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Description
Part 1

Alex Nieman was, in his day, a very smart criminal. He had learned how to pull a trigger early, his older sister having taught him for his own safety. Ironically, about a week after his first lesson, she died on the streets at the hands of a psychotic gang member, on account of her own hesitancy to take another life. The tragedy traumatized Alex, who had loved his sister more than anyone else he knew or ever would know. On what would've been his sister's 22nd birthday, 3 & a half weeks after her murder, 13-year-old Alex stole his father's pistol and tracked down her killer, ambushing him in the streets. Autopsy reports later showed that he had kept firing long after the man died, not stopping until 22 bullets exactly riddled the body.

Immediately after, he became a ghost. Stopping by his house again just long enough to swipe enough money to get him on a bus out of the state, he traveled from his home state of Michigan to Illinois, looking for opportunities in the underworld, doing anything from killing to self-prostitution to get by. It wasn't long before his exploits became noticed by the mob and he was approached by Chicago gangster Frank Nitti, joining the gang & quickly becoming feared, despite his young age, as one of their most dangerous killers. He spent a long time doing what he did, and when he finally retired, he left a long and bloody trail of unsolved murders in his wake, all with the same MO...22 bullets riddling the bodies of his victims.

When he had decided he was finished with killing, Alex vanished once again, never being too cautious as he moved across state and international borders, living in nearly 30 countries under over 200 aliases in the course of 10 years. Any of his former gang members who managed to track him down while residing in the US were dealt with the same way he had disposed of many others. This also served, somewhat unintentionally, to throw cold case investigators off his trail, who so far had maintained the belief that the killings were gangland slayings. These new murders suggested he was something far worse, and that he had the potential to escalate still.

Then, 30 years after the incident that had started his whole career, Alex went quiet, returned to the States under the name David Redding, and started a family with a woman he had met in southeastern Malaysia 7 years earlier. Over time they had 2 children, a daughter whom Alex named after his sister and a son, both of whom gave them a trio of grandchildren.

Alex Nieman was now nearly 70 years old, and had been retired for almost 25 years. He was a loving parent and grandparent, a devoted husband, and an upstanding member of his community, seemingly untouched by his checkered past. None of this mattered to the dark figure who lingered outside his home one humid July evening. God had decided that Alex's victims deserved justice, and through him was his will done. The figure produced a large revolver from within its jacket and popped open the cylinder, loading a single bullet into the chamber before giving it a spin and snapping it back into place. Silently, it dropped to one knee and folded its fingers over the handle of the pistol in prayer, and too quiet for anyone besides itself to hear, it whispered: "God's will."

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Part 2

Alex Nieman had been unable to sleep for the past few hours, and now sat at the small folding table in the middle of the kitchen, a glass of orange juice in his shaking grip. Though he had been popping pills his entire life, he still found taking them with liquid easier than straight, and so dropped a pair of sleeping pills into his mouth and took a long sip of the juice, swallowing all the items down at once. He had only planned on being downstairs for a minute or two and so hadn't bothered with putting on his hearing aid. The figure had no way of knowing this, but it ended up working to its advantage as it slowly worked the crowbar beneath the locked window, pulling down on the wedged tool with tremendous force and busting the window's lock.

Gently, it cast the crowbar into the bushes behind it, causing it to land in the leaves with a soft rustling and fall onto the damp dirt, and eased the window open, careful not to cause a disturbance. It spotted its prey at the kitchen table, shoulders hunched, back turned to it. Pathetic, it thought, especially for a once-cold and confident killer. No matter. The sinner would meet his death tonight, whether honorably or not. The figure withdrew the revolver from its pocket and slowly pulled back the hammer, causing a clicking sound to echo in the empty hallway as the bullet was chambered. It winced slightly, hoping it hadn't alerted the man, but still he made no move that indicated knowledge of the figure's presence. It sighed with relief and crept forward, thankful for the sinner's age and seeming stupidity.

