Reapers

It started with a body.
This particular body currently lay in the morgue of Mercy Hospital in the city of Preston. This particular night, Mercy Hospital was being drenched in a downpour. The rain began just about an hour ago, slow at first. Now it was coming down in earnest. Power failed in this part of the city only minutes ago. The hospital's generators ran smoothly to keep the building and those inside alive. Aside from a few outside emergency lights around the hospital, all was dark. There were no stars, no moon, just black. The storm poured the darkness onto the city. Snapshots of the city would suddenly appear with occasional lighting. Slow rumblings of thunder would follow. Traffic throughout the city was sparse. The rain and the hour of night had most people tucked into their homes. Only a few had dared to venture out---patrol cars or utility workers. Just outside the rear service entrance of the hospital, a lone figure sat in a grey sedan. Detective David Becker reclined slightly with his eyes closed. He sipped his coffee and waited.
Becker glanced in the rearview mirror. He noticed the gray was beginning to show a little more on his temples. He had never been considered an extremely good-looking guy, but his charm and simple demeanor made up for any physical shortfalls. His black hair and naturally dark complexion had always given him the look of a Native American, even though there was no trace of Indian blood in his background. There was evidence of an athlete in his two hundred pounds; but years of stress, his job, and a few years of neglected exercise had him looking and feeling every bit of his forty-five years.
His hope was for the rain to subside. He looked upward into the darkened sky as heavy droplets struck the windshield. Fingers of lighting stretched across the sky and grabbed at the clouds. The clouds rumbled in protest and darkness returned. He had always liked the rain.
His habit had always been to arrive on a scene of a homicide and take a few minutes of quiet time sitting in his cruiser to clear his mind. It was what he liked to call the calm before the storm. Twenty years of police work, the last eight as a homicide detective, he’d learned one thing: No matter how it happened, death was a storm.