Authors: Amy Cross
“So the last time you saw Karen,” the officer says, making a note as we sit in the hotel's empty dining room, “was when the two of you finished your shift yesterday evening?”
Numb with shock, I simply nod. Too many thoughts are swirling through my thoughts. “She can't be missing,” I stammer. “There's no way Karen would go missing.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“I...” Thinking back, I try to remember every detail of that conversation, but in truth I was too caught up in my thoughts about the security camera. Why didn't I pay more attention? “We'd talked about getting a drink,” I mutter finally, “but then she said she couldn't make it. I think she said she was going to meet her boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” He flips back through his notes. “No-one else has mentioned a boyfriend.”
“His name was Daniel,” I reply.
“Do you have a surname?”
I shake my head.
“Any other details.”
I try to remember what Karen told me. “She said something about his English not being perfect. I think maybe he's foreign.”
“We'll check her social media,” he continues. “This Daniel guy -”
“Also, I think he was hitting her.”
He pauses. “What makes you say that?”
“I'm such a bad friend,” I continue, putting my head in my hands for a moment. “I tried to ask her about it, but she was so defensive, and I thought I could try again today.” I look at the officer again. “She went to lunch with him yesterday and she had a cut on her face when she got back, and she was really vague about how it happened. She said she tripped, but I didn't believe her.”
“Did you ever meet this Daniel fellow?”
I shake my head again.
“When exactly was she reported missing?” I ask.
“Her mother phoned us just after midnight to say that she hadn't come home.”
I stare at him for a moment. “That's only eight hours ago,” I point out cautiously. “Don't you usually have to wait twenty-four hours before you start investigating?”
“Ordinarily, yes, but -”
“Is there something else you haven't told me?”
He pauses, and I can see that he's holding something back. “I can't go into too much detail,” he says finally, “but an item was recovered close to Karen's home that makes us particularly concerned about her well-being.”
“Blood?”
“A mobile phone, but -”
“Hers?”
“Yes, but -”
“With blood on it?”
“I really can't get into specifics,” he says diplomatically, “but we're certainly treating this case as a priority. We've begun to look at CCTV footage that might have captured parts of her walk home, and we're going through her phone records, bank records, emails, anything that might help us put it all together.” He makes another note. “She didn't have any worries that she confided in you, did she? Now would be the time to tell us.”
“There's nothing,” I mutter, “but you have to find her. Her boyfriend Daniel, he -” Stopping suddenly, I realize that in my mind's eye I keep imagining Karen with the same Daniel who was at the cabin, even though I know for a fact that – just like Jennifer and the others – he's dead. I saw them all die. “You have to find him,” I continue. “I think he has something to do with it, you have to find out his name and bring him in!”
“We'll certainly -”
“He's involved!” I hiss.
“And how do you know that?”
“I just feel it!” I continue. “Why else would she -”
Spotting movement nearby, I turn and see Detective Bryson standing in the doorway. As soon as we make eye contact, I flinch. Something tells me it's no coincidence that he's shown up.
***
“It's impossible to trace the video's source,” he explains a few minutes later, as we stand in the reception area. “It was uploaded through a whole nest of proxies, and seeded a thousand times, so clearly the culprit was someone is someone who knows what they're doing with computers. One of the guys on my team has a friend at GCHQ who might be able to help, but -”
“It doesn't matter now,” I tell him. “All that matters is finding Karen and -”
I stop as I see Matt heading into the dining room. Clearly it's his turn to speak to the investigating officer, and we exchange a concerned glance as he makes his way through the door.
“All that matters is finding Karen,” I say again, turning back to Bryson. “Screw the video, screw all of that, don't waste your time on it. Just focus on
her
.”
“We are,” he replies. “Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find your friend. She might well turn up and be perfectly okay.”
“Sure,” I mutter, “and she just happened to bleed on her phone and drop it before vanishing.”
I wait for a reply, but I can see that he can't say what he's really thinking.
“I'm worried I might be losing my mind,” I tell him after a moment.
“Come again?”
