Chapter 1
Bernie sat down at his computer, deep in thought. It was a well-used dell laptop, already showing signs of wear. He remembered when he had first bought it at the beginning of the year—it had been new and shiny then, just crying out for an owner. So Bernie had bought it, and by his standards, he had made pretty good use of it.
He settled down into his old leather-backed desk chair as he logged on to several internet forums all at once. He began browsing through chat rooms, looking for his next unsuspecting victim.
Bernie was not your average skinny, wrinkled old man. True, he was all of those things, but he was also a lot more. He had a devious mind, so old and strange and twisted that it never seemed to tire of thinking up sick schemes. Bernie used to work as a computer programmer, one of the best in his day. Now, he no longer worked in an office at a firm. But his days spent glued to the computer were far from over.
He lived alone. He used to have a wife, but the concept of marriage to him then had seemed only trivial. He would lock himself into his study for hours, figuring out how to hack into other computer systems or amusing himself by creating viruses to then spread around. Viruses that would invade whole networks of computers and then send messages back to him with all sorts of information—passwords, a record of sites the person had visited, and lists of hidden files, among other things. It was all a game to him, something to do during those long hours of the day when he had nothing better to do.
Eventually his wife had caught onto what he was doing. She, being a decent woman, had strongly disapproved. Her constant nagging at him to stop his activities online only made him retire into himself more and more. Bernie would seek every opportunity he could to get away from her, to enter once again into his own world where the internet was his to fool around with.
He became isolated, rejecting other human company. By then he had quit working at his firm. His wife tried to bear this with calmness. She kept on running her small clothing shop, where she sold handmade garments for women. She quit bothering Bernie; she didn't complain or even mention how now less and less money was trickling into the family funds. Just as Bernie had turned away from her, she had turned away from him.
As Bernie dropped his former friendships, she sought new ones. She spent more and more time out of the house, with her new acquaintances. She even met another man, one that was cheerful and could always make her laugh. One that was affectionate as well as intelligent. One that she eventually came to realize was the person who could truly make her happy. Bernie took no notice. Or at least, he pretended not to. He avoided the problems facing him in real life, choosing instead to create a whole new world for himself in cyberspace. It was as if he was in his own little universe, completely shut away from the people around him.
So his wife had finally divorced him. It was a sensible decision to make. It had been a long time since they had even exchanged a loving gesture, such as a hug or a kiss. Bernie had become grumpy and sullen, drastically changed from the light-hearted man he once was. He signed all the divorce papers, and she promptly left him to start out on a new life. But although Bernie told himself he didn't care, deep inside he did. He may have stopped loving her, but it still hurt him that his marriage had ended; that all ties with the woman he once adored had been broken. And his heart yearned for another. It was not a sweet desire, such as a desire to build a family and raise children. Rather, it was a lustful desire, a hunger for power. In marriage he had felt as if he had power over his wife, as if he had a woman he could call "his own". He wanted that feeling again. It made him feel strong and safe when he could assess his power over others. Gone were the people who used to work for him back at his office, and now, gone was his wife. After the divorce, he felt as if he had been stripped of a valuable possession. And he was left thirsting for another over which to have control, hungering for another person to replace what he had lost.
So he turned his attention away from the making of viruses. He began instead to search for victims—innocent children for him to lure into his traps. He was like a hunter, searching for prey. He needed someone that was not quite an adult, someone who he could count on to be ignorant enough that they would not suspect him. He needed a teenager. And that was when all his most terrible scheming began.
He looked for sites often frequented by teenagers, for sites with forums. He would post a message on each site he found, something simple that invited people to write back to him or send him an e-mail.
He seemed to be driven on by a superhuman force. It was as if he couldn't stop. He would spend hour after hour, his eyes glued to the screen. He would stare at it so intently that his eyes would begin to hurt, and the images on the screen would begin to blur in front of him. Still, he could not bear to tear himself away. He seemed possessed, completely taken over by his new task. He could go without food and drink, and forget about everything except what he had called up into the screen in front of him. Over the years, he had become an expert at isolating himself and ignoring his surroundings. Sitting there in front of his laptop, he was bursting with an inexplicable energy, the adrenaline pumping though his veins. Just sitting there motionless, he would begin to sweat with excitement. An observer might have feared that he would throw himself into a heart attack. But Bernie had never had heart problems. It was as if he was born to do the task that he had now set for himself. Disregarding moral issues, not caring how sick and screwed up his intentions were, he plowed on and on. At first no one would respond, and he despaired of ever getting back his power. That was the true thing he needed in order to prove to himself that he was manly. It was his deepest fear that other people would perceive him as being weak. Despite his ragged outer appearance, he could still be influential over the internet, where nobody had any way of telling who he really was. He had a multitude of individual identities. Always it was the same basic idea: he was searching for a friendship. And he was sure that although all the teenagers he was dealing with would have heard of dangerous people in the internet, they would eventually trust him. And that was the time that that he was going to strike.
A/N: Special thanks to Kashe, who helped inspire this story! lol
This was originally meant to be a short story that I would just post all at once, but I haven't finished it yet so I decided just to post what I have. Please tell me what you think of it! All opinions are welcome!