Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight

by Vargus, L. T.

Loshak smiled.

  “Seniority.”

  “Yeah, well… Next time we—”

  Darger was cut off by the distinct baying of a hound coming from across the pond. She and Loshak held still from the neck down, whipping their heads toward the place where the sound had come from. The barking cut off, and then they heard a human voice shout with excitement. It was too distant to make out the words, but they didn’t need to. Loshak swung back to face her.

  “Sounds like they found something.”

  CHAPTER 25

  She and Loshak jogged through the park, over to the far side of the pond. Darger saw other flashlights bobbing around them, everyone converging on the excited dog.

  She wanted to run faster — to sprint ahead to see what the dogs had found — but the ground here was a bit uneven and slick with dew, and she didn’t want to sprain an ankle or fall on her face.

  They found a group clustered around a pair of park benches. Wooden slats and wrought iron arms and legs. A mess of flashlight beams swept around in the tight space under the horizontal seat support, stray light spilling up through the cracks and over the top, but there was nothing on or under the bench that Darger could see.

  The dog lurched forward again. Pulled to the edge of the lead. The hound whined and scratched at the wood chips under the bench.

  “I’m not taking any chances,” Fredrick said and unclipped a radio from her belt. “I want the bomb techs to take point on this just in case whatever he buried down there is dangerous.”

  While she radioed for the bomb squad, Darger studied her surroundings.

  This side of the pond was more secluded than the rest of the park, far from the streetlights that lined the edges of the grounds. Beyond that, the two benches were shaded by a maple tree, and Darger guessed the area would be entirely shrouded in shadow even in bright daylight. Right now, the area under the tree was nearly pitch black. She imagined Huxley here, on his knees, digging a hole beneath the bench. Hiding something there and carefully replacing the dirt and mulch.

  I’ve left something for you in a secret place.

  The minutes ticked by as they waited for C-IED to arrive. Finally, Darger spotted two vehicles roll up and park on the street. Agent Fitch and one of the bomb techs that had been at Huxley’s house hopped out of a black SUV with a bomb-sniffing dog.

  The rest of the group backed off from the area, giving the men space to work. The dog started near the bench, sniffing the ground, and then pulled away. The dog’s handler redirected the dog back to the bench, but again the dog almost immediately trotted off in a different direction.

  Agent Fitch gave his patented thumbs up signal.

  “Dinah says there’s nothing here,” he said. “We’re all clear.”

  “OK.” Fredrick nodded at the crime scene tech standing next to her. “Let’s start digging.”

  The tech got down on her knees and used a trowel to gently scrape away the top layer of wood chips. After that, she removed a thin layer of soil and placed it in a bucket, handing it off to another tech who sifted through the dirt looking for evidence. They repeated this process with each layer. Digging and sifting and digging and sifting.

  It was a slow and careful process intended to minimize the chances of missing anything, but Darger couldn’t help but feel a surge of impatience as she watched them work.

  The tech with the trowel stopped.

  “I’ve got something,” she said. “It looks like a plastic baggie.”

  Fredrick put a hand up.

  “Let us get a few photos before you dig it out,” she said.

  The two techs on excavation duty moved aside. The flash of the camera lit up the gloom under the tree like flickers of lightning.

  When the cameraman was finished, the original tech squatted down and used her trowel to loosen the area around the baggie. The plastic crinkled as she pulled it free. It was a gallon-sized bag, rolled into a tube for easier burying. Darger could see what looked like paper inside.

  There was another moment of tension as they paused again to photograph the evidence. Finally it was handed off to Fredrick who squinted at the plastic-clad pages.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.

  “What is it?” Darger asked, the anticipation just about killing her.

  Fredrick grasped the baggie by one corner and held it out for them to see.

  “It’s in code.”

  Loshak squinted at the symbols forming a rectangle in the center of the page. They were oddly familiar.

  “I recognize that,” Loshak said.