“I just mean that I'm probably not a very reliable witness,” I continue. “Over the past week I've imagined several conversations that never happened, I've seen someone who can't possibly be alive, and I've had a lot of little...” I pause, trying to think of the right word. “Incidents.”
“I took a closer look at your file,” he replies. “What you went through -”
“I'm fine.”
“You seem to be trying very hard to live a normal life again.”
“As opposed to what? Gibbering in bed?”
“I'm just saying, you don't need to push yourself quite so hard.”
“Not you too,” I mutter with a sigh.
“People getting on your wick, are they?” he asks. “I know the feeling there.”
“I'm...” Pausing again, I realize that we're just going round and round in circles. “Karen is my friend,” I tell him finally. “She was my friend before all of this happened, she's probably the person I'm closest to in the whole world, and the thought of anything happening to her...” With tears in my eyes, I start to imagine the worst. I think of her being grabbed by some guy, dragged through the night, and then I see her strapped to a chair as if she's going to endure the same torture that
I
went through. Taking a step back, I hear the whine of a power drill and watch as it's forced through her shoulder. She screams as blood rushes down her bare chest, but someone steps closer to her with a hot iron and -
“Anna?”
Turning, I see Detective Bryson watching me with a concerned frown.
“I...”
“You seemed out of it for a moment,” he says cautiously. “Do you need to sit down?”
I shake my head, but he's right, I completely forgot where I was for a few seconds.
“I came down here because I wanted to reassure you that we're doing everything in our power,” he tells me. “I don't think for one moment that there's a link between your friend's disappearance and what happened to you, but it's something I'm keeping an eye on.”
“They
are
dead, aren't they?” I ask.
“Who?”
“The people who made the video of me.” I pause for a moment, thinking back to that night at the cabin. “Jennifer and Joe, and Christian, and Cole and Daniel...” A shudder passes through my chest. “I know it's probably just a coincidence,” I continue, “but Karen was seeing a guy named Daniel, which is the same name as one of the people at the cabin. I mean, I was there when...” For a moment, I think back to the sight of Daniel walking toward Cole's car outside the cabin, and then I hear the gunshot ring out again. “He died,” I continue. “The Daniel from the cabin died, I know he did, I even saw his body.”
“Then I think we can safely count him out of this.”
“But maybe I was imagining things even back then.”
“Anna...”
“Isn't it possible?”
He pauses. “I can double-check with my colleagues in Oslo.”
“Do it.”
“But the most likely thing is still that this is a coincidence.”
“You still came down here to check on me,” I point out. “You wouldn't have done that if you didn't think there could be a link.”
“No,” he replies cautiously, “I wouldn't.”
Hearing footsteps nearby, I turn and see Matt coming out of the dining room.
***
“So you never met this Daniel guy?” I whisper.
“I told you, he never came out with us.”
“Did she tell you where she met him?”
“She didn't say much about him at all,” Matt replies. Glancing over his shoulder, he waits as one of our few guests walks past the reception desk and heads outside. “Karen was always kind of an over-sharer,” he continues, turning back to me, “but she clammed up when it came to this Daniel guy. To be honest, most of us were a little worried. It was like she was drifting away from us and spending more of her time alone with him.”
“But you didn't even see a photo?”
“She said she didn't have any. Apparently he didn't like her taking pictures of him.”
“That sounds weird,” I mutter, watching as the police officer and Mr. Rice make their way out to the parking lot. “None of this makes sense. We have to find a way to track this Daniel guy down and -”
“Woah,” he replies, interrupting me, “why do
we
have to do anything?”
“Because she's missing!”
“We're not the cops!” he points out. “Anna, let them do their job!”
“Something isn't right here,” I continue. “I can feel it, there's more to this whole thing than just Karen going missing. What if one of the people from the cabin survived somehow, and they've followed me here and now they're trying to get back at me?” Turning to him, I can see the disbelief in his eyes. “I know it sounds crazy,” I stammer, “and it's probably
not
something like that, but I just need to see this Daniel guy's face so I can be certain. Please, don't you remember anything that might help me find him? I don't even need to talk to him, I just need to find out where he works or where he studies, or where he lives, or find his name so I can check him out online, just so I can see his face!”
