Friend From the Internet Read online

  “And when are you going to do that?”

  She shrugs.

  “You can't stay here forever,” I continue. “My parents are -”

  “I know, I know. Your parents'll be back, and I've got to be gone by then. That's fine, I already figured. I never like staying in one place for too long anyway. Especially not places where there's some maniac wandering the streets.”

  “You've got to tell the police everything you know,” I reply.

  “Maybe.”

  “There's no maybe about it. Even the slightest detail could help.”

  I wait for her to agree with me, but she's simply staring down at her hands.

  “I'll go to them,” I continue. “I'll go during the day, and I'll tell them what you told me. You won't have to do anything.”

  “I think he's a cop,” she says suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  She glances at me, and I can see the fear in her eyes.

  “Don't ask me how I know this,” she continues. “Trust me. I think the killer is a cop, which means going to the police is a really bad idea 'cause it'll only draw attention to me. To us. Remember how I told you not to bother trying to help Caroline? Well that applies to other things in life too.”

  “But -”

  “Leave it well alone. You're safe in here, I don't think the killer breaks into houses. Stay off the street after dark, and you'll be fine.”

  “What if he kills someone else?”

  “He will. But that's none of your business.”

  Sitting up straight, I feel as if I can't really be hearing what I'm hearing.

  “Don't get all goody-two-shoes on me,” she continues. “Whatever shit's going on out there, it's best to stay out of it. Like I'm doing.”

  “That's a horrible way of looking at things.”

  “In this life, May, you have to keep your head down. Don't give the fuckers any reason to even notice that you exist. Stay out of the world's shit, and hopefully the world'll stay out of yours.”

  “If everyone thought like that,” I reply, “the world would be a really bad place.”

  “The world is a really bad place,” she says. “Maybe someone like you doesn't see that, sitting here safely in the second home Mummy and Daddy put you in while they went on their little trip. Maybe it's easy for you. But trust me, out there there's a world you don't know about, and bad things happen all the time. You're lucky, you get the luxury of pretending it's not true, but it is.”

  Reaching over, she opens her backpack and pulls out a bottle of brandy.

  “Sorry,” she mutters. “I don't have enough to share.”

  “I don't drink anyway,” I reply.

  She glances at me.

  “No,” she says after a moment, before screwing the bottle's top open. “Of course you don't.”

  Extract from chat log

  Friday December 28th 2012

  Mayfly90330:

  Hey, how you doing?

  Missed you.

  Been too long.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Hey.

  Busy.

  Mayfly90330:

  How was Xmas?

  Mine sucked lol.

  As usual.

  How was yours?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  I ran away from home.

  Mayfly90330:

  Lol what?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  For about 3 hours.

  Realized I didn't have enough money.

  Came back before anyone even noticed I was gone.

  Got to plan better.

  Mayfly90330:

  Lol are you serious?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  You're not the only one with a crappy family situation.

  Mayfly90330:

  Are you angry at me?

  Sorry, I've been mega busy all over Xmas. Didn't really have time to come online much.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  No.

  Not angry.

  Just...

  Can't think of the word.

  LOL.

  Mayfly90330:

  What did you get for Xmas?

  Cool presents?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  No. You?

  Mayfly90330:

  Stuff. Some of it cool.

  You know.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  I was online on Christmas day.

  All of it.

  Thought I might see you here.

  Mayfly90330:

  Yeah, couldn't.

  Hope you weren't bored without me.

  Lol.

  U still there?

  AardvarkQueen310293?

  Hello?

  Chapter Nine

  Today

  “I'm not drunk,” Paula mumbles as she stumbles up the stairs. “Only a loser gets drunk on less than a bottle. I'm just a little cheerful and -”

  Before she can finish, she trips and falls onto her hands and knees, and she lets out a gasp of pain.

  “That was just an accident,” she says, and then she starts crawling up toward the top. “Don't make a big deal out of it, okay?”

  “Maybe it's time to get some sleep,” I point out, following after her and waiting to catch her in case she falls. “It must be, like, gone two o'clock.”

  “Why do you think I'm crawling to bed?” she asks, reaching the top and then crawling through into my room. “It's cold in this place. Why's it so cold?”

  “Maybe I don't have the heater on.”

  Reaching the door, I stop and watch as Paula hauls herself onto the bed. She's started to get undressed, but she seems to have given up and now she's flat on her back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and chuckling quietly to herself. She's clearly way more drunk than she's willing to admit, and it's pretty obvious that I'm going to have to use the spare room tonight.

  “Do you want the light on?” I ask.

  “I never want the light on,” she replies.

  “Are you going to sleep like that?”

  “What's wrong with sleeping like this?”

  Sighing, I head over and start pulling the duvet out from under her. She's right, it is cold in here, and I want to at least make sure that she's alright, although she's not exactly making the job easy.

