Mike Omer - In the Darkness

Oh god.

He could destroy the footage.

No way this gas station paid for some fancy cloud storage for their footage. Their security cameras would be hooked to a computer inside. All he’d have to do was break a window, walk in, and delete the footage, and he’d be done. Among all his gear, he had a ski mask. And he always had gloves with him.

He rummaged for his toolbox. Break a window, get inside, delete the footage. It would only take two minutes. And he’d be safe.

Andrea woke up with a start, knowing that something she’d heard had jarred her out of her sleep, but she wasn’t sure what. Then it came again. A knock on the door. She frowned at the clock. Half past eleven. What the hell?

She got out of bed, padding barefoot to the living room. Someone knocked on the door again. A polite knock, unhurried.

“Yeah?”

“Ma’am, I’m Officer Browning from downstairs.” The voice came, muffled, official. “We got a report of a stranger in your building. Are you all right?”

“There’s no one here. The door was locked.”

“Are you sure, ma’am? A neighbor said she saw someone climbing the emergency stairway. Do you want me to have a look around?”

Andrea’s heart froze. The emergency stairway was just outside her bedroom window. She was sure it was latched, but . . . a terrible image of Rod Glover sliding through the window, hiding under her bed, waiting, like a child’s nightmare. There’s a monster under the bed, Mommy.

“Uh, hang on.” She considered getting her robe, but it was in the bedroom, just next to the window. And the emergency stairway. Officer Browning would have to deal with her tank top and bralessness. She shuffled to the door, glancing through the peephole. The uniformed officer stood by the door, his face turned away from the peephole as he watched around him impatiently.

She unlatched the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open.

“Come in, but—”

He turned to face her, and her world shifted, shattering, the threat no longer behind her, no longer imagined.

His hand shot forward, grabbing her throat, squeezing, and the scream that hurtled up her throat came out strangled, croaky, weak. Glover took a step inside the house, kicking the door closed behind him. He was dressed in a cop’s uniform, but his sneer was as far from a law officer’s expression as anything.

“Hello, Andrea,” he hissed. He put a knife to her cheek, just inches below her eye, and pressed it, letting the tip puncture the skin lightly. “Don’t struggle, or Zoe will have a one-eyed sister. Don’t scream. Don’t do anything. You got that? Blink if you do.”

Andrea blinked, terrified. Her lungs spasmed as she tried to breathe, her mouth opening and closing desperately.

“Here’s the good news,” Glover said. “I want you alive. I want Zoe to see the fear in your eyes when she gets back. I want her to feel like the shitty sister she is, leaving you all alone. So if you just stay still, we’ll be done in no time. You got that?”

Another blink and a tear. Even if she wanted to struggle, she couldn’t. Her muscles felt like butter. Spots were dancing in her vision, her lungs burning for air.

His grip slackened, and she managed to take a wheezing breath.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” he suggested.

He stepped forward slowly, and she had to stumble backward to keep pace. A thought struck her—he knew where he was going. He moved calmly, his eyes already flicking to the right door, as if he had learned the apartment’s layout by heart. She let out a sob.

“Shhhhh.”

Step. Step. One hand on her throat, the other with the knife, dancing in front of her left eye, the tip almost close enough to touch, forcing her to shut her eyes.

“Open your eyes. Walk.”

And then, just as they passed the guest room, the door opened. Glover didn’t seem to realize, his eyes focused on his destination and on Andrea’s terrified face. Marvin stepped out, looking confused, his eyes locking with hers. She saw the understanding there. He began moving, when Glover whipped around, fast as a snake. He slammed Andrea against the wall, the hand with the knife darting forward, stabbing Marvin’s chest. Marvin gasped, his eyes glazing, and Glover punched him in the face, emitting a crack. Marvin stumbled back, falling, head hitting the doorknob. Blood pooled almost instantly on the floor by his lax body.

“No!” Andrea let out a scream, and the knife was back at her eye.

“Interesting bodyguard you had here,” Glover hissed. Fury filled his eyes. “For this surprise, I’ll give you something to remember me by when we’re done.”

He pushed her hard to the bedroom, his movements rougher than before, his face hard, angry, his teeth bared in an inhuman snarl. He whipped her around, and it was almost a relief, not being able to see his face. He pushed her hard against the bed.

There were a few seconds of nothingness, and then a cloth clenched around her throat. She remembered what Zoe had told her. Glover had a fixation with strangling his victims.

She wasn’t going to make it.

Even if he really intended to keep her alive, he wouldn’t be able to control his urges. He’d rape her and strangle her to death, just like he had with every other victim.

But now it was too late to do anything. The cloth bit into her throat, and she had no air. Her fingers clawed at the noose, while Glover ripped her pants, muttering curses, growling, the noises he made more bestial than human.

An image popped into her mind, from her childhood. Locked in the room, Glover pounding at the door, and Zoe hugging her, protecting her. But her sister was thousands of miles away now.

She faded into unconsciousness, the dark oblivion welcoming, but then the cloth around her neck shifted, its grip lessened by a fraction, and she could draw a quick breath of air. That was also something Glover did. He knew how to keep his victims alive and conscious till the end.

She inhaled his smell, and it was rank, sweaty, unclean. She struggled, not wanting this thing to touch her anymore. He laughed, pushed her face into the mattress, his fingers on her skin, groping, probing.

An explosion.

It made her ears ring, and she let out a terrified scream. The cloth had disappeared from her throat, and she could scream freely now, over and over, as much as she liked, and she did. She turned around, seeing the blurry shape of Marvin standing inside the room, leaning against the wall, a gun in his hand.

She searched for Glover, glimpsed him in the corner, holding his side, grimacing. His predatory eyes locked on Marvin, and indecision flickered in his gaze.

Another explosion roared as Marvin shot again. A shattering as the window broke, and she knew he’d missed; he was dazed and weak from blood loss. Glover would realize this, would pounce on him, kill the old man in seconds.

But he didn’t. She saw fear in his eyes now, the fear of a monster used to easy prey, unaccustomed to pain. The fighting had caught him by surprise. He lunged forward, not for Marvin and the gun but for the door. Marvin moved, tried to get a third shot, but Glover was already out of the room.

For a moment none of them moved. Then Marvin stumbled to the floor, still gripping the gun hard.

Zoe sat on her bed, pages scattered all around her. Some were photos of the crime scene; others were handwritten summaries of what she could glean about Debra Miller. She had a feeling that Debra was more significant than the other victims. She was different—no Instagram or Facebook account as far as Zoe could tell, so the killer hadn’t stalked her like the others. And, of course, she was older than the killer’s other victims.