I walk across the carpet carrying a large very strong coffee I just made at the espresso bar. I sit down at my U-shaped desk with its bunker of large computer monitors, and I’ve been translating and transcribing for the better part of an hour.

I’ve decided spacing and line breaks based on cadence and pauses, doing my best to infer format from what I listened to in the Tailend Charlie audio clip e-mailed to me early last night:

Back again, K.S.—

(By popular request, no less!)

What’s next

will be worse

than what was first.

(Face it Florida cracker

you were cursed at birth.)

Chaos is coming

in a stinging swarm,

a death airborne.

(Remember Sister Twister?

Bet you won’t miss her!)

Interpreting meanings in cryptic messages and symbolism is like reading tea leaves, but what strikes me most about this last communication isn’t the mentions of Florida cracker and Sister Twister. Lucy had told me about these when we talked in the trailer, and I don’t care about insults right now. It’s the threat that we need to pay attention to, and Lucy probably missed it because her Italian is inadequate.

What’s next will be worse than what was first.

Was Molly Hinders first? Is this who Tailend Charlie is alluding to? And what’s next? Would that have been Elisa Vandersteel? Or maybe he’s talking about something or someone else entirely, and I wonder how much personal information about me came from years of Carrie spying on Janet’s sister Natalie.

Carrie could have learned all sorts of things if she put her mind to it, and she could have passed on these details to an accomplice who’s now using them to taunt and belittle. Someone brilliant but deranged, it enters my mind because that’s the feeling I get when I’m subjected to his communications.

But why? There are so many things one might mock me about. Why pick silly names I was called as a child? Why not pick the much worse ones I’m called now? It’s childish. In fact it reminds me of the way my sister used to fight with me when we were little kids. I decide it must be Carrie’s new sidekick who’s having such juvenile fun with verse recited in synthesized Italian that’s supposed to be my father berating and disgracing me. I try Benton again. The call goes to voice mail again, and I leave another message:

Hey, it’s me. I sent you my best effort with the latest troll-ish communication. Without being too specific, I think certain phrases in it might be of interest, and while I’m not the expert, it seems to promise something disastrous. The word aerotrasportato or “airborne” was used, and I checked multiple times to make sure I heard the canned Italian word right. Call when you’re able.