Well… I’m back. Hi everyone. I am alive.
I… well I’ll just start telling you what happened. I’m starting to shake as I even think about writing everything down, but I have to finish this.
After I posted my last update, it was go time. I’ve been preparing for this event for so long that it was hard to believe that I had just hit submit. I couldn’t go through and comment to everyone that part 7 was up. Sorry. I had to see David’s reaction.
I put my phone in my pocket and watched David from across the street. He was eating dinner just like I said in my post. His phone clearly went off, because he perked up his head and grabbed his phone from the table. I’d seen his phone go off whenever I posted before, so I knew he had set an alert.
I watched his eyes scan the post with interest. Then his eyes slowly widened. I knew when he reached my favorite part, because his gaze shot up and looked around the restaurant. He wrapped up his sandwich and quickly walked out of the restaurant, his eyes scanning the street while stealing glances at his phone to keep reading.
It was a very satisfying scene. It makes me smile just thinking about it.
I didn’t follow him home. Instead, I waited for the inevitable email.
Do you want to know why David was so scared of my information release? He was scared because the Internet was his safe haven. He was powerful there. When we had our dare conversation, and for so long after that, I was the computer illiterate one and he ruled that domain. And now I had managed to track him in his safe place. Before, I had been weak and an easy target for his games. Now that I had seriously fought back and threatened him, he was worried.
The email came while I could still see him walking away.
“Hello Zander. Bravo, but I’m not going to meet in public,” he wrote.
To be honest, I posted Welles Park online because I figured he would want to change the location if it was a public place, and I didn’t want to release the real address online. I didn't want anyone crashing the party and getting hurt. Sorry for lying. I’ll be apologizing for lying a lot by the end of this post.
I told him that I’d email him the new address 15 minutes before it was time to meet. He didn’t respond. I didn’t want him to have the address too early and show up to set any traps. He really should have countered with a location of his own, but he didn’t.
I stood up. Time to go to the warehouse and wait.
The location I had chosen used to be a warehouse of some kind. I didn’t care what it had been used for, only that it was abandoned and unguarded. If David tried anything stupid, which I thought he was going to, I didn’t want any more innocent bystanders in the way.
I took an Uber to a suburban area a few blocks away. When the Uber left, I walked to the warehouse.
When I arrived, it was already almost 9 PM. Not completely dark yet, but getting there. I walked around the perimeter of the warehouse, looking for any sign that David had beaten me here. There wasn’t any sign that I could see.
I approached a side door and pulled a key out of my pocket. I unlocked the chains from the door handle and stored them just inside the door as I entered. The soundscape changed from an ambient evening in the city to a tomb.
The factory had a single floor that was one big, open space. High above it, catwalks ran along the rafters all leading from the warehouse manager’s office, which was a metal cube suspended at one end of the warehouse.
Shelf scaffolding that had been abandoned broke up the empty space. Crates and pallets were strewn around here and there, making hiding places. I had previously come and strategically arranged them in case it came down to a fire fight.
That’s also when I had put chains on every door. There were four entrances into the warehouse, not including the windows near the ceiling. I had chained them all except the one I entered through. That was my funnel. If you’ve ever gone hunting for live game, you know what I’m talking about.
There was nothing left to do but to wait now. I sent him the address at 9:45.
A rattling of the front door alerted me that he was here. He was a half hour late, which was an attempt to unnerve me. The door jolted repeatedly, but the chains held it shut. It was dark now. The only light streamed in the windows from industrial-style streetlights outside.
“How am I supposed to meet you if you won’t let me in?” David called from outside. The hair on the back of my neck rose, despite all my preparations. It was time.
David tried all three doors. He skipped over the only one that was unlocked until he absolutely had to. He knew what a funnel was, but he had no choice. The windows were too high and would result in a very high fall once he got in.
The side door silently opened and in walked David Fucking King. I stayed where I was behind a wooden crate stacked with pallets. If he came in shooting, I didn’t want to be an easy target.
Slow clapping filled the echoing room.
“Well done,” David chanted. I peered through the pallets to see the door shut behind David. He was alone.
“Where is she?” I said just loud enough to be heard.
“I’m so very impressed with you, Zander. Completely unexpected.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, lighting up the wall behind him. He began to read.
“‘Fuck you, David.’ ‘Hashtag, Fuck David King.’ ‘Zander, you brilliant bastard.’ ‘Go get your girl!’ ‘We are coming for you, David.’ Thousands of these, almost all saying the same thing! How does it feel to have people rooting for you? Do you feel better equipped to fight me now?”
