Let try this again. I'm going to start the story and the next person will add a line or two to it.   And so on and so on. Lets begin.

It was nearing ten o'clock in the evening when Mitch Noble decided it was time to move. He stepped from the sedan into the April night, popped his umbrella, clutched the collar of his black trench coat, and set out across a rain-soaked East Twentieth Street.

There in the shadows awaited the person whose voice he had heard earlier in a phone message. " If you wanna live to see your next birthday you'd better come and meet me in the alley on East Twentieth", said the whispering voice.

"Who are you?" Mitch asked the mysterious, cloaked and slouch-hatted figure.
"Some call me--The Shadow." he replied, following his reply with a low peal of mirthless, mocking laughter.

Mitch says, OK I am here. Now tell me how can you assure me that I will see my next birthday.

Mitch tried to assume a tough guy stance that he hoped would convince the stranger that he was not at all alarmed that someone may have put a price on his head. Before the stranger could answer they were both blinded by the high beam of a cars headlights.

In the brilliance, 3 ladies appeared, with a message:

http://youtu.be/3qEhj-rQSAU?t=20s

Suddenly Mitch realized the 3 ladieis were nothing but a flashback to another time.

The car, YES THE CAR

The car racing towards them came to within a few feet of running them down when it came to a halt and the drivers side window slid silently down. The dim light cast from the street lights revealed a man with a gun in the car. He shot the stranger twice in the head and said to Mitch. I called you earlier this evening. This is just the begining. I will contact you again.

Before Mitch could utter a word the car sped off tires squealiing on the slick wet pavement.

Mitch looked at the body in front of him, blood running freely on the ground from the head where the bullets tore into the flesh and bone, and for the first time noticing a knife in the hand of the victim

Mitch's head spun in the darkness. He heard a voice. With the strength of will the dying possess, the crumpled, bloodied being exhorted:

http://youtu.be/_O2N4xwIzrw?t=3m14s

He looked up to see the dim outline of some guy in the shower holding a soap bar doing his best impersonation of Steven Tyler. Thankfully the music was blaring and probably muffled the sound of the gun shots.
Mitch decided it was time to get out of there quick! On the drive home he made a mental note of his enemies...There was No Fingers Louie (the guy lost them in a illegal shill game), Monte aka Five Card Stud (he was the ladies man), who blamed Mitch for stealing his girl and there was also....

Pinhead Larry, the professional pool hustler and bubble-gum fiend, who hated Mitch because of his classy, handlebar moustache.
Mitch stroked his heavily-waxed whiskers.
"Hmmm..." he reasoned, "This caper follows none of their M.O.s! Only ONE person would dare cap someone as dangerous as The Shadow in a bid to get me, and that person would be..."

Mitch himself. The mere thought of a 'dobbelganger" made him suddenly fearful of what might lie ahead.

The dobblegangers name was Snitch. He was once the most respected leader of the Magiks until they changed their allegiance to him and now Snitch was a marked man.He blamed Mitch for his troubles. So who the hell was that stranger in the car and why did he save Mitch?

Mitch tossed and turned. The moments he did mercifully find sleep he was plagued by images that, though beautifully tranquil, unsettled him somehow...

http://youtu.be/1BPoMIQHwpo?t=3m2s

However after all is said and done we will never know the whys or wherefores of Mitch's situation. For while Mitch did sleep the night of the shooting it was his last, he never woke again. His demise was caused, it has been determined by all those "youtube" images that he recently received and viewed...sent to him by an individual named laurie or something similar. It seems as though these youtube vids contained some sort of subliminal message that has since been removed by the authorities which caused Mitch a brain hemmorage when watched in the order in which they were received.

Unfortunately we will never know who killed the shadow or if it even was the real shadow, for earlier that evening a man fitting the description of the shadow was found stabbed to death with a handwritten note stuffed in his mouth which read: (All you can eat. This is just the beginning, the alpha. The omega has many before it. My appetite has no bounds.)

Just as a footnote: The knife found at the shooting had blood on it from the person named Lamont who was stabbed earlier that evening.

Truth be told, honcho "Aces" was threatened by laurie's legitimate use of counterpoint, so snuffed Mitch, and blamed her for his own sabotage.

Lt. Columbo finished reading the case file on Mitch.
"Okay--that explains it," he commented, "but there's still just one thing bodderin' me..."

"That olive in the martini . . ."

http://youtu.be/KfSRQTXK4nU

He claimed the bartender had made a mistake, not knowing he was alergic to olives. Columbo had his doubts.

Columbo scratched his head and decided to pay a visit to Mitch's girl. He asked for a drink and when she opened the fridge he noticed no birthday cake was on the shelf. Today was Mitch's birthday. Columbo knew the habits of women and he questioned her as to why she hadn't ordered a birthday cake. Unless ....

He also mumbled "summthin is bothering me" when he thought about the Shadow. There was reports (Mitch had taped the strange encounter)that the Shadow had been shot but the man found at the scene had knife wounds. Did someone switch bodies or was the scene staged but how to explain that body found with the fatal knife wounds? Columbo continued to scratch his head and talk aloud.