Scream | Ethan Landry

003

"I fucking hate that bitch." Vienna muttered crossly as their cab driver honked their horns in the busy streets of New York.

"Next time I see her will be far too soon." Sam agreed from the front. She was looking out the window out on the bustling streets, but her eyes were clouded with anger.

"Who is she?" Ethan asked curiously, looking between the girls. "I'm...kinda new to everything, if you couldn't tell. I've heard a bit about the Ghostface killings, of course, but not really the details."

"Long story short," Tara sighed, "Sam's crazy ex and Vee's crazy ex got together last year and were crazy cheating exes together that decided to turn into psychopaths and kill everybody in our friend group because of some ridiculous obsession they had with a stupid movie franchise."

"Stab." Vienna agreed. "The movie franchise based on Sidney Prescott's encounter with OG killers Billy Loomis and Stu Macher. It turned into this whole big thing that inspired a bunch of other whole big things, and we were one of those whole big things. Crazy psychos become obsessed, turn that obsession and want to make a movie because they can't become famous the normal way, and then stabby stabby stabby, just like the movie title says—and gone goes half our friend group, and oh also Sam and I's cheating exes."

Ethan stared. "Uh...okay. Could you...maybe repeat that?" He winced. "I kinda missed it. Like all of it."

"Basically: girl I date and guy Sam dates go stabby stab together; we fellow Woodbirdies get stabby stabbed. Half our friend group gets killed, the other half are left traumatized for life—but you didn't hear that from me—and now I guess some other psycho killer is following in the footsteps of the past hundred Ghostface killers that failed and died. Really, we're having such a fun time!" Vienna said sarcastically.

"And Gale is basically this really annoying reporter," Tara said, "who's a selfish, back-stabbing, lying bitch. She's a reporter—part of the press. That's all you really need to know to know how much of a bitch she is."

"She wrote a book about what happened to us a short while back." Sam sighed. "Didn't really paint all of us in a very flattering lighting."

"It infamized our story; villainized Sam and basically turned the internet against her; made Tara look pretty decent, in all honesty—and then made me look like an idiotic, snivelling pussy who got backstabbed by her cheating girlfriend."

Ethan hesitated. "So that's how you got those scars on your body."

Vienna nodded, not speaking as she looked out the window.Tara paused and frowned, looking over. "How did you know about the scars on her body?" She said suspiciously.

"He walked in on me changing, remember?" Vienna rolled her eyes.

"Oh yeah." Tara made a face.

The cabbie dropped them off right by the street of one of their campus buildings. Sam paid the man and got out, the rest of the kids following. "Mindy said to meet here." Sam said, frowning as she checked her phone. "They should be around here somewhere."

They finally found Chad, Mindy and the others in a bench next to a shaded area. They greeted each other, and the group exchanged stories—mainly just Sam, Tara and Vienna summarizing what had happened. They'd already texted the most of it, but Tara and Vee were just finishing catching up the rest of the group on what had happened with Gale and Sidney when Mindy clapped her hands, standing up.

"Okay nerds!" She clapped her hands. "Listen up. As terrifying as this all is, I'm actually somewhat glad that I get a chance to redeem myself for not...calling the killers last time."

"You can't blame yourself for that, Mindy." Vienna said softly. The curly-haired girl raised an eyebrow.

"The same way you don't blame yourself for not catching Amber?"