“Where. Is. She?” I enunciated.
David knocked on the door behind him, and it opened. In shuffled Katie. Her face was red and shimmering with tears. Duct tape had been wrapped around her entire head several times, covering her mouth. Her wrists had been similarly wrapped. A band of tape also tied her ankles together, but had enough slack that she could take small steps. A thick arm was wrapped around her neck as a tall blonde man with extremely curly hair guided her into the room.
“I said to leave your partner behind!” I shouted. It echoed.
“If you don’t want him here, then come kill him,” David said.
I didn’t respond. God-fucking-damn-it.
“So, Zander, how would you like to proceed? You’re running the show here,” David called, looking around the warehouse.
“Send Katie forward and leave.”
“Sorry, I don’t have a guarantee that you won’t release all that information anyway. Come on out here and we’ll discuss my terms.”
“Like hell I am.”
David looked to his partner, and his partner used his free arm to punch Katie in the side. She cried out as best she could through the duct tape and faltered, but the blonde man held her up by her neck.
“We can do this all night,” David smirked.
I stood up. My hiding place was off to David’s left, so I walked in a semi-circle until I was directly in David’s line of sight.
“Come closer,” he grinned.
I stepped forward until we were a couple yards apart.
“Look how you’ve changed,” he smirked. “Your hair looks good. You should always dye it darker. You’re so stoic now! Confident! Being on the run has changed you! I guess all we had to do to increase the minimum required effort was go on the run, huh? Then maybe we could have avoided this whole mess. Then again, it’s all been so fun.”
“Let’s get this over with,” I growled.
“So hostile,” David commented. “What’s your first term?”
“He leaves,” I said, pointing to the blonde man.
“Okay,” David shrugged. Before I could process what was happening, he pulled a handgun from his jacket pocket, and shot the blonde man in the head. He collapsed, dragging Katie with him. Katie gave a muffled shriek and untangled herself from his body, dragging herself backwards along the floor. She backed into the wall and stayed there, eyes wide.
David looked down at the body before slowly turning his head to me.
“My turn.”
Jesus Christ. It finally hit me how in over my head I was. I might understand David King, but I could never, ever match his sickness. It occurred that I could die that night, despite David’s rules.
“Show me the data,” he said. “That’s my first term. I want to know exactly what you’re going to release so I know it’s worth my only bargaining chip.”
I tried to hide my shaking hands as I pulled my phone out. I went into my email drafts on a throwaway account where I had saved a copy and emailed it to him.
“I sent it to you,” I said. David smiled reassuringly.
Fast as a lizard, he spun around and snatched Katie off the floor. She screamed as he stood her up and held her in front of him.
I pulled my Ruger SR45 handgun out of the concealed carry holster I’d worn and tried to get a clear shot. He was too fast and had caught me by surprise, so she was in front of him before I’d even lined him up in the sight.
“So, you got a gun after all,” he said coolly. “Didn’t see that part in your posts. Relax, I’m just making sure I can read in peace.”
He held the gun to her head with one hand while opening his phone with the other. My mind raced, trying to figure out the next steps. David had waltzed into a hostage negotiation that I had arranged myself and took over.
He took his time reading through the data dump. His expression changed between surprise and a smirk repeatedly.
“Well now,” he said, putting his phone away and slipping his now free arm around Katie’s neck. “I had no idea I was so careless.” He sounded anything but careless.
Katie gasped as he suddenly gripped her neck tighter and pressed the muzzle against her temple.
“Let’s move somewhere… smaller,” he said, looking up at the manager’s box. “I don’t want you running away when the going gets tough. You first, Zandsand,” he said, nodding his head toward the stairs to his right.
The door he had entered from had a set of grated stairs off to the right that led up to the manager’s box. They went up toward the back wall, then turned to the left straight into the side of the manager’s box. Another set of stairs should have been on the other side, mirroring these, but they had been disassembled and lay in a heap.
I kept my face to David as I walked toward the stairs. I kept my gun pointed in his direction, and he kept his muzzle against Katie’s head. Katie was sobbing and watching me.
When I reached the stairs, I slowly backed up them. David followed once I was halfway up.
At the top of the stairs, the door to the office stood. To the left, a grated walkway led out over the floor, spreading into catwalks that sprawled the entire place.
I opened the metal door to the office and backed in. The only furniture in the room were two heavy, wood tables. The rest of the office was bare. A thin slit of a window overlooked the warehouse floor.
