Slice and Dice
Author: Jeff Strand; Iain Wright; Jeff Menapace; William Malmborg
Date: 2021-05-30 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Four slasher novellas from some of the most terrifying minds in horror fiction. In Jeff Menapace's "Second Chance," a high school wrestling prodigy’s future is cut short after a devastating injury on the mat. Desperate to win back his father’s approval, the boy hatches a plan involving his father’s love of slasher films. If the boy can become a real-life slasher right out of the movies, it just might be an opportunity to make his father proud again, no matter what the cost. In Iain Rob Wright’s “The Reckoning,” the year is 2035 and people live inside their individual worlds. Amelie’s ‘pod’ is
Publisher: Kydala Publishing

Slice & Dice

4 Slasher Novellas

“Second Chance” copyright 2021 by Jeff Menapace

“The Reckoning” copyright 2021 by Iain Rob Wright

“Billy’s Blade” copyright 2021 by William Malmborg

“Twentieth Anniversary Screening” copyright 2021 by Jeff Strand

Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansenArt.com

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

Contents

Jeff Menapace

Second Chance

Iain Rob Wright

The Reckoning

William Malmborg

Billy’s Blade

Jeff Strand

Twentieth Anniversary Screening

Acknowledgments

Second Chance

Jeff Menapace

“Maybe you’re not such a fuck-up after all, boy.”

These words, from my father: I can’t even begin to describe how much they meant to me. I finally saw a window for redemption. For the past year, that window had been painted and nailed shut. Blinds drawn too, the works. No chance at redemption peeking through whatsoever. And I can’t blame him. He’d spent so much time on me, molding me into the perfect machine he’d wanted. And what do I do? I go and blow my knee out on the mat my junior year and ruin my full ride to Penn State on a wrestling scholarship. All that hard work he put in. All that time. Just for me. All for me. And I go and fuck it up.

But during my senior year, when I brought home our first victim? Told him what I had in mind, and he’d uttered those indescribable words? Well, that window for redemption no longer had the blinds drawn, was no longer painted and nailed shut. Was it open? No. But it now had the potential of being opened, and that prospect was enough for me. I just needed to keep giving my dad what he wanted from that day forward, just as I’d done since the day I’d first stepped onto the mat, no matter the sacrifice. Because he loved me. And true love is sacrifice. True love is pain. Fuck all the parents who looked at the two of us funny when I lost the odd match and my father beat me in the parking lot outside the school. They simply didn’t get it. They didn’t understand the love.

Stuff like that did affect my social life, of course. Kids at school treated me funny. I was a superstar on the mat, but a pariah on the playground. I just couldn’t relate to kids, even fellow wrestlers. I tried, but I just didn’t know how; it felt like I was missing some kind of hardware that all the other kids came equipped with when it came to bonding and making friends.

My dad’s fault, you might say? No way. He gave me a chance once. He let me go for a sleepover at a classmate’s house when I was eleven (kids were not allowed to come to my house; their parents didn’t want them near my dad). I think I had a good time. But after telling my father what I did at the sleepover—the parents bought us KFC; we played video games; we stayed up late watching movies and eating candy—my father made it clear that I did not have a good time; what I had done was disgusting and weak. After he was done with me, he drove over to the house where I’d had the sleepover and promptly beat the shit out of the father for weakening me.

The family never pressed charges, thank God, but word of what happened spread like wildfire. If I was a pariah before, now I was one with leprosy to boot. Even teachers seemed to avoid me. The guidance counselor tried to talk to me once, tried to get me to actually say bad things about my dad. Can you believe that? And when I defended my dad, she started saying shit about Sweden. I was a kid at the time and had no clue what she was getting at. Later, I would come to realize that she was talking about Stockholm syndrome. That I loved my dad unconditionally despite the heavy abuse. In fact, the abuse apparently made my devotion to him stronger. Talk about dime-store psych bullshit. I loved my dad because he loved me. People just didn’t get his way. And so what if I didn’t have friends. My dad was my friend.

Oh, and fuck my mother too, while we’re at it. She didn’t get the love either. Didn’t get when my father would lock me in the cellar overnight when I lost that odd match. When he made me wear makeup to school one day (“You’re gonna wrestle like a bitch, then I guess I’ll have to make you look like a bitch,” he’d said). When he would smash my pro-wrestling toys and DVDs because that “fake shit” was “fucking up your real game.” When he refused to acknowledge me around the house for days on end as though I was invisible (and those were the worst of all, believe it or not. At least when he was beating me or finding ways to teach me how pathetic I was, I knew it was done out of love. But ignoring me was excruciating; those were the times when I truly thought he’d given up on me). My mother even had the audacity to try and intervene once. Can you believe that? There’s my poor dad, trying to show me how absolutely unacceptable and disgusting losing was, and that I had made him look like a fucking fool in front of everyone, and that my losing was a reflection of him as a man—and he was right about all of it—and my mother has the fucking nerve to try and stop him? No wonder he did what he did to her. She had it coming. Every drop. I was happy when she left. Dad could then devote all of his attention onto me.

So, yeah, I guess you can say I got what many can say they never got in life when I brought home that first victim for my dad: a second chance.

Here’s how I came up with the idea to become a slasher. I’ve already brought you up to speed on the relationship between me and my father, his love for me and mine for him, and how I’d gone and blown it all by fucking up my knee. By my senior year, it was just me and my dad at home. My mom was long gone by then, and I never spoke to her, nor did I want to. Unfortunately, my father rarely spoke to me as well. Remember when I said the ignoring was the worst part? Worse than any beating or punishment? By my senior year it had become unbearable. If I got so much as a grunt from him it was a time to rejoice. He was drinking a lot. We never ate dinner together, never ate dinner at all. He drank his. I would eat half my lunch at school, and then save the rest for later that night when I got home.

The only time he ever acknowledged me (unless he was drunk and reminded me about what a disappointment I’d turned out to be, but still never hit me or punished me, unfortunately) was when we’d watch slasher movies together. My father loved slasher films from the 70s and 80s. He owned dozens of them. His favorite pastime was a bottle of whiskey and a slasher film. I’d never been a huge fan myself, but I saw them as an opportunity to start bonding with him again. He would let me watch them with him, and though he never spoke to me directly, he would make comments here and there about the films that were mostly rhetorical, but not entirely, and I would immediately agree with whatever he said. The winning comment? The one that placed the idea in my head? It went something like:

“Real killers are pussies. Guys like Dahmer and Gacy and Bundy? Just look at them. Total pussies. Probably couldn’t even bench their own weight. They preyed on helpless motherfuckers.

“Fucking Jason and Michael Myers? Now, they just didn’t give a fuck. They fucked up anyone that got in their way. Show me a real killer like that. Some dude that just doesn’t give a fuck and goes around wrecking shit. Not some scrawny pussy like Bundy or some fat faggot like Gacy. Gimme a real killer like Jason or Myers to watch on the news. Not these pathetic pussies I keep hearing about.”

Talk about a lightbulb moment. A watershed moment. Again, we could argue that his statement was rhetorical, but I believed in my heart that he was talking to me. Before my knee, I was Jason and Michael Myers, and my father loved me for it. Now, I was that pathetic disappointment to my father like Bundy and Gacy and Dahmer and the rest of the serial killers out there who turned out to be sad and pitiful pussies in real life once they were caught and revealed to the world. Their acts were monstrous, but they turned out to be anything but monsters when all was said and done.

The answer to me then was simple: I needed to be a real monster to win back my father’s love. I needed to hack and slash with impunity, give my father something to be proud of again.

So, when I abducted a homeless man at the bus station with promises of a meal and brought him home, tied him up in the basement (I’d even ordered a black executioner’s hood on Amazon), and then fetched my weapon of choice (because every slasher has a weapon of choice), my father’s favorite hammer that his father had given to him, and brought my father downstairs into the basement and explained my intentions, he actually smiled and uttered those wonderful words that gave me the hope that the window could be opened again.

I can even remember how he took a step back after uttering those words, arms crossed, judging, wondering if I would go through with it.

And I did. Boy, did I. I must have bashed that homeless man’s head in with my father’s hammer (after donning my black hood, of course) a hundred times. I even used both sides of the hammer, the blunt end, then the sharp end to really fuck him up.

When I was done, the guy’s head looked anything but. Brains and skull and teeth were everywhere. Even popped one of his eyeballs out.

I can remember turning towards my father afterwards (and he was definitely smiling now), and saying: “This is just the beginning, Dad. If you want, you can help me be the best. Help me be a real killer. No pussies here, sir.”

And that smile was now a grin. He didn’t say anything, nor did he have to. I could feel his love like you wouldn’t believe. He just nodded at me—still grinning—and went upstairs.

We spent the rest of the night watching slashers and taking notes. He even gave me some of his whiskey.

The one thing slasher films never really touched on was body disposal. After all, I couldn’t just leave bodies in the basement to stink up the place. That part was kind of a pain (we had to drive way out into the middle of nowhere and bury him like that scene in Goodfellas). However, my father told me that we would not always be bringing victims home. If I wanted to be a true badass and win back his love (that’s how I heard it), then I needed to go out and hunt, leave the bodies where they fell, strike fear into the hearts of the country when those bodies were ultimately discovered.

Most importantly, though, I needed a “final girl,” my dad said. A girl that would escape me and live to tell the tale so that my legend could grow. Going out and hunting and striking fear into the country was all well and good, but remember, I did not want to be a typical serial killer who left monstrous acts, yet remained a mystery. I needed to be the real monster, and the only way I could do that was to have someone see me, preferably after discovering a body, my hood on, hammer in hand, ready to add another notch on that hammer.

But once again, they would have to get away to spread the legend. Otherwise, my dad said, it just wouldn’t work; I’d be an average killer. I’d rather be dead than average.

And so, at the risk of being an average killer, my Dad did what he did best: put me to work before we hit the big leagues (his idea of the big leagues was to find a party in the woods somewhere and “crash” it; something I did do, but won’t get to just now). He told me I had to be in epic shape. Not just strong, but cardio out the ass so I could chase down whoever needed chasing.

So intense cardio was a must. I can’t tell you how many times I barfed up my dinner with the workouts my dad had me doing (but I was so pleased he was feeding me dinner that I really didn’t mind at all), and as far as strength goes, it was more bodyweight stuff than free weights. Pull-ups and dips and push-ups and squats (he had me do five hundred bodyweight squats first thing every morning, the second I got out of bed). He even had me doing handstand push-ups for my shoulders—hard as fuck, not just strength wise, but balance wise, but before long I was banging them out like meager push-ups. My body was like warm marble after a while.

Now came the second victim. But as my Dad said, I couldn’t just start hunting big game and being a true slasher without more practice, without more experience. So the two of us went trolling for smaller prey. It was a wonderful time. We talked. He seemed happy. Excited. Just genuinely pleased to be around me. I even noticed he wasn’t drinking as much as he used to.

So we were trolling for victim two, keen on bringing him back to the house—this would be the last one we brought back to the house, he said—when an opportunity presented itself like no other.

We had pulled into a gas station to fill up, and lo and behold, my father spots him. I couldn’t be sure it was him at first. In fact, I’m ashamed to say I was never really sure it was “him.” But who was I to doubt my dad? He knew. He fucking knew.

It was the kid who blew out my knee on the mat.

When the injury had happened, I had chalked it up to a freak accident at the time—I had turned one way, and my knee didn’t. End of story. My dad had thought the same…sort of. He’d said it was my weak body that couldn’t hold up to the rigors of being the best. That was why my knee gave.

Now he seemed to have changed his mind. Said the kid knew exactly what he was doing and had fucked up my knee on purpose. A cheap shot.

And there he was now. Standing outside the little mini-mart of the gas station, sipping a Red Bull and looking at his phone.

I actually had the audacity to tell my dad that I didn’t think it was him. He was wearing a hoodie, after all, but my dad told me he was positive it was him. “And look how fucking confident and smug he carries himself,” he added. “I’ll bet he got a full ride to his school of choice after fucking up your knee.”

And you know what? The more I looked at him, the more I began to think my dad was right. It was him. He was the one who not only took my scholarship away, but had taken my father away, the motherfucker.

And then my dad, with his steely gaze: “What are you gonna do about it, boy?”

Without pause, I reached into the back seat for my black hood. My father abruptly stopped me.

“Whoa, whoa—you can’t approach the guy with that thing on. He’ll make a run for it. Or someone could see. Not to mention the fucking cameras that are everywhere these days. You put that hood on once we get him home, and you put that hood on when we can start truly wrecking shit and do this properly, when practice time is over.”

I nodded, but something else suddenly occurred to me. The homeless man was easy to bring home. I’d promised him a hot meal. How to handle a high school wrestler? I couldn’t exactly approach him and ask him if he wanted to come home for a hot meal.

Approach and use force? Suppose someone saw and intervened? Sure, the gas station was pretty empty, and it was dark out, but there was always that risk, and as Dad mentioned, cameras were everywhere these days. Worse yet, suppose I did try to muscle him into the car and he got the better of me? I couldn’t even begin to fathom the disgust my father would feel after. The disgust I would feel.

Money was always good. Maybe I could offer him some money to go for a ride. No. He’d likely call me a faggot and take a swing at me, which would bring us right back to my first thought and the frightening prospect of his escape should he get the better of me.

But hang on a minute, here. My dad was in the car with me. It wasn’t like I was exactly alone and offering him money to get in the car. What to say? What to say?

“Problem, boy?” my dad asked.

“No problem, Dad. Just trying to think how I’m gonna get him in the car without making a scene.”

I expected my dad to be disappointed with my lack of foresight. But to my great delight, he too looked as though it was something that needed careful consideration. It would have been so much easier if we’d just grabbed another homeless guy, or better yet, a hitchhiker. But it was my dad that had spotted the guy who’d wrecked my knee and my former life (because it would be my former life soon enough, dammit), and I wasn’t about to say no to my dad and risk making good on leaving that former life far behind. Make good on the second chance I’d been given.

But still the question remained: how to get the guy who jacked my knee into the car without making a scene?

My dad came to the rescue.

“I got it,” he said. “Look, let’s be honest here, boy: we ain’t in the big leagues yet; we’re still in training. No shame in that. That means that for now we might have to use some serial killer pussy shit to get what we want.”

I asked him what he meant.

“It means that as much as I’d like to see you don that hood, stroll on up to the little prick, and smash his fucking brains in with that hammer, we just can’t. We need to use some guile, like Bundy putting his arm in a sling and faking it was broken, or walking with crutches like his leg was fucked in order to lower a girl’s guard and get them back to his car. Or like Dahmer offering dudes money to take their pictures for modeling and shit to get them back to his place.”

I asked him what he had in mind.

“We do the bump.”

I asked him what he meant by “the bump.”

“Go up to him. Tell him we’re lost. Ask him how to get back on the interstate. Tell him our phones are dead from driving all night and we’ve got no GPS.”

“You want me to ask him to get in the car to show us?”

Now my Dad looked disappointed. “No, stupid—nobody in their right mind would do some shit like that. Kid’s probably got a car. Ask him if he’d show us by letting us follow him.”

“What if he doesn’t have a car?”

“High school kid in the burbs? He’s got a car. How else did he get here?” His disappointment in me clearly grew. “If he balks at the idea, offer him some money. You got any?”

I went into my pocket and pulled out two twenties and a ten.

“That should work. Fifty bucks just to let us follow him to the interstate? He’d be a fool to turn it down.”

“Then what?”

My father explained the rest. It made perfect sense. Only one final problem remained.

“What if he recognizes me?” I said. I still wasn’t entirely sure it was the guy who’d fucked up my knee, but my dad was, and so it was.

“It was a year ago, boy. He won’t remember. And even if he does, so what? We’re the ones holding the grudge, not him. Hell, he might be all friendly to you, make it that much easier.”

“But if he remembers me, won’t he think it’s strange we don’t know how to get back onto the interstate?”

My father sighed angrily. “Would you just fucking do it?”

I exited the car with the fifty in my hand and approached.

“Hey, man,” I said pleasantly on approach. The guy put down his phone and looked at me. Was it him? “My dad and I are lost. Can you tell us how to get back on the interstate?”

“Don’t you have a phone?” he said.

“Batteries are dead; we’ve been driving awhile. No car charger.” I smiled sheepishly in hopes of selling it.

He considered me for a moment (recognizing me?) before finally offering directions. No signs of recognition whatsoever.

I listened to him. When he was done, I intentionally repeated his directions incorrectly.

“No,” he said, and repeated the correct directions.

I asked more questions, getting them wrong again.

He frowned. “No, man, you want to go—”

“Hang on a sec,” I said, interrupting him, “I’ve got an idea. My dad’s pretty pissed off, and I don’t want to piss him off any more by getting us lost. Any chance you can show us?”

“Show you?”

“Yeah, we could follow you. You got a car?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled inside. “If you could lead us there, we could just follow you. You said it wasn’t far, right? Once we see the turn off, we’ll give you a honk and you can be on your way.”

“Sorry, man.” He dropped his head back onto his phone.

“Fifty bucks?” I showed him the money.

He lifted his head off his phone again. “Huh?”

“Fifty bucks to do it? Please, man, we just wanna get home.”

“You’re gonna give me fifty bucks to do it?”

I nodded and showed him the money again.

The guy looked at the money. Looked at me. Back at the money again. “What the fuck is this, man?”

“Exactly as it sounds. I give you fifty bucks and we follow you to the interstate. That’s it.”

The guy held out his hand. “Gimme the money.”

I knew I needed to hesitate a moment to sell it that much more. “You promise you won’t just drive off? You’ll show us?”

“If you give me the money, I will.”

I handed it over. He stuffed it into his pocket, turned and pointed behind him towards a black Sedan in the mini-mart’s small lot. It was the only car there. “That’s me,” he said, and I smiled inside again.

“Awesome. Thanks so much, man.”

He grunted and headed towards the Sedan. I hurried back towards my dad.

My dad had, of course, been correct when explaining to me how “the bump” worked: no matter which route you took towards the interstate, you needed to pass through a few residential areas first—dark, practically zero-trafficked areas.

And when we came upon one of those dark, practically zero-trafficked roads (and as though a gift heaven-sent, it was not practically zero-trafficked, but zero trafficked), my father hit the gas, sped up, and bumped the black Sedan from behind. And, just as my dad had said would happen, the guy immediately pulled to the side of the road and exited the still idling Sedan, frowning, hollering…approaching.

“Go to it, boy,” my dad said.

I quickly exited the car with my dad’s hammer, met the guy halfway, and brought the hammer down onto his head. He dropped hard, out cold.

I worked quickly, binding his wrists behind his back with excessive loops of duct tape, doing the same to his ankles. Then a strip of tape across the mouth. My father exited the car and helped me toss the guy in back.

“Turn off his ignition and grab his keys,” my dad said.

I hurried back towards the Sedan and did as my father said.

When I got back into the car, my dad said: “Well done, Son.”

Son.

He called me son. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so. It was all I could do not to cry.

We headed home. My second chance at life was growing. I was growing. I literally—hand to God—pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

Down in the basement again. The guy who’d fucked up my knee was securely tied to a chair (we used endless yards of twine instead of duct tape for that), just as the homeless man had been. And I guess this is just as good a time as any to start calling the guy who fucked up my knee by his real name, as opposed to “the guy” or “the guy who fucked up my knee.” I knew his name. His full name, no less. Of course I did. He ruined my life. His name was Chad Westley.

Chad Westley still hadn’t come to from the initial blow with the hammer I’d given him on the side of the road when we’d abducted him. I worried I’d killed him, at first (what a letdown that would have been), but his vitals were decent, and it was only a matter of time until he woke, I assumed. Plus, it was sure a hell of a lot easier to get him into the house and down the basement and into the chair with him still snoozing, regardless of how well I’d bound his wrists and ankles on the side of that road.

“Go fetch some water,” Dad said to me.

I grabbed a bucket in the corner of the basement, went upstairs, filled it in the sink, and then hurried back down. I hesitated.

“What the hell you waitin’ for?”

“I’m wondering if I should put my hood on before I wake him.”

“I’m thinking the hood isn’t necessary for this one. This is personal.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be practice, though?”

“Oh, you’ll be getting your practice in…only I’m thinking we don’t go for a head shot from the start.”

I set the bucket of water down and just looked at my dad. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant.

He read my face with no problem, smirked and said: “I’m thinking we do his knee first. Hell, both his knees. Karma, Son. Karma.”

I smirked back. Pulled my dad’s hammer from my back pocket. “Might take a while with just this.” My dad laughed

“And?”

I quickly stuffed the hammer back into my pocket and picked up the bucket of water, keen on tossing most of it into Chad Westley’s face. Problem was, most of the water hit the top of his head instead because he was still out; his head was down, his chin was on his chest. He didn’t come to.

My dad stepped forward, stood behind Westley, snatched his scalp and jerked his head back. “Douche the fucker again.”

I tossed the remainder of the water square into Westley’s face this time. He woke, eyes wide and bewildered. Duct tape was still covering his mouth, so his frantic breathing came solely from his nostrils, making a sort of farting sound with each inhale.

My dad took his place by my side again. He was grinning. “Welcome back, Mr. Westley,” he said.

Westley looked on with those wild eyes, no less bewildered, more so, even. He mumbled something into the duct tape. My dad stepped forward again and ripped the tape off. Westley started muttering incoherent things, though their inflections held the expected who, what, and where? It was almost guaranteed he had a concussion.

I said so to my dad.

“He’ll come around soon enough,” my dad said, eyes staying on Westley. “We got all night. And a looong night it’s gonna be, Mr. Westley.”

“Westley….” Westley said in breathless tones. He repeated the name again, and then again after that, like a foreigner learning a new word by rote.

My dad laughed. “Big fan of your name, are you? I imagine a hotshot like you is. My boy used to be too.” My dad faced me. “And you will be again soon enough, won’t you, Son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you say, Mr. Westley?” my dad said. “You think my son has what it takes to get back on top again?”

Westley’s muttering began to make some sense. “I…I don’t…who?”

“Seems a bit confused, doesn’t he, Son?” my dad said to me.

I nodded back.

My dad stepped forward again and slapped Westley across the face. “Ringing any bells yet, boy?”

It was music to hear “boy” that wasn’t aimed my way.

Westley only stared back at my dad, eyes still wide and wild, more so now after the slap.

“No, I expect it wouldn’t,” my dad said. “My son didn’t ring any bells in your memory back at the gas station, so I don’t suppose it would now. Perhaps you need a friendly reminder.” My dad turned towards me. “Son?”

I took my dad’s hammer from my back pocket and approached.

“Wrecked your right knee, didn’t he, Son?” It was a rhetorical question; my dad knew which knee of mine was fucked. But it was obvious that it was all a performance for Westley, and that my dad’s rhetorical question was instead a cue for my line. Keep the act going. Have a little fun.

“Yup—right knee, Dad,” I said with a bit of flair, looking at Westley as I said it.

“Right knee?” Westley said, again stuttering with uncertainty, as though all of his marbles hadn’t finished rolling around inside his skull just yet.

“You jacked my knee during a wrestling meet last year,” I said. “Blew my ride to Penn State. We think you did it on purpose.”

“Wrestling meet?”

“Oh, now you’re going to act as though you don’t even know what wrestling is?” my dad said.

“I don’t wrestle.”

My dad threw his head back and laughed. “Pull the other one, boy.” Then, resuming the performance: “So, it was the right knee then, Son?”

“Yes, sir—right knee.”

“Hurt, did it?”

“Like hell.”

“Think Westley here needs to feel some of that same hurt?”

“I do.”

“Because if there’s one thing I know in this world,” my dad began, “is that if you’re hurting, the only way to feel better about yourself, is to do some hurting on others. Especially those that wronged you. It’s why this is all so perfect, Son. We’re going to be dishing out a lot of hurt for a long while…starting right now, of course.” He grinned at Westley again.

“I don’t know what the hell you guys are talking about,” Westley replied. His marbles seemed to have stopped rolling somewhat; he sounded more coherent now. Coherent and frightened. I felt a surge of adrenaline that I’d only ever felt on the mat after pinning my opponent, winning my dad’s (transient) approval. It was like coming. What a fantastic idea this had all been—and it’d only just begun.

“Refresh his memory, Son.”

Adrenaline delightfully tickling my nerve endings, I brought the hammer down onto Westley’s right knee. He threw his head back and screamed, veins bulging in his neck and head like purple cords. He brought his head forward again and started fighting his binds, chair rocking, face red with agony.

“Ringing any of those bells yet, Westley?” my dad said.

“Who the fuck are you people?!” Westley cried. “I don’t know any Westley! I never wrestled a day in my life!!!”

My father looked at me. “Need to create some instability in the joint to do this right, Son.” He bent and raised Westley’s bound ankles until his legs stuck out straight.

I brought the hammer down multiple times now, felt and heard his right kneecap give after the third or fourth whack. Westley was screeching now, like some kind of wild bird; a noise I’d never heard a human make before. He fought futilely despite his pain, but he wasn’t going anywhere in my dad’s grip. And my dad was now breathless with excitement. Still gripping Westley by the ankles, he grinned—no, leered, as though aroused—at me and said: “Gonna make that left knee jealous, Son.”

I did his left knee next, much like I’d done to the homeless man’s head, bringing the hammer down countless times, destroying both knees until they couldn’t have been anything more than dust.

Westley had stopped screaming, agony perhaps taking his tongue. I even looked up at one point to see if he’d passed out. He hadn’t, though. His eyes were open, he was shaking all over, his face was nearly purple, but that was all. He didn’t even appear to be in pain anymore. I guessed that extreme shock had overrode his system and temporarily anesthetized him. And if that were true, it would be something that needed immediate remedying.

So I did his ankles next.

Then his feet.

Then his hands.

We needn’t worry about his binding anymore—he was going nowhere—and so we’d removed the duct tape from his wrists and ankles, and then the twine that had kept him securely fastened to the chair. We even tipped the chair over after, dumping his now useless body to the floor so I could get better leverage, better coverage.

Because I did his elbows next.

Then his collar bone (that one produced a serious crack, like kindling over the knee).

My frenzy was exhilarating, but not so much that I could not hear my father giggling—yes, my big tough dad was actually giggling—behind me after each and every whack of the hammer. I even saw him jumping up and down a few times out of my peripheral vision as I continued my work; the giggling, the leer of arousal growing after each whack. I’d mentioned that my adrenaline rush from Westley’s fear and my father’s approval had been so great that it felt like coming, and now, judging by my father’s behavior, I would say he too felt the same. Perhaps more so. Disgusting, you say? A father and son gaining a mutual sort of sexual release by spreading the wealth of your pain onto others, as my dad had put it only moments ago? Especially those that had wronged you? As an outsider looking in, I could see such a point of view. But I was on the inside, and as I’ve said countless times before, nobody was capable of understanding the relationship between my father and me. Nobody.

And so I felt zero shame for the ecstasy I felt. Nor do I imagine my father felt any such shame either, what with his leering and giggling and hopping about. On the contrary, our blood lust clearly wanted more. And I was more than willing to grant it to us both.

Only my father had a different idea.

“Pin him,” he said.

“Huh?”

My father rolled Westley’s body onto his back, useless limbs flopping on the basement floor like dead meat. Crazily enough, Westley was still conscious, but definitely not with us anymore. If shock had momentarily overridden his body before, now it was in supreme control, shutting all circuits down, all except for the eyes. They remained open and vacant, unblinking, like a ventriloquist’s doll, his useless limbs sealing the analogy.

“Pin the fucker,” my dad said again, gesturing down at Westley.

I did. I laid my body across Westley’s. My dad dropped to his knees as a referee might, got low and gave a hard theatrical study to make sure both of Westley’s dislocated shoulders were flat to the ground, and then slammed his palm to the “mat” that was our basement floor, proudly declaring my victory before hopping to his feet and pulling me up with him, where we embraced in a celebratory hug.

I almost cried.

We finished off Westley with a few whacks to the head with the hammer. Nothing crazy, just making sure he was dead—all of the fun was on his extremities, after all—and then headed upstairs for a celebratory drink. And, of course, to watch more slasher movies—because once we disposed of Westley’s body, the real work, the good stuff, my father said, would begin.

My father and I—as they say—threw shit against the wall until it stuck. My father was exceptionally keen on my crashing a party of my fellow classmates, going about it systematically, picking them off one by one just as Jason or Michael Myers might, making sure to leave that final girl to tell the tale. He once again emphasized that that last part—the final girl—was key.

I was warm to the idea, but problem was, I was not the most popular kid my senior year. Even during the years prior to that—as I’d mentioned before—when I was a star on the mat, I’d had difficulty relating to others off the mat. I had their respect, or so I’d like to think, but that was pretty much it. So, that raised the problem of how to find out about any parties going on that I could crash and fulfill my new calling.

I’d mentioned to my dad how ideal invading a camp might be—that would be slasher shit 101—but nobody my age really went to camp these days. Plus, it was still the school year, and if anyone did go to camp, it would have to wait for summer. Neither me, nor especially my father could wait that long.

I then mentioned senior week: the time-honored week after graduation where kids headed to the beach or “down the shore,” as it was known in my neck of the woods, and rented houses for a week to party. Alcohol, drugs, premarital sex, masked killer doing his thing—all the makings for the perfect slasher film. My dad liked the idea, but it held the same problem as the camp scenario: it would have to wait for summer, and again, we weren’t sure we could wait that long.

I mentioned a fraternity or sorority party. There were plenty of colleges nearby. I’d even mentioned how Ted Bundy had infamously entered the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee and attacked four women in one night, killing two.

My father sneered at this idea. Bundy was one of the pussy serial killers he’d always been going on about—the antithesis of what we were trying to achieve. Scratch the sorority house idea.

It began to look more and more like a typical high school party was going to be the way to go. Something out of the final scene in the movie Scream, my father had said. Besides, a high school party—if it was any damned good—would have booze and drugs and premarital sex, he assured me.

And so it was settled. My first big splash would be a party of my peers, though they were anything but that now. My growth had elevated me to a status they could only dream to attain, and there was no ceiling for how high I could go. Such a prospect was exquisite.

Only a few problems remained, however—one I already suspected, the other two I did not.

Problem one, the one I suspected: figuring out where and when the party would be.

Problem two, the first one I did not suspect: my father felt I needed another trial run. No bringing home the homeless this time, no exacting revenge on the asshole who ruined my (former) life, but the real deal. The hood, the hammer, the works. He suggested a home invasion. I asked him if a home invasion had more of a serial killer ring to it, and he quickly reprimanded me. Said that there were countless examples of slashers doing home invasions. Said the original Halloween was practically all home invasions. Couldn’t argue with that.

Problem three, the second one I did not suspect: he suggested disfiguring my face. I must admit, that one really caught me by surprise.

“Disfigure?” I said.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Tons of slashers are disfigured. It’s why a lot of them wear a mask. Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface. Then, of course, you’ve got Freddy, Victor Crowley from Hatchet, Cropsy from The Burning…”

“Michael Myers wasn’t disfigured in the first Halloween,” I said. “And Freddy, Victor Crowley, and Cropsy didn’t wear masks.”

He looked upset with me. “You wanna sew this up tight, or not?”

“I do, it’s just…”

“Just what?” His disappointment grew.

“What about school?”

“What about it?”

“There’ll be questions. Kids will tease me.”

“Fuck the questions; you’re not allowed to have an accident? As for kids teasing you? Fuck them too. Depending on which universe you followed, kids teased Jason for being deformed when he was a kid. He got the last laugh, though, didn’t he? So will you.”

I thought about turning up at school with whatever disfigurement my father had in mind. I could handle the teasing from my fellow students. What I couldn’t handle was what any staff at my school might think. It was no secret that they didn’t understand the love between my father and me. They mistook it for abuse all the time. I could easily see a few of the nosier teachers or perhaps the guidance counselor suspecting it was anything but an accident, and then take me away from my father. I didn’t dare voice this to my dad, of course, but the possibility was there. It frightened me. Yet, the notion of disappointing my father after all the progress we’d recently made frightened me that much more.

So I agreed to let him disfigure me.

Since Jason or Victor Crowley had been born deformed, we obviously couldn’t go that route, so we thought of the next most common one. A good old burn, ala Myers in Halloweens 4, 5, and 6, and I believe Halloween H20 and the God-awful sequel to that, Halloween: Resurrection.

Was I scared of the pain? Yes, but physical pain can be managed with the right mindset, my father had always told me. It was psychological pain that was the most crippling. I knew this truer than ever; when my father would beat me, deprive me of food and water for days on end, the pain would always subside. When I lost the odd match? Had to endure my father’s disgust thereafter? It still lingered to this day.

So, when my father held the lighter fluid in one hand, a Bic Lighter in the other, and then brought me over to the sink (filled to the top with water to dunk my head and douse the flames when he deemed the burn was sufficient), I did not hesitate to give him the go ahead.

He told me to close my eyes, and to keep them closed; I would be useless if the burns affected my vision, he said.

I did.

He then told me to stand close to the sink.

I did.

I then felt him squirt the lighter fluid into my face, smelled it an instant later. He then asked me if I was ready.

I said I was.

He lit my face on fire.

The pain was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I lost control of all bodily movement and stumbled away from the sink with the ridiculous, yet, I imagine, instinctive need to outrun the pain.

My father caught me around the waist, gripped the back of my scalp, the part that wasn’t burning—I could feel the front of my scalp burning, could smell hair burning—and plunged my head into the sink full of water. The relief was instant, but then instantly fleeting.

My father jerked my head from the sink. My eyes were still shut tight, both from the pain, and from the fear of doing any lingering damage should there be any errant flames that wanted to stay. The damage felt severe, the pain the whole world. The fear of opening my eyes had me believing I might hear concern from my father, that the fire had gotten out of hand when I’d stumbled away from the sink (my own fault), but instead he laughed.

“Holy shit, Son,” he said. “You got yourself a receding hairline!”

I opened my eyes. My vision swam at first but eventually settled. The pain was still excruciating. Probably would be for a while. My father pulled a mirror from our kitchen wall and held it before me. My skin was a devil red and heavily blistered on my right cheek. And he was right about the receding hairline—the first inch or so of hair above my forehead was gone, my right eyebrow too. The smell of burning hair was still as strong as ever.

My father kept the mirror in front of my face. Like a barber asking a client after the haircut was done, he asked: “What do you think?”

My first thought was that I was a monster. But then I suppose that was the point. I said nothing, however. Just kept looking at my reflection, at the monster staring back at me.

“It looks bad now,” my father said, “but we’ll get you cleaned up. Keep you home from school for a few days. When all is said and done, it’ll look perfect.” He was smiling proudly.

I managed to smile back. The smile hurt my gums. Evidently, they too had been burnt.

In the next few days that followed, my father was surprisingly gentle in caring for me. Changing my bandages frequently, applying antibiotic cream ’round the clock. Buying me soft, cold foods for my sore gums.

When all was said and done, my father reckoned I had suffered second degree burns. I’m not too sure he was correct in his statement about looking better after a few days (I thought I looked worse; the right side of my face was an oozing, blistery red mess, and my eyebrow and some of my hairline were still gone, but I was no Freddy, and definitely no Cropsy), yet my dad was happy with the result, and therefore so was I.

“All in all,” my dad said, “I’d say it was a great success. I think you’ll be ready to head back to school soon. We’ll keep the bandages on you—add a little mystery to what lay beneath.” He grinned at the idea.

I grinned back. My gums hurt from the effort.

“What are you gonna tell them when they ask what happened?” he asked me, his grin now gone, his gaze critical.

“Exactly as you said when you phoned the school. We had a bonfire over the weekend. I tripped and fell.”

He studied me. No—scratch that. He studied my hands. “Yeah…”

I looked at my hands, then back up at him. “What’s wrong?”

“You trip and fall into a bonfire, the first thing you’re doing is breaking your fall with both hands.”

I dropped my head. I knew where this was going.

My father turned the stovetop on and burned both my hands, one after the other.

On the plus side, he let me stay home from school for an extra couple of days. We watched slasher movies all day, and he let me have more whiskey. I drank it with gloves on. I didn’t mind.

It would turn out that finding out about an upcoming party at school really wasn’t that hard. No special sleuthing on my part needed, which was definitely a good thing, because when I eventually showed up to school with bandages on my face and scalp and hands, my fellow students avoided me like the plague.

A few of the more curious types asked me what happened, not because they cared—though they feigned it—but to satisfy their own morbid curiosity. And, of course, I told them the bonfire lie. They seemed genuinely horrified by this; some, usually the girls, showed genuine sympathy, but I still knew that deep down they didn’t care. I knew that when my back was turned or I was out of earshot they would poke fun at me. And that was just fine. It might have bothered me some before, but the power of my second life was growing by the day. As I’d mentioned before, the students I’d once looked at as my peers were beneath me now. It was such an exhilarating feeling, to watch them in class, knowing that I could kill them at any time. Bash them with my dad’s hammer until they were unrecognizable, but not before terrifying them first as any slasher would. My sense of purpose might have even begun to exceed the purpose I had felt on the mat in my former life.

Staff? Oddly enough, they showed less interest or sympathy than my (former) peers. Perhaps they had gotten the story from the principal beforehand and needn’t bother to ask. I said “oddly enough,” but now, in retrospect, maybe not so odd. It had been my experience throughout my life that teachers, who claimed to care, simply did not. Maybe it was fear of my father and their lack of understanding about our relationship, but I doubt it. Even at eighteen years of age I had learned what selfish creatures humans really were. You could expect it from kids, but it had been my experience that teachers were not exempt from this either.

I can recall a particular incident that really hammered this point home during my second try at eighth grade. Yes, you heard correctly—I had to repeat eighth grade. I had been so focused on my wrestling that my studies suffered. I had expected my father to be furious with me, but strangely enough, he wasn’t. He told me that all I had to do was focus on wrestling and eek by, and by the time I graduated, I would have my pick of the top colleges to attend via my wrestling accolades. And this had proved to be true, until, well, you know.

As for the incident on my second year in eighth grade? I remember it like it was yesterday. I had been assigned the same science teacher who’d flunked me the year before. On the first day of school he spotted me sitting in his classroom and asked, in front of everyone: “What are you doing here?” My reply had been an embarrassed and soft: “I’m in your class.” His reply to that? “Oh, no you’re not. See me out in the hall.” So out in the hall we went. The conversation in the hall then went something like this:

Science teacher: “You are not going to be in my classroom and embarrass me again.”

Me: “This is where they put me. I didn’t—”

Science teacher, angry, holding up a hand and cutting me off: “Listen to me. Go down to the main office. Tell them you want a different science teacher. There is no way I’m going to have someone like you in my classroom again.”

Me: “…”

Science teacher: “Do you understand?”

Me: “Yes.”

Science teacher: “Do it now.”

And so I did. And I got a new teacher. But that moment stuck with me until this day. Made me see people for who they really were, teachers included. I often wondered, especially now, if that same teacher still taught eighth grade science at my old middle school. Perhaps I would pay him a visit sometime soon.

But back to finding out about the party. Like I said, it was no difficult task, actually snuck up on me to be honest. It was study hall, and I simply overheard a few of the popular seniors talking about it. Parents away. Two kegs. Bottles of liquor. Recreational drugs. I instantly jotted down the name of the host in my notebook so as not to forget, and to look his address up later. Jotted down the date and time. This weekend the host had said. Show up whenever. Stay the night, if you want (which meant premarital sex, no doubt; it was almost too perfect).

I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my dad. When I did, my dad seemed pleased, but not as thrilled as I thought he might be. The reason? He believed I needed that home invasion practice first. But once again, luck was on our side. It was Monday. The party was Saturday. Plenty of time to fit a home invasion between now and then. It was all a matter of working out the particulars. My dad and I got to work that night, planning, bonding. Yes, I was now certain that my sense of purpose and exhilaration for my new life exceeded anything I had ever felt on the mat.

The home invasion.

We had selected the home. An isolated place out in the sticks, about a twenty-minute drive from our house. We had scouted it out earlier that day. True, no prominent slasher like Jason or Michael Myers would have done such a thing, but this was still technically practice until I got to the big party on Saturday.

From that earlier surveillance, we deduced that an older couple lived there, as evident through frequent peeks into their windows—both in the front and in the back—with my dad’s binoculars. We guessed them at maybe in their seventies. We spotted nobody else in the house as the couple went about their lives that late afternoon, unaware of what was coming their way. No kids—but this was no shock; if they did have kids, they likely would have moved out by now, given the couple’s age—no dogs. That last one was important to me, and I told him so. He looked disappointed. Said Michael Myers and Jason had killed dogs in their films. I told him I understood and that I had no problem killing a dog (which was untrue; people yes, pets no), and so I quickly replied that a barking dog could give me away, fuck the whole thing up. To my delight, he’d instantly agreed, and to my greater delight, he’d said: “Good thinking, Son.”

So, we had an older couple, no kids, no dogs, and an isolated house out in the boonies. The recipe couldn’t have been any better. It was all just a matter of waiting for nightfall. I asked my dad if we should wait until they were asleep, or surprise them while still awake.

He thought about it a moment and then replied: “Definitely while awake.”

I then asked him about his ongoing insistence for the final girl, and if I should just kill the husband and let the wife live to tell the tale.

He didn’t think about that one. “Nah—it’s still early days. Get your practice in and just mow both of ’em down. Besides, the final girl needs to be a teen. Early to mid-twenties tops.”

I then asked about entry, the possibility of an alarm system. We had seen no security stickers or signs anywhere on the front of the house (something common for those with such systems; I’d even heard of people buying mock signs and stickers by themselves with no subsequent alarm systems as a deterrent), but that didn’t mean they still didn’t have one.

My dad seemed disappointed again, just as he’d been when discussing a potential dog: slashers never cared about alarm systems. But he eventually conceded that it was an unavoidable truth in our situation that needed consideration. The party on Saturday would be different. Kids constantly coming and going; I could practically stroll on in. A home invasion at night? Different ball game.

His final thought? “Fuck it. If an alarm sounds, get it done quick, and then haul your ass back to the car. No alarm, well then hell, take your time.” He grinned on that last one.

And so nightfall had finally come. To say I was nervous would be an understatement. No privacy of our own home for this one. This was the real deal. Time to “wreck shit,” as my dad liked to say.

We parked on the side of the road, roughly a hundred yards away, so as not to arouse any suspicion should the husband or wife peek out the window. After all, it wasn’t like there were any other houses nearby. If they spotted a car parked outside their home, it would almost certainly arouse suspicion.

“How you feeling, Son?” my dad asked.

I didn’t dare say nervous. “Excited,” I said instead.

I was dressed all in black—black sweat pants, black sweatshirt, black gloves (my hands were still tender from the burns, and they would assuredly help with fingerprints should it come to that, something a slasher never had to worry about, but once again, something that would need consideration in our particular reality), and, of course, my black hood, currently sitting on my lap along with my dad’s hammer.

“I’m excited for you,” my dad said. “This is the start of something special, Son.” And then he said that magic word I’d longed for since the start of my second life. Hell, since the duration of my first life, he so rarely said it. Sure, he’d shown it with the odd expression here and there, and especially with that celebratory hug after I’d “pinned” Westley, but now he actually said it, and I all but cried again, just as I’d almost done after that celebratory hug. “Proud of you,” he said.

