6
I’m behind the wheel of my Honda, Adam riding shotgun. Darkness hangs over the forest as I wind my way up the tree-lined road. As we press deeper into this heavily wooded area of Long Island, there is little left to say. The bizarre happenings of the past few days now make sense to me. I finally understand why all these men perished in fires. In death, Akasha controls the element that took her life.
Suddenly Darryl breaks the silence in the car. “I’m so sorry… I never meant to hurt anyone…”
Part of me wants to punch him, but I suppress the urge. Adam can’t stand it anymore and asks, “You think this is going to change anything?”
Good question.
“I don’t know,“ I say. “Maybe once the world knows the truth, the killings will stop. Maybe Akasha will find peace.”
“If I tell you where she’s buried, I’ll go to jail for life.”
“Can you live with yourself, knowing that she’s out there killing anyone who answers her personal ad and is foolish enough to sleep with her? Every one of her victims will be on your conscience.”
Adam shakes his head. He senses that I’m offering him the next best thing to absolution.
“I can see why she went after Darryl, but why the others?” Adam asks. “They didn’t have anything to do with what happened that night.”
It’s a good point, and I’ve already given it some thought. “Akasha always got involved with men who weren’t emotionally available. She was looking for love in all the wrong places. Married men, guys in relationships… They’d use her, discard her, ghost her. But not anymore. No one will ever love her and leave her again. Let the world beware.”
“So why did Akasha spare you?”
I just shake my head. I refuse to share my theory with Adam. What separates me from all her other victims is that I never slept with Akasha. Men betrayed Akasha after they’d gotten what they wanted. Death is allowing her to take revenge. But maybe there are rules she has to play by… I don’t know, but one thing I’m certain of — had I succumbed to her affections, I’d be dead now. Just another name on her ever-growing list of dead Tinder dates.
In a fatalistic voice, Adam declares that we’re here. I slow down and kill the engine. We get out of the vehicle and breathe the night air. The snow-laden pines seem alive, sickly moonlight casting a spooky glow on everything.
As we creep deeper into the woods, boots crunching over the ice, I let Adam lead the way. The beam of my flashlight flits through the darkness like a lost soul. The shovel dangles from Adam’s hand and rakes the snow.
Terrible secrets seem to lurk in this forest. We’re about to unearth one of them. Tonight history is repeating itself, except in reverse. Last time it was Adam and his brother burying the evidence. This time it’s up to us to uncover the truth.
Adam stops and raises his arm, pointing at a fat tree. “We buried her over there.”
I stare at the vista before us and realize I’ve seen it before. These are the same trees and icy landscape on Akasha’s Tinder cover page. All along, her profile offered clues to her final resting place, but no one was able to put it all together.
I nod and say, “Start digging.”
“Please, don’t make me do this.”
My withering gaze silences Adam. He stabs the shovel into the snow-covered mud and begins the dirty task ahead.
Half an hour later, Adam is standing in a shallow grave surrounded by a mound of ice-hardened soil. With an expression of mingled disgust and sadness, Adam steps back from the grave. I move closer.
The moment I spot the skeletal remains at the bottom of the hole, a chill claws its way down my spine. Up until this point it’s all been words alone. Here is the reality of what happened. This is why Akasha’s spirit isn’t at rest.
Blackened bones protrude from the frozen earth like jagged teeth. A charred skull stares back at me.
“Akasha…”
I would swear the stench of burning meat is thickening around me, but it must be my imagination.
Adam regards the remains with deep regret. “I’m so sorry,” he mutters under his breath, seeking forgiveness for his crime.
I’m caught off guard as I spot a pink backpack next to the remains. I fish out the mud-encrusted backpack that Akasha was buried with. Following a hunch, I open the backpack and find… a cell phone.
Akasha’s iPhone.
The screen and casing are cracked, and the battery should be dead but the screen flickers brightly in the cold night. The phone is running on a force other than electricity.
With horror I realize the phone is logged onto Tinder. Adam and Darryl smashed up Akasha’s cellphone pretty good, destroying the technology that would allow it to be geo-tracked, but they never anticipated the symbolic value of the device. Akasha’s destroyed cell phone was a link to the world of the living. A link to her past. A link that allowed her to interact and make connections and haunt our reality from beyond the grave.