Closer still it crept, its excitement almost palpable. It had been horrified the first time it had killed, but when God had spoke to it not even seconds later, it knew it had nothing to regret. It was God's servant, doing his work on Earth. 15 feet...10...It began to rise from its crouching stance, wanting a towering executioner to be the last thing the old fool saw before he was no more. Straightening up completely as it came to a stop directly behind the chair Alex sat in, it positioned the revolver to be jabbed into the back of his skull...

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Part 3

"David!"
The figure cursed, retreating into the shadows of the hallway as another person, a woman, descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, tapping the man's shoulder. It nearly breathed a sigh of relief for not being discovered, but stopped itself for the sake of keeping itself hidden.

Alex turned to face his wife, Mai, who smiled and shook his hearing aid in front of his face.
"You know your doctor told you that you always need to wear this, Alex. You never know when someone might need to find you and you can't hear them."
Alex leaned forward, straining to hear what she was saying.
"Eh?"
Mai sighed and stuck the device in his ear, switching it on.
"Better?"
He twisted a knob on the side, adjusting the volume, then smiled.
"Better."
Mai giggled and kissed his cheek softly. He found himself admiring her, radiant, full of life, still as beautiful as the day he first met her.

"So..." he asked. "What are you doing up?"
"I noticed you were gone. What about you?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"A recurring trend." she remarked. "Anything in particular causing it?"
Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes.
"I don't know. Maybe."
Mai took a seat next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Whatever it is, you can tell me."
"I know..."
"Then what?"
He hesitated momentarily, then found the words spilling out of his mouth, a flow he was unable to stop.

"Mai...I've never been completely honest with you about my life before I met you."
Mai chuckled to herself.
"Is that it? David, everyone has secrets..."
"Not everyone has secrets like mine." he interrupted, with force in his voice that surprised even him. The room was silent for a second before Alex spoke again.
"Long before I met you, I was...A really bad person. I did things I've regretted for a lifetime."
Mai swallowed, almost afraid to probe any further.
"...What kind of things?"
"I..."

Alex never got to finish his sentence as the figure re-emerged from the darkness, a gleaming, six-inch blade in hand, and plunged the tip deep into the back of the woman's neck, shielding its face with one hand as her blood was spritzed across his jacket and the table. Alex cried out in shock and anguish, jumping to his feet so forcefully he almost fell, and it ignored him, driving the knife deeper into the woman's throat, twisting and pushing until it finally burrowed its way out the other side of her neck. The woman staggered to her feet, gurgling and clutching at the wound until finally collapsing in a pool of her own blood, a twitching, wheezing heap.

The figure reached across the table and retrieved several napkins from the holder, wiping the blood off its dark gloves, then returned its attention to the man cowering before it, one hand raised in a pitiful attempt to stop its advance. It grinned as it withdrew its revolver.
"I apologize for that, but she was in my way." it said casually. "Any who interfere with God's will shall be struck down by his mighty hand." It jammed a gloved thumb at its chest. "So it is spoken, so it shall be done."
"What...What are you talking..."
"SILENCE!!!" the figure screamed, loud enough to send an echo through the house. "There will be no further postponement of your judgement."
"M-m-m-my..." Alex trailed off as his eyes focused on the gun in the figure's hand. "Oh no...God no...Please, this must be some mistake! I've done nothing wrong!"
"Lies!" it boomed again. "You have led a life of crime and murder, Alex Nieman."
"How do you know my name...?" he croaked.
"He tells me all I need to know of the sinners I punish for him..." it replied. In truth, he had learned of the man's misdeeds through research, but better to leave him in terrified awe.

"Your sister's death..." he muttered in a low voice. "It scarred you, did it not? It's what made you the way you are."
"Please!" Alex begged, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'm not that man anymore! I've changed!"
"There is no repentance from what you've done, Alex..." the figure said, jamming the pistol's barrel against the forehead of his sniveling victim. "Romans 6:23-For the wages of sin..."
The figure pulled the trigger, causing everything above Alex's skull to explode in a cloud of gore, splattering blood, flesh, and bone on the wall behind him.
"Is death." it finished.
And as quickly as it came, the figure was gone again, its holy work finished.