The Killer Among Us

Chapter 18

Twelve days left

Jacob

Early in the morning I looked up a diner nearby and drove there, my stomach groaning with hunger.

As I entered the tiny, ordinary diner, the smell of pancakes and coffee hit my nostrils, making my mouth water instantly.

I sat down in a red-leather booth towards the back of the diner and gazed out the window. Outside, light snow was falling but the world was still, peaceful even.

I almost considered it beautiful but the memories of last night kept creeping their way up to the surface, haunting me. The sound of flies buzzing in my ear and the smell of rotten flesh making me sick to my stomach.

A young waitress with long blonde hair approached me with a notebook and pen in her hands. She smiled politely and asked, "What can I get you, sweetie?"

I responded, "Just a coffee for now," without really looking at her.

With a swift, "Coming right up," she turned around and left.

My eyes followed her mindlessly for a second, the feeling that something wasn't quite right was slowly deafening my senses. Suddenly, I realised that she was bleeding from the back of her head. The blood was dripping down, staining her gorgeous blonde curls and yet, she didn't seem to notice.

"Wait!" I called after her, "Your head!"

She froze on the spot and turned around eerily slow.

When her face turned to me, she wasn't the polite stranger from before anymore. She looked almost identical to a love I once knew.

"Ava?"

Almost immediately as I said her name, she started coughing up gushes of blood but no one in the diner seemed to notice. No one even looked in our direction. With slow and crooked steps, she came closer to me. Her eyes were tearing up blood and her lips mouthed, "You did this."

With every step she took towards me, my heart beat a little faster.

"You did this," she whispered, eyes locked with mine.

Her steps were getting faster, the blood was all over the floor.

"YOU DID THIS TO ME," she yelled as she suddenly wrapped her cold hands around my neck, choking me with all her might.

It felt like she was squeezing my life out of me. No matter what I did, my body didn't fight her. It was as if it knew that I deserved this, as if it accepted defeat.

Only when my mind caught up with my body and I embraced the inevitable did I realise this was a dream. The sensation of letting go, the peace of it, was too exquisite to be real.

That was when I woke up, still sitting in my car under the bridge.

I inhaled huge gulps of air as if I was drowning. My grip on reality was slipping, everyday it was harder to distinguish what was real and what was merely a figment of my imagination.

The air around me was freezing, stinging my skin and making me shiver. The pain, however, helped me to calm down.

"If I just focus on the pain, I'll know," I told myself, but deep down I knew that my mind was slowly decaying.

Needing something to revive me, I opened my glovebox and searched for a blissful relief, a box of pills I stashed in there a long time ago. "In case I really needed it," was the excuse I came up with.

The rattling of the bottle brought back uncomfortable memories as I dry swallowed the pill, embracing the swift ease it granted.

The events of last night kept rushing through my mind in pieces, small but heavy pulses of panic coursing through me. There was no way to comprehend what I witnessed in that god-forsaken apartment: the blood, the hacksaw, the finger. Even the smell seemed to have clawed onto my senses.

I desperately craved a hot shower to wash away the filth that clung to me.

"If only there was a way to find out who's finger it was," I wondered.

If it was indeed Aria's then she was probably already dead. Although that conclusion was gut wrenching, it was the only probable outcome. I pondered over ways to find out, to make sure, that this wasn't Aria's finger. Unless I knew, this search was useless.

Suddenly, it hit me. There was a way, a way that was beyond reasonable.

"I need the files," I whispered.

When I glanced at the clock, I let out a curse. I already wasted half the day away. I needed to come up with a plan as soon as possible but what I had in mind was better done in the dark.

So, I drove back to Eddie's apartment, telling him about the blood, the finger, everything.

Surprisingly, all this didn't seem to phase him. Normally, blood and gore would have made him throw up. He just kept staring at me with cold, calculating eyes.

"I have to break into the police station," I told him, "To get the files of the other victims."

At that he scoffed, his humor once again lightning the atmosphere.

"Uh, do you really think that you can manage that?" He asked, slightly baffled that I even considered it.

"I don't really have another choice, Eddie."

The weight of the situation lingered in the room. But awkwardness between the two of us wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities.

"Why are you acting so weird?" I asked him after a while but he wouldn't stop staring.

"You're the one acting weird, man!" He threw back in a defensive tone. "I'm just saying, breaking into the police station seems a little out of your league."

"My sister was kidnapped, Eddie. Everything about this is out of my league," I spat at him in anger, enunciating every single word.

At that he stiffened, "Look, I'm sorry, Jace. I'm just trying to help. I don't know. Just - I don't exactly know how to handle this either, man." His head hung low in defeat, his voice laced with remorse.

I shot him an apologetic smile, nodding softly.

He shut his eyes for a moment and leaned back on the couch, letting out a desperate breath.

"So, are you going to help me do this or what?" I mockingly asked him.

He chuckled softly and looked up to me, finally saying, "Of course, you idiot."

We came up with a plan, not a great one, but a plan nonetheless. Eddie went over it with me at least ten times. "Just to make sure you don't forget, dude," he elaborated. The numerous repeating of the plan seemed pointless to me. There weren't many steps to the plan after all.

For a while we just sat on the couch, waiting for dusk to arrive. As we were waiting, my thoughts were with Aria, desperately trying to remember if she was wearing nailpolish or not. If only I could have remembered then, I wouldn't have had to risk getting caught.

"This is a suicide mission," Eddie breathed, interrupting my thinking.

"I know, Eddie," I silently admitted, "But what kind of brother would I be if I didn't even try?"

The words hung heavy between us, the air was thinning. Slowly but surely, nightfall was coming and with it another desperate attempt at finding Aria set in motion.

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