The Other One

Author's Note: This is part 2 of this tale. I'm new to Vocal, and not sure how, or if, I can link it to the first part on Vocal in some fancy way, but here's a link - https://vocal.media/stories/the-other-one

~*~

Mike woke up trembling. This wasn't new to him of course. It had been a week now, and people were only just beginning to leave him alone. The cops, having lost the woman, had followed their standard protocol and arrested anyone nearby, regardless of evidence and circumstance. Of course, that had meant Mike in this case, as he was the only available body available.

He'd been dragged, beaten, partly burned, soiled, smelly and bloody as he was, in handcuffs, to the station and subject to a barrage of questions from a series of angry coppers.

Possibly because he was still stunned from the whole incident he'd simply refused to answer any questions at all, much to their growing anger. If his brief hadn't turned up when she did it was likely he'd have 'fallen down some stairs'. As it was, he'd been advised to shut up - not a problem - whilst she had stern words with the authorities.

A short time later he'd been unceremoniously ejected from the station and allowed to wander home, a period of history he couldn't remember. The ordeal wasn't over though. The whole thing had been caught on the stores' CCTV, which was leaked online, and it had become an overnight sensation. The woman was now number one on the wanted list of just about everyone, from the law to news stations, to every single person on social media.

Despite all the infamy, the woman remained at large. The same couldn't be said for Mike though, and he'd had buy a new SIM card for his phone and crash at a friends', currently unused, bachelor pad. He'd very quickly given up going online.

Of course, the police had interviewed him several more times. He'd stuck to his story, which was the truth, now backed up by the CCTV footage, and they'd eventually left him alone, though not before a series of very specific threats.

Several reporters had tracked him down as well, but he'd managed, with some difficulty to finally elude them.

So now he lay on his bed and quivered. Finally alone.

And despite everything, all he could think about was her.

She'd destroyed his life, and his workplace, caused him a great deal of pain and suffering, and yet all he could think about was the kiss! He had to see her again! It was crazy he knew, but she was like a drug, and he was addicted, and addicted hard.

He made a decision. Pulling himself up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He would see her again. He didn't know how, considering she'd vanished off the face of the earth - the cops had run into a dead end – no fingerprints, no trace from the weapons, nothing from the public - but he knew he would see her again.

Slightly unsteadily, it had been a day or two since he’d eaten, Mike climbed to his feet and padded, barefoot, over to his laptop. Turning it on he studiously avoided checking his email, or any of his social media accounts.

In fact, he stopped typing as a thought struck. In fact, why go on the regular web at all? He wasn’t much of a techy, but some months previously a friend of his had installed a browser, a window he’d called it, to the dark web.

Mike had looked, as had everyone else, all over the internet for the girl and had drawn a blank. Maybe he would have better luck on the supposedly seedier side of the interwebs.

Digging out the ‘readme’ file his friend had set up for him, he followed the instructions within, and soon found himself on a bulletin board, which looked rather similar to the boards he’d been on previously, except this one had sections for drugs and, well, other things.

He scrolled down, browsing around for a while, until he found a thread started by someone called Mr. Fixit. Apparently Mr. Fixit could arrange any number of things, from hard to get substances to even harder to get human merchandise and, most importantly from Mike’s point of view: information.

He followed the instructions at the top of the thread and sent a brief message to Mr. Fixit, telling him he wanted to find the Gas Station Killer Babe, as some people were calling her.

The task done, he leaned back, wondering if he should eat something. No doubt it would be a day or so…

The screen pinged, and a request for a chat box popped up. It was from Mr. Fixit.

Mike hesitated only a moment. He’d dug himself in this far after all. He clicked on ‘accept’.

“Hello’ he typed.

“I’ve seen your request. Why do you want to find her?’ came the reply.

Mike paused, slightly concerned about giving his identity away, but then everyone knew of him anyway, so it wasn’t like this was really an issue.

“I’m the,” he paused, then sighed and carried on typing. “Gas Station Chicken Bitch,” he finished. He also had several other nicknames now, and this was probably the best of the bunch.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Let’s video chat then, if that’s true. You could be someone just saying that.”