David pushed Katie into the room with his arm still around her neck and shut the door behind him. I followed him with my gun, standing against the opposite wall where the second door leading into the office was. The office was big enough that we were still a few yards away from one another.
“Now I don’t have to worry about you running off into the dark warehouse. As fun as hide and seek sounds, I don’t have the time.
“You know, when I found your posts, I thought I had stumbled across some sort of… therapy story that you were putting up. But it was so much better. You really have surprised me. You’ve grown and changed to try and beat me,” David smiled.
“But you haven’t changed enough. I can see it in your face and your trembling hands. You are still you, Zander. You’ve changed your exterior, but inside you have the same motivations, and weaknesses.”
He tightened his grip on Katie again.
“I know your next term is for me to let Katie go, so I’m going to skip your turn. I know you would prefer that she remain in my custody rather than getting shot, so I suggest you put down your gun.”
I stood my ground. I wanted to take a shot, but didn’t want to risk him being faster than me. I was confident in my aim, but not my speed.
“Put it down,” he said again. I stayed.
In an instant, the gun had left her temple, fired a shot into the floor, and returned to her head. She sobbed, and the heat of the barrel on her skin must’ve hurt.
“I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND, ZANDER!” David shouted.
Slowly, I set the gun on the floor and kicked it in his direction.
“Good choice,” he said calmly. “Have you realized why you’re here yet?”
My face answered him. What did that even mean? Of course I did!
“You think you’re here to save Katie, but you aren’t. She’s been gone for a year now, and you’ve only built up memories of her. The Katie you knew is dead. But not even that Katie is the reason you’re here right now. No, you gave up on a happily ever after with Katie long ago. This isn’t a hero’s quest to save the princess. This is a revenge assault on the dragon.”
I tightened my jaw. I refused to admit he was right.
“This isn’t about saving her. This is about outsmarting me. Keeping Katie safe and sound is just a result,” David said,, his smile growing.
“So, in that sense, you and I are the same now. It’s about outsmarting the other one. You started out simply living life, then progressed to defending yourself, then to protecting your loved ones, and now you’ve arrived where I wanted you to be all along: trying to ruin me. It took you a couple years, but you made it. At least, most of the way.
“Even if Katie isn’t the true reason you’re here, she’s still a weakness. I’m going to guess that other people in your life are the same way. You still have weaknesses that tie you down. I learned how to get rid of mine.”
“Like your own mother?” I snipped.
“She was a liability,” he said coldly. “It wasn’t personal.”
“You’re a sick fuck,” I said.
The door behind David silently opened. I’d oiled those hinges for hours, making sure they made absolutely no noise.
“I’m about to get a lot sicker,” he said.
He’d started to pull the trigger, when he was tackled from behind. Katie tumbled out of his grasp as he tried to use both arms to catch himself. His gun went off, but the shot hit the wall.
Katie rolled away from David’s reach.
David started to get up, but the assailant was on their feet faster. David, on his hands and knees, looked up at the attacker.
“Remember me, BITCH?!” Clark jeered, and then punched in a downward arc into the side of David’s head.
David dropped to the floor, but he was still conscious. He grabbed Clark’s legs and tore him to the ground.
I raced forward and pulled Katie out of the scuffle. I dragged her out the door before getting her to her feet and cutting the tape on her hands with my pocket knife. There wasn’t time to get the layers off her head. She was wide-eyed.
“Run!” I hissed. “Go outside! The cops will be here soon!” I turned back inside to go help Clark. Not a romantic reunion, I know, but there was still a psychopath in there.
David and Clark were wrestling on the floor, throwing punches and grappling with one another. David was bigger and landed a few hard punches. I looked over my shoulder, making sure Katie was stumbling down the steps.
I dove in, aiming for my gun that was just beside the scuffle.
David saw me and kicked my legs like a tentacle out of the ocean. I tripped and knocked the gun into the corner when I fell. David suddenly shoved Clark off of him, practically tossing him onto one of the tables. I watched as David jumped up and made for his gun.
I writhed on the ground and kicked. My toes barely caught the gun and sent it skittering across the room.
There were two guns in the room, both on opposite sides. Two of us, and only one of him.
Clark rolled off the desk and jumped into David as he ran for the gun. They both slammed into the wall. I crawled for my gun, which was just out of reach by a couple feet. There was another crash behind me.
My fingers wrapped around the gun and I twisted around on the ground, aiming it in their direction. I had turned just in time to see David fire a shot into Clark.
