Rick Mofina - Into the Dark

He was so tired.

This morning, after working straight for nearly two hours, he stood at the window and looked at the city.

Somebody out there has to know something .

But he was at a loss at what to do next. All of his efforts had been futile so far. He started to doubt himself.

“What are you doing, Mark?”

He turned to see Magdalena Pierce standing at his desk, taking stock of all of his material on the Dark Wind Killer.

He glanced around, realizing that while ruminating he’d failed to notice others were now settling into the office before he had time to put his research away.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I was just reviewing notes.” Harding started collecting papers.

Magda stopped him, setting her expensive-looking coffee mug-a gift from some aging European movie star-on Harding’s desk smack in the middle of his notes, as if driving a stake through them.

“I thought I told you, Mark, this-” she nodded her chin to his work as if it offended her “-is a one-hit wonder.”

“I don’t agree.”

At that moment, across the small office at the reception desk, Allison Porter was well into the morning practice of handling the day’s mail. Even though it was an online world, people still used the post office, she thought. She was going through bills, junk mail, solicitations, news releases, resumes and other items when she came to a white business envelope.

It was addressed in handwritten block letters to NEWS DEPARTMENT, ALLNEWS PRESS AGENCY-LOS ANGELES, and continued with the proper address and zip code.

But it was the return address that gave Allison pause.

In smaller block letters it read MY TORMENT, then IN THE BOWELS OF HELL.

The envelope had a bit of thickness to it. There was more than paper inside. The bureau received the occasional rant from fringe groups or nut jobs but this one was weird, kind of creepy, Allison thought, slipping the letter opener under the flap.

* * *

Back at his desk Harding tried to make his case.

“I think we need to follow this story closely, or someone else like the AP, Reuters or the L.A. Times will take it away from us.”

Magda remained indifferent. Her designer jewelry was chiming as she scrawled a note on a page of one of his notepads, a habit of hers that annoyed him, tearing the fragment and handing it to him.

“There’s nothing to follow until something breaks, meanwhile-”

“But that’s the point, we should be dig-”

“We need to stay on the stories that yield dividends. This guy-” a polished nail tapped the number “-is an old source of mine and he’s just heard that there’s going to be a massive shake-up at one of the big studios. Several executives are leaving to form a competing company.”

“You’re serious?” Harding stared at her. “You think that is what the vast majority of people want to read about?”

“Everybody loves the movies.”

“A monster killing women, versus overpaid people switching chairs.”

“Please follow my instructions, Mark.”

In that instant he tried to fathom why New York had not fired her, or maybe they were giving her enough rope. He was on the verge of really telling her off when-

“Oh, my God!”

Allison’s scream yanked their attention to the reception desk.

Los Angeles, California

Mark Harding was first to arrive at reception.

Allison was standing, gaping with shock, and drawing back from the letter and its contents. Harding saw the sheet of paper and the salutation.

TO MARK HARDING

He caught his breath, his pulse quickened. The instant he read the first line a sense of knowing erupted in the pit of his stomach. Without touching the letter, he leaned closer. Each word hit him hard as he read:

TO MARK HARDING: REPORTER FOR THE ALLNEWS PRESS AGENCY.

THIS IS DWK SPEAKING.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR RECENT INTEREST IN MY WORK. IT HAS BEEN A LONG TIME AND I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK THAT THE BRILLIANT MINDS OF L.A. LAW ENFORCEMENT WOULD NEVER APPRECIATE THE MEANING OF THE BEAUTIFUL GIFT I’D LEFT THEM.

YOUR ARTICLE AWAKENED THE EVIL INSIDE ME.

NO ONE CAN SAVE ME. NO ONE CAN STOP ME. NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND MY PAIN, MY TORMENT AND THE UNPARALLELED AGONY AND ECSTASY OF MY EXISTENCE.

I LIVE A NORMAL EVERYDAY LIFE AMONG YOU. BUT I AM NOT LIKE YOU, OR ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING. I LOOK DOWN ON THE MORTALS OF THIS WORLD-SO WEAK, SO VULNERABLE, AS I PREPARE TO FULFILL MY DESTINY.

THEY CALLED ME A WORM. THEY TOLD ME I WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE. THEY TORTURED ME, TAUGHT ME TO KILL UNTIL I COULD NO LONGER EXIST WITHOUT KILLING.

TO AUTHENTICATE MY REALITY I HAVE ENCLOSED AN EXAMPLE OF MY WORK THAT WILL REMOVE ALL DOUBT.

IT WILL ENABLE YOU TO “SEE” THE LIGHT.

I AM REACHING OUT FROM THE DARKNESS TO WARN THE WORLD THAT I HAVE KEPT MY WORD.

I AM BACK TO CLAIM THE REVERENCE AND THE WONDER THAT I AM OWED.

I HAVE ALREADY EMBARKED ON MY NEXT CREATION.

I WILL SOON UNLEASH FEAR UNLIKE ANYTHING THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN FROM JTR AND ZK, MY LESSER PREDECESSORS.

I DECIDE WHO LIVES AND WHO DIES.

I AM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

YOURS IN BLOOD,

DWK

All the saliva in Harding’s mouth evaporated.

“What are JTR and ZK?” Allison asked.

“Likely Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer from San Francisco,” Harding said.

“It’s a hoax.” Magda had read over his shoulder. “It has to be a hoax.”

Ignoring her, Harding saw that two other pages were folded under the letter and he turned to Allison.

“Do you have tweezers, or something?”

Flustered, she seized her bag under the desk, went through her manicure set and thrust small tweezers at him. Using them to grip a corner, Harding carefully moved the one-page letter off the next page.

The second page was neatly divided by two crisp, color photos of the head and shoulders of a naked woman in her twenties. In the first picture she was bound in wide-eyed terror. In the second she was dead.

“Jesus Christ!” Nick Obrisk, one of the bureau’s soon-to-retire staff writers, said. “That is un-freaking-believable.”

Under that page there was a third page. Taped to it was the California driver’s license for Leeza Meadows, aged twenty-one, of Santa Clarita.

“Is this for real, Mark?” Obrisk said.

“I think so. Leeza Meadows was the first of the five victims. Tanner said two items were missing from her bag where she was found. One was her cell phone. Police never made public what the second item was. I think this is it, Leeza’s California driver’s license.”

“Who’s Tanner?” Magda asked.

Harding and Obrisk looked at her. She’d just confirmed she didn’t read the work of the people she supervised.

“He’s the detective leading the DWK task force. He’s in my story.”

“Of course,” she said. “It slipped my mind.”

“That’s a helluva thing you got there,” Obrisk said. “What are you going to do?”

“We need to record this.” Harding scanned the bureau. “Where’s Jodi-Lee?”

“She’s buying a yogurt downstairs. She should be back by now,” Allison said. “Mark can we just get this stuff off of my desk?”

“Hang on. Nobody touches anything.” Harding spotted Jodi-Lee Ruiz at the door, waved her over and told her what had happened.

“Holy crap.” She set down her yogurt and juice and slipped off her camera bag. She pulled out a camera and changed the lens as Harding gave her directions.

“We need photographs of Allison’s desk with the pages, showing exactly how the letter was received. Then close-ups of each page so we’ll have our own copies, the envelope, the license, everything.”