Alive >> Jake Fitzgerald << Scream

Three.

"How do you think it happened?"

"I have no idea. The WiFi sucks and the cops aren't staying much..." Jake sighed, almost seeming annoyed that he couldn't find any more details on Nina's demise, "Her mom found her body... The victim of foul play... I need gory details!"

"Well however she died, I hope it was quick."

"Quick?" Jake repeated

"Yeah, I can't imagine what it must've been like to die. I want her to have died quickly, so she wasn't in pain."

"That's... sweet."

We locked eyes for a split second before his head was buried back in his phone and I was left wondering how Nina had died, although she was a bitch, the girl had taken me under her wing and assured that I wouldn't be bullied in my highschool years. Although she was a sadistic and twisted individual, she'd still been a friend to me and it didn't feel right that someone had murdered her in cold blood.

"Um, hello?" Noah's voice interrupted my thoughts, he tipped his head back over the top of the seat to talk to an advisor, "Miss? Why am I here?"

"That's the 'mandatory' part of mandatory grief counseling."

"No but seriously. I feel shock, mild interest, but not grief." Noah stated bluntly with a shrug, I wouldve laughed if my friend wasn't dead.

"Guys." Riley gritted her teeth, "Nina was murdered in cold blood. Do you not even care?"

"I care Riles." I wrapped my arms around her, "She was a good friend when she felt like it."

"Despite everything I'm gonna miss her."

"Me too..."

"It just doesn't seem real." Emma mumbled

"Here we go!" Jake sat up, holding his phone out in front of him as he read from it, "One of Nina's neighbours tweeted that her throat was sliced ear to ear. The press are all over this, they're playing the whole 'maybe Brandon James is back' angle."

"She must have been so scared. I can't believe the press are using Brandon James being back as some ploy to gain publicity. It's as if somebody didn't just die." I gritted my teeth

"Brandon James is dead." Emma spat, showing minimal hesitation as she grabbed her stuff and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to see one of the grief councilors.

"Who's Brandon James?"

"Did you never tell him the story?" Noah rose a eyebrow

"Sorry if I didn't want to fill my older, but mentally younger, brother's head up with thoughts of murder. That shit has mentally scarred me ever since I was a little kid, I didn't want to force that onto him too."

"Sounds logical enough."

"So who's Brandon James?" Kieran spoke him, his voice sounding slightly more demanding the second time round.

"Uh he killed a bunch of students twenty years ago..." Noah began to rifle around in the pocket of his jeans for his phone, he tentatively pulled the device from his pocket and typed some stuff in before a image popped up, "um, he cut some others up, this is him... Emma's Dad got stabbed, he almost died."

Everybody, meaning Riley, Kieran, Jake and I, crowded around Noah to take a peek at the image on his phone. It was of a boy, probably around our age judging from the clothes he wore, long curly brown hair framed his head but his face... his face was something else.

"Didn't Brandon have..." I pondered

"Proteus syndrome." Noah added, "Like the elephant man. People say he was born a monster, but I think he was bullied and beaten into one..."

"Who says he was the monster?" I spoke up, everybody shot me worried expressions.

"The evidence. The police. Everyone in the whole of Lakewood." Jake shook his head dismissively

"Well maybe it wasn't him." I shrugged, "Nobody just snaps like that."

"Brandon did." He argued

"Anyway." Kieran interrupted, "You know all of this... why?"

"I don't know, some guys like sports. I like serial killers... and Brandon James? He is my Dallas cowboys."

"Noah don't be a creep, you're freaking my brother out."

"Don't listen to her." He glared slightly, "Tell me the rest."

"He was a classic case of the deformed kid who lived in the shed. Mom homeschooled him, Dad was ashamed of him. His older brother, Troy, was the only one who really cared about him. Whenever Brandon went out, he wore this post-op surgical mask. They tried to fix his face a few times but it never really worked."

"What made him start killing people?"

"Rumour is he fell in love." I caught Jake's eye at the word love, I rolled my eyes at him, assuming he was making fun of me, " His brother said Brandon was obsessed. He wrote her anonymous love letters, made her little carvings. Brandon found her at the Halloween dance, he finally got up the nerve to talk to her."

"Why do I have a feeling this is where this all goes bad?" I winced

"That's because it is!" Jake smirked, shining his phone's torch across his face to make himself look like some sort of phantom.

"Don't be such an asshole!" I elbowed him in the ribs. He turned his phone's flashlight off.

"It all went okay... at first. But then a bunch of drunk jocks jumped him, they thought they were saving her from some sort of monster. After a lifetime of taking it, something in Brandon snapped-"

"I am telling you!" I interrupted, "Nobody just snaps! Massacres like that take planning and time. You see it all over TV, Scream Queens for example Hester's plan of revenge took twenty years in the making. Something like that had to be planned and think about it... How could one boy, who'd been trapped in the shed his entire life be able to overpower jocks who visited the gym everyday of their life, how could he catch up with the athletes who'd built up amazing reflexes and speed, how could he do all of that if he was hidden away his entire life?"

"I hear your point." Noah spoke, "but all evidence points to Brandon, it couldn't have been anyone else."

"Noah's right." Riley spoke softly, "And don't let Emma hear you say any of this... She'll lose it."

"Brandon killed five students by the time he was done." Noah continued, "The manhunt ended at wren lake, the girl agreed to meet him."

"Did anyone ever know who she was?"

"No, nobody ever knew who she was."