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Published:
2023-03-26
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2023-03-26
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5,409
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1/?
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Everybody Dies but Us

Summary:

Halloween is only a few days a way, and California is not a safe place to be right now. A strange sense of Deja vu has settled over the town of Woodsboro, and nobody can place their finger on what it is. They'll find out soon enough, though.

Perhaps someone should've watched a few more horror movies..?

Notes:

Hey! This story has been festering away in my notes for a couple of months, and festering inside my head for even longer. It is a product of my imagination.

This is my first proper fanfic which has actually left my head and my phone, and I've actually written enough to post. My writing isn't that great, but I did my best so hopefully someone will like it.

Also- the story is of course set in California, but I am not American. I tried to use as many American terms as possible but if you see a Britishism anywhere, feel free to correct me or smth, I'll be very grateful!

Please read the tags before reading!! Enjoy!!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Act One

Chapter Text

An alarm bell is going off somewhere in the house. 

 

 

It takes Alice a moment to realise that the shrill noise is her phone’s ringtone, muffled from its current location beneath the couch cushions, buried. She stops stirring and gently props the wooden spoon on the counter; the pasta sauce can wait two minutes. She stuffs her hand down the side of the couch and retrieves the source of the noise. 

 

Unknown number 

 

Alice frowns and swipes to accept the call.

 

“Hello? Who is this?”

 

“Who is this?”

 

The voice on the other end sounds low and husky; she doesn’t recognise who it belongs to. 

 

“You called me, so you tell me first.” 

 

“I’ll tell you my name if you tell me yours.”

 

“Mmmm…” she muses, pretending to consider the offer. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers? Because mine certainly did,” She jokes, and it’s true, the first thing she really learnt. That, and never trust something if you can’t tell where it keeps its brain.

 

“Isn’t everyone a stranger when you first meet them? Or else you’d never talk to anyone.” 

 

“I suppose so,” She laughs. “But unfortunately, I don’t think picking up the wrong number is the best way to make friends. And I think you have the wrong number, so bye now-”

 

“I don’t have the wrong number.”

 

“Oh, was there someone else you were trying to reach? My uncle owns an ice-cream manufacturing business, if you-”

 

“No… I don’t think so…” 

 

Alice rolls her eyes. This is such a stupid conversation. “Well, then you must have dialled the wrong number. Goodbye!” 

 

She ends the call and turns back to her bolognaise on the stove. She had hoped it’d be ready before Frank arrives for their date night; it still might be since he still isn’t here. That’s weird, Frank is usually madly early for everything he does. It should drive her insane, but instead she finds it oddly charming. Practically everything about Frank is charming.

 

She supposes they’re what you might call “high-school sweethearts”, since they met in tenth grade, sharing math and social studies classes. At first, she found his quiet softness far too annoying for her own bubbly, extroverted self. She fills the space with her sheer personality, loud voice and easy-going attitude. People are naturally just attracted to her, and she takes it all in her stride. 

 

But Frank shrinks as much as his tall, broad structure will allow, he shies away from the spotlight. Or at least, he used to; she hopes she has brought him out of his mother’s shell at least a little. Helped him to be surer of himself. 

 

He slowly began to grow on her, she hated to admit. Each hour they spent together, she found herself more and more swayed by his sweet, timid smiles, round brown eyes and how invested he became in projects and work. One of the most attractive things a man can do is be passionate about knowledge, and know that he is not above learning, trying and making an effort, in Alice’s opinion. She gets the ick from men with a large ego. 

 

Frank was gone from the moment they first met, according to Emmeline. She knew as soon as Alice began to fall for him, and she’s most likely the reason they’re together today. And the Prewett twins, quietly rooting for Frank without drawing any attention, so Alice wouldn’t notice. Emmeline always seems to read her like a book, she’s good like that. She can read anyone. Although Rita was always best at relationships advice. And if you think Alice is laid-back, just wait till you meet Emmeline Vance.

 

But now they’re happily together, and Frank is late for their date night. Or at least, he isn’t early, which is the same thing for him. 

