Hello everyone,
As I expected, I didn't have enough time to write about what happened during the day before I could post, so I just left the post as it was and submitted it that night, as you saw at the end of Part 2.
A couple of you pointed out that I say repeatedly that I “started writing this post.” I write these when I have time, not all in one sitting. That’s why I mention starting to write repeatedly. Sorry for the confusion.
There have been a few other grammatical mistakes that have been pointed out. I’m sorry, stress is running a little high at the moment. Actually, it’s extremely high. Don’t over analyze my mistakes. They’re easy to make right now.
Before I talk about what happened since my last post, I'm going to recount my year-long hiatus after Isaac was killed. It may prove unnecessary, but I know a lot of you are expecting it and want to hear about it.
When I arrived at the apartment after my mom had come and bailed me out of jail, Zander told me Isaac had been murdered. When I heard that, I about lost my shit.
Actually, I did lose my shit. I threw up in the street. My mom, who was regrettably with me, could only watch in horror. She was upset, to say the least, that I was mixed up in a murder plot. It took a long time for me to explain the situation to her. She just couldn't believe it.
Once I was calm, Zander led me a few steps away from my mom as we discussed our next options.
"You should get out of town for a while," Zander suggested. "I don't want you being targeted next."
The idea that David might try to kill me pushed me over the edge again. Guys, I know I came in like a badass at the end of Zander's posts, but that was after months of getting over this moment. When you find out that someone truly might come to kill you, it... changes things. Once you fully grasp the idea, it horrifies you. I had nightmares for a few weeks after.
"You should go and stay with your mom. I'll help you cover up your location." He went silent as a cop passed where we were standing. He watched the officer with suspicion until he was gone.
"We'll make David see this as you abandoning me, and he'll think he's winning."
"He's not here, though. He won't know why I left. He'll be suspicious," I said. Zander shook his head.
"Don't you dare look, do you understand?"
I nodded, my hairs rising on the back of my neck.
"The apartment complex across the road. Third floor, second window from the west side. David's watching from there."
I couldn't help it. The tears came back immediately.
"Jesus Christ," I swore through my tears. "He's here?!"
"Quiet," Zander hissed. "It's perfect. You have to make a scene. Your mom has to make a scene. You have to leave in anger."
Zander told me how to contact him later. At that point, I jumped back and started shouting at Zander. It was damn good acting, if I do say so myself. Well, I was only half acting.
I stormed over to my mom and filled her in on our plan through a pretended hug for comfort. She trusted me, thank god. She shouted at Zander too and we drove away, hoping we would be safe from David King.
My mom understood and trusted my need for secrecy. Dad split a few years ago, so it was just the two of us staying security conscious. At my mom's recommendation, we moved out only a month later. I formed a corporation with the state, and that corporation signed our lease. I had my cousin act as the registered agent. It wasn't perfect cover, but it added a few extra steps to locating our home.
My mom is amazing. She understood that David was insane and that he had an undeviating fixation on Zander and, by default, me. She did her own research too and made suggestions to help improve our security.
Zander didn't dare come to talk with me in person, which was for the best. We communicated online via encrypted messaging both the night he was at the Walmart, and while he was on the run. He had slowly accumulated a few burner phones bought at the mall and we used them every time we needed to talk. He would update me on David's latest moves, and I'd update my research accordingly.
When Zander went on the run, I insisted that he come stay with us, but he refused to put us in danger again. While he was gone, I was doing a lot of my own preparations. Zander knew that eventually we would have to fight back directly at David. That meant both of us had to prepare like he did.
I was already pretty muscular, but I started working out even more. I took some self-defense classes in addition to working out. I also found two new jobs to keep me preoccupied. Zander kept telling me over and over again to study too and learn about credit card fraud and identity theft and computers and anything else to counter David. David used the system against us, so we had to learn how to get around it.
In a moment of brutal honesty, I'll tell you that I struggled to care about those topics. Zander could absorb them in minutes and enjoy the study. I hated that study. I tried, I earnestly did, but it didn't hold the same fascination as it did for Zander. I compensated by sending him money when I could. But I couldn't fight David on an intellectual level.
I worked hard during that time, though. I went to both my jobs, worked out, and did my best to maintain mine and my mom's privacy. I'd share my methods, but with Zander missing, I don't know what's safe to share. I only mention leasing an apartment in a corporation's name because we've moved since then and changed tactics.
One day, Zander called me out of the blue and had an idea. An idea on how to trap David King. That's where his last posts came in.
I was very skeptical about it. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong or not work. Zander was insistent, however. He said he'd been studying David for so long that he knew him well. He claimed that David constantly searched the web for his own name like an egotistical maniac. If his name popped up in Reddit, he wouldn't be able to resist reading.
But in order for him to find it, it had to be popular enough.
Zander studied this plan out. I mean he REALLY studied. He said he'd looked at other publication mediums and tried to find the ones that would work best. I didn't care too much about choosing the right medium, I was just ready to play my part.
Before Zander published Part 5, he contacted me again. We met very cautiously in person. By the time that part had been published, the popularity of his posts was sufficient. David had caught on and been following the story. Now was the time to begin preparations.