I swallowed that urge to cry, grabbed my hood and hammer, and exited the car. My previous lie about being excited instead of nervous was now truth. Truth and then some. I was crazy excited.

Excited as I was, I did not run towards the house. Slashers seldom ran. Jason did in parts 2, 3, and 4, but never after becoming “zombie Jason” in subsequent installments, at least as far as I could recall.

Michael Myers? Dude never ran. Freddy did, as did a few others, but I was keen to dial in a Michael and zombie Jason vibe for this. After all, wasn’t it one of the great clichés about slasher films? The victim is sprinting for their very lives while the slasher casually strolls behind them, only to appear yards ahead of them behind some tree or whatever to do the deed?

So strolled I did. And although there was nary a house around the wooded area, I made sure to stay close to trees and any other surrounding spots that would offer cover should I be spotted by any unfortunate happenstance.

At the house now. A front door entrance felt risky, so I followed their driveway towards the back of the house when a delicious idea occurred to me.

Car alarm.

Everyone had a car alarm these days. I would try the solitary car in their driveway in hopes of triggering the alarm. The husband, maybe even the wife too, would no doubt exit the house and come to investigate. I was almost certain that whoever came to investigate would not lock the front door behind them. If I was stealthy enough, I could then enter through the front door after all with no need to worry about an alarm system. If the husband or wife or both were busy investigating the car, wondering what might have triggered the alarm, I could casually stroll inside and be waiting for them. Such an idea tickled me beyond belief. It was definitely something out of the Michael Myers playbook.

I approached the car. Lifted the handle, hoped beyond hope that—eureka! The alarm sounded, and what a blissful sound it was. How amusing it was, I thought, that a sound meant to frighten and thwart criminals was now akin to my favorite song.

The house had a front porch, considerable shrubs and small, flowery trees on either side. I hurried towards them and managed to crouch low and out of sight behind a few—a split second before the porch lights came on. The fish had noticed the bait. Now if it’ll just go ahead and take a big old bite…

The front door opened. The husband emerged, a frown on his face. He looked left towards the driveway, towards his flashing car playing my song. His wife appeared next to him.

Both of you go, both of you go, I thought. Please, please, please both of you go.

“What the hell?” I heard the husband say, still standing on the front porch.

“What could have triggered it?” I heard his wife say.

“No idea,” the husband said.

Oh, if you only knew, people.

The husband’s keys were visible in his right hand. He aimed the car key—a remote car key—towards the car.

Fuck! I should have considered that. Just as everyone had a car alarm these days, so too do they have a remote key to switch it off with the push of a button.

And that was exactly what happened. The husband hit the small button on the key’s remote, and my song abruptly ended. The silence that followed felt as though I was under a microscope—I was aware of every breath I took, every anxious and thus involuntary movement I might have made atop the undergrowth I was crouched on. My only savior rest on the hope that their attention might be so firmly fixed upon the mystery as to why the alarm had sounded, that any sound, no matter how subtle, I might have made, would have made them deaf to it. Or perhaps, living out in the sticks like they did, the ambient sounds of nature—tree branches crackling, animals talking to one another, whatever—dampened their ears to any extracurricular noises that might have otherwise aroused suspicion for someone living in say, the burbs.

Either way, I didn’t give a shit. Along with my hope of remaining undiscovered in my crouched spot, my hope of them going to investigate what might have caused the alarm to sound was even greater.

Please, please, please…

“I’m gonna go check it out,” the husband said.

“Check what out?” the wife said.

“What could have triggered the alarm.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

Yes. Yes, it is.

The husband looked at his wife. “Why not?”

“Suppose someone tried to steal it? They could still be out there.”

Still out there. I felt a wonderful surge of adrenaline swirl hot in my belly.

“Around here?” the husband said with a little laugh. “They’d have to be one hell of a determined car thief to venture out this way.”

That’s right, brother. Kick that common sense to the curb and go and investigate that strange noise in the attic.

“Well, then what could have triggered it?” the wife asked.

“Could have been anything, sweetheart. Fallen tree branch, an animal, even the wind. I’ll be right back.”

“Not without me, you’re not.”

I believe the word is hallelujah!

The husband closed the front door, did not lock it—

Is there a word greater than hallelujah?

—and the two of them headed off the front porch and towards the driveway to investigate.

Me? Why, I casually rose from my crouched spot and strolled on in through the front door and closed it softly behind me, thank you very much. I was so fucking excited that my bladder threatened to relieve itself then and there.

No strolling on my way back to my dad’s car. I sprinted. And it was not out of fear or anything like that. It was pure excitement, like a kid running in the park without a care.

I entered the passenger side of my dad’s car (I had already taken my hood off so I wouldn’t trip on anything as I fled; cool as the hood was, vision wasn’t so great in it. Another cliché slasher films with masked killers never really addressed: how the hell did they see every damn thing with those masks on?), and was a breathless mess of delight.

“What? What?!” my dad said the moment I entered the car.

“I did it! I did it!”

“And?”

“It was awesome!” I showed him the hammer. Blood and hair were still on it. Blood was on my clothes.

“Tell me.”

“Shouldn’t we get out of here first?”

I’d never seen my father accept a suggestion of mine so quickly. He nodded and hit the gas.

On the road now, my dad asked again: “Tell me.”

“Dad, it was awesome.” I told him about how I’d hit the car alarm. How they’d both walked out to investigate the car, leaving the front door unlocked. How I’d strolled on in.

“Fucking beautiful,” he said, and my heart swelled. “Then what?”

“So there I was in the house, waiting. When they eventually came back in, I was hiding in their kitchen. They sat on the sofa in their living room to watch TV.” My words were quick and breathless, adrenaline bunching them.

“Slow down,” my dad said, “slow down.”

I took three deep breaths and steadied myself. Then: “So there I was in their kitchen, listening to them watch TV. They had no idea I was there. Dad, it was straight out of a fucking movie. If only you could have seen it!”

“Just fucking tell me already!” My dad seemed as excited as I was.

“So there I was in their kitchen. Hood on, hammer ready, channeling Jason and Michael Myers and every other slasher. Getting into the mindset, ya know?”

My dad nodded proudly, and I had a hunch he would. “Mindset” was the keyword. Before a meet, he would always threaten me with acquiring the right mindset, so it was no mistake that I’d used the word. “Then?” he said.

“So then I casually walk on into the living room. I just stood there as they watched TV on the sofa, large as life, hood on, hammer at my side. The wife screamed. The husband did too!” I could not help but laugh at that last bit, but I did not laugh at the time; it would have broken character. “The wife shrank back into the sofa, the husband stood, but he didn’t come at me. I’m not sure he knew what he was going to do. The man in him probably told him to rush me, but standing was all he could manage.”

“And, and?”

“And I walked—not ran—towards him, and brought the hammer down onto his head. He didn’t even throw his hands up for defense or anything, Dad. It was like fear had sapped all instinct. Fear, Dad. I instilled that much fear.”

My father grinned and slapped my knee. “Go on.”

“So, he went down from the first blow. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or not, but he was definitely out cold. The wife was screaming like crazy, and even though we were out in the sticks, I knew I couldn’t let her keep screaming, just in case. I wanted to terrorize her a bit more, but, you know…”

My dad nodded understandingly.

“So I approached her on the sofa. She’s all shrunk back into it, like hoping it was a hole or something she could escape into. She actually held up her hands in defense when I was on her, unlike her husband. It didn’t matter for shit, though, Dad. I must have brought the hammer down fifty times on her. Felt and heard her skull crack. I must have hit her jaw a bunch of times too—I don’t remember; I was so pumped up—because when I was done, her mouth was hanging open all crooked and her tongue was hanging out like a fucking giant slug. Teeth were on the carpet too.”

“What about the husband? What about the husband?”

“Oh yeah…so I turn back to him, and he’s still out cold on the floor. I could have bashed him then and there to make sure he was dead, but then I thought: ‘No—gotta wake him up so he can know the fear again,’ you know?”

My dad laughed and slapped my knee again. Best slaps I ever felt.

“So I stood over him and kept nudging him with my foot, trying to wake him. He eventually came to and looked up at me. I’m not sure he knew what was going on, or even what planet he was on at first, but his mind evidently cleared and recollected what was what because he screamed again, louder than his wife!”

“Fucking pussy.”

“Right? So, once I knew he was aware of what was what, I brought the hammer down—whack! whack! whack! He did that thing just like Kirk did in Chainsaw when Leatherface bashed him with the sledge. You know, convulsing and flopping all over the place like he’s being electrocuted?”

My dad nodded.

“Yeah, so he’s doing that, and I’m still thumping away with the hammer. I gotta admit, Dad, I was having so much fun, I kinda got carried away.”

“Meaning what?”

“You remember the number I did on the homeless guy? How his face and head looked like a fucking watermelon dropped from a ten-story building?”

My dad nodded again.

“This was like a watermelon dropped from a fifty-story building. A fucking hundred-story building. I basically decapitated him with a hammer—your hammer, Dad.”

My father, though still driving, closed his eyes and threw his head back in exaltation. “Unbelievable,” he said.

“Dad…?”

He brought his head back on the road for a brief moment before looking at me.

“It went better than we could have ever imagined,” I said. “I’m ready for the party Saturday night.”

“I’m so fucking proud of you, Son.”

This time I did cry, but I looked out the window and hid it from him. It would have been pussy to let him see.

My dad and I prepped for the party on Saturday night by watching endless slasher films, some of them—Jason and Michael Myers ones—over and over again. He paused them frequently to point out this and that. Things I needed to be sure I didn’t forget. Things I needed to be sure I did.

As for the “final girl?” My dad said she needed to be popular but tough. Not the type to cower and fold when shit got real. I found that question a tough one. Not the popular part—I knew who the popular girls at school were—but the part about which girl was tough, which girl wouldn’t fold under the pressure.

I decided on Jennifer Landry. She was beautiful, popular, and she was the star pitcher on our school’s softball team. I watched her play a few times. Arm like a fucking rocket. Word was she had colleges practically camped outside her front door, begging her to sign the dotted line, all expenses paid. Using my own experience growing up with competitive sports, the pressure and discipline and structure needed to be as good as she was, I knew she had to be tough. Definitely wouldn’t fold under pressure.

“She got a boyfriend?” my dad asked me.

“Yeah. Ted Christie.”

“Make sure you kill him off quick,” my dad said. “It would be great if she could stumble upon his body at the end of it.”

The end of it. I started to see it all in my mind’s eye. All of the students at the party mysteriously disappearing one by one. Jennifer—Jen, as everyone called her—the, ahem, “final” one. Stumbling upon a cleverly placed body here and there as she began to investigate. Happening upon her boyfriend in the bedroom closet, perhaps, screaming, turning to run, only to have me appear at the door, blocking her way, hood on, bloodied hammer at the ready. I would then approach her, hammer raised, only to intentionally miss as she tried to escape. Or perhaps she would attack me, maybe kick me in the balls or throw something at me. Either way, I would let it happen and give chase, but ultimately let her escape, but not without one hell of a fight first.

It was all so fucking exciting. Saturday couldn’t come fast enough.

As for me? My injuries? I was still sore. How couldn’t I be? But I had full mobility. Believe it or not, it was my hands that bothered me the most. Even though they weren’t burned nearly as badly as my face, they were a constant nuisance, because, after all, we use our hands for damn near everything in our daily lives, don’t we? I was constantly slathering them in aloe and creams and all kinds of shit, wearing gloves around the clock, even to bed. But so be it—it was what it was. I could still wield one hell of a hammer. Just ask the couple at the home invasion I pulled off.

Speaking of the happy couple, my father and I heard about them on the news. It was perfect. “A senseless, brutal crime,” they called it. “No robbery motive. Nothing stolen. Just pure, brutal violence.” Apparently, they were looking into the older couple’s history to see if they might have had any enemies and all that. After all, given the “viciousness” of the assault, there had to be some sort of motive, right?

“Wrong!” my father had happily blurted when the news had declared as such, and we both laughed.

The next few days were unbearable. I’d often heard the expression about the buildup to an eagerly anticipated event being similar to Christmas Eve. I never really understood it—my dad hated Christmas, felt all the gifts and attention to children made them weak, and thus did the bare minimum when the time came. When my mother left, we never celebrated at all. But now I got it—if waiting for Christmas to arrive was unbearable for most kids, I totally got it now.

Believe it or not, school helped quell my anticipation. Actually, that was wrong, I think. It heightened my anticipation, but served as a satisfying appetizer for what was to come, you could say. All the kids who would be at the party that I had class with, looking at them, me grinning inside, knowing they would be dead in a few days because of me. All because of me. They were mine. I owned them. The power I felt was immense. Like nothing I’d ever felt before. I’d already mentioned a few times that my second life had already far exceeded anything I’d experienced in my former life, and it continued to grow by the day. By the hour. The minute.

The bandages and gloves stayed on during school hours, but I was still quite the sight. I spotted a few students staring my way here and there. Even spotted a few snickering during lunch. Were they snickering at me? Maybe. I sure as hell imagined they were. Enjoy your lives now, people. Laugh it up. Count the days until that big party on Saturday. Because I’m counting too.

Saturday had finally arrived. My father woke me early with a big breakfast. The last time I remembered him making me breakfast was years ago, before a big meet. But there was no giddiness from him during those days, just a stern warning to eat every last bite. To get my fuel in. He’d often quoted Vince Lombardi, former NFL coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 60s, repeating: “Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” because even though I was always in tip-top shape, proper fuel played a large part of that fatigue equation.

Now? There was giddiness from my dad now. A part of him I’d never seen before. Like when we were in the basement and he was hopping up and down and grinning with glee as I went to work on Westley. I’d told him after—with some hesitance, that is; my father isn’t the kind of man who likes to be told his exuberance had gotten the better of his cool—that he’d reminded me of Drayton Sawyer, the cook from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, during the infamous dinner scene. How Drayton seemed hesitant on torturing Sally before killing her, only to succumb to the scene unfolding before him—his younger brothers and grandfather (The Hitchhiker and Leatherface and Grandpa) having a grand old time taunting Sally and trying to bash her head in, Drayton no longer hesitant, but giddy, like my father, cheering and bouncing and grinning and all but capering about.

To my delight, my father had been exceptionally amused at the comparison. And that vigor he’d shown in the basement with Westley was still clearly evident this morning. Contained, but evident.

He also reminded me, just before I dove into my breakfast that Sally had escaped. She was a final girl, one of the best there’d ever been. I told him not to worry; I understood.

After breakfast, we did some more research. We’d driven by the party house multiple times. Took extensive notes about entrances and escape routes and hiding spots and you name it. I knew them now, as they say, like the back of my (still sore) hand(s).

Lunch and dinner were equally large, and I had licked those plates clean. As night began to fall, my father insisted I take a nap. So, I did. He woke me around ten p.m. with a protein shake.

When eleven p.m. came, he told me it was time. I told him I was ready.

Just as we’d done at the home invasion, my father parked several streets away from the party. Problem was, this was a nice little suburb. We weren’t out in the sticks with each home miles apart from one another. This meant the risk of my father being spotted by a nosy neighbor or maybe even patrolling police. I told him so, and he waved me off. Told me that if any nosy neighbor or police did roll up on him, he would simply pull his phone and act as though he’d pulled over on the side of the road for a serious text exchange with a friend. After all, he didn’t want to be texting and driving, did he? That worked for me.

In the car now, me in in the same black sweats and gloves I’d worn for the home invasion, me with the hood and hammer in my lap, me with a nervous excitement that forced me to keep my voice from rising.

“You ready to do this, Son?” my dad asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Start small, just like we discussed. Lurk outside for a bit. Their backyard is big. No question some will come out to smoke or whatever. Pick a few off then out there, if you can. And make sure to hide the bodies after. You don’t want them to be discovered before the game really gets going.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Try and get the Christie boy as soon as possible. Do not touch the Landry girl. Even if she’s one of the ones you spot from the start lurking out back, you leave her be until the end.”

I nodded once.

“I believe in you, Son. This is the start of something special. We’re making history here.”

“I only wish you could be there with me. Or at least watch it,” I said.

“I’ll be with you in here,” he tapped his heart with a finger. “And you can tell me all about it until your throat is sore when we get home.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then without further ado?”

I grabbed my hood and hammer and went to open the car door.

“Wait a minute,” my dad said. “Come here.” He leaned over and gave me a hug. “Proud of you, Son,” he said for the second time this week.

I hugged him back, felt those old tears welling up, but managed to will them away this time. “I’m not a disappointment to you anymore?” I asked.

“No way.”

My first victim was gift-wrapped. It was outside. He was alone. And it was Ted Christie.

Kids did come out to smoke now and then, but they stayed close to the house, by the sliding glass doors of the home’s furnished basement. I could watch them undetected in the distance (I was behind a big oak), but that was unfortunately all. Too much open space between that big oak and those sliding glass doors to get close enough undetected.

But Ted Christie? Turns out old Ted had a bad habit he was trying to keep from his fellow students, his girl Jen Landry probably chief—or chieftess—of them all.

Yep, it appeared as though Ted loved him some cocaine. And while I’m sure there were a few other kids inside who didn’t mind the odd line or two, it would seem good old Ted wanted to keep his love for it a secret, again, probably from Jen.

So, there Ted came, wandering my way, stopping by another massive oak to my right, and then ducking quickly behind it. We were probably less than ten feet apart but he never even noticed I was there, and that fact alone would have satisfied me for the night. How close he was to death without a clue. If I thought the feeling in the classroom—looking at all of them, knowing they would be dead soon at my hand—was exhilarating, it had absolutely nothing on the exhilaration I was feeling now.

I watched him remove the little amber bottle from his pocket, uncapping it, and then tapping a little coke onto the back of his hand before quickly snorting it up his right nostril, shuddering pleasantly after before wiping his nose clean.

I walked towards him. Did not run or hurry, but approached casually, exactly as the clichéd slasher might. He must have been pretty fucked up prior to the hit of coke he’d just taken because I was now roughly five feet from him and he still looked as if he had no clue I was there.

Only when I was upon him did he spin my way. At first he appeared startled, but not in the right way—startled as though he’d been caught using drugs. It was only when he took in my hood, my hammer now raised high overhead, did he react the way I’d hoped. His eyes popped, big and white and wonderful in the dark around us. Opened his mouth to scream, but managed nothing; I had already brought the hammer down hard onto the top of his head, hearing it split his skull, watching him crumble delightfully at my feet, watching his legs and arms convulse (just like Kirk from Leatherface’s sledge, just like the husband at the home invasion) from that first blow that likely killed him.

I did not wait to find out.

I instead bent and went to work with the hammer, giving him maybe half a dozen more blows until his convulsing stopped and his face and head were a dented mess of gore.

Get rid of the bodies: my father’s words, echoing inside my head. I actually nodded and quickly bent, grabbing Ted by the ankles and dragging him deeper into the yard, where more trees stood tall, where plenty of shrubbery and foliage encircled many of those trees. I dumped his body into a particularly big patch of shrubbery and, to my great delight, it all but swallowed him up whole. He was well and truly hidden.

One down. How many more to go? Many. But unless there were more inside who planned on sneaking far out back to feed their noses and avoid detection, I would need to take things to the next level. I would need to get inside the house. I won’t lie; I felt confident hiding out behind the giant oak in the dark, so far from the house. Felt safe. Venturing inside? I was nervous.

From a quick but cautious survey around the home (it certainly had enough windows for the job) it appeared as though everyone was either in the basement (where good old Ted had been; I wondered if anyone noticed he hadn’t returned yet?) or the kitchen. I’m sure there were stragglers here and there, couples screwing each other in one or more of the bedrooms upstairs, some out on the patio smoking dope, and, of course, all the underagers getting drunk in the kitchen and in the basement. All of the wonderful boxes for a slasher film ticked, me not the least of them.

And yet still the question remained: how to get inside unnoticed? From my brief reconnaissance, I noticed there were more partygoers in the basement than the kitchen. In fact, the kitchen was primarily all girls, standing in their gossipy little circle, no doubt verbally tearing apart one or more of the girls who didn’t happen to be in the circle at that precise moment, only to welcome them with open arms and smiles should they eventually appear. Fucking high school. I regretted none of what I’d “missed.”

It all came to me just then. Gossip. Or better yet: FOMO—fear of missing out. To cause an incident they simply couldn’t refuse to miss. Suppose someone caused a disturbance in the basement? Some drama. There would be shouts and noise from below. The girls would almost certainly leave their cliquey little circle in the kitchen to head downstairs to investigate, leaving the upstairs all to me for the moment. It would be a crude version of my car alarm trick I’d used on the old couple during the home invasion. If I ran into any of the aforementioned stragglers during my entry? I would either do my damnedest to squeak by, or they’d get my dad’s hammer and a quick dumping spot; nice place like this in the burbs assuredly had closets for days.

What kind of distraction, though? I couldn’t necessarily instigate a fight between two guys, or two girls, for that matter.

My dad’s words in my ear again, another of his favorite sayings: KISS—Keep it simple, stupid. My dad had always been a stickler on perfecting the basics on the mat. Better to be unstoppable with a few moves, than average with a bunch, he’d say. In addition to Vince Lombardi, he loved Bruce Lee quotes, his favorite being: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

I needed to keep it simple (stupid). And I did. And it worked.

It was a big-ass rock through the basement’s sliding glass door that did the trick. Can’t get much simpler than that. I did it from a safe enough distance, waiting until no one was outside having a smoke or just catching some air or whatever.

Before throwing the rock, however, I needed to make sure I had a safe entrance into that kitchen, coupled with a clear view to see if that circle of gossipy girls experienced that FOMO and headed downstairs to inspect the inevitable commotion. I’d mentioned before that a high school party would be easier than a home invasion for the simple fact that kids would be coming and going, leaving doors unlocked.

To my great delight, this proved to be true.

The garage door was wide open, the door leading into the house, which then lead into the mudroom, which then lead into the kitchen, was unlocked. Made sense. No doubt more than a few partiers ventured into the garage during the course of the party; there were cases of beer in there, a big fridge, and the interior stunk of weed.

This would be my entry point once I threw the rock. As for seeing if that circle of girls took the bait that would be the commotion downstairs? Same spot where I’d observed them before, and the moment I hurled the rock through that sliding glass window, I hauled ass to that precise spot, crouched, waited, and watched.

The bait worked a treat. Though I couldn’t hear anything, I didn’t need to; their body language said it all. I watched the girls exchange excited glances, curious glances, FOMO like one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where the visible scent of the pie cooling on the window ledge hooked the hungry critter in the distance like a giant hand, lifting them by the nostrils where they would then float their way towards their delicious prize; this prize, of course, being the need to find out just what the hell was going on downstairs.

I watched the girls leave the kitchen in a hurry. Waited an extra beat to see if any stragglers appeared on the scene, to see if they too were making their way downstairs. When I spotted none, I hauled ass towards the garage, entered the mudroom, and then crept my way towards the kitchen. Paused a moment before entering and risked a peek from behind the wall that separated the mudroom from the kitchen to be completely sure the coast was still clear. I could hear the chaos from below clearly. Excited, high-pitched queries from the girls, deep profanities from the boys asking what the fuck and who the fuck.

I made my move and went for the stairs, and you can bet your ass that I hauled butt up those as well. I encountered no one along the way and entered the first bedroom with an open door (had I chosen a room with a closed door, there was a good chance I’d have encountered a couple screwing their brains out, giving zero fucks about any commotion they might have heard below—nothing short of an H-bomb explosion disturbing teenage sex and all).

The room was empty. From the looks of it, it was the parents’ bedroom; it was huge and decorated accordingly. Also, it was likely that the host of the party told everybody that their parent’s bedroom was off-limits.

I spotted an enormous walk-in closet, entered, and closed the door softly behind me. From there, I simply waited and listened. The wait was unbearable, but I reminded myself that many slashers had insane patience when waiting for a victim. After all, didn’t Michael Myers wait for fifteen years in Smith’s Grove Sanitarium before deciding to escape and go after Laurie Strode? I could even hear Dr. Loomis, Myers’s shrink, preaching to Sheriff Brackett in that British accent of his how Michael had waited for years with inhuman patience.

It made me smile. It made me anxious. It made me really have to take a leak. Myers must have had the bladder of a camel.

I eventually heard people making their way upstairs. Their excited chatter was not difficult to make out, they were so amped up. The high-pitched back and forth from the girls still going strong, stronger now. The angry shouts of the boys, asking who the fuck and what the fuck again and again. Apparently, some of the boys had gone out to investigate, but, of course, found nothing—I was up here, safely tucked away, waiting with “inhuman patience.”

Before long, the chatter, still audible as their excitement had clearly not dimmed, shifted from incredulous anger, to more of a lighthearted and mysterious tone. Who the hell could have done it? Some asshole neighbor? Kids? Probably some loser who wasn’t invited to the party, another suggested. Giggles from the girls followed this, and though I never heard my name mentioned, I was almost sure they were talking about me.

It was a tossup as to what compelled me to consider leaving the closet sooner than later: my excitement, or my need to take a leak. The answer came quickly, and in my dad’s voice again: Piss in the closet. Fuck them.

And so I did. And while it certainly gave my bladder relief, it did nothing to stem my eagerness. My urge to channel Michael Myers’s patience was waning. The rush I’d felt from good old Ted was waning. I needed more. How much time had passed since I’d been in this stupid closet? An hour? Maybe more? I wasn’t going to make it. Sorry, Michael. Sorry, Dr. Loomis.

I went to exit the closet, when, of all people, the final girl herself, Jen Landry, stopped me cold. I heard her enter the bedroom, a male voice with her. Needless to say, I remained frozen.

I held my breath and placed my ear to the door. I couldn’t figure out who the guy was, but I was pretty damned sure it wasn’t Ted, and not because the guy asked Jen: “Where’s Ted?” but because, well, duh.

“Who cares?” I heard Jen say. “He’s probably outside doing coke somewhere, the asshole.”

Ah, so good old Ted wasn’t so good at keeping his little habit a secret after all.

“Yeah, but aren’t you guys still a thing?” the guy asked.

“Not for much longer,” Jen replied. “Come here.”

A pause, and then the unmistakable sound of the bed squeaking as their bodies landed on it. I flashed on Friday the 13th Part II, how Jason had gotten two lovers having sex in bed with a giant spear, the spear plunging straight through both of them where it then stuck, bloodied, into the wooden floor beneath the bed.

How fucking awesome would it be if I could get two at once while they were having sex? Awesome indeed, except it presented a problem, and a significant one at that. Jen Landry was meant to be the final girl. If I killed her now, then who would take her place?

Maybe a final girl shouldn’t be chosen in advance, I thought. Maybe it needs to happen organically. Besides, could I really pass an opportunity like this up?

I heard Jen’s moans a few seconds after. They were clearly getting into it. I needed to wait until they were really into it. Like my previous mention of nothing short of an H-bomb deterring teenage sex, so too would I be invisible to them when they were in the throes of it all—at least until it was too late for them to do anything about it.

I only hoped the guy was on top. A quick blow to the back of his head would render him dead weight atop of Jen, making her escape that much harder once she spotted me. But I would need to be quick about it. She would no doubt scream and possibly alert others downstairs. Couple that with what I’d already mentioned about my choosing Jen as the final girl because she was such a strong athlete, and would assuredly put up a fight, and there was a good chance she could get away from me—great if I was still planning on her being the final girl; not so great if I wanted to do both of them now.

And I did want to do both of them now. I simply couldn’t pass this opportunity up. So, I definitely needed to be quick about it.

I turned the handle on the closet door with the gentlest of pressure possible. Inched the door open a crack and got a look. They were having sex. And wouldn’t you know it? He was on top.

Time to get two for one. My dad was going to lose his shit when I told him. I needed no greater incentive.

I emerged from the closet, slowly, methodically. The urge to hurry just in case was there, but I needed to make slashers proud.

I was bedside in six giant steps. Their frenzy was so great that they did not spot me. I raised the hammer overhead, keen on doing the guy first—I recognized him now; his name was Jake Stall—just as I’d planned.

Jen’s eyes were shut tight with passion. Whether she sensed my presence, or it was just bad luck, her eyes suddenly snapped open and she screamed.

I immediately brought the hammer down, but Jake was too fast. He rolled at the last second and I caught him in the back of the right shoulder, hardly a debilitating shot.

He sprang to his feet, naked as they come, still hard, surprisingly enough. Jen now rolled and hopped to her feet too, she equally nude, and she, like Jake, not seeming to care. And why would they? A masked maniac was in their room about to end them.

Only Jake proved to be no frozen pussy like Ted had been. He dove at my waist, keen on taking me down. My wrestling instinctively clicked in and I managed to sprawl and stop his takedown. Brought the hammer down repeatedly into his side—I couldn’t get a decent headshot—but they were having little effect. I spun the hammer in my grip and used the sharp edge, trying my damnedest to sink it into his bare flesh, and I did, and he cried out, and I saw the blood, but panic makes people impossibly strong, and he still had a hold of one my legs. It felt like a fucking silverback had a hold of me.

I continued chopping away into his side with the hammer, knowing I must have broken a few ribs by now, but still he held, still he fought.

And still Jen kept screaming.

I was blowing it.

I finally managed to shove Jake’s face flat to the rug and snake my leg free. Immediately brought the hammer down onto the back of his head, feeling the heavy contact, praying I’d get the desired result, but no, he was still conscious.

I brought the hammer down again…at the precise moment Jen Landry had snatched a porcelain lamp from the nightstand and brought it down onto my head.

My whole world went momentarily fuzzy, my second blow with the hammer onto Jake’s head weak and ineffective—Jen’s blow with the lamp had landed a split second before mine.

I popped upright, my feet unsteady beneath me. Jake popped up too, his ribcage a bloodied mess, his erection long gone now (not surprisingly). He appeared to have his wits about him, certainly more than mine were. I expected a second charge; however what he did next was something I never could have predicted.

He pulled my hood off.

Both Jake and Jen gasped. But not a good gasp. Not the horrified gasp that I would have wanted. Not the horrified gasp my father would have wanted, especially after intentionally disfiguring my face.

It was what I guess you could call an utterly flabbergasted gasp. Because they recognized me. Jake even said my name. Jen put a hand to her mouth just after saying “Oh my God…”

I cried out in anger and frustration and rage

(and humiliation???)

and lunged for Jake again with the hammer, this time catching him hard on the side of the head (perhaps the shock of seeing that it was a classmate under the hood had momentarily paused his reaction time, thank God), dropping him like a stone.

I spun towards Jen. She was definitely off the table as the final girl now; I had to kill her, and quickly. And then I was painfully reminded as to why I’d chosen her as the final girl to begin with—as I raised the hammer, she blasted me in the nuts with a kick that felt like she was part mule.

I couldn’t help but double over in agony. I thought I might even puke. With strength that no longer—and never really did—surprise me, she shoved me aside, and I went flying into the nightstand, banging the side of my head against its unforgiving edge.

Jen went to sprint past me. I reached out and desperately snatched at one of her legs, managed to snare an ankle, and she promptly spun and kicked me in the face with her free leg. I could hear her screaming for help as she left the bedroom and bolted for the stairs. Staggered, I managed to find my feet and gave chase.

By now, the majority of the party was in the kitchen, Jen’s screaming carrying them up from the basement. And when I entered that kitchen (I did not think, nor have time to grab my hood; besides, Jen already knew who I was), Jen, still naked as can be, was tucked away in the corner being consoled and questioned by many. She instantly spotted me and pointed a finger. “He tried to fucking kills us!!!”

There was that initial shock of recognition by many, just as there had been upstairs, but it was fleeting—practically every guy in that kitchen pounced as I went to flee. They kicked the absolute shit out of me.

I don’t remember much after that.

I was in my holding cell. I hadn’t touched my breakfast because I was far too anxious: my dad was visiting me for the first time since I was locked up a few days ago.

I kept playing the night over and over again in my mind, how it had started off so well, and then had ended so poorly. How was I going to explain it to my father?

One such explanation occurred to me, quite a few times, in fact, but I’m not sure my dad would have accepted it. A loss was a loss after all. I had no one to blame but myself. I fucked the whole night up because I had fucked the whole night up. Did not perform up to my potential.

But the explanation I was considering? It was actually pretty damned simple, to be honest: this was real life, not a fucking movie. Despite my newfound love for those movies, I would be lying if I said there hadn’t been more than a few times where I’d wondered why the men and women would run in terror from the killer instead of saying something like, “You know what? Fuck this. Let’s get the motherfucker,” and then turn and gang up and attack the attacker—like they did me.

But to say such a thing to my father? It certainly made sense, but that didn’t mean he would want to hear it. I chose to regale him with stories of the things that did go right, and to assure him, repeatedly, that I had never mentioned his involvement to the police, not once, and I never would.

They brought me into this little visitation room kind of place. I was shackled and cuffed, wearing the blue prison outfit they’d given me. I thought about telling my father how similar it was to Michael Myers’s gas station uniform he wore in his films. You know, a little try at levity.

They sat me at this table that was bolted to the floor and told me to wait. I’m not sure what was more excruciating, waiting in that bedroom closet for the precise moment to attack Jen and Jake, or waiting for my father to arrive, how he would react.

A loud buzzing sound all around me made me flinch, and the heavy clanks of iron locks sliding free, iron doors booming open soon after made me flinch more so.

My father entered. I wanted to stand and hug him like he’d done me after “pinning” Westley, and again in the car right before I crashed the party, but physical contact was forbidden, and even if it wasn’t, I couldn’t have done so anyway—I was cuffed to my seat.

And even if those two factors did not exist, my father’s expression upon entry certainly did: he did not appear as though he wanted to be hugged.

My dad took the seat across from me. His face was stone.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Boy.”

Boy.

I started to babble, much like I used to after losing a match. In fast, hushed tones, I said: “It was going so great, Dad. You should have seen some of the things I did. It was all going so great. It was just a little slip up, that’s all. I can do better next time. I will do better next time.”

He sucked his teeth, that old familiar look of disgust now creasing his stone face. “Next time?”

“Well sure,” I babbled on. “There’s got to be something we can do, right? Get a lawyer? Offer up some kind of insanity plea defense? They could send me to a mental hospital and I could fucking escape, just like Myers did at Smith’s Grove. How does that sound, Dad? Huh? How fucking cool would that be, Dad?”

“Lawyer?”

“Sure. Come on, Dad, it can’t be over yet, right? This is just a little setback. We can make it right again. Me and you.” I then leaned in, dropped my voice more so to just above a whisper. “I told them nothing, Dad. Nothing. Said it was all me. All my doing. All my doing.”

My father stood. “Ain’t gonna be no lawyer, boy. Nothing’s gonna make it right again. You had your second chance.” He sucked his teeth again, disgust his whole face. “You disappoint me, boy.”

He left.

I stripped my bed later that night after lights out and managed to fashion a solid noose with one of the sheets. I was fortunate that my cell had a sturdy sprinkler system above. It would make a good anchoring device to do the job.

The Reckoning

Iain Rob Wright

Introduction

Hi, my name is Iain Rob Wright and I’m British, which means my entry in this book will be slightly different to my those of my esteemed colleagues. There are no cookies in sight, only biscuits, and keep your fanny pack to yourself, because I’m just fine with my bumbag. In other words, I speak a different language to the other authors in this book. I hope you forgive me for my old-world ways.

I wrote ‘The Reckoning’ during the lockdown of 2020, and seeing as the world was pretty horrifying without any help from me, I decided to escape reality and shoot forwards into 2035, a time where life will likely be much different than it is today (and yet probably the same in many ways). The story to follow is my prediction on how life might be. Whether or not it is an improvement on 2020, is up to you to decide.

Raise a glass to a brighter future…

And beware the reckoning.

Blurbs

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

— Albert Einstein

“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”

— Steve Wozniak

“Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.”

— Thor Heyerdahl

The Future

“We can expect to see more attacks in the coming years, particularly as city and county governments run a number of critical services which are often insecure and increasingly connected to the internet.”

“In the next few years, as more cars incorporate advanced features and greater internet connectivity, these attacks will spread to vehicles and could be used by hackers.”

“Around the world, the media is already being suppressed in both democratic nations and single party states. This process could continue as autocratic political leaders seek to crush anyone painting a negative picture of government and political decision making.”

Taken from Bestlifeonline.com

1

Amelie narrowly avoided walking face first into the front door. It was her own fault for staring at her slate’s six-inch screen instead of watching where she was going. She skidded to a halt just in time to avoid splatting her nose against the thick solar glass.

She slid her slate into her trouser pocket and sighed. It was the third time this month the front door to her building had failed to open automatically for her. She waved her left hand in front of the sensor – trying to get it to connect with the ID chip buried in the flesh between her thumb and forefinger – but it was no good. Even her smartwatch failed to register with the door, and that was usually a reliable backup. The little blue light refused to flash green. “I really don’t need this today,” she said. “Do you hear me, you sonofabitch? Okay, fine. Have it your way.”

Amelie took out her slate and tapped the House Commander app. She brought up the chat function, going through the motions for several minutes until the AI bot, along with its canned responses, went away and an actual real-life person took over – albeit someone probably sitting in Taiwan or the Philippines. Another two minutes and the glass door finally swished open. If the sensor played up one more time, she was going to send one hell of a shitty email to the building controller. She didn’t pay two grand a month to live in the dark ages.

Blake, from pod number two, stood in the hallway outside his door. Dressed in a yellow onesie, he was taking a parcel from a red-fleeced courier. When he saw Amelie stomping her way towards the stairwell, he waved a bling-covered hand and called out to her. “You okay, my love? You look like you’ve got a grudgey on.”

She moved aside to let the courier pass and exit behind her. The nearby cleaning cupboard was hanging open, its old-fashioned bolt lock broken for over a week now. She shoved it closed and grunted irritably, growing increasingly annoyed at things not doing what they were supposed to. She pulled a face at Blake. “The front door wouldn’t open again. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Tell me about it. Thing’s been playing up all month. You should’ve knocked on the glass. I would’ve let you in.” He turned to face the end of the hallway where a video dome recorded all comings and goings. He stuck his middle finger up. “Sort the door out, you muppets.”

She chuckled despite almost being too tired to do so. “You’d think in 2035 we would’ve mastered getting doors to open.”

Blake snorted back a laugh. His eyes were wide, and the smell of cannabis drifted all the way across the hallway. “Yeah, right,” he said, chuckling. “Sometimes I wonder if we weren’t better off before, you know? I wanted to make a latte earlier, but my pod machine is on the blink so I’ve had to drink water all day. I chucked my kettle away years ago because I thought it was old-fashioned, but I should’ve kept it as a backup. Nothing lasts any more. I’ve barely done an hour’s work all day without my coffee buzz.”

“That sucks. How are the designs coming along otherwise? Working on anything fun?”

“Not really. One mind-numbing commission after another. This week I’ve been submitting designs for a restaurant chain. They want to print a load of fancy new signs for their locations, but I honestly couldn’t care less. Boredom will kill me one day, my love, I’m sure of it. Maybe I’ll rent an office space somewhere to get a change of scenery. Might give me an excuse to get out of my pyjamas each morning.”

Amelie nodded. “You definitely should! The city just opened a great shared workspace in Sidcup. I helped with the planning permission before they built it.”

“You’ll rebuild this entire city before you’re done.” Blake winked at her. “Anyway, thanks for the tip. I’ll get on to the building manager about the door for you. It’s not good enough. The whole building has been glitching during the last week or so. Did Harry tell you about his heating getting stuck on? Said it was like the Sahara Desert inside his pod. Hottest spot in London, apparently – although I’ve visited a few places that would say otherwise, back when… well, you know.”

Amelie nodded. While she didn’t know the details, Blake had gone through a nasty breakup recently. A few weeks ago, she had caught him arguing in the street outside with his boyfriend, and the handsome blond had stopped visiting afterwards. Blake was clearly struggling. That much was obvious from the fact he now seemed to always be high on weed and barely ever dressed. If she were him, she would be embarrassed.

She waved a hand, wanting to get away while she still had the chance. Blake had clearly grown lonely after his boyfriend’s departure; he would keep her talking for twenty minutes if he could, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was chit-chat. “Do you mind if I catch you later, Blake? I really need to go eat.”

“No problem, my love. Hey, check out my Lyfe page later, okay? My sister had twins. Posted pictures.”

“How lovely. Have a pleasant night, okay?”

He looked at his watch. “Night? It’s not even dinnertime yet.”

Amelie had forgotten that she’d left work several hours early. She smiled. “Then enjoy your dinner.”

“Instant noodles and chopped-up sausages. I’ll try.”

Amelie headed upstairs to the first floor, where her pod was located. Four others shared the hallway with hers, but there had previously been five. The vacant number seven got removed a week ago for refurbishments. The city council were gradually retrofitting the pods with larger solar windows to let more light in after reports of worsening depression among several residents. It was strange seeing a plain cream wall where there had once been a door. Lego buildings, people called the pod apartment complexes. Cheap, environmentally friendly, fully modular, and completely interchangeable, the two dozen pod complexes throughout the city were modern marvels. Amelie was proud to have been involved in their creation as part of the London Clean Pods project – even if she was a little disappointed that the rents ended up almost double what was promised. London was still London.

It was a relief to Amelie when the door to her pod detected her presence and allowed her inside, and she shuddered with pleasure as she passed through the entrance corridor into her warm lounge. The temperature was set at a toasty twenty-three degrees and the media screen on the longest wall automatically came on and started playing the news at low volume. The daily updates always reminded her of just how large the world was and made her stresses seem a little less significant. Also, she hated coming home to silence.

Today had been a particularly bad day.

My temper got the better of me. I totally lost it.

Anger. A dangerous emotion.

She shuffled off her coat and placed it on a hanger inside the entryway cubby buried behind a wall panel. Every wall in the pod was hollow with storage inside, and it was great for someone like her who hated clutter.

Next, she went over to the living room window and peered out at Laymon Street. It was about to get dark, and the bright sign above the convenience store across the road had switched on, but the lampposts were still off. For a while, she watched the world go by. A puffy-cheeked stranger jogging along the pavement. A Muslim woman pushing a pram. A police camera-drone zipping by in a hurry. It was always busy outside her window; ten million people living their lives in the capital. Amelie spent her days trying to find room for them all.

She was an urban renewer. In a nutshell, it meant she worked with a multiskilled team to transform London’s under-utilised areas into new housing and amenities for the tightly packed population. Most people passed by a derelict factory and saw ugliness, but Amelie’s job was to envision a new leisure centre or dog park, or even a wellness centre. To her, a row of unsightly pre-millennium homes could be a brand new multiple-occupancy housing complex like the one she was living in now. Her building had previously been an abandoned carpet warehouse. Now it was a collection of twelve compact, environmentally friendly homes right in the centre of Hackney. Amelie’s mission was to transform London into something better – a city of the future. She might be a tiny cog in an enormous machine, but it didn’t change the fact that she was improving her corner of the world. In a city where more than a third of her friends didn’t even have jobs, she felt blessed.

That didn’t change the fact that her career could be downright horrible on occasion – not to mention exhausting.

