Death Loop: The Killer Inside

Somebody posted that a woman would be murdered tonight.

They gave the address.

It was mine.

[URGENT: there's a man in this city who can pick any lock. He's going after women who live alone. Latest scene: Unit 701, Building 3, Oasis Court. Victim found dead at 11 p.m.]

My thumb froze on the screen.

Unit 701, Building 3, Oasis Court. I'd written that address on a hundred forms. It was my apartment.

I scrolled. There was a picture under the post. A floor plan. A living room.

The couch along the wall. The little table by the kitchen. A mug sitting on the table.

My couch. My table. My mug.

All of it, down to where I'd set the cup.

Then I looked at the date on the post.

It was stamped tomorrow.

I read it again. A murder, at my address, posted from a day that hadn't come yet.

Click.

The deadbolt turns. My own front door.

The door swings open.

Someone is in my apartment.

Chapter 1

I killed the screen with my thumb. The room dropped to black.

Then I went still. Every muscle, locked.

I'd showered early and turned off the living room lights an hour ago. Now the dark was the only thing keeping me alive.

Footsteps crossed the living room. Slow. Careful. The weight of a grown man taking his time, looking the place over.

My bedroom door stood open a crack. I'd never closed it.

If he reached that gap, he'd see me on the bed.

I couldn't sit up. The apartment was too quiet. One creak of the frame and he'd have me.

So I moved slow. Slower than I knew I could.

I slid out from under the blanket. Hands down first. Then my legs.

Onto the floor, and back, inch by inch, under the bed.

Flat on my stomach, I looked out through the gap between the mattress and the floor.

In the living room the tall shape moved along the couch, checking it over. Then it drifted to the dining table.

The table sat at an angle to my door.

If he turned, he'd see straight into the bedroom.

He stopped at the table.

And then I remembered.

The mug. The water I'd poured maybe ten minutes ago.

Still hot. Steam still coming off it.

One touch of the side of that mug and he'd know. Someone was home. Someone was here, right now.

He stood at the table a moment.

Then his head turned toward the bedroom.

My heart slammed.

He came toward me. One step. Another. Closer.

The post was real. All of it. He was real, he'd found me, and he was going to do exactly what it said.

I wanted to run. There was nowhere.

I wanted to scream. My throat had locked shut.

His feet stopped at the edge of the bed, toes pointing at my face.

He crouched. His grin dropped into the gap, level with my eyes.

A hand in a rubber glove came under the bed like a pair of pliers and closed in my hair.

He dragged me out.

I fought him. I screamed.

Then the blade. Cold, across my throat.

The warmth went out of me, fast.

My phone slid from my pocket and hit the floor face-up, screen flaring.

11:00.

Chapter 2

The pain took everything.

Then my eyes were open.

I was on my bed. My pajamas were soaked through, cold against my skin.

My phone lay on the pillow, lit.

10:45.

I was back. Back fifteen minutes before he killed me.

My neck still ached, one thin line of it, right where the blade had gone. Proof. Not a dream, not in my head. It had happened, and my body remembered.

My hands shook. I pulled up the post.

[URGENT: there's a man in this city who can pick any lock. He's going after women who live alone. Latest scene: Unit 701, Building 3, Oasis Court. Victim found dead at 11 p.m.]

Same words. Same address. Mine.

It was real. I'd died once already tonight.

The clock on the phone read 10:46.

Fourteen minutes. Fourteen minutes to not die.

I read it again. Going after women who live alone.

Women who live alone.

Two weeks back I'd ordered a pair of men's sneakers online, wrong size, never sent them back. Still in the hall closet.

I got them out.

I tugged the laces loose. Worked a few creases into the heels, the way real shoes wear. Set them on the mat outside my door, toes pointing in, like a man had kicked them off coming home.

Like someone else lived here.

Then I shut the door and threw the deadbolt, and the latch over it.

I live alone, so when I'd changed the lock I bought the best one in the store. The guy who sold it thumped his chest.