There was no hesitation as I squeezed the trigger. It struck his shoulder. He whirled to face me.
I fired again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Even after he’d stumbled back against the wall and slid down, I kept firing just to be sure. Just to make sure that the fucker would never get back up again.
My gun clicked to alert me that I had emptied the clip. Ten shots, and every one had hit David Fucking King.
I exhaled and dropped the gun, letting my head fall back to the floor. My heart pounded. My whole body shook. But I couldn’t rest yet.
Shakily, I got to my feet and stumbled over to Clark. He was crumpled against the wall, clutching his left shoulder. Blood oozed through his fingers.
“Damn, he shot me,” he said, clearly in shock. That’s when the police sirens could be heard.
“Get out of here,” he said to me.
“No, I’m going to--”
“I’ll be FINE! Police will be here any second to help me, just get out! Get back on the run! I’ll contact you when it’s safe!” Clark yelled. “Go! I’m not letting you get arrested again until they get the facts straight!”
I rushed toward the door, stuffing the Ruger back in my pants as I moved.
I paused at the door.
“Thank you,” I said, looking at Clark.
“Go!” He yelled again.
I sprinted down the steps and ran to the door furthest in the back of the building. I unlocked the chains on the door and pulled it open, ducking into the night. I had run this path over and over, making sure it was good enough for an escape in case something went wrong.
I went to my previously established hiding place and hunkered down to stay hidden. I sent a text to the server my script was on and entered the password to cancel the info dump. There never was a second person, that was a bluff. There is no reason to release that information to you now since David is dead. I’m sorry, I really appreciate the level of support to ruin David, but there’s no point now. I thought he’d still be alive afterward. The police will get it eventually as evidence, though..
I also tapped out ‘I am alive’ in the Reddit thread to alert everyone that I had survived. Then, I collapsed into sleep.
This morning, I was thinking clearly again and feeling better. I ate and drank lots to counter the shock. I have started making plans on where I’ll go next. It isn’t safe to stay here much longer.
The news hasn’t said anything about the incident yet, but I’m sure the story will break eventually. I have stayed glued to the radio app on my phone all day today and am even listening right now, hoping for an update on Katie or Clark.
Thank you, Reddit. You’ve helped me remain positive these past few days and set this trap. It’s finally done. I regret so many things about what I did and how I reacted in the past. I should have fought more forcefully before it came to this. I was too scared, though, and didn’t really understand David. But now I do. Only now it doesn’t matter because he’s gone.
From here, I’ll continue to stay on the run. I don’t plan to turn myself in until Hernandez says the prosecution is ready to drop all charges.
Hernandez is trying his hardest back at home to mitigate the evidence against me in all of those charges. Clark’s testimony about what happened last night should really help reduce the credibility of David’s claims. Plus, the GoPros we set up around the warehouse won’t hurt. David’s confession about his mother was a bonus I hadn’t expected.
Originally, we had intended to lock David in the manager’s office for the police to find. Clark had called the police just before attacking. Circumstances had changed that plan.
Some of you may wonder ‘well what if David hadn’t taken you up into the manager’s office?’ We had contingency plans: that wasn’t the only option.
Regardless, all of our plans involved arresting David, not killing him. It was a last resort option and wasn’t built into any plan. didn’t know I was prepared to kill until I had my gun aimed at David King.
I don’t think I’ve fully processed the fact that I’ve killed someone… I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel or act or think or… anything. I feel like I’m acting the wrong way...
Anyway, there’s another part that will help persuade the prosecutor to drop the charges against me. I lied before when Hernandez came to visit me in jail. I said he told me he couldn’t talk about Isaac’s death, but he did tell me. They had found a video file on Isaac’s computer from the day he died.
He’d been recording himself playing games for YouTube when there was a crash of silverware in the background. Isaac didn’t hit pause on the recording, and left the room to investigate.
David came flying back into the room, shoving Isaac into the bookcases. He slammed the door and was on him in seconds. The assault lasted only minutes. David walked out, leaving the door wide open.
The camera watched him come back into the room with my pillow. He held the pillow over Isaac’s body and hit it repeatedly. All the dead skin from my pillow fell onto Isaac’s body. They found those traces on Isaac’s body, but the video proved that I hadn’t killed him.
David had walked out and locked the door behind him. He’d made a mistake and hadn’t checked what was running on the computer. All he saw was the game.
