Episode 4-The Everlasting Grudge


"Well, this sucks." Ghostface muttered as he lazily flipped through the channels. It's amazing how you can be home the entire day with a huge, sixty-inch t.v. and have nothing to watch. Freddy angrily snatched the remote away from him and began to flip through the channels himself.

"Ah let's see here...Spongebob...ugh Hannah Montana-who the fuck watches that shit?" he muttered to himself. On the floor of the dingy apartment Michael sat lazily picking at his fingernails with his large kitchen knife and Jason was looking off into space as he often does on days such as this. Everything was quiet for a while as the Spongebob theme song blared out through the room. It was then that Freddy suddenly said, "We gotta find something to do!"

Jason: Yeah, like what? There's nothing we can do.

Michael: We could throw eggs at the people from off the balcony or something.

"Why don't we just prank call the chick who lives on the floor below us? That'd be just as fun." Ghostface said lazily as he yawned and stretched out on the couch. Freddy smiled, nodded, then punched Ghostface in his ribs. "Ow! Hey, what the-"

"Gimme your phone, Fuckface."

Ghostface was surprised, but he slowly brought out his phone all the same, being very careful with it. "Please," he begged as Freddy snatched it, "don't break it or throw it out the window like you did the last time."

"Ssshhh! I'm making a call!" Freddy hissed as he put the phone to his charred ear. It rang and it rang, and yes, it rang some more but finally someone picked it up. It was a raspy, choking voice, and in the background the crazy meowing sound of an angry cat could be heard; Freddy ignored it and yelled into the phone, "You shouldn't have answered the phone, dumb asshole! I hope that you go to hell!" and he clicked the phone shut, then threw it back at Ghostface. The others stared at him. Finally Freddy sighed and asked, "What?"

Michael: Dude, that was seriously weak.

"Then why don't you do something better? Oh, that's right, you can't because you can't talk. Ha! That's funny."

Michael and Jason gave each other sideways glances; Jason motioned for Ghostface to give him back the phone, which he did, and he called the number again. He didn't say anything just breathed creepily into the phone and hung up. When he tossed it back at Ghostface, Michael gave him a high five and wrote, It's a classic-gets them scared every time!

Ghostface scoffed and dialed the number for yet a third time. "God, you stupid sons of bitches. I can't believe I have to teach you people how to make a good prank call...God damn it all..."

{}{}{}{}{}

By the time it was 4 P.M. they had made at least forty-three calls to the random number, but finally decided to stop when Ghostface got hungry and insisted that Freddy use some of his extra rent money from the exorcist adventure to buy pizza.

"Thanks for buying pizza, Kruger." Ghostface said as he stuffed the food underneath his mask. It was actually rather comical at how the masked killers ate. Even though it seemed to take them twice as long, they never abandoned their masks. Just then Ghostface's cell phone rang. He sighed and answered it. "Yeah, what?"

It was a sort of strangled, choking sound that he heard. "Ahhhhhhh..."

He yelled into the phone, "I told you to take my name off the list! I don't even have any credit cards and even if I did I wouldn't want their interest rates lowered...at least I don't think that I would..." he slammed the phone shut and picked up his pizza slice again.

Jason: Who was that?

Ghostface shrugged, clearly unconcerned with the situation, and said, "Ah, just some telemarketers or something. They wanted to lower my interest rates."

Michael: What interest rates?

"Credit cards or something. I don't-" his phone rang again and he answered it."What? Hello? I don't want any-"

"Ahhhhh..."

"What?"

"Ahhh..."

"Huh?"

"Ahh..."

"Goodbye!" he yelled and hung up for the last time. Freddy stared at him then reached for another slice of pizza.

"Hey, Fuckface? What number did you say that we called again earlier? 'Cause maybe-holy shit!" as he reached into the pizza box, a decayed, dead-looking hand materialized out of it and snatched all the remaining pizza. He gasped and instinctively slashed the air with his clawed hand. "What was that?"

The others looked at him obliviously. Jason: What was what, Kruger?

Freddy pointed to the pizza box and said as if the hand was still there, "That-that hand or whatever! It was right there! How did you not see it?"

The others didn't answer, just stared at each other as though they had all expected Freddy to have some kind of mental breakdown eventually. Finally Michael found a piece of paper and wrote: I think that you've had enough pizza, Freddy.

{}{}{}{}{}

The whole rest of the night Freddy was paranoid. Of course the others hadn't believed his story, but that was their loss, Freddy decided. Whenever the whole damn apartment came crashing down he would be there to say 'I told you so', as childish as it may seem. That night, at around seven, Michael decided that he would make use of his shower time. He went into the bathroom and began his normal routine when, in the middle of shampooing his hair-his real hair because he only took his mask off in the shower-he felt something mysterious in the back of his head, something like fingers.

