Dark Application: ONE (The Dark Application Series Book 1) (8 page)

He
took the exit and headed into the southeast industrial complexes, passing the
buildings one by one, looking out for security guards or cops. Or that
black car.

He
pulled into Gold Commerce loop and recognized the place he had been the day
he’d found the money. He jumped from the truck,
then
cringed when he locked the doors and the horn gave a chirp. The sound
echoed off the concrete walls.

The
night
sky was cloudy and pitch
black, but the air was
standing still and no snow was falling. The ground was icy and the snow
crunched beneath his feet as he walked toward the alley way. He noticed
several other pairs of footprints in the snow, some going off and disappearing
into the alley way, and others heading around the corner to a metal roll-up
garage door in the next building. Luke could tell that some attempts had
been made at erasing the footprints; long strokes in the snow obscured the
prints, as though someone had used their foot to wipe them out.

Feeling
a little more alert, he scanned the building for another entrance besides the
garage door, which was closed up and locked. He passed another white
metal door, which opened when he twisted the handle. There were no
disturbances in the snow here, but when he opened the door and stepped inside,
he saw dark wet tracks leading off to the right in the general direction of the
garage.

He
stepped inside and closed the door, the click echoing off the bare masonry
walls. Again, like the last building, the only visible light was the small
emission coming from the random exit sign over some of the doors. He felt
his way along the wall, hands grazing pipes and a metal railing until he
located some switches. He flicked one, and an overhead florescent bulb
lit up the inside of the room.

Metal
scaffolding skirted the second story and circled around to an open platform
with a mesh floor high over his head. A corridor went away to the left,
and looking down he saw the tracks again.
Dark smearing
tracks, black and brown in color.

Luke
went forward as though his body was no longer his. He walked along the
corridor, his heart barely beating, his lungs so tight he could hardly draw in
a breath. He passed several metal doors as he walked, but inside the
blackened square windows, nothing could be seen. At the
end of the corridor, one door stood open
, the lights off.
He approached the door and saw that the tracks had gotten thicker,
shinier, and
were
now scarlet. He reached up a
trembling hand and flicked on the light.

A body
lay on the floor, flung in a heap of blood and bruises. He saw a spray of
pink blood on the wall and floor where she had obviously been shot in the head.
The shirt was lifted, exposing a bruised and bloated stomach, the skin a
dark mahogany brown where it wasn’t spattered with blood. A puddle of
thick dark liquid crept across the floor as it drained from her head.
Fragments of brain tissue and bone dappled the long black hair, which
streamed across the floor, a shimmery fan of black on top of the gray cement.

Luke
retreated from the room, a choke in his throat. He scrambled back to the
door, flicked off the lights, and fell into the metal door handle, which
ejected him into the icy night. As he stumbled toward his truck, he
looked around in a panic, waiting for the killer to leap from the shadows.
His breath came in ragged gasps, tearing from his tight throat and
forcing him to whimper. In a frantic tantrum he ran to the truck,
wheezing as he opened the door, and jumped inside. Without hesitation he
fired up the engine and slammed it in reverse, skidding sideways, and then
barreled forward onto the main road.

He
sobbed as he drove, gripping his chest. Bile rose in his throat. He
pulled onto the highway and fought back the urge to vomit, until finally he
couldn’t help it any longer. He pulled off onto the shoulder, opened the
door, and puked in the gravel.

He
drove the rest of the way home in a numb state of despair. The image of
her laying there on the cold concrete, her arms twisted under her, and her hair
scattered across her face, kept stabbing into his thoughts like a knife.
After pulling into his driveway, he sat in the truck for several minutes
before he could trust his composure enough to go in. The lights were out
and the fire was just a dim pile of embers. Chris was snoring on the
couch so Luke slipped upstairs in silence.

Tears
rolled down his face as he sat staring at the phone. He crossed his
trembling arms across his chest, gripping himself and rocking a bit. The
phone screen was black. He slowly undressed, still staring at the phone,
fighting back the deep chills that racked his whole body. Finally, he lay
in bed and buried himself under his blankets, where he fell into a fitful,
nightmarish sleep.

