Story code: ST-000945
Part 4: The Broadcast
The heavy winter coat tore as her hand forcefully jerked free from the deep pocket. Elias braced for the dark, metallic shape of a handgun. Instead, his watering eyes registered a small, black aluminum cylinder gripped tightly in her trembling fist. Before his brain could process the switch from lethal threat to chemical deterrent, her thumb jammed down hard on the actuator.
A thick, pressurized stream of orange liquid hissed through the freezing night air. It struck Elias directly across the bridge of his nose, splashing violently into both of his wide-open eyes.
The physical reaction was instantaneous and completely beyond his control. It felt as though a handful of crushed glass and boiling acid had been shoved beneath his eyelids. Elias let out a ragged, choking gasp as his respiratory system immediately rejected the atomized pepper spray. His vision vanished into a wall of searing, red-hot agony. He threw his left arm up to claw at his face, his balance totally destroyed.
As he staggered violently backward on the frost-slicked wooden porch, his body seized in panic. His right hand, still wrapped tightly around the grip of the shotgun, clenched in a desperate, involuntary muscle spasm.
His index finger pulled the trigger.
The 12-gauge roared, a deafening, concussive blast that shattered the quiet of the rural property. The massive recoil slammed into Elias’s shoulder, knocking him completely off his feet. He crashed hard onto his back against the porch deck. In the split second of the blast, a brilliant, blinding muzzle flash illuminated the surrounding pine trees like a lightning strike. The heavy load of double-ought buckshot missed the woman by feet, tearing downward and completely shredding the wooden stairs and the frozen dirt just below the railing.
A fresh, high-pitched scream ripped through the ringing in Elias’s ears. It was a scream of pure, mortal terror.
Blind, deafened, and choking on the spicy, toxic air, Elias rolled onto his side. He couldn’t see anything through the chemical fire burning his corneas. He heard the frantic, desperate scrambling of heavy boots tearing down the splintered stairs. The sound transitioned to the loose, panicked crunch of gravel as the woman sprinted blindly down the long, dark driveway toward the idling sedan.
“Wait!” Elias tried to yell, but it came out as a violent, hacking cough.
A heavy car door slammed shut. The sedan’s engine roared, surging with high RPMs. Tires spun violently in the dirt, spitting rocks against the underside of the chassis. Elias forced his burning eyes open just a fraction of an inch, his vision completely blurred and swimming with tears. He could just make out the red glow of the taillights careening wildly down the unpaved driveway, weaving toward the distant state highway before disappearing entirely into the deep, suffocating darkness of the woods.
The heavy silence of the property rushed back in, broken only by the loud, persistent ringing in Elias’s ears and his own ragged, painful breathing. The air on the porch reeked of sulfur, burnt gunpowder, and the sharp, caustic sting of the pepper spray.
He was alone again.
Elias pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shoulder. He crawled blindly toward the edge of the porch, tears streaming down his inflamed cheeks. He reached the railing and blindly felt his way down the balusters, remembering where he had kicked the smartphone. He shoved his bare arm into the freezing, thorny bushes below the deck, the sharp branches tearing at his skin.
His fingers brushed against cold glass. He grabbed the phone and pulled it up onto the porch.
He wiped his streaming eyes with the shoulder of his shirt, forcing himself to focus on the cracked screen. The impact with the ground and his brutal kick had swiped away the pre-recorded, fake MP4 video that had been used to intimidate him. The illusion of forty-two thousand viewers was gone.
But the device wasn’t dead. Beneath the fake video player, the phone’s actual camera application was running, actively broadcasting to a private, encrypted server link. The camera had been facing upward from the thorny bushes the entire time.
Elias stared at the screen, his blood running cold despite the freezing temperature.
There weren’t forty-two thousand people watching. There were only seventy-four. But they were real. And they had seen everything. The chat box at the bottom of the screen was exploding with a frantic, unreadable blur of messages.
*HE SHOT HER*
*OMFG HE JUST TRIED TO KILL HER*
*I got it I clipped it*
*send it to the police right now*
*we have his address send the cops*
*murderer*
Elias looked at the heavy shotgun resting on the wooden planks beside him. The empty, smoking hull of the spent shell lay in the frost a few feet away. He hadn’t shot her. It was a muscle spasm caused by a chemical attack. But the camera from the bushes hadn’t caught the pepper spray. It had only captured the audio of his threats, the terrifying mechanical rack of the shotgun, the woman pleading for her life, and then the explosive, lethal flash of the muzzle.
He dropped the phone. It clattered against the wood, the chat still scrolling relentlessly. The isolation he had spent years building was completely gone. His sanctuary was a crime scene, and the footage of his apparent attempted murder was already downloaded, copied, and spreading across the internet. The digital ghosts he had tried to outrun hadn’t just found his physical location; they had successfully trapped him in a reality he could never escape.