Thursday afternoon I was sat at my desk in the office when our police radio started going crazy. Spitting stuff out about "cars needed" to get somewhere, "multi homicides", "gang related", "send back up". Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen in for the important details. Who was involved? "The shooters are believed to be Death Valley’s hit-squad and may still be in the area so proceed with caution". No one was shocked by this, their shooters had been been very active over the past few months with the wiping of other gangs. But who were the targets? "The shooting took place in up state New York, at the old poultry farm run by SenatorQ".
I jumped in my car and sped over there. After our first meeting I had liked SenatorQ's personality and the way he held himself. I was having this story, and I was going to do it right. When I arrived to the farmhouse everything was silent. Their were a handful of police officers surrounding the land with Mika, a high ranking agent in the Federal Elite Guard, standing by the farmhouse door. As I walked up the drive I started to hear the chickens chuckling like they did the day I came to interview SenatorQ. It was only as I got closer did I start to see shells casings littered all over the ground, even more of them as I got outside the house. Mika and I stood there looking at each other. He knew the Buzz. He knew why I was there. We work closely with the Elite Guard when reporting, I seem to remember he was the one who 'accidentally' left a police radio in our office one day when he visited. Was he really going to stop me from going inside? 'In and out. Don't touch a thing!' he ordered.
As I delicately opened the door into the kitchen I was not prepared for what I saw. All of the members of This Ain't Farmville, dead. Death Valley obviously knew they were all here. Some of the bodies were slumped on the table, others on the floor as it seems they had tried to duck under the barrage of bullets. Death Valley must have just stood outside and opened fire, ripping through the house; destroying everything in it.
At the top of the table sitting up right with his head thrown back was SenatorQ himself. I looked at him for a moment but then past him towards the back door of the kitchen. It was open. Yet I could see no bullet casing there. Was it opened from the inside? Did someone get out? As I moved forward to get a better look out of the door I went past SenatorQ who then let out a loud gasp, spat out a mouth full of blood and whispered 'I know you can't write if someone doesn't answer questions...' 'MIKA!!!'
We spoke in the ambulance on the way to the hospital about what happened. 'DV [Death Valley] shot us.’ He gasped as we sped through the streets of New York. I tried to get as much out of him as I could but a lot was inaudible. He said that the disagreement came from 'problems between Shrooms and Times[also the boss of This Ain’t Farmville] about an OC payout.’ He went on to describe how 'Shrooms had hit listed Times… …so Times shot Shrooms.' They thought it had been settled but obviously that wasn’t the case. He then passed out. We got to the hospital where he was rushed through to a room in which they had him examined and waiting to be taken into the operating theatre. He started stirring again as one of the nurses left the room. He continued talking about the reasons for the shooting, 'Later, when Aldo from TS [The Syndicate] shot DV [Death Valley] while he was hiding in TAFV [This Ain’t Farmvile], Times also helped him. This left Shrooms with a grudge towards Times.’ I asked him jokingly what the chances were of all the people that he survived, he explained that 'I was hiding my LDon rank’. We spoke for a few minutes, he told me about his farm and how he hoped it wouldn’t get pulled down with him now gone and no one to take it over. I asked him about the shooting and if he remembered anyone by the back door. ‘Rennic’ he said. ‘They forgot to shoot Rennic’ He went on to say how he was standing right by it before the shooting started and must of got out when it began. Maybe he was still out there. I could see the colour leaving his face. He was going. I went to call a nurse but he put his hand out to stop me. As I turned back he was staring straight at me. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’ he signed and with that his arm went limp and fell to the bed. He had gone.
As I walked out of the hospital into the carpark I was still thinking about what just happened when a car screeched round the corner and stopped at my feet. The door swung open and the driver shouted ‘Get in!’. As I bent down and looked in it was DasShrooms of Death Valley. I had no choice. We drove out of the carpark at great speed but I wasn't really paying attention to where we went. I was paying attention to him. He asked me what I knew. I said what SenatorQ had told me (some of it), But I wanted to hear it from him too. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Unsettled beef’ he replied, not taking his eyes off the road, 'They shot us and we lost a lot from it, we just wanted a one time revenge’. ‘But why go after them now, nothing had happened recently had it?’. 'Well me and Times have had our disagreements in the past’. I was still in shock I think, after watching SenatorQ die. I just sat there, didn’t use the time wisely to ask good enough questions. ‘They weren’t ready for you man, you should have seen it in there’ I inquired. ‘ Like I said, it was a one time thing and hopefully the score is settled’. And with that we stopped. We were right outside the hospital again, I hadn't even noticed.
I got out of the car still in a daze. What had I seen today? A massacre. A well thought out, well planned massacre. A final act of revenge to stop a lingering feud. I wondered if DasShrooms knew about Rennic, the one that got away. I wasn’t going to shout after him and let him know. It wasn’t my place, plus I wanted to give him a chance, maybe start life a fresh like all of us here wished we could. Then I thought back to my short friendship with SenatorQ, and his not so peaceful farm life. But he knew what he was doing, what he was getting himself into. We all know.
The next morning when I got to work I had a note on my desk from Mika. The police had found Rennic. They were too late. It’s right what they say about this life. You may think you're out, but you’re never truly out till the end.
