The hot steam from the shower filled the bathroom. It made my skin warm, as the water ran down my bare body, gently rubbing my wash cloak against my arms and legs. Feeling completely relaxed from the softness. Breaking out of my relaxation, I step out of the shower and dried my feet on the rug as I wrapped the towel, that was hanging on the rack, around myself. I walk over to the sink and analyzed myself in the mirror, trying to psych myself up for today. Second guessing myself about the new change that's about to happen.
When I was done getting ready, drying off and getting dressed, I sat on my living room couch, getting ready to call my father to invite him to my house. He answered the phone immediately as I began to speak.
"Hey dad, I'm up early and I'm ready to start moving the rest of my stuff, I'd really appreciate it if you would come over and help me with some of these boxes."
My father babbled on the phone with me for a bit about his job until he finally agreed to come assist me. He seemed busy as always but at least he took time out to come help me to show that he cares. I hung up the phone and started to gather all the boxes together so it'll be easier to take them all to the moving van once he arrives. Once I organized the heavy boxes, I turned on the radio ,that was sitting on the dining table, and jammed out to the loud tunes. The music was loud and made me feel vibrant all over. I smile spread across my face as my favorite song played. Maybe this moving isn't so bad after all, I don't understand why I was so worried in the first place.
Dad finally made it here to my house, he was still in his police uniform like usual. Indicating that he just got off his shift.
"You've finally made it. I thought police officers were supposed to be at their destination quicker." I laughed as I hugged him.
"Well yes, it's nice to see you too y/n."
Behind his tuff guy persona, he knew I was just joking with him. It's been like this for years between us. We would always make jokes like this, and get along in our own way. Although it didn't use to be like that though, when my mom was still with us. It felt like his entire personality changed after that incident. The healing process for him was different though. But at the end of the day, it was very traumatic for the both of us. But we're still working through it together. Even though it still feels like I'm stepping on egg shells around him.
After sometime of moving everything to the van, and clearing out most of the rooms, we were practically done. I watched my dad pick up the last few boxes that were sitting in the living room. I leaned against the couch, waiting for my dad to finish so we can take the couch to the van next.
"Yo dad, can you help me lift this?" I asked as he came back inside, he agreed and he went to the other end of it, we lifted it together.
The couch was heavy but with dad's strength we got it in the van pretty quick. A couple minutes past and we're done packing everything up, as my father organized the back of the van I looked around my now ,old, empty house and I let out a deep sigh.
"I'm kinda gonna miss this place, I hope my new home gives me the same comfort as this one." I said quietly to myself.
With that, I walked out of the front door and locked it for the very last time.
I walked towards the van as dad was already closing it the back of it.
"Alrighty, looks like your all set and ready to go." he said as he clapped his hands together, dusting them off.
I gave him another hug before I got into the van. It felt like our relationship was going to disappear now that I'm moving further away.
"You promise to visit me whenever you have the time, right?" I muffled in his shoulder.
"Of course I will sweetie, why wouldn't I?" He said reassuring me.
He patted my back and I stared at him one last time until I finally turned my back and got into the van. I started up the vehicle I waved goodbye to him through the car window. He waved back as I started to drive onto the road. I kept looking at the side view mirror to see him, I kept looking until he was unrecognizable. I sighed again.
"This was for the better, especially for my new job and income." I smile as I stared at the road, feeling hopeful for my new home.
By the time I arrived at my new home it was already sundown, I parked the van in front of my home and exited the vehicle. Before I went inside the house I made sure that the cameras were installed outside the house. I wanted to check immediately in case I had to make a complaint to the landlord but everything looked well in place. At the moment, as I was checking out the camera in the front yard, I was interrupted by someone yelling. I turned around to see where it was coming from and it was one of the neighbors across the fence of my yard. They appear to trying to get my attention. They looked way older than me but not old enough to have wrinkles, I'd say he looked at least old enough to be someone's dad. He wore a flannel with jeans, kinda looks like a hillbilly type look.
"Hey there, sorry to bother you but do you live here?" The neighbor asked.
"Well, yeah. Now I do. Why?" I crossed my arms already a little annoyed by this person.
Getting a weird vibe to why this stranger was asking me such questions.
"Oh then you must be y/n. I'm apart of the neighborhood watch group you joined recently, we were told you were moving in today. It's exciting to see new faces around here."
He said in a welcoming tone. A smile slowly formed on my face, glad that I was able to put my guard down and not worry if this man was going to sexually harass me. I walk up to the fence and I put out my hand to greet him back.
"It's nice to meet you as well, mister. What's your name?"
"I go by Robert" he shook my hand back.