 

In the space of a few seconds, her mobile begins to ring again. She knows who it is without even looking. 

 

“Why’d you call back? You know you have the wrong number,” She asks.

 

“I have some time on my hands, and I thought we could be… friends. We could talk for a bit.”

 

“Huh…” She thinks to herself, why not? It can’t do any harm. The wrong number guy has a point- you never talk to strangers; you never make friends. “Sure Mr, we can talk. What do you wanna talk about?” 

 

“… What’s your favourite scary movie?”

 

She huffs out a laugh. “Wow, random topic. Erm… I don’t really watch horror much, although I’ve probably watched everything else. I’m more of an action thriller romance kinda girl, so I don’t really have one.”

 

“Oh, that’s a shame…you’ve never watched Scream, have you?”

 

“Uhhh, nope.”

 

“Didn’t think so. Guess what happens in the opening scene.”

 

 She traces back through her mind for any knowledge of horror movies. “Not a clue…” she twists round and leans back on the kitchen counter with the phone to her ear, and catches sight of the clock on the wall. “Sorry, I really need to go now-”

 

“But wait, I didn’t catch your name!”

 

She smiles to herself and drags a hand through silky hazelnut curls. Why do you wanna know my name?” 

 

The reply comes in a sing-song, flirtatious tone. “Because I wanna know who I’m looking at.” 

 

Alice nearly drops the phone in surprise. “What did you just say?” 

 

“Because I wanna know who I’m talking to, why? What did you think I said?” 

 

“You know exactly what you said.” She fumbles the phone, almost dropping it in the boiling pan of pasta. She walks over to the French double doors that lead out to the garden and peers out the glass, checking, but she can’t see anything in the dark. “This was a stupid idea, bye-”

 

“Don’t hang up on me-”

 

She presses the red decline button and exhales heavily, trying to regulate her breathing. That was fucking creepy. 

 

She’s grabbing two dishes out the cupboard, before the phone starts ringing again. She grabs it with her free hand, presses accept and says angrily, “Listen, asshole-”

 

“No, you listen to me, you little bitch! You hang up on me again and I’ll rip out your insides, wrap them around your pretty little throat and strangle you with them!”

 

This time she really does drop the phone (along with the plates, which smash into tiny porcelain fragments all over the floor), and it flies out of her hand, skidding across the kitchen tiles and hitting the wall opposite. 

 

“And that’s a promise.” she hears the voice emitting out the phone from across the room. 

 

She reaches down and picks it back up, shakily raising it to her ear. “You think this is funny? Prank calling random girls and making empty death threats? I’m not scared of you,” Alice tries to hold her voice steady, hoping the caller can’t detect the fear in it. 

 

But the person on the other end of the line begins to laugh; a grating, robotic sound that seeps into her eardrums and scratches at her brain. 

 

How dare they??? The laughing doesn’t stop, the caller sure seems to find something about this absolutely hysterical. She does not. “You think this is fucking funny? My boyfriend is going to be here soon, and…” She tries to sound braver than she feels, and scare the caller off- but what could Frank do anyway? He isn’t scary in the slightest. He’s terrified of spiders and the dark, and he plays My Singing Monsters with her. He loves the smell of her nail varnish (even though he pretends not to), and she has to go with him to his mother’s house for dinner every other Sunday. “He’ll track you down, and he’ll get you.” 

 

This only makes the caller laugh harder, the noise making her insides squirm. “Hmm, his name wouldn’t happen to be Frank, would it?” 

 

Alice’s breath catches in her throat. 

 

“How- how do you know that...?” 

 

“I know a lot of things about you, Alice,” the caller hisses- it’s possibly the most sinister thing she’s ever heard, and that’s saying something. Bellatrix Black has a very sharp tongue.

 

She leans forward on the kitchen counter and hisses back; “What do you want from me?”

 

The voice cackles, “Ha, poor little Miss Fortescue… isn’t it obvious? …I want to know whether your blood is the same shade of red as your lipstick.”