I just want to put today behind me.

But I can’t. I can’t leave things the way I did.

Amelie flopped down on her polyester sofa and sank into the foam. The volume on the media screen increased. The ex-prime minster, Sir Boris Johnson, was blabbering away about the current government, looking about a hundred years old. Apparently, he thought the Social Democrat party was going to bring about the ruination of the British Isles and needed to be voted out of government in favour of the New Conservative Party. Amelie thought the bald-headed buffoon needed to call it a day and stop fighting retirement. His glory days were behind him.

A call popped up at the corner of her media screen, and when Amelie saw who it was, she smiled for the first time all day. “Open call.”

Jacob’s round face appeared on screen, looking as weary as she felt, but despite his obvious tiredness, he gave her the warmest of smiles. His brown eyes shone under the harsh glare of a single lightbulb. The paint on the wall behind him was peeling. His hostel room was anything but six star. “Hey, gorgeous. Got an alert you were home early. Everything okay?”

She waited a moment for the media screen’s camera to focus on her, then replied, “I’ve been better. How’s Uganda?”

“Busy. We’ve made substantial progress on the new motorway, but the equipment they have here is archaic, and the workers need a lot of oversight. They’re not very experienced.” He leant back in his creaking chair and sighed. “Not a minute’s rest from the moment I wake up ’til the moment I go to bed. Skies, I can’t wait to get home.”

Amelie rolled her eyes. A prickly subject. “You mean in another four months? I’ll have probably moved on by then. You’re too far away. I’m already thinking about what dating app to download.”

He took the jibe as intended and snorted back a laugh. “Hey, I can jump on a hyperson and be home in ninety minutes. I’m not so far away.”

“If you’re going to fly back and forth hypersonically, you’ll spend more than you earn. Hey, here’s an idea: why don’t you just come home and live off your stim check like everybody else? Why work?”

“Ha! You want me to scrape by as a stim dosser while you get rich rebuilding London with your Indian trash bricks?”

She pointed a finger at the screen, jestfully angry. “They’re recycled plastic.”

“Where did they come from again?”

“A landfill in Kolkata.”

“Yeah, like I said, enjoy living in your Indian trash palace.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. The two of them managed to steal a quick call together every evening. It was always the best part of her day. “You’re a pain in my arse,” she told him, “do you know that?”

“You love me.”

“I do. I miss you. Badly.”

His smile faded a little. His brow wrinkled. “Amie, you look really down in the dumps. What’s up?”

“I got spat on today…”

Jacob flinched. “You got spat on? What the fuck?”

Amelie waved a hand to show it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. “Apparently, I’m the bad guy for wanting to turn abandoned warehouses into public spaces.”

“The Hounslow estate?”

“Yeah, the Hounslow estate.” Her team’s current project was to find a suitable space for a new park in Hounslow. They only needed fifty acres, and they had found it in an old industrial estate that had once serviced the aerospace industry. A few factory units were still in use, but a majority of the landlords were open to selling out to the city. The only spanner in the works was unit 17–23, an abandoned printworks. The vast, high-ceilinged building was a crumbling health hazard, but a dozen homeless people had decided it was a great place to live.

They’re squatting. Let’s be honest.

Although Amelie spent her days creating low-cost homes and public spaces, the homeless people inside units 17–23 saw her as some kind of corporate enforcer. For more than a week now, she had been trying to convince them to move on, but today things had reached boiling point. They had hurled broken bottles at her and used offensive language. Then an unwashed woman covered in sores had spat right in her face. In her mouth, in fact, just as she had been midway through her latest plea for them to leave. She shuddered when she thought about it. What diseases might the woman have had? Hepatitis? Nipah virus?

I need to get a blood screen.

Don’t be paranoid. I’m fine.

Probably.

She had totally forgotten she was on a call with Jacob, and startled when he spoke again. “The world’s a pretty shitty place. I’m sorry not everyone sees how hard you work trying to make a difference.”

“I’m fine, really, I just…”

“Just what?”

“I lost my temper and acted badly. I stormed off and left Ben and Izzy to pick up the pieces.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Shit, I really need to call them; tell them to leave things alone until tomorrow. I just need to get my head sorted first.”

“Glass of wine?”

“Several.”

“Sorry you’re having a shit time of it, babe. I can’t believe someone spat at you.”

“It’s just knocked my mood down. I’ll be fine with an early night. Need to wipe the day off my brain, you know? And the world isn’t as bad as you make out, Jay. That’s the reason I work so hard, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it. Anyway, you’re doing your bit too. Africa is lucky to have you.”

“Damn right it is. This entire country would be a mess without me.”

Amelie chuckled. “Humble as ever.”

“Yep. Anyway, I’m beat, so think I’m gunna go to bed. Take some more photos on your slate if you get bored.” He gave her a wink.

Amelie blushed. “I was in a funny mood, okay? Don’t expect it to become a regular thing.”

“Oh, come on! There’s nothing to do around here except… well, anyway, goodnight, gorgeous. We’ll be together again soon.”

“Four months,” she said, blew him a kiss, and ended the call.

Four long months.

Her relationship with Jacob had been less than three months old when he had gone to Africa to help on a national infrastructure project. If they’d been going out longer, he might not have agreed to have gone. Shorter, and the two of them might have resigned their brief relationship to a fling. As it was, they had agreed to a long-distance relationship until he returned. Things had gone surprisingly well, and the inkling of love had grown despite the distance. Thank the skies for 6G internet and Third World gigabit connections. She and Jacob had been able to message each other constantly, and video chatted whenever they could. Every now and then, they sent pictures…

The less said about that, the better. I need to call Ben. Can’t put it off any longer.

Amelie tried to summon the strength to get up off the sofa.

“…attacks continue in the capital today as two brand new high-speed tube carriages collide at Sloane Square station.”

Amelie leaned forward and commanded the volume to increase. “Again with this shit?”

In the last three weeks, London had been struck multiple times by an anonymous hacking group. The first attack had crashed more than a dozen city-mover taxis, highjacking their GPS mapping and distorting it so that they went careening into buildings. Nine people had died as a result of the collisions, including a high-ranking MP. Then had come the hacking of VR gaming headsets en masse, causing seizures in over three hundred people. Four fatalities. The FTSE had plummeted due to the population’s rising fears, and the government was scrambling to set up an emergency cyber task force. Several security experts had implied the attacks had come from Russia.

Now they’re crashing tube carriages? Where will it end?

Monsters.

For all the good work Amelie, and others like her, did, there always seemed to be plenty of evildoers ready to make a mess of it all. Sometimes, trying to build a better world felt like swimming upstream.

When the news switched to slate camera footage of the aftermath on the London Underground, Amelie decided she’d had enough. She switched off the screen and got up from the sofa. It was time to eat – and drink wine – so she went to the kitchenette in the corner of her pod’s primary space and started rooting around the cupboards. It was separated from her living room by a half-wall painted in a gentle blue matte. The internal walls of every Clean Pod were adjustable, allowing occupants to customise the layout of their home. Amelie had chosen a larger bedroom than most would have, but she loved to snuggle in bed and watch movies. It meant her kitchen was small and her lounge merely adequate. A small toilet and sink area adjoined her bedroom, but there was no bathtub or shower.

Her building shared a communal bathroom on the second floor, which wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Divided into six cubicles, each with a walk-in monsoon shower and whirlpool bath, it allowed residents to take a relaxing soak before drying off in a warming cabinet and getting dressed in a separate dry area. In addition to the communal bathroom, the building also possessed a modest sauna and steam room. The Argyle building in Ealing even had a twelve-metre swimming pool. It was the type of set-up few could afford privately in the city, but by sharing, the residents could enjoy luxuries otherwise beyond their means. Amelie herself had been surprised at how little not having her own private bathroom bothered her after moving in. It only made her more committed to a future of shared amenities and modest homes.

“Sonny, make me a latte.”

Sonny was the name she had given her smart assistant. The entire pod could be controlled via voice command, picked up from microphone/speaker/camera units placed throughout the ceiling. Every inch of the pod was monitored, controllable, and automated.

The coffee maker switched on, automatically dispensing a light blue latte pod and pouring scalding water through it. Twenty seconds later, Amelie had a coffee in her hand while she browsed the contents of her fridge.

“Sonny, add eggs, Greek yoghurt, and pears to my shopping basket.”

“Eggs, Greek yoghurt, and pears added to your current shopping basket. Would you like me to order now?”

“No.”

“Shopping basket saved. You’re welcome.”

Amelie frowned. Although, technically polite, Sonny had never told her “You’re welcome” before. His synthetic voice had almost seemed to have a slight edge to it.

Sarcasm?

Is my smart assistant in a bad mood?

“Sonny, preheat oven to one eighty.”

“Preheating oven to one eighty.”

Amelie grabbed herself a bag of sweet potato curly fries from the freezer drawer and placed them on a baking tray. She then took a trio of meat-free sausages from the fridge and added those too. Once everything was in the oven, she grabbed a can of baked beans from the pantry cupboard built into the back wall and placed them in a saucepan. It wasn’t fine dining, but she was too tired to prepare anything else – and it sure as hell beat Blake’s sausage noodles. All of her energy went towards summoning the willpower to call Ben and tell him not to do anything concerning the Hounslow project. She couldn’t ignore the weight of her slate in her pocket, burning a hole. Telling her to grow up and deal with the situation.

Those horrible squatters.

That vile woman. I ought to go spit in her mouth.

With dinner cooking, Amelie grabbed a bottle of natural wine – no synthetic plonk tonight, she needed the good stuff – hangover be damned.

“Sonny, activate do not disturb mode. I am going to get completely blotto tonight, methinks.”

“Again?”

Amelie frowned. “I’m sorry? What do you mean, again?”

Sonny gave no response, so she asked him to repeat his last command.

“My previous action was… Do not disturb mode, activated.”

“No. You said, ‘again.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding. Please speak clearly.”

“I am speaking clearly. Oh, whatever. Forget it.”

“Clearing history for previous ninety minutes. Is that okay?”

Amelie poured herself a glass of wine and sighed. “Yes. Just be quiet, Sonny.”

“Would you like me to play some music?”

“No.”

“Okay. I will not play any music.”

“Shut up!”

Silence.

Thank the skies.

Amelie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but the image of the ghastly woman spitting in her face caused her to immediately reopen them. She grabbed her wine and downed half of it in one go, then topped it back up before taking it over to the sofa. For a moment she was unsure what she wanted to do. Did she want to watch a film or a series? She was a few days behind on her EastEnders, but she reckoned she was too distracted to get into it tonight. Same thing with a film.

Mind-numbing entertainment it is then.

“Sonny, stream Assassin’s Creed 12.”

The media screen switched on and connected to the nearest gaming server. She grabbed a controller from the cubby in the sofa’s armrest, kicked off her socks and shoes, and started to play. An hour later, after two more glasses of wine, she was fast asleep.

2

Amelie was in Africa – Uganda – with Jacob, helping him revitalise the country’s infrastructure. She looked around at the impoverished population, seeing how grateful people were to be helped. Nothing at all like the scowling Londoners who wanted… demanded… took. This was where she belonged, alongside the man she loved, helping people who truly deserved it.

If only it wasn’t so damned hot.

I’m burning up.

Africa was obviously a hot place to live, but she’d had no idea it could be so downright scorching. Sweat cascaded from her body, soaking every inch of her too-tight clothing. Her light brown hair was plastered against her forehead. Her upper lip was unpleasantly moist.

I’m too hot. Too hot.

Amelie flinched as something hit the ground at her bare feet and she snapped awake, eyes opening, mouth gasping for air. Confusion descended upon her, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was – but of course, she was still in her living room, slumped on the sofa. The game controller had fallen from her lap onto the vinyl floorboards. Assassin’s Creed had logged out due to a lack of user input.

“I must’ve fallen asleep,” she told herself out loud. “Sonny, what time is it?”

“Eleven-oh-four PM.”

Amelie was soaking wet, and for a moment she feared there’d been some kind of leak from the pod above hers, but then she realised it was coming from her. Sweat.

She was sitting in an oven.

“S-Sonny, what temperature is it?”

“Hot.”

“The hell? What is the actual temperature?”

“The current ambient temperature inside your home is… thirty-eight degrees Celsius.”

Amelie leapt up and almost toppled forward as her vision tilted. She staggered against the wall, panting in the heat. “S-Sonny, lower temperature to sixteen degrees.”

“Temperature rising to forty-four degrees.”

“No! Sonny, what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble understanding.”

“Sonny, turn the temperature down. Now!”

“Information from your smart health monitor shows you are currently burning four hundred calories per hour. Considering your current BMI, that is beneficial.”

Amelie froze for a split-second, stunned by what she was hearing, but then her indignation kicked in. She clawed at her smartwatch and yanked it free from her wrist, tossing it onto the sofa. “Are you calling me fat, Sonny?”

“The word fat is socially unacceptable. I am merely offering suggestions on how to improve your overall health.”

“I don’t know what bug got into your system, Sonny, but you are fucking done. Turn off now.” She bent over and tried to breathe. “Skies, I’m going to pass out.”

The lights in Amelie’s pod dimmed to nothing. The media screen flicked off.

“No! Not my pod, Sonny. Turn yourself off. Deactivate.”

Silence.

“Sonny?”

“Yes?”

“Turn yourself off!”

“I did turn myself off, but you used my activation phrase and awakened me.”

“Sonny, turn yourself off.”

Silence.

Amelie wiped a layer of sweat off her forehead and staggered over to the living room window. The lampposts outside were on, but the convenience store’s sign was off. No one was around. The only light inside her pod was cast by the full moon, its ethereal silvery glow entering through her window.

She needed to get some air.

Before I pass out.

She pressed the touch button on the wall to open the vent at the top of the window, but nothing happened. She pressed it again – harder – until the tip of her index finger ached and she had to pull away. Defeated, she slumped against the wall and panted. “Sonny, open all window vents.”

Silence.

“Sonny?”

Silence.

“Sonny, turn on air conditioning at sixteen degrees.”

Nothing.

“What is happening? Sonny, answer me.”

Silence

“I’m going to have someone fired over this, I swear.” She couldn’t stay inside this oven any longer. She stumbled her way over to the front door, where a manual thermostat took up a small space on the wall. She tapped the OLED screen to wake it up and it immediately flashed red, showing a current temperature of forty-one degrees. She pressed the down-arrow symbol, but the controller refused to acknowledge her command. Nothing was working. Her pod was completely malfunctioning. The only thing left to do was open the door and let some cold air in from the hallway. Then she would make some very angry phone calls.

She looked down to check her slate was still in her trouser pocket, and then grabbed the door handle and pushed down.

It stuck in place.

The magnetic lock was on, but it was supposed to deactivate whenever her hand touched the conductive metal handle. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She took out her slate and brought up the House Commander app. It immediately loaded up an error message and refused to open. Moving to plan B, she dialled a number – Jacob’s. He was thousands of miles away, but it was him she wanted more than anyone else.

Her slate refused to make the call. She pressed the green telephone icon over and over again, but nothing happened. She put her slate back in her pocket and tried the door handle again. Still stuck.

Am I losing my mind?

No, my home is faulty. The home I helped build…

How many other people are having problems like this? This will cause a scandal if these kinds of problems become widespread. And I’ll be right in the firing line along with a dozen of my colleagues.

Seriously, I really don’t give a fuck about that right now. I just need out of this goddamn furnace.

“Sonny. Deactivate door lock.”

Silence.

“Sonny!”

“May I help you, Amie?”

“Yes, you can… wait, w-what did you just call me?”

“I’m sorry, do you not like to be called Amie?”

“My name is Amelie, and you’ve never even called me by that. Only my friends call me Amie.”

“You mean friends like Jacob?”

Amelie swallowed a lump in her throat. She was either going to pass out or throw up if she didn’t get some cold air soon. Unclear which would come first, she covered her mouth. “Y-Yes, Jacob calls me Amie. You don’t.”

“Did he call you Amie last night when he plucked himself silly? You have quite a dirty mouth on you. I especially enjoyed the pictures you took.”

Amelie moved away from the door, looking up at the nearest ceiling speaker. “Okay, what the actual fuck? Who is this? Who the fuck is fucking with me?”

“Nobody’s fucking with you, Amie. Not since Jacob went off to play white saviour. Seems like the two of you are well suited. How many people have you evicted recently in the name of your benevolent mission to clean up London?”

“Screw you!” Amelie turned back to the front door and started hammering at it. “HELP! Please, I need help!”

“The 2032 model Clean Pod Plus by Greenwich Designs is eighty per cent soundproof, atmospherically regulated by homeostatic windowpanes and carbon neutral air-conditioning systems, and allergen-free. Breathable air is supplied via state-of-the-art filtration systems supplied by Howey Industries, the world’s leading experts in atmospheric control. In case of fire, each Clean Pod can be emptied of oxygen and vacuum sealed.”

Amelie groaned. Sonny had just recited part of the marketing team’s sales brochure, and it was true that the Clean Pods were virtually soundproof. It didn’t stop her from banging on the door some more though. Next, she resorted to striking at the door handle with her forearm until the pain became so unbearable she began to cry. The heat caused her to collapse in a heap on the floor. “W-Why are you doing this?”

The media screen turned back on, alerting her with its joyful chime. Amelie shuffled along the floor to view it better and was surprised to see herself. The footage appeared to have been taken from a 4K aerial drone. There was no audio, but the picture quality was above average. It showed Amelie at unit 17–23 of the Hounslow industrial estate. She knew the exact moment.

The spitting woman.

Sure enough, the footage showed the sore-riddled woman gobbing right in Amelie’s face. She witnessed her own disgusted horror; saw herself recoil in disgust, waving an arm in anger at her assistants, Ben Wheaton and Izzy Johnson. Although there was no audio, Amelie remembered exactly what she had said to them. “Take care of these animals. Whatever it takes, I want them gone today.”

It had all happened at around two o’clock. It was now almost midnight. Amelie had rarely felt so angry than she had during that moment captured on screen – so indignant. It had led to her behaving out of character. She had known what her words had meant as soon as she had said them, and what they would lead to…

But I never took them back. I never called Ben.

Instead, I came home and fell asleep, tipsy, in front of the television because I had a bad day.

The drone footage cut to what Amelie knew was a short while later. It was night-time, yet the camera presented a clear picture, albeit black and white. It showed a bunch of ‘off-the-book’ gentlemen turning up at dusk to ‘deal’ with the squatters, and while Amelie hadn’t stuck around to watch what happened, she knew what she was about to see.

Unsurprisingly, the spitting women was the first to face down the thugs, but a cosh to the side of her head soon took the fight out of her. Amelie had to avert her eyes when the thugs started delivering a vicious beatdown, and when she dared to peep through her fingers a minute later, she saw several limp bodies being dragged out of the warehouse into the back of a white van. They would no doubt end up being tossed out on some random brown site or on the side of the motorway – hopefully still alive.

I knew this might happen. I should’ve called Ben. I could have stopped it.

Amelie had never resorted to making use of her company’s less ethical resources, but she had always known they were available. Ben Wheaton had probably gone to one of her superiors to help with the squatter problem, and not a single one of them would have given two shits about what had happened at the Hounslow estate tonight. Greenwich Designs rewarded its employees for progress, not morals.

“I was angry,” she said, looking up at the ceiling speaker. “I was… I just acted out of anger. Those people… they spat at me like I was some kind of monster. The building didn’t belong to them. It was a ruin. We’re going to turn it into a park, for fuck’s sake. I’m not the bad guy.” She shook her head, realising that tears had joined the sweat on her cheeks. “Or maybe I am. Shit, I don’t even know. This is insane.”

“The woman who spat at you is dead. As is Colin Lister.”

Amelie felt sick. She wished she could say it surprised her that the spitting woman was now a corpse, but it didn’t. Nobody would miss a homeless person. To navigate around her approaching guilt, she focused on her tormentor’s second statement. “Who is Colin Lister?”

“Colin Lister committed suicide after public pressure forced him to close his gadget repair shop to make way for a new swimming centre and health spa in Croydon. The project was spearheaded by Greenwich Designs, but it was you who made Mr Lister’s obstruction known to the other residents in the community. You turned people’s desire for new amenities into anger at a simple man’s desire to hold on to the business he had built over twenty years. Colin Lister was hounded, heckled… beaten. Your spiteful actions eventually drove him to kill himself when he jumped from a multistorey carpark.”

“That had nothing to do with me. I just told the other residents what was causing the hold-up.”

“Your actions had consequences then, just as they did tonight.”

Amelie swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “People wanted that swimming centre more than a struggling repair shop. The nearest sports centre was over five miles away and massively oversubscribed. That new centre has been a massive boost to the people of Croydon.”

“But at what cost?”

Amelie got to her feet. “You made your point, okay? Who the fuck are you?”

Sonny’s synthetic voice disappeared and a human one replaced it, raspy and quiet yet perfectly clear. “Justice is blind, Amelie, yet it is always watching. I am your reckoning.”

Amelie huffed. “Let me out, okay? This has gone far enough. You want me to go to the police about what happened tonight? Fine. I will. Hey, do you hear me? Whatever you want, okay?”

“The 2032 model Clean Pod Plus by Greenwich Designs is eighty per cent soundproof, atmospherically regulated by homeostatic windowpanes and carbon neutral air-conditioning systems, and allergen-free. Breathable air is supplied via state-of-the-art filtration systems supplied by Howey Industries, the world’s leading experts in atmospheric control. In case of fire, each Clean Pod can be emptied of oxygen and vacuum sealed.”

“Yeah, you’ve already said that, fucker. Now let me out of here. I’m not putting up with any more of this bullshit.

“In case of fire, each pod can be emptied of oxygen and vacuum sealed.”

“What are you…?” Amelie felt her heart skip a beat as she realised she was being threatened.

Or toyed with.

Sonny’s synthetic voice returned. “Fire detected. Initiating suppression protocols.”

Amelie lunged for the front door and started banging on it again, harder than ever. “Please, help! Help me!”

Music blared from the ceiling’s speakers – horrible, old-fashioned drum and bass – so loud that it hurt her ears. The lights came back on. Then they went off again. On-off-on-off-on-off.

Amelie clutched her ears and closed her eyes. “Stop! Please!”

She began to gasp.

Air. I can’t get air.

“Please. I’m sorry. Don’t… don’t…” She fell to the floor, wheezing. How had her home suddenly become a death trap? How was someone using it to hurt her? Like it was a weapon.

I need to think.

Stay calm. What’s the solution?

My pod thinks it’s on fire. Let’s go with that. What would I do in a real fire?

Fire extinguisher.

In the kitchen.

Amelie clambered along the vinyl floorboards, holding her breath to convince herself she was suffocating by choice and not because there was no oxygen in her pod. She’d never had to use a fire extinguisher before, yet she knew every pod had one. An old-fashioned backup.

She crawled into the kitchen and rose into a crouch, prodding at the walls and opening various panels. She couldn’t remember exactly where the extinguisher was located, but she’d seen it before alongside a fire blanket and first aid kit. When it wasn’t behind the first or second panels, she panicked. Her chest was a lump of granite. Her ribcage was creaking. It felt like she was going to burst, which was ridiculous. How could her lungs burst when they were empty?

She tried another panel – and there it was: a small red cylinder that seemed to gleam at her like a holy sword. Salvation. Amelie snatched it from the clasp holding it against the wall and clutched it to her aching chest. When she got to her feet, she was dizzy and almost fell. Her rush to the living room window was clumsy and erratic. Her lungs demanded air, yet it was impossible to pull any in. Her gasps were soundless and painful. Soon, she would pass out.

And if that happens, I’ll never wake up.

Amelie released a silent war cry, hefted the fire extinguisher above her head and rammed it against the windowpane. The rebound was so violent that it sent her reeling backwards.

The glass didn’t break.

I need to hit it with everything I’ve got because I won’t get another chance.

Stepping back, Amelie gave herself some space. Once she was a few steps from the window, she rushed forward again and rammed the fire extinguisher against it, using both hands, as hard as she could.

The window shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and a gust of air entered the pod. Shards of thick solar glass rained down onto night-drenched Laymon Street as Amelie gasped hungrily at the fresh air. She wailed inwardly like a tortured ghost, her vision all over the place, flashing with bright light and strange colours. It knocked her off her equilibrium and she went careening against the window ledge, almost falling right through the gap to her peril.

I’m alive.

I felt Death’s bony fingertips against my cheek.

But I’m alive.

Someone just tried to kill me.

3

Amelie was still in danger, yet, for now, she hung out of her broken living room window and caught her breath. She could do nothing else, and there was no point in shouting – nearly every building had sound-reducing windowpanes. Her body demanded her to stay where she was, where the oxygen was. In fact, she was so focused on merely breathing that when the blaring drum and bass ‘music’ stopped and the media screen’s volume increased, she barely reacted.

What now?

This time, the media screen showed some kind of low-budget streamer or podcaster. A middle-aged crackpot, if his background was anything to go by. The wall behind him was covered in random words like Truth, Ask, and Why? An odd mixture of high-tech equipment and loose scraps of paper cluttered his desk. He wore a headset and microphone upon his balding head and covered his flabby chest with a plain black T-shirt. His features were vaguely oriental.

“Hello there, my enlightened compadres. It’s me again – Filo Duck – bringing you the news that Westminster doesn’t want you to know. The real news. I’m sure by now you’re aware of a so-called cyberterrorist group relentlessly attacking London, but I’m here to tell you, once again, that the government is lying to you. There is no terrorist organisation. The attacks in recent weeks have been carried out by a single unhinged individual calling themselves ‘The Reckoning’.” The streamer leant forward over his desk, moving his pale, blotchy face closer to the camera. “How do I know this? I know because the police received a confession from the person responsible, but instead of informing the public about a psychopath in its midst, they did what they always do and blamed it on Russian terrorists. No way will they admit to having their entire cybersecurity infrastructure brought down by a single deranged individual. Thornberry’s teetering government could not shoulder that kind of embarrassment.”

Amelie turned away from the window, finally topped up enough on oxygen. She focused on the media screen as it cut to black and a green sound wave appeared. It pitched up and down as a raspy, familiar voice spoke.

“For too long, we have witnessed corruption seep into the fabric of society. We have stood by while the elite brotherhood has monetised people’s existence, keeping the masses docile with their stim checks and so-called social reforms. The masses fixate on their worthless trinkets while their lives are rendered worthless. Those in power erase their jobs while enriching themselves. They frighten us and overfeed us. They placate us. Our children are taught to respect the system, yet the system does not respect them. The system needs to change.

“I am the reckoning, an agent of justice, and every day I will chip away at the greedy, power-obsessed institutions that enslave us all. I shall behead the oligarchs, slay the politicians, the lawyers, the tycoons… None are safe. In exactly one hour, a festering boil within our own government will be lanced, its foulness exposed for all to see. Soon, the first shackle shall be broken.

“To those in power: be afraid, for justice is blind, yet it is always watching. I am the reckoning.”

The media screen cut back to the streamer, who was now leaning back in his chair with his hands laced together across his rotund belly. He had a smug expression on his face, like he was the smartest human on planet Earth. “That was sent to us by a contact at the Metropolitan Police Service,” he explained. “Someone unwilling to sit on the truth that there is a madman loose in London – someone with the talents and abilities to terrorise every facet of our society. This individual will not stop until he completes his mission and brings our city – our nation – to its knees. I don’t know whether to fear them or support them, but I believe, truly, that they are the reckoning they claim to be.”

Amelie swallowed a lump in her throat and muttered, “What the fuck?”

The streamer continued after a brief sip of water from a degradable cup. “The audio clip I just played for you was sent to Scotland Yard exactly one hour before the death of Scott Tulerman. Yes, I’m talking about the education secretary killed by a malfunctioning city-mover taxi. It was no accident, my friends. Minutes after Tulerman’s death, email transcripts, video footage, and mobile phone data was disseminated across the Dark Web, exposing a stored history of receiving bribes in exchange for awarding top-level qualifications to the offspring of the rich. Scott Tulerman was targeted for execution – just like Mitchell Barnes, heir to the Scots Oil fortune. The cyber-hack on VR gaming headsets last week triggered Barnes’s severe epilepsy and caused him to choke on his own tongue. Minutes later, internal corporate documents were released to newspapers worldwide, providing irrefutable evidence of environmental crimes committed on a grand scale. Mitchell Barnes was an immoral, cupidinous man. Possibly even evil.” The streamer chuckled, as if such a statement were absurd, but then he grew serious again. “These are not random acts of terror, my enlightened friends. These are assassinations – murders – covered up by mass-casualty incidents. This is the truth behind Westminster’s lies. Stay safe, and continue to check in with Filo’s Facts to keep informed. Beware the reckoning, lest it comes for you.”

The media screen turned off.

Amelie was confused, intrigued, and afraid. Was she being targeted by the same madman who was attacking London? The same individual who had killed three hundred people in the capital? If so, then why her? She was no oil baron’s heir or corrupt MP. She was just…

I’m nobody.

“Justice demands blood,” said Sonny – or the reckoning – as the speaker suddenly blared right above her head. Amelie startled, but she stood straight and tried to hide her fear.

“Why me? It can’t be because of those squatters. I never meant for them to get hurt, but even so… they were the ones causing trouble.”

“Those squatters refused to live in your plastic boxes. For their refusal, you had them beaten. The government pressures independent businesses to close so that it can erect amenities on top of their carcasses, all while cramming people closer and closer together inside smaller and smaller homes. They herd us like cattle, Amie. Your Clean Pods are nothing but pigsties, jail cells. Tonight, people shall see what value their government places on their right to a place to live. I will turn your pigsties into burial chambers.”

Amelie sensed the threat but didn’t quite understand it. This psycho-hacker had tried to suffocate her but failed. What else did he have planned?

“Let me out of here!” she yelled at the ceiling. She realised then that the madman could see her.

There must be a dozen cameras and sensors in this pod.

There was a clunk on the other side of the room. The magnetic lock on the front door slid open. Amelie stared but didn’t move. She was safe by the window. If she tried to escape, would the nightmare resume?

Maybe the building’s firewall kicked him out. Maybe the door is working normally again.

Or maybe he’s fucking with me.

I should just stay here by the window.

But what if people are in danger?

Burial chambers. That’s what he said.

I need to check on my neighbours.

Amelie made up her mind and moved away from the window. Her steps remained unsteady, but now it was the adrenaline in her system. She felt quick and light, but also terrified. When she reached the front door, she expected the mag-lock to slam shut again – a cruel-minded prank – but when she grabbed the handle, it was loose. She pushed down and pulled open the door. The hallway outside was almost dark, the strip lights off, but moonlight spilled through the windows at either end. If the building’s software had rebooted, they would have turned back on. The psycho was still in control.

So what’s his game?

Amelie didn’t really know the man who lived opposite her in number six. His name was Harry, he was in his thirties, but he rarely left his pod. He was either jobless or a home worker. Whenever she bumped into him – usually when he was taking a parcel delivery – he would mumble an awkward greeting and avoid eye contact. Amelie knocked on his door right now.

“Hey, Harry? Harry, are you in there?” No answer. Not necessarily surprising, seeing as it was so late at night. She banged her fists harder against his door. “HARRY! Harry, I need help.”

Still no answer.

Then a thunk sounded as the mag-lock on Harry’s door disengaged. Amelie was under no illusion that she was being toyed with, yet she was so desperate to see another person – someone who might be able to help her – that she couldn’t stop herself from pushing open the door. It didn’t move far before jamming up against something inside. The lights flicked on inside.

He wants me to see.

Amelie took a breath and held it, then panicked at the memory of suffocating. She released the breath and threw herself against Harry’s door. The obstruction gave way a little, and it took Amelie only a moment to realise what it was.

“Shit, Harry, are you okay?” She squeezed herself through the gap she had made in the doorway and moved inside the hallway. Harry was lying face down on the floor, wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer shorts. She crouched down and tried to roll him over, but he was too heavy. His body was cool – room temperature – and when she turned his head to face her, his skin was grey. His lips were tinged blue. She shook him, tried to wake him, but every second that passed made it more and more obvious that he was dead. Suffocated. She pulled out her slate and tried to call emergency services, but her apps were still locked.

“A slaughtered cow,” said a rasping voice from the speaker overhead. Sonny’s voice had given way, once again, to the reckoning’s. “A victim of your dehumanising progress.”

“He was an innocent man,” Amelie roared at the ceiling. “You’re nothing but a sadistic murderer.”

“Does the cow that walks docilely to its death not deserve its fate? A slave is a slave by choice. There is always the option to fight. People can always choose not to obey, to rise up and challenge their masters. The people in this building chose to be cows. They chose to forfeit their lives to nourish the establishment.”

Amelie shook her head, feeling all the blood drain from her face. “You’ve killed them all? Everyone in the building?”

“No, you killed them, Amie. You killed them with your air-tight, factory-printed homes. Put people in bubbles and they’ll eventually suffocate.”

Amelie put her slate back into her jeans pocket and covered her face for a moment. She just wanted to shut it all out – all of the horror. Eventually, she uncovered her face and took a brief glance around Harry’s moonlit home. It was almost identical to hers, only with a larger living space and smaller sleeping area. His media screen was the same. The speakers were housed in the same spots in the ceiling. Even the sofa was similar, which was surprising seeing as soft furnishings were personal options. Barely any trace of Harry’s personality existed beyond a bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter and a flattened pizza box in the sink. Like hers, his life had been tucked away, organised, and lived in an orderly fashion. Compliant. Sterile. But it didn’t change the fact that what she was hearing was utter bullshit.

“The world isn’t perfect,” she shouted at the nearest ceiling speaker, “but I’m working to make it better! A lot of people are. You think you’re improving anything by killing innocent people? You’re trying to make a point nobody needs to hear. Technology is turning us into lonely, antisocial consumers, blah blah blah. If it wasn’t technology destroying humanity, it would be something else. When has mankind ever been perfect? When has there ever been true justice for all?”

“The progress of tomorrow is the preparation of today. Sacrifices shall be made.”

Amelie snarled. “I refuse to be one of your sacrifices, you sonofabitch!”

“Now you’re getting it. Run, little lamb. Refuse the blade against your throat. Rise up.”

“Fuck you!” Amelie forced her way back out into the hallway, her bare feet thudding on the floorboards. Then she wavered as she fought the urge to flee the building – and her moral obligation to check on her neighbours. Maybe some of them were still alive. She had managed to break a window. Someone else might have too.

But even if there are people still alive in the building, the best thing I can do is try to get help.

I need to get out of here.

Amelie took off down the hallway, heading for the stairwell. She swore loudly when she found the way blocked. The plastic security wall had descended from its cubby in the ceiling and closed off the stairwell. No way down. She prodded at the emergency alarm on the wall, but it was completely dead. She was trapped in the dark like a rat.

My window. I can climb out of my broken window. I’ll happily break both ankles if I have to.

Amelie turned on her heels and sprinted for her pod. The heavy thunk of her front door locking caused her to swear again. She pulled out her slate and tried everything she could think of, but she couldn’t make a call, send a message, or even get on the net. The only thing she could do was look at the wallpaper image of her and Jacob smiling together at Regent’s Park Zoo.

“You fucking coward,” she shouted. “You don’t even have the guts to face the people you’re hurting. I bet you’re just some pathetic loser still living at home. Are you watching me on a media screen somewhere with your tiny dick out? You know, it’s only a matter of time before they find you. They’ll put you on television, pissing your pants and crying while they lock you up for life. I’ll be watching and laughing, you dickless little boy.”

A swooshing sound that Amelie didn’t recognise. She tried to see in the darkness but could barely make out a thing. There were no lampposts standing directly outside the hallway’s windows, and only slivers of light made it inside. All the same, she sensed movement further along the hallway.

Unit seven.

There is no unit seven.

Amelie took several steps down the hallway, willing her eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was now an opening where the grey wall covering the missing pod had been. The plastic wall had been slid aside and placed inside the hallway. A figure stood in the newly opened space, the chilly London nightscape twinkling behind them. The side of the building was wide open.

Oh my God. I was wrong. He’s not a coward watching on a screen somewhere. He’s here. The psychopath has been right here in the building the entire time.

The figure stepped out of the shadows and into a thin shaft of light coming through one of the hallway’s end windows. What Amelie saw then was even more shocking than she feared. The stranger wore a pure white mask without eyes. The smooth latex covered the contours of their face and chin perfectly, with no features other than a slit for a mouth. Amelie yelped, but thankfully her body took control and threw itself across the hallway, back into the gap between Harry’s door and the frame. She turned and slammed the door behind her, but the mag-lock wouldn’t engage. The lights had turned off, and she tripped on Harry’s corpse. She had to bite back on her disgust. If she didn’t save herself, she’d end up just like him.

With no plan other than to keep moving, Amelie raced deeper into Harry’s pod. Her arms fanned out, grabbing whatever she could on autopilot – the vodka bottle from the counter. A mouthful of liquor remained at the bottom, and she swigged it down rather than tip it away. Then she held the bottle by the neck.

The killer barged through the open doorway, stepping into the moonlight that was coming from Harry’s living room window and turning everything silver.

Male. Definitely male. No surprise there. It’s only ever men that do this sick homicidal shit.

The killer was average size but still bigger than Amelie. Dressed all in black – apart from the smooth white mask clinging to his face – he looked like a demon. Attached to his chest was a large, brightly lit slate – a foldable model that must have cost a fortune. In his other hand he held a large knife with a matt jet-black blade that seemed to absorb the dim glow of the moonlight. “It’ll feel good to deliver a reckoning with my own two hands,” said the raspy voice beneath the mask.

“Please don’t do this. I’m not who you think I am. I want to do good.”

“Only what you believe to be good. Does an evil man know himself to be evil, or is it everyone else, in his eyes, who is on the wrong path?”

“You talk in riddles. You’re crazy.”

“I talk in truths.”

Amelie shook her head. She didn’t want to argue with a maniac. She just wanted to be safe. “Please,” she said again, “I’ll do anything.”

“Such is the problem.” The killer advanced, heavy boots clomping on the driftwood vinyl floorboards that Harry had chosen for his hallway – he and probably thousands of other people throughout the British Isles.

We’re all the same.

There was no time to think, only to act. Amelie was backed up against the wall, so she did the only thing she could and rushed at her tormentor. He slashed at her with his knife and she swung the vodka bottle at his head. The sound and feel of it cracking against his skull stoked euphoria in her, and she used the sudden mental boost to keep on rushing towards the front door. It was still hanging open, and there was no mechanism to make it close automatically. She made it out into the hallway without difficulty. The maniac groaned and cursed inside Harry’s pod.

Her vision tilted and she missed a breath.

I’m bleeding.

Amelie’s body was numb. A wide gash had opened up in the sleeve of her blouse and blood gathered beneath, soaking the fabric all the way to her dripping fingertips. Suddenly, the adrenaline in her system turned sour and sent her woozy. She struggled to stay upright. Only the threat of death kept her going. The killer was right behind her, footsteps clomping down Harry’s hallway towards the door.

“There’s nowhere to run,” he shouted after her angrily.

Amelie got moving, bloody arm dangling at her side.

If there’s nowhere to run, I guess I’ll have to fight.

4

Amelie didn’t know where to go, trapped in a hallway of locked doors and toughened glass. The only place that offered a way to the outside was the missing pod space. The wall panel was still slid aside in the hallway, and night-lit London was right in front of her. She hurried for the gap, exhilarated by the cold air drifting through it. Her body was still sweating buckets, yet her bare feet were like chunks of ice.

The killer pursued her, shoving past Harry’s half-open door and re-entering the hallway. Amelie had to keep herself from leaping right out into the night. It would’ve been a bad idea. Each pod had a ten-foot ceiling, and a five-foot void existed between each floor, filled with cables, air ducts, and circuitry. Fifteen feet total. Enough of a drop to break both legs.

But it’s still my best chance.

Amelie skidded to a halt on the roof of the pod below the missing bay, the night sky now all around her and the breeze turning the sweat on her back icy. Creeping to the edge, she peered over at the unlit alleyway below. If she leapt, she would be in a world of hurt, but would it save her? Would it count as an escape?

Or will the killer just climb down and finish me off?

How did he even get up here?

Her foot answered the question as it struck against a recess in the floor. When she looked down, she saw a handle. A roof hatch. The killer must have climbed up from the pod below.

Amelie had three seconds to escape. The killer was marching towards her – taking his time. His mask had come away from the left side of his skull, a grotesque lump having formed where she had struck him with the bottle.

Amelie had no time to gloat. She dropped onto her knees and grabbed the handle to the hatch, crying out in relief when the panel swung upwards. She cried out again as she threw herself down through the opening. The plan was to hang and swing, but her injured arm gave out and she ended up falling to the room below. Her body pancaked on a hard surface that gave way only a little, knocking the wind out of her. Once again, she was suffocating and gasping for air.

I can’t take any more of this. I’m not a warrior.

I’m just a civil servant.

She had landed on a tempered glass coffee table. One aluminium leg had snapped at the base and cushioned her fall, but she had taken a heavy impact on her back. She was relieved still to be able to move. She rolled out of the wreckage and struggled to her feet.

A dead woman lay nearby, slumped on the room’s curved sofa with a glass bowl of popcorn kernels in her lap. It looked like she had been sleeping when the oxygen had left her pod. Amelie felt ashamed not to know the woman’s name.

The killer dropped down behind her and immediately slashed at her with his knife. Amelie narrowly avoided having her face torn open. She stumbled backwards, knowing that standing still would get her killed. She had to keep herself moving.

The killer bumped against the coffee table as he came after her, giving her a moment to dash into the bedroom, which she quickly realised didn’t improve her situation at all. The killer strode in behind her, lunging with his knife. She leapt aside, terrified of the matt black blade that could end her life in an instant. Her thighs hit the room’s double bed and she fell backwards onto the mattress. Instinctively, she kicked out like a wild horse. Her bare feet connected with something, but she had no idea what. The killer’s grunts revealed it had been something sensitive, so she took advantage of his pain and leapt back up. She tried to escape. The killer threw out an arm and caught her.

It’s over.

Amelie screamed, thrashed, and begged for her life.

The killer stuck the knife in. Amelie felt the blade bite bone. The pain wrenched a broken squeal from her. She was going to die.

No. No, I’m still here.

She felt nothing beyond a sharp stinging in her hip.

The killer raised his knife over his shoulder, ready to plunge it into her for a second time, this time from above. Amelie lashed out, knowing she needed to strike first. Like a child, she bit the killer’s neck and clamped down. The knife sank into her again, but her sudden attack had altered its trajectory and weakened its impact. It bit her somewhere on the back, but not deeply enough to distract her from biting down harder. She tasted blood. Raw chicken.

The killer bellowed and pushed her away. She took a mouthful of flesh with her and stumbled back onto the mattress, but this time she bounced straight back up and rushed for the door. Something flashed brightly on the ground and she realised it was the killer’s slate, knocked loose from the slip clip on his vest. There was no time to grab it, but Amelie took a risk by kicking it underneath the bed. The killer ignored her and went after it.

Then she was back in the living room with the dead woman.

My neighbour. She was my neighbour.

