fear street - the gc

Chapter 6

Ten minutes later, the four of them were standing in the reception of the local hospital.

They had taken bikes there, thinking it would be the fastest option they had no one to drive them there and didn't want to involve more of their friends until they were fully sure of what was going on.

They walked over to the desk, Jess ringing the bell at the desk despite the fact that the receptionist was right there in front of her.

The woman looked up, looking like she would rather be anywhere else, and without a word slid a sheet across the desk.

"I'm here to visit someone" She said, looking down at the woman. "Caitlin, she's in room 12"

"Visiting hours end at 9, you'll have to come back tommorrow" She said in her monotone voice. "Only people staying the night in patient's rooms are allowed in here past 9 and there appears to already be someone staying in Caitlin's room"

Jess let out an aggravated sigh, she couldn't be bothered with this right now. She had to talk to Sam about this. "This is important, just let me in. Please"

"Tell Nurse Beddy she has a patient" Lisa said, cutting their conversation short. Jess was silently thankful for Lisa's weird and probably sketchy connections at this hospital.

Not even a full 5 minutes later someone, who Raven and Jess can only assume is Beddy seeing as they have never met her before, walks into the reception.

"Lisa," Beddy said, wearing a small smile. "I see you're still hanging about with this loser" She joked, gesturing to Luna which made Raven and Jess share an amused look, both trying to hold back a laugh.

"Of course. I know too much, she can't get rid of me" Luna said, with a failed attempt at a wink.

Beddy rolled her eyes fondly. "Okay, what do you shit heads want?"

"I need to see a patient" Jess said.

A moment later she was walking into Caitlin's hospital room. Caitlin was still wearing her Shadyside football team hoodie and she looked like she hadn't slept in ages.

Sam was no where to be seen in the room which was weird to Jess and made concern bubble in the pit of her stomach.

"Hi" Jess spoke, gaining Caitlin's attention.

"Oh, hi. What are you doing here?" Caitlin asked, visibly lighting up at the sight of her friend. She hadn't had much company over the past few days, her friends only being able to visit every so often.

"I need to talk to you and Sam" Jess said, her voice serious. "Where is she anyway?"

As though reading her thoughts, Sam walked through the door. "Good news, you'll get out of here tommor-" She started, her surprise to see Jess here cutting her sentence short.

Sam was wearing a weird bandage to hold her broken nose in place, which Jess had to suppress a laugh at. It wasn't the time to laugh right now, she had important things to discuss.

"Do you have anyone who might want to stalk you in a skull face mask?" Jess asked, catching Sam off guard with the seemingly random question.

"No? I don't think so anyway" Sam said. "Why are you asking me that? You're the one people would want to stalk whilst wearing a skull face mask, everyone knows you were in the mall massacre"

"Earlier tonight some guy in a skull mask turned up at my house when Raven was over and at Luna's house when Lisa was there." Jess said.

"And how does that have anything to do with me?" Sam asked, sounding as confused about the situation as Jess felt. She couldn't put the peices together to explain the situation to Sam would understand and it frustrated her.

"When the person in the skull face mask turned up at Luna's house, he was acting all weird with the shirt that you left there." Jess explained, watching the confusion, concern and then eventually fear cross over Sam's face. But she didn't speak so Jess continued. "They didn't take anything, hurt anyone, anything like that. They only picked up your t-shirt."

"Who the hell is this creep?" Sam asked, looking between Caitlin and Jess, who were both looking at her with concern in their eyes.

"We don't know but we think it might be this news reporter that came to our door" Jess explained.

In the reception, Luna, Lisa and Raven were all sitting quietly in the hallways of the hospital. They were sitting on the floor, Lisa and Luna leaning up against one wall eith their legs in a pretzel whilst Raven mirrored them on the wall opposite.

They were all very bored and uncomfortable, the varies smells of the hospital mixed with hard floor they were sitting on made for a less than desirable situation to find themselves in.

The group only looked up when they saw a boy walking from the waiting room into the hallway towards Caitlin's room.

They all recognised him as Steven, the boy Caitlin was always talking about because of her huge crush on him. He must have come to visit her which made the group share a knowing look with each other.

He offered them all an awkward smile as he passed them, he never really spoke to anyone in the group so he had nothing to talk about with them but he was still polite with them.

When he walked into the room, Sam and Jess were still mid-discussion but they quickly broke it off when they beard the creek of the door.

All three of the girls looked at the boy, two of them looking rather annoyed that someone else was here and one of them looking particularly red in the face.

"Oh, hi." He spoke, awkwardly shufling on his feet as he looked down at the floor.

"Do you need anything?" Jess asked, looking the shy boy up and down. She really didn't have time for random love confessions in hospitals or whatever this was supposed to be.

"Uh, no. I- Well, I heard what happened and I just wanted to see Caitlin" He explained.

"We're kind of in the middle of something here" Sam said but Jess could tell by the small smile on her lips that she had more patience for the boy that she did.

Then, a second later, the boy in question opened his mouth to talk only to be cut off by a knife suddenly piercing him through the cheat from behind.

The three girls faces all shifted from mildly annoyed, smug and flustered to a collective look of panic.

Steven's limp frame fell forward lifelessly and behind his stood a person wearing a skull face mask and holding out a knife covered in the crimson liquid that they all knew to be Steven's blood.