 

She tries to reply, but only a wobbling shudder comes out her mouth. 

 

“Let’s play a game, shall we?”

 

Her first instinct is to reply with fuck right off, but something stops her. “Will you leave me alone if I do?”

 

“Sure, if you like… the first step of the game, so you understand how the… rules work, as it were… turn on your patio light.” 

 

Alice scoffs. The more she thinks about it, this caller is most likely just some middle school kid messing about with his friends, dialling a random number and trying to scare her. They’re probably pissing themselves with laughter right now. Well, she’s not scared of them. Not one bit. They don’t even know if she has a garden, they just want to see how far they can go with this stupid prank. 

 

“Okayyyy Mr, I’ll go do just that,” she says cheerily, not moving. “Nope, nothing out there…” 

 

“I told you, turn on the patio light, bitch. Go and do it and perhaps you’ll understand how this is going to work a little better.”

 

Maybe this caller isn’t a middle schooler after all. How did they know her name? How did they know Frank’s name? She says nothing and walks over to the French doors, flicking the switch on. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frank is out there. 

 

 

 

 

Alice screams. It’s high and ragged- she claps a hand over her mouth to shut herself up, but she can’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. 

 

 

He’s tied up in a chair, bound tightly with duct tape, it’s over his mouth too. Blotchy purple and sickly yellow bruises are peppered all over his face and hands, and there is a thick slash of blood across his face, too. His cream jersey has a dark crimson stain pooling across it, and she seriously doubts it’s ketchup. 

 

She rushes to open the doors, fumbling with the keys-

 

 “I wouldn’t do that if I were you! You open those doors and I’ll carve out pretty boy here’s brains like a pumpkin on Halloween!”

 

Alice sinks to her knees, cradling the phone and wringing her hands like a child. Fat tears drop onto the screen and into her lap, but she doesn’t wipe her eyes. “What do you want with me? Let him go, please, please…” 

 

The caller starts laughing, again. Sick fucker. That noise makes her stomach twist. 

 

“Just play the game, and I’ll think about letting pretty boy and yourself go. I am going to ask some questions, just answer them correctly!” She can practically hear the caller beaming down the phone. “Very, very easy questions… you’re smart aren’t you, Alice, you go to college… you’ll get these easily.”

 

“Okay, okay…” This is just someone who has taken quiz shows one step too far, that’s all. She can do this. Beat them. 

 

“And I think you’ll love the topic! Movie trivia! You love movies, don’t you?” 

 

“Yes, hurry up!” She does watch a lot of movies- romance, action, thrillers, comedy, chick-flicks, you name it, she’s watched it.

 

“No need for the tone, missy… question one! Who is the first person Michael Myers kills on Halloween?”

 

 

This is just embarrassing.

 

 

“You… that’s a horror movie! I’ve never even watched it, that’s not fair! “

 

She can practically hear the caller smirking and shrugging on the other end. “Not my problem, pretty girl. What’s the answer?” 

 

“I…” She switches tabs on her phone onto google, fingers racing to type the question in. “Judith!” She shrieks down the line. “His older sister, Judith!” 

 

 

Silence.

 

 

“That’s the right answer, isn’t it? It is! I beat you, fucking bastard!”

 

 

 

“That is indeed the right answer, Alice. But… weren’t you ever taught not to cheat? I certainly was.” 

 

“I told you I don’t watch horror! How can you expect me to know this shit?” 

 

“You have a point, I guess. You may stay in the game.” 

 

Alice sags with relief, head tingling with adrenaline. 

 

“Unfortunately, as a consequence of not following the rules, pretty boy is out!”

 

She freezes. The whites of Frank’s eyes gleam in the darkness, pleading and desperate. Don’t let them get me, Al.

 

His eyes should never look like that. They should be warm and glowing, like sunsets in the Sahara.

 

The outside light flickers off, and a dark shadow sweeps past the door. She shrieks and leaps up off the floor, darting to the wall and flicking the light-switch back on. She presses a hand to the glass. Her breath makes cold clouds of fog against the pane. 