Sighing as if he'd had it happen all before, he turned off the shower, went over to the mirror, and tried to get a good look at it; there was nothing there now, but suddenly a pale girl with distinctly Asian features and long, black, straight hair that was hanging in her face appeared mirror—Kayako. She even made the same choked-up noise that she had made when Ghostface had talked to her on the phone. Backing away, Michael grabbed a bottle of shampoo and flung it at the apparition, shattering the mirror.

Within a few seconds the others had showed up and were looking around wildly as Michael stood dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist—of course he was also covering his face since he wasn't wearing a mask. Jason sighed and rolled his eyes. He went over and got Michael a towel, so that he could better conceal his face. What did you do now, Myers? Now we all have to chip in to buy a new mirror!

"God damn it, Michael! Look, the tub is full of blood! God just fuck me now...what did you do?"

Michael looked quite funny with the towel covering his face. He adjusted it just so that he could breath a little better, dipped his fingers in the bloody water, and wrote on the wall; There was a hand in the back of my head.

Ghostface laughed nervously and joked, "Stuff in the back of your head? That's not so unusual. Your doctor did say that you were schizophrenic or something right, Myers?"

Michael shook his head, but let Jason push him aside to try and get the blood out of the tub. Voorhees pulled up his sleeve and with his black-polished fingernails, stuck his arm in the mess. After a second or so he brought up a long clot of black, straight hair. Michael gasped and pointed. That's it! That's her hair!

"What? Who's her? What the hell is going on around here?" Freddy sighed and scratched his head with his clawed hand. Ghostface shifted uncomfortably in his shoes and cleared his throat. Freddy snapped at him, "What? What do you know, motherfucker?"

"Remember those prank calls that we made earlier today?"

"Yeah, sure, the ones that we all made, right?"

"Well, I may have called her back because I got bored again...like, two or twenty more times..."

Jason: Oh God, are you serious?

"Yeah, I'm sorry, okay? I just hung up on them and..." From outside, way outside, there came a banging on the from door. They all stared at each other, knowing what was about to happen.

"Ghostface, what did you do?" Freddy hissed as he hurried over to close the bathroom door, just in case.

He hesitated then admitted, "I may have made a teeny tiny mistake."

The banging became louder and more insistent. Jason peeked out the door, but quickly closed it again. What number did you say that we prank called again?

Ghostface laughed nervously and fingered his knife. "Uh yeah, funny story about that-it was the girl who lives on the floor below us, and I think that it might have been Kayako, the grudge girl."

Michael: So Kayako's hand was sticking out of my head?

"Shut up, Myers! What do you mean 'may have been'?"

"Yeah, was—is—outside-"

Before anything else could be said, a pale, grotesque arm burst through the door and two dark rimmed eyes stared at them, sparkling in the light. They all staggered back. Jason: Holy shit.

"Get back! I don't know why, but I'm sure that this isn't a good thing!" Freddy howled as he candidly jumped into the blood-filled tub. Jason and Michael did the same, resentfully letting Ghostface in.

"What do we do?" Ghostface howled as the hands reached the knob and managed to unlock the door.

Michael: She's got a grudge against you, so why don't you just apologize?

When Ghostface protested, Freddy pushed him out the tub as he, Jason and Michael cowered in the corner of the tub. Ghostface landed on his face, right in front of Kayako. Her eyes became wide and vengeful and she reached out to him. "Ahhhh..."

Behind her the boy who sounded like a cat meowed and hissed frightfully as Ghostface staggered back and slashed the air with his knife; when it had no effect, he threw away what little pride he had left and bellowed, "I'm sorry!"

The whole world seemed to freeze as she stopped crawling along the ground like a spider, and the boy stopped meowing. She stopped making those frantic choking noises and asked like a normal Asian girl, "W-what?"

He said it again; "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry or whatever."

She laughed and stood up, dusted off her gown, and went over to grab the little boy's hand. She lead him out of the apartment. "Well, jeez!" she called as she went out the wrecked front door," All you had to do was say so!"

All of the room was silent as she left, hauling the little cat-boy behind her although he still looked murderous. Ghostface let out a little laugh and stood up, ignoring the fact that the others were standing in a bath full of blood.

"Well, I guess I fixed it!" he said in an almost victorious way as he put the knife back in his sleeve.

Freddy stepped out of the bath and smacked him upside the head, muttering, "Pansy-assed motherfucker." And he walked out the bathroom.

Jason did the same and shoved a note in Ghostface's hands, Fuck you, bitch.

And so did Michael, except he went over to the counter to get his mask then shoved the note at him. You're kicked out of the apartment, stupid fuck.

As Ghostface stood there, his arms limp at his sides, Freddy popped his head back into the bathroom and said brightly, "Oh yeah, and you're gonna have to buy a new mirror since, as usual, all of this was your fault. Don't forget wash the blood out of the tub while you're at it."

"But I-"

"Look, just do it."


*[this episode has been revised]*