Darius Kane still couldn’t tell what exactly Countdown 2.0 had changed at the end of the movie, because Quinn had never opened it long enough for the audience to learn the details.
Still, he could make a reasonable guess.
The update had probably patched the loopholes that allowed users to cheat the timer through temporary death, altered sequencing, or similar tricks.
If that was true, then simply repeating the movie’s original solution wouldn’t guarantee that Horror Town considered the curse permanently broken.
That made the entire mission much harder than it first appeared.
Darius returned his attention to Quinn and said, “My first priority was finding you and making sure you understood what’s happening.
I haven’t come up with a guaranteed solution yet.” He saw disappointment immediately appear in her eyes and continued before she could panic.
“Give me tonight.
I’ll think this through properly and contact you tomorrow.
I’m not promising it’ll be easy, but I won’t disappear on you.” Quinn clearly wasn’t happy with that answer, but knowing someone was actively trying to help still gave her a little relief.
Darius then remembered something important and asked, “How much time do you have left now?” She opened Countdown and turned the phone toward him, revealing the black interface filled with the slowly shrinking timer.
2 days, 21 hours, 26 minutes, 15 seconds remained.
Darius nodded.
Roughly half an hour had passed since she first downloaded the app, so the number matched what he remembered.
“All right.
We’ve covered everything important for now, so you should go home.” He pulled out his phone.
“Let’s exchange numbers.
If anything unusual happens tonight, call me immediately.” Quinn looked uneasy.
“Just go home?
What if that thing comes after me?” “It probably will,” Darius admitted.
“But based on how the curse works, Ozhin’s main goal is to make sure you die when the countdown reaches zero.
That doesn’t mean it can’t scare, stalk, or hurt you before then, so don’t assume you’re completely safe.” He saved her number and added, “If something happens that you can’t handle, call me.
Don’t try to investigate anything alone.” Quinn’s face tightened, but she eventually nodded.
They had only met that afternoon, and despite everything Darius had proven, part of her still understood how strange the situation was.
Inviting a near stranger directly into her home wasn’t exactly a sensible first response, especially when she still couldn’t completely rule out the possibility that some part of his story was a setup.
She stood and gave him an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry about accusing you earlier.” Darius waved it away.
“You had every reason to be suspicious.” They separated outside the coffee shop.
Quinn drove home in a daze, barely paying attention to the familiar streets around her.
The anxiety twisting inside her had completely destroyed her appetite, so instead of making dinner, she washed her face with cold water and sat down in front of her laptop.
If Darius was telling the truth, there had to be something online about Countdown, previous deaths, or other people who had seen the same warning.
She began searching every combination of keywords she could think of.
At first, most of what she found looked like urban legends, forum rumors, and sensational stories.
Then several recent deaths caught her attention, all involving people who had supposedly downloaded Countdown shortly beforehand.
The most disturbing result concerned Courtney, the young woman Evan had talked about at the hospital.
According to the reports, she’d died under bizarre circumstances soon after refusing to ride home with him.
Quinn opened every article she could find.
The details matched Evan’s story far too closely.
He had crashed after Courtney refused to get into the car, and a branch had pierced the passenger side where she would have been sitting.
She had seemingly avoided the death the app predicted, only to die separately when her countdown reached zero.
Her phone had been found nearby with the timer finished.
Quinn leaned back against the couch and rubbed her eyes.
Her belief in Darius’s warning climbed another step.
She still couldn’t believe something this insane was actually happening to her.
Everyone else at the hospital who had downloaded the app seemed to have decades remaining.
Some had thirty years, others forty, while she had been given less than three days.
Why her?
She had never committed some terrible crime or spent her life hurting people.
She worked as a nurse, helped patients, looked after her family, and generally tried to stay out of trouble.
Yet apparently some ancient demon had decided she deserved to spend the next few days waiting for a timer to kill her.
Quinn stared at the ceiling.
If demons are real, where the hell is God when you need him?
