Dual pains, causing me to experience misery double time. My heart felt heavy as lead, and my stomach curled with nausea. This entire ordeal was surreal, like some sort of lurid nightmare. I didn’t like it at all.

Inhaling sharply, I glared at the place where I should at least be able to take one last look at the two most important people in my life. But the bodies hadn’t been found. They were gone forever, lost to the murderer running loose through the streets of New York. This bandit had been on the hunt for god knows how long when he decided to act as the devil’s servant, stealing the last breaths from my father and brother’s lips. Furrowing my eyebrows, I felt my lip curl involuntarily, into what was unmistakably a snarl. I felt a deep sense of hatred for this masked shadow killer, one who could dart in and out of the public eye as easily as a ghost. The authorities certainly didn’t know who the culprit was. Suspect Number One? Nobody. That was the extent of their knowledge.

Whoever committed this horrible crime, he was good.

Good enough to be invisible to the police yet omnipresent to those like me: The victims of his bloodthirsty quest for whatever it was he was searching for. Revenge? Satisfaction? Approval?

I hadn’t even an inkling of a thought as to what made a murderer tick. I could barely imagine what would drive someone to such a sin, most definitely the worst sin of all. I shook my head. There were crazies in this world that even the devil himself couldn’t possibly anticipate. That was the problem with the Earth today, and especially with New York City: a place where you could find more crime and corruption than you could find coffee shops – and we had a ton of coffee shops. The Big Apple, home of too many people to even fathom, let alone stand out among. So easy, it was, to just slip away into the shadows…

“Heather?” questioned a youthful voice, one I knew well. My younger brother, Chester.

I turned around, plastering a fake smile on my face, trying to hide the pain I was feeling. The swirl of dark emotion in my heart would not be an encouraging thing to Chester. I’d always been sort of the rock of my family, under my father. Now that he was gone, I knew that I would be the only sturdy thing keeping us from plummeting into oblivion.

“Emotion shows weakness,” my father used to say, “But only in the face of a crisis.” I think this might qualify as a crisis, so I willed myself not to let the tears welling up in my eyes brim over.

“Hey Chet. What’s up?” I asked, my voice soft but sturdy.

I looked into his soft green eyes, my deep chocolate ones reflected back amongst the moisture. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it before properly vocalizing anything.

My chin quivered for a fraction of a second as an overwhelming wave of affection for my brother swelled inside my chest. I wrapped my arms around him protectively, promising myself that I wouldn’t lose him like I lost my father and my best friend, my big brother Peter. I had no idea how I would keep that promise, and subconsciously I knew that the twin deaths were anything but my fault, but my mind was set. I gave his slim frame a final squeeze before drawing back, the first genuine smile of the day firmly set in place on my face. I wasn't going to give Death the satisfaction of my misery. I would confront it head-on, remembering my Dad and Pete at their best. I would not allow Death to rear its ugly head and feast on my family again.

This I swore, to myself, my brother, my absent-minded mother Janice, my father Derek, my older brother Peter, and most importantly, the world.

Nothing’s getting past me next time.

Little did I know that Death actually would once again confront my family and me, as well as bring back ghosts from the past. At the time, I had no idea. I couldn’t have predicted that there would actually be a next time.

My father and brother’s killer was never caught. The police offered their condolences, and some bullshit explanation about how they’d searched and pondered for months, but I saw through it. The truth is they were in over their heads. A man up and killed two people in the middle of a busy city and vanished into thin air. No criminal with the same profile struck in the area again, so eventually the case got shoved into the back of the filing cabinet, left to gather dust. Mom and Chet didn’t really care very much, but I was furious. I wanted to see the monster that tore my family apart brought to justice.

I wanted to watch him burn.

To this day, I know nothing of the mysterious murderer. But sometimes, I dream about him. And in the dreams, there is one terrifyingly vivid, horrifically consistent feature about him, one that always wakes me up with cold sweat running down my back. In my dreams, his eyes are always bright red.

Always.