 

 

Frank is dead. 

 

 

His head lolls forward, hanging limp on his neck. There is a large, misshapen hole where the crown of his head should be, like someone has roughly hacked it off. It’s red, it’s all red, all she can see is the red of his blood; his brains are splayed out into his lap. Literally spilt out of his skull. The white chalky crust of his skull is showing. Her stomach churns, her head aches dully and she can taste vomit in her mouth. 

 

 

Frank is dead.

 

 

It’s her fault. She’s never watched fucking Halloween, and now her boyfriend is dead because of that. But he wasn’t just her boyfriend, not just a high-school date that wasn’t going to last. They were going to live their entire lives together. Frank had his entire life left to live, and now some psycho bastard has taken it from him. In one evening. 

 

Oh, they’re going to fucking pay. Alice will make them, if it’s the last thing she ever does. 

 

“Poor pretty boy, shame his brains had to be wasted like that...” 

 

“You sick motherfucker…” she whispers. 

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Next question. What is the name of the girl that dies in the traditional opening scene of Scream 1996?” 

 

“I don’t know, I don’t know, you know I don’t! Fuck it, I don’t care either! No one does, except for pathetic movie neek freaks like you! Why does it matter?” She ends the call swiftly- and then regrets it. She just hung up on a murderer, one who viciously killed the love of her life right in front of her. Not the best decision. 

 

Just as expected, the phone begins to ring immediately. She grabs it-

 

“I told you not to fucking hang up on me! Fine, just one last question: which door am I at?”

 

“I DONT CARE, COME AND FIND ME!” She screeches down the line. Hopefully she sounded brave that time. She swivels round on the spot, searching the room for any sign of an intruder. 

 

Then, through the far archway between the living room and the hall, she sees them. A cloaked figure with a white mask obscuring their face from view running down the hallway. A surge of determination and the need to avenge Frank takes hold of her, and she pulls a carving knife out of the block on the side, gripping it firmly. She speeds through into the hallway, but the mask man is no longer there. Well, they can’t have gone far. 

 

Except this silent stillness is unnerving her, and she gets the sense that she’s missed a trick somewhere. She walks slowly along the corridor, listening carefully. The vivid image of Frank’s carved open head hasn’t left her mind, reminding her of just how much she has to find this killer. Needs to make them know just how much of a mistake they made, fucking with her like this. 

 

She’s stood, poised and ready for an attack from behind or in front of her. The blade in her hand brings some reassurance, at least. She can do this. She just needs the mask man to-

 

With a deafeningly loud crash, the mask man bursts out of the cupboard-under-the-stairs right next to her, taking the door right off its hinges, and broken splinters of wood lie all over the floor. 

 

Alice is knocked off her feet by the force of the mask man, and they flatter her to the floor, pinning her legs down with their own. They slip a knife out the sleek black fabric of their costume; it glints in the light and leers at her- teasing, teasing, teasing. They press it down onto her neck, drawing thin bubbles of blood along the blade. 

 

The figure looms above her, and now she can properly see their mask. A white face of a ghost; deep black holes for eyes, bent inwards to create an expression of sorrow. The mouth is elongated and takes up most of the mask- the frozen snapshot of a scream. It’s mocking, taunting, patronising. 

 

She raises her leg from its trapped position, brings it upwards and kicks the ghost-faced killer in the crotch area, hard. They don’t make a sound, barely even flinch, but they are forced backwards against the wall by the momentum, and she uses the opportunity to scramble away. Her own carving knife is lying a few metres away, near the front door. She looks behind her; the ghost is stood upright now, simply watching her next move. Tilting their head to one side; intrigued like she’s a pet dog doing something it shouldn’t. They think she’s funny.

