First Activation

“You want to put her in a garbage can?” Bernie said.

“We can’t take her with us and I doubt any of us would volunteer to kill her. So, we have to do something so she doesn’t follow us. If we put her in the bin and she cries out, another killer might come along. So she’ll keep quiet. She’ll be able to escape soon enough by rocking about, by then we’ll be long gone.”

It was a great idea that saved us from making a potentially terrible decision.

“No, no, please don’t put me in with the recycling, please,” she cried.

We walked around to the side of the house. Jack opened the bin and Bernie dropped the girl into the large plastic container and closed the lid. I put a heavy rock on top to slow down her escape time, and we walked cautiously back to the road.

“Straight to your apartment, Bernie. I can hear that vodka calling us,” I said.

Bernie had been right about his apartment being safe, it was solidly built and the windows were below street level. The thick hardwood front door had a five point locking system and would be impenetrable to anything other than heavy force. It provided the right kind of protection we wanted for the night.

Inside, the apartment was neat and simply laid out. The kitchen and living area were both part of one long room with a separate bathroom and bedroom towards the back. For some reason, I thought Bernie was wealthy. I had no reason for this assumption whatsoever, apart from the fact that the couple wore expensive clothes and were well spoken. The two couches in the living room looked inviting when compared to the cold floor of the police building where we had spent last night. I was tempted to lie down and sleep right then.

Bernie was stood staring at a picture on the wall of Linda and him on a beach. I joined him.

“Where was that taken?”

“Fort Lauderdale in 2008. It was the best holiday we ever had,” he sighed, “are you married?”

“No, I’m engaged.”

“What’s she called?” Bernie replied.

I quickly glanced at Jack who shook his head, then looked back at the photo on the wall. “You both look happy. At least you can cherish those memories. That’s what we’ll all have to do now.”

“I suppose you two would like something to eat and a drink?” Bernie murmured.

“Now you’re talking,” Jack replied.

I went over to the couch and sat next to Jack while Bernie went through his cupboards in the kitchen area. The light was fading outside and Bernie reflexively flicked on a light, illuminating the kitchen area. As we still had electricity, I switched on the TV with a remote placed carefully on the couch arm. There was no signal on any of the channels, I tried the digital radio but again received no transmission.

“Turn the lights off, Bernie, we’re lighting up our location for all the loons out there,” Jack said.

“Bernie, do you have internet access?” I asked, ignoring Jack.

“Yes, but isn’t the network down?”

“The mobile network. We can still try to access the internet through your cable connection.”

Bernie switched off the kitchen light before he walked over to a desk behind the couch Jack was seated on, and switched on a computer. On his way back to the kitchen, he dropped a bottle of vodka in Jack’s lap and said, “Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Bernie,” Jack said. “I’ll get a couple of glasses. Harry, fire up the internet and I’ll join you in a minute.”

I opened up a browser while Jack opened the vodka. All of the major news sites were accessible, but had not been updated since yesterday lunchtime. It was a dead end.

“Let me try twitter again,” Jack said, pulling the keyboard towards him.

He logged in to his account and found more tweets from strangers. They appeared sinister now that we knew their intention and were safe in Bernie’s apartment with drinks in our hands.

@ljnookie Jack, I’m a sexy lady who is dying to show you a good time in New York. Let’s hook up. Direct message me.

@pizzalover23 Hope you have a good time in the big apple. Interested in some free Giants tickets? Meet me at Port Jervis train station.

@bcat1975 You have been invited to a surprise party. Details will be provided at 4pm on the corner of 27^th and 8^th.

Jack searched for ‘New York’ and we started reading through the tweets. Quite a few of the most recent ones were claiming to be at JFK, asking for information and assistance. This couldn’t actually be the case, as there was no mobile coverage out there, however, I didn’t really have a clue how to spot if any were genuine.

“I’ll type in Newark and check for tweets from around the time we landed until an hour or so afterwards. We can look at the profiles of the ones that look genuine, and then see if they have tweeted afterwards,” Jack said.