  “I used to talk to people in chat rooms,” she says, watching me as I work. “Years ago, I'm talking about. When stuff was crap at home, I used to go online and talk to these friends I'd made. It was, like, my only release.”

  “Me too,” I mutter, still struggling with the duvet.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Can you shift a little?”

  She raises her hips, allowing me to get the duvet free.

  “What sites did you used to go on?” she asks.

  “The usual. Myspace.”

  She laughs.

  “Um, Messenger,” I add. “Noticeboards for shows. AOL chat rooms.”

  “No way. I used to go on places like that.”

  I pat the top of the bed, and she starts inching her way up there.

  “I used to go on a board for this awful band,” she mumbles, “called Bug the System.”

  “I used to go on there,” I reply, a little surprised by this connection.

  “No way!” She chuckles as she slumps down with her head on one of the pillows. “They weren't like this big band, but it was cool knowing that there were other people out there who liked them. I remember this one girl in particular, I got talking to her and we became really good friends for a while.”

  “I know what you mean,” I mutter, as I start arranging the duvet over her. I guess I'm tucking her into bed.

  “This one girl and I,” she continues, “used to talk about everything. This was back in the day, we never exchanged photos or anything like that. But we were the tightest friends, even though I guess I can't even be sure she was a girl. Maybe she was some forty-year-old guy who was grooming me. That'd be just my luck. I mean, I was twelve, thirteen back then.�
��

  “Same here,” I reply. “Are you comfortable?”

  “Then she stopped replying,” she says, with a dreamy hint to her voice. “She never logged on again. I sent her a load of private messages, but I never found out what happened to her. I still think about her, though. Like, I think about her every day and wonder if she's okay. I'm not angry, I'm just... curious.”

  “Some people just have other things to do,” I point out, tucking the duvet in a little more. “They can't live their entire lives through chat rooms and stuff like that.”

  “I know. I just... I thought we were friends, and then she just vanished. You can understand how that sucks, can't you?”

  “I can.”

  “And it's not that weird that I still think about her. I don't even know her name. Only her screen-name.” She pauses for a moment. “I'll always wonder what happened to Mayfly90330.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but then I freeze as I realize what she just said.

  “Mayfly90330?” I whisper, looking down at her. There's a chill in my spine now, and she's staring up at me with a firm, knowing gaze. “Did you say...”

  I wait, but she doesn't reply.

  “Mayfly90330 on the Bug the System boards?” I continue. “I mean, I... That...”

  I swallow hard.

  “That was my screen-name,” I whisper. “Were you... Were you AardvarkQueen310293?”

  Paula sits bolt upright, knocking the duvet aside in the process.

  “Oh man,” she says, as a grin spreads from ear to ear. “This has got to be the coincidence of the century!”

  ***

  “Did you stalk me?” I ask, stopping next to the living room table and turning to see that Paula has come down the stairs after me. My hands are trembling and I can't make sense of this mess. “Did you find out my details somehow and come to find me?”

  “No,” she says, “I swear.”

  “But you knew, right?” I continue. “I mean, just now, up there... I can tell, you were deliberately steering the conversation around to bring all that stuff up.”

  “I wasn't, I swear.” She holds her hands up, as if in surrender. “I'm just as shocked as you are right now. I was just drunkenly rambling, although I've gotta admit I've sobered up a little now. I never suspected you were Mayfly90330, not until I saw that look on your face.”

  I stare at her, still not able to believe this.

  “Yeah,” she says with a smile, “that's the look.”

  “This can't be happening,” I point out. “The odds are -”

  “Infinitesimally small,” she replies, cutting me off. “Yeah, believe me, I fully appreciate that. It's almost as if the universe is fucking with us.”

  “You can't just have shown up here like this,” I continue. “You just can't. It's not possible.”

  “I know, but -”

  “You did this on purpose!” I yell, unable to hold back any longer. “You looked me up after all these years, you came to find me and you tricked me and now you won't even admit it! You doxxed me and now you're playing all innocent, but the truth is you must have found out where I live and come to try to be friends again after all these years!”

  “Would that be so awful?” she asks.

  “It's creepy!”

  “Well, then it's a good job I didn't do any of that.” She pauses, watching me from the bottom of the stairs, before stepping forward until she's at the other side of the table. “This is just one of those freakish coincidences that the world spits up now and again. Some people might even say that it was destiny or something like that, but fortunately I don't believe in destiny. I believe in the good old-fashioned chaotic universe, but in all that chaos sometimes weird things happen. This is one of those weird things.”

  She pauses again.

  “So how have you been?” she asks finally. “It's, what, four or five years since you logged off and I never heard from you again. Don't worry, I'm not angry. How's life?”

  I swallow hard.