He
dreamt about Amy.
Amy checking her text messages.
And he dreamt about Tiffany.
The cold, hard
concrete floor.
The shimmering fan of black
hair.
The pink spray on the walls.

B
y
late march, rain had melted much of the snow and the east quad outside the
Chemistry lab window was a marshland. Luke tapped his pencil and gazed
outside at the bits of green springing up here and there. Amy glanced
over at him and gave a sexy sideways smile. He smiled back automatically.

The
last month had been a time of stress and solemnity for everyone in Fort
Christanna. The high school had held a peace vigil for Tiffany El
Sa’id
. A memorial had been set up down town with her
picture in a frame on the sidewalk. That same picture he’d seen in Professor
Jones’ class and on the wall in the office lobby. The entire community
was shaken over two deaths in the course of a month. It was tragic, they
said on the news. It was bizarre. Something dark and sinister had
passed over the place. The budding of the trees and the yellow daffodil
weren’t enough to shake off the foreboding that had gripped Luke ever since
that night.

His
days were mechanical, and he approached them feeling like a robot, barely
eating,
his
eyes wide and disturbed. He was in a
constant state of vigilance, his waist and arms thinning. He had become
more quiet and morose, and like Chris, had taken to long spells of drinking in
his room in silence.

The
house was still a place of relative peace for them, but there was a tension in the
air, a sense of unpacked messages and secretiveness that lingered in every
conversation, the same way mucus sputters when it’s caught in the throat.
There was more drinking and less talking.
More
partying, and less dinners together over the coffee table.
There
was more homework, and less thinking.
Much less
thinking.
Anything to not let their minds
wander.

Luke
dropped Amy off at her house after school and walked with her to the front door.
When they entered, Savannah was lounging on the couch, her knees rolled up in a
luxurious soft lap blanket. She smiled at Amy, but notably made no eye
contact with Luke. Amy never said much about Savannah’s attitude toward
him, just that Savannah didn’t trust men and that Luke shouldn’t worry about
her.

Luke
didn’t worry about Savannah. Luke detested the sight of her.

He had
grown bitter toward her nose-snubbing arrogance and Amy’s tendency to coddle
her behavior. He often imagined himself grabbing her hair and kneeing her
in that pretty jaw, or shoving her down the stairs. He made no attempt to
hide the grimace on his face when she passed by on her way to the kitchen, and
once had even joked about poisoning her wine.

“Shut
the hell up, dork,” she had spat at him, and since then, his rage had started
to overcome his desire to protect Amy’s feelings.
You’re
gonna
pay for this, slut
, he thought.

Why
she hated him so bad did not matter now, because he hated her with equal, if
not greater force. Years of the childhood stress that she had caused him
began to come to a head. When Amy wasn’t looking, Luke would stare at Savannah
with a blank, dark expression that had clearly, once or twice, unsettled her.
But she was a tough little bitch.

Amy
led Luke upstairs to her room, as she so often did, and pressed him to sit on
the edge of the bed. “We need to talk,” she said.

She
stood and paced back and forth across the room and Luke watched her, his head
following her butt. “I’m worried about you. You’ve been acting
weird and losing weight, and I think you should get some help.”

He
looked at her with a skeptical face.

“Luke,
ever since the accident at your house with Travis, you have been worse off even
than me. And he was
my
boyfriend,” she said, looking earnestly at
him. “I’ve been talking to a counselor at school and it’s really been
helping,” she said.

Luke
sat forward, his eyebrows creased. “There is more that you don’t know
about, Amy,” he whispered.

She
frowned and leaned forward. “What?”

“Amy,”
he said. His voice was strained and exasperated. “Amy, there is so
much you don’t know,” he said and put his hands to his face.

Her
expression softened and she knelt in front of him, her hand on his arm.
She looked concerned, and she urged him to tell her what he meant.
“You can trust me, Luke. If something is going on, please tell me.
I will help you,” she said.

