Don't Scream 2 Page 7

  Two cats came bounding out of the darkness. A black cat and a gray tabby.

  "Here you go, Auges," I said, placing down a leftover piece of fish. "And Kiefer."

  They looked just like they were supposed to. Moss green and sky-blue eyes. Pink noses, cute little paws, fluffy fur.

  Just two cats, enjoying the night's leftovers.

  I smiled and headed back inside the restaurant.

  CELEBRITY

  I work for a very high-profile celebrity. I can't tell you who, at the risk of my life.

  But I can tell you this: she, as you know her, does not exist.

  We come in at 8 AM. The whole committee has never even met her, despite the fact we've worked here four years. Marge claims she glimpsed her once going into our building — but the rest of us don't believe her.

  She has better things to do than deal with us.

  Social media comes first. Annabelle drafts up a Tweet. Could be anything, but usually it's a down-to-earth joke or vague political commentary. Then, we send it to our focus group. 50 girls, 15-35 in age. That's my job as resident number-cruncher. I analyze the results and decide if it's worthy of posting.

  If it isn't, we start over.

  If we need it to be personal, we take a photo of Rebecca from behind. She's the only blonde in the group, and is a good stand-in for the real thing. If they want a cute "pet photo," we take a photo of Ben's dogs.

  The fans have never noticed.

  In fact, every detail of her life that makes it to the public — relationships, feuds, even "scandals" that are "leaked" — are all carefully manufactured and curated. I don't think she's even met up with her "serious boyfriend of three years," other than to get purposefully caught by the paparazzi.

  It all went to shit when Marge decided she wanted to meet her.

  "I'm going to do it," she told us, grinning ear to ear. "I'm going to meet her."

  "How?" Ben asked.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because. I have a theory." She pulled out her phone, tapped a few times. "Look at this photo. From her concert in September. Look at her ears."

  "Okay," I said. "What about them?"

  "She's got huge earlobes, right? But in this photo," she yanked her phone back and swiped a few times, "she's got cute, little, connected earlobes."

  All of us stared at her.

  "It's not the same person."

  "What?" Rebecca asked.

  "It's different people! If you take a closer look, the noses are different, too. Just slightly. And think about it — it would be easy to turn any skinny, blonde girl into her. What we think of as her 'face' is really just 90% makeup. The dark lipstick, the false eyelashes, all the contouring." As she spoke, Marge's voice became more manic, more frenzied.

  "What next, Marge? A tinfoil hat?" Ben asked, arms crossed against his chest.

  A few murmured in agreement. She ignored them, and continued, emphatically: "I think it's not just her perception, her persona, that's fake. I think [redacted] doesn't exist."

  "Then who sings her songs?" Annabelle asked, through smacks of chewing gum.

  "Some nameless, faceless employee paid 20 bucks an hour."

  "Yeah, but she's met fans," Ben said.

  "One of her doppelgangers has met fans," Marge corrected.

  "But —"

  "Look. I'm going to try and meet her, okay? I'm not here so you can talk me out of it." She glanced around the room, a smile on her face. "I'm here to ask who wants to come with me."

  "I will."

  Marge turned to me and smiled. "11 o'clock tonight, then. My place."

  ***

  The plan was to drive to [redacted]'s address. This wasn't the address that made it into all the magazines, the tabloids; it was the address listed on our paychecks and the organization itself.

  We got there in under 20 minutes. It was a country estate, on the outskirts of the city. We parked half a mile down the street. "Wear this," Marge said, passing me a black, wool cap.

  That's when reality sunk in.

  "We could be arrested for this, couldn't we?"

  "Not really. We're not breaking in. We're just taking a look."

  My heart pounded as I pulled the hat over my hair.

  We slunk out into the darkness, keeping low as we walked along the side of the street. Her mansion loomed into view — white pillars, bay windows. Marble statues peeked through the hedges in the backyard. The quiet splashes of a fountain echoed from somewhere unseen.