Tinder had killed her. But the dating app had also become the instrument of her unearthly vengeance. Her way of luring the living into her deadly curse.
As I try to wrap my head around it all, Adam whirls and takes off into the night. For a second I just stand there, too stunned to react, but I shake off my paralysis and tear off after him.
I storm through the foreboding forest landscape, Akasha’s cell phone clutched in my hand. Part of me wonders how it could be working without power, but this doesn’t seem more fantastical than anything else I’ve experienced recently.
I charge through the thick undergrowth, stumbling over icy rocks and jumping over banks of snow. My breath comes in adrenaline-fueled bursts as I chase after Adam.
The forest is flooded with the Honda’s headlights. I spot Adam, a grim silhouette etched blackly against their glow. His words reverberate through the night. “I never meant to hurt anyone!”
The tone of his voice worries me, and my concern is validated as I step closer. Adam is holding a jerry can in his hand. Before I can attempt to stop him, he douses himself with gasoline. The acrid-smelling liquid soaks his winter coat and pants, streaming down his face.
“Stay back!”
I do, understanding Adam’s intentions. All I can do is appeal to his crumbling sanity. I can’t allow him to succumb to the guilt that has tormented him for all these months. Adam hurls the emptied gas can in the snow and extricates a lighter from his pocket.
“Adam, please don’t.”
“I was just trying to help my brother. I had no idea she was still alive. You gotta believe me!”
I take one more cautious step toward Adam.
“Adam, stop — I do believe you.”
“I’ve been dreaming of her. Every night I close my eyes and see her burn.”
“Everything’s gonna be alright…” I say the words even though I’m not convinced. I take two more steps, arms up and palms open.
“I’m sorry,” he says with grave finality and I scream, “DON’T!”
Adam isn’t listening. He is beyond my reach.
Beyond help.
He fires up the lighter.
“NOOO!”
Night is turned into day as Adam transforms into a human torch. Flames engulf him the same way they devoured Akasha and her victims.
I recoil in shock.
As the fire melts Adam’s body, his screams of agony echo through the haunted forest. A forlorn plea for forgiveness that will go unanswered.
I avert my gaze, unable to further bear witness to the horror. Mercifully, Adam’s death cries stop and his burning figure slumps forward. The only sounds now are the fire as it consumes what’s left of his body.
Still reeling from the shock, I remember the phone in my hand. The screen has changed. Facebook Live is on and offers me a view of an apartment I’m all too familiar with. It’s Lynn’s place as viewed through the webcam of her desktop computer.
Akasha is going after my girl.
***
I navigate my car down an icy street, driving as fast as I dare. Getting pulled over or causing an accident won’t do Lynn any good. Before leaving Akasha’s gravesite, I used Adam’s phone to call the cops. I told them about Akasha and where they could find her, then promptly hung up.
I made sure to wear my winter gloves to avoid leaving any fingerprints. I’m hoping the cops will think Adam called to confess before he killed himself. There should be nothing linking me to the scene. At least I hope so. Either way, I have more important concerns at the moment. I need to reach Lynn before Akasha attacks her. I fear that I’ll be too late, but I have to try.
The drive into Astoria feels like an eternity. I keep checking Akasha’s cell, but it has gone dark. What does that mean? Is it a good sign, or a bad omen? Does she know I found her grave and am now in possession of her phone? What are the rules of engagement for ghosts?!
These are the insane questions that cycle through my mind as I whip down the road, hands clenched white around the steering wheel.
I arrive at Lynn’s four-story apartment building just as one of the windows explodes. A fireball bursts out, dispersing into the winter night.
OH MY GOD!
A handful of workers and customers from the fruit and vegetable market across the street look up with shocked disbelief. The fire is spreading. While they gawk at it, I park the car and jump out, rushing toward the burning building.
I pass through the main entrance but am met by a wall of fire in the staircase. Thick smoke stings my lungs. There is no way to make it up to the second floor and reach Lynn’s unit.
Or is there?
Panic growing, I retreat to the street. There might be another way. I move along the side of the structure with dark urgency. Smoke plumes from the windows. Weakening timbers screech under the fiery assault.
