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[Checkmate]

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JOHN CHECK
IN
KING HUNT

Written By


CHECKMATE



Part 1: Chapter One: Prologue


As John Check moved the pawn forward, he slowly grew a smile. The game was a difficult one, but he knew he would pull through. As he studied his opponent’s move, he looked up at his current nemesis. He moved his Knight. John Check’s king was in check. He moved the king. The bishop moved forward.
“Checkmate.” said Elisa Check, John’s only child. She had beaten her father in his favorite game.
“You grow up so fast, not even nine years old and using tactics like the King hunt,” John said, taking a sip from his glass of wine. “Would you like to play again?”
“It’s late, Daddy. I have to go to school tomorrow.” Elisa yawned.
“You do? That’s right! You are not on break anymore! Go on off to bed!” John looked around. His apartment was completely covered in white. His couch was white. His kitchen appliances were white. Even his clothes were white.
“Goodnight, Daddy.” Elisa said.
“Goodnight, my baby.” Check waved goodbye to his daughter. He slowly got up, and headed for the kitchen. It was 10:20 PM. John’s phone rang. “Check here.” He said answering the phone.
“John? This is Anne.” Anne was a colleague from work. She had an office next to John’s, and they were good office friends.
“Anne? Why are you calling me at home? Is something wrong?” Check asked, awaiting an answer.
“No, John. I work as an analyst. Nothing wrong is happening to me.”
“Then why are you calling?” John was awaiting an answer impatiently.
“Are you doing anything?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“Meet me at Frank’s Bar on the corner of fifth.” Anne said.
“John Check will be there.”
He headed out of his apartment. He walked down the hallway, into the elevator. He went down. He opened the door outside, and went to his car. He took his keys, and put them in. Check drove.
As John passed eighth, he slowed down and parked on the side of the road. He walked the rest of the way. “You can never be too sure.” He muttered to himself.
Anne sat in the bar, awaiting John’s arrival. A waiter came up and asked if she would like anything.
“I’m fine, I’m waiting for someone.”
John was about to enter the bar when he looked at his watch. 10:35PM. Hopefully, no one will notice he was gone. He walked inside. “Hello, Anne.”
“Hello, Mr. Check.”
“Anne, you know me better than that. I’ve told you this since the moment I met you, but please, call me John.” John took his seat, and awaited the waiter.
“John, please, just hear me out.”
“Is something wrong? You sound a bit panicked.”
“I’ll be fine. Listen, I did not stay late at the office to make some briefs to hand in tomorrow.” Anne looked around. “John, I have reason to believe no one at work can be trusted.”
“What? Anne, you’re not making sense. Did someone at work threaten you? Talk to HR.” John was calm and relaxed, compared to the frantic Anne. The waiter finally came up.
“Finally! I want a scotch; I want a hell of a lot of scotch.” Anne told the waiter.
“And for you sir?”
“I’ll have some soda. Whatever you got. I’m driving her home.”
“John! How can you be calm! They are after us! They are hunting us down! They are trying to kill us!”
“Who, Anne, Who?” The waiter dropped off the drinks
“Exactly! Who!” Anne took a chug.
“You are not making sense!” John was screaming.
“Put together the puzzle.” Anne drew her gun.
“Anne, don’t do this!” The crowd panicked.
“I love you, John. I have since I’ve met you. Remember what I have said. This is the demise of Anne Hemler.” A shot rang out. Anne collapsed.
“I love you too.” John got up and ran to his car. He ran as fast as he could. It didn’t make sense.
John arrived home to his apartment. He walked inside. He went into his kitchen and finished his glass of wine. It was 10:50. He chugged, and chugged, and chugged. He walked to a closet, and opened the door.
When John woke up, he was both dazed and confused. “What happened?” He was recalling what happened. “I got home, I cried. I drank. I opened the closet, and became unconscious.” He put together the pieces. He ran to his daughter’s room. “Elisa! Elisa!!!”
He noticed a shattered window. “Oh no. No, no, no, no! She’s dead!!! Anne tried to warn me! Why Elisa? Why not me!” John went back to the kitchen. He drank. He burst open the door to his bedroom in search of his gun. He jolted upward. “Jessica!”
His ex-wife was laying on his bed, with a knife in her back. He went to her and cradled her.
“No, no, no, not my precious queen, no…”

[Checkmate]