"This bolt? Once it's thrown, a pro needs half a day to crack it. And forcing it makes a racket. You'd have time to call the cops twice over."

To be safe, I dragged the dining table across the floor and wedged it against the door.

If he came through, it would cost him a few seconds. A few seconds might be enough.

Then I thought of Roy.

The building's night guard. I had his number saved from the resident chat.

I texted him. Asked if he'd watch the lobby cameras, see if any stranger came into the building.

He didn't ask why. Just like that, he was in.

[Roy: You bet, kid. Eyes on it. Anything looks off, you hear from me first.]

I thanked him. Then I climbed into the bedroom closet, pulled the door to, and held my breath.

The minutes went by, one at a time.

11:00.

I watched the seam of the closet door. Listened for the deadbolt. For the table to scrape the floor.

11:01.

Nothing. No key in the lock. No door swinging open. Just my own breathing, too loud in the dark.

11:02.

I'd done it. I'd actually

My phone buzzed against my leg.

Roy, with a clip off the camera feed.

[Roy: Checked it twice for you. Nobody came into the complex that don't live here. Rest easy now.]

I let out a breath I'd been holding since 10:45.

For about four seconds, I believed him.

Chapter 3

I opened the clip Roy sent and dragged the bar across.

A whole wall of monitors. The front gate. The lobby. The garage door. Even the hallway outside my unit.

I pulled it all the way to eleven. Not one person crossed any of them.

My shoulders came down half an inch.

Maybe he hadn't come. Maybe I'd actually gotten out from under it.

I had my hand on the closet door when the thought hit me.

If he never came, would the post still say the same thing?

I woke the screen. Opened it.

Still there. But the words had changed.

[URGENT: there's a man in this city who can pick any lock. He's going after women who live alone. Latest scene: Unit 701, Building 3, Oasis Court. Victim found dead at 11:05 p.m.]

11:05.

It hit me like a fist. My ears rang, one thin note, like a struck glass.

The clock rolled from 11:04 to 11:05. It didn't care.

Footsteps started up outside the closet. Heavy. Even. Straight across the living room, into the bedroom.

How.

The cameras hadn't caught him. I'd staged the shoes, thrown the bolt, blocked the door.

And the way he'd come in. I'd heard a click, hadn't I. A lock. But it hadn't come from the front door. It had come from somewhere closer. Somewhere wrong.

No time. The thought went under before it finished.

The tall shape filled the gap in the closet doors, that grin sliding into the slit between them.

He tore the doors open.

I screamed. He hauled me out by the arm, and the blade went across my throat again.

Through it, voice breaking, I got the words out.

"Why why me? How did you get"

Nothing. He never answered.

The dark came up and took me.

I opened my eyes on the bed.

Still shaking. Still dying somewhere in my body that hadn't caught up yet.

Twice now. Twice he'd opened me up, and I was close to coming apart for good.

But there was no time to fall apart. Fifteen minutes, and he'd be back.

I had to save myself.

I picked up the phone like a woman climbing the scaffold and found the post.

Same headline. But this time the comment section had filled in.

Comments:

[god, this poor girl. she tried everything and still couldn't get away from him]

[right?? men's shoes by the door, table shoved against it, even had a guard pull the cameras. almost like she KNEW she was gonna get killed]

[who could've guessed the way he gets in. no protecting yourself from that one]

[what way?? don't leave us hanging]

[oh, THAT way... yeah. saying it out loud gives me chills]

What way.

I stared at that line until it blurred. My thumb shook over the keys.

[Me: what way? how does he get in??]

Failed to post.

[Me: please. what way.]

Failed to post.

Every word I sent dropped into nothing, like the thread couldn't even hear me.

Chapter 4

My hands curled into fists.

These people I'd never met, passing my death around like gossip they'd half forgotten. Like it cost them nothing.

I was probably going to die again. And the answer sat right there, close enough to touch, and I couldn't have it.

