Reasons to Never Shower in a Horror Story

Chapter Six

December 3rd

7:25 PM

            Faith looked at the Andrews' house.  (I thought Faith was babysitting the Andrews children and that Lily was babysitting the Lester children.  So, either A) this is a typo of B) Faith is the worst babysitter ever.  Considering what’s already happened in this story, both are possible)  An ambulance was there.  So was a police car.  Faith went over after putting the girls to bed to see what happened (so it was a typo, but now Faith is also the worst babysitter ever), but she knew she would find Lily in the lasting sleep when she got there.  (Which is why it makes perfect sense to leave the children alone when there’s a soul-stealing fiend wandering the neighborhood.)

***

December 4th

8:45 AM

            River was watching the news.  "And in breaking news," said Brenda the anchor of the show, "Lily Thompson was found last night, another victim of the 'lasting sleep'.  She was friends with the first victim, Kris Carlson.  The police have said that they have a very strong reason to believe that this is being done by a person, not by nature (I thought it was pretty obvious that this wasn’t natural, considering the condition DOESN’T EXIST!  Also, there’s the fact that a dead body was found in Kris’s yard the night she was attacked, which we’ve already established.  Clearly, the stupidity epidemic in this town is not limited to every living creature directly involved in Faith’s life.), because of the state that Lily was found in. (Again, as opposed to the state Kris was found in)"  Oh my gosh!, thought River.  Poor Faith!

***

December 4th

12:17 PM

            Faith and Salem were at school, eating lunch.  "I can't believe this.  Our group is dwindleing down one by one," said Salem.  (I guess Salem is filling void left by Lily and Kris and decided to start speaking more than six words a day.  Look, he’s not even combining words anymore!)  "I know," Faith said. 

That's when Lauren came to them.  "Well, the whole talk of the school is which one of you will be next.  I'm even taking a poll.," she said. (Whoa, that’s mean.  River looks like the epitome of kindness and understanding next to you, Lauren.)  Faith got out of controll.  She swung at Lauren.  Lauren ducked, then laughed.  (If this is any indication of Faith’s fighting ability, then she’s doomed when the inevitable fight against the demon arrives.)  Your friend is a better fighter then you!," she said. (That’s a low blow, Lauren, even for the school bitch.  By the way, the character of Lauren is based on Cordelia Chase from Buffy, but Lauren is a much bigger pain.  That being said, Lauren is actually one of my favorite characters.  I like that she actually has a personality, albeit an acidic, malicious one.) 

"Errrrrrrrr! You stupid-" Faith lunged.  (Again with the omission of swear words.  At this point in my writing I wasn’t yet comfortable including swear words in my stories.  Not only were my parents going to read this, but also people from church.  Though, I’m guessing the latter group didn’t like the whole “demon stealing souls to raise Satan” plot, either…you know, the entire story.)  Salem had to hold her back.  "I'm just glad I'm not in your group!," said Lauren, who walked away, laughing.  "It's not worth it," said Salem.

***

December 4th

8:20 PM

            "We can't keep sneaking around like this," said Lauren.  "I know," said Salem.  They were at the town's finest resturant, Chez Pierre.  (A couple things:  First, this is the big story arc for Salem I hinted at earlier.  This is total plagiarism of the whole Cordelia-Xander romance from Buffy seasons 2 and 3.  Secondly, I stole the name “Chez Pierre” from Hey Arnold! a fact of which I am very grateful, since it means the ridiculous name wasn’t a product of my imagination.)  Lauren and Salem had been dating behind their friends' backs for about 2 months. 

"Back to our conversation," Salem said.  (So Lauren just randomly interrupted the conversation to say “We can’t keep sneaking around like this?”  The answer is “yes,” for this was my hasty way of showing that Lauren and Salem’s relationship was a secret.)  "Well, you think that Faith is hiding something about Lily?," she asked.  "Not Lily."  "Kris?"  "No, Colby."  "But," said Lauren,"Colby isn't in the lasting sleep," she said.  "Well, I think it might be him next," said Salem.  "Why?"  "I don't know," said Salem,"I don't know, I just have this feeling."  (No, Salem doesn’t have psychic abilities either, which is evidenced by the following events.  If there is an opposite of precognitive powers, such as the lack of any sort of thinking ability whatsoever, Salem has that.)  