“All I know is that they used to meet sometimes at that cafe by the supermarket. The one with the white walls and the pink logo.”
“The Roxy?”
“They used to meet there sometimes for lunch.”
I pause for a moment. “There must be a camera near that place,” I say finally, feeling a flash of relief at the thought that I might get an answer.
***
“Gotcha,” I whisper a few hours later, sitting in my bedroom and watching as a clear shot of the Roxy appears on my screen. Thanks to a stroke of luck, there's a camera on the supermarket's rear wall and it shows the Roxy perfectly, and there's no password to keep me out. Unfortunately, I can't get into the archived recordings, which must be stored separately, but at least I can watch a live feed of the cafe.
Then again, why would Daniel go back there?
And if it's not the Daniel from the cabin, how would I even recognize him if I did?
Nevertheless, I spend the rest of the evening watching the feed. Mum comes to tell me that dinner's ready, but I just run down and grab a plate, quickly bringing it back up so I can eat while I watch the cafe. At 7pm the cafe's owner closes up, but after that I find myself simply watching a completely still, undisturbed scene. By 9pm I've begun to realize that this is a hopeless, and slightly strange, way of spending my evening, but I still can't quite look away from the monitor. It's as if watching these images is a way of calming my mind, and I'm sure that if I tried to do something else I'd just end up imagining more horrible things happening to Karen.
And then suddenly, around 10pm, the shot of the cafe goes blank, replaced by a password prompt. I try to refresh, but the same prompt appears. It's as if suddenly, someone changed the access requirements for that particular camera, booting me off the feed. Someone knew I was watching.
“I can't give you access to the archives,” Freddie explains as I follow him into the surveillance room. “Come on, you're being completely unreasonable here.”
“You helped me before,” I point out.
“There was a loophole before. What you're asking now is for me to point-blank break the rules. It'd be illegal!”
“But your company
does
run the cameras around the supermarket, right?”
“Yes, but -”
“One of them suddenly had a password placed on it tonight.”
He turns to me, with the bank of flickering monitors silhouetting his concerned face. “No-one would bother doing that,” he tells me after a moment. “No-one
could
do that, apart from me.”
“Someone did. If you don't believe me, check for yourself. I was watching the feed, and then suddenly someone put a password screen in the way.”
Turning, he taps at the keyboard for a moment, finally bringing up the same password prompt that I saw from home. “Well that's interesting,” he mutters, trying again to access the camera but still having no luck. “It's not using our standard password system, either. It looks like someone accessed the camera from off-site.” Bringing up some more menus on his computer, he whispers a few curse words under his breath, and after a moment he turns to me. “I couldn't get you the archives from that camera now, not even if I wanted to. They're locked behind the same password. For all I can tell, they might even have been deleted.”
“How could someone do that?” I ask.
“I honestly don't know.” He frowns, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, I guess it's possible, but you'd need to be pretty good with computers. I'm going to have to look into it, and then I guess I'll have to reboot that camera manually so I can get it back under control. You see,
this
is another reason why security around this place needs to be beefed up! I tell them all he time, but they just brush me off.”
“If you find who did this,” I reply, grabbing the notebook from his desk and scribbling my phone number and email address in blue ink, “can you let me know?”
“I can't just -”
“Someone's life is at risk,” I tell him. “My best friend has vanished, and I don't know whether I can believe what I see anymore, and these cameras are the only way of verifying anything.” I pause for a moment, feeling as if I'm about to burst into tears but somehow managing to hold back. “I need to be able to double-check everything I think I see, so please, can you just try to find another loophole that allows you to share the footage I ask for?”
He stares at me, and I swear I can see a hint of genuine kindness in his eyes. “No promises,” he says finally, “but I'll definitely see what I can do. After all, if someone's messing with my network, I want to know why.”
***
“You're losing your mind,” I whisper to myself as I stand shivering on the dark street corner, watching the white-walled cafe opposite. “This isn't good, Anna. You're going crazy and...”
My voice trails off.
I've started talking to myself.
That's not good, either.