Again, Mike paused only a moment. In for a penny…

He clicked accept again on the new box that popped up. This time it was a video stream, although Mr. Fixit could only be seen as a silhouette. Understandable enough.

“Well, it really is you!” Even his voice was disguised, coming across the net as a rough, dalek sound.

“Yes.”

“So you want to find your girlfriend then.”

“Yes, can you do anything?”

“Why haven’t you tried a regular P.I?” Fixit asked.

“I figured, with the reward, they would have already looked. I thought, perhaps, you might be different.”

“Hahaha,” The laughter, through the synth, came out as flat and dead. “I may be on the dark side, but I’m still just a person,” came the reply.

“So you can’t help?” Mike slumped.

“Hold on, hold on, I didn’t say that did I?”

“Really?”

“I don’t know who she is, for sure, but I have been digging. It seems that this isn’t the first sighting of this woman, though it’s certainly the highest profile.”

“What? How come no one else knows of this?” Mike asked.

“Some people, certain cops and so on, do, I know for sure they do. However, they don’t go around sharing things like this.”

“Tell me!” Mike sat up straight in his chair, becoming animated for the first time in days.

“Well hold on now there fellah, this information isn’t free.”

“Oh, yes. How much?”

There was a pause, and Mike was about to say something when Mr. Fixit finally replied.

“For you, because it is you, I’ll do a deal. Five hundred, but you tell me what you find. There’s something really weird going on, and it’s attracted my curiosity, I will admit.”

“How do I pay you?”

“Here. Go to this website, fill in the boxes.”

“Is that it?” Mike raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, it’s the modern age. What did you expect, a drop in the city square at midnight?”

“Very well.” Mike clicked on the link that appeared at the bottom of the chat screen.”

“Excellent, I’ll email you the details when I get the cash.” The screen flicked out.

“But you don’t know… my email address,” Mike trailed off.

With some trepidation, he opened the link and followed the instructions for payment. This may be crazy, but he needed to do something, and he had a feeling…

Payment sent, he say in front of the screen and crossed his hands, waiting.

He sat there for half an hour, and was wondering if he’d been stupid, when there was a ping from his email.

He opened it up, and then opened up the attached files.

There wasn’t much there, but what there was was new to him. It seemed there had been minor disturbances involving a young woman, who very closely matched the description of his woman, for four or five months previous to his incident. They had started small, from shoplifting, up to, a week before Mike’s encounter, assault. Three men had apparently decided to ‘have a bit of fun’ with the woman after having some beers, and had, somehow, come away with fairly serious injuries, including broken bones.

Mike raised an eyebrow.

There was more, this time with speculation and conjecture included with information taken from police files, and there were also witness statements Each time the woman disappeared without a trace.

Finally there were some notes that seem to have been pulled together by Mr. Fixit. He’d had information from some other source, unidentified in the documents, which had given him a rough location of where, for reasons he didn’t go into, he though the woman could be actually found.

Mike’s heart started to race, and he clicked on the map.

The location, marked with a red X was a large building barely five miles from Mike’s former place of employment, in the centre of a medium sized, sleepy, fairly well-off suburb.

Eyes wide, Mike clicked the print key, and ran over to pull the map off. He started to pull on his shoes when he stopped short, catching his reflection on the mirror. A dirty, bedraggled image stared back at him. This wouldn’t do! He couldn’t meet Her like this.

Dragging his clothes off he made his way to the bathroom, where he spent a frantic period of time on some much needed personal grooming.

An hour later he was ready. Dressed in some decent, clean, clothes stolen from his mate’s wardrobe, he stepped out into the daylight. Blinking in the sun, he unlocked his friend’s bike and began pedalling.

~*~

“Oh, this can’t be right.”

It was some time later, and Mike had arrived at his destination. Panting slightly, he double checked the map. Nope, this was it. And it explained why it was a large building.

He was standing in front of: ‘The Holy Mother Synthia’s Puritanical Boarding School for Young Girls, (aged eight to sixteen).’

“What the hell?” Mike said.

...More to come!