THE EVIL ONE
Guess the Killer, Book Zero
CYRUS WINTERS
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The events of this book
take place one night in 2015.
Two years before ICY STARES…
THE EVIL ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
EPILOGUE
ONE LAST LETTER
KEEP IN TOUCH
SUBJECT: THE GAME BEGINS!!!
To Justin,
Hello there, old friend! Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are I want you to stop. I want you to say goodbye to the people surrounding you, talking with, smiles on everyone’s faces. Say goodbye, exit the room and enter a new one. So we can be alone. I have some things to share with you that are going to require some privacy.
You will see below I have attached a few photographs. Do not worry, there’s nothing too alarming. You’ll see the first few are of you and your fiancé on holiday from last summer. Some pics of you sharing champagne in the middle of Paris’s finest outdoor restaurants. Some from that wedding you attended. I’ve also included a few from your activities in the hotel room. You coming out of the shower. You and your fiancé engaged in mutual-oral sex on the bed. The photos go on. You will see many of them have been hacked and downloaded from your personal accounts.
Others were taken by an independent party.
I’ve been planning tonight for some time. Now that I have your attention (hopefully), rest assured I have no intention of spreading these images around or dipping my fingers into your bank account. Although I could obviously do that if I wished to.
Tonight we are playing for higher stakes. You will find amongst the attachments there is a group photo titled ‘Class of ’05.’ You will see yourself in the photo, along with long time girlfriend / fiancé Kellie. Your best friend Amelia is also present.
There are thirteen other students, and one teacher. Seventeen people in the picture in all.
This was the final year of high school. Now all the students are grown up adults. Some failed out of the gate, some succeeded. It doesn’t matter. Tonight everyone will be treated as equally as they were then.
Although this email will have been drafted a few hours ago, when I hit send it will be exactly nine pm tonight. I don’t know how quickly you will find this email, but you will have one hour’s grace until I kill my first victim starting at ten pm. And from there I will kill a person from this photo every hour until you stop me.
As a parting gift I will leave you with a clue to my identity: I am one of the people in that class photograph.
And so, until our first victim, I say hello and goodbye and wish you the best of luck in attempting to solve this mystery.
Yours Sincerely,
THE EVIL ONE
Chapter 1
The phone in Officer Justin Hodge’s pocket vibrated softly. He felt its humming and friction against his leg yet the sensation didn’t cause him to react. It was far away. In the background.
“Okay, right up against the rails, guys. Get your arms around each other. Now on the count of three. One…! Two…!”
Cheese.
Justin and Kellie laughed at the same time as the camera-phones silently snapped their photos. They knew how it went from here. Upload. Tag. Share. Like. Comment. In a year they would get to ‘relive’ this memory. Assuming of course, they were still alive then.
“That’s enough!” Kellie blurted out. “No more photos! My eyes are too fucking red…”
She stumbled back into the apartment, shunning the phones facing her, while Justin remained on the balcony’s edge, sipping his champagne. One of his best friends, Amelia Overton stepped out from the shadows in the corner and stood beside him.
And all of a sudden they were alone.
“So how long until she passes out?” Amelia asked.
“I give her another hour and a half,” Justin said. “Two hours tops.”
“And then back to my place for shagging?”
“Yeah baby,” Justin said with a straight face. “Let’s hop on the good foot and do the bad thing.”
They both chuckled.
“In all seriousness she’ll still be up when I’m going to bed,” Justin mused. “I just hope the people next door don’t get too upset about the noise.”
“Not exactly a great way to announce yourself to the building is it? What’s the sound proofing like?”
“I think it’s pretty tight. I mean I’ll hear people if they move by the door or along the corridor. Bloody elevator is noisy. But I can’t hear anything going on in any of the other apartments so I assume the same applies here.”
No sooner than the words left his mouth did the music inside crank up from a five to an eleven, coupled with some uproarious screaming and giggling.
“You were saying?” Amelia grinned.
Justin exhaled. “This should be good…”
They left their post at the head of the balcony and reentered the apartment to find Kellie and two of her friends engaged in some group dance activity that involved a lot of gyrations and twerking. They’d turned the lights out and set up a number of colorful spinning globes, recreating a night club feel in the middle of their living room.
“Wow,” Amelia said leaning over into his ear. “She’s really good.”
Justin laughed. He leaned over to Amelia’s ear. “I’m going to kill her.”
“Justin! Come on!” Kellie shouted rushing over. “Let’s do this thing!”
Kellie grabbed Justin’s hand.
