The Mind Virus

Chapter 16 - Part 2

"Help! Help!" Terry cried out, frozen in place.

"Now, now, you know very well that there's no one around."

"Help! Help!"

"An old friend showed me this place. Well, he wasn't trying to show me. I was following him and this is where we ended up."

"Help! Help!"

"I couldn't help but notice that even the main trail didn't look frequently visited, let alone the rest of the woods."

"Help! Help! Help!"

"Hush now, Terrence. There's no point. No one walks out this far."

Terry wanted to run, but he knew he'd just get shot in the back if he did. He could try to charge this woman and take her down, but then he'd just get shot in the chest or face. With those options unavailable, he did the only thing he could think to do. "Help! Help! Help!"

"You really must calm down, Terrence. This is rather undignified. I know that there's no one here to watch, but still, you could try to maintain some composure for your own sake."

Terry was hyperventilating now. "How did you get that number?" he managed to half-say, half-breathe out.

"It's not rocket science. I work for the same organization whose employees you were in contact with. I do have to give credit where credit where credit is due, though. It was wholly my idea to pretend to work for the organization to get you out here."

"But you just said that you do work for the organization." Terry's lungs were burning, but he couldn't stop hyperventilating.

"Yeah, but not – come on, you know what I meant. There's no need for pedantry."

"How did you know I'd be here?"

"I attached a GPS tracker to your car. I figured you'd rush over here immediately anyway, but even if you hadn't, all I'd have had to do was wait for you to drive in this direction and then come here myself. Even if I'd end up a few minutes behind, the fruitless digging you'd be doing would have given me time to catch up."

"I mean how did you know I was in the Cedar Grove area? You did know, right? This location can't have been coincidence."

"Oh, nothing's coincidence when I'm involved." The woman flashed an evil smile. "How did I know you were in Cedar Grove? It's actually very simple. For starters, I had your full name thanks to that job you did for my employers."

"But how did they know it –"

"How did they know it was you using their operative's phone? Apparently he'd driven out to meet you and only you before you did whatever you did with him. So you see, it just couldn't have been anyone else."

"So you had my name. That doesn't explain how you tracked me down."

"Well, as I was about to tell you before you so rudely interrupted, with your name I could pull your car's records. From those, I was able to track you every time your car was caught by a traffic camera. And as if that wasn't enough, you were silly enough to pay for gas, food and motels with your card, which left a nice paper trail for me to follow. Kind of a poor show, really."

Terry was speechless. His complacency was going to get him killed.

"I expected more, to be honest. When they told me how you had removed – probably killed, but I won't bother asking – one of their men, and how you got them to give up information by impersonating him, well, what can I say? I thought I was dealing with a professional – a cold-blooded killer. Hell, maybe you are. A cold-blooded killer, that is, definitely not a professional." The woman laughed – cackled, really.

"Surely we can come to some agreement," Terry stammered.

"Please don't try. I know you might feel like you're buying yourself time, but your end is inevitable, and stretching it out will only make it more painful."

Terry gulped at the last word.

The woman must have noticed it. "No, not in that way," she comforted. "I'll make your death as painless as possible, assuming you don't try anything funny, of course. All I meant was that having a few more of these last minutes will bring you no pleasure."

"Oh," was all Terry could manage to say.

"But here you are successfully distracting me. I had a message for you, and from the big boss of the organization himself. He told me to tell you – let's see if I memorized this properly. He said to tell you, 'Fuck off, Terrence, you irritating worm. You should have taken the money, you cocksucker. Enjoy getting killed.' Yeah, I think that was it, word for word. I had it written down on a piece of paper, but I left it in the car, and I didn't feel it was right to drag you all the way there just for that. Also, then I'd have to lug your corpse all the way back here to bury it and, well, you're quite a bit bigger than me, and there might be people up there and – see, it's a whole thing."

Terry had known he was dying from the virus for a good few days now, but actually being minutes, if not seconds, from death was a wholly different sensation. He felt like his spirit was already leaving his body.

"You must forgive my rambling, Terrence. Like I said, I don't normally do this. I consider shooting to be quite a crass form of assassination. You see, usually I'm not face-to-face with my targets. I'm used to seeing them without them seeing me. I don't really know what the etiquette here is. Like, I don't want to be rude and just gun you down without saying anything, but at the same time, there's really nothing of substance to say considering you'll be dead in a moment. I mean, I had that message to give you, obviously, but – see, here I am rambling again, and you're not even responding."

Terry looked up at the woman.

"It seems sort of like you've checked out," she continued. "I don't blame you. You're in a more awkward position than I am." She cackled again. "Well, at least we can find comfort in each other's awkwardness, can't we?"

"Just fucking do it, you bitch," Terry spat. He was tired of being droned to in this faux-polite manner by his own killer.

"That's just unnecessary, Terrence, but I do see where you're coming from. Well, as you wish." She lifted up her pistol and pointed it at him.

Terry summoned up the strength to look her in the eye, before there was a loud pop and –