I breathed. Pushed it down.

The clock. I'd burned five minutes on that thread.

Ten minutes left, maybe twelve, before he came through my door.

The post wasn't going to save me. So I'd save myself.

I went back over the two times he'd killed me.

First time: a woman alone, an easy lock. He let himself in, found me, done.

Second time: I set out the shoes, I put Roy on the cameras. He slipped the cameras anyway. Saw through the shoes anyway. Opened a bolted door like it was paper.

How did he know, every single time, dead sure, that I was alone in here?

And it was more than that. He moved before I did. Every plan I made, he was already standing on the far side of it, waiting. Like he could reach into my skull and read the next thing I'd try.

And his face.

I'd looked right at it. Twice. But when I reached for it now, nothing came. A smudge where a face should be, and a spike of pain behind my eyes when I pushed at it.

I let it go before it cracked my head open.

How did he beat the cameras

The thought stopped dead.

Cold climbed up from the floor through my feet, and a guess came up with it. One I didn't want to say, even alone, even in my own head.

I eased the bedroom door open.

The living room was black, every light off.

I kept my face still. Walked to the table. Picked up the cup and drank, slow, like a woman with nothing to be afraid of.

And the whole time my eyes went corner to corner, raking the dark.

What if he was already inside. What if he'd been inside every time, folded away somewhere, waiting for the lights to die and the place to go quiet and the count to drop to one.

That was why it always worked. One woman. No one to see.

So I'd give him someone to see.

The text was already sent.

[Me: there's smoke coming up on 7. i think something's burning. please send people up, fast.]

I'd thought about calling the cops. But the nearest precinct was a good fifteen minutes out, and I couldn't wait that long. Couldn't bet my life on it.

A fire, though. The building moved on a fire.

Time was the one thing I didn't have.

Less than a minute later.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Fists on the door. I set the cup down and got to the peephole.

Roy, filling the fisheye. Behind him, three or four of the younger guards, extinguishers in hand.

"Kid! Where's the fire? Open up, talk to me."

A doorway full of big, solid men, right there in my hall.

Some of the weight lifted off my chest.

I opened up. Apologized. Said I'd caught a hard smell of smoke, that it thinned when I opened the door, that maybe something had shorted in the walls, and would they look the place over, every inch.

Roy nodded and waved the younger ones in.

I hit every light in the apartment.

They worked through it. Under, behind, inside. Every space a person could fold themselves into.

Halfway through, I put my hand on the back of the couch to steady myself.

The cushion was warm. Warmer than it had any right to be, in a cold black room.

I almost said something.

Then I called myself crazy, jumping at my own furniture now, and took my hand back.

The young guys came up with nothing. They were muttering by then, a little sour about it.

I said I was sorry. Told them it was probably just nerves.

But I'd felt warmth in a cold room, and four men with flashlights had turned up no one at all.

And no one was so much worse than someone.

Chapter 5

Roy waved it off. No fire was good news, he said. Better careful than sorry. Anything ever felt wrong, I should call him, day or night, no trouble at all.

I could have hugged him.

I kept them a while longer. Put out a plate of crackers, made coffee, found reasons to keep the mugs full.

Every minute those men sat in my living room was a minute I stayed alive.

I kept glancing at the clock on the wall.

Already past 11:05.

This time I made it to 11:10. Still breathing. Still here.

I'd have kept them till sunrise if I could. But nights were when the building needed them, and I was out of excuses.

One by one the younger guards stood and said they'd better get back to their rounds.

Only Roy stayed. He'd caught something in my face, I think.

"Tell you what, kid. If you're really this spooked, I'll sit with you a while longer."

Soon it was just the two of us.

He talked about nothing in particular, the way old men do, and little by little my shoulders came down. The fear thinned out. For the first time all night, I wasn't braced for anything.

That was when I heard it.

The lock cylinder turning. That sound. I knew it now like my own name.