"Looks like you've got a lot of stuff there in that van, you need a hand?" He offered, "I could use some help, but don't expect me to pay you." I nudged him to reassure him that I was only teasing him. He chuckled.
All the boxes were now moved to the living room area of my new home, Robert even helped moved the couches in, and my dining table. I already set up my computer and bed while everything else was still in boxes.
"Well looks like my work here is done." Robert stated as he placed his hands on his hips.
"Thanks again, I wouldn't have gotten this much done without help." I turned to him.
"Don't worry about it, I'll see you around. Goodnight new neighbor." He waved at me as he left my home.
I was now left in this half decorated home of mine.
"God I'm exhausted." Before I went to bed, I decided to set up my computer and plug everything in.
It seemed that it still needs some time to boot up, I had no motivation to deal with technology right now so I let my computer do its thing and finish it tomorrow.
"I can finally get some sleep" I took off my clothes and threw my clothes down onto the floor of my bedroom.
Not caring about changing in pajamas whatsoever. I cuddled myself underneath the blanket, letting my muscles relax after all the moving around today. Eventually, between the soft blankets and new AC in this house, falling asleep was easy.
But unfortunately, not even minutes later, I started to have a really bad nightmare that slowly turned into a night terror. I rustled in my bed hoping that it will end soon but it kept going on. I whimpered as sweat dripped down my face. I felt so overwhelmed and scared. It felt like I was in danger. Finally I managed to wake up from it, my entire body was trembling afterwards. I sat up from my bed, trying to calm down my fast breathing. I got up from my bed and went to the bathroom to wash the sweat off my face, I ended up staying up a bit later after that.
The next morning I woke up with an aching back, I think I only got 4 hours of sleep due to the terrible dream I had. This isn't the first time that this happened, but at the same time it doesn't happen to often. Most of the time, these only occur when something stressful is happening in my life. I guess being in a new house by myself is what triggered it mostly. I used to take prescriptions in case it got very bad but I hate taking them, they make me feel so anxious and tired all the time. I haven't told my dad about these night terrors, I don't want to make him worry about me, and I definitely don't want to bring up traumatic events from the past.
As I got ready for the day I dialed a near by pizza place for breakfast on my phone since I had nothing else to eat in this new home. My fridge was completely empty. As I waited for the pizza to get here I started unpacking the rest of my things. Hanging up my clothes in the bedroom closet, putting the dishes in the cabinets, finishing up my computer and so on. At this rate, I only had a few more boxes left and they were mainly filled with journals and files that were cases from my old job. My files were in this small cabinet in a different room, it was still very empty in there so I always kept it locked since I had no use for it at the moment. How ever, I had an extra room in my house across from my bedroom, not sure what I should put in there. Maybe I could make it into a office and put my computer in there instead, or I can make it into a guest room for when my dad comes to visit. I wasn't too sure. But for now it remand empty.
As I was beginning to start working on my computer, I heard a knock at my door followed up with a door bell sound. I answered it, and was met with the delivery guy. I greeted the pizza guy who didn't care about greeting back. He was a little rude and tried to rush me to pay as quickly as possible. I handed him the money and grabbed my pizza. Before he could say another word, I slammed my door in his face.
I sat the box on the kitchen counter and took a few slices and placed it on a plate. I then went back into the living room and switched on the tv. I watched the news as I ate my meal. I glanced at the bottom of the screen to see the time, I didn't notice it was already 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I must've slept in for a while, those dreams I had did keep me up last night. This has me considering if I should start taking my medication again. As I finished my pizza I turned down the tv a bit and started working on my computer again.
I used to be a full time journalist at my old job, helping my dad get his name out there as a hard working police officer. But now I help him solve cases sometimes. Being in the watch group and solving theses requests from citizens can also help find who is who in different cases if the evidence matches up perfectly. Sometimes I even go as far to even go to forbidden sites to find a lead, but also to catch people doing illegal shit. Although it sounds easy, I have to be very careful while on there. I've heard many stories and about people coming up missing from even being on those sites for a second, which is why I have a vpn to keep me protected. I've never seen anything too bad on there as in what I heard with rumors, that's only because I only scratch the surface of those sites. It's the dark web that I should mainly be worried about. There's a difference.
Now zoned out doing my work, I kept getting request from numerous amount of people about missing citizens. Most of these were recent as well which had me worried being that it was in my new neighborhood. Some witnesses say they saw a man wearing a white coat that creeps around people's houses, or a buff man with arm tattoos. This was a huge coincidence since they were also in the BOLOS the team sent to me, I read about them already and viewed their sketches. I'm sure finding these guys should be very simple, but the question that I had on my mind mainly is why we're they doing this to innocent people? I started to write an email to the team leader to see if they experienced anything with these guys, he wrote back minutes later explaining directly that he hasn't. I suppose I'll have to be the one to put an end to this.