  No lights were on in the house.

  "She's probably out," I said.

  "Or she doesn't exist," Marge replied.

  We crept around the corner, to the side of the house. That's when we saw one light was on, on the second floor. Golden light spilled out into the grass.

  "Someone's up there," Marge said.

  "Maybe we should get out of here —"

  "No. I'm going to see who it is." Marge ran over to a nearby tree. She climbed fast, with more agility than any 45-year-old woman should possess. Then she stretched her neck, and the golden light washed over her face.

  Her eyes widened.

  "Oh my God."

  "Marge?"

  She didn't reply.

  I climbed up onto one of the rocks. With a deep breath, I jumped.

  I only saw it for a second. A flash of the image, like a photograph.

  A still, lifeless body lay across a bed. She looked just like [redacted]. A man bent over her, holding a knife. The whole scene lit in the soft, golden glow of the lamps.

  My heart thundered in my chest. I jumped again.

  No. It wasn't a knife.

  It was a soldering iron.

  And now he was staring straight at us.

  I opened my mouth to call to Marge. But it was too late.

  CRACK

  A shot thundered through the air. From the forest. Marge dropped out of the tree. Her body hit the ground with a sickening thump.

  Shot right in the forehead.

  I ran. I ran as fast as I could, away from the house, down the street. I didn't stop until I got to the car, panting like mad.

  I called 911. Even though I knew Marge was beyond saving.

  "What is your emergency?"

  "My friend was just shot. Please, send someone out here —"

  "Where are you now?"

  "[redacted] Willow Street."

  Silence from the other line.

  Then her voice cut through the speaker, curt and crisp:

  "I'm sorry, we can't find that address."

  Click.

  I stared in disbelief at my phone.

  The next morning, the news said that Marge had committed suicide. Alone in her apartment.

  But I know the truth.

  FEED

  I've been a detective for 18 years.

  The death of Natalia Johns was the most disturbing case I'd ever seen. More disturbing than the hit-and-run last year that I’d lost weeks of sleep over, and the man that had been living in an old woman’s attic for a year.

  "Natalia Johns, 20 years old," Barry said, sitting down with a groan. His potbelly brushed against my desk, knocking one of my pens on the floor. "For now, it's labeled a suicide—but I'll be damned if that's the truth."

  "...Okay," I said, hesitantly. "What was the cause of death?"

  "Dehydration."

  "And that was suicide?"

  "Well, what else would we call it? She was found alone, in her apartment, sitting on her bed." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "But get this. The coroner's report says her eyes were all dried up. As if she hadn't blinked. For hours."

  Despite the warm room, I felt a chill go down my spine.

  "No one can willfully resist blinking for hours, Joe. It's not a suicide. Absolutely not."

  "So you think someone broke in, somehow, and killed her."

  "Not exactly. No signs of forced entry, and her door was locked from the inside." He grabbed a chocolate from my candy bowl and greedily unwrapped it. "Ah, damn, I lov
e these things."

  I stared at him from across the desk. How can he eat when we're talking about... this?

  "There was other weird stuff, too," he said, through a mouth full of chocolate. "Based on the report, it looks like she didn't leave her bed in the 24 hours leading up to her death. The muscles in her thumb were kind of wrecked. If you ask me—and I know you're not asking, but if you were—I'd say it was some weird-ass torture."

  "By who? An ex-boyfriend?"

  "Yeah. I think some ex-boyfriend still had a key her apartment. He broke in one night, tortured her, tied her up, let her die of dehydration."

  "But the body wasn't tied up."

  "No."

  "Was there any sign of sexual assault?"

  "No."

  "How about fingerprints? Or—"

  "Okay, I get it!" he said, standing up. "My theory's crappy. But you know what's an even crappier theory? Suicide." He got up and shuffled over to the door. "Take a look at the file. Tell me what you think."

  The door shut.

  I opened the manila folder. A young woman's face stared back up at me. Auburn hair, dark eyes, a thin face that tapered into a pointed chin.