“I
wish there was a way for me to explain it,” he began, his voice slow and tired
sounding.

He
jumped as his phone suddenly vibrated.

Amy’s
eyes widened as she saw the look on his face. “Who is that, Luke? Give me
the phone, let me answer it,” she said and held out her hand.

Luke
wrestled in his pocket for the phone and pulled it out, trying to make the
vibrating stop. He was frantic, and when she reached for the phone to
take it from him, he slapped her hand away with unnecessary force.

“Ouch!”
she shouted in shock. Her eyes then melted into pain and disbelief.
She sagged onto the edge of her bed.

Luke
looked at the phone. The
Dark Application
logo was there, and the
blue lettering, barely visible, was moving across the screen.

Loading… please wait.
Hello, Luke. How
are you doing? You better get home before the next storm hits.

He put
the phone away, and when he saw Amy’s face, he was suddenly overcome with
remorse. “Oh my God, Amy, I’m so sorry,” he said.

She
looked away, out the window. “So who was it?” she asked.

He sat
silently, thinking a second, and then said, “It was Amit,
he
said I need to bring some beer when I come home. Amy… Amy…” he cooed,
gently rubbing her arm where he’d slapped it so hard. “I feel so bad.
I’m really sorry. I should not have done that,” he said.

“No,
you shouldn’t have,” she said.

“Here,
want to slap me back? Here, punch me,” he said, and picked up her arm,
slapping himself with her flimsy, relaxed hand. “Ouch! Do it again,
ow
!” he howled.

Amy
couldn’t help but laugh. Once her effort to hide her smile was obsolete,
she let out a huge giggle, a relieved kind of laugh. He kissed her, and
relaxing in his arms, she kissed him back. He grabbed her hips and rocked
her back on the bed, settling into her frame. He let out a moan of
comfort and her warm skin gave him shivers.

For a
moment things were almost normal again. He was wrapped in warmth and
softness, and Amy had forgiven him for being an ass. She was melting into
him and cuddling closer, reaching for the buttons on his jeans, when his phone
vibrated again.

Luke
sat up, and remembering his previous excuse, said, “That must be Amit again.
Wanna
come
party with the boys
tonight? It could be fun.”

“Oh,
alright,” she said, slapping him on the shoulder.

But
when Luke looked at his phone, what he saw was certainly no message from Amit.
Nor was it the
Dark Application
. It was Savannah.

Savannah in the nude.

*****

Luke
didn’t say anything to Amy about the pic message, and they rode in the truck to
the liquor store and then back to Luke’s house in silence. He held his
hand on hers, and she let him, although her grip was weak and noncommittal.

They
pulled up to the house to see that there was a cluster of people at the front
door with drinks in hand. “Huh, I guess Chris invited some people,” he
said and jumped to the ground.

As they
approached the house, Luke’s phone vibrated again. Luckily it wasn’t
Savannah, but it seemed to be the
Dark Application.
This time however,
after the application loaded
,
a list of contacts began to scroll down
the screen of his phone.
Hundreds of contacts.
Some he recognized and others that he didn’t. Eventually the phone
powered down. Luke was not sure what to do about it.

The
music was already bumping, and Amy and Luke made their entrance, stopping to
slap hands and throw arms around random acquaintances.
Random
acquaintances, as in, people who wanted to party non-stop and knew that Luke
would deliver.
The odd death at the house had only temporarily
deterred party guests, and since the public announcement on the news of the
murder of Tiffany, Luke’s house once again became the spot to go to on the
weekends. Perhaps knowing that there was a murderer at large, or that death
could happen at any time to anyone, anywhere, made people forget about Travis’
unlikely accident. Or maybe, just maybe, mused Luke, everyone was scared
to be alone, and they all wanted to pile into close quarters, just to be safe,
just to be in a crowd. Besides, maybe death didn’t strike the same house twice.
Maybe they thought it had happened once, and they were in the clear.