Hernandez and I had been in contact while I was first on the run. I lied about that too. When I had first contacted him, he started crying on the phone, apologizing repeatedly. He told me that he knew if I stayed in jail, that I would, at the very least, lose a lot of time out of my life while the trial went on, even if David was accused later as more evidence came out.
He had accepted David’s deal and demanded that I be given half of the $15,000 he was paid. David, as you know, only gave me $2,000, but Hernandez had hoped it would help me lay low and evade capture until he could successfully contest the evidence. We fully intend to report the bribe to the police.
He told me that after my escape from the car, the police were very suspicious about the circumstances of my escape. There were too many holes in the story, and Hernandez had been sure to point out every last one repeatedly to his boss. A lot of you pointed them out too. Paint from the truck rubbing off, bars separating the front seat from the back seat, gps in the truck marking his whereabouts, and the location of the crash in relation to the time David sounded the alarm, etc.
David had clearly been desperate to get me out of jail. He risked bribing an official and left a lot of his plan up to chance to get me out. David just didn’t want to end the game yet. If I went to jail, it was over. Yet there were still so many ways he could ruin my life.
His need for quick action led to mistakes.
Hernandez also told me when he came to visit that Jackson had turned up. He’d come home a couple days after I was arrested and was brought in for questioning. He had proof and witnesses that he had been staying with his family for a few days.
When asked about the break in and theft, he told his story.
David had knocked at the door just as Jackson was finishing packing to go on vacation. He told Jackson that he was a friend of mine and was helping me move out. Jackson let him in and finished packing.
He was just walking towards the door with his suitcase when David asked if he would be willing to help carry out the TV. Jackson agreed and carried it out with David. He then grabbed his suitcase and left, asking David to lock up when he was done.
That’s when he started stealing everything and trashing our house. That’s also when Isaac would have come out and been killed. It solved the riddle of why the door had been locked and not broken when Clark found the apartment stripped bare.
There are still some questions that I don’t have answers to. We haven’t been able to figure out what he did with all the things he stole from us. We also don’t know who the partner is. Hernandez should know that in a few days and let me know.
I also don’t know how the keylogger got on my computer, or when the tracking app was installed on my phone, or how David was able to provide my social security number, driver's license number, and all other accurate information to the credit card companies. The same goes for the fraud that was committed against my parents.
I can’t help but wonder if David had been in our house before the break in and done all of that.
As for Clark, his disgraceful exit was a fabrication to throw David off. It was my idea to make him disappear from my life and take the target off of his back. It was both to protect him from David’s rage, and so that he could support me in the background. His mom did come and bail him out, but she was much kinder about the situation and worried like all moms do.
When I messaged Clark to tell him my plan in posting this series, he immediately jumped to help me, and without him I’d still be watching David and waiting for a good moment to strike.
It was his idea to plant the information about hiding his bank information on scraps of paper around town. It was placed as a joke and a way to tell if he was reading the series. We wanted to see if David would go hunting for them. He didn’t, but that was probably because he was on the run still.
Clark’s arraignment didn’t go so well. He’s still being charged with a misdemeanor for graffiting David’s old house. An expert was called to analyze the photographs and identified them as authentic and undoctored. Either David has someone doing one hell of a photoshop job, or he took pictures from angles that cut me out naturally. We are still trying to figure out how to resolve his problem.
With Katie, I have yet to see her beyond those brief moments while confronting David. It’s been only a few days for all of you throughout this series, but for all of us, she’s been missing for a year. I have no idea what David or his partner might have done to her during all that time. I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to see her again since I’m still on the run until the charges are dropped. If the charges are dropped, that is.
I’m scared to see her. I know David did it, but I feel responsible. I wonder if she blames me. I wonder if she hates me. Maybe one day I’ll know..
What David said has shaken me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it today. He told me I was there for him and not for Katie. That I was after the dragon, not the princess. I’ve realized that he’s right. I’ve read a few of your responses and agree with you: I didn’t write all that much about Katie during this series. If it had been about Katie, I would have written more.
The fact that I left her to go back and fight says volumes about why I set this trap.
David was right. It wasn’t about Katie. Katie was a result. It makes me feel guilty and dirty to think about it. Maybe it would be best if I never saw her again. She’s not likely to want to see me.
Katie, if you’re ever reading this, if you can ever handle it, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Once again, thank you, Reddit. You have helped so much with your support, encouragement, and your unknowing aid in making this trap for David. I couldn’t have done this without you.
The last two years have been hell. But it’s finally over.
We ruined David Fucking King.
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