 

After a few seconds of a silent staring competition with the ghost, Alice suddenly dives for the knife, just at the same time the ghost dives for her. She grabs the weapon and rolls onto her front- the ghost is leaning over her; holding her down, again. They knock the knife out of her hand with ease and it clatters to the floor, too far away for her to reach. They raise their own blade above their head; ready to strike- she shrieks and brings her knee upwards again, this time it collides with the ghost’s ribs and winds them- she can hear a faint gasp of surprise escape their mouth.  For good measure, she brings her fist up and punches the ghost in the stomach- they definitely can’t breathe now. She punches them once more in the face, except her fist only collides with the hard plastic of their mask and most definitely hurt herself more than them. 

 

She rushes to her feet and races into the kitchen, wondering where to go next. Should she hide? No, they’d find her and she would be defenceless. She remembers with a pang that she left her knife in the hallway with the ghost, and they must be recovered now, following her down the corridor. 

 

The back door. Escaping into the garden means more space to run, and they might not be able to find her in the dark of night, in such a large space. Alice wrenches it open, grabbing the keys off the counter and locking it behind her. She purposefully avoids looking at Frank; sitting lifeless on the patio, blue light of the pool behind him illuminating his silhouette. Sobs threaten to choke her, and she swallows them down, blinks away her tears. She crouches under the window ledge, hiding from view and trying to catch her breath. She can’t hear anything happening inside; no crashing, smashing, heavy footsteps, growls of frustration, nothing. They didn’t give up, surely?

 

The ghost hasn’t made escaping- easy, necessarily, but it wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to kick them a couple times and run. If not for her boyfriend being brutally murdered, she might have found this evening fun, maybe. 

 

But how did the ghost actually trap Frank? He may not be be a professional boxer, but he’s strong, he could definitely put up a fair fight- it wouldn’t be easy for the ghost. And she doubts they could just creep up behind him, he isn’t easy to ambush. Always alert. She knows, because any time she tries to hide behind a wall or doorway and jump up on him, he always stops and says, “I know you’re there, Al,” and starts laughing. 

 

Or he used to, anyway. It infuriated her to no end. Tears try and flood her eyes once more, and she scrunches her eyes to stop them. 

 

The quiet tranquillity of the backyard doesn’t sit right with her right now, not at night. During the day, the seemingly never-ending lawn is one of her favourite places in her uncle’s house, and watching the wind ripple across the grass is quite relaxing. 

 

But now… the grass appears ghostly grey and shining, and the trees at the bottom of the hill cast shadowy spells across it. The sky is starless tonight. 

 

It begins to rain. A drop falls on her cheek, and then another, then another. For a moment, she thinks it’s the ghost-faced man, playing a prank on her, and a mix of fear and adrenaline floods through her veins. She can’t move. But her uncle did tell her that a storm was forecast for that night, she remembers. It’s falling heavy now, not just a shower. Of course, the one night she’s being chased by a masked psychopath with a knife, it rains. Now she’s doing to die with soggy, flat hair. If I die, she reminds herself.

 

I might not die at all, a tiny glimmering voice of hope pipes up at the back of her mind. A vision of Frank’s bloody, battered head pops into her head, like a tv screen flickering on. He’s only a few metres away from her, after all- a painful reminder. Maybe he had the same hopeful thought just before he died. 

 

Then.

 

She feels a slow sense of dread crawling up her spine. You know when you can feel eyes on you, and you feel like you’re being watched, even though you haven’t seen anyone there? Yeah, that. Someone staring at the back of her head, burning two holes into her skull. 

 

She’s crouched under the kitchen window ledge. She realises with horror, that the window is now wide open above her, and she never noticed it get opened, because she knows her uncle shut it before he left that afternoon. 

 

Slowly, slowly, she turns her head round and looks up. She can feel her heart pulsing in her chest, thrumming so hard it could burst out of her rib cage. The Ghost is there. They’re leaning out the window, arms folded and resting on the ledge, as if bored. They cock their head to one side, watching her. She can practically hear what they’re thinking. Boo.

