Mike Omer - In the Darkness

A measure of sand trickled into the grave as he hoisted himself out. The tiny grains hissed, sprinkling onto the lid of the box, dirtying it. For a moment, he was irritated. He wanted it to be clean as he observed it from above. He smiled to himself as he realized the absurdity. He was about to bury the box under a few tons of soil. What did it matter if a bit of sand littered it?

He took a moment to think of the other participant in this experiment. She might have heard the sand scattering above her. It was possible she even understood the implication. His heart pounded excitedly as he imagined it: the sound amplified in the small space, accompanied by the absolute darkness within.

He picked up the shovel, jamming it into the mound of dirt, and then paused. Stupid. So stupid. He’d been so excited by the actual act that he’d forgotten the important part. He laid the shovel aside and turned to his laptop. He hooked it to the external battery charger, making sure the charger worked. Didn’t want the battery to run out halfway through the experiment.

The loud sound of a truck’s engine behind him made him tense up, and he gritted his teeth. He had chosen this spot with a lot of care, making sure that it was hidden from view by a wall of cacti, trees, and shrubs. The road was hardly used, but the occasional vehicle still drove by. The distractions grated on him. This was a great occasion. It deserved his entire focus.

He activated the video feed and scrutinized the screen. The angle seemed a bit too high. He went over to the camera, adjusted the tripod’s height, and then checked it again. Perfect. He hesitated for a second, the pivotal moment nearly robbing him of his breath. Then he clicked, starting the broadcast.

He picked the shovel up again and dumped the first batch of sand and gravel onto the box. The camera lens watched him, and he forced himself to ignore it. Smile for the camera , he could hear his mother’s voice say. She never gave up on trying to pose him for the family photo album when he was a young boy.

When he hefted the fourth batch, the muffled thumping began. The truck’s growling had probably woken the young woman, and now she was banging on the lid. Trying to push it open. Screaming. The craving took hold of him, and he nearly dropped the shovel as a sudden wave of heat flashed through his body.

Focus. There would be plenty of time for that later.

After five minutes, the lid was gone from view, though he could still hear the thumping and screaming if he tried hard. Was anyone watching the feed already? Probably. That was the whole point, after all. What were they thinking? Did they stare, waiting for the punch line? Assume this was a practical joke? Or were they even now calling the police, trying to explain what they had seen?

His mind and body were consumed by raw excitement, the moment cathartic. He couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t remember the details of the plan. He had to stop, just for a moment. Had to let off some steam.

He thrust the shovel into the ground and hurried to his van, taking the laptop with him. Once he was done, he cleaned up, put the gloves back on, and got out of the van to resume digging. He hoped his viewers hadn’t missed him too much.

He’d heard somewhere that the average attention span of an online video clip viewer was thirty-seven seconds. He competed with videos of drunk cats, movie trailers, and porn. He had to be fast. That was why he’d prepared the bins.

He went over to the rightmost large bin and tipped it into the grave, watching with fascination as the soil poured inside in clumps. He emptied the bin completely, using the shovel to scrape the caked earth in the bottom. Then he went to each bin in turn and repeated the action, captivated by the view of the hole filling up, disappearing. Once he was done, he shoveled a bit more dirt over the grave to cover it completely. The shouts and thumps were gone now, silenced by the blanket of earth. Nevertheless, the audience at home could still hear it easily. He had made sure of that.

He took a moment to appreciate his handiwork. The ground was almost uniform. They wouldn’t find this location in a hurry.

He stretched, giving his aching back a rest, and glanced at the lens.

Smile for the camera.

And though he knew it couldn’t catch his face, he did.

Zoe Bentley sat in her office, holding a photo between her thumb and forefinger—a man and a young woman smiling at the camera, their heads leaning close to each other, nearly touching. A casual observer wouldn’t pay the photo any attention—just another selfie—but Zoe could see the tiny details that indicated otherwise. The man’s empty eyes, the thin hostile smile. And the girl’s face—innocent, naive. Ignorant.

The girl was Zoe’s sister, Andrea. The man was Rod Glover, who had raped and strangled several women to death.

It’d been one month since Rod Glover had made his appearance in Dale City. Showing up for a single creepy photo op and fading away like a malicious phantom.

Zoe put the photo inside her desk drawer and slammed it shut. She knew she would retrieve it again later. She couldn’t help herself. She’d done it several times every day since she’d gotten the photograph back from the tech lab.

When she was a young girl, Glover had been her neighbor. Zoe had found out about his crimes and alerted the cops. Unfortunately, by the time they’d paid any attention to her, Glover had fled. Since then he’d maintained a connection with Zoe, sending her envelopes containing gray ties, the item he’d used to strangle his victims.

His obsession with Zoe had escalated last summer. While she’d been investigating a serial killer in Chicago, Glover had begun following her and later attacked and nearly killed her. Not long after, he’d sent Zoe the picture. He’d approached Andrea in the street, and she had agreed to pose for it, not knowing who he was. Since then he’d disappeared completely.

Zoe got up and paced her small office in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, back and forth, brain buzzing. She had a hard time concentrating, partly because she was sleeping badly, nightmares and anxieties swirling in her skull.

She sat down at her desk and logged into ViCAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It was the bureau’s database responsible for documenting violent crimes to aid the search for serial offenders. She searched for any crime that involved rape and strangulation in the past twenty-four hours. She got one hit, and her pulse quickened as she read the report. A forty-five-year-old woman had been raped and strangled to death in her own home in New York City. Nothing fit the profile, not even remotely. The victim was too old, the strangulation was done with bare hands, and the location was off. It wasn’t him.

Where are you, Glover?

If she could, she’d place Andrea in protective custody, preferably in a secure locked compound, until Glover was caught. But she couldn’t. It had taken Zoe several weeks, and numerous loud arguments, to get her sister to move in with her temporarily.

The FBI agent in charge of the case didn’t see eye to eye with Zoe on the matter. Neither did the police. They believed Glover was long gone. That he’d never risk staying in close proximity to either of the Bentley sisters. Zoe knew they were wrong. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her the last time they’d met. Heard his voice. This obsession wasn’t going away.