fear street - the gc

Chapter 1

The lights to the Shadyside Mall went out and the janitor, John, pushed the mop out from his tiny cupboard at the end of one of the long hallways. Every night for 13 years he had been coming here after he had finished his full time job to work as a cleaner for some extra cash.

He was a nice enough guy, Jess thought. She was currently coming out of her place of employment, the book store. She hadn't been working there for very long, maybe two or three months but she enjoyed it mostly.

What she enjoyed the least about her job was having to work late on weekends.

She had a pretty tight-knit friendgroup and hated missing out on hanging out with them. They were all currently hanging out at Henrik's house which was kind of in the middle of nowhere but was still technically in the shadyside area.

His house was surrounded by a lot of trees that made it incredibly creepy when you were making your way out of it and towards the car on your own. The path to the front door was long and the house stood all alone, no houses around it. Yet it always seemed to be where the group agreed to hang out.

Jess pulled the shutter of the bookstore down and crouched down to lock it with the key before standing up straight. She saw the barista from the coffee shop across the mall shutting up and waved to her. She returned the wave and walked away.

Jess pulled her phone from her pocket and called her best friend Raven who was most likely at Henrik's house.

It became clear when Raven answered that Jess was right about her being at Henrik's because the first voice she heard was Sam's. "Tell Jess to hurry up and get here"

"Hold on, shut up Sam" Raven said as she held the phone up to her ear. "Hey, are you finished work yet? Do you want Rik to pick you up?" Jess could hear Henrik protesting in the background which made her laugh.

"Tempting offer but I'd rather get the bus. The seats in Henrik's car have suspicious stains." she joked.

Raven laughed. "Okay, just get here quick. We're gonna watch all the Harry Potter movies because Sam has never seen them"

"Okay, I'll be there soon" she said before hanging up just as she reached the mall exit.

Just as she went to push the door open she heard a blood curdling scream from inside the mall. She spun around, looking for the source of the noise.

She couldn't see anything but she knew the sound came from one of the corridors. The large tree in the middle of the mall was obstructing her view of the corridor opposite her so she started to walk swiftly in that direction to investigate.

When she finally reached it, she turned the corner and was met with a grizzly sight. The barista from the coffee shop was lying on the floor with blood pooling around her lifeless corpse. Her throat had been cut and her face was frozen in fear.

Jess covered her mouth in shock, letting out a choked sob. She tried to stay quiet, knowing the culprit of this crime had to be around here somewhere. She hadn't given them enough time to escape the mall or even this corridor completely.

She slowly opened the broom cupboard, making sure that no one was in there before she stepped inside to find a weapon of some sort. She managed to find a stanley blade, which wouldnt be the most effective weapon but at least it was sharp, and a mop. She took both in order to be extra safe.

She slipped the blade into her pocket and held the mop, ready to attack as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed the number for the police.

"Hey, um, I'm in the Shadyside mall" she whispered, her breathing heavy. "Someone's been killed, Brittney. She was the barista at the coffee shop. I dont know who did-" She was cut off by someone in a skull face mask appearing in the door frame of the cupboard. "Shit!" she yelled, ramming the tip of the mop into his stomach.

She managed to push him up against the wall, dropping her phone onto the floor and running as quickly as she could away from him before he managed to regain his footing.

She managed to get a good distance away, running past the tree towards the book store that she worked in. She knew it would only cause her more problems if she squatted down to unlock the door so she quickly switched direction, the masked killer hot on her tail.

She dashed into a Halloween store, the deep blue lighting hopefully useful to distract him. She jumped behind the counter, hiding there and discarding her mop before he had the chance to enter the store.

"Holy shit, holy shit" she muttered under her breath before he appeared at the doorway, hunting knife in hand.

The knife he was holding vaguely reminded her of the Scream franchise which was her favourite horror movie. Now, in this terrible situation she could hardly believe she had ever watched such a thing and enjoyed it.

The killer looked around in the dimly lit store, stabbing everything that vaguely resembled a human body, which surprisingly there was a lot of since the mannequins had been displayed in costumes for Halloween.

He eventually made his way to the counter but Jess pulled the knife from her pocket and stabbed him in the shoulder. This caused him to stumble backwards which gave her enough time to jump over the counter, knocking down the various candy options laid out there.

She made a run for it, dashing towards the door of the mall where she was met with the sight of Police Sheriff Nick Goode. The killer was running behind her and the Sheriff quickly noticed, raising his gun and shooting the killer in the head whilst Jess sobbed, standing behind him.

The police took Jess in for questioning the rest of the night, her mum and brother meeting her at the station. After Goode killed the man in the mask, they had taken the mask off of him and identified him as John, the cleaner in the mall.

Right away, that didnt add up to Jess, John had always seemed really nice but she figured he just snapped. The same way a lot of people in Shadyside seemed to.

Her friends weren't allowed to come to the station that night but they were all incredibly worried about Jess.