SCARLETT. fear street (1994, 1978, 1666 )

ten. the milkman

"No!" she screamed, thrashing around him as the man gripped her tighter. His deformed face slowly turned into a small smile as he put his face against her neck, licking her like he was some wild dog.

Her hands made it's way down to her pockets, grabbing the small knife she had stored. However, before she could do it, the man wrapped his disfigured hands around her neck.

His fingers curl around her neck, pressing, closing. The man's eyes burned with emptiness and anger as her lungs burn with pain. The long. skinny fingers felt like tendrils around her neck.

Her mouth falls open, a strangled scream leaving her. Do something. Do something. Phoenix tried digging her fingernails into his wrists, trying to dislodge him, but the man was too strong.

For a small moment, that was it for her. Combined with the blood-curling screams of her best friend that echoed and the pleads that came out of hers, she thought that this might be just it. Maybe this was how it was supposed to end all along. Maybe this was what she deserved for being a bitch to everyone but herself. To die alone in a storage room, crying and cold.

But maybe she deserved something more. Maybe, just maybe, she deserved something else... a date with Simon in her favorite pizza place. A girl's night with Deena and Kate, stuffing their mouths with donuts until they puked. To experience the moment when she finally moves out of Shadyside. Maybe a career in boxing. A boring desk job. A family of her own.

She didn't care what the future held for her, but there was one certain thing: she wasn't going to die tonight. Not in the hands of a pervy milkman, or the Camp Nightwing killer, or Ruby Lane, or Ryan Torres.

She wasn't going to die tonight.

Phoenix continued to gasp, getting a final sense of herself as she kicked him in his private parts the moment she saw him draw out a small knife. The girl doubted that he felt anything that bad, but time is crucial. Even the smallest distractions could save her life.

As the man regained himself, the butcher's knife was already in her hand.

And with the loudest yell, she had chopped the hand that held the knife off.

"Fuck. You!" she screamed, walking closer to chop his other hand away from his disfigured body. Black blood spurted on her shirt, but she immediately chose to run the other way, the butcher's knife heavy on her hand.

Kate had stopped screaming.

Phoenix limped forwards, struggling to run with her deep thigh wound until Simon appeared out of one of the storage rooms, his eyes wide in fear.

"Come on!" he wasted no time, grabbing her as he sprinted towards the other direction and to the place where Kate's screams had last echoed. "Go! She's right behind me."

With her right hand still carrying the butcher's knife, and her left hand wrapped against Simon's, Phoenix sprinted beside him. Every time her foot hit the ground it felt like she was reliving the sensation of a knife being struck at her thigh, but she didn't care. Kate was in danger and she was her whole world, so it was time to run like it was the only thing she knew how to do.

As the two of them slowed down, Phoenix let out a frightened gasp at the sight that stood in front of her.

They were too late.

Kate's head had been sliced up in the bread slicer, and there was blood dripping out of every corner of the machine. The same person who was braiding her hair the other day. The same person who let her cheat off their exams: dead. Gone. Sliced into pieces.