Suspense/Intrigue
Virtual Death
By B
Aug 3, 2007, 12:28

Serrated razor. Check

Electric drill. Check

RPG…RPG?

The hand stopped moving, lightly tapping where RPG was written. RPG stood for role-playing game but it was also a military weapon. The killer wasn’t quite sure what RPG meant when it came to military weapons or how to obtain one. But judging by the other toys on the list, there were enough items to make sure the night ended with a bang.

Looking through, the only remaining item was a hammer. Packing up everything, looking around to make sure nothing was forgotten, the killer only had one thought left.

Time to visit Mary Rydel.

                             ***

"I think we found something."

FBI Special Agent Aiden Quinn looked up for his computer as his partner dropped a file on his desk.

"This better be good," he said with a sigh. "I’m tired of chasing our own asses around on this one. We’re up to four victims and have yet to get a single decent lead."

"Well, get ready for this," his partner, Lane Jasper, said. "The tech guys have gone through three of the four vic’s computers and so far, they’ve found all three frequented the same website."

Aiden stared at Lane.

"A website?" he exclaimed, getting a sinking feeling this was going to turn out to be another dead end. "You’re hopping around like a virgin on prom night because they all checked out the same website? Next you’ll tell me they all ordered from Amazon, which proves Jeff Bezos killed them all because he didn’t want to sell them books anymore."

Lane looked confused. "Who’s Jeff Bezos?"

Aiden smacked his head against his computer.

"You’re killing me here. Jeff Bezos only happens to be the founder of Amazon. Please tell me you’ve got something better than them shopping on Amazon."

Lane shot a smug look at Aiden.

"I don’t know about this Jeff Bezos guy or your fascination with him, but I’ve got something way better than some stupid book site." He grabbed the keyboard and gestured Aiden to turn the computer screen so they could both see what was on it. After typing in a web address, he stepped back and said, "Check this out and tell me what you think."

Aiden looked at the screen and saw Lane had pulled up a site called Virtual Death. Grabbing the computer’s mouse, he started scrolling through the site and couldn’t believe what he was looking at. The site was set up as a chat forum, where people could post messages back and forth to each other. That wasn’t what had his eyes glued to the screen though. He had clicked on a forum called ‘Latest Deaths’ and what he saw there blew him away. There were detailed stories of people who were murdered in the most disturbing ways imaginable. Worse yet, it looked like the people doing the killings, calling themselves Death Dealer and Soul Sucker, were having fun.

He moved on and randomly clicked on another forum. This one had the details for the next death that was to occur. It seemed a woman named Christina made the error of saying she disliked maple syrup, causing one of the killer’s to become upset with her, seeing it as a slur to Canada. Because of that, it appeared the woman was in for a truly gruesome death.

Horrified, he turned to Lane. "Is this...Are they...?

Lane, having had the same reaction when he first checked out the site, knew exactly what Aiden was asking. "No," he said, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. They finally found something worth investigating in the case. "They’re not true accounts of real deaths. It looks like a couple of sick-o’s got together and created this website whose sole purpose is to virtually kill people. Hence their name, Virtual Death. Clever, aren’t they?" he said, dryly.

"Wait, let me get this straight," Aiden said, letting go of the sick feeling in his stomach. "You’re telling me people actually come to this site so they can be killed? What kind of morbid people sign up for this kind of crap?"

Flipping open the file he had dropped on Aiden’s desk earlier, Lane said, "Our morbid victims, apparently. All three of them had signed up for their own personal deaths with these society rejects, Death Dealer and Soul Sucker. Who calls themselves that? Sounds like a couple of guys who’ve spent too many years playing Dungeon’s and Dragon’s in their basement. Except I think these are woman, or men pretending to be women. Not sure on that yet, but I just don’t see how a couple of women could be this vicious. The IT guys are digging into the site to see if they can find anything for us to use to track these people down with."

Aiden flipped through the file Lane opened. Skimming through the info, it showed that all three victims had in fact signed up for their own deaths and also received them. Things got interesting though when he noticed how they were killed.

Having entered the FBI academy right out of college ten years ago, Aiden had seen some of the worst horrors a person could imagine. From child molesters to murder/suicides, he’d seen it all, and lived it with the victims that were left behind to cope with the aftermath of destruction in the lives. But this was something that was completely out of his scope. He had a hard time wrapping his mind around people voluntarily signing up to be murdered in cruel, humiliating and degrading ways. Yet, judging from what he saw on the site and what he was reading in the files, many people not only signed up for it, they also enjoyed it to the point where they would recommend it to other people. He just didn’t get it.

"It’s the same way," he whispered in an astonished voice. Looking up at Lane from the papers in his hand, he said, "The kills. They were all killed with the same weapons as those used in their virtual deaths. Someone’s taking these people’s twisted fantasies and making them a sick reality."

"Ding, ding,ding!" Lane exclaimed. "You win the prize behind door number one! Would you like to make it a clean sweep and go for what’s behind door number two by telling us who you think the suspect, or suspects, may be?

Excited that they finally had a lead to work with, Aiden jumped up from his chair and grabbed his jacket from the backrest. "Door number two better have a gorgeous woman behind it, because, as of right now, our main suspects are the homicidal people running this murder website."

                            ***

Amara Jacobs leaned back from the computer screen and rolled her shoulders. She looked at the clock in the corner of her screen and realized she’d been on for over three hours.