Zander had already selected the old warehouse before even posting the series. He showed it to me, and I agreed it would be a good spot for a confrontation. There was the manager's box which could provide close-quarters encounter, and the rest of the warehouse provided cover if things went south.
I helped him disassemble the other stairs that led up to the manager's box, we brought in a few extra wood crates that he'd purchased to give more cover and authenticity, and we cleared out the manager's box. The previous manager had left tons of pictures on the walls, chairs, and other furniture. We moved it all out except for the two heavy tables because they wouldn't fit through the door.
Zander oiled the door to the manager's office, and I chained up every other entrance. Zander installed a lock that wasn't rusty on the office door, and then beat it up to make it blend in.
After we'd finished, we did what we could to cover our activities. Zander brought in a bucket of soil and we sprinkled it around where we'd stepped or left marks in the dust.
David King was a smart fucker. We had to cover our tracks as if the devil himself were looking for anything out of place.
When Zander called me for the confrontation a couple of days later, we pumped ourselves up and got ready. I laid in wait on the catwalks that spread out over the warehouse. I watched silently, trying not to breathe and hoping David didn't look up. If he did, I'd be an easy target and our element of surprise would be lost.
When he shot his partner, I almost cried out. Zander said in his posts that that was the moment he cracked a little and reality seeped in. That was the same moment I'd almost screamed. I struggled to watch after that: I was convinced he'd shoot Katie just to provoke Zander.
When they went into the manager's box, I silently crawled towards the entrance on hands and knees. I moved slowly. If David looked out the window in the manager's box, he could still see me. Sudden movements might attract his attention and ruin the trap.
Once I was out of view of the window, I opened my phone and called 911. I quietly said the address we were at and said shots had been fired. I left the phone call connected in my pocket, and opened the door behind David Fucking King.
The gunshot was, in a word, painful. I've never felt anything like it in my entire life. It hit my left shoulder, apparently barely missing one of my arteries. It chipped off a piece of bone on my clavicle, though. The bullet stopped midway through my shoulder because the bone slowed it down, and I had to have surgery to remove it and the bone fragments.
The doctor says it will take three to four months for the skin to fully heal, six months for the bone to not hurt, and a few more weeks until I can take off this stupid sling. Moving my arm too much could open the wound back up.
The silver lining is that it hit my left shoulder, so I'm not stuck using my non dominant hand for everything. Thank you, David King.
Speaking of David King, in those couple of minutes before the police got inside, I watched his lifeless body. His entire front was dripping in blood and riddled with holes. His head slunk down in his chest almost as if he were praying. It was the least graceful I'd ever seen David King. It was satisfying to know that he was dead.
Unfortunately, he’s not always dead to me. Sometimes I see him when I’m out and about. Just glimpses of his face in a crowd or around a corner. Scares me shitless. I think I have some PTSD or something.
When the police arrived, they charged into the warehouse like storm troopers. I called out for help, and they rushed up the stairs. They cleared the room in seconds and got an EMT up to help patch my shoulder. They took a long, hard look at David King. At least one of the four officers recognized him, and they called their boss.
I was escorted out of the room pretty quickly after that. I tried to tell the officers that there were cameras set up everywhere so they could see what had happened. I must have repeated myself a lot, because they got annoyed with me.
Crime scene techs were already arriving as the two medics guided my body out of the building on a stretcher that made even the stairs seem like I was floating down on a cloud. That might have been the painkillers though.
As I was being wheeled towards the ambulance, I saw Katie sitting on the edge of another ambulance. I tried to catch her eye, but she was sitting perfectly straight and staring at the medic who was leaning in front of her, hands on knees.
This next part is something I'm only just now remembering. I noticed it, but hadn't thought about it until now.
As they rotated my stretcher to put me in the ambulance head-first, I saw two men that got out of a dark vehicle walking towards the warehouse doors. They wore ‘Coroner’ jackets and were carrying folded up body bags. One I didn't know. The other one I did. It was Jackson, our old roommate.
The police came to interview me in the hospital after surgery. Zander was, of course, long gone. It had already been two days before the doctors would let them interview me. I'd gotten a tiny infection during the surgery, so they wouldn't let police talk to me right away.
The police told me that they'd found all the cameras I was babbling about at the scene and that they were processing the data. They wanted to hear my side of the story and asked me where Zander was. I told them I'd wait until I had an attorney. I was informed that no charges were being filed against me, so an attorney wouldn’t be necessary.
Fortunately for me, I didn't believe them and insisted on a lawyer. The next day, they charged me as an accomplice to voluntary manslaughter, possibly murder. At least I hadn't said anything incriminating.
Since then, I was released home with a sling and bandages and told to rest. I slept a lot, talking to Zander every once in awhile just to hear he was doing okay. I read through your comments too, a lot of which made me laugh. Thanks, everyone.
That pretty much sums up my hiatus, so I'll go back to recounting what happened the past two days.
In the morning, I rousted Katie to tell her I was going to see Hernandez. She insisted on coming along, so we drove to the police station together. I informed my mom where we'd be before we took off. We took David's hard drive and the three police reports with us.
