The Online Profile of a Teenage Killer

Posted Yesterday

The black computer case...wait. Let me start over.

The black heavy AF metal box has no handles so I have to carry it from the bottom with both hands, its top edge digging painfully into my chest as I run into the wilderness. Oh Jesus, I have an itch on my nose. I add "I get to scratch my nose" to the Top 5 Reasons Why I Should Just Let the Cops Catch Me click bait flashing in the right margin of my brain.

I can hear them behind me, yelling stop, over the sound of handcuffs, flashlights and stuff rattling and clinking on their belts, but maybe that's just my imagination – maybe that's just the sound I think cops make when they run. They chase me through the field and between the twin cell towers – the same cell towers from the photos. My A.D.D. flashes images of all the photos Leonard had sent me, like a slideshow app in my mind, as my legs propel me over long yellow grass and passed dying trees. Weird, right? I'm running for my freedom and – wait a second, that tree looks like the Weeknd!

Who am I kidding. Scratching my face, dropping the heavy metal box, those aren't the only reasons tempting me to give up. Those aren't the only reasons I want to stop, fall to my knees with my sweaty hands raised up in the air. I want them to take me away from everything, not just the people and the fucking high school, but Facebook and the Internet and everything that started this shit. I wish I had never created that Simon account. I wish I had never catfished Nadia and all those poor girls, and maybe then, that fuckboy would still be alive.

There's a ditch up ahead, and I try to jump over it, but instead my foot plops right in the middle of it, ankle deep in mud, and I stumble forward without my shoe. Fuck it. Shitty muck water soaks into my other shoe. My wet sock makes suction cup noises with every step. The mud doesn't smell like shit but it smells like something pretty close.

The cop-sounds behind me are fading in the distance.

A mini-SUV honks and swerves as I jump onto a paved road and dart down its shoulder.

What the fuck, I know that violet neon sign ahead. I know that motel. I'm rushing towards the motel from Leonard's photos. How the fuck did he know? Is he there waiting for me? The thought slows me down, but the sudden sirens I hear in the distance speeds me up again.

So I imagine Nadia there. Nadia opening one of the motel doors wearing nothing but a towel. Or maybe her uniform with the illegally short kilt. Yes, a kilt. Kilts are bae.

But instead, I turn the corner into the motel parking lot and I don't see anything because my eyes are stinging from forehead sweat and my chest feels like fire and all I can think about is how the fuck did it get to this?

Oh yeah. Facebook.

NOTE TO READERS: Welcome to the mystery of Sammy Jankis, a high school loner obsessed with Facebook. Sammy is happy with his online existence, until a hacker takes control of his account, threatening to spill his secrets to the whole school--including a dark secret involving a missing classmate.

If the story intrigues you, don't forget to VOTE, COMMENT and SHARE. Only together can we solve the big question--who is Sammy Jankis?

I.