  “Me too,” Darger said. “It looks like the Zodiac letters.”

  Fredrick’s head snapped up.

  “You mean the Zodiac killer?”

  Loshak nodded.

  Details from the Zodiac case file flashed through Darger’s head. She’d studied him closely in the academy.

  Though he once claimed to have killed 37 victims, the self-named Zodiac Killer had five known murder victims in San Francisco between 1968 and 1969, killing couples parked at local makeout spots and eventually shooting a cab driver. He sent a series of menacing letters and ciphers to local newspapers and TV stations, demanding they be shared with the public and threatening bombings and killings if they weren’t. He was never caught.

  “He’s doing it again,” Darger said. “Mimicking another serial killer.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Once Agent Fredrick opened the bag and pulled out the sheaf of papers, they discovered that only the top page was in code. After that, there were around 25 pages of the journal Huxley had promised. The packet was hustled back to the task force HQ to be processed, copied, and distributed as quickly as possible. The more eyes they could get on these pages loaded with potential clues, the better.

  The final sheet inside the plastic bag contained a schematic for what appeared to be a relatively simple explosive device, with the taunting phrase written in sharpie above it: If you manage to crack the code, you’ll be needing this.

  “The clue that tells us the next bombing location must be hidden in the coded text,” Darger said. “Maybe there are hints in the journal as well, but I think the cipher is the key.”

  “I’m going to send it to Agent Remzi.” Loshak tapped at the screen of his phone. “He’s the best cryptanalyst in the Bureau as far as I’m concerned. If anyone can solve this thing, it’ll be him.”

  While Loshak made the call, Darger turned back to her phone and studied the symbols again. She remembered reading that one of the Zodiac ciphers had only recently been decrypted. Fifty-one years the letter had sat shrouded in mystery before a team of amateur code crackers finally figured it out. Not a comforting thought, considering their deadline.

  She gazed out across the pond and watched the bobbing flashlight beams of the C-IED guys leading the dog around the far end of the park. They were checking the rest of the park for signs of anything else Huxley might have left them.

  Loshak walked back over to her, tucking his phone into his jacket.

  “Remzi said he’d get to work on the code immediately.”

  She checked the time again, disturbed to see that it was almost 4 A.M. now.

  Four hours left.

  “Let’s hope he can do it quickly.”

  CHAPTER 27

  It was just past 5 A.M. when they returned to the Javits building and rode the elevator up to the task force headquarters on the 23rd floor. Jittery feelings squiggled in Darger’s middle despite the late hour, some unholy blend of overstimulation and exhaustion roiling deep inside as her eyes watched the floor numbers count upward.

  As soon as she got into the conference room, she poured herself a cup of coffee. Sipped. Set the cup on the glossy surface of the conference table.

  Then she moved to the whiteboard along the front wall. She grabbed a dry erase marker and used a section of the board to write out the encoded message. She stepped back and let her eyes trace over the symbols scrawled up there, blue ink smudged on the white. She tri
ed her hand at decoding it herself, using the existing solved Zodiac ciphers as a guide, but none fit. After an hour, she had to admit that she was in over her head.

  With one eye on the clock, she took another drink of coffee. She felt jittery as hell and more caffeine was the last thing she needed, but the long hours were beginning to weigh on her. She was at once completely drained and so filled with anxiety and anticipation that sleep was out of the question. Electricity burning bright behind her eyes, even if the flesh around them was growing sore with exhaustion.

  Snippets of the Zodiac’s threatening notes played in her head then, his repeated misspelling of paradise and all. They dredged up fragments of the fear she’d experienced back when she’d studied the case.

  This is the Zodiac Speaking.

  I like killing people because it is so much fun.

  When I die I will be reborn in paradice and all that I have killed will become my slaves.

  I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice all the sooner.

  Darger finally sat down with her copy of Huxley’s journal pages and started reading.

  This is the Zodiac speaking. Ha-ha.