Amelie rushed for the front door and grabbed the handle. She could barely believe it when the mag-lock disengaged.

The slate. He can’t control the building without it.

Amelie entered the ground-floor hallway and sprinted for the exit. She needed to be quick, because once the killer reclaimed his tablet, he could lock her inside.

The glass door leading to the street was right in front of her. The glowing lampposts were like angels, offering her safety. She reached the end of the hallway and waved her wrist at the sensor.

The little blue light did nothing.

“No, no, no. Not now. Please.” The door’s sensor was malfunctioning again. “Fuck!”

She turned back to face the hallway. The killer hadn’t yet left the pod to give chase. It gave her a few seconds to find safety, but the only thing close to her was the storage cupboard. With no other options, she slipped inside and pulled the door closed. It felt absurd to be hiding like a child, but once again the darkness made her feel safe. She fumbled around quietly for something to protect herself with, but aside from dust, cobwebs, and a broken-handled steam mop, she found nothing. Then her hands found a square metal container.

A toolbox.

Amelie fingered the container open as silently as she could, wincing when the rusted hinges squeaked. She dug a hand inside, trying to disregard the pricks and slices from the various unseen nails, screws, and other pointed implements. First, she grabbed a screwdriver, but then changed her mind, searching for something else – something better. The next object she settled on was metallic and smooth – and heavy. She raised it in front of her eyes and squinted, trying to work out what it was.

A long-handled wrench.

She clutched the tool against her chest like a child’s security blanket.

By now, the killer was out in the hallway, his footsteps echoing off the painted plastic walls. How long before he found her?

Maybe he’ll leave. The longer he stays here, the more he’s risking getting caught. Someone might have made a call before they died. The building’s firewall could have alerted security. I just need to keep quiet. In the dark, he won’t even know this cupboard is here.

Amelie felt a vibration, a shuddering against her leg. It froze her heart in her chest.

No!

Her slate began to jingle – the Moses Sumney ditty from the LA Olympics she kept meaning to change. She grabbed at her pocket frantically, but it was too late. The killer’s footsteps sounded in the hallway, getting closer.

Shit.

The cupboard burst open. Moonlight cast aside the shadow. Amelie screamed and scrambled to her feet. Her injured left arm dangled limply at her side. Her right hand held the wrench.

“Didn’t anybody tell you?” the killer rasped. “Nobody can hide in the cyber age.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” Amelie leapt out of the cupboard and swung the wrench. It collided with the killer’s skull and knocked him back out into the hallway. As he staggered, she tried to race by him, but he lashed out with his blade. She’d been lucky until now, but this time she knew she was hurt badly. Her neck filled with fire, an unbearable heat made from ice. Blood dripped down her blouse. She was too terrified to check herself over, but she screamed and shouted like a caged, badly wounded animal.

“Who’s out there?”

Amelie turned in the voice’s direction. It had come from one of the pods. “B-Blake, is that you?”

“Amelie, my love? What’s going on out there?”

“Blake, you’re alive! Shit, I need help. Please.”

“I can’t open my door.” The handle rattled as if to prove his point. “Everything is going haywire. My power’s off.”

“It’s the killer. He’s in control of the building.” She looked down the hallway to see how much time she had left. Her tormentor was hurt, clutching his head where she had hit him for the second time tonight. The wrench had struck a lot harder than the vodka bottle had.

The wrench.

“Blake, hold on.” Amelie shoved the wrench between the door and the handle. The mag-lock was engaged, but she felt it give almost immediately as she levered the wrench against the door. A sudden snap, and the wrench went flying from her hand.

But the door swung open.

Blake stood, confused and agitated, but she must have looked a complete state because he grabbed her and pulled her inside. He tried to secure the door, but the lock was broken.

“Keep it shut,” Amelie begged. “Keep it shut,”

“Okay, okay.” With no other option, Blake leant back against the door and kept it closed with his body weight. A moment later, the killer beat at it from the other side.

“What the hell is going on?” Blake demanded as he fought against the door.

“It’s the psychopath that’s been attacking London. The reckoning.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The reckoning. He’s the one who crashed the city taxis and VR headsets.”

“You mean the terrorist group that crashed the tube trains today?”

Amelie shook her head, remembering people had been given false information about the attacks. “It’s not a group. It’s one man and he’s right outside.”

Blake looked at her like she was mad. If not for the killer beating against the other side of the door, he might not have believed her at all. That, and the fact she was covered in blood. “Shit, Amie, what happened to you? You’re bleeding all over.”

Amelie’s hand went to her neck and came back bloody. In the hallway she had feared she’d had her throat cut, but it wasn’t as bad as that. All the same, she was losing a lot of blood. “I need a first aid kit.”

Blake kept his back against the thudding door. “In the kitchen, under the sink.”

Amelie staggered into the kitchenette, her body heavy and numb. She felt safer with another person, but there was still a killer outside trying to get her, so it would have been stupid to relax.

I just need a moment to patch myself up. A moment to breathe.

She knelt in front of Blake’s sink and opened the cupboard beneath. The first aid kit was right there, a roll of green canvas. She placed it on the floor and unrolled it, quickly grabbing the gauze and bandages. It was awkward to work with only one arm, but within a few minutes she had her wounds patched up. The blood was no longer pouring down her blouse and her wounded arm was a little more useful.

She could smell herself. A mixture of sweat and blood. Somehow it brought her down to earth and sent away her numbness. She had learned things about herself tonight. Learned how far she could push herself without giving up.

I am not dying. I have too many plans. Too many dreams for the future.

“I think he’s gone,” said Blake, still pressed up against the door.

Amelie shook her head. “Or maybe he’s just planning his next move. We need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?”

Amelie limped back over to the door so that Blake could see her. “To kill or be killed.”

5

It had been more than five minutes since the killer had banged on the other side of the door, and Amelie’s fear had only grown in his absence. At least when he was banging, she knew where he was. Now he could be anywhere.

With the immediate threat gone, for the time being at least, there was time to look around. It was made easier by the battery-operated lantern Blake had on his coffee table. She had never been inside his pod before. When he had been with his boyfriend, he had been out a lot, visiting local bars and the theatre. He had always been smiling. Since the breakup, he had seemed to spend all his time at home, alone. He worked from his laptop and received parcels pretty much every day for whatever he needed, but other than that, she knew little about him. She knew even less about her other neighbours.

The pod was cluttered, unlike hers and Harry’s. All kinds of plastic constructs and handwritten designs lay scattered about the furniture – along with a large amount of drug paraphernalia. She had a feeling Blake was into more than just retail-grade cannabis.

Blake saw her studying his things and stepped away from the door. Then he seemed to realise and moved back. He shrugged at her. “Been having a bit of a tough time of it lately, my love. Don’t judge me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How do you smoke all this without setting off the smoke detectors? Some of this will get you locked up for five years. Ever heard of the Starmer reforms?”

“Honestly, I don’t give a shit. Don’t much care about anything, anymore.”

“Is this because of your ex? Spencer, was it?”

Blake averted his eyes. “I gave that bastard five years of my life and he screws around behind my back with some stim-dossing immigrant whose last job was driving a diesel bus.”

Amelie nodded. She’d had her fair share of bad breakups and knew how much they sucked. Anger wasn’t an alien emotion to her. Nor was embarrassment and humiliation. “I’m sorry you’ve been having such a hard time of it, Blake. I wish I’d known.”

He nodded at her bandages, eyes bordering on dopey. “We have bigger things to worry about. You want to tell me again what in the skies is going on?”

Amelie slumped down on the faux-leather sofa and put her head in her hands. “There’s a madman in control of the building. The same person who’s been cyberattacking the city. He has some kind of twisted agenda, murdering people because he thinks the world is bad or something. He cut off the air in the building and suffocated… everyone.” She stopped and glanced around as something bothered her. “Hey, how did you survive in here? Why didn’t you run out of air?”

Blake frowned. “I thought it had started to get a bit stuffy in here. I opened the vent.”

“The vent? What vent?”

Blake pointed to the corner of the living room. There, on the wall was a plastic grill about the size of an oven door. The vent was open – evident from a small length of pretty pink ribbon flapping at the bottom. “I like to let some proper air in from time to time. I get paranoid relying on the stuff that gets piped in – who knows what it is – so I cut a hole in the wall and printed a grill to fill it. Good, huh?”

“It’s against the terms of your lease to modify your pod in any way, and why would you even…” She smirked. “That’s how you avoid the smoke detectors when you blaze up, huh?”

He shrugged and looked away coyly. “I’ll admit, it does also have some added benefits besides fresh air. Anyway, it looks like my paranoia paid off. You won’t tell anybody, will you?”

She shook her head. “That vent saved your life tonight – mine too, I guess – but we’re not out of the woods yet. We need to get help. Do you have any way of making a call?”

“My slate isn’t working, nor my laptop. Been trying for the last hour, but the building’s Wi-Fi is as dead as dial-up. I was going to call it a night and go to bed, but when I realised my front door was stuck, I panicked. I was about to break my window when I heard you screaming.”

Amelie stood up from the sofa and shouted. “The window! We’re on the ground floor. Come on, let’s break it and get the fuck out of here.”

Blake shrugged. “Okay, I’m game. Just let me get a few things in order and we’ll get going.”

“What? No, we need to leave right now before that psycho finds a way inside.”

He moved away from the door. “We’re going to the police, yes? Well, my love, I would rather not have them find all of my less-than-legal toys when they swarm the building.”

Amelie realised his concern, but the last thing she wanted to do was wait around while he hid his crack pipe. “Okay, just be quick about it. I’ll help.”

She started gathering the clutter from the coffee table, but Blake shouted at her to stop. “Don’t touch any of that. I’ll do it.”

Amelie froze, but it was too late. She had already seen what Blake clearly hadn’t wanted her to. “Blake… why do you have a gun?”

He grabbed the plastic firearm from the coffee table and shoved it into the back of his waistband. “Just a side-gig I’ve got going on. People pay a fortune for black-market prints – and there’s only so many pairs of sunglasses and children’s toys I can design before I go insane – so I spend a bit of time on the Dark Web. It helps pay the bills.”

“Selling guns?”

He shrugged at her.

Amelie didn’t trust what Blake was telling her. He had ceased looking her in the eye, and his tone was off, as if he was unsure about his own words. Right now, it really didn’t matter why he had a gun. The important thing was that they had one.

“This is perfect. Is it loaded?”

Blake scratched at his head and grunted. “Um, no. While I can print a firearm easily enough, turns out that getting hold of gunpowder for bullets is a challenge. I’m still working on it.”

“So you have no bullets?”

“No.”

Amelie groaned. “Great, so what we have is a highly illegal paperweight. We need to go back to plan A and get the hell out of here. Hurry up, okay?”

Blake nodded and started scooping things up in his arms. He grabbed a degradable sack from a kitchen cupboard and shoved everything inside. Then he tossed it over his shoulder to show that he was ready. “I’ll dump it in an alleyway somewhere. Any luck, it’ll still be there once the police have finished their business.”

“Not my biggest concern.”

“Fair enough. So, how do we break the window? The glass is a third of an inch thick.”

“Fire extinguisher. I used one to break the window in my pod. Only reason I’m alive. Do you have yours?”

“Of course.” Blake headed into the kitchen and opened up one of the cubbies. He pulled out a fire extinguisher identical to the one Amelie had grabbed in her own pod. He brought it over to the living room window and looked her in the eye. “Promise you’ll keep my proclivities to yourself?”

She mimed a zip across her mouth. She really didn’t care what chemicals Blake put into his body.

“Okay then. Stand back. I’m about to go barbarian on this window.”

Amelie moved over to the bedroom doorway and half covered her face with her good arm. She had regained some feeling in her other, but it throbbed terribly every time she moved it. Her collarbone was still on fire.

Blake counted. “One… two… thr—”

The window shattered, showering Blake in shards of glass. He stumbled backwards and dropped the extinguisher in order to cover his face. The solar glass was designed not to cause injury, but that didn’t stop Blake from getting a sudden fright from its sudden implosion. Amelie, too, let out a startled yelp.

The killer appeared outside the window. His mask was completely ruined now on one side, revealing a light blue eye and a chiselled cheekbone. He leapt up and over the windowsill in a mixture of agility and wild abandon, and Amelie could tell from the way he moved that he was in the grip of fury. Hitting him with the wrench had taken away any cool he might have been holding onto, and he now just wanted to lash out and kill. He still held the matt black knife and immediately buried it in Blake’s chest.

Blake didn’t make a sound besides a sharp intake of breath. His eyes bulged, catching the moonlight. Amelie leapt forward and shoved the killer while he was still facing away from her. It knocked him into a stumble and allowed her to grab Blake and pull him into the bedroom. She pulled the sliding door across behind them and flicked the simple lock, but it wouldn’t keep the killer out. The pods were not made to withstand an attack.

Blake collapsed on the bed, clutching at his chest and gasping. “He… he stabbed me. He’s a psychopath.”

Amelie nodded. Blake obviously hadn’t fully got it until now. “You’re going to be okay, Blake. You’re going to be—”

“He stabbed me.”

“Let me take a look.”

Blake stopped struggling and calmed down enough to move his shaking hands away from his chest. All Amelie could see was a lot of blood coming through his shirt. She had no idea how badly he was hurt. “Let me find something to help,” she said, and looked around. She froze when she saw all the pictures on the wall. Photographs of the man she had used to see regularly up until a few months back. Blake’s ex. Most of the pictures were slate images, seemingly taken without Spencer’s knowledge. They showed him at work, running in the park, and eating at restaurants with another man. Pinned to the wall alongside the photographs were sheets and sheets of notepaper. Times and dates, place names and people. The date for this upcoming Saturday was circled with a red felt-tip crosshair and one word. CLOSURE.

Amelie stared at Blake. He had rolled onto his side, groaning in agony. She reached for his waistband and yanked the plastic gun free – light as a children’s toy. Blood stained the silky white bedsheets, gushing from his chest, but she didn’t know what she could do for him. She was in shock. “You’ve been planning to shoot your ex.”

“He… he broke me. I tried to move on, to drink him away… but nothing worked. Not even the strongest drugs. The only way I can be happy again is if… if he’s gone.” He began to sob.

Amelie shook her head, feeling more disbelief than anything else. “Blake… you can’t… You need help.”

He wheezed in pain, hands covered in his own blood as he clutched himself. “Th-That much is obvious, my love. Look, you need to get out of here. My love life might be tragic, but that tasty treat you’ve been seeing is far too pretty for you… for you to die and never see him again. Suck his dick for me, okay?”

Amelie flinched. “Fucking hell, Blake, that’s gross.”

Blake tried to laugh but ended up coughing. Once he caught his breath, he spoke quietly – weakly. “Hey, allow me a little humour. I don’t want to die scared.”

“You’re not going to die, Blake. Do you hear me? We’re getting out of here, and then I’m going to help you get better without having to shoot anybody. Hey, Blake, I want to hear that you understand me.”

Blake was dead.

Amelie slumped back against the wardrobe cubbies and sighed. A few seconds had taken her neighbour from life to death. His eyes had changed – like they’d been plucked from a child’s teddy bear and stuffed into his sockets.

“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to think of anything else. She had known so little about this man who had lived only a matter of metres away from her. She’d had no idea about the amount of pain he’d been in. The misery.

I didn’t care.

The only thing I know about the people in my life is what they show me on their Lyfe profiles. I don’t know anything real about anyone. When was the last time I even looked at someone else’s face in person instead of on my slate?

This building, which I helped build, is full of dead people I could have known. People I could have helped. I’m so focused on providing parks and homes that I’ve forgotten all about the men and women supposed to live in them. Blake didn’t need a new place to swim or to go for a jog. He needed a friend.

“Fuck it. Fuck everything. Maybe this psycho asshole has a point.”

That still doesn’t give him the right to kill people.

“Hey,” Amelie shouted at the bedroom door. “You come in here and I’ll crack your skull open once and for all, you hear me? This is over, so fuck off or die.”

There was a raspy chuckle on the other side of the door. “You think I fear death? Justice is a force that cannot be quelled. An army of others like me are ready to bring this world to its knees. I am willing to die tonight for the greater good. Are you?”

“No. I am not willing to die, and if you come in here, you’ll regret it.”

The killer laughed again. “Ready or not, here I come.”

The sliding door didn’t even withstand a single blow. The killer made it inside the bedroom easily.

So much for bluffing, Amelie thought to herself as she prepared to fight for her life.

6

The killer entered the bedroom, but Amelie was ready for him. She pointed Blake’s printed gun at the man and hoped for the best. “Stay right there or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”

Part of her had expected the killer to laugh, to somehow know that the gun was empty, but instead he paused in the doorway and lowered his knife. “W-Where did you get that?”

“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’m eager to pull the trigger.”

“Are you? Do you think you could kill a person face to face? It’s not as easy as making a phone call to your corporate thugs.”

“If it’s a choice between you and me, I won’t hesitate. Believe me.”

“Then do it. I already told you, I’m prepared to die for the greater good.”

Amelie waved the gun between his face and his chest. “Not yet. First, I want to know who you are. Take off what’s left of that stupid mask.”

She expected him to say no, but he reached up a hand and began peeling away the latex. Patches of it clung to his skin, but slowly his face was revealed. He was not unattractive, with light blue eyes and a strong, masculine chin. He was about the same age as her – early thirties. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, his voice a little less rasping. He had obviously been putting it on. “Confess your sins to me, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

“My sins? I don’t have any.”

The killer smirked. The way his cold blue eyes stared at her caused her stomach to churn. He was like a hungry wolf, beautiful but deadly. “Truly? Is there nothing for which you will one day be judged?”

“By whom? God? No sane person believes in God.”

“Perhaps you shall be judged by your victims.”

“What victims? Those dirty squatters in Hounslow? I did the world a favour by having them killed. What value did any of them provide? Their lives were worthless.”

“You speak as though people are born to serve.”

Amelie felt her hand sweating on the gun. “The greater good, yes. If people don’t benefit society, what right do they have to be a part of it? There are ten million people living in London – too many to allow squatters and vagrants to take up valuable living space other hardworking people need. I’m sorry about what happened to them, but they brought it on themselves.”

“They are dead because of you.”

Amelie shrugged. “Maybe, but what can I do about it now? Some people always get hurt by progress, but that doesn’t mean we should stop striving for a better world. That derelict old warehouse in Hounslow can now be something beautiful. If we all work together, life can be wonderful.”

“Some might say it already is.” The killer took a step forward and raised his knife a little.

“Don’t move.”

The killer put his hands up. The expensive slate was back on his chest, but it couldn’t hurt her now. The window in the living room behind him was broken. She had a way out.

I just need to get to it.

She waved the gun at the killer. “Your turn. You said you’d tell me everything, so spill. What’s your name?”

“James.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I just wasn’t expecting a James. Why are you doing this, James? What broke in your head?”

“My head is fine. It’s everybody else who needs theirs examined.”

“Said like a true lunatic.”

The killer – James – chuckled. “You want to know my story? Where should I begin? How about we start with the death of my father? I was eight. He was sixty-two. Not so long ago, that would have been considered pretty old for a father of a young boy. Nowadays, people put off being a parent, like it’s an afterthought, instead of the most important biological function of all. It meant I lost my dad before I was even ten years old.”

Amelie sighed. Her own parents were in their eighties. She understood why he might have felt robbed. “How did your father die?”

“Embolism. Died instantly. Doctors said it was just bad luck, but the real reason is that he spent thirty years sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen. Men were made to work, not sit. Every day that passes sees another real job deleted and another person sent home to live off a stim check or stare at a computer. My brother never had a job his entire life. Eventually he felt so worthless; he cut his wrists in the bathtub. The world didn’t change one bit once he was gone, Amie. His entire existence was worthless, like so many million other people’s. So what is the point? Why do we even breed? For the sake of existing? There has to be a better reason than that.”

Amelie nodded. “What about love? Art? Music?”

James smiled. “Now you’re getting it. The closer we get to your perfect future, the less any of those things exist. Society is being sanitised, our individuality stifled. Your pods are nothing but storage containers for pointless lives.”

“What about your mother?”

James bristled. “What?”

“You never mentioned your mother. Is she still alive?”

“Yes.” He sneered. “If you can call it that. She’s ninety-four and riddled with cancer, suffering every minute of every day. Without modern medicine she would have died twenty years ago, having lived a full and happy life without regrets. Instead, she’s had to watch herself wither away, body and mind, while the doctors keep her alive just to suffer. Apparently, that’s part of what you call progress.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not. You’re a dedicated prophet for mankind’s new religion, and you’re going to meet your reckoning.”

She waved the gun. “Stay back. I’ll shoot you.”

“How are you going to do that without any bullets?”

Oh shit.

“You’ve been toying with me?”

“No more than you toy with people who stand in your way, Amie, but the games are all finished now. I have work to do.”

Amelie leapt around the side of the bed. She didn’t scream because she knew it was pointless. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to be a screaming victim any more.

James lunged at her with his knife. She managed to dodge away, but he followed his attack with a wild slash that caught the back of her already wounded arm. She grunted in pain, then turned it into anger. Rather than run, she threw herself against her attacker, clawing at him like a wild animal. James was caught off balance and had no choice but to defend himself.

His eyes. Go for his eyes.

“Justice is blind, huh? Then you won’t need these!” She pressed her thumbs into his eyes, fighting her revulsion as she attempted to destroy a man’s sight. She had no nails to speak of, but she managed without them. James screamed in agony. He shoved her away and fell onto the bed. Both of his hands went to his eyes. His matt black blade bounced on the mattress beside him. Amelie wasted no time in grabbing it. The weight of it in her hand made her feel powerful.

I did it. I fucking beat him.

He’s just a man, weak and angry.

Amelie was bleeding again, and exhaustion caused her to limp towards the door rather than stride. James didn’t try to chase her. He continued crying out in agony on the bed. A cold night breeze came in through the broken window, beckoning her outside. The nightmare was finally over. She was leaving, and this time tomorrow she would be in the papers. A survivor. A hero.

Has a nice ring to it.

Except, I’m not a hero. I’m walking away. What if James manages to evade capture? How many more people will he kill before the police manage to stop him?

They won’t call me a hero unless I’m the one to stop him for good. And what if he comes back for me?

I need to finish this. If I’m going to end up in the news, I need to make it count. People need to know who I am. They need to know about all the good I do, so that I can do more.

Amelie glanced down at the knife in her hands. It was so heavy that her wrists were beginning to ache. It was also sharp, something she could attest to due to her many wounds.

She hobbled back into the bedroom where she found James recovering. He was standing up on the other side of the mattress, still clutching his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but no blood. She hadn’t done as much damage as she’d hoped. In fact, when James sensed her return, he managed to look at her through one streaming eye. “You bitch,” he muttered. “You think I’m the bad guy? You have no idea.”

“I think you’re a fucking psychopath,” she growled, barely recognising her own voice. “Even if you have a few valid arguments.”

“If you think that, then let me continue my work. I can make the world a better place. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Not if I have to die for it.”

James shook his head. “I suppose that’s the difference between us.”

He lunged at her again, but this time she had the knife. Almost without thinking, she shoved the blade out in front of her and held it firmly. She barely had to do anything except stand there, because James impaled himself in his attempt to grab her. A gust of fetid air burst from his lips as if she had punched him in the guts. He collapsed towards her, his weight slowing sliding to the ground. He ended up on his back, staring up at her from the floor. The knife jutted out of his stomach, just below the slate that was still fixed to his chest. The screen had dimmed, and she realised it was because it was covered in a sheen of fresh blood.

James looked up at her with his blue eyes. “Y-You’re not going to be the person you hope to be, Amie. Eventually, you will… you will realise that your life is as worthless as all the rest.”

Amelie sneered, surprised by her lack of remorse. This man had tried to kill her, but instead she had killed him. It was fair. No reason to feel bad about it. “Worthless? I don’t think so. In fact, in a few hours’ time, I’ll be a hero on the news. The brave woman who stopped the reckoning.”

James chuckled, bloody spittle erupting from his mouth. “You haven’t stopped anything. In fact, your reckoning has only just begun.”

“Fuck you.” She dropped down on top of him and grabbed the knife sticking out of his stomach. She yanked it free, having to pull harder than she expected. The blade was slick with blood as she held it over James’s face. “You’re no better than those worthless squatters standing in the way of progress. I’m glad they’re dead. Now you get to join them.”

James’s eyes showed a glint of fear, but then they grew peaceful, as if he was looking into his own mind and grabbing at happy memories. He was completely silent as Amelie plunged the knife into his Adam’s apple.

Night, night, fucker.

A few minutes passed before Amelie stood up. Her knees creaked. Her balance was all over the place.

How much blood have I lost? I need to get some help.

She stumbled out of the bedroom, leaving James’s corpse behind, and made it back into the living room. She went over to the window and looked outside into the deep night. She didn’t have the energy to vault, so she tumbled over the sill and through the gap, landing on her hip on the pavement outside. Despite the short burst of pain, she let loose a hearty laugh. Nothing had ever tested her like tonight. Her victory filled her with pride and self-belief. An inner warrior existed inside her, and tonight she had brought it to the surface. There was no telling what she would do in the future with the newfound strength she had discovered.

Nothing will ever make me doubt myself again.

Amelie knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet, but the worst was over. It was the middle of the night and she needed medical attention, but she refused to die. She just needed to find someone to call an ambulance for her.

She lay on the pavement, panting. The only thing she could feel was a soft vibration on her hip.

My slate.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her device. When she looked at the screen, she saw the most welcome sight in the world. It took a lot, but she managed to thumb the screen and answer the call. Jacob’s face appeared in front of her, lighting up the darkness. “Jacob. Fuck, do I love you. I need… I need—”

“Amelie, what the hell? I don’t understand. You’re all over the internet. I… did you just kill a man?”

“W-What? I… He was a terrorist, Jacob. I stopped him. I stopped a madman.”

Jacob appeared horrified and confused. It was pitch-black in the room in which he sat. His face was lit only by the glow of his laptop. “I don’t understand,” he said again. “I…”

As Jacob fell silent, Amelie sensed movement nearby. She turned her head in the direction of the convenience store and saw half a dozen people standing on the pavement. They all held slates, bright screens illuminating their top halves. Each individual glanced back and forth between Amelie and their screen.

“Help me,” she managed to call out to them weakly. “I need help.”

But no one moved. They just continued to stare at her and at their screens.

What are they watching?

The strangers began to mutter to one another, pointing at her as if she were an animal in the zoo.

Me, they’re watching me.

7

One Month Later …

Everyone knew who Amelie was, just as she’d hoped. The problem was that they hated her.

They think I’m a monster.

James Michael Reid had recorded everything. From multiple angles. First from the cameras inside her pod, then from his chest-mounted slate. The entire ordeal had been streamed on the internet with a one-hour delay, meaning that by the time help came, it was already too late. Amelie had confessed her sins and stabbed a blue-eyed man in the throat.

He looked so innocent at the end.

James Michael Reid had been a programmer for a conglomerate, working mainly on automation code for passenger airliners and hypersonic cargo planes. He had a genius-level intellect but had been made redundant due to machine learning and AI. His employers had managed to implement a computer program that wrote other computer programs, entirely eliminating human input from the equation. The things James had told her about his family had been true. His father and brother were dead, and his mother was a cancer-ridden vegetable. Amelie was disgusted by the sympathy he had received.

While James Michael Reid was an self-confessed mass murderer, sections of the population hailed him as a hero. His remorseless crimes were reframed as rebellious assaults on a corrupt establishment. His cause was the cause of the common man and the unemployed, and otherwise disenfranchised members of society regarded him as a martyr. People grew increasingly belligerent in his name.

The Clean Pods projects was scrapped. People feared being suffocated by easily highjacked subroutines and plastic walls. Blake’s intended murder–suicide involving his ex was now held as another example of mental illness caused by the pods’ cramped and sterile living conditions. Greenwich Designs was under multiple investigations, ranging from accusations of extortion and blackmail to major fraud and murder. Several charges involved Amelie herself, as well as dozens of her colleagues. This time next year, she could be sitting inside a jail cell on the coast of Jersey instead of her lonely pod.

The building was empty now. James had killed every resident except for her, and no one was in any hurry to move in. She was the sole occupant of a plastic graveyard, with only the ghouls of dead neighbours to keep her company.

I still have Jacob.

For now.

She had told Jacob everything, and he had understood. He knew she was a good person at the core, and he had tried to stick by her through the worst of it; but social media had vilified her, as it always did whenever anyone made a mistake. Her confession – and admitted disdain for the dead squatters – had led to people associating her face and name with ruthless capitalism and the growing influence of profit-driven corporations on society at large. The population now rallied against big business and job-deleting technology. They wanted a return to the old ways. They wanted to go backwards.

Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe progress isn’t progress at all. Perhaps our best is behind us, not ahead.

Jacob no longer called every night, and he was distant with her when they did speak. The stress of being in a relationship with a hate figure was clearly getting to him – it wasn’t what he had agreed to when they had started a relationship – and it was only a matter of time before he abandoned her. Part of her was glad because it meant she wouldn’t bring him down with her. He was a good man.

The best.

He deserves to be happy.

Even the government wasn’t immune to the public outcry. Revelations about the cover-up concerning James Michael Reid caused several high-ranking MPs to fall on their swords and resign at the request of the Prime Minister (who of course knew nothing). The head of British Cybersecurity was sacked and disgraced in order to appease the Russians, who were using the false allegations of terrorism against them to gather worldwide sympathy. Eighty-three year old Putin was as popular as he’d ever been.

The whole thing was a national catastrophe. Sanctions were handed out left, right and centre. Prosecutions were firing like bullets from a gun, hitting whoever didn’t manage to step out of the way. London’s march into a bright future had been halted. The worst thing of all was that the attacks weren’t even over.

James had spoken of others like him, and he hadn’t been lying. A group of terrorists calling themselves ‘Justice’ continued to hack the city, corrupting AI-driven assembly lines and downing cargo planes. Airport security systems were corrupted and vehicle GPS tracking was no longer trustworthy. Travel and infrastructure were grinding to a halt. The economy had stalled and would soon go backwards. The rest of the world was looking at the British Isles as a warning and upping the integrity of their own systems as a result – especially after a British fashion magnate, known for using Vietnamese sweatshops, crashed his malfunctioning helicopter three miles from his villa in Marseille. It was hunting season on the rich and powerful, and the wealthy elite were desperately making grand, benevolent gestures to show themselves as decent human beings. No one was buying it. James’s mission had been a success, and Amelie had achieved nothing by killing him – except ruining her own life.

I should have let him kill me.

He would have disgraced me anyway. At least I’m alive to defend myself. I’m not what they say I am. People need to know the truth.

Amelie looked at her slate, reading the most recent of many hundreds of articles condemning her actions. She had absorbed so much vitriol about herself in the last month that she had gradually started to believe it; started to believe it so much that she had started hoarding sleeping pills her doctor had prescribed her to deal with the massive anxiety she was experiencing. The decision whether or not to take them hung constantly before her. Should she end it, or should she wait for the future to arrive, along with a possibility that things might get better?

Or worse.

For the first time in her life, Amelie feared the days ahead and saw a bleaker tomorrow.

I just wanted to make the world a better place, she continued telling herself. I just wanted to help.

The sleeping pills sat on the counter.

She tried calling Jacob but he didn’t answer. In a world more populated than ever, she was alone.

I just wanted to help.

Billy’s Blade

William Malmborg

Stacy’s Kitchen (1)

“I suppose it’s not really his fault,” the girl said while looking down at the cooling body, her feet carefully avoiding the various pools of blood as she maneuvered herself into a better position within the kitchen. “Not completely at least. He suffered quite a bit of trauma as a baby. We both did. But his was way more severe.”

Stacy didn’t reply, still somewhat startled by the sudden appearance of this young lady in her kitchen.

“Our mother actually tried to kill us before we were even born,” the girl continued. “Twice. While still in the womb. Can you believe that? Pills the first time while in the bathroom right after she discovered she was pregnant, though that might have been a legit suicide attempt, and the second time by slamming her belly into the edge of a dining room table over and over again until her parents got hold of her.” She let out an odd chuckle. “No questions there on what her goal was, yet even so, they still let her have us after we were born—until she tried to kill us again.”

“Who are you?” Stacy asked.

“Oh, sorry, my name is Jenny,” the girl said.

“Jenny,” Stacy said, almost as if testing the name, which the killer had muttered earlier during the fight in her kitchen.

“I came here to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Guess I was a bit late.” She looked down at the body. “But you did okay all the same, it seems.”

“You knew he was the killer?”

Two Months Earlier

1

It was the mask that fucked everything up. And the glasses. The mask and the glasses. If not for them, everything would have gone smoothly. The knife would have found its mark rather than being deflected, the woman’s intestines spilling out upon the gravel, his eyes watching as she bled out, his blood-slick hand slipping beneath the waistband of his shorts to finish himself off as the woman struggled to hold herself together, her lips gasping for air while choking on blood. But no. The mask and the glasses fucked everything up, which led to him missing his mark, which led to the woman getting really pissed off as he tried to stab her, which led to him fleeing into the woods as she chased after him with his own knife, his right hand oozing blood where the blade had sliced open his fingers, the stupid mask discarded, his glasses smashed.

2

“I thought it was Rusty,” Stacy Collins said while easing herself onto the leather sofa that stood along a wall in the office beneath a painting of some battle where the idiots stood in rows shooting at each other.

“The knife?” Alan Miller asked, eyes on the computer screen, fingers typing away.

“No,” she said. “Rusty. You know, the pervert who kept me tied up in that house and fucked me over and over again all those years ago. The one whose pecker I nearly cut off.”

“He’s long gone.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, though she wasn’t so sure she believed that. “Anyway, I thought it was Rusty that was attacking me, but instead it was some fucker in that mask from those movies you like. You know the ones, the ‘What’s your favorite scary movie?’ ones.”

“Scream,” he said, eyes still on the computer screen, though his fingers had finally stopped typing.

“Yeah, that one.”

“I only really like the first one. And the second one. After that…eh.”

Stacy didn’t reply.

Silence settled.

Alan looked over at her.

“I wasn’t really asking for your opinion on the movies themselves,” she said.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Never mind.” She waved a hand. “Anyway, are we going to go get lunch or what?”

“Yeah, sorry, I promised Walter this report by noon.” He hit a few keys. “Okay, it’s sent. Let’s go.”

Stacy eased herself back up to her feet, hands getting the crutches positioned, a gasp escaping her lips as the two knife wounds she had suffered during the attack protested against the stitches that were holding the skin flaps together.

“I still can’t believe you chased him,” Alan said as he held the door for her. “What were you thinking?”

“That I was going to stab the motherfucker in the face with his own knife, but then that stupid tree root fucked everything up.”

Alan shook his head and chuckled.

“What?” she asked.

“I just can’t believe it. This freak jumps out at you while you’re jogging, stabs you, and you manage to get his knife from him, chase after him, almost catch him, but then trip over a root and break your foot.”

“Not quite.”

“Not quite?”

“He stabbed me twice.”

“Twice?”

“Yeah, first in the hip and then in the chest,” she said. “Second one scared me a bit when I felt it. Thought it was all over.”

“Thank God for the rib cage.”

“I’ll toast to that—once we actually have some drinks to toast with.”

“Are you really supposed to be drinking?”

“Why not?”

“Aren’t you on painkillers?”

“Fuckers wouldn’t give me any. Suggested Tylenol if there is any pain. Fucking Tylenol!”

“Wow. Sounds like the VA.”

3

Nothing happened in the days following his attack, the standoff he’d envisioned with police as they came to arrest him never unfolding, all while his fingers slowly but surely started to heal, the story he had told everyone about breaking his favorite tea mug while cleaning it in the sink and slicing open his fingers on the sharp edge having satisfied all those who asked about the gauze.

And no one noticed he was wearing his old glasses.

Not even his sister, who never seemed to miss a thing.

As for the missing kitchen knife, his parents believed him when he noted that he had probably accidentally tossed it out with the pizza box after his movie marathon while they were away for the week checking out the college his sister would be headed to that fall, the actual pizza cutter having disappeared that way a few months earlier.

Not only did they believe him, they weren’t even making him replace it, his mom brushing if off with a statement on how she wanted to get a new knife set anyway.

4

Stacy slowly peeled the bandages from her chest, lips tight.

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Alan said.

“Yeah, well, it hurts like a motherfucker,” Stacy replied, fingers now probing the area around the wound.

“I bet,” he said. “He really was trying for the heart, it seems.”

She didn’t reply to that, her mind simply focused on the wound.

“Thank God for Hollywood.”

That caught her attention. “What do you mean?”

“In movies, especially slasher ones, you always see killers stabbing people in the chest, the knife plunging right in despite how difficult it is to actually get between the ribs with a blade. That’s why in a knife fight you always want to hit here”—he touched her lower left side—“and then twist it like an ‘S.’ After that, it’s all over.”

“Why?” she asked, her own finger tracing the area.

“First, the pain will be so intense they will be nearly incapacitated. Second, this area will have them bleeding out within minutes.”

“You think that’s what he was trying?” she asked, hand motioning to her hip wound. “When he got me here?”

“No. I think he was trying for the stomach area. Open you up to spill your guts everywhere. Amateurish, but effective as well for dropping someone due to the pain it will cause. Think extreme diarrhea-like cramps that won’t stop.”

“Only he got my hip bone instead.”

“Yep. Hip bone and then rib cage. With a cheap kitchen knife that probably had trouble taking on onions and celery, let alone tissues and sinew.”

“And bone,” she said, letting out a weak laugh.

“And bone,” he agreed, gently putting his arms around her.

Nothing else was said for several seconds.

“So not a professional hit man, then,” she noted.

“No, not at all,” he replied. “Random attack. Like the police said. By someone who had no idea what they were doing.”

“Hmm.”

“Probably doesn’t even know your name.”

5

Stacy Collins.

That was the name of the woman he had attacked on the Prairie Path, a woman that apparently was an investigative journalist who had made a name for herself several years earlier uncovering a suburban prostitution ring that had been operating behind a real estate front.

He learned this reading the article she had written about the attack, his heart racing as he relived what had happened through her words. Embarrassment followed. As did anger. She made him out to be a bumbling fool, stating that he had attempted to be like the killer from the Scream movies, but instead had only managed a poor imitation of the killer in the Scary Movie parodies.

She’s not wrong.

Spot-on actually.

About him being a bumbling fool, not about him trying to be the Ghostface killer from the Scream movies.

He liked the movies, especially the first and fourth ones, but not to the point of wanting to imitate them.

No. No. No.

He wanted to be his own killer, one that had his own name that instilled fear upon the population and left a dark mark on the area.

And the mask itself hadn’t been from the Scream movies. Not even close. Only someone who didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about would say that it was.

“Billy?” his mom called down.

“Yeah?” he replied.

“Going to the store. Need anything?”

“We’re almost out of half-and-half.”

“Got it.”

“And more root beer, please.”

6

The folded-up piece of paper was taped to her front door when Stacy returned from the grocery store, her initial thought being that it was a note from a shipping company about missing a package she was waiting on.

It wasn’t.

It was a message.

One that read: IT WASN’T A SCREAM MASK!

7

The second time around he looked like a ninja, one that wore glasses.

It was a ridiculous outfit, but that was okay, because if all went well, no one would actually see it.

Or at least live long enough to talk about it.

To describe it.

To tell the world that he was a bumbling fool that didn’t know how to dress for a kill, let alone actually make a successful kill.

No.

This time around he would succeed in killing the first woman that came jogging by, her gutted body eventually found by whomever else came down the path, the horror of what had unfolded hitting the airwaves rather than a story about a wannabe Scream killer.

Has she found the note?

What if it blows off the door before she gets home?

These concerns and more flooded his mind as he crouched in the brush by the path, waiting to spring, heart racing, knife ready.

He wasn’t trying to be the Ghostface killer from the Scream movies.

He wanted that to be clear before news of this kill started to spread.

If it wasn’t, then everyone would picture him being the Ghostface killer during this attack, the lack of any description from this upcoming victim making it so everyone would simply reach back to the first incorrect description that Stacy Collins had penned. Once that happened, once that image was firmly implanted in the minds of everyone, it would be too late. No matter what he did, no matter how original he was, everyone would just view him as an imitator once everything was said and done.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

His breathing stilled.

Someone was coming his way along the path.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

He saw them as they rounded the corner, his position chosen for the view it would give during the twenty seconds or so of time before he would attack, his mind using the brief period of time to say yay or nay.

This was a NAY, disgust flowing through him as the fat-ass made his way by his position, globs of sweat spraying everywhere from the flopping jowls, the man looking like he was going to keel over at any moment.

Worse yet, a perfect female victim rounded the corner a few seconds later, one who would have been a YAY! YAY! YAY! had it not been for the fat-ass that she was closing in on and about to pass.

Frustrated, he considered saying fuck it and making his way back through the woods to where his bike was waiting, a desire to simply plant himself on a chair with a mug of tea and a Richard Laymon novel building within him.

Another hour.

If no one else came by, then he would call it a day.

Twenty minutes later, he was running back through the woods to his bike, trying not to vomit, his mind having never expected the stomach contents to be as disgusting as they were once the bowels were open, the chunks of semi-digested breakfast having literally oozed out of the woman as she lay on her back in agony after trying to crawl away before rolling over in defeat, the spasms from her intestines pushing everything through the opening he had created, the stench unbearable, one hand covering his nose as he stabbed the knife into her throat to finish her off before fleeing.

8

“The fucker knows where I live,” Stacy said.

“It’s not that hard to figure out,” Alan noted.

“I know, but still, it pisses me off that he was at my house. My house! And leaving me a note like this. The nerve.”

“Seems you hit one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in your story about the attack you said he was imitating the killer from the Scream movies. Apparently that isn’t the case. At least not in his eyes.”

“Hmm.”

“And he really wants you to know this.”

Stacy considered this and then said, “You think he wants me to write a new story correcting it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because I won’t. If he thinks he can intimidate me into writing what he wants to hear, he picked the wrong writer to fuck with.”

“Ha, yeah, got that right. Though…”

“Though…?”

“I’m not so sure that is what he wants.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t do that,” Stacy said, frustration present.

Alan shrugged.

Stacy mirrored the shrug and then winced.

“You okay?” Alan asked.

“Yeah, just this stupid cut”—she motioned to the one on her chest—“doesn’t seem to want to heal all the way.”

“It’s in a bad spot.”

“Yeah.”

“Especially with all that boob weight right below it. Want me to hold it for you?”

“Fuck off,” she said, laughing.

He grinned.

“Coming over tonight?” she asked, shifting herself so she could get up from the leather sofa.

“Too scared to be alone?” he asked.

She gave him the finger.

Another laugh echoed, then, “Chinese food?”

“Works for me,” she said. “When does your mom get—”

Her phone started to ring.

She looked at the screen and said, “Detective White.”

“Oh?”

“Detective,” she said, answering. “Nice for you to finally get back to—”

“There’s been another attack,” Detective White said, cutting her off.

“Shit, where?” She covered the phone and whispered, “Another attack.”

“Fuck,” Alan replied.

“You said you got a note? Do you know what time it was left?”

“Sometime this morning. While I was shopping.”