  My heart sank as I looked at her. How her parents must feel. My daughter was 16. I couldn't fathom how horrible it must be to lose a child.

  I set her photo aside and continued through the report. It was as Barry described it: a strange, disturbing case that definitely didn't sound like a suicide.

  That night, I picked at my dinner. My wife looked across the table at me, frowning. "Is everything okay, Joe?"

  "Just work," I replied, not wanting to discuss the details in front of Maddie or Josh.

  "Maddie got an A- on her history test today."

  "That's great!" I said, with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

  "Thanks, Mom," Maddie sighed. "Now I feel like even more of a nerd."

  As soon as dinner was over, I went into my study, grabbed my laptop, and continued what I'd started at the office—a full-out search on Natalia Johns. After several minutes of scrolling through random athletic articles (she played soccer in college, apparently), I found her social media accounts.

  They were scrubbed clean.

  Weird. I didn't see that in the report. I clicked over to an internet archiver—the type that saves previous versions of websites—and pasted in her Instagram URL.

  Natalia Johns. 16,503 posts. 1,067 followers. 972 following.

  Wow. That's a LOT of posts.

  Maybe that was normal, though. Even Maddie spent a few hours a day on social media. Her posts were constantly in my Facebook newsfeed. At least three a day.

  Still. Three a day would come out to fifteen years of posts… and Instagram’s only been around for nine. At least, assuming I did the math right on my phone’s calculator.

  I scrolled down.

  My heart stopped.

  They were selfies. Dozens of them. Natalia staring blankly at the camera, her face pale. Deep bags under her eyes. Sunlight streaming over her face from the nearby window, shining through her tangled hair. The photos were nearly identical—only the slight tilt of her head, or a hair out of place, differentiated them.

  I clicked on the first one.

  The description was just a long list of hashtags. #selfie, #nofilter, #nomakeup... you know, the usual hashtags young women use on their photos. The post had no comments, but over six thousand likes. Strange for someone with only a thousand followers.

  I glanced down. It was posted October 18th.

  The day she died.

  I scrolled through the rest of the posts—all dated the day she died. After about a hundred or so, the photos darkened as the sun set.

  After scrolling through hundreds, I finally came upon a post dated October 17th. Then I scrolled back up, counted the rows and columns of photos, and did some quick multiplication.

  There were over a thousand photos posted on the day she died.

  How the hell did she make a thousand posts in ONE day? That'd come out to a little less than one a minute, according to the calculator.

  Maybe she automatically scheduled the posts. But why? Why would she post nearly a thousand selfies of herself? And why would she stay up all night, snapping one every minute?

  But if she didn't schedule them...

  Some of the case details would make perfect sense. She wouldn't have time to eat, sleep, or drink, if she were glued to her phone making all these posts.

  "Aren't you going to say goodnight to Josh and Maddie?"

  I looked up to see Shannon standing in the doorway, arms crossed. "Sure," I said, setting the laptop aside. I walked into the hallway and poked my head into Josh's room.

  "Goodnight."

  He barely looked up from his tablet. "Goodnight, Dad," he muttered.

  "Goodnight, Maddie. Congrats on your test."

  She didn't even look up from her phone. "Goodnight, Dad."

  I walked back to the bedroom and grabbed my laptop. Somehow, the Instagram page had closed out, and it was back on my personal Facebook tab. I scrolled through my newsfeed for a minute, but it was all garbage. A photo of my brother catching a fish. Someone asking for handyman recommendations. A photo of Maddie in her pirate costume.

  I closed the laptop and set it on the nightstand. After an hour of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.

  ***

  "There's something wrong with her social media."

  Barry frowned across from me. "Oh, yeah. Her accounts were wiped, right? Sorry. I forgot about that part."

  "It's worse than that. I found her posts and... it's not good." I pulled out my laptop and turned it towards him.

  Barry furled his eyebrows. "Why did she upload so many copies of the same photo?"