Part 1: Chapter Two: The Needs of the One

“No…Jessica, wake up… Jessica? It’s okay! Jessica!!! Jessica!!! Wake up! Please… wake up!” John was violently shaking his ex-wife. He still loved her. She broke up with him.
Blood was all over the covers. There was no signs of struggle. She either had no idea or knew exactly about what was going to happen. John’s white room was stained with red, forever remaining in his head. He kissed his ex-wife. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. 11:06. The phone rang. Check quickly answered.
“Hello?” John said, tired and scared.
“John Check?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Who is this?” John was out of breath due to the shock.
“You should know that I am a man who has a large grudge against you, Mr. Check. As you can see, I had my men raid your apartment and drop off your ex-wife. I took your daughter, and am planning to commit an act against you every hour, on the hour. Do you understand?” The voice spoke calmly, at ease with what he has done.
“I would like a name.” John was frantically preparing to leave his apartment. “What is your name?”
“My name is not important, Mr. Check. What is important is your daughter. She is currently tied to a high-ride skyscraper somewhere in the city.”
“You maniac!” John was running outside.
“Stop, Mr. Check. I have a little surprise for you.” There was a small amount of chatter in the background.
“John?”
“Derek? What are they doing with you?” Check was surprised at the decision to hold John’s friend from college.
“John, they took me and Scott to a warehouse. They said you have to save us or your daughter. They’ll kill whomever is left on the hour.” Scott was also a college friend.
“Listen, who did this to you?” Check needed answers.
“That’s right.” The line went dead. John stood for a moment. Someone close to him would have to die by the time the clock struck twelve. He glanced at his watch: 11:11.
He ran outside to his car. He drove. John Check had to drive. He went, looking up to see any sign of Elisa. It didn’t look good. John had to make a call.
“Wesley H. Hsu, how may I help you?” John decided to call a coworker. Wesley was John’s closest friend at work.
“Wesley, this is John. I need you to open up all files on anyone in relation to our company who may have the access to military-grade equipment. Can you do that for me?” John was still driving.
“Sure, just let me open up the company database. Hold on, I’m getting another call.” John rolled his eyes at this. “Alright, I’m back. The companies we have worked with capable of using military-grade equipment are… well, there’s one.”
“What is it?”
“Oak Holdings.” Wesley said in shock.
Oak Holdings was an investment company. John worked there. Anne worked there. Wesley worked there. It was their current place of employment. The same one that contained no one that could be trusted.
“Is this a joke? We are an investment corporation! Not some… private military!” John was both confused and angered by Wesley’s revelation.
“No, according to our records, Oak Holdings employs over five hundred soldiers. Within the past week, Oak has purchased seventy five weapons, fifteen missiles, and three other military firms.” Wesley seemed intrigued by these figures, “They also hired a few more executives,” The line went dead.
“Wesley? Wesley?!? Wesley!” John knew someone got to him. He redialed. The phone was answered.
“38 Williams Terrace, there is a,” Wesley coughed. “an Oak Warehouse. You can, no, stop, stop, stop!” The line again went dead.
“Oh well,” Check said, changing direction, “might as well successfully save someone as opposed to fail and let both die.”
As John turned the car, he looked at his clock in his car. 11:25. He had thirty five minutes to save someone’s life. He drove onward.
Meanwhile, in a building filled with darkness, two executives met. The first one, Ethan Bishop, was a leading executive in a chief military firm. The other, Jackson Hoo, was a soldier for a rival military firm.
“Do you have the money?” Hoo asked. Bishop handed him a suitcase.
“That’s a third of what we agreed on. You’ll get the rest once you finish the task.” Bishop turned to the window.
“We have a common enemy in Mister Check. I expect you to take his world away from him.” Hoo looked at Bishop.
“Believe me, he will never be the same.” Bishop pointed towards a darkened portion of the room. “We have his daughter. His daughter is all he has to live.”
Elisa Check was unconscious, tied to a chair, on the eighteenth floor of The Walter Bishop Foundation. She was not hanging off a building, as John’s friend Derek had said.
“It was nice seeing you, Mr. Hoo.” Bishop moved his hand forward.
“Likewise.” Hoo walked away, dismissing the hand. Hoo left the room.
Bishop’s phone rang. “I want Jackson Hoo dead within forty-five minutes.”
Across town, John stopped in front of the warehouse on Williams Terrace. It was 11:45. He grabbed his gun.
Check burst through the door. He was surrounded by numerous men with guns. He dropped his gun and put his hands up.
“John Check? We have a message for you.” One said, taking out a tape recorder and pressing play.
“Hello, Johnny. This is Jackson Hoo, Wesley Hsu, as you’ve come to know me. You have stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong. For that, I am afraid I had to make an order. Your friends are in the next room. You must save one and kill the other. Failure to comply results in both dying. They do not know this will happen. You have 1 minute, 10 seconds.”
John picked up his gun, and walked to the next room. He opened the door. Derek and Scott smiled at him. They went up to say something. He shot Derek. Derek fell over and began slowly bleeding to death.
“What’s wrong with you! You killed him! Why did you kill him!” Scott was furious.
“I am not the same John Check I was fifteen years ago. If you don’t mind, I have to make a call.” John picked up his phone, and dialed.
“Wesley Hsu.”
“You think you’re going to break me. You thought you were going to ruin me! No, not John Check! I know your next move, and I plan to stop it.”
“Now how could you possibly know that?” Wesley was surprisingly calm.
“It is ending now.” John was forceful in his speech.
“That is correct. I gave you a timeline, and I let you know ahead of time when this will end.”
John looked at his watch. 11:58.
“I’ve still got time.”
“I’m afraid not.”
John turned around, and saw someone in a trench coat. He fired his gun. Thomas, another friend from college, was lying on the floor dead with a bullet in his head.
“No, no, no… this can’t be happening…” John backed into Scott. Scott picked up a gun.
“You… you killed both of them… why are you doing this? Why did you betray us?”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Scott.” John was failing to calm his friend down.
“I’ve got it all right. You are killing us!” Scott pointed the pistol upward. John grabbed it and fired. Scott collapsed. “Monster, you Monster…” Scott coughed up blood. Sirens started going off. “The cops will get you for this!” Scott then became very still.
It was then John Check was looking at what the police would see. He was standing in a pool of blood, holding a gun.
“No… please, no… I’m innocent!” John screamed as he was being taken away by the police.