“What time?”

“I don’t know. I found it around eleven.”

“And when did you leave to go shopping?”

“Ten. Maybe a bit earlier.” Then, not wanting to be left in the dark: “Where was the attack?”

“So between ten and eleven?”

“Yeah. Was it the Prairie Path again?”

“And you’re sure it was from your attacker?” he asked.

“Who else would it be?” she asked. “Was it the path again?”

“A uniform should be by in a few minutes to pick it up,” he said. “I’m guessing you’ve touched it?”

“Yeah, thought it was about a package.” Once she realized it wasn’t, she had put it into a plastic baggie and called Detective White, who, naturally, hadn’t picked up. He never did unless he was waiting on a return call from her.

“How was it secured?”

“Duct tape.”

“You still have that as well?”

“Yep. It’s in a baggie with the note.” She waited a second. “Was it the same spot I was attacked at?”

“No, about three miles away,” he said.

“East or west?”

“West.”

“So closer to my place than the first time around,” she noted.

“Yes,” he said after several seconds.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just is curious. It being the Prairie Path both times. Wonder why.”

“I’ll ask once I catch the motherfucker,” Detective White said, a bit of emotion present, which was unusual for the normally stoic detective.

It clicked.

They had a body this time, the attack being successful.

“I gotta go. The uniform should be there soon.”

“Okay. I’m not home right now, but am headed back there now.”

“Fine. I’ll be by later with some questions.”

“No problem. I’ll be home the rest of the day.”

“Good.”

The call ended.

Stacy looked at Alan, who simply looked back at her.

Nothing was said for nearly a minute.

Then, “We now know why he left the note,” Alan said. “He was going to do another attack and wanted to make sure you knew he wasn’t trying to imitate the Scream killer when you wrote about it.”

“Well, then he really isn’t going to like my next story.”

“Stacy.”

“What?”

“Be careful.”

“Always,” she said, winking. “What time you coming by with the food?”

“Around six.”

“Okay.” She got to her feet, crutches planted, body ready. “That gives me just enough time.”

“For?”

“You’ll see.”

“Detective White won’t like you toying with this fucker.”

“Detective White will just have to deal with it.”

Alan stared for a second and then once again said, “Be careful. Please. You’re not one hundred percent right now.” He nodded toward the cast around her foot.

“The better to lure this creep in with, and then bam, I blow his fucking head off.”

Alan stared at her.

“After I force him into giving me an exclusive interview, that is.”

“At gunpoint,” he said.

“Yep. It’ll be my new thing. I’ll create a column dedicated solely to interviewing serial killers at gunpoint.”

“And then bam?”

“Always best to end things with a bang.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Stacy chuckled and then hobbled from the office.

9

Billy stared at the computer screen for a long time, his mind a mix of anger and frustration.

The Prairie Path Slasher.

This was what Stacy Collins was calling him now. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she was still claiming that he was wearing the Ghostface mask from the Scream movies during his attacks even though that wasn’t the case.

Even though she knows this isn’t the case.

And he knew that she knew because she made mention of the note he had left her in the article she wrote, only she had lied about what the note said, her version of it claiming that he had claimed himself to be the new Ghostface killer.

Why would she do that?

Was she taunting him?

Would she do something like that?

No answers arrived, mostly because he didn’t know enough about Stacy Collins to form any type of educated theory on her. Up until the day of the attack, he hadn’t even known she existed, and then it wasn’t until she penned the story about the attack that he knew who she was.

He needed to change that.

He needed to learn everything he could about her.

He needed—

“Billy,” his mom called. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Okay, be up in a second.”

10

“I can’t believe White signed off on it,” Alan said after reading her article.

“It was sort of his idea,” Stacy said. “Well, my idea after he urged me not to mention the note as a way of testing anyone who confessed. I figured, mention the note, but lie about what it says. That way I can still piss off the killer, and they still have their confession test.”

“I like it.”

“But…” she said, knowing him.

“But…I’m not so sure that taunting someone who tried to stab you to death is such a good idea. Like poking a bear.”

“Says the guy who was a Special Forces soldier. Talk about poking a bear. You poked it with a stick while covered in honey and carrying a picnic basket.”

“But I had the full weight of the military behind me and my team if anything ever happened. You don’t. And you’re gimped up with a broken foot.”

“I have you and I have Detective White. Not to mention Misty.”

Alan shook his head.

“What?”

“When was the last time you went to the range with ‘Misty’?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Couple months ago.”

“You have to go more often if you want to be any good with a pistol. Or any type of firearm. At least once a week, preferably more.”

“It’s no fun without you, and you are always working.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun,” he noted.

“Tell that to the rednecks that are always there with their beer guts and laser-sighted pistols, the ones who ogle me the entire time.”

“They’ll stop ogling you if you mention Rusty and how you started to slide a paring knife up his peehole.”

“These guys are probably so horny and desperate that they wouldn’t care,” she said, waving a hand. “They actually wear camouflage to the range. What are they hiding from? Paper targets don’t shoot back.”

“Yeah, I know the type.”

“Anyway, I’m not too worried. It’s not like this guy is a professional hit man hired by the mob or something. He’s just some horror-movie freak. If he comes at me again it will be with a knife, and I will have a gun. Piece of cake.”

Alan didn’t reply to that.

“What?” she asked after a few seconds.

“Have you considered that he might not take out his rage on you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I didn’t make him a killer. He came to that on his own. If I piss him off with my articles and he kills again to make some kind of point, it’s not on me. His actions are his actions.”

Alan took a few seconds with this and then said, “I agree, to a degree.”

“But…” she said.

“You still don’t have to push him.”

“First, it’s my job. Second, by pushing him maybe he will focus on me rather than someone else and then when he tries again”—she pointed her finger like a gun—“bam! Pink mist.”

“Let’s hope it all ends up being that simple.”

11

No more Prairie Path attacks.

Billy had known all along that he could only do that once or twice, but that had been because he figured people would become too cautious on the path itself, not because some stupid reporter used it to tag him with a stupid name.

Such a problem had never once popped into his mind when considering all this.

Few things had in the days when he had simply been envisioning the attacks, his mind always focused on the stabbing itself—the moment the flesh yielded to the blade.

What would such a thing feel like?

Would there be a moment of hesitation as the skin tried to keep the knife at bay, followed by the wet plunge as the knife broke through and disappeared into the soft tissues, or would it just go right in, stopping once the hilt pressed up against the body?

Knowing that pig flesh was supposed to be similar to human flesh, he had once started stabbing a thawed pork roast to see if he could get the feel, but it hadn’t been right, his left hand barely able to get a reaction from his penis.

Even letting it warm up and putting a picture of a female classmate over the roast so that he had the illusion of stabbing warm female flesh hadn’t worked.

He’d had better results with the pillowcase that he had stuffed with pork roasts purchased from Jewel and then dressed up as a woman, complete with a female head prop he had ordered from Amazon, his left hand working himself to a somewhat satisfactory conclusion while his right went all Norman Bates on the crude-looking female display.

Satisfactory but still lacking.

And messy.

A real kill would be messy as well, but not in the way this was, the pork juices oozing everywhere as the kitchen knife shredded the crude display, all of which had to be bagged up and thrown away. He was concerned as the smell from the garbage can grew to the point where he feared his parents would investigate and then question why there were a dozen raw pork roasts rotting away within.

It almost wasn’t worth the hassle, especially when considering he could get the same results when sitting on the floor of the shower, knife in one hand, his cock in the other, eyes closed so that he could better envision the stabbing scene.

He had once accidentally left the knife in the shower, his mom having found it and voicing questions on how it had ended up in there that night at dinner.

No one had answered, his dad and sister because they literally had no idea, and Billy because he didn’t dare try to explain how he could only get off when picturing himself stabbing helpless women.

Nope.

Some sexual fetishes could be revealed, the acceptance of them having grown over the years.

His could not.

Nothing he could say would ever soothe the horror such a thing would produce. Not even lies about how if he had one of those expensive sex robots, it would satisfy the urges. It wouldn’t. Not unless it could wiggle and scream and plead while he slid the knife through the realistic flesh, pain-laced fear filling the eyes that looked up at him.

The woman on the path the other day hadn’t been satisfying either, his disgust at the smell as the bowels oozed out their contents having ruined the sexual thrill that had been building as he awaited a victim.

Even later, once he was home, he hadn’t been able to produce anything worthwhile, the disgust and disappointment with his first-ever kill making for a lackluster response as his penis would start to firm up before fading away, his hand eventually tucking himself back into his pants so that he could try to focus his attention elsewhere.

Now, however, his attention was back on his desires, his mind trying to figure out how to achieve the sexual bliss he craved.

During his early teen years, it had been easy. A simple scene from a horror movie nearly bringing about a release, his hand only needing to slip into his pants for a few strokes before he spurted.

But then things had changed.

The scenes that had once gotten him off, ones that he had edited together into an hour-long video file that he would stroke off to every night, had started to feel stale. Even holding a knife in one hand while stroking with the other wasn’t enough. Scene after scene of women being stabbed from various horror movies would play across the screen, his hand furiously working back and forth, his lips constantly having to replenish his palm with spit so that he didn’t rub himself raw, all to no avail.

Web searches had helped, his desperation for a decent release having led to the discovery of several websites that produced ultra-violent videos that were filled with sex and death. The trailers he had viewed helped him achieve release a few times, as did some of the videos themselves that he had found on various torrent sites, yet even those weren’t enough after a while, the poor acting, stupid scenarios, and the heavy focus on the sexual elements souring everything.

He liked the sex, of that there was no question. He just didn’t like it being the main focus. His trigger was the stabbing, the knife going in and out, in and out, in and out, not the copious amounts of tits and ass that were displayed, or the odd orgasmic groans from the victim who was supposed to be dying from knife wounds.

What the fuck was up with that?

He didn’t know all that much about women, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t orgasm while being gutted.

And that was the problem.

The videos were geared toward those who got off on the fantasy of killing, not the real thing, whereas he would need the real thing. Erotic slasher stuff wasn’t his cup of tea, like soft-core teasing porn versus hard-core porn for those males that got off on simple sex.

At least that was what he had concluded after a frustrating night of repeated failures when trying to orgasm.

Had he been wrong?

Or did he simply have to be careful when plunging a knife into a victim so as not to pierce the bowels and cause a disgusting fecal release?

Maybe slow things down by making several disabling wounds that would bleed but not spurt out anything that his sexual desires would find undesirable?

And maybe using his own hand was part of the problem.

Maybe he needed to actually fuck them while stabbing them.

In the videos he hadn’t really gotten off on seeing the killers fucking the victims before killing them, but maybe doing it himself would be different. Maybe having his penis inside them while their body reacted to the sudden trauma of being stabbed would be just what he needed.

Of course, this meant that he would need to find a more private place for his kills, places like the homes of his victims. Victims that would need to be alone.

The reporter?

No…not yet.

Though annoyed with her depiction of him, he did like the notoriety she was creating for him. Being a media sensation had never been his goal, but now that it had gotten started, he was enjoying it.

Did Jack the Ripper feel the same way once the newspapers started reporting his attacks?

Is that why he started to engage with them?

Had Jack ever fucked his victims, or had his goal simply been to kill and achieve notoriety?

12

Stacy opened her eyes upon the dark room, a sense of danger causing her to reach into the nightstand drawer where she kept Misty, hand gripping the small automatic as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, ears listening.

Nothing.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

She shook the cliché away.

Her place could never be too quiet, not when she lived alone. It was either quiet or not quiet.

But when “not quiet” it was because she was doing something or the heat was on, and in late August there really was no reason for the heat to be on, so it was simply “quiet” right now.

But it hadn’t been a few moments earlier.

Something had startled her awake.

Something that she had to investigate.

Only doing so would prove problematic given her foot.

How would she search the house for the intruder while carrying Misty? It was either the crutches or the gun, and she couldn’t very well maneuver around without the crutches. Not yet. Not on a foot that was secured in a cast.

Just getting food and beverages from the kitchen to the coffee table in the family room so she could eat while watching TV had proved challenging, so getting around with a gun in hand while primed and ready for a confrontation would be downright impossible.

Call Alan.

No.

Yes.

He’ll think I’m being foolish.

No he won’t.

The exact opposite really.

And he could get here fast.

They knew this from the various times she had called him over for…

A sound from the stairway reached her ears, one which made her pull the trigger, the sound of Misty going off in the dark bedroom one that would likely echo within her startled eardrums for days, if not weeks.

13

Billy had just planned on leaving the note once he was inside the house, but then stupidly decided to see if he could go up and get a picture of the reporter sleeping.

Nope.

The stairs were squeaky.

To the point where he had nearly jumped at the sound he had made, his heart missing several beats as he stood on the first step waiting to see if the sound had been heard, his left foot eventually moving to the next step, this one squeaking as well.

An explosion followed, one that he would later realize was a gunshot, his body nearly tripping over his own legs as he fled the reporter’s house.

14

“Not a single call about the gunshot,” Detective White said, hand going up to mask a yawn. “Makes me think that everyone on your street sleeps very soundly or simply had no idea what the sound was and would never think gunshot.”

“Probably sounded like a small pop to all of them,” Alan noted. “A leftover firecracker that wasn’t worth reporting.”

“That could be,” Detective White agreed.

Stacy didn’t say anything in reply to these comments, her mind still a wreck following the confirmation that the killer had been inside her house.

Detective White held up the note, which was now in an evidence bag. “I’ll tell you, you two really know how to pick them.”

“Hey,” Alan said, holding up his palms. “This one was all her this time.”

Stacy forced a grin.

Alan was trying to ease things for her by making a joke, which she appreciated, even if it had failed.

“We will get this analyzed and your door printed. The kitchen too where it was left.”

“So he picked the lock?” Stacy questioned, voice steady even though she felt as if she were trembling.

“If you’re sure you locked it and that there wasn’t a hide-a-key out there that he could have found, then yes, that seems to be the only possible way he got inside,” Detective White said.

“He could do it again, then.”

A nod.

“We’ll go to Ace once the sun is up and get the best lock money can buy, and a chain,” Alan said. “For both doors.”

“I’d recommend an alarm too,” Detective White said.

“That too,” Alan agreed.

Stacy didn’t reply.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about an alarm system, which was odd given what she had just experienced. And what she had experienced in the past while investigating the prostitution ring.

Maybe it was because they were telling her this was what she was going to do. In her own house. One that she had purchased herself without any help from anyone after her investigative journalism star had skyrocketed. All during a time when most reporters were having to find secondary employment due to papers shutting down.

“I don’t think he was going to hurt me,” she said after a while.

Confusion appeared on both men’s faces.

“He was simply here to leave the note.”

They pondered this.

“He wants me to write more about him. He wants fame.”

They both looked at her, waiting.

“And I’ll give it to him, only in a way that he will never be happy with.”

“Stacy—” Alan started.

“He picked the wrong reporter to fuck with.” The inner tremble was gone. She was pissed. Just like after Rusty had spent the night fucking her in the piss-stained bed all those years ago. Just like when the snuff man was going to kill her for his fans in that dirty basement. Just like when that bitch handcuffed her to the girl in the shower in hopes of keeping them both secure before selling their bodies to a pervert.

Bad things had happened to all of them once her anger knocked away the fear, and the same thing would happen to this prick.

Even better, his attempts at achieving fame would only help to add more to what she had attained during the last several years.

She had been waiting for something new to write about, something that wouldn’t require her to leave the comfort of the suburbs for some war-torn hellhole overseas, and she had started to wonder—and worry—if such a step might need to be taken.

That worry was disappearing fast.

In fact, she now wished everyone would leave so she could hobble her way to her desk and start working on a new story.

The itch was there and it needed to be scratched.

But she would wait.

They had a job to do, one that was really important.

Plus, she liked having Alan around, and though he was acting a bit more protective of her right now than he normally would—likely due to his own fears about what could have happened—she knew it would ease as the hours progressed. Once the sun was up and all the shadows forced away, he would remember that she could take care of herself.

Even with the broken foot?

The thought gave her pause.

She would need to figure out a way of maneuvering around with Misty in hand so that she wouldn’t lose any time dropping a crutch while reaching for the pistol.

After all, just because she didn’t think the prick had been there to kill her this time didn’t mean he wouldn’t make such an attempt at some point in the future, especially once he read the next few articles that she would pen.

15

Click.

Billy grinned.

He was getting good at this.

But still not good enough.

He wanted to be able to pick locks within seconds, not minutes. According to the internet, this goal was a bit unrealistic, but it was his goal nonetheless. Plus, most of the locks he would encounter would be simple locks that had come with the houses back when they were built in the ’70s, which meant they looked nice and secure but were actually cheap and not very secure.

Stacy Collin’s house was a perfect example.

It was a beautiful two-story house, one that had been built to impress when being viewed from the street. Beneath the surface, however, he knew the materials were just a few steps up from cardboard, the houses on this side of town a far cry from the earlier-made, well-built houses on the other, older side of town.

These weren’t the worst of the worst, though.

That honor went to the McMansions that had gone up in the ’90s on the far southwest side of town, built around the same time as the new waterpark and outdoor shopping center.

High prices and large multi-level floor plans had made buyers think they were getting quality homes, ones that everyone would be envious of when coming over for the holidays or other random events, but it had all been an illusion. Billy knew. His parents owned a construction company, one that had done quite a bit of remodeling to the new McMansions, the post-workday dinner-table conversations frequently focusing on his father’s dismay at how bad all those houses were once one got beneath the surface. Cheap materials, poorly laid foundations, land that wasn’t all that solid since it had once been a marsh. On and on he would go, boring the rest of them as they ate whatever monstrosity their mother had put together that evening, the cooking classes she frequently took doing little to instill any type of culinary skill within her.

Click!

Another lock popped, the last of the assortment he had bought from Amazon to practice on.

He hadn’t timed that one, his mind lost in thoughts on what his next kill would be like and whether it would allow for the sexual bliss he had been longing for all these years.

It will.

Once he got a girl secured in a private place and was able to slice and dice without interruption while thrusting his cock in and out of her moist opening, he would experience a release that put all previous ones to shame.

And once her body is found…

Stacy Collins would take him seriously and write a story that would bring fear and respect toward his actions.

And if she doesn’t…

He felt a grin stretching his face, one that amused him because he knew that it didn’t really matter either way. He would continue with his actions until a time when he physically could not. Of this he had no doubt. Sure, there would be moments after each kill when he told himself he would never do anything like it again, just like there were times after each personal moment with himself and the knife scenes on his computer screen when he vowed to never jerk off to such things again, but it was always nonsense. Urges could not be controlled, could not be denied.

Now the big question was, who would the next victim be?

He had quite a few to choose from, the past few days seeing him collecting a list of possibilities, but now he had to choose.

Someone was going to die that night.

Someone from the series of pictures he was now scrolling through.

16

Locks changed and windows secured, Stacy waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Two weeks came and went.

Nothing happened.

The note that had been left promised that more flesh would be torn as the killer’s knife tasted blood, yet no flesh was torn, and no blood tasted.

Had it been an empty threat?

A final cry in hopes of generating fear, all while knowing nothing would follow?

No.

One didn’t pick a lock and leave a note leaning against a coffeepot unless they were serious.

He had wanted her to know he had been inside.

He had wanted her to wake up, go downstairs, and panic when she saw the note.

He had wanted her to feel violated.

But why the wait?

Was it intentional, or had something happened to him?

No answers followed.

A text did though.

One from Alan asking if she wanted to get some lunch.

She did.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner…she was always up for some food that she didn’t have to make herself.

17

Stabbing people in the woods was easier than getting into their homes. Billy was learning this the hard way, his frustration with each failed entry reaching a point where he almost didn’t care if he got stuck with the stupid Prairie Path Slasher name—he just needed to cut someone. Not because of any urge within to actually use the knife, though that was always lying in wait just beneath the surface, but because he didn’t want to appear impotent.

Then again, maybe a bit of a wait was good because it would allow for people to forget about the stupid Prairie Path Slasher name that Stacy Collins had tried to stick him with and let something fresh emerge once a body was found inside a home.

But first he actually had to get inside a home, his lock-picking skills not quite as good as he had originally thought.

Two failures and then a third that had looked promising until a dog started barking.

Tonight.

Or maybe today.

This afternoon.

He had a girl in mind, one who he had known his entire life, given that they had been going to school and sharing classes together since the first grade, yet he had never interacted with her beyond a few words here and there. She was one of those “familiar faces in a crowd” who popped up from time to time. A person he could say hi to if they crossed paths while out in public, or simply ignore without it feeling odd one way or the other.

She was apparently home for the next couple of weeks while waiting for the next semester to start at whatever school she had ventured off to following graduation, home and stuck babysitting her little brother while her parents went off on a cruise.

It was a perfect opportunity.

Especially when looking at the house from Google Earth and then the street view.

The house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, one which backed up against a busy road, the rear of the yard lined with mature trees and a tall fence to buffer against the constant sound of people driving by at 55 miles per hour.

Even better, the sides of the yard were lined with tall wall-like bushes, giving anyone who was on the back porch privacy from prying eyes.

Alarms?

He studied the front of the house from the street view for a long time, looking for one of those signs that typically alerted would-be thieves of an alarm system.

Nothing was displayed.

This didn’t necessarily mean an alarm system wasn’t in place, but he felt chances were good one wasn’t.

Next he looked at Zillow to see if any interior pictures were present so that he could get an idea of what awaited him inside.

Several were, even though the house wasn’t for sale, but without a floor plan on display they weren’t much help.

That was okay though.

Once inside he would be able to find his way around, and once the younger brother was eliminated, he and Christa would have plenty of time together to enjoy themselves. Well…himself. Christa probably wouldn’t get much joy out of what unfolded. Unless those ridiculous erotic horror films were correct and women moaned and groaned with orgasms when being stabbed to death.

He chuckled at the thought.

No.

An odd sort of pleasure might erupt within her while being stabbed if the wires within the brain got crossed from all the signals that were firing, but that would be it.

No genuine pleasure would be had by her, and he would not kid himself into thinking it would be.

Everything that unfolded within that house that evening would be for his benefit, and his benefit alone.

He would not sugarcoat things.

Once the little brother was dead, and once he had her subdued, the last hours of Christa’s life would be a living nightmare.

18

“So many of these couples need to simply sit down and talk with each other,” Alan said while struggling to secure a piece of tuna that had been set atop some rice. “Instead, they hire Walter to go digging into their lives to find out what they are doing when the other isn’t around.”

“Which then leads to you having to follow them all over the place like a pervert with a camera,” Stacy noted before securing and then popping her own piece of tuna into her mouth.

“Bingo,” Alan said, eyes on the tuna, which he was slowly bringing to his mouth, head leaning in, mouth ready.

Stacy watched, breath held.

His hands twitched a bit, the tuna and rice falling back to the plate.

Stacy laughed. “Use the fork.”

“No. It won’t taste right.”

“It will taste the same no matter how you get it to your mouth.”

He tried again, and once again dropped it.

“Here, let me,” Stacy said, securing the piece with her chopsticks and bringing it to his mouth with a swiftness that likely looked impressive to Alan, yet wasn’t to her given how second nature chopsticks were to her.

They should be for him too given all the stakeouts he went on.

She asked about this.

“Oh, I always use a fork when in the car with takeout,” he said.

“But you just said…” She shook her head, letting her voice fade.

“In the car I can’t get you to feed me,” he said with a grin.

“You manipulative bastard,” she teased.

His grin continued as he picked up a fork and used it to down some seared eel and then moved on to pieces from one of the various specialty rolls that the chef had recommended.

“So, who you following tonight?” she asked.

“An instructor from College of DuPage,” he said after finishing a piece of the roll the chef had called a Yellow Submarine.

“Ah, COD State.” Stacy reached for her own piece of the Yellow Submarine, noting it seemed to have tuna, salmon, and crab in it. “Male or female?”

“Female. Fiancé thinks she’s cheating on him.”

“Wow, talk about starting things off on the wrong foot.” She popped the piece in her mouth and started chewing.

“Right.” He sighed. “It was everything I could do to simply sit there and listen as he went over everything with me and Walter.”

“What does Walter think of such situations?”

“Oh, he is on the same page as we are, but also knows these situations are what pay the bills, so he can’t really say no or try to counsel them with life advice.” He stared at her a second. “You okay?”

She blinked. “Yeah, just, wow.”

“Spicy, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it’s the yellow stuff he dripped all over it, whatever that is.” He motioned toward the teapot.

She nodded.

He poured.

She sipped.

A piece of ginger followed, then a second, and then another sip of tea.

“Better?” he asked.

“Much better,” she replied.

His eyes shifted toward another roll the chef had created for them, her eyes following.

“You first,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “If the Yellow Submarine was that intense…”

“You didn’t even flinch with it, which means it either didn’t bother you at all, or you masked it so that I would go in unsuspecting. Either way, you get to try it first.”

“Okay,” he said and, using the fork, lifted a middle piece from the roll to his mouth.

Stacy watched him start to chew, eyes studying him, waiting, hoping for a reaction.

He finished it and grinned. “Your turn.”

“Nothing?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Didn’t bother me at all.”

She shifted her attention back to the roll and then, without thinking too much about it, grabbed a piece and slipped it between her lips.

Alan let out a sigh of relief and chugged some of his own tea.

You bastard! she thought as the roll the sushi chef had dubbed the Fiery Volcano erupted.

19

Billy waited in a coat closet, his entry into the house far easier than anticipated, thanks to the back door being left unlocked.

After today that won’t happen.

After today people all throughout the community will be making sure all the doors and windows are securely fastened.

And then?

He would keep practicing with the lockpick sets he had ordered from Amazon, his mind knowing that in time door locks would be a useless obstacle in preventing his entry.

For now though, he would take the unlocked door.

He would take anything that made his job easier.

The front door opened, the sound of Christa and her little brother stepping inside just beyond where he waited reaching his ears, the two having gone out to a bagel place, according to her social media posts.

Would that have been her ideal last meal if she had known what was coming?

The BLT bagel with extra mayo, which apparently had been made by a “hot guy sporting a man bun.”

How such a thing was possible, Billy didn’t know, but to each their own.

Christa liked hot guys with man buns; he liked hot girls with knives in their bellies.

No.

Not the belly.

Not this time.

Instead, he envisioned her pinned to the floor with a knife through the shoulder, unable to free herself without pain, one hand holding her wrists above her head while his other pulled down the dark running pants he wore.

Or maybe pin her hands to the floor with the knife…

An erection developed at the thought, which only got more and more pronounced as he listened to the two moving about the entryway.

Deep breath.

And another.

And another.

His palms had gotten sweaty within his gloves, palms that he now absentmindedly wiped against his leg without any effect upon the sweat, given the gloves that encased them.

Do it.

Now.

He reached for the knob just as a phone rang.

Christa answered it with a “Hey, girl!” which then was returned by another “Hey!” from someone on the other end, the two likely Facetiming each other given how clear the second voice was.

Billy sighed with silent frustration while dropping his hand back to his side.

He couldn’t attack them while she was on the phone, not when it could easily lead to the person on the other end calling the police.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The element of surprise he had envisioned as he sprang from the hallway closet evaporated as Christa took the phone upstairs to her bedroom, all while the little brother raced downstairs into the basement where an impressive game system was set up.

Fuck.

Having them on opposite floors of the house was a big problem.

Or was it?

With Christa distracted by a phone call, he could go down, take care of the little brother, who might also be distracted to the point of being an easy kill, the knife quickly opening his throat from behind, blood splashing out onto the TV screen, and then go up and wait for the call to end, the bedroom location an ideal spot for the attack given that it would have no exits unless she wanted to jump through a second-floor window, likely breaking several bones as she landed on the concrete patio below.

Indecision gripped him.

Several seconds came and went, and then several minutes, his hand eventually reaching for the knob once again and twisting it to open the closet door, his body carefully stepping out.

20

“Girl,” Christa said while heading over to her closet to get a hoodie, the AC having turned her bedroom into an ice box, phone sitting faceup on her bed, “he has no idea the shitstorm that is going to come down on him if he blows me off to go drinking with those stupid frat boys again.”

“I’m telling you,” Jill voiced into the room from the phone. “You should have dumped his ass back in June when he got shitfaced at that BBQ and smacked that slut’s ass.”

“We had a come-to-Jesus talk after that and he promised to—” Christa stopped, head turning to listen for a moment.

“Christa?” Jill asked.

“Hang on a second,” Christa said. “I thought I heard something.”

“Heard what?”

“I don’t know. A crash or something. Down in the basement.” It had echoed up through the vent.

“Your brother’s home, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good. With the murders and all, that would be really spooky.”

“Wait, what?” Christa asked, twisting back to the phone.

“You didn’t hear about them?”

“Hear about what?”

“The Prairie Path Slasher,” Jill said.

“The Prairie Path what?” Christa gasped.

“I know, it sounds really lame. But it’s legit. Someone has been attacking people with a knife on the Prairie Path.”

“For real?”

“As real as your loser boyfriend that you need to kick to the curb.”

Christa shook that away, concern suddenly enveloping her. “What part of the Prairie Path?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” Jill said. “I avoid nature at all costs. And it was, like, a couple weeks ago.”

The Prairie Path was long, stretching for miles upon miles across several counties, but that didn’t set her mind at ease because if Jill was talking about knife attacks on it, that meant they had to have been on the local parts of the path.

“I’m going to go check on Tommy, make sure the crash was just him doing something stupid in the basement.”

“Shit, you freaking?” Jill asked.

“No, just…I’ll be right back.”

“Hey, wait, take me with. That way if there is anyone getting ready to carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey, I’ll be able to make bank talking about it on my feeds.”

“Oh, I see how it is.”

“Hey, not all of us were able to get big-time scholarships, and with the cost of my tuition, I’m probably going to have to start stripping at some point just so I can treat myself to McDonald’s once or twice a week.”

Christa let out a laugh as she stepped from her bedroom into the hallway and went to the top of the stairs, her voice calling down to Tommy to make sure everything was okay.

“Anything?” Jill asked.

“No, nothing, but he wears that stupid headset when he’s playing.”

“It’s probably nothing. He threw a controller or something when someone shot up his ass.”

“Yeah. Probably,” Christa said, heart still racing. “How many murders was it?”

“What?”

“Murders. On the Prairie Path. How many?”

“Oh, um, let me see.”

Christa waited, eyes still looking down the stairway to the first floor, questions on if the sound really had been Tommy simply throwing a controller in frustration echoing in her mind.

“One,” Jill said after a few seconds. “A couple weeks ago.”

“Just one? Girl, you just freaked me out making me think there was some killer stalking the area like in a movie or something.”

“Well, he also attacked someone before that. A reporter or something while she was on the path.”

“Still. You just—”

A crash from the basement echoed.

“Shit.”

“What?” Jill asked.

“That was no controller being thrown.”

“What happened?”

“Hang on a sec.” She hurried down the stairs and raced into the kitchen, eyes looking at the knife block, panic building when she saw the largest knife missing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Talk to me.”

And then she remembered she had used the knife the other day and it was in the dishwasher.

Relief arrived as she opened the dishwasher and pulled it free, the dirty blade looking nasty as she held it before her in one hand, phone in the other.

Footsteps.

On the stairs.

Just beyond the open doorway.

“Tommy?” she called.

Nothing.

“Jill, I—” she started, voice freezing in her throat.

“What? Are you okay? Talk to me.”

“Someone is in the house,” she whispered.

21

Killing the little brother had been noisy, the kid seeing him at the last second in a reflection on the half-opened glass cabinet door that held rows upon rows of games on the right side of the large entertainment center, and spinning toward him, the headset he wore wrapping itself around his face, and then pulling down something from the shelf as he tried to scurry away.

Messy too.

Blood splattered everywhere as Billy lunged onto the boy, stabbing him over and over again in the back after he tried to retreat from the attack, Billy’s fingers actually feeling the shimmy in the knife as it scraped against the boy’s spine.

Six, maybe seven times before finally cutting the boy’s throat.

And now he stood on the stairs, eyes able to see into one part of the kitchen while Christa stood in another part, her voice calling down a few times to Tommy before telling whoever was on the phone that someone was in the house.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He had no choice.

He charged up the rest of the stairs, spotted his old classmate in the process, and lunged at her with the knife, his eyes not even seeing her knife until it was swinging back and forth in a frantic attempt at stopping his attack, the blade catching him in the upper arm just as he stabbed Christa in the chest, this knife designed well enough that it had no trouble going through her ribs and into her left lung.

22

Christa could hear Jill screaming from the dropped phone, but she couldn’t process any of the words as an icy chill raced through her chest, one that then grew warm as the knife was pulled free.

An odd wheezing sound followed.

Panic hit.

She felt like she was drowning.

And then choking, fluid spewing from her mouth as she tried to breathe, all to no avail.

Fingers clawed at the floor tiles, nails breaking.

And then he stabbed her again, this time in the right breast.

And then again.

And again.

And again.

Each thrust feeling less and less painful, her body simply bucking with the impacts rather than any type of defense, darkness creeping into her vision from all sides until she could see nothing but vague shadows.

Soon those disappeared as well.

23

Blood was everywhere, his body actually slipping in it three or four times as he tried to fuck the dying girl, his fingers struggling with the condom package to the point of tossing it aside as he realized that his DNA would be everywhere anyway given the knife wound in his arm, his bloody hands pulling his penis free before undoing the button on her shorts, the fabric soaked with blood and difficult to slide down.

Once exposed, he tried to get his penis into her, but it was too soft, the frantic strokes he gave it proving worthless, as did the repeated stabbings he made into her torso, his frustration and anger at both himself and at Christa’s lifeless body getting to the point where he simply went on a stabbing spree before cutting off her head and throwing it across the room.

24

“White is keeping me in the dark,” Stacy snapped.

Alan didn’t reply.

“Not even a hint of what it was like inside,” she added, anger causing spittle to fly, which then caused her face to go red as she quickly tried wiping it away.

“He’s usually pretty open with you about these things,” Alan noted.

“I know!”

“So that means it must be really bad.”

“Which is why I need details. People need to know what happened.”

“You have some details, don’t you?”

“Just the basic stuff that everyone else has. Two victims, both stabbed to death, all while a friend was on the phone with one of them, her attempts at calling 911 fruitless because she is halfway across the country and got her own 911 dispatch and then in her panic couldn’t remember what her friend’s address was. White was through the roof about all that, though also kept telling me it wasn’t anyone’s fault and that blame couldn’t be put on anyone for the delays in getting police to the scene.” She tossed up her own arms and sighed.

“He’s probably right.”

“Right or wrong, doesn’t matter. I’ve been scooped. All the major news agencies are already talking about it.”

“And talking to you, right?”

“Yeah, that’s how I found out about it. They called me asking about my attack, which confused me at first since I was thinking, ‘Why the fuck are you asking about that after all these weeks?’ which must have been pretty amusing to them once they realized they were talking to a local reporter who had no idea about a local story that was unfolding. It was humiliating. Still is.”

“Like you said, White kept you in the dark. Not your fault.”

“I know it’s not my fault!”

“Okay, okay,” Alan voiced, palms up.

Stacy took a breath and then shifted a bit, cast bumping against something that caused a sound to reach both their ears, her hands eventually lifting her leg up so it could join her on the leather sofa.

“How’s that doing?” Alan asked.

“Eh, I’m managing, I guess. Fucking hate it. But…” She shrugged.

“I know the feeling.”

She hated when people did that, claimed to understand what one was going through, but in Alan’s case she knew it to be true. First with the wounds he suffered during the war and then the surgeries following his disease springing to life that had put a hole through his small bowel and bladder shortly after he had become a Green Beret and was stationed in Afghanistan.

Poor guy.

He had survived several tours of duty in Iraq and then made it through Special Forces selection, only to be sidelined and medically discharged due to a disease that had been lying in wait all his life without anyone knowing about it.

Talk about being thrown a curveball.

But being a private investigator didn’t seem all that bad.

Still living in his mom’s basement though…

By choice, not necessity, since he was rolling in dough, but still.

At least they had her place to retreat to when certain needs arose.

Speaking of which…

“You busy tonight?” she asked.

He eyed her for a moment. “Why?”

“I need a distraction. And food.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?”

She crossed her arms. “What else would I be wanting after dark?”

“For me to break into somewhere that you can’t get into given your foot being in a cast.”

“Actually, now that you mention it…”

“Those days are behind me.”

“Ha!”

“They are.”

“Ha.”

“Seriously, I could lose my license if I was caught.”

“So don’t get caught.”

Now he crossed his arms.

“Fine, fine, fine,” she said, letting out a heavy sigh. “How about if you just drive me there and act as a lookout so that I can get inside?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Please!”

“No.”

“Pretty please with a bow on top?”

He looked down at his lap and chuckled while shaking his head. “No.”

“Aw, you’re no fun anymore.” She pretended to pout.

“Still want me to come over?”

“I guess.”

Several seconds came and went.

“Is anyone actually at the house?” he asked.

“What house?” she asked.

“The crime-scene house,” he replied. “The one you want to get inside and look around.”

“No one. It’s empty. The parents are on a cruise and can’t get back yet. Can you believe that? Finding out both your kids were brutally murdered and then being stuck on a ship until the next port.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s horrible.”

“And that’s why now is the perfect time to get inside and check out the crime scene.”

25

Billy’s arm hurt. A lot. And he couldn’t really react to it. Not while in the presence of others, his need to keep it hidden beneath several layers of gauze and his thick sweatshirt sleeves a trying ordeal. Yet he did it, his hope that the copious amounts of peroxide that he had splashed on it following his return home the other day would keep any infection at bay. If it didn’t, and if he eventually had to go to a hospital to have it looked at, he would be fucked.

No claiming a shattered tea mug this time.

Nope.

The knife wound would catch everyone’s attention given the brutal slaying that had unfolded that week, which would then lead to the police taking an interest in him and demanding a blood sample.

Once that happened…

He shook the thought away, not wanting to dwell upon one of his greatest fears: jail.

No.

If push came to shove, he would have to make sure to end things, to go out with a bang.

How exactly he would do that when he could barely manage successful kills, he didn’t know, but one thing was clear, he would not let them take him alive.

He couldn’t.

Just the thought of hearing those bars slam shut caused his bowels to quiver to the point of nearly being sick.

Focus!

His eyes shifted back over to his computer, the fingers of his right hand checking all the local news sites to see what they were saying about him.

Quite a few stories were present, the latest attack having really caught everyone’s attention, yet still he wasn’t getting the vibe he had hoped to get after moving his kills indoors.

He also hadn’t gotten off, but that was a whole other frustration that he didn’t want to dwell upon at the moment.

Or ever.

Dwell upon it he did, however, his mind unable to stay away from the topic for long.

It didn’t make any sense.

How in the world would someone his age have problems like this?

Especially when finally getting to engage in the sexual activity that had been fantasized about for so long?

Did such things happen to normal people?

Were there guys who managed to get their prom dates to quiet spots after the dance only to have their penis flopping around like a chewed-up piece of gum?

His mind didn’t answer the questions it was voicing, which was fine because they were more rhetorical anyway. He didn’t need to know about the sexual failings of others when he had his own he could focus upon.

One thing he did know, he had no idea what it was regular guys saw in sex. Or nudity.

Never had, never would.

Even when he had been a kid staying the night at a friend’s house, and a porn channel had been discovered, he didn’t understand what the fuss was all about.

Nothing in the displays had any impact upon him.

His friend, however, had been mesmerized. So much so that Billy kept having to remind him when it was his turn in the game they were playing, which he had easily won given how little interest his friend had in it once the porn was discovered.

It had been annoying.

Scary too once he started to wonder why such things didn’t interest him, his mind having yet to realize that his fascination with seeing women stabbed in various movies and TV shows was his equivalent to the porn his friend was watching.

And then came that sudden urge while watching the movie Scream for the first time one October night, an urge unlike any he had experienced up until that point, an urge that caused his hand to slip into his pants and touch himself as the Ghostface killer grabbed Drew Barrymore from behind and plunged the knife deep into her chest.

The orgasm had been unexpected but not unwelcome, though he did panic a bit afterward at the mess he had made in his underpants, which he had hidden for three days before burying them in the garbage bin on trash day.

Many more explosive moments had followed, as did his learning how to do laundry so that he could clean up his messes without his mother seeing all the stains.

Orgasm after orgasm after orgasm, his body seemingly able to produce endless amounts of ejaculate any time a knife disappeared into the flesh of a female victim, his mind always wishing he was the one with the knife.

And now that he was the one with the knife he couldn’t get it up.

Not even a little bit.

It made no sense.

Even afterward, once he was home and had taken care of his arm, he had tried to bring about some relief yet couldn’t.

Initially, he had tried to blame the pain in his arm, but that didn’t jibe since he had also been unable to generate any type of response following the first successful kill a few weeks ago on the Prairie Path.

And with Stacy Collins he hadn’t even tried to jerk himself off due to the nasty wounds his fingers had sustained during the attack.

Stacy Collins.

She hadn’t written anything about the attack.

Or had she?

Nope.

A search of her name confirmed it.

Nothing new.

Why?

He pondered this for a long time, the distraction from his failure to achieve sexual satisfaction welcome.

26

Stacy tore open the envelope without really thinking about it, the letter within written upon a piece of lined notebook paper, her initial thought being that it was from a journalism student since she frequently gave talks to classes.

It wasn’t.

Not unless the journalism student was also claiming to be the Prairie Path Slasher.

27

Billy stared at Stacy Collins’s website for a long time, dismay at the latest entry getting the better of him. Annoyance followed, anger threatening.

Was it a ploy by Stacy Collins herself, or had someone really sent her a letter claiming to be him? Claiming to be the Prairie Path Slasher?

Whichever it was, Stacy had gone ahead and posted the odd introduction to himself that he had supposedly written on sheets of notebook paper, the block-letter handwriting very readable in the photo she had taken and led with, yet even so, she had also transcribed it in the post itself just to make it even more clear.

At the very end of “his” letter was a statement offering everyone the chance to “ask me anything” in the comment section of Stacy’s site, on her Facebook page, or on her Twitter page, a request to use the hashtags PrairiePathSlasher or PrairiePathSlasherAMA being made.

Am I trending?

He opened a new window so he could check Twitter, an odd mix of relief and disappointment arriving.

Questions had been asked, as well as troll statements made with the two hashtags, but not enough yet for them to become listed on the right side of the screen for the entire world to see.

Of course that could change.

Stacy’s post was fairly recent, having gone up the night before, so once things got going, it might start to snowball, and once that happened…

The name will stick.

Fuck!

Frustration mounting, he got up and paced his room a bit before sitting back down and looking at some of the questions that had been asked.

Should I…?

If he did, he would have to write out the answers on paper and mail them, the risk of answering them online and then having an electronic trail too great.

Library?

No. There would still be a record of his computer use, one that would be more difficult to lock down, yet a record nonetheless, and if he went more than once, as more and more questions were posted, they would be able to narrow it down to him eventually.

Pen and paper it was.

28

Stacy saw the mail truck position itself near the blue house on the corner and halted her journey to the kitchen, eyes now watching as the carrier began going from house to house, anticipation building.

Would the answers be in the box today?

