They always met in this alley, half way down where it was darkest and where the gap between the buildings and the fire escapes gave them all somewhere to stand and a quick way out of there. Adrian had joined the gang mostly because his best friend had. He himself looked like the before picture in an advertisement for exercise equipment, but his friend Dave could push anybody around and get away with it. At least in school. Out here he was about to discover things could get very messy very quickly.

“I told you to leave them alone. I told you to back off.” Miller told Dave menacingly.

“Come on, Miller, they were asking for it.” Dave said defensively.

“That is not your decision to make. If we want to be taken seriously we can’t go around just roughing up anyone who comes along like school yard bullies.”

That got Dave in his pride, and he hadn’t learned how to back down yet. “We got to make people know what we can do to them if they don’t respect us.”

“When you joined us you agreed to do what I said, when I said it.”

“Well if you’re going to act like a pansy maybe I made a mistake.” Dave said.

There was a deathly hush as everyone but Dave realised he may well have just made the last mistake of his life.

“A pansy.” Miller said quietly, looking away for a moment. Then he balled up his fist and swung hard, catching Dave in the gut.

If he’d have just stood there and took it Dave might have lived to see another sunrise but as it was his reflexes betrayed him and he hit back almost before he realised what was happening. Dave was strong and landed a few punches that knocked the other man back, but Miller fought dirtier. Before anyone could react to what was going on, there was a muffled crump, and Dave stood there bent over in shock while Miller pulled his gun away from what was left of the kid’s gut. Then he fell. Dead.

Everyone else stood there looking at one of their own folded up and bleeding on the concrete.

Which was a real bad time for Richie to get there taking a shortcut.

As soon as he came into view Miller, still hyped, whirled his gun round and shot him, and the first Richie knew of the incident was when he hit the ground dead.

“Shit. Oh, shit man. This is bad, this is very very bad.” someone said.

“Get real. This is just what we needed. Adrian, get that guy’s wallet. Shove it in Dave’s pocket.”

Adrian stood there frozen for a moment, then reluctantly moved towards the young redhead’s corpse. The guy didn’t look much older than they were. And Dave, he was only a month older... he hesitated a moment, bent over the body. Miller had been watching for this, and stepped up behind him with a gun.

“Come on kid, you saw what happened. Dave crossed the line. Now we got to make it look like these two got each other.”

Adrian bit his lip, then started searching the guy’s pockets for his wallet, trying to avoid the blood. Some pendant fell out the top of his shirt as he patted the pockets, but he ignored it as he found what he was looking for.

Then, just as he was pulling it out, the guy took a rasping breath.

“Shit!” Adrian and Miller yelled in unison, and jumped back. Then Miller emptied the rest of his clip into the guy, the body jerking grotesquely as each shot hit it. When he stopped the poor guy didn’t have much of a chest left.

“Shit. That guy was dead, man. How the hell did he...”

“Don’t talk crazy, kid. He just wasn’t dead the first time. Come on, we gotta get out of here.”

Miller turned and ran, and the others followed him. But Adrian stood staring at the body, at the symbol he wore around his neck.

“Eternal Life...” he whispered, and hopes flashed through his mind about something he had thought hopeless. Quickly he bent and untied the amulet, tucked it in his pocket securely. “Sorry. Guess you wont get up this time.” he muttered, then turned and ran after his mates.