“There is a Youtube video that I watched. It said that there would be more, and that this whole mess was because of the police not having enough funds, or something like that.” She pulled out her phone and began tapping on it. “The police chief’s son, Logan Howe, was the one who made it. I figured he was just capitalizing on this tragedy. It has to be a coincidence, right?”
She found the video and held the tiny screen so Zack could watch it. He recognized the boy immediately. It was one of the ones who had been involved in the scuffle with Dave the previous day. He felt his fist begin to clench involuntarily, driving one of his fingernails through the top level of flesh in his hand.
CHAPTER 16
Zack climbed out of Ms. Wade’s car, feeling like he had found the missing piece of the puzzle. The two of them had talked a little more after, and she had given him the address of the police chief. It was the same house that Logan lived in, and where he intended to go to get the answers he needed.
As he began to walk in the direction of his next destination, he remembered Alex. It was almost noon now, and it seemed strange that he still hadn’t heard anything from her. He took out his phone and was again greeted by her voicemail. This time, he did leave a short message.
There were a couple of people out, and more cars headed down the street than he had seen since he first arrived. The rain had let up momentarily, but the sky was still heavily overcast. He walked fast, feeling like if he took too much time before getting there, the trail would somehow evaporate.
Finally he stood in front of the house that Ms. Wade had described. It was an opulent place, one of the biggest he had seen in the town so far, with a well maintained lawn and large, detached garage. Zack headed up to the front of the lawn and crossed his arms, not exactly sure how to proceed.
Luckily, he didn’t have to think about it for too long. A tall, lanky boy made his way over to the house. Zack recognized him immediately. It was Logan Howe.
“You’re the one that defended Dave yesterday,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Zack nodded.
“My name is Zack,” he said. “I just came to talk you about the video you made.”
Logan turned to walk by him and headed inside.
“What’s there to talk about with it? I thought it was pretty self-explanatory…”
“Why are you so sure that there is going to be another incident?” Zack asked.
Logan turned towards him. He stepped away from the porch and walked closer to Zack.
“For the same reason the first one happened,“ he said, brushing one of his long strands of hair out of his face. “This town does not have the money it needs to police itself.”
“Your dad is the police chief, I know that,” said Zack.
“Then you should also know that the department is underfunded,” Logan said. “They have maybe one guy that they can actually devote to the kind of patrols they would need to catch a murderer.”
There was a kind of intensity in Logan’s eyes that made Zack a little uncomfortable. He turned back towards the street, and then looked over his shoulder at him.
“It doesn’t seem to me like they handled the aftermath properly, at all,” said Zack, choosing his words carefully. “I mean, I know there were students who saw the killer and even encountered him after the crime that the police have seemed to pay no attention to.”
Logan seemed surprised, more surprised than Zack would have expected. He rubbed his chin and looked at him thoughtfully, as though he had decided to listen to what Zack had to say.
“If that’s the case, then you are probably right,” he said. “But so am I. What the police really need is more funding, enough that they can put out a couple of officers to take a look around town and see if anyone has made a quick disappearance in the past couple of days.”
“And you think that person would be the killer?” asked Zack.
“Either the killer, or his latest victim,” replied Logan. “It’s like I said…this may not be an isolated incident. Easthaven is a small and very vulnerable town.”
A sprinkling of rain began to fall, and the sound of thunder could be heard off in the distance. Zack pulled his hood back up over his head and looked at Logan.
“I don’t think this town is as vulnerable as it looks,” he said. “With or without the police.”
Logan began walking away from him, back towards his house.
“Look Zack, it was nice meeting you, but I have stuff to do,” he said. “I’ll see you around once school starts back up.”
“Logan just one more thing,” said Zack. “Have you seen Dave around at all? After the fight you and your friends got into with him yesterday, I mean.”
“No, why?” asked Logan. “Is he next on your list of suspects? To tell you the truth, he doesn’t seem like the type to me…”
The tall boy turned and stepped through the door of his house without saying goodbye, shutting it behind him. Zack wasn’t sure what to think, but he knew one thing. Whatever had happened to Dave had to do with what he knew, and there was only one place to go to get more information.
CHAPTER 17
The walk to Dave’s house was hard for Zack to make, but he knew it was necessary. Dave had been ahead of him on everything. All of the ideas he had shared with Zack the previous day seemed to have been spot on. Were they the reason for Dave’s death, he wondered.
It was becoming abundantly clear to him that the police, and maybe even Logan, were somehow involved with what was happening in the town. At the very least, they seemed to have a vested interest in prolonging the chaos, and stoking the fires of fear for long enough to get an expanded budget out of it.
The drab street that Dave’s house was on looked the same as it had the previous day. The rain was beginning to come down harder now, and he increased his pace to make it there before becoming soaked. He knocked on the door outside, realizing that it was very possible for Jessica to not be home.
The door opened, and standing there was his friend’s sister, wearing nothing but a thin night gown. Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying. The sight of her made Zack’s heart catch in his throat, and he said nothing for a moment.