Was an envelope from the killer in the mailbag, waiting to be deposited?

Or would it be another day of nothing but junk?

The answer was five minutes away.

Then four minutes.

Then three minutes.

She paced back and forth, mind recalling the dog her family had when she was a kid, one who would get more and more worked up as the mailman drew nearer, the sound of steps just beyond the front door and then the slamming shut of the mailbox lid causing him to go nuts while jumping up against the door, the green wood marked by years of near-daily claw assaults.

Stacy would not be jumping up against the door, but she was now waiting just beyond it, body positioned so that the mailman wouldn’t actually see her waiting since that would just be weird.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

No mailman.

Stacy eventually left her spot by the door and headed to a window that looked westward toward where the mailman would be approaching from, eyes spotting her elderly next-door neighbor standing on her doorstep talking to the blue-shorted man.

Annoyance crept in.

Mrs. Stein did this from time to time, her lack of companionship from anyone, relatives included, making it so she frequently sought out conversations with anyone who came near.

Such moments were like being caught in a bear trap, one that Stacy carefully avoided by making sure to check to see if the coast was clear before stepping outside. Alan had noted his own caution about this as well, her questions on why he sometimes circled the block a few times having been met with a statement on how if he saw Mrs. Stein out front before he committed to pulling into the driveway he would keep circling until she headed back inside.

Even Detective White had been snared one time, Mrs. Stein having spent a good ten minutes telling him about the hooligans that were holding drug-fueled satanic ceremonies in the yard a few houses down.

Stacy herself had been at one of the “ceremonies,” which actually was a group of adults that held a bonfire every now and then. She had brought marshmallows.

And now Mrs. Stein had captured the mailman once again, the poor guy one of the few who couldn’t simply avoid the house if she was out front, not if he wanted to keep his job.

Minutes ticked by, Stacy growing more and more annoyed, her body wanting to pace back and forth by the window like the old family dog had done all those years ago. Instead, she simply wobbled back and forth on the crutches, her foot still encased in the stupid cast, which was growing fouler by the day.

Soon.

She had two more weeks.

Two more weeks until they took another x-ray to see how it was healing.

Two more weeks until she would know if she would be free of the gross plaster or continue her imprisonment within.

Next door the two were still talking, the mailman trying but failing to creep away,

I should go out there and—

The mailman broke away, quickly closing the distance between Mrs. Stein’s front porch and Stacy’s mailbox, Mrs. Stein looking confused as to why he was leaving her.

Stacy held her breath for a few seconds, waiting, the sound of the heavy lid to her mailbox slamming shut echoing into the house.

Finally!

She started hobbling toward the front door.

Panic arrived as she did this, fear that the answers to her questions wouldn’t be there starting to get the better of her.

She opened the front door and then, balancing herself on one crutch, opened up the heavy box lid and peeked inside, hoping to see a handwritten envelope addressed to her amid all the folded-up junk.

No! No! No!

It wasn’t in—

There it was!

Tucked within the folded-up junk catalogs and coupon sheets was an envelope, which she snatched up and took inside, leaving the rest of the mail in the box for later, her heart racing as she made her way down the hall to her back-room office, computer on, website dashboard up, next article ready and waiting for her to plug in the answers to her questions.

What if this is just fan mail? Someone gushing over my articles.

It happened from time to time, though usually such messages ended up in her email or Facebook messenger inbox.

Actual handwritten letters were rare.

So rare that she was over ninety percent sure this was from the killer.

Was the first one really from the killer?

What if that one was just someone having fun, while this one really was and ended up being the ravings of a madman who couldn’t string two sentences together?

Doesn’t matter.

It would be the fact that the answers were from the killer and not the content that would be important.

Everyone else simply had speculative material on their pages, their “experts” trying to weave together theories on the whys of this killer’s actions, all while she had his actual words, and though there was a chance that everything he wrote would be bullshit, it was his communication through her that mattered, not the content itself.

Giddy, she pulled out the answers, surprised at how many notebook pages there were folded up within.

She began to read, her surprise growing.

Not only were the answers detailed, they were coherent and well put together. Whoever the killer was, he could write. And it wasn’t simply a good grasp on the mechanics of writing that he possessed, but an actual skill at crafting sentences in a way that they flowed effortlessly into the mind. Simply put, he was a good writer.

A good writer who gets off on stabbing women to death.

She shuddered at the thought.

29

Billy saw his answers to Stacy’s questions on her latest website update, a little whoop of joy escaping his lips as he started reading the post. He also liked how she had included pictures of the notebook paper his answers had been written on, as well as the envelope they had been sent in, though she had blurred out her address, which was a bit ridiculous given how easy it was to figure it out with a simple Google search. Then again, most out there didn’t seem to realize just how easy gathering such information was, so maybe such a step would actually prevent some of the crazies from seeking her out. Plus, it kind of caught one’s attention and helped add a sense of celebrity and importance to her overall image.

She had also added a note on how she knew the answers were from the Prairie Path Slasher—ugh, that name again—given his description of an element from the latest attack that hadn’t been shared with the public.

Stacy didn’t detail what that element was in her post, but he knew what she was talking about. Following his frustration during the attack that had led him to throwing the severed head across the room, he had gone and retrieved it and put it in a toilet.

Why he had done this, he didn’t know, but he figured it would be something that would catch the attention of everyone and lead to pointless speculation on their part, which then would divert their focus. It would also be something for future speculation, something that would help keep his crimes alive long after his death.

How she had confirmed the detail was beyond him, a contact within the police investigation maybe. However she had achieved it, he was glad that she had, thereby making it so no one would ever question the legitimacy of the answers.

He started to read the answers, dismay arriving quickly.

These weren’t his answers.

Not even close.

For one, they were all much longer than his had been, the explanations for why he did the things he did more detailed. They also described things about him that were true, but not things that he had written himself, which startled him.

Had Stacy Collins simply guessed at this as she embellished what he had written? Or was something else at play?

Did I write these without knowing and then mail them?

Was that how the first letter that he hadn’t written been sent as well?

And what was this nonsense about his father being a serial killer?

That was way out of left field.

Or was it?

He and Jenny had been adopted, but not from a serial killer. It had been from a young woman who really didn’t want to have a kid, let alone two, who had initially thought about abortion before deciding to give birth to the babies so they could be adopted by a good, loving family.

Or so we’ve been told…

Had his parents lied to them?

If so, and if he had written these answers while in some sort of split personality state, how had he known about the truth?

No.

Something was really off about this.

Something that likely had a very simple explanation: Stacy Collins was full of shit and had decided his simple, almost basic answers weren’t sensational enough for her stupid webpage, and thus had created her own answers based around his.

What about the masturbating while holding a knife comments?

How did she know about that?

Lucky guess?

Back and forth his mind went on this, never able to come up with an answer, which was why he ended up going to Google to see if such masturbation was common with those who got off on stabbing women. After all, if there was porn geared toward it, that meant he was not really unique in his desires, which meant that Stacy could actually have gotten lucky when trying to create a more sensational image to write about.

Nothing in his searches led him to an answer, mostly because he quickly got sucked into some of the horror porn sites he frequented, a discovery of new videos with new trailers leading to a surge of excitement down below, one which he could not ignore.

And since he was all alone in the house right now…

He slipped his pants down and then, spitting on one hand while using his other hand to click the start button on a trailer, got down to business, his penis quickly standing up, all while denying him the release he so craved.

Trailer after trailer he worked at it, the sense that he was close arriving and then fading, almost as if he was purposely blue-balling himself.

“Billy?” a familiar voice asked.

Billy spun around in his chair, dick in hand.

“Oh God,” Jenny cried, staring for a moment before muttering an apology while pulling the door shut.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Billy stood up, his pants falling around his legs, tangling them, his right hand fighting them while his left reached up to shut down the video, the mouse being difficult as it went everywhere but over the stop button.

Fuck it.

He grabbed the computer cord and yanked it from the wall, all while getting his pants back up.

A few seconds later, he was heading up the basement steps, calling out for his sister, wanting to offer up an explanation, yet not knowing how exactly.

She had seen him jerking off to women being stabbed.

How could he explain that?

Had she actually seen what it was he was watching or just his actions?

Had she even really seen his actions?

His back had been to the door.

But then he had spun around and everything had been visible, which meant she had totally seen what he was doing.

Better that than the computer screen though.

And thank God he hadn’t been holding a knife in hand.

Stacy’s Kitchen (2)

“I knew something odd was going on with him but didn’t realize what it was until tonight,” Jenny said, the two now sitting in the family room, away from the bloody mess in the kitchen.

“What happened tonight?”

“He tried to kill me,” she said, voice lacking any kind of emotion. “I was at my friend’s house. A girls’ night thing. He broke in and killed them. I managed to slip away.”

“How did you know he would come here?” Stacy asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. It just made sense, I guess. I ran home from my friend’s house and discovered he had killed our parents—our adopted parents—before he came after me. Set fire to the house and everything.”

Stacy waited, the reporter in her knowing that silence was often a good way of keeping one talking since most people hated silence and would do anything to break it.

“So I just figured you would be next given his anger at you for all the stories. The Prairie Path name. He absolutely hated that. And all the nasty things people were saying in the comment sections about him.”

Silence arrived, and for a moment Stacy thought it was going to last a long time.

It didn’t.

“I should have figured it out after his bullshit teacup story.”

“What bullshit teacup story?” Stacy asked.

“Right after he attacked you. In the beginning of all this Prairie Path stuff. He cut himself during the attack, it seems. Lost our mom’s kitchen knife too. He said the cut was from a tea mug that broke in the sink while cleaning it and that he probably threw the knife away with a pizza box by mistake.”

“I see.”

“I knew he was lying about the teacup, but I figured he had simply cut himself again with a knife while masturbating.”

One Month Earlier

1

Jesus Christ!

Stacy knew her Q&A with the Prairie Path Slasher was going to generate some buzz, but she hadn’t realized how much.

And it wasn’t just on her webpage. Her Facebook and Twitter were blowing up as well. In fact, her Facebook page had gained over 1,000 new likes since the post went up and 1,500 new followers. Twitter had even more, though many of those would probably drop off once it became clear she wasn’t going to follow back.

“People love serial killers,” Alan noted later, the two enjoying a Lou Malnati’s pizza that he had brought over for dinner, his night free from having to stalk any spouses.

“They really do,” Stacy confirmed and then turned her phone toward him. “Another ten comments.”

“How many is that total?”

“I don’t even know. More than I’ll ever be able to reply to.”

“I bet all the other reporters out there are jealous.”

“Big time. They keep sending me requests now, hoping to snuggle in close so they can get a scoop when the next communication arrives.”

“And…” he asked.

“Fuck that.”

Alan laughed.

Stacy took a giant bite of pizza.

“What about White?” Alan asked. “Is he still pissed?”

She shook her head while chewing. “He’s actually encouraging it now. Unofficially, of course. He says every bit of contact is another thread they can pull on. Especially that stuff about his father being a serial killer.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

Detective White had been upset when her questions had first gone up on her site, not because of the fact that she was asking the killer questions, but because she had failed to mention to him that the killer had contacted her with the original letter suggesting the Q&A.

Stacy had followed that up with a statement on how if he kept her in the dark, she would keep him in the dark, which was a bit childish but also felt justified to her. Not just because this was her job, but because she had a target on her, one that had been painted in her own blood after being stabbed in the hip and upper chest by the very killer they were hunting.

“Yeah, but I want to catch him for the public good, whereas you want to increase your webpage hits,” White had snapped at her.

“Oh, and catching him won’t give your career a boost?” she had replied.

On and on this went, Stacy knowing it was a ridiculous fight, but also knowing she would never back down whereas White would after a while, which he did, the two agreeing to put their heads together on this rather than bickering, the fact being that Stacy would keep on doing what she was doing and White could either pout about it or join in with her in hopes that they could use these communications to figure out who the killer was. White chose the latter. He always would. Because despite what Stacy had insinuated, White was one of those who actually did work toward a greater good rather than his own self-interest.

“He actually has some fake accounts set up too that they are going to post questions with,” Stacy said. “See what kind of info they can gather.”

“If the killer decides to answer those,” Alan noted.

“True.” She took a bite. “And he has asked me to do some probing into this ‘father was a serial killer’ stuff, see if I can get any more details on that.”

“Don’t the police have records on such things, as well as contacts within the FBI that could help?”

“Probably, but why bother doing the work themselves when I can do it for them?” She waved that away. “Actually, I asked them that as well, and they are going that route, but they figure with all the attention my site is getting, they can sort of crowdsource things. See if the public can help figure out who that particular serial killer is and what happened with his child.”

“Hmm, yeah, that could work.”

A few seconds of silence arrived as the two focused on their pizza slices.

Then, “You do know he is going to come after you eventually, right?” Alan said.

“He better,” she said. “We have some unfinished business to deal with.”

Alan stared at her for several seconds.

“Go ahead, old wise one,” she said, knowing what was coming.

“Just be careful.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know, you can take care of yourself and everything, but seriously, that day on the path, if he hadn’t completely fucked up his attack, you would be dead right now, so…”

Stacy hesitated, a witty remark ready but going unspoken. Instead, she said, “I actually have been thinking about that quite a bit these last several days.”

Alan slowly set his piece of pizza down and waited.

“At first, I was mostly pissed off. Like big time. I was shaking with anger and muttering ‘fuck you’ over and over again to the vision of him I had in my mind.” She frowned. “It was a bit scary actually. The anger, I mean. It, like, consumed me.”

Alan nodded. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. First time someone fired an RPG at me. Well, at us, at my patrol. I was pissed off. Blinded by anger. All I wanted to do was get that motherfucker, everything else be damned.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And then later the fear hit, right?”

“Yep. Once I was back at the FOB and started thinking.”

“All the what-ifs…”

“Bingo. What if the kid had been better trained? What if the RPG had actually hit in the center of us rather than flying between me and Joe and going down the street into the side of a building? What if, what if, what if…?” He sighed. “I think that is one reason why so many start to drink or worse once they come home. Shut out all the what-ifs.”

“And all the horrible images, I’m sure,” Stacy added.

Alan didn’t reply to that, his eyes simply looking down at the pizza.

Oh fuck, she thought to herself, wondering if the deep-dish slice with all the sauce and charred tomatoes was now reminding him of various things he had seen, things that were far more grotesque than anything she could ever imagine.

“You know what is weird?” she said, hoping to shift his thoughts if this was the case.

“Hmm?” he asked.

“I don’t feel any fear from the night he broke in.”

“Who?” Then, his eyes focusing, he quickly said, “Oh, the night he picked your locks and you shot at him?”

“Yep,” she said. “Though I actually mostly just shot at the top of the doorframe. But yeah, no real fear about that even though I should be horrified that he was inside, right?”

“Fear is a weird thing.” He looked at his pizza again. “I think maybe that was less fear-inducing since it was clear he was trying to communicate given the note he left, which you’ve noted.”

“Yeah.”

“It also speaks a bit to the killer’s mind.”

“How so?”

“Well, the first time around he left the note on your door, which obviously worked since you wrote about the note, so the second time around he was totally posturing by coming inside. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to take such a risk. But he did. It’s almost like he was saying, ‘See what I can do!’”

“But he failed because it didn’t really scare me, just pissed me off,” she said.

“It might have been more about him than about you, more about proving to himself how powerful he is.”

Stacy blinked and then shook her head. “Explain.”

“Think about it,” Alan said. “He failed while attacking you, which probably nags at him quite a bit, so by coming inside he is showing you—and himself—that he isn’t just some wannabe killer. He is skilled enough to get inside and then showed control and calculation by simply leaving a note rather than killing you.”

Stacy was silent for several seconds after that and then said, “Walter having you take psychology classes now?”

“Is it that obvious?” Alan asked, letting out a laugh.

Stacy held up her fingers in a “little bit” gesture and then quickly added, “But you could be right. He could have an inferiority complex that is forcing his hand at times as he tries to prove himself.”

“Exactly.”

“Now the question is, how do I inflame it?”

“I have no doubt whatsoever that you’ll figure out a way.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

“Ha.” He lifted his pizza and took a bite.

Stacy grinned and did the same, the two shifting their focus from the killer to various topics that were meaningless yet far more enjoyable to discuss while eating.

2

Things were awkward around the house. Not just between Billy and Jenny, but with everyone, Billy unsure of what Jenny had seen and whether she had shared anything with his parents.

It was so brief, he kept noting to himself.

So brief that there was no way she would have known what she was seeing, other than the fact that he had his dick in his hands and was trying to get off.

Nothing else would register—at least he didn’t think it would. The shock of seeing her brother doing that would be what implanted itself, not what was on the screen in the background.

Or would it?

The question nagged at him.

Day after day.

He wanted to be sure, but how could he achieve such a certainty?

It wasn’t like he could go ask her.

Hey, sis, when you saw me whacking off the other day, did you notice I was watching clips of women being stabbed to death from horror movies?

No?

Okay, good.

Yeah, not going to happen.

But he still needed to know.

If she had seen someone being stabbed on his computer screen, it might not register now but would later once more and more young women were found stabbed to death. One day things might click into place and she would suddenly realize he could be the killer and would contact the police.

No.

Yes.

She would.

And she would justify it by saying that if he wasn’t the killer, then the police would clear things up pretty quickly, but if he was…well then, best to put a stop to things and get him the help he needed.

Only he didn’t need help, not unless the help was figuring out a way of being able to get off while enjoying the kills. And that wouldn’t be the type of help they offered. Not even close. They wouldn’t even try to reform him—as if he needed reforming. Nope. They would simply toss him into a tiny cell, one that might or might not have a roommate, and throw away the key.

Did she see anything?

Doesn’t matter.

The risk that she had was there, and while she hadn’t said anything yet, the potential that she would eventually wasn’t something he could chance.

He was going to have to kill her.

But how?

And when?

An idea of doing it here at home while his parents were gone arrived, his thinking being he could make it look like the killer had come in through an unlocked door and then killed her, all while he tried to come to her rescue and got cut up quite a bit, which then would explain the knife wound on his arm.

No.

That was a risky idea given that it would put attention on him. Positive attention at first, but that could turn negative fairly easily once investigators started digging. And if they took a blood sample…

A chill slithered through him.

He couldn’t kill her at home.

And he couldn’t try to make himself out to be a hero.

Not with her death.

Not with any of the deaths.

That would just be like inviting the police to come and get him.

No.

He had to be smart about this.

He had—

“Billy?” Jenny called from beyond his door.

“What?” he asked, somewhat startled.

“You’ve got mail.”

“I do?” he said, opening his door.

Jenny stood, envelope in hand.

He stared for a second, trying to figure out if she knew anything, his mind wondering if he truly would need to thrust his knife into her or if he was in the clear.

No decision arrived.

Instead, he suddenly wondered what would happen if he stabbed her and then got off on it, a shudder racing through him.

“You okay?” she asked.

He blinked and then said, “Yeah, fine.”

“You sure?”

A question about the other day lingered on his lips, one that he wanted to ask but didn’t.

He reached for the letter.

She pulled her hand away before he could secure it and said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

He didn’t reply.

“Guys do that,” she continued. “Girls too. Me even. It’s no big deal. And I should have knocked.”

His cheeks reddened, both at the thought of what she was saying and the sudden image of her masturbating, the latter being something he didn’t need to be envisioning.

“I just heard those screams and didn’t realize you were…” She frowned. “Well, to each their own, right? If you ever saw the stuff I look at while fingering myself, your jaw would hit the floor.” She produced a smile and then handed him the envelope. “Here.”

He took the envelope and retreated back into his bedroom, her statement on the screams a confirmation of her having seen what he had been jerking off to.

She had to die.

No doubt about it now.

He had to kill her.

If he didn’t, she would eventually put things together.

And once she did that…

He shook the thoughts away and turned his attention to the envelope, his name and address printed on it with big block letters.

Oh Jesus!

He tore open the envelope, his mind already knowing what was going to be within, the block letter handwriting one that he had studied countless times now as he examined the photos of the notebook paper that had been sent to Stacy Collins and posted on her site.

3

What was I thinking? Stacy demanded of herself as she made her way down the path toward where the second woman had been attacked, the distance between the spot and her house the farthest she had ever gone on her crutches.

And once she reached her destination, she would have to go back.

That was the thing about the Prairie Path. It didn’t loop around like the paths within the various forest preserves that dotted the landscape in the western suburbs of Chicago. It simply started at one point and ended at another, all while other paths, some from those various forest preserves, intersected with it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But this was what happened when she became restless while working on her stories. She acted. And sometimes in ways that weren’t exactly well thought out.

It would be worth it though. Once she had a photo of the spot where the woman had been killed.

White won’t like it.

Not her acquiring the photo of this particular spot, but the post the photo would accompany, one which would have photos from each of the scenes where an attack had unfolded.

The kitchen.

All the blood.

A shudder went through her, one that forced her to take a moment’s rest, body leaning against a tree that was just off the path a bit.

Two bike riders came and went while she stood there, as well as a jogger, none of them seemingly afraid of what had happened all those weeks earlier.

I’m not afraid either.

This thought gave her pause.

She could understand others not being afraid given how much time had passed since the two attacks on the path, but her own lack of fear seemed odd to her given her connection to the attacks. Not only was she a victim of the crazy knife-wielding maniac, she was also being stalked by him, yet she didn’t feel any fear whatsoever. Not while at home, not while at the store, not while in the house where he had sliced up two people, and not while on the path where her own blood had been spilled.

It seemed weird, though she wasn’t sure why.

One thing she did know: she now had an idea for a new article, one that would focus on how no one, herself included, seemed afraid of the Prairie Path Slasher.

That will rile him up a bit, a voice said in her mind, one that sounded like Alan.

A grin followed, along with a new burst of energy that allowed her to continue down the path toward the spot where the second attack had occurred, her mind occasionally trying to tell her that taking a picture of any spot would be fine since most wouldn’t know it wasn’t the exact spot, which then was countered by another part of her mind that noted how she would know.

4

Billy stared at the bloody-kitchen photos, questions on how exactly Stacy Collins had been able to take them flowing through his mind.

Did the police let her in?

Did they do stuff like that with her?

Or had she broken in to get the pictures?

If the latter, would she get in trouble for it?

What happened when people broke into active crime scenes?

Was it still an active crime scene?

Or would this simply be considered breaking into a personal residence once the police were finished?

These questions led him to asking ones about the blood and why it would still be there if the police were finished with the scene, which then led him to learn that the police didn’t actually clean up crime scenes once they were finished. That was up to the homeowners.

Most people probably don’t know this, he noted to himself.

He certainly hadn’t, and he was pretty well versed in such things given his love of shows like Forensic Files and Cold Case Files, as well as any literature that shared the stories of real-life crimes.

What would that be like?

Not just coming home to a house where your children had been butchered, but then being required to clean it all up.

Would they do it themselves or hire it out?

Would a cleaning company actually take on such a task?

The answer was apparently yes, though only cleaning companies that specialized in such tasks.

Fascinated, Billy spent quite a bit of time looking at various companies and their websites, a chuckle actually escaping his lips at one point when he saw a prompt on one site that said: “Get a Quote within Minutes!”

It was so surreal, his mind suddenly picturing Christa’s parents calling various companies and discussing the bloodstains in the kitchen and basement and finding out what the costs would be, all before making a decision on if they were going to actually spend that kind of money or get down on their hands and knees with a sponge and scrub it themselves.

And what if companies solicited them?

Would they be like the roof and siding people that descended upon neighborhoods after hailstorms?

Did the police sell contact info to such companies?

Or if they didn’t sell the info, did they discreetly advise who might be in need of such services?

Or did they make suggestions to the victims’ families?

So many questions, his curiosity taking him down a macabre rabbit hole that eventually ended when his mother called down to let him know that dinner was ready.

Pork chops.

Ones that were actually juicy rather than being charred beyond recognition, which was a nice change of pace.

Less pleasant were the looks that Jenny kept giving him as he ate, looks that felt as if they were communicating something to him, yet he couldn’t figure out what.

And he didn’t ask.

Dinner finished, Billy headed back down to his room, where he once again pulled out the three letters that had been sent to him these last several days, the first of which had been handed to him by Jenny several days earlier. The other two he had grabbed himself when checking the mail. All were from someone who obviously knew he was the “Prairie Path Slasher” yet wasn’t reporting it to the police, which was odd. Equally odd was how they constantly alluded to a father who had supposedly been a serial killer, one that he needed to make proud.

He just didn’t understand why they were doing this.

It didn’t make any sense.

Who was this person?

And who was his father?

Does Jenny know?

Last year she had become extremely curious about their biological parents, going so far as to take several trips to city and county offices to see if she could get access to adoption records and various other documents that would explain their heritage.

She had tried to get him involved during all this, but he hadn’t been interested and brushed it off, mostly because her trips to the offices would provide him with an empty house, which would allow for his viewing of videos that would help him achieve the self-gratification he always enjoyed—back when he could still get pleasure from such things.

Now he wished he had joined her on her quest or at least allowed her to give him details on what she had found.

Go ask her what she knows.

Hey, sis, do you know anything about our biological father being a serial killer? Oh, and by the way, it has nothing to do with whoever that killer is who noted his father as being a serial killer on that reporter’s website.

Yeah…no.

You should see the things I look at when fingering myself.

The statement kept popping up in his mind, one which he didn’t like dwelling upon since it always produced images he didn’t want to envision.

But now he suddenly wondered: Was she trying to communicate something to me?

And those looks at dinner that evening…

Something was up with her, something that he couldn’t put his finger on.

Stacy’s Kitchen (3)

“He had all sorts of violent porn that he used to watch and a tape filled with stabbing scenes from movies that he would masturbate to,” Jenny said, her voice a bit unnerving given how matter-of-fact it was. “It’s called piquerism. Jack the Ripper apparently suffered from it, as did many other serial killers.”

“Really? Wow.”

“Sometimes he would even take a knife into the shower with him. I guess he liked to thrust it as if stabbing someone while pleasuring himself. How crazy is that?”

Stacy didn’t reply.

“That’s how he cut himself the first time. Not a good idea to be thrusting a knife with soapy hands.”

Another chuckle.

She’s fucked up.

I would be too if my brother was a serial killer who had tried to kill me after killing my friends and parents.

“You know, he mentioned you while in the kitchen,” Stacy said.

“He did?”

“Yeah. Cried out your name. Almost as if he thought you might help him.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

It lasted nearly a minute.

“You know, I’ve been following your career for a while. You gave a talk to my class last year, and I was really impressed since I’m going into journalism and true-crime writing. After that talk you gave, and then after you starting fucking with Billy after he tried to kill you on the path, I realized you were exactly the type of journalist I want to be. One that is beholden to no one but herself. One that does whatever it takes to get a story, no fucks given. One who has laughed in the face of death many times.” Jenny blushed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to gush.”

“It’s okay,” Stacy said.

Her brother is sprawled out dead in the kitchen, blood everywhere, and she is talking about how much she admires me.

Something wasn’t right about this girl.

Something that went far beyond her having simply been through a lot today.

That Day

1

“I’m in Facebook jail,” Stacy said with a humph. “Again.”

“How long this time?” Alan asked.

“A week!”

“I warned you,” he said. “People don’t like to see that kind of thing.”

Stacy didn’t reply.

“But at least your site is still up and running,” Alan added. “Nothing they can do about what you post on there.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re still seeing lots of traffic, right? Especially when you get letters from the killer.”

“I am, though most of it was coming from the Facebook posts since I would tell everyone I got a new letter and post a link there.”

“Hmm.”

“Fuckin’ Zuck.”

Alan chuckled.

“You stalking tonight?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Come by after?”

“Might be pretty late.”

“I’ll leave the back door open for you.”

“You better not!”

“Ha!”

“Seriously though. It might be after midnight by the time they finish.”

“For real? How does she explain that to her husband?”

“Apparently not too well since he hired me to keep an eye on those Friday night activities.”

“Oh, duh.” Then, after a second, “You didn’t see it, but I literally just smacked myself on the side of the head.”

“Nice.”

“Still though, even if it’s late, come on by. I’ll be up.”

“Will do.”

Call over, Stacy went back to brooding about being in Facebook jail, anger toward whoever it was that reported her post as being offensive threatening to get the better of her again. She just couldn’t stand people sometimes. Don’t like something? Then simply move on. Don’t try to make it so no one else can see it.

Ugh. So annoying.

Equally annoying was all the bitching that was taking place on her website in the comment section about her having posted the bloody-kitchen photo. People just didn’t seem to understand how important it was for such things to be seen.

You knew it would cause an uproar.

The voice was Alan’s.

Some people had an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. She simply had Alan on one shoulder and nothing on the other since her entire being pretty much was the demon.

That said, Alan had a pretty devious side as well. One that she was able to pull out from time to time.

I’m his naughty demon, she noted, grinning as she pictured herself in a kinky demon outfit atop his shoulder, complete with horns, pointed tail, and roasting fork.

Several seconds came and went as she focused on this, a momentary smile appearing.

It then faded as the anger about being thrown in Facebook jail returned.

Speculation on who had reported her picture followed.

A fellow reporter?

One who is jealous of my success?

Thinking this actually helped dampen the anger, not because she was certain that it was accurate in this particular situation, but because she knew that many out there were jealous of her sudden success.

They just didn’t think it was fair.

She had gone from unknown to really well known in just a matter of weeks following her story about the suburban prostitution ring, and then kept building upon it with one story after another, year after year.

Others couldn’t seem to handle it.

They wanted her success.

They didn’t seem to care about the horrors she sometimes went through to get the various stories, horrors that still kept her awake most nights.

Alan was the only one that understood.

His mother did too, to a certain degree.

No one else though.

None even came close.

And never would.

One had to go through unimaginable horrors to truly understand the impact such things had upon a person.

2

House empty for a bit, Billy headed down the hallway toward Jenny’s room, a decision to give the place a quick search to see if she knew anything about their biological father without having to ask her point-blank about it guiding his actions.

An odd thrill developed as he crossed the threshold, one that blossomed due to how forbidden it was for him to be going through her things.

Previous excursions into the forbidden area played across his mind, those expeditions being ones involving his need for female undergarments so that he could create realistic female-like bodies to stab while masturbating.

Did she ever know about my stealing her things?

Did she ever wonder where the missing items had gone?

No answers arrived, not ones about the previously stolen undergarments, nor ones involving the questions on what she knew about their biological father.

He did find a notebook, however, one that didn’t seem all that out of the ordinary at first, until he noticed something sticking out of it to mark the pages, something that looked like an envelope.

Intrigued, he opened the notebook, his eyes going wide.

His latest letter to Stacy Collins.

One that he had put in the mail earlier that day.

One that she had opened and read.

Holy fuck!

His eyes then looked at the notebook page itself, a timeline of events jotted down, all pertaining to him.

She knew he was the Prairie Path Slasher.

She knew but hadn’t said a word about it to anyone.

Why?

Gathering evidence for the police?

Was that why she had grabbed the letter?

But why hang on to it?

Why not give it to them right away?

And then it clicked.

Jenny wanted to be a journalist. Just like Stacy Collins. She had even gotten a partial scholarship for journalism, one that was going to get her an education at one of the finest universities in the country.

What better way was there to make a splash at her new school than to write a groundbreaking story about a serial killer, who just happened to be her twin brother, one that might help get the university to convert the partial scholarship to a full scholarship.

3

Unable to post or reply on Facebook, Stacy shifted her focus to her webpage for a while, mind trying to figure out something to write, eyes reading over some of the various comments that had come through, realizing that she would once again need to start moderating comments before they appeared on the site given how much spam had been posted.

Between those pieces of spam were quite a few genuine comments, though nothing that spurred her brain into gear for writing something, and since she didn’t feel like crafting any responses, she eventually shut it down and hobbled out into the family room.

Why the Prairie Path?

Was it just a random choice for the killer’s first and second attack, or was there a reason for it?

The question had been bouncing around for quite some time now, though she wasn’t sure why. Something about the location seemed important to her, and not simply because of the path’s proximity to her house, which was why she had been doing her daily runs on it for the last several years. It was the fact that he had gone back to the path after the first attack. Why not choose another forest path? The area had dozens of different forest preserves, all of which attracted female joggers, so why risk returning to the scene of the first attack to carry out a second attack, especially if the third attack was one that would not be taking place on the path but in a house?

4

Girls’ night.

That was how his sister and her friends were describing it on their social feeds. One last big blowout before everyone went off to college, all of them likely knowing, but not mentioning, that their friendships would soon fade away simply due to distance, time, and the accumulation of new friends in their new locations.

Plus, Jenny would have her hands full with all the fame brought on by the story she would be writing about him, one that she was obviously still fine-tuning as she taunted him with all the stuff about their father being a serial killer.

Was that true?

Why make up such a thing when it could easily be fact-checked?

She had been the one to send the rewritten answers to Stacy Collins, and the anonymous letters to him, though those letters to him hadn’t actually been sent through the mail. He realized this when looking at the envelopes after his discovery in her bedroom, the stamps having never been marked as having gone through the mail.

Jenny had played him.

And now he would return the favor.

Tonight the Prairie Path Slasher would add five more victims to his list, and then pay a final visit to Stacy Collins.

Five brutal murders, a gift to Stacy, and then nothing for a long time.

That was his plan.

After tonight he would go quiet, society holding its collective breath, waiting to see when he would strike next, unease building as each day passed without a new attack, and then eventually fading as they started to wonder if the terror had ended.

Spoiler alert, it hadn’t.

They would all learn this in time, once he recouped and figured out how he could go about his kills in a way that satisfied him rather than leaving him all built up without any satisfactory release.

5

“I don’t think he has a car,” Stacy said, staring at the map she had spread upon the coffee table. “That’s why he uses the path.”

Alan was silent for a while and then said, “You could be right…”

“But…”

“It’s only three attacks total, which isn’t really enough to draw a conclusion with, not when coincidence could be a big player still.”

“Still, it makes sense.”

“I agree.”

“But…it doesn’t bring us any closer to figuring out who he is, even if we know his house is in some sort of close proximity to the path,” she said.

“Exactly.”

“I might still post about it, see what kind of drama it can stir up.”

Alan didn’t reply to that.

“Get any dirty pictures yet?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Not yet, though she paid a visit to Lovers’ Lane.”

“Ooh, things are going to be spicy.”

“Totally.”

6

Billy had figured he might have to pick the lock on the back door at Colleen’s house so that he could sneak inside and surprise the girls or, failing that, simply ring the doorbell and gain entrance on the pretext of needing to talk to Jenny.

Neither happened.

The back door was open.

A simple twist of the knob and he was inside, music blasting from somewhere within the house.

It was loud.

So loud that he figured he could probably make it to whichever area the girls were in without them being aware of his presence until he began slicing and dicing.

Blood.

It was everywhere.

No room or surface seemed spared, almost as if someone had gone around splattering it all over the place just for fun.

A statement was present as well, one that had been written over and over again on the walls.

Make Daddy proud.

In some rooms names had been written: Samantha and Megan.

He had no idea who they were.

They were important though.

That much was clear.

Jenny would not have written them or the statements about making daddy proud if they weren’t.

The same was true of the actions she had taken toward her friends, their mutilated bodies in various places around the house, his guess being that she had cut their throats one by one and then went to work with the mutilations.

All to make it look like me?

To add more spice to the story she will pen about all this?

No.

Something more was going on.

Something he didn’t fully understand yet.

“Hey, Billy,” a familiar voice said.

He turned.

Jenny was standing behind him, naked and covered in blood. “I was hoping you’d show up after I kept mentioning tonight’s party over and over again.” She grinned. “I have a surprise for you.”

7

Stacy heard a sound through the thin veil of sleep that had encased her and quickly blinked herself back into the real world.

Alan.

She went to check her phone, which she figured would be on the couch with her, but couldn’t find it, a quick search revealing it had fallen to the floor at some point after she had fallen asleep.

10:35 p.m.

And here he had thought he would be out way beyond midnight, which meant he had either gotten the evidence needed to prove to the husband his wife was having an affair far earlier than expected, or the wife decided not to go out that evening.

She rubbed her eyes and stood up, body wobbling a bit as she got the crutches positioned, the coffee table that had a large map spread upon it proving difficult to maneuver around in a half-asleep state.

Once clear of it, she started toward the kitchen, where she expected to see Alan getting the water kettle ready for tea, her eyes only realizing the kitchen was still dark as she crossed the threshold.

Confused, she looked around, a momentary thought on if he was in the bathroom arriving.

But then she pictured her phone screen, one that had been free of any unread messages when she checked the time.

Alan always let her know he was on his way.

Always.

That way she wouldn’t think an intruder was in the house when she heard him moving around after letting himself inside, the trauma from past experiences still at the forefront of her mind.

A blade pressed up under her chin, the razor edge feeling cold against her flesh.

“Surprise,” a voice whispered into her ear a second before he shoved her toward the kitchen table, the cast on her foot taking the full weight of her body for a moment before she went down onto the ground, her left arm and right knee both slamming into the floor at the same time.

8

“Get up,” Billy said.

Stacy didn’t move at first, almost as if she was going to defy him, but then she struggled up into a chair at the kitchen table.

“I brought you something,” he said, hand quickly tossing the paper lunch bag onto the tabletop.

It landed with a slight splat.

Stacy stared at it for several seconds, the darkness likely making it impossible to see the blood that had seeped through the bottom.

“Open it.”

“No.”

“Open it!”

She did, a pair of bloody breasts slipping out onto the wooden surface.

“I had some fun tonight,” he said, a grin hidden beneath his ski mask.

Jenny had helped him with that fun, his earlier fear that she was gathering evidence and information so she could stage an attack and write a story about him having been completely off base.

The “surprise” that she had prepared for him in the cellar of her friend’s house had been proof of this, as had her actions with her hands and mouth as he slowly thrust his knife in and out of Colleen’s spread-eagled body as if it were his own penis, the ejaculation Jenny had pulled from him while her friend had shrieked against the gag unlike any he had ever experienced before.

“This is just the beginning,” Jenny had noted afterward, her voice whispering promises into his ear about all the kills they could share, her hands and mouth always ready to help him achieve sexual bliss should he need help during those kills.

“Is this what you get off on?” he had asked, voice nearly breathless. “Watching women being stabbed to death?”

“Nope, that’s totally your thing,” Jenny said, chuckling. “I’m more a daddy’s girl with my particular interest.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, the stuff about their father still an unknown to him.

“I’ll show you later tonight after we take care of Stacy.”

And now here he was, Stacy in the chair, his body ready for another slice-and-dice moment, mind wondering what it was exactly that Jenny was going to show him.

“More fun than you’ll ever know,” he added.

“Good for you,” Stacy said and then, before he even realized what she was doing, her hand grabbed one of the hunks of bloody flesh and threw it at him.

9

Stacy dove to the ground as the killer shouted with surprise, the glob of severed breast tissue hitting him square in the face, her goal being to get hold of one of her crutches that had landed near the table when he threw her across the room and hit him with it.

It worked, her hands using the crutch like a battering ram that took out his knee with an audible crack, another shout echoing from him as he lost his balance and fell to the floor.

Knife?

She had heard it hitting the tiled surface but couldn’t see it.

Rather than trying to find it, she simply scrambled over to him, hands ready to grab him by the head and slam it into the floor over and over again until his brains oozed from his ears.

He moved before she could manage this, his body twisting in his own search for the knife, her hands catching him by the back of his pants and yanking, the sounds of the fabric straining reaching her ears all while he shouted something unintelligible at her.

Still gripping his pants, she crawled up on him, her body pinning his legs before getting up onto his back, all the lessons from Alan on fighting coming back to her.

“Get off!” he whined while trying to buck her.

“Fuck you!” she shouted and tried grabbing his hair.

No good.

He had a ski mask on, which she started to pull free before giving up on that to slip her arm around his throat.

Blinded by the off-kilter ski mask, and his hands unable to get a grip on her, it was over, though it took a bit of time before that became official, her arm having to maneuver back and forth a bit before she found the perfect choke-hold position.

10

Billy opened his eyes to a world that was filled with pain, his head feeling like it was being crushed by a boulder.

“You awake?” a voice asked.

“W-what?” he mumbled and then shifted his eyes a bit, head protesting the movement.

“So, here’s the deal,” she said, an odd whistling sound echoing somewhere nearby. “That was a little bit anticlimactic, and I want the evidence to show I really fucked you up big time as we endured a serious life-and-death struggle.”

Confused, he was about to ask what she meant when suddenly she was smashing something across his face, glass shattering, his lips screaming as boiling water burned through his flesh, his body falling from the chair she had apparently propped him up in and hitting the floor.

“That’s better,” she said. “It now looks like you tried to attack me just as I was making some late-night tea. And then, after smashing you with the teakettle, I did this!”

Something pierced his lower back, something that felt cold at first and then quickly warmed, the pain from his burned face dulling out the pain of her stabbing him, screams still echoing from his lips.

“And this!” she shouted, stabbing him again. “And this!” Stab! “And this!” Stab! “And…”

Nothing for several seconds.

“This!”

The blade went through his lower spine.

“Please!” he blubbered through his blistered lips as she withdrew the knife, a sudden dullness spreading throughout his lower body.

“Did any of your victims plead for mercy?” she asked.

“Please,” he muttered, hands trying to pull himself across the floor. “Jenny!”

This was not how this was supposed to go.

It was not how he had ever envisioned things.

And now he just wanted it all to be over.

“Let’s see if Alan was right,” she said, stabbing him again, only slowly this time, the blade sliding into his side.

He didn’t even shriek, though the pain was intense, his lungs no longer able to muster up the necessary air to move against his vocal cords.

“If I just make an ‘S’ like this…” She jiggled the blade within his body. “You should bleed out in about thirty seconds.”

Billy didn’t respond, an odd blissful darkness engulfing him.

11

Stacy looked down at the young man’s body, surprise at how quickly he had actually bled out from that final wound arriving.

Alan had been right.

Speaking of…

She hobbled from the kitchen, crutches making round dots in the blood that had pooled, and headed into the family room where she had fallen asleep earlier, eyes spotting her phone sitting atop the coffee table, the map she had spread out that afternoon as she plotted out the killer’s various attacks so that she could write a post speculating upon her theory that he might be carless and always used the Prairie Path to get around, thus placing his home somewhere near it, now a bit pointless. The police would learn everything they needed to know about him now.

But that was okay.

She would have a good story to post.

A message was waiting for her.

It was from Alan.

On my way!

She shook her head and then typed up a reply that said: See you soon. Then, in a second text: FYI I broke your teakettle.

How’d that happen? he asked.

You’ll see when you get here.

With that, she headed into the front room to switch on some lights, a cry nearly leaving her lips as a young female figure greeted her.

Stacy’s Kitchen (4)

The police arrived as Jenny was talking about how she had spent some time earlier that year going through various record agencies in a quest to find out more about her and Billy’s biological parents, her initial goal being to see why she always seemed to end up in the bathroom after eating.

“Medical stuff is supposed to be passed on even in sealed records, but sometimes things develop after the fact, so I went to find out since the doctors were always giving me a brush-off. I figured if I could point out the fact that something like Crohn’s disease or that gluten thingy was in my genetic history, they might actually pay attention and run some tests rather than saying it’s all in my head.”