  Darger grunted. She continued reading.

  By now you’re probably wondering why I did all this. Well, allow me to explain.

  There is light and dark in every human heart, and we all choose our path. We all find our purpose. These pages will show you how I found mine.

  These few words formed a cover letter of sorts. Darger turned the page, and the journal began.

  CHAPTER 28

  I witnessed a rape when I was about five years old. The memories are blurry. A little girl crying in a bedroom across the street. Whimpering. Moaning. Face all turning red. Fingers clutching at blue shag carpet. Bare mattress. Crawling under the bed to try to get away.

  I witnessed a murder when I was 23 years old. Watched a masked person through the window next door. Drugged up and confused, he climbed the stairs, turned around on the landing, and lifted a revolver. Squeezed the trigger. Flames jetted out of the muzzle.

  The pop was more metallic in person than it is on TV. Percussive and clipped-sounding. When I’d heard earlier shots that night, the ones that drew me to the window, I thought it sounded like a hammer smashed on the hood of a car.

  The old man at the bottom of the steps bled out rapidly. Life seeping out between his fingers. Gone in 45 seconds.

  This is what people are really like. This is what they really do to each other.

  Cruel beings stomping around. Disturbed. Insane. Always hungry for more destruction. Always on the hunt.

  Mindless violent raping world.

  When bad things happen in real life, there’s no cheesy music ending like a sitcom episode where we all say “sisters forever?” or some shit and everything is OK again.

  No relief. No salvation.

  The damage isn’t undone. The conflict never ends.

  The trauma persists. Festers. The dead don’t come back.

  You can feel the hatred, loathing, animal aggression surrounding us. See it like a red shimmer in the air. It’s all around us.

  This is the world we’ve made. We use each other. Break each other. Kill each other.

  Mankind.

  Restless creatures stalk the night. Every night. In every town.

  Just turn on the TV. Watch a local news story about someone getting killed for $30, about some kid getting set on fire by his own parents. Fresh tragedy every fucking night.

  We all just suffer, suffer, suffer. Ceaseless torment. Endless pain.

  The great swells of humanity. A vast sea of misery. Real horror.

  Someday maybe we’ll all get wiped away. A black hole expanding to devour us. A big rain to wash it all away.

  Maybe. If there is a God.

  The world is getting darker and darker. You can feel it in the air, in the wind. See it flicker against the night sky, trying to blot out the moon and stars.

  Darker. Darker all the time.

  You know it. You believe it. But what can you do?

  When we look at the sky, we think we see the moon and stars, but most of what we see is nothing. Empty space. A vast, empty universe that stretches out into eternity.

  So many people cower their whole lives long at what comes after death. They fear hellfire. They fear that deep down the universe wants to torture them eternally.

  Like it fuckin’ cares so much about them to bother.

  The universe seems profoundly indifferent to me. Uncaring and cold. It’s mostly nothing. Infinite emptiness. It doesn’t give enough of a fuck about you to want to hurt you.

  Can’t you see that you’re nobody? You’re nothing. A grain of sand. A pebble on the beach.

  And one day the darkness will win. The stars will expand and die. Burn out like light bulbs one by one. All life will wink out. Engulfed in black nothing. Endless cold.

  Of course, mankind will probably have killed itself with global warming many thousands of years earlier, but still…

  When I look at the sky, that’s what I see: the darkness swallowing all.

  You fear Hell? Damnation? Guess what? We’re already here. Already living it.

  This is Hell.

  We’ve made it. Built it here and now. We’re just too dumb to see it.

  Look around you. It’s a mindless, violent, raping world. Cruelty. Brutality.

  Walk down a city block and watch the crack fiends sleep on flaps of cardboard. Camped out on sidewalks and tucked back in alleys. All lean and hard. Angular. Sinewy. Crumbling teeth. Cheekbones protruding. Pointy hip bones jutting out.