“He’s not…” whispered Jessica. “He’s not okay, is he?”
Dave wasn’t okay, but Zack couldn’t say it. All he could do was shake his head and avoid her gaze, feeling like the entire weight of the world, including this poor woman’s emotional stability, had all collapsed onto his shoulders.
“I knew it,” she said. “He would never just be out for a night without calling. He’s not the kind of person…”
Her eyes begin to overflow with tears, and she let out a ragged sob, and then collapsed against Zack’s shoulder. He hugged her tight, wishing that there was more that he could do.
“Please,” said Jessica. “I need to…I need,”
He looked at her face, and she surprised him, leaning forward and locking her lips into his. It felt as though she was channeling her intense emotions into him, and though his first instinct was to break away, he didn’t.
Jessica took his hand and led him into the couch. She pulled her night gown up and over her head, exposing her naked body to him. She had a very nice figure, though somehow, he almost felt guilty looking at it.
“Zack, I can’t be alone right now,” she said. “Please, if it’s not too much trouble…”
He found himself feeling an incredible anger building in his chest. This was somebody’s fault, somebody who was still out there, on the loose. He pushed up against Jessica and kissed her deeply, feeling like he wanted to forget about the situation much the same way she was trying to.
She began pulling off his clothes in a rush, almost like she was trying to escape from a tide that was threatening to pull her away. Zack stepped out of his pants as she unbuckled them, feeling her soft hands against his quickly hardening cock.
He pushed her onto the couch and climbed on top of her. Jessica had soft, natural breasts, a
nd he found himself unable to keep from pawing at them hungrily. She leaned up and kissed him again, and then he was inside her.
His pace was slow and methodical, at first. This was his friend’s sister. This was a grieving woman. This was somebody who needed relief from the hell she had been thrust into. But Jessica began to encourage him, looking into his eyes with an expression that almost seemed to beg for more.
Zack pushed his cock into her and began to get into a rhythm. The sound of their bodies slapping together echoed throughout the room, and he found himself falling into a state of lust, incapable to stop himself from defiling Jess’s body.
He was fucking her, just like she wanted. The sound of her moans was infused with a small tremor of emotion, of sadness. She wanted him to make her forget about the tragedy that had befallen them, and the very idea of sadness in general.
The clock in the room began to sound the hour, and Zack felt himself building to a crescendo, ramming his rod into Jessica as though it was his mission to cum. She cried out and began to tense up shortly before him. When Zack felt himself reaching his limit, he moved to pull out, but Jess wrapped her arms around his body and kept him inside her.
“No please,” she said. “I want you to…”
His cock exploded, and he shot his load deep inside his friend’s sister at her behest. She smiled a little then, and it was the only smile Zack had seen on her face since he had arrived.
They spent several minutes sitting side by side on the couch slowly getting dressed before either of them said anything.
“It’s okay,” said Jessica. “I’ll be okay, you don’t have to tell me anything else.”
“I’m going to find the person that killed him, Jess,” he replied. “That’s why I came here. Do you mind if I look through his-“
“Of course not,” she said. “Please do. I’m going to go for a walk…”
She got up and walked towards the door, throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a coat over her night gown, and then she left. Zack walked into the room that looked like Dave’s and began to look around.
There was a computer in the corner, and various video games strewn around the room. It was messy, with dirty clothes on the ground, and various food plates left on every surface, but Zack didn’t care.
He booted up the computer and unsurprisingly, found it to be password protected. He felt discouraged, but didn’t give up right away, taking another glance around Dave’s room and flipping through a folder he found lying next to his bed.
Zack found something that caught his eye. There was a news article clipping from the previous year, on a police officer who had just been fired. He began reading through it, getting the feeling that he’d found a piece of the puzzle, but unsure as to where or how it fit.
Officer Jack Ruslo was fired from the Easthaven Police Department for unlawful conduct in the apprehension of a suspect, who was later cleared of wrong doing. The suspect was a teenager from across the country that had been visiting Easthaven and staying in a motel. Officer Ruslo caught him sitting outside the high school with a gun in his car, which turned out to not be a crime in their county.
Zack didn’t think anything of it until he got to the last sentence. A mask had also been found in the car, along with black clothing. It all was too eerily similar for him to pass off as a coincidence. He folded that snippet up and slipped it into his pocket before leaving the house, wondering just what Dave had stumbled onto and where it would lead to.
CHAPTER 18
The constant rain had left a thick fog at ground level, and between that and the setting sun, it was hard for Zack to see as he made his way back home. Quinn’s car was still in the driveway, but he saw no sign of her in the living room or kitchen as he made his way inside.
A strange feeling came over him as he looked around the house, making his way upstairs and still seeing only empty rooms. It was the evening, and it didn’t make sense for Quinn to not be around. He walked back downstairs again, and saw something on the living room table that made his heart skip a beat.