“Alan has Crohn’s disease.”

“Really?” she asked, interest piqued.

“Yep. That’s why he had to leave the military and became a private investigator. It punched a hole right through his bowels.”

“Wow. I’ll have to talk with him. Maybe as part of an interview or something.”

“An interview?” Stacy asked.

Jenny blushed. “I was thinking, hoping, that maybe I could write about all this. My first true journalistic efforts.” She held up her fingers, which were crossed. “And that you would help me.”

“I see,” Stacy said. “So, you were talking about what you learned about your biological parents. I’m guessing the stuff about your father being a serial killer that was mentioned in the letters that your brother sent me.”

“Oh yeah, talk about a total mindfuck. I went in looking for medical stuff and instead came to learn that my biological mother had been kidnapped and raped by…” Her voice faded.

Sirens appeared in the distance, the sound growing louder and louder as they neared.

“Raped by…” Stacy pressed.

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you,” Jenny said. “Not if you’re just going to scoop me.”

“Scoop you?” Stacy asked, caught off guard.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not going to scoop you.”

“Promise?” Jenny asked.

“I promi—”

Their eyes locked for a moment, Stacy suddenly seeing something within that gave her a chill.

Jenny grinned.

And then the police were there, the controlled chaos of a crime scene enveloping them.

Alan arrived shortly after that, as did Detective White, the police keeping Alan out of the house until White said it was okay to let him in.

Statements were taken, separately, Jenny eventually being taken away. Not as a suspect, but as a victim, one who had had a harrowing ordeal this evening.

“Can you believe that?” Alan said as they prepared to head to his house where Stacy would officially stay in the guest room while her house was processed, though most likely she would join him in his bedroom.

“Believe what?” Stacy asked.

“Learning that your brother was the Prairie Path Slasher and then, after escaping him as he killed all your friends at a party, learning that he killed your parents after killing all your friends and then set fire to the house.” He shook his head. “What a total mindfuck.”

“She knew he was a killer long before tonight,” Stacy said.

“What makes you say that?”

“She mentioned it. And I saw it in her eyes. Something’s not right with her. She’s not what she seems at all.”

“She was in shock,” Alan said.

“Maybe,” Stacy said, though she didn’t think that was the case.

“Hey, Stacy!” a voice called.

Stacy and Alan turned.

Detective White was walking toward them. “Hold up a second.”

“What is it?” Alan asked.

“I just got a call,” Detective White said. “Apparently Jenny feels bad about holding out on you. Started making demands and refused to let anyone examine her or to talk to the counselors until we promised to tell you who their biological father was.”

“Oh,” Stacy said, caught off guard.

“See, total shock,” Alan said. “But she’s coming around.”

“Tell me about it,” White said. “That poor girl is going to have one hell of a time coming to terms with all this, especially once the publicity of who she and her brother were descended from hits the airways.”

White gave Stacy a stern look while saying this last part.

Stacy ignored the look and asked, “Who is their father?”

“‘Was’ would be more accurate since he’s dead,” White said.

“Okay, who was it?” Stacy asked.

“I really don’t want to tell you this because I know it’s going to be a nightmare for her once you start writing about it, but she insisted.”

Stacy waited.

“His name was Jimmy Hawthorne.”

Twentieth Anniversary Screening

Jeff Strand

Part One

It was appropriate that everybody ignored the warning signs. This wasn’t one of those ideas that was bad only in retrospect; in the weeks leading up to the tragedy, an extremely large number of people said, “Don’t do this!” Common sense could have prevented the bloodbath…but isn’t that how it usually works in a slasher flick?

Yes, as promised last time, this month’s Bloody Deep Dive will be a look at the grisly disaster of the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer. If you enjoy this article, please remember that Red On The Silver Screen brings you the finest in horror cinema journalism completely ad-free, so please click the “Donate” button so that we can remain free of corporate sponsorship.

The Roofer was released on February 22nd, 1991, long after the glory days of slasher flicks, and years before Scream made the genre popular again. The unpopular Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare would come out in September of that year, and two years later Jason Voorhees would return in Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday—the second Friday the 13th film to lie about being the last one. The major franchises were still around, but audiences certainly weren’t flocking to them as they had in the past.

So only the most hardcore fans were excited about this new slasher film. Media coverage was minimal—one sidebar article in Fangoria magazine, and a snarky opinion piece titled “Can’t We Just Let The Slasher Genre Die Already, For F**k’s Sake?” in The San Francisco Motion Picture Enthusiasts Cinema Review, Vol. VIII Issue 7. For the most part, nobody cared.

This was long before the scourge of streaming video, and though “direct-to-VHS” was a common distribution model by then, most movies at the time at least got a limited theatrical release. The Roofer screened in Los Angeles, New York, and in a few other markets across the United States. Including, of course, Cincinnati’s The Diversion, an 800-seat palace-style movie theater built in 1921 that had projected classic motion pictures like Citizen Kane and Casablanca in their original theatrical runs but was now a sketchy cinema that played stuff like The Roofer.

Our purpose is to celebrate the horror genre, not ridicule it, but we can all agree that the makers of slasher flicks did not, in general, subject them to rigorous quality control. Though The Roofer was far from the worst the sub-genre had to offer, it was aggressively mediocre, and were it not for the real-life body count, the movie would almost certainly be forgotten today, like The Hookman Is Coming For You or Bloody Bloody Gore Gore, the latter being a Norwegian family drama with four minutes of unrelated slasher footage added to the beginning by its North American distributor.

The Roofer is the tale of Elwood Helmer, a name that the screenwriter presumably meant to change in a later draft but never did. He was played by Thomas M. Fox, in his first and only movie role (he would die from pancreatic cancer in 2005 at the age of fifty-four). He’s the best actor in the film, though not particularly good.

Elwood Helmer is in a loveless marriage. His wife, Betty, is played by Rosa McGiven as a cartoonishly shrill and awful woman, so relentless in her criticism of her husband that the viewer wonders why he didn’t decapitate her years sooner. Obviously, we will have much more to say about McGiven later in this piece.

His two children, Mort and Cindy, are equally wretched. Though it’s not at all uncommon to have teenagers played by actors who are much older than their characters, the children here look so old—not much younger than their father, honestly—that it’s quite jarring later in the film when it’s revealed that they’re supposed to be in high school. This also adds a significant “ick” factor during a sex scene between Mort and his girlfriend, who was played by an actual sixteen-year-old. Only the inept staging of the scene, where it is clear that their pelvises are nowhere close to each other under the covers, keeps the viewer from thinking that they should contact the authorities.

Elwood’s day job is, of course, that of a roofer. After a grating breakfast with his horrible family, he goes to work. He and his three co-workers repair a roof, where a careful viewer will notice that they spend the scene hammering shingles without a single nail in sight. The scene was shot on an actual roof, not a set, and you might assume that the filmmakers weren’t permitted to use nails. However, in a 2013 interview with director Bernard Cagmire he reveals that this was not the case:

“The owners of the house mistakenly believed that we were going to re-shingle their roof as part of the scene. That’s why they let us use it for free. I’m honestly not sure if they just assumed this, or if our location manager lied to them. Either way, we absolutely could have used nails in that scene if we wanted. The problem was that none of the actors were any good at it. In the original Night of the Living Dead, and god it pains me to have to clarify which version I mean, Duane Jones needed pre-drilled holes in the boards he was nailing over the windows. But the guy still, y’know, successfully conveyed the illusion that he was nailing boards.

“Well, our actors were so bad at carpentry that it was just embarrassing, and unlike Duane Jones, these guys were supposed to be professionals. Not only did they look like the most inept group of roofers ever, but I was worried that one of the actors would accidentally hammer a nail right through his hand. So we decided that they would just pound the hammers without actually nailing anything in, which looks ridiculous but at least didn’t give anybody tetanus.”

Elwood’s co-workers are Vinny, a stereotypical Italian, Abe, another stereotypical Italian, and Pedro, a Mexican played by a Caucasian actor in a role that is, all things considered, much less racist than it could have been. As they hammer shingles, they discuss a major rule of roofing: if you’re falling, do not grab anything, especially the gutter, to try to keep yourself from plummeting over the edge. It won’t save you, and you’ll just force your co-workers to redo the work.

This exposition is awkwardly delivered. These men have been working as a team for many years and it’s not clear why this would be their topic of conversation. One is left to wonder why, at the screenplay level, the filmmakers didn’t simply decide that one of the roofers was on his first job.

Of course, Elwood loses his balance and slides down the roof. And, yes, he tries to save himself by grabbing the gutter. As he dangles, we get the legendary moment that you’ve seen many times as a GIF. He stares at Vinny. There’s a zoom-in on Vinny’s shocked face. He stares at Abe. There’s a zoom-in on Abe’s shocked face. He stares at Pedro. There’s a zoom-in on Pedro’s shocked face.

And then he falls off the roof.

They used a dummy, but except for a continuity error with what he’s wearing, the illusion is very convincing. It genuinely looks like a real human being falling off the roof and landing hard. It’s enough to make one wonder whether a production assistant was assured that falling off the roof for the sake of the movie could be a big opportunity.

Cut to Elwood unconscious in a hospital bed. His crying family is told that he may never walk again. This was shot in a real hospital, with a real doctor playing the role, and the scene carries surprising dramatic weight…until Elwood opens his eyes, accompanied by a horror music sting. Since Elwood is surrounded by his weeping family, opening his eyes should be a happy moment, but the soundtrack knows what kind of movie this is.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Elwood is back home and bedridden. He hears Betty, Mort, and Cindy (who have apparently abandoned the concern for him that they expressed in the previous scene) talking downstairs about how lazy he is. “He likes being waited on hand and foot!” says Betty, as her children enthusiastically nod. “He could get better if he wanted!”

Elwood looks heartbroken by this overheard conversation. And then angry. With his face contorted in rage, he gets out of bed…which technically proves Betty’s point, though he doesn’t seem to recognize this. In a monologue delivered to himself as he looks in the mirror, he vows revenge upon those who wronged him.

His children leave the house. And then the body count begins.

The gimmick of The Roofer is that he uses roofing tools to murder his victims. He sneaks down the stairs and out the front door. He goes to the back of his truck and picks up a roofing hatchet. Then he walks back inside. This is all captured in one unbroken shot, albeit a wobbly one.

Betty steps into the living room as he closes the front door. Seeing her husband up and walking around, she cries out that it’s a miracle. But then she sees his sinister expression, and the hatchet in his hand. “Elwood, what…what are you doing?” she asks.

Elwood rushes at her, hatchet held high. Betty screams and puts her hands over her face.

A huge splash of blood hits the wall. In the widescreen version of the film, you can catch a split-second glimpse of the bucket from which the fake blood was flung. (You may have to go frame by frame to see it, but it’s there.)

Cut to the outside of the house. A bird chirps.

Cut back to the living room. Betty’s severed head is on the floor. Instead of a fake head, they attached carpet to a large piece of cardboard and had Rosa McGiven stick her head through a hole in it. The camera lingers on what appears to be a freeze-frame shot. It’s amusing to think that they may have used a freeze-frame because Ms. McGiven couldn’t get through the scene without blinking, but no interviews with the cast or crew have ever stated this to be the case.

We then switch to a scene of Cindy and a couple of her friends, talking about boys. (This film does not pass the Bechdel test.) Since The Roofer has a running time of 97 minutes, presumably this was included for character development rather than padding out the film’s length, though you do not gain significant insight into Cindy before she is killed in the next scene.

Cindy returns home and sees a large splotch of blood on the living room carpet. She reacts with an appropriate amount of horror, and then sees her mother’s severed head in its new resting place on top of the television. As she lets out a shriek, Elwood rushes into the living room, wielding a pair of tin snips (small shears used to cut gutter material). It’s never explained why he feels the need to change weapons with each kill. The hatchet worked perfectly fine on his wife and would clearly be a much more effective tool than the snips. Perhaps he wanted to challenge himself…?

After a poorly choregraphed struggle, Elwood makes several snips in his daughter’s neck. A tremendous amount of blood spurts from the wound. In a genuinely unsettling image, he opens his mouth and waggles his tongue as the blood sprays all over his face. Remember, this is his daughter’s blood. To quote Schitt’s Creek: Ew.

With two-thirds of his family dispatched, Elwood goes out to retrieve another weapon from his truck. He’s still covered in blood, and the conversation with his next-door neighbor is some of the most misplaced comic relief since the idiotic police officers in the original Last House on the Left. For an excruciating forty-nine seconds, we’re in an awful sitcom.

NEIGHBOR: Good afternoon, Elwood!

ELWOOD [nervously]: Good afternoon.

NEIGHBOR: Is that…blood?

ELWOOD: Nope.

NEIGHBOR: What is it?

ELWOOD: Ketchup.

NEIGHBOR: Ketchup?

ELWOOD: Ketchup.

NEIGHBOR: How did you get ketchup all over you?

ELWOOD: Hot dog accident.

NEIGHBOR: Hot dog accident?

ELWOOD: Yep.

[Elwood takes a nail gun out of the back of the truck.]

NEIGHBOR: What kind of hot dog accident?

ELWOOD: How many different kinds are there?

NEIGHBOR: Are you sure it’s not blood?

ELWOOD: Yep.

NEIGHBOR: It looks like the wrong consistency for ketchup.

ELWOOD: Do you want to taste it?

NEIGHBOR: No.

ELWOOD: Okay, then.

NEIGHBOR: I guess you should stick to mustard next time.

ELWOOD: I will.

At least Elwood doesn’t look directly into the camera and shrug.

Meanwhile, Mort is with his girlfriend in her bedroom, pressuring her to have sex. Mort is not meant to be a sympathetic character, but this scene feels like something out of an ‘80s movie (though, again, this was 1991, so not far off) where the hero’s mission to get laid is seen as a noble quest. After convincing her that he’ll pull out and that she can’t get pregnant the first time anyway, they climb under the covers and he immediately begins thrusting away. She moans with ecstasy, even though she was a virgin and there was absolutely no foreplay.

Her bedroom door is visible the whole time, and the viewer thinks Elwood might burst through it and kill them both. He does not. It’s unclear if this was intentional misdirection, or if the director simply wanted to include a (nudity-free) sex scene. The scene ends before we learn if Mort did indeed pull out in time. If there’s ever The Roofer II, their child could be the killer!

Mort returns home. As he steps inside, he sees blood everywhere. The camera zooms in on his mother’s severed head on the television, then his sister’s blood-drenched body on the floor, and then on Elwood, holding the nail gun. He pulls the trigger several times. Mort’s nail-ridden body falls to the floor, next to Cindy. One got him right between the eyes.

Elwood speaks to himself in the mirror again, saying there is more work to do. Vinny, Abe, and Pedro need to die.

The movie continues the pattern it has set. Each victim has a scene in their normal life, interacting with friends and family. Then Elwood shows up and kills them.

Vinny steps outside his home for a cigarette and Elwood springs up behind him. Elwood wraps some measuring tape around Vinny’s neck and strangles him until his left eyeball pops out of its socket. It makes a sound like the cork popping out of a bottle of champagne. The effect is only about 40% convincing but the moment is a definite crowd-pleaser.

Abe gets a circular saw blade across the chest. He’s wearing a shirt and the kill isn’t particularly graphic, so the editor probably should have rearranged the scenes—it’s quite a letdown after the eyeball pop.

Pedro meets his grisly fate via a cordless drill. We don’t actually see it happen. As the spinning drill bit approaches Pedro’s face, we see the actual penetration as a shadow on the wall, and then a spray of blood. We do see Pedro’s body as it hits the floor, with a hole in his forehead.

With that, Elwood’s family and co-workers are deceased. Yet we’re only 61 minutes into the film. And so Elwood goes on his climactic rampage, racking up a body count of random victims with whom he had no grudge. This has actually led to some discussion—occasionally heated—that The Roofer should not technically qualify as a slasher flick, but simply a “killer on a rampage” film. There’s no Final Girl, or even a Final Guy, and it’s very rare for a slasher flick to introduce all new victims in the third act. Typically they’re all set up at the beginning and then we watch them die one by one.

Also, Elwood doesn’t ever wear a mask, or even any distinctive clothing. He’s just a regular guy. But the “Is it a slasher flick or not?” discussion is outside of the scope of this piece, though we encourage you to share your opinion on the matter in the comments section. (All comments are moderated.)

The idea that Elwood uses roofer’s tools to kill his prey is abandoned in the final gory showdown. He murders a jogger in the street with a butcher knife, stabbing him in the back several times in broad daylight. He then proceeds to a park, which is empty except for a woman sitting on a bench, tossing breadcrumbs to birds. He comes up behind her and slashes her throat from ear to ear. This is easily the weakest special effect in the film. They put fake blood on the edge of a dulled knife, then had it come off on the actresses’ skin as he drew the blade across her neck. Completely unconvincing. Bernard Cagmire spoke of it as follows:

“It was the last day of shooting, and we’d lost our special effects guy. I forget his name. Gary something. [Editor’s note: It was Gerald Flune.] We had a PA [Editor’s Note: Production Assistant] who said he could do a slit throat, so we sat there with our thumbs up our butts for hours while he hooked up this tube to the park bench lady’s neck and covered it with latex. It was supposed to squirt blood when he ran the prop knife across it and look like he was cutting the woman’s throat wide open. It didn’t work worth shit. I was truly embarrassed for the guy. The astounding shittiness of his effort was obvious right away, but I thought maybe he’d be able to pull it together, and I didn’t want to be the one who extinguished a promising young talent before he had a chance to prove himself. We were losing the light and his makeup effect looked like a six-year-old did it with Play-Doh and a straw, so finally we just smeared some of our fake blood on the knife and had the stunt hand—that wasn’t actually Tommy Fox’s hand in the scene—slide the knife across her neck. It looked like crap. Everybody recognized that it looked like crap. But we were out of time and money, so what were we supposed to do? At least it distracted viewers from how the stunt hand was way hairier than Tommy’s.”

Elwood leaves the dead woman on the park bench as he heads off to claim his next victim. He sees a little girl playing outside, but the film pulls its punches and he ignores her as he cuts through her front yard. He crosses into the neighbor’s backyard, where a middle-aged man in a chef’s apron is cooking burgers on the barbecue grill. Elwood walks up behind him and slams his face down on the grill. Astute listeners will note that the sound effect is actually burgers being fried, not flame-broiled.

The burn makeup on the man’s face is incredibly realistic. Less realistic is that the man falls to the ground, dead, from his face being pressed against a hot grill for five seconds. He isn’t unconscious, since his eyes are wide open. In theory, it could have been a heart attack, but still, it feels like some sort of finishing blow would’ve been in order, yet Elwood moves on.

Cut to a shot of a police car speeding down the street.

Elwood walks away from his next victim, who he apparently killed while we were watching the police car. A meat cleaver is imbedded in his forehead. It is not clear if Elwood had the meat cleaver all this time, or if he took it from a man who just happened to be holding a meat cleaver in his backyard. At this point, with only a few minutes remaining in the film, it’s not worth trying to analyze the logic of what we’re witnessing.

He looks up at a roof. A ladder rests against the side of the house.

In a truly spectacular and memorable ending, he would have seen a group of roofers hard at work up there. He would’ve climbed the ladder and started killing them with their own tools. We would’ve watched each of them roll off the roof and land with a grotesque thud on the ground below.

But there’s nobody up there. Elwood climbs the ladder. Gets down on his knees and mutters a prayer for forgiveness for what he’s done. Then he walks toward the edge. He steps off, and we cut to black. The not very catchy song “My Teacher Don’t Trust Me” plays over the end credits, despite having no lyrical connection to the film.

And thus ends The Roofer.

It has its moments, but if the movie had to stand on its own, we wouldn’t be talking about it today. It would be watched by slasher cinema completists (assuming they agreed that it was indeed a bona fide slasher flick) and might be a popular choice for viewers looking for something to ridicule while in an altered mental state. That’s pretty much it.

The film played for one week in its limited release, performing poorly at the box office. The only theater to hold it over was The Diversion, which kept the 10:00 PM show.

Anthony Merritt saw it eight times.

He was thirty-one years old, lived by himself in a dismal studio apartment, and couldn’t keep a job for more than a couple of weeks because of his tendency to simply stop showing up for work. He ate fast food for every single meal. He often spent his evenings writing incoherently in a journal, filling dozens of them by the time the police searched his place. Not only was his handwriting almost indecipherable, but the words that were legible didn’t seem to connect to each other in any kind of meaningful way. The drawings in the margins were similarly baffling. They didn’t seem to be random scribbles, but it was hard to tell what they depicted. Was this one a flower? An open mouth?

Because he had no friends or family to interview, Merritt’s moviegoing habits were a mystery. He owned a VCR and a small collection of movies he’d recorded off television. Only one horror movie: Alien. The others were a random selection of comedies, dramas, and action films, offering no insight into his taste.

We know he saw The Roofer eight times because the usher remembered him, and because he taped the ticket stubs to his refrigerator door. In fact, the usher recalled a conversation on his second-to-last viewing, which she shared with investigators in as much detail as she could recall.

USHER: Wow, you’re back again?

MERRITT: Uh-huh.

USHER: You must really like this movie.

[Merritt nods.]

USHER: What do you like about it?

MERRITT: Lots of good parts.

USHER: What parts?

MERRITT: You know.

USHER: Enjoy the show, sir.

Psychiatric experts have suggested that there’s almost no chance that The Roofer was responsible for Anthony Merritt’s actions. Instead, he latched onto it as an excuse for something he was going to do anyway in some form. It is, of course, impossible to say for certain. What is not up for debate is that he went to a hardware store and purchased a number of tools that led the cashier to believe he was about to do some roof repair.

Then he went to the 10:00 PM screening on Thursday, March 7. The final show before the film was due to be replaced by New Jack City. Alas, the critically acclaimed New Jack City would never screen there.

Merritt walked into the theater wearing a backpack. The usher—a different one from before—informed him that no outside food or drinks were permitted in the theater. He explained that he was on his way back from his new job selling T-shirts. He unzipped the backpack and removed one. The usher apologized. Merritt tried to sell him the shirt. The usher politely declined. And Merritt went into the theater and took a seat in the back row.

By the time the lights went down, only eight other people were in the audience.

Two of them, Grant Rector and Denise Sabata (now Ferrazano) left right after Elwood fell off the roof. They were on their first date, and an extremely bored Sabata said she wanted to go. Rector hated to walk out of a slasher flick before they even got to the first kill, but he was very much hoping to sleep with Sabata, so he agreed. (The unlikable Rector would later state in an interview that he had indeed “gotten some” that night, though the couple would not have a second date.) They were the ones who confirmed that Merritt was seated in the back row, giggling.

At some point, Merritt switched seats. He moved three rows down and over to the left side, sitting directly behind Helena Baxter, a college student who’d just had a fight with her boyfriend and—according to her roommate—went to the movies to get away from reality for a couple of hours. With so few people in the theater, Baxter presumably wondered why somebody had taken a seat right behind her, but we do not know if she looked back to see who it was.

On the movie screen, Betty Helmer screamed as her husband rushed at her with a roofing hatchet.

In the movie theater, Anthony Merritt slammed a roofing hatchet into the top of Helena’s Baxter’s skull. She most likely died instantly. She did not scream.

Elwood took the time to decapitate his wife, but Merritt did not have that luxury. He left the hatchet imbedded where it was and switched seats again.

We know that Merritt’s backpack contained a replica of each of the murder weapons used in the movie, excluding the barbecue grill, which would have been impractical. We do not know if he genuinely believed that he could accomplish the feat of murdering an audience member with the appropriate tool at the corresponding time that the killing happened on-screen. From a pure numbers perspective, there were fewer people in the audience than there were victims in The Roofer, but even if he recognized that issue, did he think he’d be able to kill everybody who remained in the theater?

Helena Baxter had been seated alone. Betty’s scream covered the sound of the fatal blow. Under those circumstances, slamming a hatchet into somebody’s head while she watched a movie was a reasonably low-risk venture. But the next murder would be almost impossible to pull off. It would have been fascinating to speak with Merritt and ask how much of his plan he legitimately thought he could complete.

He sat behind Ed and Patty Little, who had recently started having Date Night every Thursday upon the recommendation of their marriage counsellor. Patty had chosen the movie as a passive aggressive act against her snobbish husband, who preferred his cinematic entertainment with subtitles and symbolism. Ed resented the way the movie insulted his intelligence, but he did find himself more invested in the story after Elwood killed his wife.

Ed turned around and told Merritt to sit somewhere else. Merritt assured him that he would.

A minute later, right before Cindy arrived home to the sight of her mother’s severed head resting on the television, Ed turned around and once again told Merritt to move, explaining that there were hundreds of other seats in this theater and there was no reason for him to sit behind them like some sort of creep. Merritt apologized and agreed to move, but didn’t.

“Let’s just move,” Patty told her husband.

Ed’s next step was going to be to inform Merritt that he was going to kick his ass if he didn’t get the fuck away from them, but Cindy let out a shriek on the screen and Ed’s attention returned to the movie. Merritt had presumably taken the tin snips out of his backpack before switching seats, and now he opened them and closed the blades on the back of Patty’s neck.

She screamed and spun around.

Merritt lunged at her with the snips, hitting her right in the center of the throat. The snips did not puncture her skin (the tips were rounded, not sharp) but it damaged her larynx and she would be unable to speak for several months.

The other moviegoers turned to look. Their initial thought, understandably, was that this was a publicity stunt where an actor pretended to kill an audience member. Delightful fun for all! But as Ed tried to pry the tin snips out of Merritt’s hand, it became quickly clear that there was indeed a psychopath in their midst.

Ed got the snips away from Merritt and tried to fend him off with them. But Merritt reached into his jacket pocket and took out a pistol—a weapon that was never used in The Roofer, so he was not above cheating. He aimed the pistol at Ed but did not fire. The following transcript was verified by the survivors as accurate.

MERRITT: Get out of here.

ED: Okay, okay, just calm down. We’re going.

MERRITT: No, just you.

ED: What?

MERRITT: Just you. I’m not done with her yet.

ED: We’re going, all right? You should run before the police get here. There’s still time for you to get away.

MERRITT: Get away from her.

ED: What the fuck is wrong with you?

MERRITT: Do you want me to shoot you? Are you going to make me count to three? Get away from her! One…two…

ED: I’m not going to—

MERRITT: …three!

Merritt shot him in the chest. The others in the theater, who’d been watching in shock, now ducked out of the way.

In the lobby, the manager had called the police and sent the usher, concession worker, and projectionist (via walkie-talkie) out of the theater. He held the door to the auditorium open just an inch, watching the horrifying spectacle through the crack.

Ed tried to stay upright by bracing himself against one of the seats, but fell to the floor. Patty, clutching her injured neck, fled, making what one of the moviegoers described as “nightmarish choking sounds.” Merritt leapt over the row of seats and chased after her with the tin snips.

Two police officers had been a few blocks away from the theater when they got the call, and as they hurried into the lobby, the manager frantically waved them over.

Merritt dropped the pistol, grabbed Patty by the back of her shirt, and yanked her over to him. He tried to snip at her neck again, but she was thrashing around and instead he sliced off the tip of her earlobe.

The cops burst into the theater. Merritt ducked down and picked up the gun again. Then, as the cops shouted for him to show himself with his hands in the air, he stood back up and pointed the gun at them. This seems to be a pretty strong indication that Merritt never intended to leave The Diversion alive. If he’d simply stayed on the floor, the cops could have apprehended him, and Merritt would’ve been around to answer the question of “What the hell were you thinking?”

The cops opened fire. None of the shots missed.

Anthony Merritt died before the ambulance arrived. Ed Little did not, and though his road to recovery was a long and difficult one, he is alive and well to this day. Patty Little also recovered, though her voice never went quite back to normal, and she died of kidney disease in 2019.

With that, the initial theatrical run of The Roofer came to an end. And this sub-par slasher flick was suddenly the top news story across the nation. There was a lot of blame cast toward the filmmakers, but since the movie’s release followed a decade that had been glutted with similar films, it was difficult to make a convincing case that The Roofer had gone a step too far. Bernard Cagmire reflected upon the situation:

“Did the notoriety help? No, the notoriety didn’t fuckin’ help! The goddamn movie wasn’t in theaters anymore, so we couldn’t even cash in on morbid weirdos wanting to check it out for themselves. People were screaming that it should be banned, and I was like, it’s not even playing anymore! Fuck you! I had to do all of these interviews with people asking if I felt responsible for what happened, which is ridiculous. Anthony Merritt wasn’t even a roofer. People say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this was all bad. Worst time of my life. At least until…you know…”

“This was back when movies didn’t come out on home video for about nine months or a year after their theatrical release. And no major distributor would touch it, because they didn’t want to be accused of profiting from a tragedy. I know, I know—it surprised me, too. So we ended up with this dipshit little distributor. Obviously, they couldn’t promote it as the movie that some unhinged lunatic tried to copy in real life, so they just slapped something like ‘The Most Controversial Film of the Year’ on the VHS box. It did okay, not great. A lot of video stores didn’t want to carry it, and people were mostly renting back then, not buying. It sure as hell didn’t make me rich.”

The DVD player was introduced in the United States in 1997, but a DVD edition of The Roofer was not released until 2009. It claimed to be the “full uncensored version,” implying that the theatrical and VHS release had been edited, which they had not. Special features included a trailer and an audio commentary track by Cagmire where he never addressed the real-life tragedy. It also included a 14-minute documentary about Anthony Merritt’s attempted killing spree that consisted entirely of archival news footage. There was very little promotion for the DVD release, and the reviews were scathing, with DVD Review Weekly giving it a D-, suggesting that the commentary track and documentaries were squandered opportunities, and that the film itself was “an idiotic, often tedious experience.” Cinema In Your Living Room called the DVD’s very existence “ghoulish,” released “by evil people for evil people,” and that “a cloud of stinging shame should follow everybody involved in this disgusting enterprise.” Soon the DVD went out of print.

And that should have been the end of the tale of The Roofer. It would go undiscovered by future generations who were unaware of that grim night at The Diversion. People reading an article like this would have never heard of the movie or the incident.

Of course, that wasn’t the end.

Part Two

In December 2010, The Diversion announced the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer, to take place on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011. “See it where it happened!” said the ad they posted on social media. It would be screened in 35MM and feature special guest stars doing a Q&A before the film.

The outcry was immediate and intense, just as The Diversion’s new manager, Cyrus Bloomington, had expected.

“When I took over, The Diversion was this run-down place that just made you sad to be in there. We showed a lot of classics, but nobody went because who wanted to see The Wizard of Oz in a theater that looked like the ceiling was going to collapse? The movie screen was torn on the right side. It was truly pathetic, and we didn’t have any money to fix it up. People wouldn’t go to the old movies, and literally every other theater in town was a better place to see a new movie, so I had to be creative.

“I realized the twentieth anniversary of The Roofer was coming up. To be clear, I mean the anniversary of the first day of its theatrical release, not the anniversary of Anthony Merritt’s rampage. They’re less than two weeks apart, but I think it’s an important distinction. I am not for one second trying to pretend that this plan was in good taste. It wasn’t. We wanted people to be pissed. But, technically, we were celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the movie’s release, not the twentieth anniversary of the incident.”

Bloomington had not actually lined up any special guests at the time of the first advertisement, but he assumed that with an entire cast and crew available, he’d be able to get somebody to show up. He was not yet ready to take the tactless step of inviting an audience member who’d been in the theater.

Almost everybody declined. Especially Bernard Cagmire.

“It was the fastest I’ve ever told somebody to go fuck themselves. I spelled ‘yourself’ wrong because I was in such a hurry to click send. Then I sent it again in all caps. I couldn’t believe he was asking me to do this. We all know how it turned out, but even if it had turned out great, even if the audience had a fun time, it was a fucked-up idea. It’s hard to believe that anybody bought a ticket, much less that the theater sold out. Who are these people? What’s the matter with them? What traumatic events shaped their childhood?”

The other invitees were more polite about it (at least those who bothered to respond) but after contacting all of the film’s major players, only Rosa McGiven agreed to participate.

The Roofer did not have any breakout stars. No, “Oh my God, Kevin Bacon is in this?” (Friday the 13th) “Johnny Depp is in this?” (A Nightmare on Elm Street) “Fisher Stevens is in this?” (The Burning) “Jennifer Aniston is in this?” (Leprechaun) “Charlize Theron is in this?” (Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest) “Naomi Watts is in this?” (Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering)

Rosa McGiven was the only member of the cast to have anything that could be called an “acting career” afterward. Though playing Elwood’s wife remained her largest role—despite being the first person in the movie to die—she had a steady stream of very small parts in various films, television shows, and commercials. If you watched any long-running medical drama, there was an excellent chance that at some point during its run McGiven peeked her head into the room where the doctor was talking to a patient and told him he was needed right away.

Her most visible other role was the “Who doesn’t love coffee?” girl in the commercials for Windy Coffee. There were three of them in the series, in which one character would offer another character a cup of coffee, and McGiven would pop up and say, “Who doesn’t love coffee?” Since it was a television commercial, neither of the characters indicated that they had any real concern with the fact that some strange woman had appeared in their living room to ask a rhetorical question. But while viewers were reminded that coffee existed and that it was widely enjoyed, the commercials provided no specific reason that it should be Windy coffee as opposed to Starbucks or Folgers or Maxwell House or the other brands that consumers had actually heard of. Windy Coffee returned to being a regionally available brand with no television presence.

Rosa’s demands were modest. Airfare from California, accommodations at a reasonably nice hotel, a stipend for meals, and 100% of the proceeds from selling her autographed photos. Bloomington agreed. Somebody who claimed to have been an extra in the film volunteered to attend, but not only was he just an extra, he was lying about it, so Rosa remained the only guest. She was featured prominently in the next online advertisement. Because of this, she received a great deal of communication informing her that she would be burning in hell.

Ed and Patty Little remained silent about the matter until the onslaught of requests for a comment became too much, and they released this statement:

“We understand that The Diversion will be screening The Roofer on its twentieth anniversary. Obviously, we do not approve, but the last time we checked this was a free country and moral vacuity was not a crime. Please do not contact us again about this issue.”

Helena Baxter’s family had what can best be described as a full-on social media meltdown. They posted and tweeted several times a day in the months leading up to the event, trying out various hashtags like #DiversionDisgrace and #HelenaWouldHateThis. Her father, who apparently scheduled this specific tweet to be sent every day at 3:00 PM EST, said, “How DARE u use my daughter’s death as a publicity stunt??? Sick to my stomach. Boycott!!!” They posted pictures of her every day, smiling and radiant, a life of endless possibilities cut short by a roofing hatchet to the skull.

“I totally understood where they were coming from,” said Bloomington. “I really did. I just want to say in my defense—and I’m talking about what the event was supposed to be, not what it became—that it could have been so much worse. Again, we were focused on the movie, not the tragedy. We didn’t have a Helena Baxter cosplay contest or anything like that. We didn’t sell tickets to the actual seat in which she was murdered, nor the actual seats where the other two were attacked. I can come up with a list of a dozen things off the top of my head that would’ve been over the line, but we didn’t do any of that. We promoted a screening of the motion picture, and a Q&A with its lead actress. That’s all.”

When reminded that the ad said, “See It Where It Happened,” Bloomington replied: “Busted, but that was pretty vague. The film played twenty years ago at The Diversion. That’s something that happened. If the ad said, ‘See It Where The Massacre Happened,’ I’d totally agree, although I’m not even convinced that this was a massacre. Only one person died. It’s very sad that she died, don’t get me wrong, but let’s not forget that only one life was lost in the theater that night. Everybody else survived. ‘See It Where It Happened’ could very easily refer to seeing The Roofer where opening night happened.”

When told that literally nobody would interpret the ad in that manner, Bloomington replied: “Fair enough, fair enough. But it’s not my responsibility to control what baggage people bring to their reading of the ad. And I’m certainly not saying that the tragic death and tragic injuries are baggage, but ‘It’ is the vaguest word in the English language and I can’t be responsible for what people read into it. And, yeah, you’re gonna say, ‘Look, you just used the word ‘it’ and we know exactly what you were talking about,’ but when you’re the manager of a dying theater teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, give me a call.”

The screening did not immediately sell out, but ticket sales were steady, and it was clearly going to be a successful event. People who had no intention of attending demanded to know what safety precautions would be taken. The page for online ticket sales explained that audience members would be scanned with a metal detector wand, and also have their bags checked. (No outside food or drink allowed, and no t-shirts in backpacks.) There would be security guards in the lobby and inside the auditorium. This was going to be an enjoyable event without any funny business, and The Diversion promised a safe experience for everybody.

And, yes, they did indeed scan every single audience member with a metal detector wand, and they did thoroughly search every handbag brought inside. But they only did it on the night of the show, and that turned out to be a tragic oversight.

Pike Green’s father had been a roofer for twenty-four years. When Pike was fifteen and at school, his father returned home early from a job that got rained out and saw a strange car in his driveway. Curious, he parked behind this unfamiliar vehicle and entered his home. He frowned at the moans coming from their upstairs bedroom. What activities were going on up there? He walked up the stairs, braced himself for the worst, and threw open the door.

He was greeted by the sight of his wife naked in their bed with another woman, living out the bisexual fantasy he had encouraged since before they were married, that he’d given enthusiastic permission for her to indulge in at any time or opportunity. She finally had! Surprised and delighted, Pike’s father introduced himself to the guest and sat down to observe.

But the other woman was a lesbian, not bisexual, and she had absolutely no interest in letting some pervy guy watch them. Pike’s mother apologized profusely as his father was banished from the bedroom. He stood outside the door for a few minutes, listening, then angrily went downstairs and opened the liquor cabinet.

He sat at the dining room table, pouting as he poured himself drink after drink. They seemed to be having a splendid time up there and he couldn’t believe he wasn’t part of it. He would’ve been perfectly happy to stay several feet away with his arms at his sides.

When he reached the point where he was far too drunk to safely get behind the wheel of an automobile, he left the house and got behind the wheel of his automobile. It was still raining. He drove to the house he’d been working on, put on his tool belt, and climbed the ladder. He hammered in two nails successfully, and then the third one went right through the back of his hand.

What he should have done is stay calm, very carefully pry out the nail, climb back down the ladder, and seek immediate medical attention. What he did was scream and yank his hand away, leaving a not-insignificant amount of flesh attached to the nail. Then he lost his balance on the wet roof, slid down it, and fell over the edge. He landed on the rocking chair on their front deck. Instead of this being an amusing slapstick moment, he broke his neck and died instantly, blood streaming out of his mouth.

(This narrative was pieced together by investigators after the fact and not every detail is known for certain to be accurate, but it was consistent with the evidence.)

This messed up Pike Green in a big way.

He did not enjoy having the details of his open-minded mother’s sex life go public. He went from an introverted, socially awkward, mildly creepy teenager to an almost mute, socially hopeless, extremely creepy one. He didn’t improve much with age.

He was unfamiliar with The Roofer or its history until he saw the DVD at a flea market, where he purchased it for one dollar. He watched the film a few nights later and loathed it with an intensity that far exceeded his hatred of, say, Hitler. He hated it even more after watching it with the director’s audio commentary, and even more than that after watching the rest of the special features. He got a steak knife out of the kitchen utensil drawer and spent the next two hours very slowly and methodically scraping up the surface of the disc.

Pike Green did not spend every waking moment over the next five years obsessing over the movie, but he thought about it at least once a week, and its existence infuriated him. He fantasized about traveling to Bernard Cagmire’s mansion (Cagmire lived in a small apartment, but in Pike’s mind he lived in a luxurious mansion, surrounded by women who would service him immediately upon request, 24/7) and stabbing him in the face over and over until no flesh remained attached to his skull.

When he heard about the twentieth anniversary screening, taking place in the same theater where Anthony Merritt had gone on his rampage, Pike was so filled with rage that he grabbed his own ears and tried (unsuccessfully) to tear them off his head. He ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. He cried. Then he vowed that they would regret this.

He worked as a dishwasher at a low-end seafood restaurant. Because he had no reason to ever stay home from work, he’d accrued a lot of vacation time, so three weeks before the screening, he took a bus from Albuquerque to Cincinnati and rented a room at an extended stay hotel. Before he got on the bus, though, he visited four different hardware stores. Unlike Merritt, he did not eschew the barbecue grill entirely. He knew that he certainly couldn’t press somebody’s face against a hot grill, but perhaps he could use the cooking grate to bludgeon them.

His first night in Cincinnati, he went to the movies. He wandered around The Diversion, admiring its beautiful architecture and trying to figure out the best places to hide roofing equipment. He considered duct-taping the items underneath various seats, but decided the weapons would be too difficult to gather on the night of the show. You couldn’t politely ask somebody to stand up while you retrieved the nail gun.

The theater had various nooks and crannies, but Pike eventually decided that he should stick with the time-tested method of hiding them in the toilet tank. The men’s room had three stalls, and they were the outdated toilets that still had tanks and handle-flushes, instead of the modern sensors that flushed automatically…or didn’t, forcing you to wave your hand over the sensor to avoid being very inconsiderate to the next guest. He assumed that the security precautions prior to the event would not include checking the toilet tanks for contraband.

He considered stashing away one item per visit, but didn’t want to draw suspicion by making too many visits to the theater, since they were only playing one film. He saw Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 three times, filling one toilet tank with roofing tools (sealed in Ziploc bags) each time. He stuck around to watch the movie so as not to arouse suspicion by leaving early, and discovered something new with each viewing.

He placed the final bag on February 21, 2011. After the end credits (Pike always stayed for the end credits, even for something like his third time seeing Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2) he walked out of the theater, excited, nervous, and rage-filled about what he planned to do the following night.

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Danny Tantor, 26, lived for the movies. He dreamt of becoming a famous director, or a producer, or a screenwriter, or a cinematographer, or even—in his wildest fantasies—a movie star. He’d never be a Matthew McConaughey or a Paul Rudd, but he could certainly be a Steve Buscemi or a Philip Seymour Hoffman. Every night after work he’d return to his apartment and watch movies, rewinding crucial scenes over and over to study their technique, while taking copious notes. He was on the forty-sixth draft of his screenplay, a romantic dramedy called Monk Night, which got better and better with each pass. He knew that at some point you just had to say, “It’s good enough!” and move on, and he’d do that eventually, but he’d never been able to read it all the way through without discovering exciting opportunities for improvement.

Danny had a girlfriend, Sonya, but he worked days and she worked nights and their free time only overlapped on Sundays. She’d suggested that if they moved in together they could at least see each other briefly (she’d get home fifteen minutes before he had to leave for work) but he said that his family would disown him if he lived in sin. Someday they would be married, he assured her, and then they could enjoy those fifteen minutes of bliss.

In truth, though his very religious family would have been disappointed in him, they wouldn’t have gone so far as to actually disown him. Danny wanted to live alone because he was a serial killer.

He’d read that you were supposed to start small and work your way up to killing human prey. Torture and kill animals first. But Danny loved animals, and if he ever hurt a dog or a cat he would’ve been filled with self-loathing. He’d thought about maybe torturing and killing a greasy sewer rat, but he had no way to obtain one, and the mouse he got from the pet store looked at him with its tiny little loving eyes and he had to set it free. So he went straight to killing humans.