Like I said before, i used to help my father solve cases. This isn't the first time I took someone down like this. I just hope I can do this without the help of my dad.
As I finished reading his email, I checked into the deep web to find any leads, or similar cases that can help track them down. I scrolled and scrolled and couldn't find anything, only weird videos of people wearing diapers, or some crackhead trying to sell some rip-off movies. The only consistent thing that came up was a man named Adam, I have no idea who that was. But a lot of people talked about him on the forms. Maybe he was some kind of celebrity? They seem to be discreet about him, but everyone praises him for some reason.
I continued to scroll on the web far down until I found a link to a video that stood out. It was sent by a user that was talking to his friends, in the description he says
"Hey guys, check out this recent footage of this girl, you'll love it" left with a hear emoji.
I hesitated to click on it but my curiosity got the best of me, it couldn't be that bad. As I clicked on the link a video popped up, the thumbnail was blurred but it was clear that there were multiple people in it.
As the video started playing I started to hear spine shivering screaming, as if the person was crying for help. The video was focused on the sky for a bit until it moved to a woman that was laying on the floor, no clothes, being raped by a man wearing a mask. I sat there in shock as I moved back from the monitor, I felt a disgusting feeling in my stomach as the video still played. There were multiple men surrounding her, enjoying her pain as she cried. As the camera moved around I saw one of the guys that the reports had described, he also looked similar to his sketch as well. I quickly rewind and paused the video when his face was visible.
"I can't believe it, it's actually him."
After that, I then tried to make out the face of the women in the video, she was white with black curly hair. I quickly opened my requests and tried to find any cases that fit the description of the victim and I found it almost immediately, it says here in the request ,that her parents made, that she's been missing for five days now. Maybe, just maybe if any more of these victims went missing in the past couple of days, the same as she has, then they can all lead up to the same person.
As I went into researched about her case, I put most of the evidence that I had together in a digital folder. As I was working on it, I suddenly received an email from the leader of the watch group. The subject line was empty, which was strange since he usually doesn't leave it blank. His email was straight forward, he was talking about a irrelevant news article which followed up with a link that led to the news website. It was nine o'clock at night, why is he emailing me about this at this time? I clicked on the link and nothing loaded on my screen. Only a few seconds by for the website to finish loading, but what the link led me to wasn't a website at all. The screen was totally black with a bunch of unreadable code.
I was confused and tried to exit out the website but nothing happened, I was stuck with this.
"What the fuck" I mumbled.
I turned off my computer screen and turned it back on and still nothing happened. I went on my phone and emailed the leader him from there since my computer was completely unusable at the moment. I asked him what was that link he sent me, I hoped that he didn't give me a virus. As I waited for a email back from him, I paced around my living room hoping that I didn't lose all the evidence I had, I began to get a bit paranoid and started worry if my computer was broken. But then I got a notification from my phone, it was him. I quickly opened the email and he wrote back, straight forward.
"I didn't send you any link, or email. If you're having any issues with your email please call me-" I had no use of reading the rest. If he didn't send me that link, then who did?
My heart dropped as I started to remember the rumors of people going missing after visiting such websites. I quickly ran to my computer and shut it off completely. Unplugging it and everything.
"Did someone track me through the email!?" I said to myself as I quickly started to check every window in my house, making sure they were all locked.
I wanted to check the cameras but I was too afraid to turn my computer back on.
"Ok,ok, i need to calm down. Maybe it was just spam mail that I received. I also had a vpn so I'm fine, everything is fine." I controlled my breathing a bit and leaned against the couch.
I convinced myself nothing was going to happen to me but my paranoia still lingered around me. Causing any tiny sound or movement I heard scare me.
I went into my kitchen and grabbed the knife just incase, it made me build up enough courage turn my computer back on. It struggled to boot up at first but then it ended up being fine. I checked the cameras ,that was linked to my computer, and sighed in relief when I ended up not seeing anything suspicious. But my guy kept telling me to check one more time, so I did. That's when I saw I man wearing a white jacket, running to my house in the backyard. I was in stricken with fear, without hesitation I ran to my bedroom ,which had the window that led to the background.
My eyes darted around the room, trying to see if he was already inside. I checked under the bed and looked out the window. There was no one there.
"I'm seeing shit, there's no way someone tracked me." I suppose my paranoia was getting the best of me, I did have night terrors last night, maybe it's still affecting me.