 

She leaps up and tries to make a run for it. She’s quick, but the Ghost is quicker. They reach out and grab her neck before she can fully stand up, they raise their other arm backwards and they stab her. Stab. Her. They must have had the knife tucked up their sleeve. The Ghost literally drives it straight into the flesh between her shoulder and breast then back out again, quicker and easier than blinking. She doesn’t scream, only releases a small choking noise, glaring back at the ghost’s empty masked eyes in horror. 

 

The sensation itself is nauseating, like nothing she’s ever felt before. Something large and sharp sinking through skin and tendons and tissue seamlessly; it feels so unnatural.

 

She lifts a hand up the wound- thick warm blood pours out the wound and soon her hand is covered in it; sticky, shining red. 

 

Alice needs to run, so she does. She tears off past Frank, past the pool- she looks over her shoulder, just for a moment. The Person with the Ghost Face swings their legs over and out the window with ease, slipping off the ledge, dropping onto the hard stone patio and keeping their balance, no problem. They’re nimble on their feet, she’ll give them that. 

 

They’re chasing her now, as she stumbles past her uncle’s precariously-grown flowerbeds, and she knows she stands no chance in outrunning them. Where should she go? Up to the lane and try to hitch a lift before the Ghost catches her? No. It’s too far, they’d catch up to her easily. Besides, barely anyone ever comes past that way. Her uncle isn’t due back home until tomorrow noon; they have no neighbours, there’s no one within at least a three-mile radius except for her and her boyfriend’s messed-up corpse. 

 

Pain is clouding her thoughts, threatening to overwhelm her. She keeps running as best she can, but fear and bleeding like a tap weaken and distract her, and she thinks she’s dangerously close to tripping up over her own feet. 

 

Should she run down to the forest, hide in the trees? No, that’s stupidest idea she’s ever had, something Gideon might suggest to her and she wouldn’t be able to tell whether he was serious or joking. It’s too easy to get lost in there. 

 

She keeps running, she keeps running. Her feet are sloppy and her legs tremble, and she knows it’s no good; the ghost faced-man seems to have superhuman agility that she can never compare with. But she has to try. For Frank. For Florean, for Emmeline, Rita, the twins, Benji, Sybil. For herself. 

 

She has to try. She doesn’t want to die like this. She’s not ready. She doesn’t want to die in pain, covered in blood, sticky tears plastering her cheeks and consumed by fear. It’s not fair; if she’s literally about to die, she should at least be given the courtesy of choosing how she goes, right?

 

Unfortunately, that’s not the way it goes. Ghostface catches her up in less than ten seconds, and now they’re practically running alongside her. Mocking her. 

 

They both keep running, while the ghost-faced man reaches one black cloaked arm round her neck, covering her mouth as she tries to scream. They plunge the blade right into her abdomen with their other arm, and this time the pain is much worse. Nothing could ever have prepared her for it. They wrench it out of her as she gasps for breath, desperately trying to get out of their grasp. 

 

She can see a luminescent white light in the distance- surely those fairy stories aren’t true, about seeing light at the end of a tunnel? 

 

No, because the light is coming from her front drive, and as she blinks, she can make out the shape of a car. So, they must be car headlights. But no one else is supposed to be home?

 

She focuses hard on the car- this could save her life, this person. A silhouette of a middle-aged woman comes into view, with flyaway, brownish-grey hair and a handbag swinging from their shoulder. …What?

 

Oh fuck, Alice recognises the blurred shape now. Augusta Longbottom. Frank’s mom must have realised he wasn’t picking up any calls (how could he?) and decided to fetch him. The saggy bitch still doesn’t trust Alice; no matter what she does, she’s never good enough for her precious son. 

 

She continues to stumble forwards as best she can; but Ghostface’s grip on her shoulder tightens until vice-like. 

 

“MRS LONGBOTTOM! AUG, AUGUSTA-” She shrieks like her life depends on it, because it does. She gets no response- Augusta is deaf as a post and steadfastly refuses to wear hearing aids. 