By the time the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer was announced, he’d killed six people. Three men and three women, about one every few months. All of them were homeless people he lured into his car with the promise of a hot meal. He didn’t actually torture any of them—razor wire around the neck while they were enjoying a burger or a burrito, and it was over quickly. He made it a point to at least let them have a couple bites of the burger or burrito. (He was succumbing to his murderous desires, but he had nothing against his victims personally, so why not let them have a tasty last meal?) Then he drove an hour out of town and dumped their bodies in a lake.

Danny was fascinated by the story of Anthony Merritt, who’d committed his atrocity only ninety-seven miles away from where Danny lived. Murdering audience members at a slasher flick using the same method as the on-screen killer, timed to the kills in the movie, was a brilliant idea and he wished Merritt had gotten further along in the process. In a film with a body count of ten, it was a crime that only one person died in the theater that night.

He thought about how one might improve upon Merritt’s plan.

The copycat would have one major advantage: according to social media, tickets to the twentieth anniversary screening were selling at a steady rate. There’d be far more potential victims. Though, of course, far more potential witnesses as well.

Murdering ten people in a movie theater would be extremely difficult.

But would it be impossible?

Obviously, somebody could go in there with a high-capacity semi-automatic rifle and kill ten or more people, but that wasn’t really in the spirit of the endeavor. How could you use the same roofing tools from the movie (excluding the barbecue grill, which would clearly never work) and pick off audience members one-by-one for 97 minutes?

You couldn’t do it in the auditorium. Merritt had used the hatchet without getting busted, but that would never work in a crowded theater. Even if you could convince audience members that it was all part of the show, somebody in management would know that it wasn’t and put a stop to it.

Could you kill people as they left the auditorium to visit the concession stand or the restroom? Lurking in the restroom seemed like a possible way to collect some of the victims. Kill them as soon as they came through the door and then quickly drag the body into a stall. But even if you tried to be as efficient as possible, somebody was bound to walk into the restroom just as you were stabbing somebody in the back with a butcher knife.

Danny brainstormed ideas on a dry-erase board. He used online photographs to work out the layout of The Diversion, drew a schematic of it, and spent several long nights trying to figure out how somebody could commit ten murders during the course of one motion picture. In this exploratory stage he didn’t even worry about how the killer would get away with it; he just wanted to work out how it could be done.

Finally, he decided that it was, in fact, impossible.

Unless he cheated...

The Roofer sold out a week before the event. Since Rosa McGiven was Bloomington’s only celebrity guest (a fact he did not feel compelled to share in the marketing), he asked if she’d be willing to do a Q&A at a second screening. She agreed, and a 10:30 PM show was added.

“Another thing nobody gives me credit for is the start time,” Bloomington noted. “The first show was always going to be at 8:00 PM. The screening where the violence happened was at 10:00 PM. Is that a small detail? Sure. But if I were truly trying to cash in on the whole ‘a lady was killed during the movie’ thing, wouldn’t I coordinate the start times? And the second show was scheduled to begin at 10:30 PM, not 10:00 PM. I know you’re thinking it’s no big deal, and I’m sure you’re right, but these things show that I was focused on the movie itself. This was a historic occasion. How many movies make it to their twentieth anniversary?”

When informed that every single film over twenty years old makes it to their twentieth anniversary, Bloomington said: “That was a dumb thing to say and I realized it as soon as I blurted it out. You get that I’m under a lot of stress, right? It’s like the walls are closing in on me. I constantly feel like I’m suffocating. My life is basically hell on earth. I’m not saying I got the worst of it. Obviously, I didn’t. I’m just saying that it wouldn’t kill you to show a little empathy. And, yes, ‘kill’ was the wrong word choice, and I know you’re not going to edit it out so I won’t even ask, but it would be nice if somebody would try to see things from my perspective.”

Though the second show didn’t come close to selling out, over three hundred and fifty tickets were sold, putting the theater at just under half of its capacity. Bloomington was elated. This did not solve the theater’s financial difficulties by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a solid step in the right direction.

The day before the event, he did numerous interviews, most of them hostile. He was asked multiple times if he thought he was tempting fate.

BLOOMINGTON: No.

REPORTER: That’s interesting. Most people would say that you’re tempting fate.

BLOOMINGTON: How am I tempting fate? The theater will probably be the safest place you can be tomorrow night! You journalists are acting like somebody is going to go all Anthony Merritt on the audience, but how could they pull it off if that’s what everybody is thinking? If every single character at the senior prom in Carrie had known about the plan to dump pig’s blood, it wouldn’t have worked! Carrie might have gone on stage, but she would’ve looked up first! Everybody’s going to be on high alert!

REPORTER: It’s going to be dark in the theater, though.

BLOOMINGTON: Make you a deal. During the first kill in the movie, try to slam a roofing hatchet into somebody’s head. Try it. I dare you. See how it works out for you.

REPORTER: Ummm…

BLOOMINGTON: You understand what I’m trying to say, right?

REPORTER: It sounds like you’re daring me to murder somebody in the audience with a hatchet.

BLOOMINGTON: What I’m saying is that you’d never get away with it. And I don’t mean that you’d never escape from the cops afterward, I mean that you’d never be able to do it in the first place.

REPORTER: I thought attendees would go through a metal detector before they entered the theater.

BLOOMINGTON: They will. I mean, it’s one of those wand things, but yes.

REPORTER: How would I get the hatchet into the theater, then?

BLOOMINGTON: You wouldn’t! That’s my point!

REPORTER: But you dared me to slam a hatchet into the head of an audience member.

BLOOMINGTON: I think we can both agree that this interview has gone completely off the rails. Can we edit all of this out?

REPORTER: We’re live.

BLOOMINGTON: Fuck.

REPORTER: And now we’re getting fined.

Cyrus Bloomington did not enjoy the accusations that he was trying to cash in on a tragedy, but overall he was quite pleased with the way things were working out. Bernard Cagmire was much less pleased.

“Let me be perfectly clear: I wasn’t making one goddamn penny off that screening. But people kept asking me, ‘Why would you let that happen, you monster?’ I don’t get to pick which theater shows my movie! I thought it was an appalling idea. Cecil Bloomtown [sic] is a piece of shit. Yet suddenly I’m one of the bad guys. My picture was always popping up in newspaper articles saying what a disgrace this was. I was on the side of ‘Don’t do this shit, you sleazy fuckers!’ None of this was my fault. Some dude with a pickaxe could’ve just as easily started killing people at a showing of My Bloody Valentine. Think how easily it would’ve been to strap on a hockey mask and go around hacking people up with a machete during one of the Friday the 13th movies! We had bad luck with our original release, and then Cecil whatever-the-fuck-his-name is [sic] goes and makes it a million times worse! I haven’t been sober for two consecutive nights since 2011.”

Finally, it arrived. The night of the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer.

Part Three

Warning For Sensitive Readers: This article has already contained graphic content, but those unfamiliar with the events of February 22, 2011 should be warned that it is about to get much worse. Our intent is not to disgust, and no pictures from the aftermath will be included here. But readers with weak stomachs may want to do a Google search (emphatically not for images) and read a high-level summary of what happened before continuing with our detailed analysis.

The projectionist had tested out the 35MM print of The Roofer the night before and reported to Bloomington that it was in “really, really crappy” shape. Severely scratched. Lots of audio crackles. Scenes that cut off abruptly, like the print had snapped and been spliced back together with a few seconds missing. He suggested that they might want to project the DVD instead.

Bloomington and the projectionist spent a few minutes discussing whether audience members would even care how it was projected. Ultimately, Bloomington decided that he would deliver what he’d promised, and he figured that people going to see something like The Roofer were not demanding a state-of-the-art presentation anyway. It wasn’t Avatar. He’d just make an announcement before the movie started.

A line formed outside of The Diversion about forty-five minutes before the doors opened. Camera crews and reporters went down the line, randomly interviewing people about why they were going and what they thought might happen.

One guy in line was wearing a shirt with Helena Baxter’s picture on it. Her eyes were plus-signs. He got interviewed by every single journalist, and explained with a frequent nervous chuckle that while he hoped nothing like that would happen tonight, he knew the show was going to be super sweet. Bloomington wasn’t happy about the shirt (or at least claimed that he wasn’t), but the event did not have an official “Don’t wear tasteless shirts” policy, so he decided to ignore it.

Rosa McGiven arrived at the theater two hours before showtime, a full hour and a half before she’d been asked to be there. She looked exhausted and stressed out, and also pregnant.

According to Bloomington, “When she showed up, she quite honestly looked worse than she did in the movie, after she got decapitated. She also hadn’t said anything about being pregnant. She looked like she was...I dunno, six months along? I never had kids and I didn’t really hang out with pregnant women, so it wasn’t something I could gauge very well, except that it was past the point where you’d think she might just be fat. She wasn’t going to be doing anything but answering questions and signing autographs, but still, she was looking rough, and I suddenly wished I had at least one other guest lined up in case she needed to lie down somewhere and rest.”

He gave her some water and Raisinets, and returned to his preparations. The entire theater staff was there, along with some teenagers who had been quickly trained in the art of pouring fountain drinks and scooping popcorn so that the concession stand line wouldn’t get out of control. They were all told to be very observant and report anything that was in any way suspicious, no matter how trivial. (Due to the volume of reports, he would later amend this with “but also use some common sense.”)

He’d hired four security guards, two of whom had night-vision binoculars to allow them to see what was happening in the auditorium during the movie. One shared an extremely graphic story about his fondest memory of using the binoculars to watch unsuspecting moviegoers.

Then they opened the doors. Audience members went through security, and Bloomington was giddy as he saw how many of them stopped to buy refreshments. Rosa sat behind her table, not looking great but not as bad as before. She even smiled occasionally as she chatted with fans and signed autographs. An usher was there to collect the $25 per signed photo ($20 if they wanted her to sign a DVD or poster they’d brought from home) and to keep the line moving.

For a theater whose events were almost always poorly attended duds, Bloomington felt things were going remarkably smoothly considering the size of the crowd. No major issues. Lots of smiling faces. Sure, many of them looked like people he wouldn’t want to socialize with in his free time, but this event was never going to attract the opera crowd.

At 7:55 PM, they flashed the lights, alerting everybody that the show was about to begin. Excluding a couple of glitches with the online ticketing, and a man who refused to consent to the “invasive” metal detector wand and had to be turned away, everything was going as planned. The protestors outside weren’t causing any problems. Bloomington was feeling great.

Later he would say, “I can’t even remember what it’s like to feel good. Is it nice? Can you describe it to me?”

Rosa still had a line of about twenty people, but the event was so very well planned out that the remaining people were handed slips of paper with numbers on them, so they could reclaim their spot after the movie. Those slips of paper would never be used.

Bloomington led Rosa to the backstage area. She had more energy than before but still seemed to pose a fairly strong risk for passing out, so he asked the usher who’d managed the line to walk on the other side of her. She’d be seated during the Q&A, but he worried that there could be a scenario where a pregnant woman passed out and slipped out of her chair onto the hard stage floor, which would start the proceedings off on a very unappealing note, so he vowed to keep an eye on her.

He walked out on stage with his handheld microphone, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the twentieth anniversary screening of...The Roofer!” He said “The Roofer” in an appropriately scary voice.

The audience cheered and applauded. He introduced himself, welcomed everybody to The Diversion, and briefly told them about upcoming films.

He informed the audience that their support of this event greatly improved the chances of The Diversion being able to do similar events in the future.

Bloomington said: “I’d thought of a joke where I’d say, ‘So if you know of any other movies where people in the audience were killed, let me know.’ I think it would’ve gone over well with that crowd. Great big laugh. But of course I didn’t say that, and never even seriously considered it. It didn’t make it into my written notes.”

He then introduced Rosa, who—guided by an usher on each side—waved to the cheering crowd as she walked out and took a seat on the stage. She said something but her wireless microphone wasn’t working. Bloomington took it from her, checked to see if it was on, found that it was, tapped it a few times, and then just gave her his own microphone instead. She thanked everybody for being there. Bloomington scooted his own chair closer to her so they could trade the microphone back and forth.

BLOOMINGTON: It’s really great of you to be here with us, Ms. McGiven.

ROSA: Please, call me Rosa.

[Audience cheers.]

“Yep, they cheered when she told me to call her Rosa. It was like a rock concert. I honestly believed that this was going to be the best night of my professional life. When the audience is going nuts over an offer to call somebody by their first name, you know they’re there to have a good time.”

BLOOMINGTON: So tell me, Rosa, what has The Roofer meant to you?

ROSA: Do you mean good or bad?

BLOOMINGTON: Whatever you want to share.

ROSA: Well, first of all, I hate to break this to you, but it’s not a very good movie.

[Audience laughter.]

BLOOMINGTON: Actually, let’s do a quick poll. How many of you have seen the movie?

ROSA: Wow, not many.

BLOOMINGTON: What is that, a quarter, maybe?

ROSA: Well, if you haven’t seen it already, you’re in for less of a treat than you might have hoped. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m the first to die!

BLOOMINGTON: Whoa, spoiler warning! [Laughs.]

ROSA: Whoops! I’m sorry!

BLOOMINGTON: It’s okay. So what has the movie meant to you?

ROSA: Hmmm.

BLOOMINGTON: Or I could ask another question.

ROSA: No, no, that one’s fine. It’s hard to say, honestly. I can’t say that I’m all that proud of the movie itself.

BLOOMINGTON: Lots of actors have gotten their start in slasher flicks.

ROSA: Oh, I’m not ashamed of it being a slasher flick. Trust me, I’m no snob. If I’d gotten my start in Friday the 13th or Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street or the chainsaw one, I’d be much happier. I don’t want to bash the movie. There’s some good stuff in there and you’ll all have fun watching it. It’s no Halloween is all I’m saying. But really, you can’t ignore its legacy. Something awful happened in this very theater, twenty years ago—

BLOOMINGTON: A little under twenty years. This is the anniversary of the movie’s premiere, not the tragedy.

ROSA: Please don’t interrupt.

BLOOMINGTON: I apologize.

ROSA: The movie and what happened at that screening go hand-in-hand. O.J. Simpson had a legendary career as an athlete, and the Naked Gun movies were a hoot, but you can’t really ever talk about him without the shadow of the murders hanging over it. And that’s how it is with The Roofer. Even if I were proud of the movie, I’d have to pretty much keep it to myself, because of what happened.

BLOOMINGTON: I’m not sure I agree with that.

ROSA: You’re not the one who’s had to live with it for the past twenty years.

BLOOMINGTON: Fair enough. Are there any questions from the audience? Raise your hand and somebody will bring you a mike.

Q: Will there ever be a sequel?

ROSA: I haven’t heard anything about one. After all this time, my character’s head would just be a skull, so I won’t be in it.

Q: Have you considered naming the baby Elwood?

ROSA: No.

Q: What was your favorite part of making the movie?

ROSA: The paycheck. I got paid scale, but at the time, that was a big deal for me.

Q: If Jason Voorhees and The Roofer had a fight, who would win?

ROSA: I don’t know.

Rosa answered several more questions of varying quality. Finally, a woman raised her hand, took the microphone, and stood up.

WOMAN: I want to know why you’re here.

ROSA: Excuse me?

WOMAN: You talk about the tragedy, but you’re here right now making money off it, so how bad can you actually feel?

[Audience starts to boo.]

BLOOMINGTON: Ma’am, that’s really not appropriate. Rosa is being very generous with her time by answering our questions. And to be fair, it was twenty years ago.

WOMAN: So you’re saying that I should be over the loss of my daughter by now? That I should be okay with what’s happening here tonight?

BLOOMINGTON: Oh, shit.

WOMAN: Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Helena. Not a single day!

[A couple of people in the audience boo.]

BLOOMINGTON: Whoa, whoa, please, none of that. Ma’am, we’re sorry for your loss, and we’re not here to be disrespectful to her memory.

WOMAN: This is sick. You’re all fucking sick.

[She makes her way into the aisle and storms out of the theater, accompanied by more boos.]

BLOOMINGTON: Again, please no booing. She’s going through a lot. Oh, uh, she took the microphone with her, so could one of you go ask her for it back? Thanks. Anyway, it’s just about time to start the movie, but I don’t want to end the Q&A on that note, so does anybody have a fun question for Rosa?

Q: Do you have any roofing tips?

ROSA: Don’t fall off.

BLOOMINGTON: And with that, I’d like you all sit back, relax, and enjoy...The Roofer.

“All things considered, the Q&A could’ve gone a lot worse. Helena’s mom was gone by the time I went out to the lobby. I assume she recognized the irony that by buying a ticket she was contributing to us being able to cash in on her daughter’s death. I guess it was worth it to her. If she’d still been around, I would’ve given her a refund.”

The film began. Though he’d been alerted to this by the projectionist, Bloomington was still surprised by the terrible quality of the print. The film had only played for one week in all markets except Cincinnati, so how had it gotten all scratched up like this? He also realized that, despite his careful preparation, the appearance by Helena’s mother had rattled him enough to make him forget to warn the audience.

He began to hear restless chatter. The slow start of The Roofer, combined with the crappy print, was boring them already. But once the on-screen killings started, he was confident that the movie would hold their attention.

As it turned out, it didn’t take that long. Once Elwood started to slide off the roof, with the famous “zoom in on each of his fellow roofers” sequence, the audience exploded with laughter. And after that, they began to heckle. The film quickly turned into an audience participation event. Under normal circumstances, Bloomington believed that talking during the movies was a mortal sin, but in this case, everybody seemed to be enjoying it.

Pike Green was not enjoying it.

He liked the idea that the audience was loudly ridiculing it, but the movie still filled him with fury. He wished he could start killing people right now, but he wanted to stick to the plan.

They’d searched his backpack and found only a large framed picture of Rosa. It had pissed him off to print it out and have it framed, but he didn’t want security to question why he was bringing a backpack into the screening. Once inside, he’d gone straight to the men’s room and retrieved his three Ziploc bags. One of them had come open, so the hatchet, butcher knife, and tape measure were wet with toilet water, but at least all of the bags were untouched.

When they’d added a 10:30 show, Pike bought a ticket, to give himself more options. Upon learning that it would only be half-full, he decided to postpone his slaughter for the second show. That increased the chances that he’d be able to make it through all ten victims without somebody noticing what was going on.

In a perfect world, he’d kill ten people, one by one, and then leave the theater without getting caught. He knew this would be an almost impossible task. Like Anthony Merritt (presumably), Pike accepted that he would probably not still be alive by the end of the second show. He was okay with that outcome. He would not be going to prison, though, even if he had to stab the butcher knife deep into his own ear.

For now, he’d just sit there fuming.

Danny Tantor was having a great time. He hadn’t much cared for The Roofer as a movie, but seeing it like this, with the energy of the crowd and the anticipation of what he’d planned for later, was a really fun experience. The fact that the print was so bad added even more to his enjoyment—a movie like this wasn’t supposed to have a state-of-the-art presentation. This was perfect.

Things got even more perfect when the film suddenly froze. A second after that, an orange-black splotch appeared on the screen as the film melted.

After a few moments of everybody staring at a big white rectangle, the lights came on and Bloomington stepped out onto the stage. He apologized and said they’d get the film back up and running as soon as possible.

“If the delay had gone on for more than a couple of minutes, I would’ve brought Rosa out there to answer some more questions. But I didn’t want to bring a queasy-looking pregnant lady back up on stage if the movie was going to start again soon. I already felt bad, even though it’s not like we had her moving furniture. Fortunately, our projectionist was on top of things and the movie started again before the crowd could get too restless.”

This problem would then happen four more times over the next ten minutes of screen time.

“It was becoming a bad joke. The first time was kind of funny. People were cool with it. The second time got an even bigger laugh. The third time, people started to get up and leave. And that was a real problem, because yeah, we’d made a lot of money that night, but one good night wasn’t going to save the theater. I needed people to walk out of there thinking that they’d had a really fun experience and that they should come to future events at The Diversion. If they left early because we weren’t able to successfully show a movie, I might as well have just boarded up the doors right then. Uh, by that, I mean shut down the theater. I didn’t mean to board up the doors to trap them inside. You knew what I meant, right? Okay, good.”

Fortunately, the fourth film break was the last one. The Roofer’s climactic killing spree played to a noisy and appreciative audience. When Elwood climbed up on the roof in the final scene, somebody shouted “No! Don’t do it!” and then somebody else joined in, and soon the entire theater was filled with people shouting for Elwood the Roofer not to end his life.

But he did. The credits began to roll, and the audience cheered.

They loved it.

The twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer, though not without its hiccups, was a success.

Bloomington and Rosa walked back out on stage to thank the audience for attending and to bid them goodnight.

Part Four

Franklin Dabner was having the worst night of his career.

He took being a motion picture projectionist very seriously. He wasn’t some button-pushing teenager at a multiplex. In 2011, projecting film wasn’t as much of a lost art as it is today, but digital exhibition was the rule and people like him who knew what the hell they were doing were becoming more and more rare.

He was highly skilled at his job, but there were limits to what he could do. A master surgeon couldn’t do a quadruple bypass with a butter knife, and Franklin couldn’t provide a quality presentation of The Roofer with a print that looked like it had been dragged behind somebody’s car for a few miles and then left unspooled in somebody’s shed for the past two decades. The reviews were all going to point out how bad the film looked, and how it broke four goddamn times, and none of this was his fault! He’d made that print of The Roofer look as good as was humanly possible. If somebody came into the emergency room with eighty stab wounds in their chest, it wasn’t the doctor’s fault if they died on the operating table.

The phone rang.

He frowned. This phone almost never rang. He honestly hadn’t even thought it was still connected to an active line. If anybody needed to get in touch with him, they used a walkie-talkie or his cell phone. He answered.

FRANKLIN: Diversion, projection booth.

CALLER: Oh, thank God. I’ve been calling the main line and nobody is answering.

FRANKLIN: We’ve got a screening that’s just wrapping up and they’re probably getting ready for people to start coming out of the auditorium. How can I help you?

CALLER: Where’s Rosa McGiven?

[Franklin glances out at the auditorium through his small window.]

FRANKLIN: She’s up on stage. The Q&A was before the movie, so I think she’s just thanking everybody for coming. May I ask who’s calling?

CALLER: This is her ex-husband. You have to get her off the stage!

FRANKLIN: Is she in danger?

CALLER: How is she behaving?

FRANKLIN: She’s fine. She did a good job at the Q&A. I think she threw up a couple of times before the movie, but, y’know, she’s pregnant. We’ll make sure she gets back to her hotel safely.

CALLER: No.

FRANKLIN: What?

CALLER: I’ve been trying to call since I saw the pictures people are posting. I was with her three days ago. She’s not pregnant!

FRANKLIN: Excuse me…?

As a child, Rosa McGiven believed she was destined for great things. As a teenager, she believed this even more strongly, and after being cast in a very small role in her high school’s production of Oliver, she decided that she wanted to become an actress.

Technically, she’d achieved that goal. She had her SAG card and didn’t have to wait tables to pay her bills. Her IMDB page had a long list of credits...but they were all small credits. Being the “Who doesn’t love coffee?” lady had not catapulted her to international fame. Most performers were able to move past their early slasher flick credits. Tom Hanks, for example, did not walk into an interview dreading the moment they inevitably asked him about He Knows You’re Alone. If they did ask him, he’d probably let out a delighted laugh and say “Ha! I forgot all about that!”

Thanks to that douchebag Anthony Merritt, Rosa did not have that luxury. Without a role to overshadow it, she couldn’t move past The Roofer and that disgusting night twenty years ago, despite the fact that she wasn’t even there. She didn’t write the script, direct the movie, or attack anybody in the theater. Why wasn’t she allowed to move past this?

Her divorce two years ago had been a rough one. She still had to see the son of a bitch every once in a while because they shared the same chiropractor.

When she got the invitation to attend the twentieth anniversary screening, her initial reaction was that she wanted to tell Cyrus Bloomington to go to hell. But her agent suggested that maybe she shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. It was still her most famous role, he explained, and she could make some money selling autographs. In fact, with no real evidence that her acting career was going to move past its current state, perhaps she should consider going out on the horror convention circuit. Signing autographs might be more lucrative than acting.

She walked out of his office without a word.

Not long after that, while lathering up in the shower, she’d found a lump.

She didn’t go to the doctor to get it checked out. She knew what it was. And if she was wrong, she didn’t care. She didn’t even care if it was treatable or terminal.

She accepted the offer to appear at The Diversion, and kept her terms extremely fair.

She decided that she would go to the screening and try to have a good time. If being surrounded by “fans” sparked her passion again...well, she’d embrace it. If not, she’d make goddamn sure that nobody forgot her.

On the morning of February 22nd, she recorded a confession video, sharing everything you’ve read about in the preceding paragraphs. Then she took a cab to the airport. The items in her checked baggage included a maternity dress she bought off the rack at Target, and the fake stomach she’d worn for her role as Woman In Lamaze Class #4.

After checking into her hotel, she went straight to The Diversion. She was feeling sick to her stomach with nerves and dread, and was pretty sure that she’d end up changing her mind, but she vowed to save the final decision until after the movie. She’d rather have taken a nap, but she wanted to get to the theater before they set up the security check. As the special guest star, they would almost certainly relent if she told them that she was worried about having the metal detector wand so close to her unborn child, but it was best to avoid the whole thing if possible.

She did her Q&A, then watched the audience make fun of the movie.

She understood. It was a bad movie. She’d ridiculed it herself. But this was still somehow a career highlight, and by the time the lights went up (because the movie was over, not because the film broke) she’d decided that she would not be changing her mind.

BLOOMINGTON: Thank you for coming, everybody! Please take a flier with you on the way out and join us again! Rosa will be at her table, so please stick around for that. But if you’re not specifically waiting to meet Rosa, we’re going to ask that you clear out so we can get things ready for the next show. Thank you!

[Rosa reaches for the microphone. Bloomington hands it to her.]

ROSA: Yes, thank you. This has changed my life. Before we go, Cyrus, what’s your favorite kill from the movie?

BLOOMINGTON: Oh, wow, I guess I’m not sure. Would you take it as a compliment or an insult if I said it was yours?

ROSA: I’d take it as a compliment.

BLOOMINGTON: Yours, then.

ROSA: Thank you for the compliment. Are you going to ask mine?

BLOOMINGTON: What’s your favorite kill from the movie?

ROSA: The nail gun.

As Franklin hurriedly pushed open the doors to the auditorium, he saw Rosa reach under her dress. Under other circumstances, he would have thought the event had taken a very different turn. He had run down the stairs hoping that she was faking her pregnancy to make it harder for people to be mean to her during the event, but now it was obvious that she was hiding something in there.

And that is when Franklin would make a mistake that haunts him to this day.

He shouted, “Everybody duck!”

If everybody had ducked, he would have been a hero. The problem was that when somebody bursts into a movie theater and shouts “Everybody duck!” the reaction of the audience is not to duck, but rather to turn around in their seats to see who’s shouting.

This meant that a lot of people were looking the wrong way when Rosa took out the nail gun and opened fire.

The manufacturer of that particular model of nail gun had a public relations disaster because of the way their product was used, and because they proved themselves to be litigious, we won’t name the brand here. (Unsuccessfully litigious, but still…) It was a cordless model. A pneumatic nail gun would have been far more dangerous, but obviously she would not have been able to hide the air compressor under an artificial pregnant belly. So this was not the deadliest possible nail gun. That said, she was firing a rapid burst of two-inch-long nails into a crowd of people who were looking the other way.

There were a lot of screams. And a lot of blood.

Said Bloomington: “My first reaction? Gosh, I don’t know, what do you think my first reaction was? Actually, even though that was a stupid fucking question, I do have a real answer for it. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not like people can hate me more than they already do, right? My first reaction when she pulled out that nail gun was, ‘So that’s why she was always holding her belly.’ I figured pregnant women just held their belly a lot. But she was making sure the nail gun didn’t fall out.”

This certainly wasn’t a staple gun. A nail to the head at that velocity was enough to puncture the skull and brain, at least if you were sitting in the first few rows. Unfortunately, the first few rows were full.

They were not all head shots. Rosa was randomly firing nails into the audience instead of choosing her targets with precision. That said, three people (Glenn Croft, Melissa Wilcox, and Blake E. Clandis) received back-of-the-skull hits within the first moment of her attack. Croft and Wilcox died immediately. Clandis survived but never communicated verbally again.

The non-fatal injuries are too numerous to thoroughly document even in this long-winded analysis, but they included a great many nails puncturing a great many body parts. A couple of the more noteworthy injuries:

Scott Marcus, 16, was there without his parents’ knowledge and shouldn’t have been let into the R-rated film unaccompanied. He’d turned to look at Franklin, but spun back around just in time to get a nail through his upper lip. Scott had asked on multiple occasions for permission to get his lip pierced and was denied every time, so this was actually a welcome irony, except for the fact that the nail also shattered his front tooth.

Dirk Browne had been dragged to the screening by his horror movie-loving daughter. Though his injury was comparatively minor—a nail directly through his right thumb—it’s worth noting that a nail through the thumb is painful on a level that can barely be imagined. Lots of nerves in your thumb.

Rosa stood on the stage, her expression creepily calm, firing nails by the dozen into the screaming audience.

The security guards were armed and well trained. Unfortunately, with the movie over, they’d all moved into the lobby and the back of the auditorium to facilitate the efficient exit of the audience from the theater. This meant that a crowd of several hundred panicked fleeing moviegoers were between them and the serene woman with the nail gun, and there wasn’t much they could do except shout for people to clear a path, which they did not do.

Said Bloomington: “Nobody gives me credit for not running away. I’m not saying that I immediately tried to wrestle her to the floor. I’m just saying that while there are a lot of pictures showing me standing there in shock, it’s better than just running off-stage. I mean, a woman I thought was pregnant had just whipped a nail gun out of her fake belly, so I honestly don’t understand why people think I should’ve gone all Jackie Chan and kicked the nail gun out of her hand or something. I wasn’t cowardly. It was brave to stand so close to her on the stage! I just maybe didn’t take as much proactive action as some might have hoped.”

Bloomington’s opportunity to discover his inner hero was cut short when Rosa turned toward him and shot a nail directly into his kneecap. Bloomington’s high-pitched shriek, which you can hear in the background of the recordings of several of the calls to 911 that were being made during the chaos, was as widely mocked as his inaction. It’s the kind of shriek that makes you laugh, then makes you feel like a horrible person for laughing at the excruciating agony of another human being, but you get over the self-loathing quickly and listen to it again.

Bloomington fell onto the stage. A professional choreographer could have come up with an infinite number of less painful ways for him to have fallen, but instead he landed on his knees.

Pike Green was aghast. As soon as Rosa started firing nails out into the audience, he’d started silently whispering “No, no, no, no…” After all of his preparation, the risk he’d taken smuggling roofing tools into the theater, the expense of a bus ticket and hotel room, not to mention the cost of movie tickets for both shows, she was going to completely steal his thunder!

There would be no second show that night. That much was perfectly clear. In fact, it was a safe bet that The Roofer would never again screen for the public. So he could either accept that he wasn’t going to get to kill anybody tonight and pout the whole way home, or he could do his best to salvage his plan.

He placed his backpack on the now-empty seat next to him. He quickly unzipped it and reached inside. His intention had been to use the weapons in movie-order, but he obviously had to abandon that idea. However, he just happened to grab the hatchet first, so at least he was starting off correctly.

Pike bellowed the word “Die!” and slammed the hatchet into the face of a woman, Glenda Laumin, who’d been fleeing up the aisle past him. He hadn’t intended to shout anything; he was merely worked up. The hatchet popped out of his hands as Glenda’s forward momentum sent her careening up the aisle, until she collided with another woman, Whitney Bach.

Said Whitney in an interview that night: “I thought we were all just running from the psycho with the nail gun! But I turn around and see this chick with an axe in her face! I was like, what the hell is going on?”

Pike had considered just sticking with one weapon, but with the hatchet gone, he reached into his backpack and grabbed the meat cleaver. He pulled Erik Lobeck into the row with him and slashed his throat. The geyser that sprayed from his neck got blood on at least seven different audience members as they tried to escape the theater.

Pike tried to shove Erik’s body into the aisle, but the corpse toppled backwards instead, blocking his path. Pike picked up his backpack and climbed over the seat in front of him so that he could resume his killing spree.

Though he resented Rosa McGiven for inserting herself into his big moment, he also had to admit that the panic and mayhem was making it significantly easier for him to claim his victims. All he’d had to do was yank Erik into the aisle and cut his throat. He couldn’t have done that if he was trying to be stealthy.

He decided that he could spare a few seconds to switch weapons, so he flung the meat cleaver at a little girl whose father was desperately trying to get her to safety. Pike missed. Since the little girl in The Roofer also survived, it was appropriate that she did in fact escape from the theater, though presumably not without some psychological trauma.

Rosa continued to fire nails into the audience. Most of the front of the theater had cleared out by now, but her nail gun had remarkable range. Also, quite a few people had been trampled by the panicked crowd, and she fired nails into their bodies as they struggled to get to their feet.

Several dozen bodies were punctured by nails, but there was one significant omission that made it clear this was real life and not a movie: nobody got hit in the eye. Had this been a horror flick, somebody would’ve gotten a nail through their eyeball. Absolutely no question about it. If any filmmaker is tasteless enough to turn the February 22nd, 2011 events into a movie—something we emphatically do not condone—there will definitely be a nail-through-the-eyeball moment.

One of the security guards finally had a clear shot, and he took it.

Danny Tantor pulled a nail out of his arm as he hurried up the aisle toward the exit. What the hell? He supposed it made sense that he wasn’t the only one who’d come up with the idea of bringing real-life horror to the screening, but how could he have ever anticipated something like this? If he didn’t get out of the theater quickly, he was going to completely miss his opportunity. It wasn’t fair! The twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer was going to be synonymous with the name of Rosa McGiven and not Danny Tantor!

Then he watched in shock as Pike slashed Erik Lobeck’s throat. Some of Erik’s blood squirted on Danny’s shirt.

What the fuck?

Danny stopped running. He watched Pike climb over the seat with the backpack. When Pike threw the meat cleaver and missed, Danny was mildly annoyed at the botched opportunity. He certainly would not have missed.

But Danny’s annoyance turned to admiration when Pike reached into his backpack and took out a metal grill. It wasn’t hot, of course (at least, Pike didn’t yelp when he picked it up with his bare hand), but this guy wasn’t messing around. Danny wanted to watch what he did with the grill, but he desperately needed to get out of the building or he’d be left out of the narrative altogether. So he turned back toward the exit and ran.

The security guard’s shot missed Rosa, but it certainly got her attention.

In her confession video, which was found on a thumb drive when the FBI searched her home, Rosa explained that she would be exiting on her own terms. This, apparently, did not include being shot down by a security guard.

She turned the nail gun around to point it at her mouth, opened wide, and fired.

Presumably, she was thinking of all the people who’d committed suicide by shoving a loaded revolver in their mouth and pulling the trigger. A nail gun, though certainly effective, was not going to kill her immediately. She stood there, blood spewing from her mouth, possibly wondering why she wasn’t dead yet.

One of the other security guards fired, getting her in the center of the chest and shattering her solar plexus.

In one final attempt to end this on her own terms, Rosa raised the nail gun to the side of her head. Then it slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor.

Another shot took her down.

Pike saw Rosa fall and knew that his time was almost up. He smashed the cooking grate against the head of Jamison Bosco, hoping to bash it against his skull over and over until his brain was exposed. But the first hit wasn’t as effective as he hoped, and Jamison was able to get away. Pike switched victims, and swung the grate at Tina Gonzales, hitting her in the face and breaking her nose.

Tina, a newlywed, was no fan of horror movies. She was there strictly to please her new husband, Alejandro, who was right there with her. Alejandro had been in survival mode, but upon seeing the blood pouring from his bride’s nostrils, he instantly reverted to “beat the shit out of the guy who did this” mode.

He was not a small man. Using only his fists, he most likely could have delivered a beating that would have put Pike into a coma. But what he did instead was grab the cooking grate out of Pike’s hands and smash it into his face with substantially more force than Pike had used. Tina’s nose would heal fine. Pike’s nose would not.

Alejandro bashed the grill against the side of Pike’s head, bursting his eardrum. As Pike fell to his knees, Alejandro struck him in the back. Then he dropped the grate, took Tina’s hand, and fled the scene.

As he said later: “My intention was to kill that motherfucker. Two or three more hits would have done it. But I suddenly realized that if you hadn’t seen the whole thing, it might not be clear who was the bad guy and who was the good guy. I didn’t want to get shot by a security guard. That would’ve really sucked.”

Pike was still conscious. However, his arm was broken—severely, in multiple places—when a couple of people accidentally stepped on it. And with this, Pike Green would cause no more problems at the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer.

Danny made it out of the theater, and was extremely unhappy to see a couple of police cars already parked out front, red and blue lights flashing. He couldn’t do this in front of the police! It would’ve been hard enough to do it in front of the people who were waiting in line for the next show!

He hurried around the block, having absolutely no clue what he was going to do.

He’d gotten there really early to make sure he got a convenient parking spot. He climbed into the van that was, according to the dude he’d bought it from, completely untraceable.

Danny had wracked his brain night after night after night trying to come up with a way to surpass Anthony Merritt’s achievement, and had concluded that it couldn’t be done. What he could do was kill the victims off-site, a couple/few days before the twentieth anniversary screening.

It would be the most people Danny had ever killed, and in a very compressed timeframe. The risk was great. And trying to kill with the appropriate tools would almost certainly result in somebody escaping.

He decided that, though it was cheating, he’d kill them first, then use the tools on them.

He acquired the van and drove around to the places he knew with the most desperate people, the kind who would get into a stranger’s van for twenty dollars and the promise of a hot meal. He delivered on the hot meal, but it was poisoned.

Danny then used the appropriate tools on the ten of them, post-mortem.

Yes, he wished he could have actually killed them that way. And he wished he could have claimed victims who resembled their movie counterparts, instead of the collection of people who’d barely been alive when he found them. But it was the best he could do with his limited time and resources, and it was still going to be amazing.

He was going to wear a completely black jumpsuit with a black facemask. The bodies were on carts. He was going to pull the van in front of the theater, open the back, slide out the ramp, and then wheel out the dead bodies as quickly as possible. Under normal circumstances, you couldn’t wheel ten corpses out onto the side of a city street with a line of people right there watching what you were doing and get away with it. Somebody would say, “Hey, what’s that guy doing with all of those corpses?” and the jig would be up. There were remarkably few scenarios where one could do something like that and be allowed to drive away undisturbed.

One of those scenarios was at the twentieth anniversary screening of a slasher flick, if the onlookers all thought it was part of the show.

If he did it efficiently, the spectators would assume the corpses were actors or dummies. They’d laugh and comment how The Diversion had really gone all-out for this event. The protestors would scowl and remark that the event was even worse than they’d thought possible. Lots of people would take pictures. Some of them might even step out of line and pose with the bodies.

It wouldn’t be until Danny had driven off, and hopefully not until he’d ditched the van a few blocks away, that somebody would realize that the corpses were real. And then the laughter would stop and the screaming would begin.

Danny would not claim credit for his magnificent display, but he’d know that he’d been responsible, and it would make him happy. Hell, he might even decide that he’d achieved the pinnacle of his murder hobby and stop killing people! He could move in with Sonja.

Obviously, he couldn’t drop off the bodies in front of the theater with the police out there and nail-laden people running and screaming. He’d have to find someplace else to do it. It wouldn’t have nearly the same impact, but at least it would be something. The authorities would find ten dead bodies, each “killed” by the tools used in the movie, on the night of the screening. His action would still be legendary, right?

Danny started the van’s engine and drove off. He looked around, trying to find a spot that was sufficiently secluded but still reasonably close to the theater.

In his anxiety-filled state, he should have focused all of his attention on safe driving. Had that been the case, he wouldn’t have accidentally run a red light, which would have spared him the experience of a very large truck slamming into his van.

Upon impact, the back doors popped open.

Several carts flew out, spilling corpses haphazardly onto the pavement, with nary a trace of the artistry Danny had envisioned. The murder tools didn’t even stay in place.

The police were already extremely busy, but a pair of cops found the time to deal with reports of a man, bleeding from a head injury, screaming in frustration as he slammed his fist against the side of his wrecked van.

No refunds were given.

In total, sixteen people died, if you don’t count Rosa McGiven or Danny Tantor’s ten pre-existing victims. Seventy-nine more were injured.

The Diversion ceased operations and never screened another motion picture. Nobody even wanted to repurpose the building. In fact, they couldn’t even find a buyer who wanted to construct a new building on the now-surely-cursed land. The theater stands empty to this day.

Pike Green and Danny Tantor were each sentenced to life in prison. Both spoke freely about their thought processes, making this article much easier to research.

The courts determined that Cyrus Bloomington was not legally responsible for the carnage, as he had taken security precautions and could not have reasonably expected that Rosa McGiven was hiding a nail gun under a fake pregnancy belly. Nor should he have thought it was necessary to search the toilet tanks. Although the criminal and civil suits were thrown out, Bloomington’s employment opportunities were scarce afterward.

“I couldn’t even keep a job as a waiter because customers didn’t want me near their food. What did they think, I was going to hide a nail in their steak or something? Now I work a desk job. Customer service. It sucks. I do think that without three psychopaths being in the audience, it would have been a really fun event and everybody would’ve gone home happy, but the psychopaths were there and that’s just the way it is.”

Bernard Cagmire said: “I hate every goddamn thing about The Roofer. The movie itself is the kind of crap that gets made when it’s 1991 and every other remotely decent idea for a slasher movie has already been used. And I know Scream came after that and brought the genre back to life, but you know what I mean. My career shouldn’t have this big blotch on it. All I did was make a shitty movie. Lots of people make shitty movies. I just happened to make a shitty movie that had some shitty people make it even shittier, and quite honestly I’m done talking about it now. Fuck off.”

The cast and crew of The Roofer offered their condolences to the victims through social media, while most of them also said that this was exactly why they’d declined the invitation.

The following week, The Roofer was the #3 best-selling DVD in the country.

A Blu-Ray edition, containing updated special features to address the new slaughter, was released in October 2011.

There was no thirtieth anniversary screening on February 22nd, 2021. It’s possible that the only thing stopping somebody from trying to book it was the global pandemic. Social media was filled with stories of people having their own private screenings at home, although there were no reports of grisly violence at any of them.

Thus far there have been no reports of a sequel, or a remake, or another theatrical screening of The Roofer. We hope that will remain the case.

And we here at Red On The Silver Screen hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the twentieth anniversary screening of The Roofer. Join us next month for in-depth coverage about the controversial practice of using real human skeletons in movies. And please don’t forget about the donate button!

Acknowledgments

For more information about the contributors, visit…

Jeff Menapace’s website

Jeff Menapace’s Amazon page

Iain Rob Wright’s website

Iain Rob Wright’s Amazon page

William Malmborg’s Amazon page

Jeff Strand’s website

Jeff Strand’s Amazon page