Chapter Text
Tick
Tick
Tick
Akilah turned the stove on, moving the dial which made a ticking sound before a flame sprung up from the stovetop. She started humming some song Mari had been blasting recently, and took out a pan and melted some butter, pulling out a plastic bag of popcorn kernels to use for the movie night
Ring
Ring
Ring
Akilah swiftly moved to the other side of the kitchen and picked up her phone.
“Hello?” She asked hopefully. Her parents were out of town and she was expecting a call from Crystal or Mari. She smiled remembering their conversation,
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“Wow Akilah! Finally ready to let loose?” Mari has teased, earning a laugh from Crystal.
“You know it’s about time you finally started to have some fun. Even if you’re not going to be throwing a party.” Mari had added that last part with a smile, while looking up at Akilah with an innocent look on her face. She had just scoffed and rolled her eyes. Then Crystal cut in, coming to her rescue.
“Like you can talk about parties Mari. Remember that last one you threw? Randy Walsh almost killed himself and set your house on fire.” Crystal was referencing that time Randy and Jeff got super wasted and came up with the bright idea to play some kind of stupid war game. Randy decided to make a Molotov cocktail with one of the empty beer bottles him and the other idiot boys were using as swords. He threw it and set a small patch of Mari’s yard, and his pants on fire. It was funny to watch Mari run around and shout curses at the boys, forcing them to clean up their mess and put out the spreading fire.
“Please! Don’t remind me of that, and the only reason you don’t like my parties is because, A. you never have fun there, and B. you’re boring.”
Before Crystal could protest the rest of the team had sat down. That was around the time she decided to invite them over.
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“Sorry, who is this?” A raspy male voice sounded from the other end, pulling Akilah out of her thoughts.
Akilah was raised right. Her parents had always warned her about stranger danger and being careful about who you trust, all that little kid shit. She knew better than to keep talking, be he sounded like a teenage boy, a regular kid like her. And then again, Van was always trying to get the team to live on the edge.
“This is Akilah, you sure you got the right number?” She said with a faint smile as she walked over to the stove to tip her popcorn into the pan.
She heard a nervous laugh on the other end, followed by a sigh. “Uhm, hah. This is embarrassing, but I think I might have the wrong number…” the deep voice answered back.
“No worries. You’re fine.” She expected him to hang up after that. Just a casual misdial. No big deal.
“Oh! Wait! You’re Akilah, right? From Woodsboro High? You’re on the soccer team right?” That once deep, raspy, mysterious voice took on a mischievous tone.
“Yeah that’s me! Why do you wanna know?” She was making her way over to the VCR, slipping her tape of Halloween into the slot, and pausing it before it could start. This night was turning out to be slightly interesting.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” The answer was so surprising Akilah stopped and stood in the area between her kitchen and her living room. It wasn’t exactly the question that startled her. It was more of the way he had said it. It was slow, taunting even, it had a dangerous edge to it. Like he knew something she didn’t it. Akilah laughed and threw her head back, realizing her stupidity as she leaned against the doorway.
“Why?” She scoffed, “Do you wanna ask me out?” She decided to play along for the time being.
“Maybe” said the voice, once again taking on its normal playful tone.
“Who are you?” She had moved back to her original position at the stove, watching the kernels slowly pop.
“Guess” He asked. Ok, this has to be a joke, but nevertheless Akilah found herself turning over the different possibilities in her head. The voice was mischievous, he talked slow and sometimes menacingly. There really wasn’t anyone who matched the description, unless they had disguised their voice.
“Ok, cut the crap looser. I know Mari put you up to this.” The voice let out a husky laugh. What was so funny about her confrontation? Typical. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She always managed to mess things up with her awkwardness.
“Fine, you got me.”
“I knew it” she said triumphantly.
Silence
Beat
“Do you wanna play a game?”
“Hmm. Let’s see. You know what? Fuck it. I’m down. What are the rules”
Silence again
She prepares herself. But what good will that do if she’s too late, if she’s already fallen into that so carefully set trap?
“Do you like scary movies?”
“Why are you the one asking all the questions here?”
“Answer me.” The voice now, unlike their good natured bantering before has absolutely no hint of humor. His voice is guttural, treacherous. He’s deliberately slow, as if to keep her hooked on his every word even though Akilah knew she wouldn’t like what would come next.
