Chapter Fourteen #2
Me: Apparently, that’s the general consensus.
The guy deserves to know he’s right. Maybe that’ll make his day a little better because mine was hopeless.
Elliot R: Wow, you can use punctuations other than . and ?!
Wow. He’s so judgmental.
Me: You’re so judgmental.
Because he deserves to know in case someone searches his phone someday.
That brings an image of Elliot tied lifeless to a chair, chaos surrounding him. His eyes still, skin pale like we found the other human victims.
A sharp crack brings me back to the break room. I look down to see I’ve cracked my phone case. My fingertips itch with the need to maul someone.
My phone buzzes.
Elliot R: And yet you’re texting me half-written words.
I place the phone on the counter, and I take a deep, long breath. I breathe out slowly, getting myself back in control.
Everything is fine. Everybody is safe.
I take another one because my fingers are still tingling. Fuck, this is so unlike me. I don’t lose control. I’m the calmest fucking person in every room.
Another breath. There’s no danger. No one needs my help. I clutch the counter tightly.
My phone buzzes again.
Elliot R: Anyway, I’ve already judged you pretty much entirely.
This time, when I breathe out, the tension leaves with it. Deep breaths, a solution to unexplained mental breakdowns since time immemorial.
I fill my cup with the horrible coffee and walk back to the desk, leaving Elliot on read because he deserves it. Not that I’ll be able to hold out for long.
I open Nathaniel’s phone again and look through the main screen. Something catches my eye. I open an app on the main screen named Whack-a-Wolf.
What the fuck?
The screen blacks, and a low, howling noise follows. A white circle starts in the middle, then brightens the entire screen. Followed by words floating on the screen in bright red.
Welcome back, wolfslayer56
Continue Level 2739
I select the only option on the screen, and it takes me to a fairly stupid shooting game that shouldn’t be on the phone of anyone over fifteen. Except that the targets are large, hairy animals howling and running.
Yeah, this guy was fucked up, and he definitely knew about werewolves. There’s no way this is a coincidence.
I hurry to the evidence room and hunt down the first victim’s phone. A couple of minutes later, my suspicions are confirmed. Tyler and Nathaniel both played this stupid game. And not casually, looking at the levels they were on.
I slump back down on my desk with both phones and look at the app's other features. We didn’t find any direct communication between them.
But they might have met through their shared interest in whacking badly drawn virtual werewolves.
I really hope their deplorable hobby was limited to the screens.
I open the level again. There, at the top of the screen. A chatbox. I thumb it open. It’s an open chat, so I close it and look for the option to start a private chat. When I don’t find any, I go back to the open chatbox.
This is frustrating. There are about a hundred different usernames. The chat itself is practically primitive, showing just usernames in different colors, followed by text with no option to click on the names.
I scroll down to weeks' worth of messages to find Nathaniel’s. There aren’t many, really. It hardly takes minutes to find the last few he sent here. They’re mostly discussing scores. He clearly continued playing after Tyler’s death, so it doesn’t seem like he felt threatened by anything.
I scroll through a couple of more messages, all related to the game, until my thumb stops at one.
Wolfslayer56: These fuckers don’t deserve to live.
Nathaniel wrote it a week before his death. I want to say this is about the game, but honestly, it doesn’t feel like it. And it definitely stands out in the conversation. I scroll back further and start to see a pattern.
Wolfslayer56: I swear I'm going to kill her soon. Keep you updated
A chill runs down my spine. Is he talking about Isabel? A few minutes of scrolling confirms it. Fuck, the bastard shared intimate details about her with people here. Bile rises in my throat seeing what this man thought of a living, breathing human.
I continue scrolling, messages ranging from filthy to outright threats.
But none made against him. In fact, all of them were supportive.
Then, at a few months' mark, I can’t see anything from him.
I keep scrolling up. But nothing from wolfslayer56.
But his last message is clearly a continuation, not an introduction.
I head to the main screen to look for previous usernames, but there’s nothing. Fuck, it really is primitive. I wonder if they even ask for any real information from their users.
I open the app on Tyler’s phone to find his username, too, so I can check his messages.
Fangbreaker. Classy.
Fangbreaker: I work with more than a dozen. Can’t bear the sight of them.
His username disappears in just a few weeks. Despite that, someone had found him. And decided he shouldn’t live.
Clearly, they were horrible people. At least Nathaniel deserved some serious jail time. The Bureau wouldn't have let him get away with this shit. If Isabel didn’t have a solid alibi, I’d have wondered if she killed him for being so vile.
But Tyler didn’t make any real threats against anyone. So, why kill him? Was this a public service or something personal?
I’m overwhelmed with more questions than answers, but one thing’s for sure, LAPD won’t be able to find this killer. So, I have to.