 

She spins round to face the ghost, feeling triumphant. There’s no way they can kill her with Augusta there; she has to notice Alice soon and she’ll call the cops. She will. She’ll save her. Or maybe she could take on the ghost herself. As much as Alice hates to admit it, she feels like Augusta Longbottom could fight God and win. 

 

The Ghost must be thinking the same thing, because their grip on her shoulder falls slack, allowing her to slip out of their reach. She tries to get as far away from the ghost as possible; but she must’ve been bleeding out for too long- her foot gives way after a couple of steps and she crumples into a messy, bloody heap on the sopping wet grass. 

 

She can’t give up now. She can’t. She rolls onto her front only to see the ghost’s chalky white face, looming above her in the blackness. So maybe they didn’t give up after all. They’re watching her again. Watching, watching. She must look so pathetic, writhing around on the wet ground covered in mud and blood, shouting for help she knows will never come. Her vision is blurring and the ghost’s pitying, downturned eyes swim in front of her. 

 

They kneel down next to her and raise the crimson-tipped knife high above their head. She knows what’s coming. 

 

They swing the knife down almost with a flourish, a swishing flick of their wrist as they pierce the skin of her chest, swiftly, smoothly. Hot blood begins to spurt out and it hurts, it hurts so, so much. 

 

No. She’s not ready yet. She pushes herself over onto all fours and scrambles away, crawling like some desperate animal. The ghost must be laughing at her right now. 

 

But then she feels it from behind, the knife driving right through her back, close to her spine. There’s a ringing growing in her ears, louder and louder until she can’t hear her own screams. Maybe no sound is coming out anyway, she can’t tell. Ha, maybe the ringing sounds a lot like her phone ringtone. The world is blurring and swaying beneath her hands and knees, but she keeps crawling anyway. 

 

Her nerves are burning, every cell in her body alight with flaming pain. Again, again, again. They drive the knife through her flesh like a fucking pincushion. The ground under her fingers is red, hot and sticky. Did the ghostface get their wish, to find out whether her lipstick is the same shade of scarlet as her blood? 

 

She faintly remembers boiling pasta in the kitchen, two places set out on the dining table with delicate silver cutlery and their best napkins, the ones with red roses and hyacinths imprinted on. Two red candlesticks, just lit, with wax dripping down the sides gradually. A bouquet of flowers in a vase at the head of the table, a whole range of brilliant vibrant colours, so many different kinds because she couldn’t never decide on one; and why not make it as bright as possible? 

 

She can’t crawl anymore. She’s lying face-down in the grass, sobbing and gasping for air even though there’s no point. She turns to look at her killer, one last time. The mask of sorrow still laughs at her, watching, taunting, pitying. She reaches one arm up, attempting to grab it. She needs to know who it was. Some stranger? Or someone closer to home. 

 

She thinks the mask comes away, and the last thing Alice sees is her killer’s face. But she can’t think, everything, literally everything, is blurred. 

 

The last expression etched into her features is confusion, a tiny crease of the brow carved onto her face forever. It won’t change now. 

 

Alice liked to think that her best personality trait was bravery. Sure, she never fought a war, climbed mountains or hunted lions, but she put herself out there. She tried her best no matter what, even if it took her too far out of her comfort zone. Hopefully finding who her killer was was a brave thing to do, too. Reaching out to see the face under the mask, even though she couldn’t change anything anymore.

 

But now bright, hazel eyes lay wide open and glassy. The candles in the kitchen burn low, a thick scent of cherries settling over the room. The night is silent, save for the gentle pattering of rain, causing nut-brown curls to become soaking wet. Alice wanted to cut her hair shorter, dye it a darker shade of brown. She wanted to go to college, and become a lawyer. She wanted to see the Northern lights and become a millionaire. Decorate a lavish Victorian mansion with its own library and gardens. Maybe have a kid someday. There was so much she wanted to do. 

 

But there’s so, so much that Ghostface wants to do. 

 

And absolutely nothing is going to get in their way.

Notes:

rip Alice my girly Frank my guy xx

She would've made a great final girl but Ghostface was just too good that evening yk

anyway