Akilah does a double take. Ok. This was a mistake. This is the time to hang up the phone and go on with her life. She makes crosses the kitchen, ready to hang up the phone when suddenly a gravelly voice cuts through the sound of her steady breathing and footsteps.
“Don’t you dare hang up the phone
or I’ll gut you like a fish!”
How did he know she was going to hang up the phone? That was the final fucking straw. She sprinted over to her front door and locked it, she did the same for the back door too. Breathing heavily, she found herself in the middle of her living room, her head was spinning. What the fuck was going on?
”Right, now that I have your attention, let’s begin the game.”
”You sick fuck! What are you going to do to me?” Her voice rose as her terror heightened.
”Play the game and you’ll find out” he retorted slyly.
Just as he finished the porch lights flickered on. Akilah gasped and ran to the glass sliding doors. Things were getting serious, this was weird and scary. The she saw it. She stepped back, froze, then let out a terrible scream.
On the wooded floor of her patio was a chair. Sitting, well tied up on that chair, was Crystal.
Her face was stricken with terror and stained with tears. Recognition passed over her eyes as she struggled against the duct tape binds.
God. Akilah could hear Crystals agonized and desperate cries of help. Akilah lunged for the handle, but realized whoever had done that was probably outside. So she cautiously stepped back, hand covering her mouth, hot, burning tears formed and threatened to spill down her cheeks.
“Just tell me the rules! Please! I’ll do anything!” She screamed hopelessly.
“All you have to do is answer my horror trivia. You get a question right, she lives, you get a question wrong, she dies!”
She didn’t answer, just walked towards the kitchen. She could hear the voice snickering on the other side, as if to say, “hah! You really think a knife will defend you against me?”
”First question. Silence of the Lambs centers around two serial killers. What are their names?”
Akilah had retreated back to her living room after grabbing long, sharp knife, she had squatted behind the couch, sweat trickling down the side of her forehead. The knife brandished in her hand, at the ready as she gripped into the phone for dear life.
She let out a sigh, it felt like an 1000 pound weight had been lifted off her back. This question was easy, she had watched that movie more times than she could count and had even read the book as a present her older sister had gotten her for her birthday.
“Shit. I know this one. Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lector”
“That’s right! Good, very good. Practice over.” The voice said encouragingly. He was mocking her.
What?
What
”What? No, no, no. You have to let her go now. Please! I got it right.” She cried
”I’m making the rules here,” stop, wait, please! She begged and cried but he kept on talking. “Who is the killer in the first Friday the 13th?”
Akilah gasped, and shot up, smiling.
”It’s Jason Voorhees! It’s Jason, and I got you, you mother fucker! I got it right!”
Silence
”Aw, I’m sorry but that’s incorrect.”
This was the time her whole world came crashing down, the protective walls she had set around herself came falling down. It felt unreal. Her heart beat quickly, but her mind moved slowly, failing to process her failure.
“What, I watched that movie 50 times.”
”Well if you had been paying attention you would have known the real killer is Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother.”
Akilah fell to the floor, this time she let the tears spill over. She crawled to the glass door and forced herself to get up. She started banging furiously on the glass, as if that could somehow save Crystal.
”You got the question wrong Akilah, now Crystal has to die!”
The lights on the patio flickered off, but Akilah kept banging on the glass, she screamed and let out anguished cries of despair. But Crystals struggles had stopped all together.
splat
click
The lights had turned on yet again. Crystal was still bonded on the chair. As if that was even needed anymore, because she sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere except a coffin.
Her stomach had been split open, entrails blood, and guts oozed out onto the ground. Her head had lolled back and her eyes were open, a despairing look still in them.
Thats it. It was too much to bear. She had to fight back. Akilah stepped back. There was nothing else she could do other than saving herself. What else did she have to loose?
She ran behind the tv. If she was going to escape she was going to do it stealthily.
The silence was unbearable. Even though she must have only been in her hiding spot for a minute Akilah wanted to just bolt out of the front door and never come back.
Crash!
The glass sliding doors had shattered as some kind of object was hurtled towards it. The sound cut through the night, cut through the silence like a knife.
Glass crunched under heavy black boots, as the figure took careful steps through the door, into her house. Akilah took a few shuddering breaths as she braced herself for the worse…