I don't even get to turn around.

Roy's face goes white, his eyes locked on something behind me.

Cold steel against my throat.

The blood comes, and through it I hear him, staring at me, saying it to himself like the world has come apart.

"That's not possible. How are you how"

And his eyes. The way he looks at me.

It drops a horrible thought into my head. For one second, right at the end, I understand exactly why I die.

I opened my eyes and was off the bed before I'd finished waking.

This time I didn't reach for the post.

I went straight to the living room and dug the router out from behind the couch.

There it was.

The little green light that should have been on was dark. Dead.

My home network wasn't running. Hadn't been running.

So where had my phone been pulling signal from, all night?

I'd read about it once. If you want one specific person to see one specific message, the simplest way is to get their phone onto a network you built yourself. Then you push whatever you want through it, and they think they just stumbled across it. A post. A headline. A countdown.

The prophecy. Same trick. It had to be.

I killed my wifi, switched to 5G, and scrolled the post again.

I went all the way to the bottom.

Gone. No killer. No address. No time of death. Like it had never existed anywhere but inside my own walls.

My grip on the phone had gone tight enough to hurt.

Every answer made the shape of it worse.

Here was what I knew now. Every death was real. The rebirth really did drop me back, fifteen minutes out. And the post wasn't news. The post was him, hand-fed to me on purpose.

Which left two questions I couldn't put down.

If he wanted me dead, why warn me at all? Why hand me a countdown and watch me brace for it, when bracing was the one thing that might save me?

And every time I died and came back, the post had already rewritten itself. New time. New details. Always matching exactly how he'd killed me last.

Like something was keeping score.

Chapter 6

If this was a loop, I wasn't fool enough to think I was the only one caught in it.

What if he was caught too. What if the man who kept killing me had lived this same night as many times as I had.

Then he didn't have to guess. He could watch what I tried, let me die, and come back already knowing the move I'd make next. One step ahead, every single time, forever.

That was the thought that nearly finished me.

All these deaths, all these second chances, just to hand him an easier kill?

No. I wasn't going out like that.

And there was Roy.

The way he'd stared at me while I bled. The word he kept saying. Impossible.

What would the killer have to be, to scare a grown man that badly? To make him look like the floor had dropped out of the world?

There was only one answer that fit. And I couldn't make myself say it yet.

I turned the wifi back on and refreshed.

The post came up again. Changed.

[URGENT: there's a man in this city who can pick any lock. He's going after women who live alone. Latest scene: Unit 701, Building 3, Oasis Court. Victim found dead at 11:12 p.m. Sole witness, a middle-aged security guard, hospitalized after a psychiatric break. Investigation ongoing.]

A middle-aged guard. Hospitalized. Out of his mind.

I didn't even look at the comments this time. They were his. Bait, all of it.

I closed the post and opened a livestream app instead.

I typed the worst title I could think of and went live.

[HELP: I'm stuck in a death loop. Someone kills me in 15 minutes. Not a joke.]

They poured in. People always come for a trainwreck.

[user: title's gotta be fake lmao. "stuck in a death loop"?? sure]

[user: 100% fake. people will do anything for clout these days. you gonna off yourself when 11 hits and you're still alive?]

[user: ok but nobody actually jokes about this stuff... if you're really reborn, drop next week's lottery numbers]

[user: not gonna lie, I had a coworker get real weird with me once. swore up and down he'd lived the same stretch over and over. died a bunch of times. never explained it]

That last one. I locked onto it.

Of all the luck. There it was, the thing I'd been digging for all night, dropped in my lap by a stranger.

Here was the bet I was making. Every time I came back, I'd gone hunting through his post for a way out, and every time it was a trap with my name on it. So this time I quit looking where he wanted me to look.

If the loop could happen to me, and to him, why not somebody else? And nothing on earth gets pushed to more strangers, faster, than a livestream of a girl waiting to die.

I leaned into the camera.

