“You guys could come in a while if you wanted,” Derek offered. “Call your ‘rents, ask them to come and pick you up.”
“Naw, man,” Tommy shrugged. “We’ll be fine.”
Sud nodded in agreement.
“You sure?” Derek pushed, taking a quick glance around the street. “It’s not safe out there, man.”
Tommy and Sud ran into the Factory, the killer tight on their heels as they slammed the door behind them.
Xander nearly jumped out of his skin, turning quickly. “Derek!” he shouted, laughing at his own jumpiness. He slapped his friend on the back heartily, which was returned. “It’s only you.”
Derek nodded, smiling. “Only me.”
Derek Smith walked out of the Library and slammed the door behind him.
“He can have that effect on people,” came Mike’s voice from the corner. “Lemme guess, he kept pushing buttons ‘till he found one that hurt you, then he kept pushing it?”
Derek actually laughed at that, waving a finger at Mike. “Something like that,” he reasoned, “Jeez, don’t you just wanna rip that guy’s head off?”
“Sometimes,” he nodded. “Actually, all of the time. Tact isn’t his strong suit, I’m afraid. One of these days, he’s going to break his neck jumping to conclusions.”
“Yeah,” Derek snarled. “He actually accused me of helping Al and Raine do this shit to Julie. Me! I mean, she’s probably the one person in this school that I wouldn’t take a machete to...” his voice trailed off for a second, eyeing Mike’s right side sheepishly. “... present company excluded, of course.”
Mike laughed, an act that stretched his stitches painfully. “Think nothing of it,” he replied, trying to keep the agony out of his voice. He didn’t do a very good job of it. “But that’s not really what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Well,” Sara started, smirking to herself proudly, “I heard from Julie Peterson today that the reason Derek has been so on edge lately is because Theresa had to take the test.”
“Yeah,” Xander nodded. “That Family Living test was bad news. I think I must have only gotten an eighty-five or something...”
She turned and gave him a little slap on the arm, “Not that test, you half-wit. A pregnancy test.”
Xander’s eyes went wide for a moment as he held open the front door for her, which she barely acknowledged. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would Derek be messed up over that?” he asked naively.
She shot him a look.
“Ah. Forget I asked.”
“Done.”
“Wasn’t she supposed to be with Jamie?”
“They broke up.”
“Why? I mean, besides the ‘she may be pregnant from another man’, thing?”
“That’s just a rumor. The real reason was because he cheated on her,” she smirked to herself coyly.
“With who?” he moaned, feeling a ‘relationship’ headache coming on.
“Me,” she said proudly, and he realized that this would become a migraine before it was over.
Jamie turned the corner and bumped immediately into a large, dark figure. The person was covered in a trench coat and looked like it was made out of shadows. The thing’s eyes burned bright with hatred as it made a move towards him menacingly. Jamie screamed loudly and took off in the other direction, but his stitch got the better of him again, this time right away. The shadow-figure grabbed him, pulling him into the darkness. He took a dagger from his coat and jabbed it into Jamie’s right side. Blood gushed immediately from the treads etched into the sides of the blade, splattering onto the street with a sickening splashing sound.
As Jamie’s vision because hazy and he realized it was over, he stopped struggling against the man’s iron grip. He fell to the ground, and the last thought to run through his head was that maybe if he had given up smoking just a little earlier, he might have been able to run just that little bit further.
Blood oozed into Sara’s dress as the killer twisted, then pulled the knife from the mouth it had just opened. Sara let out a little sound like a dove cooing, a small tear rolling down her cheek. The killer wiped her cheek clean, then sliced her slowly across the throat. Her hand went up to her wound, and was instantly covered in blood. The killer put a finger up to his hooded mouth. “Shh.”
She opened her mouth to scream a warning to the others, but couldn’t. All she felt was her blood pour out onto the wooden balcony. She lay down on the floor and her eyes rolled back into her head. A small puddle of blood began to form all around her. As the killer walked through it, he gazed into the room filled with teens. A wry smile spread across his lips.
The last thought to go through her mind was of Xander.
Tommy Irons stepped into the auditorium, bringing a hand up to his squinted eyes to block some of the harsh orange light that bombarded him when he did so. The room was filled with candles, each one shimmering and dancing and casting its own set of shadows onto the walls and the people that had gathered there, packed tightly into the tiny gymnasium. He turned as Sud came in behind him, throwing his friend a smirk. “Think they’re ready?”
Sud patted the breast pocket of the dingy jacket he wore, nodding once as a grin spread over his face as well.
Snickering, Tommy’s eyes floated over the gathered crowd until he found the person he was looing for.
Mike reached out and