Justin grabbed Amelia’s.
Amelia grabbed onto Kellie.
And the three of them staggered into the centre of the room, revolving in a spiral of lights and shadows and cheers.
“WHOOOO!” Amelia squealed.
“YES, AMELIA, YES! YOU WORK IT, GIRL!” Kellie cried.
On three.
All of them together now.
“WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
And just for a moment…
The apartment.
The faces of his friends.
The colors and shapes and sounds of heavenly music.
Just for a moment…
Justin’s world was perfect.
Chapter 2
Justin was smiling in the bathroom mirror, washing his hands, as the toilet flushed in the background. He picked up his champagne glass, finished its contents in a quick chug then stepped back out into the apartment’s smoky atmosphere. He moved around to the kitchen and pulled another bottle out of the fridge, refilling
his glass. Some friend of a friend of a friend acquaintance with spiky black hair and an olive shirt came along and stood beside him, offering a basket of mixed nuts. Justin put his hand in and pulled a few out.
“This party’s the bomb,” the guy said. “Thanks for the invite.”
Justin raised his eyebrows. “Yeah sure, no problem.”
“I’m still trying to figure out who’s taken and who isn’t. Me being a ready to go bachelor and all.”
Justin nodded. “You’ll have to forgive me. I seem to have misplaced your name.”
“It’s Chip.”
“Chip?”
“Chip Hannebury. I’m Ryan’s housemate. Remember last weekend we were –”
“Oh right,” Justin gushed. “Sorry, I’m terrible with faces.”
“You were serious about me coming, weren’t you? I remember I double-checked with you when we were –”
“No, no, no, totally serious.”
“Ryan isn’t here yet.”
“He’ll be here soon. He gets off at nine, so…”
“Are there anymore girls coming? I don’t want to make a move now only to find some hotter gals rocking up when I’m already locked in with someone.”
“Umm…” Justin’s gaze drifted out across the living room. “You know what – I think she’s single.”
“Which one?”
“The short blonde one in glasses. Near the back. By herself.”
“I saw you with her before. I thought you were –”
“No, I’m with Kellie. Kellie’s the loud one. In the pink and purple top. The one at the back is Amelia. We’re just friends.”
“And she’s single?”
“Yeah. You should go for it.”
Chip picked up the basket of mixed nuts resting on the counter. “Thanks buddy, I owe you one.”
Justin took a drink from his glass, quietly laughing to himself.
Amelia had already spotted him from across the room. She knew something was up but hadn’t seen Chip yet.
Justin raised his glass to her, walking back out to the hall.
The look of confusion on her face turning to split second horror as Chip descended.
Justin turned around the hallway corner, chuckling into his arm, the euphoria still on the rise. He entered the bedroom, putting his glass down again, sitting on the bed. He stared at himself through the reflective mirrors on the wardrobe facing the bed, exhaling, lightheaded, tipsy.
He closed his eyes and leaned back across the bed’s soft covers.
The music. The images. The air.
It was almost too much.
Vmmm, vmmm…
Another vibration from his leg. He pulled his phone out and put it on his chest, still lying down. Breathing in. Breathing out.
Justin had ideas about who could be messaging him.
Sanford or Billings probably hadn’t shown up to their shift and he was getting the call to go in and cover. Maybe they even had Ryan calling to soften the blow. It had happened before. It could happen again.
Justin of course dreamed of the day where he had his own office. Where he could wear a suit and rub shoulders with the detectives and agents and lawmakers. Instead of being the uniformed soldier that he was.
“I can’t come in now,” he muttered to himself. “I’ve been drinking.”
It was the truth. It should be good enough.
If it was them.
Justin sat up sharply, the phone bouncing off his chest and landing in his open palms. He turned the screen on and unlocked it to see that Ryan had sent him a message just now that read: Rum, tequila, bourbon or Jägermeister?
Justin replied: Tequila. Don’t forget the lemons.
He exited out and saw he still had one notification waiting. Someone had sent him an email.
Justin inhaled a moment, then went to his apps page to go directly to his email account.
The Subject stood out bold and clear: THE GAME BEGINS!!!
Justin read the email whilst sitting on the bed.
It was a quarter past nine.
Chapter 3
The hallway blurred. Bright light dazed Justin’s eyes before succumbing to shadow. He walked down it slowly, now not quite as sturdy on his feet. His centre, his core, had been ripped out from his inside. The voice in his head was drowned out by the wall thumping, window rattling music. Kellie and her friends were still in the middle of it, their knees bending and twisting. Their fingers pointing in the air.