Besides, if any one were to get in, they couldn't, since the window was already locked. As I quietly moved backwards out of the room, still being cautious, I slowly closed the door and started to quietly move down the hall, still on edge.
Suddenly, I felt something move behind me, it felt as if a ghost just appeared behind. I know for sure that he was there. It's like I could hear everything that they were doing, even their slight heavy breathing. It felt like my body was moving in slow motion, I was terrified knowing that he directly behind me, getting ready to do something. Once I built up the courage to finally turn around, I slashed the knife to my intruder. I was right, he was in here after all. This man probably snuck in through a different window when I was distracted.
The man dodged the knife and caught my wrist at rapid speed. I was caught off guard by this action. He looked at the knife then back to me, that's when he pulled me into him, attempting to grab my throat. But using my unoccupied hand, I punched him right in the jaw and kicked him off with my foot. Making him let go off me. We both fell backwards ,he managed to keep his balance meanwhile I stumble onto the floor, but I rushed out of my position and ran to to the kitchen. I heard his loud footsteps coming after me from behind. I tried to find another weapon but he came from behind me and bent me over onto the counter, pushing his hands on my back and head to pin me down. With quick thinking, I saw a plate in the sink and threw it at his face using all the strength that I had to get him off. He held his face as the ceramic plate shattered against his skin, but it didn't affect him for too long. Right before I was about to make another run for it, he grabbed me by my throat, so tightly to the point I felt my body go numb for second, and proceeded to slammed me to the floor with full force blowing all the air out of my lungs.
I laid on the floor gasping and coughing for air still trying to crawl away, making little to no effort, the man in white climbed on top of me and grabbed my jaw to face him. Now that I was weak and not in fighting mode, I got a clear look at his face, he was white with noticeable brown eyes and silk back hair.
I haven't really noticed, but he was smiling the entire time this was going on, it was very sinister like.
"Well, I usually don't get into many fights with my victims but that was fun. I haven't done it in a while." The man in white spoke for the first time, in frustration I kept turning my head so I wouldn't look at his creepy ass eyes, but he wouldn't allow it.
He forced me to look, he grabbed my face again but turned it harder, giving me pain in my jaw. I grabbed his hand trying to rip his hand off my face.
"Who the hell even are you!? What could you possibly want with me!?" I said kicking my legs, getting angrier and angrier the tighter he held me.
"Oh don't worry, we'll discuss everything you need to know at dinner." The man began reaching in his pocket and pulled out a huge syringe.
My eyes widen as it made it way towards my neck.
"Fuck! Don't you dare!" I tried to shout and pull away but before I can make another attempt to escape, he has already began injecting it in my neck.
The man finally removed his hand off my face, I still tried to get up after he did so, maybe even punch the guy for hurting me, but I couldn't stay up. It felt like my body was getting tired the more I moved. The man, who was already standing up, watched over me. Amused by me still trying to fight it. I decided to give up as my eyes rolled back, and slowly fell asleep on my kitchen floor. I managed to let out a few words before going out.
"I'm.. gonna kill .. you."
I started to hear echos , sounded like someone was talking to themselves. I opened my eyes but the bright light caused me to squint them, how long was I out for? The more I started to gain consciousness, I tried to look around my surroundings. I'm still in my house, I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing though. I then noticed that I was sitting at my dining table, a plate of pizza sat in front of me, the pizza I ordered earlier. There was also a file, a knife, and a pack of cigarettes. I groaned as I started developing a headache from the fight, I looked up from the table and the same man sat across from me, who was twirling a cigarette in his hand. I tried to move from my chair but I was tied to it. My breathing picked up its pace as I looked around, panicking. The entire house was dark except, the dining room. I scooted my chair backwards to get out the table but before I could've done anything more, the man got up from his seat and grabbed the chair. He pushed my chair back in and patted my head. He chuckled a bit and sat back down, across from me.
"Finally you're awake, you slept for almost an hour."
I looked at him with a glare and stayed silent. I just wanted to know what a man like this could possibly want from me. He placed his hands on the table as his smile grew larger, he then grabbed the knife that was sitting in front of me.
"You really need to work on your fighting skills y/n, if you weren't so easy to predict then maybe you could've won against me." He said as he poked the tip of the knife on his finger.
I felt uneasy, like I wanted to throw up from fear. This situation was inevitable, and I had no idea what to do. But another question lingered in my mind, how did he know my name? The light above us felt as if it was burning my skin off. The tension weighed on my shoulders more, thinking of the fact that he had already knew me. But this man, he still had that fucking grin on his face. What could he possibly have in mind?
"Who-who are you?" I said as I tried to keep my cool, but you can hear the fear in my voice when I asked.