I should add that when my mom and I moved, we moved a few towns away from where the David King scenario went down. So, going to see Hernandez was going to be a day-long trip.
During the car ride, I asked her if she’d found anything else that was interesting on Zander’s computers. She shook her head. The rest of the car ride was practically silent. It depressed me. We used to be good friends, and now we couldn’t make decent conversation.
We arrived in the mid-afternoon and walked into the station. The lady at the front desk pointed us to Hernandez's desk, and we sat to wait for him, since he seemed to be out for lunch. I took the opportunity to begin writing this post while we waited. Katie sat perfectly still and stared straight ahead.
While we waited, Zander's phone pinged again.
M4N513THO: Where's Zander?
I showed it to Katie, who told me to ignore it again. I reluctantly obeyed.
Hernandez arrived a half-hour later carrying a late lunch.
"Clark," he greeted. "Katie," he said, surprised. He sat down.
"Hi, Detective," I said, putting Zander's phone away.
"How's your shoulder?" He asked, gesturing to my sling.
"It's good enough," I replied.
"And Katie, good to see you out and about," he added cautiously.
"Likewise," she said in a neutral tone.
"We're here about Zander," I said.
His face fell.
"Still no word from him?" He inquired.
"Not very much," I said. "We found his most recent hiding place, but it's full of more questions than answers."
"What'd you find?" He said, pulling a hamburger out of his bag. "Please, help yourselves to some fries." He pushed them towards us. I ate a couple, but Katie shook her head.
"Three computers, his phone, some police reports, and David King's hard drive," I said.
Hernandez opened his eyes wide.
"David's hard drive? Clark, if he just left that hard drive there..." he insinuated.
"I know. There might be something that's gone wrong," I stated. "Not to mention the fact that some body building asshole attacked me there."
"What?" Hernandez asked. I told him about the attack, and his jaw set.
"What is it about you people that makes you such targets?" He accused.
"We're here because of the police reports," Katie said, pulling them off her lap and opening them on Hernandez's desk. Hernandez leaned in and looked them over.
"Zander had digital version, but they were all whited out," I explained as he skimmed. "We assume they came from an intranet police database."
"I can't check if they came from the intranet or not if I'm not assigned to a related case," Hernandez said. "I'd need permission, and I doubt I'd get it."
He looked over the reports, skimming them.
"Do you know any of them?" Katie asked as he shuffled to another report. "There were a few more references to other people in Zander's notes, but he had the police reports for these ones."
Hernandez locked onto Jack's police report. He picked it up and read it thoroughly.
"You know Jack Hemsey?" I said casually.
He looked at us, his face calculating. "Yes, I do," he said.
We both leaned in.
"Not a word of this leaves us," he said in a whisper, taking a casual glance around. “Got it?”
“Hernandez, of course,” I said. “You can trust us.”
He whispered in a very low voice. "Jack Hemsey was the partner that David King shot in the warehouse."
"Son of a bitch," I whispered. "I bet the other two are some more of David's buddies."
"Don't jump to conclusions about the other names," Hernandez said sharply.
"Why else would they be here?" I said.
"They could be victims," Hernandez offered. "For now, reserve your judgement."
"Sure," I said neutrally. They were still villains to me.
"What do you know about the bar they all had a fight in?" Katie asked. "The bar is here, in this city."
Sorry, everyone. Not naming the bar or the city we were in. But it should be noted that the bar was in the same city where Zander lived when David started the dare.
"The bar gets calls every once in a while for fights, just like most bars," Hernandez commented. "I've gone to a couple calls myself. There's nothing special there. It's not far from here either, so it's one of the tame bars."
Silence fell over us for a moment.
“I do want to come and see Zander’s hideout,” Hernandez said.
“We moved everything out,” Katie said sharply. “There’s nothing left.”
“And this is all you found?” Hernandez asked.
“Yes,” I said. “The rest is at my house.”
Katie suddenly pinched me. I flinched and glared at her. An officer came by Hernandez's desk at that moment, dropping a file into his basket.
"Got another assault," he said before walking off.
Hernandez sighed. He held up his finger for us to wait while he opened the folder and glanced through the contents.
"Well, shit," he said, resigned.
"What?" I asked.
"We've been having a problem with assaults lately. Males of varying ages who are sitting in their car or standing on the street suddenly being attacked and beaten severely. All valuables are stolen. Based on the part of town they're in, we suspect they're pimps for prostitution.
"We can't prove anything, of course, but it's a gut feeling. Someone is targeting them, and doing a very vicious job."
"Okay, so what?" Katie said impatiently.
"It just means I have to get going," Hernandez said, finishing his drink. "I have to go do a secondary interview with the victim."
Okay, everyone. The events are now in the past. I’m trying to get caught up, and I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to do so very quickly. Between all the research I’m doing now and typing with a T-Rex limb, it’s slow going. I’ll catch you up, though. I promise. No matter how hard it is to stay motivated. Things aren’t over, but they’ve reached an apex.
-Clark
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