  Empty shells. Husks. Like the humanity got sucked out of them, left only the skin and bones.

  Watch all the pedestrians stream past. Nobody helps. No one even looks at the bums. Nobody cares.

  This is what we’ve made of this world. Skyscrapers that tower over the slums. Golden arches soaring over catastrophe. Human misery clustering on the concrete of every major city.

  Go look up war videos on YouTube. Bombs raining down on exotic locations. Buildings and civilians blown to pieces. Hundreds of millions of military-related deaths in the 20th century alone.

  In the United States, 136 people die per day from opioid overdoses. Too much pain to kill in this life. Too much suffering, misery, despair. The amount of medicine needed becomes fatal. The disease is too far gone.

  Worldwide, a child dies from hunger every 10 seconds. They’re born. They’re hungry. They die. That’s it.

  This is what normal looks like. This is the pinnacle of humankind’s progress. Every step of evolution working to lead us to this reality.

  Mass death. Suffering. Cruelty. Brutality. Misery.

  Hell is already here. We made it. We are living it.

  CHAPTER 29

  We stumble through life, drunk on dreams. Filled to the brim with these fantasies of what we’ll do and who we’ll be. What we’ll own. What we’ll consume. If you really examine the human animal, really study people, you find that most of them — the rabble, the scum, the horde — don’t even have their own dreams. They don’t dare to. They copy someone else’s dream. Wish they had someone else’s life. Wish they were someone else. Motherfuckin’ followers to the core. Bootlickers.

  It starts young, too. Elementary school. The poor kids want what the rich kids have. The newest iPhone. The expensive name brand shoes. The designer shirts and jeans. They’d crawl over broken glass to have and hold these status symbols. They’d chug Drano.

  Not to do anything interesting with, mind you. Just to mimic someone else. Ape their little ticks and behaviors. Reenact shit they’ve seen on TV. Just to feel better about themselves. I want to be the guy with the iPhone Pro Max is the height of what they can see for themselves, the absolute pinnacle of their ambition. Their deepest desire in life. Unreal.

  Imagine having a life so dull that even your wildest fantasies would put everyone else to fuckin’ sleep.

  Ah, but sleepin�
� through life is what these people seem good at. The sleepwalkers. Easy to count sheep when you are one, I suppose.

  Behold the mission that opens in my head. More of a calling, I guess.

  You want to change the fucking world? Kill the old dream. Kill the avatars of the old fantasy.

  Celebrities. The gatekeepers who seem to keep us apart from their chosen ranks. Stars to be immortalized on film. Heroes to be worshiped.

  Kill this dream and anything becomes possible. Real change.

  Out with the old. In with the new.

  The revolution will be sweet. Let the streets run red.

  Fame is a religion.

  Celebrity bodies turned divine by all the worship, all of the faith directed their way.

  So I offer up a communion.

  This is the celebrity body. Broken for you.

  This is the precious blood. Spilled for you.

  Suffering is all around us, the primary product of our culture. And rather than doing anything to address it, we escape into fantasies about celebrities. We worship them. Wish we knew them. Wish we were them.

  We picture ourselves lounging in mansions, cruising around in Lambos, engulfed in the tan flesh of harems.

  Picture ourselves coked to the gills on the deck of a large boat, overseeing our fleet of minions zipping around on jet skis.

  Picture ourselves rolling around in piles of money, our faces plastered on magazine covers, our faces broadcast on TV, our faces projected 30 feet tall on the theater screen.

  In the face of all of that torment, all that suffering, we can only dream of fame and fortune. Hundreds of millions of people live in poverty, and we dream of excess.

  So kill the dream.

  That’s why I’m here, why I was born. To kill the dream one celebrity at a time.

  I can show you.

  If we burn out the old way, we can build something new on the ashes. We can remake the world in a new image.

  The old idols will topple. Die off like the dinosaurs. Reality will pierce the veil of tinsel at long last.