Letters to Elle

15 | Scream Together, Die Together

                        FIFTEEN

                        SCREAM TOGETHER, DIE TOGETHER

                                    ♡♡♡

The phone rang and rang and rang but she—Waverly Sievers—never picked up. The dial tone rang throughout his—yes, he’s a he, unlike Waverly originally thought and Cara seems to think—brain, angering him more and more. It took preparation and courage to dial Elle’s phone number and call poor, dear Waverly, but he did it. He worked up enough courage to finally do it, and she doesn’t even pick up.

            How inconsiderate.

            He decides to give his little Waverly another try before she needs to be . . . punished . . . for her disobedience. It isn’t like he wrote her a rulebook on the procedures and rules she needed to follow in order to not get hurt, but he thought that he didn’t have to. He’d hung around and studied Waverly for quite some time. He figured that she didn’t need much convincing to do what he wanted.

            To do what’s right.

            Brrring. Brrring. Brrring.

            The tone drawls on and on, and he prays—for his sake and beautiful Waverly’s—that she would just pick up the damn phone and stop staring at it.

            “Jesus Christ,” he cursed into the phone. He knows that speaking is dangerous, but he doesn’t think about it at the time. All he thinks about is how dangerous Waverly needs to pick up her dead best friend’s phone. “Jesus fucking Ch—“

            “Hello?” the tentative, smooth voice of Waverly says through the receiver.

            He shuts up immediately, hoping that she hadn’t caught his voice. Hadn’t heard him speak.

            When he doesn’t speak, in fear of giving himself away, quiet Waverly speaks again. “Hello? I don’t know who this is, but Elle’s . . . gone. I’m sorry. I—“

            He presses play and puts the phone on speaker.

            The track begins.

            “No!” a shrill, disgusting voice screams into the night. Eleanor Summers. “Please don’t do this to me! I don’t d-deserve t-to die!”

            Tsk. Tsk. She had a horrible habit of begging and being annoying. Waverly, on the other hand, is everything he ever wanted. . . .

            “Elle,” sweet, melodious Waverly says through the phone, her voice an octive lower than usual.

            “I won’t tell anyone about this!” irritating Elle shrieks into the recorder. She didn’t know she was being recoreded. Otherwise, she would’ve said his name. Thank god that she didn’t. Otherwise this plan wouldn’t have worked. “I won’t tell the police! I promise! Just don’t . . . just don’t kill me! I have a family . . . you know this. D-don’t hurt me.”

            Even now he could sense the sound of giving up in her wretched voice. He could hear her walls breaking, cracking, falling. He could hear it. At the time, he knew that she was close to giving up. He knew that she was close to death, so close that she could reach out her ugly hand and touch it.

            “Don’t do this,” euphoric Waverly whispers, pain etched into her voice. “Please.”

            The only thing he could think is, I can make that pain go away. Just let me be yours. Just let me take care of you. I’ll be yours forever. I’ll take care of you forever.

            “I can’t hear this,” symphonic Waverly mumbles. “I just . . . can’t.”

            “Shh,” he hushes into the phone, knowing very well that she can’t tell his identity with a simply ‘shh.’ And so he does it again. “Shh.”

            A whimper sounds from the other end, and he wants to beg her to not hang up, but he can’t talk. He can’t speak. He can’t communicate.

            “Is this what you really want?” slutty Elle says softly. “Is this what you really want? To be a murderer? To—to kill young girls whenever you please? To murder them and chop them up into tiny pieces and feel the satisfation of killing when it’s all over? Is that what you want?”

            A grin slips onto his face. He remembers this night all too clearly. All too beautiful. All to wonderful.

            “Or is it just me? Is it me that you want to break down and kill? Is it me that you want to have and let nobody else have? If you kill me, I’ll forever only be yours because . . . I’ve only ever had you.”

            Waverly listens quietly from the other side, not saying a word. He knows what’s up next. He knows the next words that will be hissed into the receiver, a voice too low and snake-like to decipher. He’s listened to it over and over and over, and he knows that Waverly won’t be able to tell who it is unless she takes it to the cops to get it analyzed. But he knows that she won’t do that. He knows that she wants to solve this on her own, that she doesn’t want help.

            “Why would I want an ugly slut like you?” the words are so low and so rushed that they’re recognizable. “You’re just a whore. It’s your friend I want, sweetcheeks, and you’re gonna help me get her.”

            “Never.”

            He remembers the tears streaking down the bitch’s face, burning trails and trenches along her skin.

            Such a lovely sight.

            “Then you die.”

            A scream pierces through the night in the recording as well as the cell phone pressed up against the CD player. A piercing bang follows.

            Elle and Waverly.

            The best friends that scream together, die together.