Chapter 3: Murder Gone Viral by Stephen Simpson
The next day, Gareth invites Samantha to go with him to the movies that night.
At first, she hesitates and makes a feeble excuse of having to study for the end of semester exams, but Gareth knows she has a crush on him. There are not a lot of girls in this world who are immune to his charms.
He smiles charmingly. “Come on, Sammy. The movie is what, two hours long at the most. I promise I’ll have you back at ten, at the latest.”
She smiles up at him, unsure. He leans down and places his palms on each side of her, holding firmly onto the armrests of her wheelchair. He leans closer to her, and he lets his eyes linger on hers. He sees the moment she considers the possibility that he might like her.
Gareth smiles slowly when Samantha agrees, and he straightens up again.
For the past seven days, they have carefully hand-picked their victims, except for Sarah, who they kidnapped the day before at the spur of the moment. The girl they had been watching and who was a prime candidate escaped unknowing that she was ever in any danger. Her happy life will carry on and never will she know how close she was to experience fear beyond her wildest nightmares.
Gareth was impressed with Richard and the way he totally embraced the role of a stalker. Gareth suggested to Richard how and where they should find their victims, and although he always made it seem as if it was a joint decision, Gareth knew that everything they have done so far was his sole decision and the careful exploitation of Richard.
That evening Gareth collects Samantha in front of the entrance to her dorm, in his expensive wine-red Mercedes.
Smiling seductively as he looks at her suggestively, he lifts her from her wheelchair and gently he places her in the front passenger seat of his car. After he folds the wheelchair, he puts it into the trunk of his car.
They talk pleasantly about school and exams as they drive toward the mall. When they arrive and after he parks his car in the underground parking area, he helps her out of the car again.
As he walks next to her, and she chats up to him excitedly, he thinks irritated how they must walk across the entire mall to get to the lifts, when they have walked past two escalators already.
They eventually reach the top floor where the cinema is located.
Samantha waits for him while he goes to the refreshment counter, and he buys a container of popcorn and a large fizzy drink. As he walks back to her, he pops open the plastic covering of the cold drink container with his thumb and the side his pinkie. He lifts the lid only a fraction, and then he drops the two pills in the palm of his hand into the drink. He does not have to crush it because she is not going to look inside, and the fizzy drink will make the drug dissolve faster. Also, she will be drinking it through a straw, so it is not as if her lips or tongue will suddenly encounter a solid, foreign object.
When he reaches her, he smiles sexily and then he hands her the popcorn while he quickly pushes the plastic covering on the drink into place tightly.
He asks, “Would you mind holding the drink as well while I push you up the ramp?”
“Of course.” She holds her hand up to him and she takes the drink from him.
He smiles, friendly. “I thought we could share.” He pretends to be shocked at his own presumptions that she would want to share with him. He apologizes quickly, “I am sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t just have presumed you would want to share with me.”
He sees the pleased look on her face and successfully he hides his deep inner revulsion when she says, “I don’t mind.” As if to prove her point, she takes a long satisfying drink from the straw.
Gareth smiles, pleased.
He looks around the almost empty area. He chose this day because the movies are usually quieter, and he knew there would not be a lot of people around. The few people walking past them does not even give them a second look.
Gareth sits down on the low wall of the disabled ramp, and he and Samantha are face to face, level with each other. “Shall we wait here for a bit? I do not like it when I must sit inside the theatre and wait for the movie to start. There are too many paper crumpling noises, and you can hear the people behind you are eating. It really works on my nerves.”
“I don’t mind. We can talk a little.”
They talk about school and as they talk, Samantha takes sip after sip of the drink.
Ten minutes later, just as he would have had no choice to push her into the movie theatre, he sees her eyelids droop. He did not want to push her into the movie theatre because to get her out again with her wheelchair, while she was fast asleep, would have attracted too much attention to him.
After a few more minutes, he stands up from the low wall he is sitting on. He steps behind her and then he pushes her back through the mall. When he walks into the lift, there is an elderly woman already in there. He realizes it will look too suspicious for him to back out again.
The old lady looks down at Samantha sympathetic.
Begrudgingly Gareth explains, “She’s had a long day.”