I round the corner and zero in on the fire escape. Moments later, I’m climbing the rusting steps. As I reach the second floor, out of breath but driven by desperation, I pray I’m not too late. I find the window, wrap my jacket around my balled fist and punch through the glass. Shards slice through the fabric, but I ignore the pain. As I brush pieces of glass aside, I’m hit by a cloud of cloying smoke. I bring up my coat’s collar to cover my nose and mouth, slide the broken window open and climb into the building.
Inside, a howling world of fire awaits me. Flames and smoke are everywhere, the heat searing.
“LYNN, WHERE ARE YOU?!”
I surge down the hallway. My body hums with adrenaline. Every fiber of my being is urging me to run the other way, but my girl is trapped in this building and I’m not leaving without her.
“Lynn, can you hear me? LYNN!”
I close in on Lynn’s unit, eyes ticking back and forth, trying to penetrate the columns of smoke. Tongues of red and orange flame roil over the ceiling, crackling as they spread with supernatural speed.
Suddenly, a voice cuts through the roar of the blaze. “Mark…”
I whirl and spot my girlfriend further down the corridor. Smoke inhalation has taken its toll, and she’s fighting to stay conscious, but she’s otherwise unharmed.
Two quick strides later, I’m next to her. I give Lynn a quick hug before I grab her hand and pull her along. Her breathing lurches raggedly – who knows how much smoke is in her lungs already. She keeps staring at the burning staircase ahead. Akasha is nowhere to be seen, even though this must be her doing. A crumbling noise draws my attention. The staircase is collapsing. Oh no. I hope that everyone else in the building got out.
I back away from the conflagration, mind racing. We’ll have to retrace my steps and use the fire escape.
Good idea, except for one tiny problem. A wall of surging flames now blocks the way I came from. We’re trapped, the relentless ring of heat closing in around us.
I clutch Lynn to my chest. She is trembling with mortal fear. She knows all too well what is about to happen. Death is approaching fast.
A figure grows visible at the center of the inferno. Akasha. Her body is burning, flames swirling around her. Her hellish gaze finds me, and she surges toward us, almost as if she is made of fire herself. Her eyes sparkle with a dark yearning as she approaches. One second she is as beautiful as she was in life, another she is a map of bubbling burn scars. Her haunting visage changes back and forth with each step she takes.
I want to run, but escape has ceased to be an option.
I must face Akasha.
“I know what happened to you,” I say.
Akasha draws nearer, my words falling on deaf ears.
“I know about Darryl. How he lied to you… Just like all the others.”
This latest revelation elicits a reaction. Akasha slows her advance.
I forge ahead. “I know how they would promise you love but always leave you afterwards. Akasha, I know what Darryl and Adam did to you.”
Akasha grows still. Encouraged, I continue. “The cops already know what happened. Soon the world will learn the truth. Your story will be told. You can be at peace.”
A frozen moment. The fire rages around us. In a matter of seconds it will envelop our flesh and force us to suffer the same terrible fate Akasha was forced to endure.
“Akasha, please. We’re innocent.”
Akasha’s features grow masklike again. The old yearning and fury returns. Her blazing gaze daggers into me. A carpet of fire marks her continued approach.
Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to reach her.
I swap a glance with Lynn, then meet Akasha’s stare again.
“You want me, don’t you? If you can have me, will you let her go?”
Tears stream down Lynn’s cheeks. I turn toward Akasha and approach the fiery apparition before me. Tendrils of flame dance around us as we meet at the end of the hallway.
Akasha’s attention remains fixed on Lynn’s sobbing form. She knows that I’m sacrificing my life to save the woman I love.
Akasha reaches for me but before her burning touch can roast my flesh, she lets out a piercing wail. A horrific sound filled with longing, despair and unrequited emotion.
I suddenly I know what I must do.
I pull out Akasha’s cell-phone from my pocket.
And I toss it out the nearby window.
My eyes follow the falling phone as it shatters on the streets four stories below.
Akasha’s wail intensifies. Her only link to the world of the living destroyed.
The wall of flame is sucked inward, balling into a giant fireball that suddenly extinguishes itself in a brilliant flash of light.
Lynn and I are left behind in the gutted ruins of her apartment building. The sirens of an approaching fire engine grow audible. All that matters is that Lynn is safe. Our bodies remain locked in a tight embrace. As we cling to each other, it feels like we’ll never ever let go.
Love burns you when it’s hot. But it can also save you.