‘Jeremy’
*A loud pinging noise came from Chloe’s computer screen,* which resulted in Chloe flinching in her chair. A flashing message had popped up on Chloe’s computer screen, “(1) unread message.” Chloe clicked on the flashing tab, taking her to a site called ‘Dates4Days, ‘a website which matched individuals with similar profile information with other participants on the site. Chloe had never tried a dating program before, but felt appealed to it due to her previous relationships which she had failed to progress in.
Chloe was a single, 34 year old woman, who appeared 5 years older than she actually looked due to her facial appearance, however her blonde locks, and her trimmed physique still caught the attention of many bewildered men. Although her characteristics proved prosperous with appealing to single men, she had been unable to maintain a successful relationship with a partner due to trust issues. Although her track record alluded her, Chloe felt amused and clicked on the message, “Hey :) I’m Jeremy” it read, Chloe was bewildered, but also amused and clicked onto this anonymous ‘Jeremy’ figures profile. Chloe scrolled through the information that ‘Jeremy’ had placed onto the site, and something had caught her eye. ‘Interests/Hobbies’: Keeping active, cooking and listening to pop/hip hop music,’ which were very similar to Chloe’s interests. Chloe scrolled further down and recognised his age; 35, and also his location; Los Angeles, California, which happened to be where Chloe lived. Chloe was baffled that this anonymous figure named Jeremy had identical interests to herself whilst living in the same city, and felt eager to reply.
Chloe rapidly, typed up an answer as a reply to Jeremy’s message, “Hey Jeremy, I’m Chloe, I looked at your profile and we have similar interests, and I’m eager to get to know you better :).” and clicked enter. Chloe got up out of her chair and entered the kitchen which was in the room neighbouring the study to boil the kettle, pouring water from the tap into the kettle, entering from the top of the spout and flicked the on button which was on the side of the kettle. Chloe returned to the study room and lay back into her computer chair where she was alarmed by a flashing, unread message which was labelled with the name Jeremy.
“Glad to meet you Chloe! Yes it’s fascinating that we have such similar interests to one another, whilst living in LA together! Maybe you and I could meet in person? Wouldn’t that be great, spending some time face to face, getting to know each other better and expressing our similar interests? Anyway, I believe it would be great to meet you so would you like to meet in Griffith Park, in Crystal Springs for a walk around the park? Weekends are generally fine for me from about 10:00am till 6:30pm, as I am unable to attend after that due to commitments to my evening fitness group. Hope to hear from you soon, Jeremy.”
Chloe was very drawn to the contents of the message, feeling partially confronted due to the early intentions of Jeremy to meet up with her, however, felt moderately obliged to agree to Jeremy’s invitation due to the genuineness of which he appeared to speak by, and agreed to meet with Jeremy later on in the evening, at 2:00pm.
The sun was out, the trees were slowly swaying in the light breeze and the voices of joyous, little children echoed within the distance, and every so often, the sound of an elephant trumpeting loudly from the Griffith Park Zoo. Chloe was standing near an ice cream stand, which was moderately crowded with a line of approximately 10 people, and with the loud caucus echoing from the eager customers, was oblivious to the dark, hunched figure approaching her.
“Come with me now!” the figure gritted through his teeth. Chloe had no time to react, feeling something prod into her back, and was forced forward. Chloe immediately associated this prodding with a gun, a pistol, the barrel pushing into her spine. She felt the arm of the figure grope around her waist line, whilst the pistol still remained jabbed into her back. Nobody would recognise what was happening, nobody would suspect that this man, whom Chloe had just met on an online dating site was to be the dangerous figure whom appeared to be kidnapping an innocent woman; nobody would suspect that this kind of behaviour was occurring in a family friendly park, in central California. She had pieced it together, the anonymous figure who which she had been talking to on an online dating site, who coincidently had all the similar interests that she did, who arranged to meet at the park on this day. ‘This must be the guy, this must be Jeremy’ she thought, Chloe couldn’t believe this was happening to her, her out of all people, convinced by some mad man to meet up, who would probably kill her, or hold her to ransom, or maybe even sell her organs on the black market. Chloe’s mind was whirling.
Chloe had been lead out of the park, and two blocks down which had seemed too had taken an eternity. Chloe could hear the sounds of car horns honking within the distance, and looked on as cars drove pass, unaware of the predicament that was taking place. The distinctive panting of the figure behind her, lead to her assumption of the figure being old in age, an assumption which opposed the identity of the man she met online, the man who named himself ‘Jeremy.’ They came to a halt, Chloe heard the rattling of keys behind her from where the figure stood, they were in an alley way which all the light had escaped, whilst standing outside a door, a door which lay beneath two stories of grey brick. Chloe felt the gun further jab into her spine and groaned in pain as the figure placed the key into the key hole of the door.
There was a loud creak as the door swung open, and she was forced inside. The creaking of wooden floorboards echoed as she took her first few steps into the apartment building. The figure forced her to a halt. The loud clicking noise of the lock on the door echoed throughout the apartment, and Chloe had realised, any chance of escape had just diminished through the sound of the lock on the door. A hissing sound came out through the grit of the man’s teeth. “Welcome to Jeremy’s den.”
Summary:
Throughout my short story, I have implemented the convention style to help build a suspenseful story of which builds suspense and curiosity as the story progresses. I have structured the short story so that as the plot progresses, suspense within the readers mind builds especially towards the end of the story, as well structuring the sentences by often placing short, sharp sentences to place emphasis within that particular scene/event which occurred. I implemented descriptive language, predominantly to set the scene within the setting, but also to describe specific events and also characteristics of the protagonist (Chloe), and antagonist (Jeremy). The point of view of which my short story was told in was third person limited as readers are able to experience the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Chloe, but experiences the antagonist’s, Jeremy, through external sources, but still is third person as the story is told from the narrators point of view. This type of point of view was chosen so that readers can experience the development of an artificial relationship being created over the internet. Many people around the world are oblivious to the dangers of cyber space, and by experiencing the thoughts and feelings of an individual who goes through the process of meeting a person on the internet with a fake identity and also meeting them in person, readers can recognise how much precaution must be taken whilst on the internet so that they can prevent events which are associated with dangerous behaviour, produced through the access to the internet. Also, I produced this story to explore identity, and how it can be manipulated on the internet for dangerous purposes.