The old woman smiles at him. “You are a good young man to look after her so nicely.”
Gareth just smiles charmingly.
When he gets to his car, Gareth picks her up out of the wheelchair and gently he sits her down onto the seat. He buckles the safety belt around her, and he lets the seat down a bit so that her head does not drop forward awkwardly. He folds up her wheelchair again and then he places it in the trunk of his car.
He drives away from the mall slowly, aware of the multitude of security cameras adorning the wall.
At the university grounds, he drives his car through the parking area in front of her dorm and then slowly he drives around to the back.
He turns down a little service road behind her dorm, protected by large trees on either side until he sees the panel van ahead of him.
Moments later, he stops in front of the van, the headlights of his Mercedes illuminates Richard in the front seat of the white panel van.
Richard jumps out and walks to the back of the van.
As Gareth gets out of his car, he hears the back doors of the van swing open. He lifts Samantha up from the chair roughly with a grunt. She is heavy and deeply sedated from the sleeping tablets Richard stole from his mother’s large supply.
He struggles as he carries her toward the back of the van and then relieved, he drops her down onto the metal floor of the van with a bang.
Richard smiles. “With her you can tick off both black and disabled.”
Gareth smirks sarcastically. “Will you get her to the cabin? I have to go to the library now, to tighten my alibi.”
“All sorted. I’ll be back in a little over an hour.”
“I’ll see you back in the room.” Still trying to catch his breath, Gareth gets back into his car.
Richard drives casually away from the university grounds. He waves friendly to the guard at the entrance gates and then as he reaches the straight, smooth tarmac of the highway, he turns the volume on the stereo louder. He sings with the songs he knows and taps the beat of the music on the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers.
When he reaches the shack, he carries the unconscious Samantha slung across his broad shoulder into the structure.
He cannot wait for the day when the video goes live, and he will at last be an internet sensation. They have chosen the screen name of The Death Factor. Gareth created a fake email account with false information and connected the video channel to this phony email account. Richard has never really been much use in front of a computer. He knows how to do the basic things like post his status, do projects on his word documents and to upload photos and videos to the internet, and he does not really know what all the gadgets surrounding the computer in the lounge is for, but it looks impressive and Gareth is the ultimate computer genius.
In the basement, he shackles Samantha to the metal ring in the cubicle next to Sarah.
As he fills her dog bowl with water and fills the other bowl with dog kibble, he hears Sarah mumble.
Frowning displeased, he walks into Sarah’s cubicle and notices she is still asleep. He picks up the dog food bowl and walks back to the counter by the washing machine. He refills her bowl with water and fills another with kibble. A hungry stomach does not care what it gets to eat, besides, they chose a top of the range dog food, and all their contestants will have a well-balanced, nutritional meal every day. Softly he laughs cynically at his own cleverness and then he hears Sarah scream at the top of her lungs. “Help! Help me!”
He storms back to her with the bowl of water still in his hand. He hurls the bowl directly into her face. The water sprays in an arc across the wall behind her.
“Shut up, bitch! Stop screaming, nobody can hear you out here. Save your breath for when you have to plead for your life,” he screams close to her face. He sees his spit spew over her face, and she grimaces.
Her hand comes up to grab at him, but he sidesteps deftly and as she comes up onto her knees to crawl after him, he steps further away. She rushes toward him, and then when she reaches the end of her chain, it jerks her back. She lands onto the floor with a loud dull sound.
“When you get thirsty you can lick the water off the wall behind you, stupid bitch.”
He takes the red plastic bowl, which he filled earlier with kibble and slides it across the floor. It stops close to her foot and she kicks at it. Kibble flies everywhere.
Richard smirks as he turns around away from her. “Now you can eat your food from off the ground as well.”
He mumbles to himself as he walks up the stairs and out to his car to get Samantha’s wheelchair. He picks it up out of the back of the van effortlessly and then he carries it into the cabin. He stashes it in the main bedroom.
As he drives away from the dark cabin, he cannot believe how ungrateful that spoilt Sarah is. She should be grateful he comes here every day to feed her and she should be more concerned with keeping herself pretty, so she gets chosen every day to go forward in the competition. If they let her go, she will be in every magazine and on every talk show, and she really should show more gratitude.
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