Who knew death could be so much work? she thought.

Stretching her arms above her head, she tried working some kinks out of her neck before turning back to the computer screen and scrolling through the transcript of the chat she just finished. Reading through, she started working on making it into a story to post on her website.


Grabbing a flamethrower, Soul Sucker slowly walked around the whimpering mortal.

Death Dealer poured maple syrup on her finger, licking at it before sticking her finger in her mouth and sucking it off. She then turned to the being kneeling on the floor before her.

Grabbing her hair and yanking her head back, she said, "Today’s victim is Christina, our first ever Canada hater. Chris hates maple syrup. Which means she hates Canada because, as we all know, maple syrup is Canadian. It’s the whole maple leaf theme they have going on. And if she hates Canada, that means she hates me, because as we all know, thanks to my mama, I’m half Canadian, eh!"

Soul Sucker nodded at that. "She does, Death. She hates you. She totally hates you! She must die. Because the only one allowed to hate you is me!

"Right." Letting go of the victim’s hair, Death batted her eyes lashes towards Soul. In a giggling, flirty voice, she said "But you don’t hate my Canadian-ism. You just hate my beauty. It’s too much for you."

"I do," replied Soul. "It’s much too much. You’re almost as pretty as me."

Praying they’d continue talking about their beauty and forgot about her, Chris started slowly scooting back on her knees, hoping to get out before their attention diverted to her once again.

Death huffed. "If I was almost as pretty, then you wouldn’t hate me, would you?

Looking down at the victim, Soul Sucker frowned. Had she moved a bit from her original position? Walking over, she stroked the mortal’s hair, enjoying the fear induced shivers that coursed through her body. "Never mind that." Grabbing the bottle of maple syrup, she began tipping it above Chris’s head. "What should we do with her?

Chris squeezed her eyes shut. Whimpering, she said, "Oh man, I’ve never been so scared in my life." Opening her eyes, she saw Soul Sucker toss the syrup and reach for the flamethrower again. Panicked, she yelled, "Wait!"

Looking up from the hook she was contemplating using, Death raised an eye brow and asked, "For?"

Chris frantically looked around, hoping to find an escape. Seeing none, she asked, "Can’t I grovel some more?"

Tapping her finger against her lip, Death started grinning, scaring Chris even more. "I have a better idea," Death said. "How about you sing me the Canadian National Anthem?"

Chris visibly gulped. "The Canadian National Anthem?" she stammered out.

Soul clapped her hands and laughed. "That’s perfect. I do so love being serenaded."

In a shaky voice, Chris began. "Oh, Canada…"

"Yes, yes," prompted Death. "Keep going."

"The home of the great Death Dealer’s mother. Friend of the Soul Sucker."

Death interrupted. "Are you mocking my mama’s anthem?" she demanded.

A very nervous Chris cried, "You told me to sing it. I don’t know the words."

Getting angry, Death yelled, "So you thought making it this disrespectful hodgepodge would be better than nothing?"

Shoving the flamethrower at Death, Soul Sucker said, "She back sassed you, Death. Kill her!"


Laughing, Amara leaned back and rubbed her light green eyes before stretching her arms again. Looking down at the clock, she saw it was almost one in the morning. No wonder she was so tired. Looking at the computer screen, she decided she was better off going to bed instead of working on turning the transcript into her latest kill story. She was just too tired to concentrate.

While waiting for the computer to shut down, she thought back to how death had turned into a favorite pass time for her. Talking to two of her friend’s online one day, out of the blue, one of them said he wished he could die. Thinking at the time he was joking around, Amara and her friend Kyna both thought to give him what he wanted. They let their imaginations free and gave him the bloodiest, most gruesome death possible. Only later did they find out he actually meant what he said.

A few days after the mock death, all three had gotten together and Adam admitted he’d been serious when he’d said he wanted to die. He’d been thinking about suicide for a while and even started building up the nerve to do it. He wasn’t sure why he had blurted out he wanted to die to them, but he was glad he did. Adam knew they thought he was joking about wanting to die but when they got into killing him, he imagined it was truly happening. They may have only killed him virtually as a joke, but for him, it was like a lease on a new life. After his so called ‘death’, he felt like he had another chance at living. It had made such an impact on him he asked if they’d be willing to ‘kill’ a friend he had shared his experience with.

Somehow, one death became more and Amara and Kyna eventually created Virtual Death, a website where people came to basically be killed. Some, like their latest victim, came because they’d heard about what they do and thought it would be fun. And others came because for one reason or another, they felt a need to experience death in some small way.

Amara, getting up from the computer to turn off the lights in the room, didn’t know what caused a person to seek out death in such a bizarre and mysterious way. It certainly wasn’t something she would ever seek out for herself. Somehow though, she managed to become a part of it, a huge part. Though she always looked at it as having fun and blowing off some steam, there were people who came onto the site who took everything that happened there extremely seriously, which worried her.

Looking around the first floor of her house to make sure she got all the lights, she slowly started making her way up the stairs to her bedroom, still thinking about what caused people to gravitate towards death. Maybe she’ll ask her latest victim, she thought. Thinking of her death brought a smile to Amara’s face as she climbed into bed. It was definitely one of the more entertaining deaths. Thinking about the maple syrup made her chuckle out loud as she snuggled down into the comforter. Her last thought as she drifted off was about the interesting new Canadian Anthem their lovely victim seemed to have created for Canada.

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