ROUGH DRAFT OF Slasher Kids Volume 1

Chapter 8

We all quickly turned our heads when Grayson's door swung open. To our relief, it was our mom.

"Kids. Whatever you have about your cousin, hide it. Now." She demanded. Jane and Grayson scrambled around his room and snatched the very few documents we had of Jessie, along with the camera.
"Where do we put it?" Jane scanned the room. Everything was too...obvious. I took it upon myself to grab our cousin's existence and dashed to my room. If I were Ralph, where would I look? My strange doll-collection had never been touched, but that man had worked with much worse. My bed was too obvious— everybody hid anything in their bed.
Suddenly, I remembered the closet. There was a little hidden door behind my jungle of clothes. Without even thinking twice, I dashed to my closet, ripped the door open and shoved myself inside. After digging around, my heart fluttered once my hand brushed against the small square that would save our cousin. I quickly opened it, then threw everything in, slammed the door shut and stumbled out of my closet.

"Gisele! Come down here! Uncle Ralph is here!" Called the man himself from downstairs. I grabbed my Good Guy doll for safe measure and ran downstairs. For some reason, he thought I was still a baby. I didn't need to call him uncle, so I didn't. Neither of us did.

"There's the little princess!" Ralph beamed. He held his arms open, inviting me to a sweaty embrace. I glanced at my mom, praying she'd get me out of this, but she turned a blind eye and focused on Grayson. Probably for the best; Grayson was never afraid of speaking his mind. With remorse in my heart, I accepted Ralph's hug invitation, instantly regretting it when his strong cologne burned my eyes. Why did he think it smelt good?

"It's nice to see you again! How old are you, sweetheart?" He asked while putting his hands on my shoulder.
"You saw us last week, asshole. The answer is the same as it was back then. Thirteen." Grayson grumbled, only to be met with my mother's elbow to his ribs.
"You'll have to excuse him. He's had a long day," mom stuttered nervously. I backed away from Ralph and watched as he slowly approached my brother; his fists clenched. He got in his face.
"Is the 18-year old still upset about his daddy leaving him?" Ralph asked in a mocking, yet deep tone.
"Nope. Fuck him and fuck you." Grayson responded. Ralph opened his mouth to respond, but Jane quickly slid in to break the tension.
"Hey! Ralph! Now that you're here, mind helping me out with my homework?" She asked. Without even receiving an aanswer, she dragged him away from Grayson and began to pound him with way too many questions that I couldn't even comprehend.

"You need to cool it." Mom scolded Grayson. Grayson crossed his arms over his chest.
"He's an asshole. Why should I kiss his ass like you do?" He asked.
"He's an asshole, yes. But if you piss him off, he can and will drag you to that hospital and keep you there. He did it to your aunt and I'll be damned if I have to see him do the same thing to my only son." She answered between clenched teeth.
"So what do we do?" I asked softly. Grayson and mom's angered looks turned into looks of hopelessness.
"I don't know..." mom mumbled. She was scared of Ralph. He was crazy. If he had no problem killing our cousin, imagine what he'd do to us if we left...
The three of us sat in a defeated silence. I hugged my Good Guy doll tightly.

"Judy! Baby!" Ralph called.
"Don't call her that." Grayson growled.
"Whaddya say we take the kids to get some food! Jane here says you haven't had dinner yet!"
Well...she was right. Mom glanced at Grayson and I.
"Sure." Grayson answered with the roll of his eyes. "Let me get my headphones." He marched upstairs, Jane doing the same.
I was about to head upstairs as well, until something caught my eye.
Our house was located close to the woods. It was normal to see a bear strolling down the street or a deer every now and then, but I could have sworn I saw a masked figure watching from behind a tree. The same figure we had seen in Grayson's video.
"Everything alright princess?" Ralph asked. I quickly nodded and ran upstairs to tell my siblings.

"He's such a fucking prick!" Grayson whisper-shouted to Jane.
"Yeah well being pissed off about it isn't going to scare him away." Jane responded before pushing Grayson out of his room. I would've told them about Jessie, but now wasn't the time.
"Are you guys coming?" I asked softly. Both my siblings looked at me and nodded.

The three of us headed downstairs in silence. We stopped midway when we heard Ralph and mom talking.

"Ralph. Leave her alone."
"She's our key to immortality, Judy. I'm not letting my experiment get away! We're so close!"
"No, Ralph. She was a child and you killed her over and over. We are not searching the lake for her corpse and we are not bringing her back to life. End of discussion."

Ralph raised a fist, but froze when Jane cleared her throat. He smiled at us, but glared at the phone in Grayson's hand.
"What are you doing, son?"
"Nothin'. Just thought this would be a good scene for my upcoming movie." Grayson answered with a snarky smirk on his face. The two exchanged glares, then walked towards the front door.

"Judy. Be a dear and drive, will ya?" Ralph asked, with was more like a command. A sigh escaped from our mother's lips. She pulled her car keys out of her pocket and clicked it, awakening our car once again.
"Come on kids..." she muttered. We all followed her. At least Ralph wasn't driving.