Whatever
the reason, they were here, and they were eating his food and drinking his
beer. He came in the door with two huge cases, holding them up like captured
game. A few people cheered, and Chris, blowing into the room in his
theatrical attention-grabbing way, came and swept them out of Luke’s arms,
taking them to the fridge. He opened the case and passed them out to
everyone one by one, like a mother gorilla divvying out fruit to her babies.

Luke
drank the first beer down like a glass of water and let out a dramatic belch.
Then he cracked open another, chugging it halfway down before his eyes
began to water.

Amy
looked on, clearly not impressed, but quiet anyway. Then something
strange began to happen. Every single cell phone in the room received a
text at nearly the same time, within seconds.

Luke
could see and hear it as he took in a panorama of the twenty-something people
swaying around the room, chatting; a series of beeps and bells, some songs and
random noises, all chimed at once, or within mere moments of each
other. Within thirty seconds, everyone with a cell phone on them had
opened it and was staring at the screen.

There
was a long, incredulous silence, except for the music that thrummed on while
the house guests all stood stalk-still, staring into their phones. Luke’s
phone
vibrated,
and he pulled it out, seeing the nude
picture of Savannah again. But this time, he scrolled to the left, and
there were two, three, no four total, each one a clear picture of her
completely naked and showing everything there was to see.

“Oh…
my…
GOD
,” said Luke out loud.

Amy
looked at her phone and her expression turned into one of shock and horror.
“Oh my GOD!” she shouted. She pushed past Luke outside and pressed
a button, putting the phone to her ear.

Around
the room, there were murmurs, and then giggles; people were passing their
phones around, back and forth, looking over other people’s shoulders, and as
soon as Luke was sure he knew what was going on, he let out a sharp cackle.
Some people shook their heads and put their phones away. There was
a wave of gossip;
what a slut,
and
why the hell did she send that to
me?
And more.
People were laughing at
her, and mocking her. The beauty of it tickled Luke.

The
party moved on and the night continued, and yet, as Luke circled the groups,
and as the crowd in his house continued to grow, he heard
talk
of it continue
.

Apparently
a lot of people had gotten this text. Amy came in, shaking her head.
“Did you get a text from her too?” she asked.

Luke
nodded matter-of-factly. “Yes I did, and I wasn’t going to make a big
deal about it, but apparently I didn’t have to. Because everyone else got
it too,” he said, and snickered.

“This
is not funny. Savannah accidentally sent that message to everyone.
Everyone
, Luke.
Her mom and
dad too.”

Luke
buried his face in his hand and laughed. “Oh geez, what a freak!” he
said.

Amy
punched him hard on the arm. “This is not funny, Luke! This is
humiliating. Her dad is going to kill her! He could stop paying for
her school. She could lose everything she has going for her,” she argued.

“Do
you know the humiliation and misery that girl put me through in high school?”
Luke shot at her. “Do you remember, Amy? Because I certainly
remember you being there,” he said, his face suddenly hard and cold, the gleam
in his eyes burning into her, making her cringe.

She
just shook her head. “Are you going to take me home? Or should I
walk?
Because I need to go see her right now and help
her through this.”

Luke
looked at her, thinking something through for a moment. “Take my truck,”
he said, and threw her the keys.

She
looked smugly at him, then turned and left.

*****

Savannah
didn’t show up at school on Monday, and everyone noticed. Amy had returned
from the party the next morning and Luke convinced her to stay for breakfast,
wooing her until she’d acquiesced. But on Monday, when Amy and Luke
entered the chemistry lab together, it was clear that Savannah was now the talk
of the entire school.

Not
only had almost every student received the pic message twice now, but the dean
of the school, all of her professors, including Professor Jones, and even her
next door neighbor, had seen the message. No one could figure out what,
or who, was behind it.

Savannah’s
dad had filed a police report ordering an investigation into the matter. He was
the District Attorney; apparently while he was out putting bad guys in jail,
his little girl was out putting the bad guys to shame, or so the gossip went.

“Charity
begins at home,” said an anonymous opinion writer in the newspaper. “When
parents abandon their kids at home to go rescue the rest of the world, look who
suffers for it,” they had written.