Was it too late to pretend this was an ill-advised prank? No, no, they had to be honest- even if it meant losing Rachael- and getting locked up. At least they had been honest. No one said relationships were going to be this hard. Placing a pistol in their back pocket, they walked towards the front door as they heard the knocks. They put their hand on the pistol as they opened the door with the other.
Scout studied Rachael’s face with furrowed brows. She looked pale, panicked and confused- in denial no doubt. Looking around a bit for any sign of cops they stepped back, allowing Rachael to enter wordlessly.
Allowing Rachael in front of them as she headed to the bedroom. As soon as she took a seat on the bed, Scout slid the pistol into an already half open drawer, hoping Rachael hadn’t noticed.
“For a minute, I thought you weren’t going to show.”
Despite the night’s strange turn of events, when Rachael saw Scout behind the door, she couldn’t help the sigh of relief. It was always like that, with her constant worrying. The text messages they’d exchanged only heightened that. Scout had been acting really strange, and a large part of Rachael wanted to believe there was a simply cause, like some skipped medication dosage. Unfortunately, a smaller but insistent part also argued that every word Scout told her was true and that she had no business coming here alone. “I said I would,” responded Rachael with a bit of a huff. Why was it that lately they never seemed to believe anything she said? She sat down on the bed and lifted a leg up to rest her chin on her knee.
Her movements were strangely robotic as she threw her things into a shoulder bag and left her home for Scout’s. It should’ve occurred to her what a horrible idea this was, but something inside her was convinced it wasn’t as bad as Scout made it out to be. It just couldn’t have been. Right? It just wasn’t possible. She knew them. She knocked on the door instead of letting herself in.
"I killed them. I killed them all. Every single of them. Ryan, his girlfriend, their friends- those unpopular kids, those teachers- even random people I saw down the street or met in a bar. The preps at the dance- I mean it. ALL of those victims. I slaughtered them. Brutally. I tortured them. BRUTALLY. I did it. It was me, and I loved it."
At first, Rachael thought they were joking. It was some weird prank or trick that she didn’t get yet. First her expression wavered before falling, and so did she. A loud ringing whined in her ears as she dropped to sit on her bed and Scout when on, listing their victims, people Rachael knew, people she she talked to. They were there one day and gone the next and she had no idea. None whatsoever. If Rachael had a single clue, she’d have never confided all those things in them.
“Oh? What? This?” They gestured to their clothing. “I got a new job- you know. it’s September- everyone is getting all ready for Halloween and shit- It’s just a thing. Don’t worry about it.” Sure, if they’d been given more time, they’d probably been able to come up with something better- but they were a little caught off guard. “I- I didn’t know you were here.. I see your- um- using the key I gave you to my apartment already..” Why did they do that again? Idiot!
Call her a skeptic, but something felt off. Since when did they have a new job? (No, in fact, she didn’t know.) Was she not supposed to use her key? And why was Scout so jumpy? “It looks really real,” she noted, half-chuckling to make light of the weird situation. The key in question still jingled from her keychain in her hands. “Should I give it back–?”
Scout of course, had been the one to dispose of the bully, and of course, they weren’t going to tell Rachael that. They had killed him, and been very careful and cautious. Taking extra precaution to kill the occasional staff member and introvert, so it didn’t look like the popular kids were the only ones being targeted. It would be easy to figure out that the killer was an outcast if the jocks were the only ones losing their lives, but it didn’t stop there. Scout killed outside the school- people they watched down the street. Men taking advantage of their girlfriends, shitty fathers- and they killed when the time was right, not constant, but not to where people could forget about them
Scout took particular pride in their craft, and they were intelligent about it. There was no room for error- and by any means necessary, they had to prevent themselves from being caught.
“I see you’re not sad about that.” Scout replied with a soft smile and a playful nudge. “Neither am I. The guys a fucking prick. I hope he moved away or something- then I would believe in God- it’d be a true miracle.”
Rachael let out a giggle when Scout nudged her and quickly covered her mouth as she proceeded to laugh. She really shouldn’t be so happy–people all over town were going missing, maybe he was another one–but she simply couldn’t help herself. Ryan had made her life miserable and every day that he was away was like a vacation. “You’re right,” she said. “Me too.” She only hoped whatever school got him next was prepared to be terrorized for him, or by some slim chance, he’d clean up his act a little. When Rachael transferred schools, Ryan had taken every shred of of from her that it would be a new, fresh start for her. He’d only made her life worse than it was at her old school. Even if he was sick and would only be gone for the week, she’d enjoy his absence as thoroughly as she could.
“Is it wrong to be so happy that Ryan hasn’t shown up to school for the past week?” The answer, Rachael knew, was probably a resounding yes. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care. The seemingly relentless taunting had ceased, at least for the time being, and she was too busy enjoying it. Rachael tosses a grin towards Scout, visibly elated.
