Crown The King Killer

01. Mr. Gavin's Door

He stood out in the sudden down pour of rain. Parents fast asleep and the dog chained up; no one was going to miss him. It didn't matter to him that he was soaking wet from head to toe. The street lamps were on illuminating the wet slippery concrete sidewalk. And the alley was ten feet wide with hanging electrical wires across the buildings of sleeping people. It was long and narrow; no one came down this way anymore, not after twenty-three children went missing. They have no idea or traces of where the children went, only where they ended up; it seemed they had just disappeared. The leads were always dead ends and doorways leading to a brick wall. It was confirmed there was nothing behind these walls. The fires that once blazed inside, were now bricked up and closed off.

Maybe it was the abuse, the judgment, the critical name calling that made him leave. The way they called him crazy and insane, maybe it was the delusional reality he lived in. Neither himself or his parents could cope with him. He just wanted to be dead, he wanted to be the twenty fourth missing person. He just wanted these nightmares to go away. He was older than the other children; or maybe he would be unlucky and end up walking home. The dark nights didn't scare him anymore, nothing scared him. Numb, cold, isolated boy, was what he was. He missed his dog now, he wished he could have taken her with him. There was no turning back now; you couldn't even see the bend in the street where the lamps were. If you looked up, you would see the subtle rain pour down over arches between buildings.

He kept walking past the doors of brick walls, past the yellow tape and past the numbers still lying on the ground. It had been an ongoing investigation for the past three months. His numbers would be there, if he tried hard enough to get caught. It didn't take long the reach the last door. A heavy metal door bolted shut, tight with a solid lock. No one really knew who the owner of it was, but they knew his name; Mr. Gavin. The only reason the other doors were opened was because they belonged to no one, the fires inside made the buildings unstable so they bricked it up. They couldn't tear them down due to people who still lived in the rooms beside them. If you inhaled deeply you could still smell the ambers and the charring wood inside that seeped out from under the cracks. But Mr. Gavin was known to still live there, and they really had no evidence against him.

The metal door met the boy with a leaning stare at him. He pressed a hand onto the cold wet surface and banged his fist against it. He noticed a name plate above his fist as his eyes adjusted to the slick silver. Mr. Gavin was imbedded into the plate. He banged his fist again with a harder whack causing pain to erupt in his hand. It was silly that he thought someone would appear; so he turned around and left knowing what he had to do next. He had brought a rope with him this time. He thought ahead; if I won't disappear, I'll just show them how desperate I was. And it was true, he wanted this; to die. He swung the rope around the over-hanging lamp that wasn't lit. There was no need to see him hanging there in the night, only until morning. Tears of anger started to steam drown his face. He was ready now; he couldn't take any more of this hollow pain. He remembered how to tie the knot of the noose and then secure it so he could swing. He took a stack of wooden crates that lined up the side of the building and put them up for him to stand on.

He slipped the rope over his neck and tugged on it tight and stepped up. He tied the other side securely to the heavy metal rod that would hold three times his weight.

"To Mr. Gavin who never opens his door and to the children I envy." He stood up tall placing his foot at the ledge of the stacked crates.

There was clapping of leather gloves in the distance. He jerked back onto crates with a butterfly heart.

"And to all the ones who will find you hanging there in the morning," The figure said.

The boy couldn't make out who was there. The figure came close to him and stepped onto the first and biggest crate. He flicked a match but the boy could only see white flames. The lamp was lit and safe from rain in its container of glass. The boy opened his eyes to see a man standing in front of him dressed in black. His face was a creamy tan rabbit with long ears and a pink nose.