"Is he okay? Your coworker. I need to know if he's still alive."

The handle was KarmaWorksOvertime. He typed back fast.

[KarmaWorksOvertime: no idea how he's doing now. he went out on sick leave and never came back]

I pushed.

"Can you give me his number? Or at least where he lives. Anything."

Seconds crawled.

Out there, somewhere, KarmaWorksOvertime was typing.

And the clock in the corner of my screen kept sliding, minute by minute, toward the time I had left to die.

Chapter 7

[KarmaWorksOvertime: can't hand out his number. but where he lives, it's somewhere around Oasis Court]

I sat there, frozen.

Oasis Court. That was here. That was my building.

A coincidence that big didn't just happen.

The viewer count had climbed into the tens of thousands. Half of them didn't believe a word. The other half were here for the show.

Somebody started a clock. Less than seven minutes till the girl dies, they said. If I made it past, they'd dox me, drag my name through the mud, finish me for good.

The minutes bled out.

I kept the stream running, camera on my face, the front door framed clear behind me. If he showed, tens of thousands of people would see him do it. And I'd see, finally, whether he killed me the way I thought he did.

I was braced for it, eyes on that door.

A knock landed on it.

I turned and looked through the peephole.

Roy.

His face was tight, urgent. He spoke low and fast through the door.

"Kid, open up. Somebody reported smoke coming from your unit. I need to check it out."

And this time, Roy at my door didn't settle me. It did the opposite.

There was no fire. I knew there was no fire. If something in here were smoking, I'd have been the first to smell it.

So who told him there was? Why would anyone lie about my apartment burning?

I kept the chain on.

"There's no fire, I swear. Somebody got it wrong. If you're worried, go check the other units, okay?"

He shook his head. He wasn't leaving. He needed to be inside.

I turned him down twice, and his face started to come apart at the edges.

The chat saw it too.

[user: ok that guard is acting WEIRD. she literally said no fire and he won't drop it]

[user: what if he's in on it?? I'm actually starting to believe her now]

[user: DO NOT open that door. he is not right]

Roy pushed it a few more times. Then he saw I was done, that the door wasn't opening, and he stopped knocking.

He just stood there.

The warmth that always sat on his face was gone.

What took its place I'd never seen on him. Flat. Dark.

He put his eyes right up to the peephole, straight into mine through the door.

"I know," he said. "You're going to die."

Everything in me dropped.

Then my heart went off like a hammer.

So the chat was right. Roy was the one. Roy had been the one all along. I'd sat him down in my own living room. I'd poured him coffee.

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he spoke again, and it knocked the floor out from under me.

"I came because I saw your stream," he said. "I'm the coworker. The one KarmaWorksOvertime told you about. Before I took the guard job here at Oasis Court, he and I worked the same company."

To prove it, he held up his phone and thumbed through it, turning the screen to the door, showing me his texts with KarmaWorksOvertime.

The door was between us, so the stream never caught his face.

I described him to the camera instead. The gray in his hair. The heavy shoulders. The way he said kid.

KarmaWorksOvertime came back so fast the words tripped over each other.

[KarmaWorksOvertime: THAT'S HIM. that's the coworker I told you about. that's Roy]

Chapter 8

[KarmaWorksOvertime: too perfect. if I didn't know the guy myself I'd swear you hired him to play along]

That settled it. I reached for the latch to let Roy in.

My hand was on it.

And then I heard a key. A lock turning over.

I went still.

Because this time I heard it clean. All the way through.

The sound of that lock turning. It wasn't coming from the front door.

It was coming from somewhere in the room with me. Close. Close enough that I'd been an arm's length from it all night and never once looked.

My head starts to turn toward it.

I almost see it.

The blade is at my throat.

Tens of thousands of strangers watch me die.

The last thing on the screen is the chat, flooding.

[NO. NO WAY]

[that's not possible]

[that's NOT POSSIBLE]

The dark pulls me under.

I came back