But Salem was wrong about Colby.  He was wrong about being in the resturant.  Lauren was also wrong for being there.  And Faith was wrong for babysitting the Andrews children, Maryn and Drew.  Because no one was there to protect the next victim.  (I forgot that Salem wasn’t next.  Still, it wasn’t Colby.  Basically, the character who’s about to lose his soul was a favorite of mine, and I was preparing to dump a load of guilt on my other characters.)

***

December 4th

9:17 PM

            River was home.  He was enjoyong a good night of T.V.  But he wasn't watching cartoons, or anything like that.  He was watching the news.  (I’m trying to establish that he’s mature.  ‘Cause, you know, most insensitive thieves are.)  He was feeling so bad about his sister and her friends, that he had to watch the news to see if they were okay.  (Umm, River…if you’re hearing about them on the news, it will be because they’re not okay.  Perhaps you should pick up a phone or something.) Why was he such a saint?  (Ugh…maybe you and Lauren should have gotten together?)  But more importantly, why wasn't Faith and Salem but under protection?  (That’s should say, “put under protection”, and that’s a much more reasonable question.)  Couldn't they see the disturbing trend.  All the victims were friends.  First Kris, now Lily.  Who was next?

            You know, River has a point.  As I mentioned earlier, the policemen in my stories are usually very incompetent.  In the real world, the police would have done something about this long before now.  In the fictitious world of this story, the fates of Faith, Colby, Lauren, and Salem seem to lie in the hands of a 14-year-old jerk.

            When the news proved fruitless (I don’t think fruitless is the correct word…I’d deem the news watching a success, since it showed that no one else has been attacked yet), he decided to go online to try and hack into the hospital files. "Lets see," he said as he used his superb hacking skills (skills that I’m sure weren’t possible back when I wrote this…or maybe even now.)  For hours River tried to get into the file, but it was very heavily guarded.  He decided to give up.   He decided to go take a shower.  (And now, some wise words from the sage Sarah Darling [Jenny McCarthy] of Scream 3:  “My [friends were] just [attacked].  Why am I showering?”  The answer:  “Because you are a fool.”) 

            River was turning the water on when he remembered that he forgot to turn the computer off.  He went downstairs before he got undressed and saw that a screen he had never seen before was on the computer monitor.  (It seems computers portend tragic events for the characters who use them.)  It was the hospital's file for Kris and Lily.  He saw the reports made by the doctors.  He also saw pictures of the marks on their backs.  Evil, cultlike marks.  How did this get on here?, he thought.  (I guess Lily’s intelligence is not a common trait in this town.  She should have been the mayor or something.  Seriously, River, get the eff out of there!)  He hadn't been able to hack into the files.  "Who did this?," he said out loud.  (Don’t ask a question unless you want an answer…in fact, don’t ask a question when you’re the only one in the room.)

Obviously, since River thought he was home alone, he was surprised to hear a deep voice say"It was me."  River turned around in horror just as someone shoved a knife through his leg.  "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" 

Side note:  I remember typing this part while sitting at a computer desk in the dark at night.  I immediately got very scared and then promptly turned on every light in the house to deter any demons who might want to attack me while I was home alone.

River saw the face of his attacker.  It was demonlike.  River thought he had never seen anything so hideous.  The demon took his knife from River's leg and stabbed his arm.  River didn't bother screaming.  (Umm, screaming would have been an involuntary reaction for most humans.)  He took the knife from his arm and stabbed the demon.  The demon fell to the ground.  River limped to the stairs, holdindg his right leg.  He carefully stepped over the demon.  The demon grabbed River's leg, who feel to his stomach  (This is supposed to say “fell to his stomach,” which makes much more sense). 