Amelia ran forward and jumped at him from out of nowhere.
“You asshole!” she exclaimed. “What the fuck are you telling that weirdo to come and talk to me –”
Justin grabbed her wrist and dragged her down the hallway till they were at the apartment door. He pushed it open and stood outside in the corridor, looking around nervously. Amelia reluctantly followed him out. “What?” she said.
“I have to ask you something,” Justin said. “It’s serious.”
“Right.”
“And look, if it’s just a joke or whatever, I’m not mad but I do have some questions –”
“Spit it out, Justin.”
He sighed. Then handed her his phone. “Read that. From the top.”
Eyebrows raised, Amelia looked down at the phone.
A moment passed.
“Did you send me that?”
“Nope.”
He put his hands to his hips. “I didn’t think so, but just in case it’s all a big joke, I’ll ask you a second time. Did you –?”
“No. No it’s not me. I’m … all for a prank, but … this seems a little bit elaborate, don’t you think?”
Justin lowered his eyes to the floor.
“Are these photos attached?” Amelia asked.
“Yeah. I – yeah.”
“Fuck.”
Justin coughed. Looked around again.
“What are they like, naked pictures –”
“Yes.”
“So your accounts have been hacked.”
“Must be.”
“And the additional photos. Taken by an ‘individual party’.”
“Don’t know where they came from.”
“Huh.” Amelia studied the email a little more, then handed him back the phone. “Even if this isn’t real, it’s going to fuck your night up something, yeah?”
Justin nodded. “At the very least we have a stalker. I can’t think of anyone who would do this as a joke.”
“But you thought of me first?”
“I don’t know,” Justin muttered. “Seemed like a preferred solution to whatever else this might be.”
Amelia glanced back at the door. “You gonna tell Kellie to shut this thing down?”
“I don’t know. Probably. What do you think I should do?”
Amelia exhaled. “You’ll probably want to get professional help. Good thing it’s at an arm’s reach for you.”
“Are you okay to stay here until we sort this thing out?”
“Well, I guess I have to, don’t I? Technically it’s not just you and Kellie who’ve been threatened. I’ve been threatened too.”
“As well as everyone else in that photo,” Justin said.
“That whole ‘kill one person every hour’ thing though. That’s going a bit far isn’t it? It’s not really something that this person’s going to be able to do. Right?”
Justin met her stare. “I certainly hope not.”
Chapter 4
A handful of blocks away Officer Ryan Dobbs was standing in line behind some old lady with a month’s shopping on the conveyer belt. He patiently clutched his meager basket containing a dozen lemons, a packet of corn chips and a bottle of soft drink, smiling as the lady turned at him. “You know there’s self-service just over there,” she suggested.
“I don’t mind waiting, dear,” Ryan replied. “Don’t worry about me.”
He noticed the cashier was careful not to make eye contact with him.
Another trolley came in from behind, sandwiching him in.
Ryan placed his basket on the spare bit of conveyer belt as the next lady began loading her stuff on from the end.
Eventually his turn came.
“Hello sir,” the cashier greeted. “How are you this evening?”
Ryan grinned. “Thanks for asking, Dina. I’m on the top of the world right about now. How are you?”
Her eyes darted round.
Punching in the buttons for the lemons.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You know I’m running late for a party,” Ryan said. “But I just had to come through here and see you. Especially after our little exchange last time.”
Dina swallowed. She looked apologetically towards the next customer.
“All I want is your phone number,” Ryan said. “Just pick up that pen over there when the receipt comes out and write it down for me.”
She looked up to him. “Cash or card?”
Ryan pulled out his card and held it out to the machine. “I’m an officer of the law so, you have to obey me, don’t you?”
The receipt started to print out.
Dina looked at him carefully then spun round to seize the pen.
Ryan’s smile grew wider and wider as she hunched over to write on the receipt.
He pulled his groceries from the end, one hand free and outstretched, anticipating the number.
Dina quickly stuffed it into his fingers and ushered him along.
Ryan held it in his fist tightly all the way back to the car. He threw his groceries in the back next to the tequila, climbed in the driver’s seat and unraveled the ticket.
GET BENT ASSHOLE
Ryan burst out laughing. He leaned over, looking out his window back through the glass sliding doors into the supermarket. He could see her watching him from the corner of her eye, spying on his reaction.
“I think I love you, baby,” Ryan said out loud. “Now I know you love me too.”
The Evil One (Guess The Killer Book 3) Page 1