Then again, it seems to help when I need to organize my thoughts. I don't know why I came down to the cafe tonight, but it's not as if I can just go home and sit around doing nothing while Karen's still missing. I've called the police station five times today, but there are no updates on the investigation, at least nothing that Bryson is willing to share with me. I tried to tell him about the camera, but he clearly thought I was wasting his time. News reports are no more help, offering the same lack of information. I'm pretty sure I'd have been told by now if the mysterious Daniel had been located, and at the back of my mind I still know that it's not going to be the same Daniel from the cabin, but I need confirmation.
I need to be certain that Daniel, Jennifer and the others are really dead. Until then, I won't be able to get rid of this fear.
Making my way along the street, I head toward the side of the supermarket and locate the CCTV camera high up on the wall. I stop and stare directly toward the lens, and it's hard not to wonder whether someone is staring back at me through a monitor somewhere. Maybe Freddie has rebooted the system and regained control, or maybe I'm being watched and recorded by whoever set up the password. There's something strangely calming about the idea of the camera always running, always relaying its data back to a hard-drive. It's as if someone's backing up a copy of reality, so that people like me – people whose minds are a little skew-whiff – can go back and check what really happened.
I should hate cameras after everything that happened to me, but I don't, not at all.
I like them.
If I'm honest with myself, I feel lonely when I'm not being recorded, and strangely content when I know there's a camera trained on me. Cameras mean certainty and control, they mean honesty. I haven't told the doctors or my psychiatrist that I feel that way, because I don't want them to start digging around in my mind again, but I feel as if the world is only running properly when there are cameras and -
Suddenly I hear a couple of stumbling footsteps nearby, and I turn to look back along the dark, deserted street. I wait, watching the pools of light beneath a couple of street-lamps, but there's no sign of anyone.
I glance up at the camera again.
Always watching.
Always recording the truth.
Reminding myself that it's not
that
unusual to hear other people out and about in town, even so close to midnight, I make my way over to the cafe and peer through the window. The scene inside looks pretty ordinary, but for a moment I can't help imagining Karen sitting at one of the tables with Daniel on the other side, and by Daniel I mean
the
Daniel, the guy who helped capture and torture me in the cabin. No matter how hard I try to remind myself that he and the others died three years ago, no matter how many times I go over and over Daniel's death in my mind, or Jennifer's, there's a part of me that just can't let go of the possibility...
Footsteps again.
I turn and look. They were closer this time, but there's still no sign of anyone. I step over to the corner and look along the side-street, but there's clearly no-one here.
It's all in my mind.
I don't think I'm as well as I'd like to believe.
Realizing that it's getting colder, I take one final look over at the camera on the wall and then I turn and start making my way home. My mind is still racing and I feel far too wired to sleep, but I was up all
last
night too and I know I have to get some rest. I keep thinking about Karen, imagining her going through something similar to my ordeal at the cabin, and I know full well that these thoughts are going to plague my every waking moment until the police call to say that they've found her. It's as if my experience at the cabin has trained my mind to always imagine the worst, and I feel my thoughts pulled toward sick, disgusting images.
Stopping at the corner, I look over my shoulder again.
No-one.
If only Karen -
Suddenly I hear the footsteps again, stumbling toward me. I turn, expecting to find someone about to bump into me, but there's still no sign of anyone.
“Keep it together, you idiot!” I hiss to myself, even as I take a step back. No matter how hard I try to calm my fears, I can't keep my heart from racing.
I turn and look in every direction.
“There's no-one here,” I say out loud, trying to get my head straight. “There's no-one.”
I wait.
Silence.
There's no camera, either, at least not one that I can see. I'm truly alone.
Turning, I start hurrying along the street again. With every step, I want to turn around and make sure that there's no-one coming up behind me, but I force myself to keep looking ahead. Fear is rising through my chest, gripping my gut and trying to convince me that I'm being followed, but I just keep focusing on the fact that my mind is damaged, that I'm not better yet. I should probably call Doctor Lewis and get an extra appointment for this week, but right now I just have to concentrate on the walk home. Any time I look over my shoulder, I'll be feeding my paranoia a little more. Still, I wish I could see a camera somewhere nearby. Without one, I feel like I'm adrift, and don't like the fact that there's no way to go back and re-watch what's happening right now.