"Oh of course,how rude of me. My name is Tanner. It's a pleasure." There was silence for a moment.
"Ok Tanner, what do you want from me? Money?"
Tanner finally put the knife down, not breaking eye contact. I noticed his hands were a bit shaky while placing the knife down. He didn't know how to stay still. It seemed like he always in need to grab onto something.
"Absolutely not, y/n." He responded and stood up, he slowly made his way towards me.
"You see, you've seemed to be causing a lot of hard times for my..business for the past few months now. I'm sure you're fond of it, since it is your job after all."
I didn't understand what he was trying to go on about, what could I, a retired journalist, could've possibly done?
"My job?.." I asked.
"Yes, your job. Y'know, solving cases, getting them arrested, playing the hero role to help your father on top of all of that. You seem to be very good at what you do."
He placed his hand on his chin, acting as if he was impressed.
"How-how do you know all of this..?" I trembled in fear, his knowledge on my life kept piling up.
Tanner walked behind my chair and placed his hands on the top rail. He slowly moved his hands down ,without saying a word, and placed his hands on my shoulders. His hands were still shaking, making me very uncomfortable, his touch felt like he was itching to hurt me.
"Don't worry, I wasn't stalking you, physically at least. But getting your information online wasn't that hard honestly. Going through your phone on top of that to find even more things I didn't know about you was even easier." Tanner's hands twitched more, as he was now speaking in a more earnest tone.
"Ok but, what does me doing my job have to do with you?" I asked, I just wanted this conversation to be over. I wanted all of this to be over already.
"Honestly, I'm very impressed with your work, you've arrested a lot of people who were apart of my work. It was all very impressive, for the most part. But, unfortunately, none of this didn't sit well with the higher up. Especially me. That's when he sent me to find you, you were a little difficult to look for at first. I even spilled some blood to get to you, I was eager to find y/n. I wanted to see who would have this much courage to do something like this, constantly for months, now here you are. Right in my grasp. Just a fragile girl who doesn't even know how to work a vpn correctly. I expected more of a competition for once, how disappointing."
I put my head down as I was trying not to give in to his words, I refuse to let him see me break down.
"So, what now? Are you going to take me somewhere?" I hesitated asking, even though I sorta already knew what the answer was.
Tanner then leaned over into my ear and whispered "Now I'm gonna kill you." He said, followed up with a sinister chuckle.
I sighed, tears started formed in my eyes as a knot grew in my throat. There was nothing I could do. I started to think of how my dad would feel when I died. I sighed once more as I struggled to get my words out, but I also had to accept the fact that I was about to be murdered.
"Fine, just get it over with." I closed my eyes, waiting for a knife to slice open my neck, or a knife penetrating in my skull. But nothing happened.
"Well, not now-" He said, he leaned over me and grabbed one of the files that were in the table.
He then opened it in front of me, which caused me to looked up, shocked that he didn't do anything. The file had a list of multiple different names, I recognized most of them.
"Since you did arrest a lot of them, I'm gonna savor you for a bit. Which means you won't die today at least." I didn't have anything else to say.
I was too in shock to the point I didn't even want to say anything. Tanner closed the file and moved it to the side. Tanner, who was still standing behind me, placed his hand on my head and started to play with my hair.
"Also if you try to leave or attack me, I won't hesitate to gut you open and send your head over to your father. I will always know whenever you try to escape. So don't try it." Tanner said as he pulled my head back to look at him, he still had that creepy smile on his face.
He then looked at my neck and noticed I had a bruise from his syringe earlier. He started to caress it gently, hands still shaking.
"Looks like you already have your first bruise." He said.
After we were finished talking, he locked me in the empty guest room across from my bedroom. Before he left the room, he gave me instructions on how to ask for things whenever I'm locked in here. He told me different types of knocks had different meanings, two knocks meant I needed him or three knocks were to go to the bathroom. Tanner didn't leave me anything in here, all I had were some boxes that I left in here from me unpacking. They were filled with nothing but clothes.
As I sat in the corner of the room, a looked at the window. He had already boarded it up with nails so I wouldn't try and escape. As I looked outside the window, I noticed it was at least two in the morning. I didn't know all of this lasted so long.
I opened one of the boxes and used one of the jackets that were in there as a blanket. As I was getting ready to sleep, I realized I couldn't. That when, without my knowledge, I had tears running down my face.
"No-no, no tears." I wiped them off.
"I'm gonna be ok, I'll find a way out of here. Besides, my dad should come save me soon. Right?" I whispered to myself as I laid on the floor, silently crying in my shoulder.
Why did this have to happen to me? I just wanted a fresh new start to my life.