  “As you can see,” she continues, “I'm doing pretty good. Apart from the whole homeless thing, obviously. I finally followed through on that promise to dump my shitty family. Remember all those stories I told you about them? Believe it or not, I under-exaggerated those stories. I told you I wasn't some blow-hard who made stuff up. I mean, I don't know about you, but I really told you some personal stuff back then. Stuff I never told anyone else. I always wondered whether maybe I kinda scared you away, and that's why you logged off.”

  “You didn't scare me,” I reply, although I still can't believe I'm having this conversation. “I just... Life got in the way.”

  “But we were friends,” she points out. “I'm not angry, but... You didn't think to say goodbye?”

  “I thought we were just internet friends,” I explain. “That's different to real-life friends.”

  “Is it?”

  “Of course it is.” As I say those words, however, I realize how shallow and dumb they sound. “Okay, maybe not,” I continue. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Did you ever think about me after the last time we talked?”

  I pause, before nodding.

  She smiles.

  “I was going to get back in touch,” I tell her, “but time just dragged on and then that stupid Bug the System site closed down and it was too late.”

  “I figured that was what happened.”

  “But I did miss you,” I continue, before letting out an exasperated gasp. “I just really, really can't believe it's a pure coincidence that you've shown up. I'm sorry, I know I sound really suspicious, but it's a lot to get my head around and I'm not quite there yet.”

  I wait, and after a moment she starts walking around the table. My instinct is to step back, but I force myself to stay where I am until she reaches me. I don't know why I'm scared, and why I'm shaking like this, but I guess maybe part of the truth is that it's been a long, long time since I last spoke to anyone. To anyone who really knows me, anyway. 'Cause back in the day, I told Paula a lot of personal stuff that nobody else has ever heard.

  “Me too,” she says, before reaching down and taking my hands in hers. “I can't believe this either, but I really promise you one thing. It's a complete and utter and total coincidence. Freaky, huh?”

  Extract from chat log

  Sunday December 30th 2012

  Mayfly90330:

  I'm going to a party tomorrow. Not sure I want to.

  Probably be fun.

  Maybe lame.

  Whatever.

  What are you doing?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Right now?

  Typing to you.

  Mayfly90330:

  No, tomorrow.

  For new year.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Nothing planned.

  Mayfly90330:

  Well, I won't be online.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Okay.

  Mayfly90330:

  Are you not going to celebrate with anyone?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Guess not.

  Mayfly90330:

  Are you going to be all alone?

  AardvarkQueen310293?

  Hello?

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  Don't worry about me.

  I'm glad things are looking up for you.

  That's how it should be.

  Mayfly90330:

  I wish you could come to the party.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  LOL.

  I'm so not a party person.

  I'll find things to do here.

  Mayfly90330:

  Lol I'll be sad to think of you by yourself, though.

  AardvarkQueen310293:

  I'm better off by myself.

  Not a good mixer.

  Mayfly90330:

  I'll drink a toast to you at midnight.

  To my friend from the internet.

  Hello?

  AardvarkQueen310293?

  U still there?
/>
  Chapter Ten

  Today

  “No, I never told anyone else about that, either,” I say with a smile as I stare up at the bedroom's dark ceiling. “That's another thing that I only told you.”

  “Do you ever feel like you hid your true self from everyone else?” she replies. She adjusts herself slightly under the duvet, wriggling a little closer as we huddle for warmth. “Like, we knew each other really well, but to everyone in our real-life lives we were filtering stuff like crazy?”

  I nod.

  “Me too,” she continues. “You were just this name on a screen, Mayfly90330, but I trusted you with anything. I used to rush home from school every day to log on and talk to you.”

  “Me too,” I reply.

  “I even think,” she says, “I wouldn't be who I am today if it hadn't been for you. Our conversations helped me deal with all the dark shit that was going on, you know?”

  I turn to her, and I find that she's staring straight at me from just a few inches away.

  “I've never been that close to anyone else,” she continues. “Not before, and not since.”

  “Neither have I,” I whisper.

  “That's why it hurt so much when I realized you were gone. I'm not angry, and I wasn't angry then. I was just disappointed. It was like you just dropped me, like suddenly I was expendable.”

  “That's not what happened,” I tell her.

  “I know, you've explained now. And I always told myself there was something else. But it still felt bad, you know? It felt like you meant more to me, than I meant to you. Does that make sense?”

  I pause, before nodding.

  She bites her bottom lip, as if she's lost in thought.

  “I did think I'd find you again,” she says finally. “Again, I so didn't stalk you, and this is truly a coincidence, but I guess deep down I thought somehow I'd find out what happened to you. I just never guessed it'd be here, in this crumby little town while there's a murderer in the streets.” She laughs. “Why did we never exchange any personal info? I know we agreed at the start that we wouldn't, but that was so dumb of us. We never even mentioned where we lived.”