It was a hastily written note on a piece of lined paper in red pen. He picked it up, his hand trembling slightly as he began to read it.
“You have two choices. Leave Easthaven, and never come back, or come to the school alone.”
There was no signature, but he suspected that he knew who had written it. Zack rushed through the house, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon and finding very little. He settled on a small but sharp kitchen knife that fit relatively easily in his pocket, and then walked outside.
For a moment, he debated taking Quinn’s car, but it seemed like it would only announce his approach. Instead, he lifted the hood of his sweatshirt up over his hair and set out down the road, quickly and deliberately.
There were few cars out on the road and the wind had picked up, rolling the fog along and making it seem like even the shadows of the town were moving. Zack didn’t falter. Whether he liked it or not, this town had chosen him for something, and he was not going to back down from it.
The school was much like he had last seen it, except deserted of all life. The gate was already open, and he headed through it. He briefly considered going in through the front door, but it seemed as though that would be exactly what the killer would expect. Instead, he doubled around to the side of the facility and let himself in through an unlocked emergency exit.
Zack stepped into the hallway. All of the lights were off, and the barest trickle of light from the windows was all he had to navigate with. The sound of his footsteps seemed to echo as he went, and he felt himself having a flashback to his experience during the shooting.
It had to be the library. If this was the same killer from then, that’s where he would be. It was on the first floor and Zack made his way there, keeping close to the wall and trying to make as little noise as possible. As he rounded the corner, he was greeted by the sight of Quinn, bound and gagged.
He took a step towards her, only to see her shake her head frantically. Zack turned, but a moment too late, and felt something collide hard with the side of his head, knocking him to the ground and causing stars to flash across his vision.
“You should have left all this alone,” said a voice. Zack recognized it, and even though the figure was speaking through the same black skull mask he had seen twice before, he knew it was Logan.
“You killed Dave,” he said, pushing himself back up to his knees.
“You have no idea what’s going on,” said Logan. “None at all. I had nothing to do with Dave’s murder. But I will have something to do with yours.”
Zack could see a gun in Logan’s hand, and knew he was only going to get one chance. He turned towards Logan and lifted up one of his hands as though to signal defeat. The other one slipped into his pocket and grasped the hilt of his blade.
“Logan, please,” he said. “Think about what you’re doing.”
“I already have.” The masked killer moved to lift the gun up and in Zack’s direction, and he exploded into action, pulling out the knife and whipping it towards him. His aim was good, but the handle struck against Logan’s head instead of the blade. But it still served as a distraction, and Zack managed to push himself forward and into his opponent.
A deafening gunshot went off, making Zack’s eardrums pulse with pain. The shot missed him, and that was all he cared about. He grabbed Logan’s arm and began twisting, trying to force the gun out of his hand. The two of them fell to the ground in a tangle and began to wrestle for each other’s lives.
Logan was taller than him, and along with a slight weight advantage, managed to force Zack down into the floor. He struggled, grabbing at the gun and trying to keep its aim away from his vital areas, but slowly and surely, Logan began to overpower him.
“Goodbye, Zack,” he whispered. “See you in-“
The knife had slipped under Zack’s heel during the scuffle, and he slid it up and towards him. He quickly grabbed it, and then did what came natural in the
struggle of life and death. The blade went deep into Logan’s abdomen, and Zack felt almost sick to his stomach as some of the boys blood spilled out and onto his chest.
He pushed his opponent off of him and stood up slowly, breathing heavy and feeling both mentally and physically exhausted. He looked over at Quinn and immediately realized that something was still wrong. She was screaming, or at least attempting to, through her gag. Her eyes were looking at him imploringly.
As he made his way over to her and cut her bindings loose, the smoke in the air gave away what it was. The school was on fire, and it seemed as though it was coming from both directions, encroaching on the hallways they needed to make their escape. He pulled the gag out of Quinn’s mouth and gave her a quick hug.
“He said that they were going to destroy all of the evidence!” she cried. “The fires have been set all throughout the school!”
“Come on!” yelled Zack.
The smoke was filling the library quickly. Instead of making an attempt at the way he had come from, he pulled Quinn towards the back of the library, deeper into the darkness. There was a tiny series of windows along the far wall, and he smashed one of them open with his elbow.
“See if you can fit!” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
There were still a couple of jagged shards poking up from the window, and it took Quinn longer than he had anticipated to safely navigate her way out. The smoke was thick now, and he felt his eyes beginning to tear up as it pushed at his face. He followed his host mom out carefully, and the two of them sprinted further out to the road.
Behind them, the school was emitting a crimson glow. If they had spent a minute longer inside, the flames would have overtaken them. As it was, it seemed as though there was no way the structure would be able to survive. He could hear the sound of fire engines and an ambulance on the way
“It’s going to be okay,” he said to Quinn, throwing an arm over her shoulder. “’Everything is going to be okay now.”
The Exchange Student: Complete And Uncut Page 6