A moment later I hear footsteps again, just briefly, but I dig deep and force myself to keep facing forward. I quicken my pace a little, though, to the point that I'm a little breathless by the time I get to the next turning and head along dark, desolate Charles Road. This is the quickest way home, even if it means walking through parts of town that have a certain reputation. And there has to be a camera soon, there just has to be. This country is stuffed with CCTV cameras, I can't be in a black-spot for long.
When I'm halfway along the street, I hear footsteps again, shuffling behind me. I keep walking, but the footsteps continue. I want to turn and look, to prove to myself that there's no-one there, but at the same time I also know I can't afford to stoke my fears. I just have to -
Suddenly something bumps against my back, nudging my left shoulder.
I stumble slightly, but I manage to keep going. There's nothing behind me, I know that for a fact, so I force myself to look straight ahead as I get closer to the end of the street. I don't know how I'm going to get all the way home in this state, and there are tears in my eyes as I get to the corner and turn left, heading along Grange Road and quickening my pace further until I'm almost running. Turning to hurry along the entrance to Hayward's Close, I make my way down into the underpass and then finally – almost out of breath – I stop and lean back against the wall. I look back the way I came, and there's no sign of anyone, but I have to wait for a few minutes in the darkness and catch my breath.
“No-one's following you,” I whisper, although my voice is trembling with fear. “There's no-one, it's all in your head. You can beat this.”
I look around to see if there's any sign of a CCTV camera down here, but so far I can't see one. I know it shouldn't matter, but somehow I'd feel better if I knew I was being recorded.
“Grow up,” I tell myself out loud. “You're not going to let this crush you. You are
not
going to crumple up into a little heap.”
Turning, I start making my way along the dark underpass. I can already see the steps at the far end, leading up to Claremont Road, and slowly my heart-rate seems to be returning to normal. From Claremont Road it's not far to the roundabout, and there
have
to be cameras there. I could have completely lost my mind a moment ago, but for the first time I managed to hold myself together and I actually feel a little stronger. Not
strong
, not by a long shot, but definitely
stronger
, and still -
Suddenly I stop as I see someone standing on the steps that lead up from the underpass, about twenty meters ahead. Whoever the person is, he or she is standing so high up near the top of the steps that from here I can only see a pair of feet and lower legs, bathed in moonlight that spills down from the street above. I take a deep breath, telling myself that there's no reason to be scared, but when I take a few more steps forward I realize that the legs are bare. I slow my pace but I manage to keep going for a few more steps. I stop again when the figure's bare waist comes into view. It's a naked woman, standing completely still in the moonlight. The upper half of her body is obscured by the roof of the underpass, so I take a cautious step forward until I'm able to see her chest, with her large, bare breasts almost glowing in the moon's ethereal blue light.
I should turn around.
I should find another way home, I should -
Suddenly she takes a step down toward me, her breasts jiggling slightly as she moves. I try to see her face, but there's no face to see and for a moment I can't work out what's wrong until, finally, I realize that...
She has no head.
She has a neck, but there's a ragged line cut across the stump, and nothing where her head should be.
In the moonlight, I can just about see something glistening at the very top of the stump, with hints of blood trails running down toward her chest.
This isn't real.
It can't be.
Instantly, I know that this is some nightmarish vision thrown up by my subconscious mind, even if -
Suddenly she takes another step down, coming a little closer. Again her body jiggles slightly, and the moonlight is really catching her bloodied stump now, picking out the chunks of glistening meat and bone that are poking out through the top.
But it's not real.
It can't be real.
She takes another step closer, and this time I can hear the faint slap of her bare feet against the concrete. A moment later she takes yet another step, then another until she's at the bottom.
Resisting the urge to run, I stare at the naked headless woman and try to make her disappear. If she's just a figment of my imagination, it should still be within my power to force her out of sight, but no matter how hard I concentrate I'm not able to make her go away. There are tears in my eyes as I stare at her, but a moment later she takes another faltering step toward me, then another, and with each I can hear her feet brushing the ground.