𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫 ~ 𝙄'𝙢 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙪𝙥

Randy Meeks walks into a small house, a couple of blocks away. He is greeted by the darkness and the deafening silence. He sighs in relief; his stoner roommate is nowhere to be found; he can finally have some time to himself. He flips the light switch; the living room is illuminated. Unfortunately he hears one of the lightbulbs burst, the hallway is now unnaturally dark. He huffs in annoyance, carelessly throws his denim jacket on the couch and grabs the door of the refrigerator. The fridge door swings open easily. He isn't too worried about the fridge but he is worried about the slight creak that he just heard. "It could've been anything", he says to himself. "Snap out of it, Meeks". But Meeks does not snap out of it, his mind immediately thinks of the gruesome twosome murder that took place the night before, he can't get it out of his head. Could he be next? He doesn't want to take any chances. He grabs a hefty lamp off of the table next to the couch. He thinks about texting his dear friend, he could be paranoid though, it could be nothing, just a slight creak. The leased house was old, creaks and bangs are not unheard of. Still, he didn't want to take any chances. He lifted the lamp and made his way towards the dark hallway, step by step he advanced. He could see nothing, only a dark abyss. He heard a slight buzzing sound; he patted his pockets in response. He remembered that he had left his phone in his jacket pocket, it was silenced. He ignored the creak and retreated to answer his phone. He rifled through the pockets of the denim jacket and recovered his phone. An unknown number was calling. 'This can't be good', he thought. He swiped the button, effectively answering the phone. He placed it on his right ear.

"Hello".

"Is this Courtney?" A man's husky voice asked.

"Last time I checked, no. This isn't Courtney, man". He answered impassively.

"Well, does a Courtney live here?"

"Well, if by Courtney you mean Anton the stoner. Then yeah, sure, she lives here". Randy said as he slowly began to lose interest in this useless conversation.

The man on the other end chuckled, his laugh was deep, Randy's arm hairs stood up.

"Well, if that's all settled. Have a good day and I bid you a fair adieu". Randy promptly hung up the phone with a dramatic flourish.

"Now, where were we?" He asked himself. "Right, I was about to do the single stupidest thing in the history of horror movies". He smiled to himself; he was going to let Anton deal with it. 'That asshat deserves it anyways', he thought. He reached out to grab his jacket but the phone rang once more. He picked it up, it was the same unknown number.

"Listen man", he began. "I have no damn idea how you got this number but let me save you the trouble. This isn't Courtney, this was never Courtney's phone and Courtney doesn't live. THERE IS NO DAMN COURTNEY! Now if you're don't mind, I'm going to hang up".

"YOU HANG UP ON ME AND I'LL GUT YOU LIKE A PIG!" The voice on the other end turned menacing, the threat was clearly received. Randy's blood ran cold, the hairs on his arms stood up once again. He felt his mouth go dry and his skin go ice cold.

"You're kidding right?" He tried to remain calm, unfazed, show no fear in the face of danger. He was struggling excessively.

"You wouldn't wanna bite it like poor old Casey and Steve, now would ya?" The voice asked.

"You're bluffing, man". Randy removed the phone from his ear and placed the call on speaker; he began texting Lilith, asking her to call the cops.

"Try me, I'm an open book. What do you want to know?" The voice answered, ready to answer all the possible questions that could potentially arise about his most recent artwork.

"Why Casey and Steve?"

"Why not?" He sounded amused.

"Okay then, how did you kill 'em?" Under other circumstances, this would've been a good strategy. Keep the killer on the line, keep him occupied. When he's occupied he can't cut, slice, mutilate or disembowel. This would've been a very good strategy but Randy wasn't exactly your run of the mill neighborhood college-aged individual, he was so much more than that. Randy Meeks lives and breathes horror movies, slasher flicks to be more precise, name it and he's already seen it a million times. He's a horror movie trivia expert. He knows all the rules, all the pesky little details; he has ranked all the kills from worst to best. He's seen it all on the little screen and the big screen. The young man was dying to hear about all the gory details, a first-hand recount from the killer himself. He would've been giddy with excitement if he didn't think that there was a chance of him being sliced and disemboweled on this very night.