Then another thought struck her.
Jordan.
Darius had specifically mentioned that her younger sister would also be pulled into the curse.
Quinn immediately grabbed her phone and called him.
Darius answered after only a few rings.
“Darius, when does Jordan die?” There was a short pause before he answered.
“A few minutes before you, if the original sequence stays the same.” Quinn’s blood ran cold.
“Only a few minutes?” “Yes.” “Okay…
thank you.” She ended the call and instinctively grabbed her purse, already halfway toward the door before she forced herself to stop.
Charging into her father’s house and telling Jordan that a demonic app was going to kill both of them would probably accomplish nothing except terrify her.
Jordan was younger, more impulsive, and far less prepared for something this disturbing.
Quinn needed to think first.
Her father was scheduled to leave town the next day and would be gone for several days.
That gave Quinn an obvious opportunity.
She could have Jordan stay with her while he was away, keep an eye on her, and explain the situation gradually once she had more proof and a possible plan.
That was safer than panicking everyone immediately.
Quinn sat in the car for several minutes before finally turning around and going back inside.
She collapsed onto the couch, pressed both hands against her temples, and tried to organize her thoughts.
Less than a day ago, her biggest problems had been work, family tension, and ordinary life.
Now she was planning how to protect her sister from a demon connected to a phone app.
Meanwhile, Darius had checked into a motel not far from the hospital.
He sat on the edge of the bed with takeout spread across a small table, eating mechanically while the television played in the background.
His attention wasn’t on the food or the screen.
Every thought was focused on the curse.
The original movie’s tricks weren’t enough.
Temporarily changing the timers through Derek’s hack didn’t work because Ozhin simply restored them.
Quinn’s later near-death loophole had broken the curse for a while, but the appearance of Countdown 2.0 proved that the problem wasn’t necessarily gone forever.
Horror Town’s main mission required him to help Quinn truly escape the countdown and survive, which meant copying a temporary movie solution could easily result in mission failure.
Darius frowned.
If he failed the main mission, what happened then?
Horror Town had never clearly explained the punishment for failing an official trial.
Maybe he would simply lose the reward.
Maybe he’d be trapped in the world.
Or perhaps failure meant death.
He didn’t like any of those possibilities.
Darius carefully replayed the movie in his mind, searching for anything he’d overlooked.
Father John’s ritual.
Derek hacking the app.
The countdown rules.
Ozhin’s attacks.
Quinn and Jordan’s final attempt.
Then something clicked.
Darius stopped chewing.
“Wait.” There had been something in the movie that could actually affect Ozhin directly.
That was different from manipulating the timer.
If the demon could be hurt, resisted, or forced back, then perhaps he didn’t need to defeat the Countdown system through programming or technical loopholes at all.
He only needed a way to exploit that weakness long enough to break the curse properly.
Damaging Ozhin wasn’t the same as killing it, but if something had an effect, then it gave him a starting point.
Darius slowly smiled.
“That might actually work.” It was the only promising route he had found so far.
That was enough.
With his thoughts finally organized, Darius finished eating, threw the packaging away, rinsed his mouth, and picked up his phone.
Almost without thinking, he opened the app store and typed COUNTDOWN into the search bar.
The familiar icon appeared.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
For a moment, genuine temptation took hold of him.
How long did Darius Kane have left to live?
Ten years?
Forty?
A hundred?
Or perhaps Horror Town would get him next week?
The question was almost impossible not to ask.
That was probably exactly why so many people downloaded the app in the first place.
Human beings wanted to know the future even when knowing it could ruin the present.
The promise of discovering the exact length of your life was the kind of temptation almost anyone would struggle with.
Darius stared at the download button for several seconds.
Then he snorted.
“Download it?
Hell no.” He closed the store.
There were some things he was better off never knowing.
Life was much easier when tomorrow still contained a little mystery.
(End of Chapter) [Milestone: [Milestone: 10 Reviews = +1 Chapter] Enjoyed this chapter?