Scream: Max Reed

The Shrine

Max opened his eyes and he looked around and saw that he was in some sort of room. He sat up and winced at the pain in his back and then looked down and saw that he was sitting on a gurney and saw that he was shirtless. He only had his pants and shoes on and he looked the scars on his chest and stomach. He only had one scar on his chest from his experience with Ghostface. He remembered when Richie shot him in the chest with the bullet being a couple of inches above his heart.

He was lucky to survive the shot but he was hoping that his luck didn't run out soon. He continued to look down at his scars and suddenly he remembered all those times he was abused and beaten by his parents. While his father beat him, his mother just stood there and watched as he was being beaten. He suddenly remembered one of most traumatizing moments of his life when he was a child.

11 years ago

It was one month after Kirby abandoned him and a week before he was taken in by Dewey, one morning a five year old Max woke up from his bed. He walked around his house, sadly no one was home and it felt like a ghost town. Ever since Kirby left his parents blamed for being the reason she left. They beat him, hated him, made his life a living hell and no one noticed. After few months he lost hope that someone would save him, he waited for months for a rescuer who never came for him.

Suddenly he heard screeching tires from outside the house and instantly he knew that his parents were home. For the past month, his parents had been trying to convince Kirby to come home but she refused, and whenever they got frustrated and angry they took it out on him. Max knew what was going to happen because it happened many times before so he locked the door. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop what would happen but he hoped he could delay it to lessen the pain. His parents kept banging on the door while Max sat down in the corner hugging his legs to his chest and he started to cry.

"Please leave me alone." Max pleaded as tears rolled down his cheeks.

Then the door bursts open and his mother entered the room wrapping a belt around her hand. She slowly walked towards him and gave him a disgusted expression.

"You disgust me. You were never supposed to be born. You should've died as soon as I gave birth to you. You think you were something special. The reason your father and I didn't give you up was that we could keep our image and get everyone to leave us alone. Kirby was the special one, but you were always the cancer. When we were told that you died we were so happy that we wouldn't have to deal with you anymore but we were disappointed that you survived. Your father wanted to be the one to punish you this time but I decided that it should be me. I'm going to enjoy this very much." Max's mother ranted. She raised the belt in her hand and brought it down to hit Max causing him to cry out in pain.

Present Day

Max was still sitting on the gurney with a grim look on his face. He tried so hard to keep the those memories buried and move on. The only people that knew the full extent of the abuse were Dewey, Judy, Wes, and Sidney. After the massacre last year, he opened up to Gale and the others about what happened and he started going to therapy because of it. When he told his girlfriend about it and she made it her mission to make sure he smiled more often.

Max started to move off the gurney and he winced in pain starting to feel soreness in his back. He remembered that he saved Anika's life, he hoped that he did enough to help her. He got off the gurney and stood on the ground and he looked around and saw that he was in an ambulance truck. When Max started walking to the entrance he started to feel his leg going numb. He remembered that when he saved Anika, he hit his back on something so hard that felt something crack.

"I wonder if this is how Dad felt when he got a limp." Max said out loud. The thought of Dewey brought him to depression. Dewey was the only person that Max considered as his father and now he wasn't there to help him.