The demon opened a box part way.  River kicked it and got to his feet.  He limped to the stairs and climbed up them.  He went to the bathroom, which is the only door with a lock on it.  He tried to lock the demon out, but the demon was too quick. It ran in and pushed River into the mirror.  It broke in a brilliant display of glass.  (This was a common occurrence in my stories:  someone tries to lock someone else out of a room, fails, and is pushed into a mirror/window.  It even happened in my sequel to Jurassic Park…yes, I wrote a sequel.  No, it was not good.) 

Luckily only about 20 pieces of very small glass stuck in River, none of them big.  (How River knows just how many shards of glass are in his back is a mystery, as is how this is a “lucky” experience.)  He got to his feet and grabbed a shampoo bottle.  He swung it.  It hit the demon in the face, who then fell into the hall way.  (Okay, so let me get this straight:  River failed to fight off the demon with a knife, but a shampoo bottle gets the job done?  Perhaps shampoo is this demon’s kryptonite...)  River pushed the door closed and locked it.  His hands were so trembly that he dropped the key.  (Yeah, this is unbelievable.  I’d have been holding that key so tightly that it would have been fused to my hand by now.)  It landed by the crack under the door.  Suddenly it seemed to be sucked under the door by a vaccum, but River heard nothing so he knew some other force was pulling it.  (Yes, the lack of a “vacuum-like” noise is what tips him off, not the fact that there’s A SOUL-SUCKING DEMON ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR!)  He didn't hesitate.              As the demon tried to unlock the door with the rusty key, River was climbing into the shower, where the water was still running, then to the window.  (I want to say there was a reason for the shower being on, other than the fact that River needed to be elsewhere when the demon accessed the files on the computer, but I don’t think there is.)  He opened it and, since didn't want to jump, he climbed to the roof.  (Yes, because it will be much easier to escape the demon on the roof than on the ground.)  He sat above the window, then heard the bathroom door open.  (Just to recap:  first, River did not jump to relative safety but instead climbed onto the vertigo-inducing roof, from which there is no escape.  Second, River doesn’t even go to the other side of the roof.  Seriously, I have no sympathy for you, River.  You deserve to have your soul sucked out.)

There was silence.  He couldn't hear the water in the shower runnig any more.  He knew the demon was standing in the shower.  (Ahh, so there is a reason for the shower to be on…I don’t give my young self enough credit.)  In one swift movement, the demon flew through the window and landed on the roof.  River was so startled that he slid down the roof and fell off.  He was now hanging from the roof.  The demon raised its knife.  It brought it down to River's hands, but he let go of the roof just in time.  "Aaaaaahhhh!," he screamed as he fell through the air.  He landed on the ground with a thud.  "There goes a rib," he said as he strugled to his feet.  (Yes, as well as about 900,000 brain-cells…oh wait, those were already gone.  Actually, I have no idea if 900,000 is an accurate enough number.) 

Okay, I’m starting to think I didn’t establish this at all.  It’s raining during this part, which is supposed makes River’s big scene much more exciting, supposed being the operative word.

He started to cross the street to the neighbor's house.  When he was in the middle of the road the demon flew to him and knocked him over.  They rolled down a hill.  When they stopped rolling they were in a new street.  The demon opened the box as a car came over a hill about a mile away.  River could feel his soul being sucked away.  (Yeah, I guess the feeling of having one’s soul sucked away is very pronounced and recognizable.)


     So, River's gone now, and I only have one thing to say:  good riddance.  Seriously, why did you climb onto the roof, you dumbass?!?!?  I just don't get it.  I'd much rather jump a couple stories and try to escape instead of hiding on a rain-soaked roof.  I am glad you are gone...now, if only the demon would wipe out the rest of the town.

            Next time:  The demon strikes again, someone is actually murdered, and we learn the importance of wearing seat belts (and not planting trees on busy street corners).