  "It's not the same photo. Each one is a new, individual selfie. And she posted all of these—" I scrolled down— "the day she died. "

  "This is insane," he said, clicking through the posts. "Okay. New theory. Her ex-boyfriend comes in with the spare key. Forces her, at gunpoint, to take selfies and upload them."

  "There's no gun in the photo."

  "It could be out of frame."

  I sighed, and turned the laptop back to me. "I don't know, Barry. What would the motive be? To make someone take a thousand selfies?"

  "Torture."

  I raised my eyebrows. "Selfie torture? Okay. Sure. That sounds so plausible."

  "You have a better explanation?"

  "Not yet."

  We gave all of the information to our tech team. They dove in, looking into her social media accounts and examining her phone. By the end of the day, the only suspicious thing they found was a post from one of Natalia's friends.

  It was a strange series of symbols and dashes that ran for about five lines. It was posted by Natalia's friend from high school, Melissa, a few days before she died. Natalia had liked it—so she'd definitely seen it in her newsfeed.

  They hadn't figured out exactly what it meant, yet, but they had their suspicions. “It could be an encoded message,” the tech woman said. “Or a trigger of some kind. We’ll be working on it.”

  The post—just like Natalia's selfies—had a disproportionate number of likes.

  Barry and I both thought, at this point, someone else was involved. Maybe an ex-boyfriend, maybe someone else. Maybe the person wasn't even physically there, but messaging her online. Her phone was being analyzed by the experts. All we could do was wait for answers.

  When I got home, the dinner table was already set—but only Josh and Shannon were seated. "Where's Maddie?" I asked, hanging up my coat.

  "She's in her room, I think," Shannon said, rolling her eyes. "Won't come down. I figured you'd have better luck."

  Oh, great. I get to be the bad guy. I trudged up the stairs and knocked on her door. "Maddie! Dinner time!"

  No reply.

  "Hey Maddie, come on! We're all waiting for you!"

  Silence.

  Okay. I don't like to barge in like this, but s
he's not cooperating. "I'm coming in!" I said. After a few seconds of silence ticked by, I opened the door.

  Maddie sat in her chair. Facing away from me.

  "Maddie?"

  I stepped up to her, and then I realized: she was staring at her phone, laying in her lap.

  "Maddie. Hey. It’s dinner time." I crouched next to her. She didn't even glance in my direction. She just stared at her phone.

  Not even blinking.

  Then she raised it and turned the camera on herself. Snap.

  "Maddie?"

  She ignored me, fingers racing against the screen.

  I began to panic. Heart pounding, I reached over and grabbed the phone out of her hands. "Maddie! Look at me!"

  For a second, she did.

  Then she leapt at me, a wild look in her eyes. Clawing for the phone. "Maddie! Stop!" I stretched my arm up, keeping the phone out of her reach. Her fingers raked against my arm, nails digging into me.

  And then she shrieked.

  It was like no noise I'd ever heard her make before. An animalistic howl, like she'd lost every bit of judgment, of intelligent thought, of humanity. Just a cry of pure anguish with no rhyme or reason to it.

  With all my might, I threw the phone on the floor.

  Then—before she could get it—I brought my foot down on it. Hard.

  CRACK.

  The screen snapped under my feet.

  Maddie froze.

  Her blank stare turned into a look of terror and confusion. Her lip began to tremble. "Dad... I'm so sorry... I don't..." She trailed off, and began to cry.

  "What happened?" I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.

  "I don't know. I... I just kept taking photos. And posting them. Over and over. I kept thinking, I want people to see me, I want them to see this photo. But then, when you took the phone away, I... don't know."

  "It's okay." I wrapped her in a hug. "It's all okay, now, Maddie."

  But inside, I was terrified. Is that what Natalia experienced?

  Would Maddie be dead in a few days, if she were living alone?

  "Do you remember what you were doing before that happened?" I asked, softly. "Before you started taking the photos?"