As Lori carefully made her way out of her dorm room, she spotted Carol Pingrey with the cheerleading squad. Anyone who was walking by would have only been paying attention to the college girls in skimpy uniforms flailing pom-poms above their heads. But what Lori was looking at was the construction crew right next to the football field. A group of workers were installing new support beams for the scoreboard, a dump truck was parked a few feet away, and the driver was preoccupied with the manager.
Thinking her plan through, Lori made her way down to the field. "Hey, Carol!" She called. The blonde girl glanced over her shoulder to see her rival beckoning her. She confidently strode over to where Lori was standing, oblivious to the construction work. "So, uh, I got your text about the tryouts and I, uh-"
"Stop." Carol held up her hand, indignantly. "Look, Lori, cheerleading is an art. It has to be calculated. Flawless. We can't have wannabes who spent two days on the team in high school-"
But Lori wasn't paying attention to Carol. Her eyes wandered over to the dump truck that was starting to roll forward. "Carol, we need to move." She warned, trying to sound convincing to anyone nearby.
"No, you're gonna listen to what I'm saying." Suddenly, the truck bumped the scaffolding that was holding up the workers. They held on for dear life, but pieces of rebar were starting to roll off of the platform.
"Carol, move!" Lori pushed Carol towards the falling debris and dove in the opposite direction. Three pieces of rebar had pierced through Carol's chest, killing her, instantly. Lori had now taken Carol's place in Life.
One hour earlier, Lana was enjoying herself, enormously. While she would have prefered to play in the mud, every time she landed in the cold water from the creak she shrieked from excitement. It almost felt that if she swam enough, she could wash away the horror of losing so many of her family so early in her life.
As she waded back to the shore, the next kid on the swing rope tugged on it too hard and it started to come undone. The tomboy scaled the pointy rocks and got in line for the swing, unaware of the present danger.
Luna swerved Vanzilla into the parking lot. Ignoring the pedestrians yelling at her she and Lincoln jumped out to find their little sister. They checked her usual mud hole, but it was laid bare. Next, they checked the playground, but there was no sign of their favorite greasemonkey. At last, they remembered the creak.
It was finally Lana's turn on the rope swing, again. She gripped the rope, tight, and calculated that three swings would be enough to clear the rocks and make a huge splash. The first swing, the two yarns in the rope snapped. The second swing, one yarn was left. Halfway through the third swing, all time appeared to slow down as the rope slipped through her fingers.
But before she could hit the rocks, Luna and Lincoln tackled her in mid-air. The sudden push gave her enough momentum to get to the water. She coughed and spluttered as her older siblings carried her to safety, hugging her as they cried.
At the same time, Lucy held onto the handlebars of Lynn's bike as they rocketed down the sidewalk to get to Lola's pageant. The sporty girl and the goth girl almost flew off the bike when Lynn applied the breaks. They tried to get in through the front door, but it was locked from the inside to prevent interruptions.
While Lynn was busy panicking, Lucy ran around to the back. There was an open window to the basement, but it was a tight squeeze. She managed to get through, but the fall hurt her leg. Nevertheless, she limped up the basement stairs to save her sister. Unfortunately, Death was not making it easy for her; the door was locked.
Lola confidently strode down the catwalk and waved to the judges. Against her better judgement, she felt that winning a pageant and earning a new tiara would lift her spirits. As she made her way back to the curtain, she rolled her eyes at Lindsay Sweetwater's corny speech. But while everyone was focused on the contestants, no one noticed the impending doom.
A light fixture was starting to come loose from its support beam. The loud music was shaking the beam so much, the bolt came off of the strut and the fixture fell down, tangling itself in the electric cables that fed power to the other lights and speakers. The cables snapped and fell down to the stage.
Everyone screamed in fear. The cords were swinging and whipping all over the place, risking someone being killed by the electricity. Lola tried to run, but the other kids knocked her down to the floor, and she twisted her ankle. One of the girls accidentally knocked over the water cooler, sending a steady stream trickling towards Lola.
Back down in the basement, Lucy grabbed the heaviest thing she could find and rammed it against the door. When she finally made a hole, she reached her arm through and unlocked the door. She hurried through the hallway and into the auditorium. The little goth was horrified to see her younger sister being threatened by water and electricity.
Thinking quickly, she grabbed a towel from the beauty room, ran to the water, and blocked it from reaching the pageant queen. She covered Lola with her body, bracing herself for the pain. But the cables stopped swinging around and depowered.
"Lucy! Lola!" Lynn rushed towards the two and hugged them, tightly. "Are you okay?!"
"Th-th-th-the cables!" Lola stuttered from fear. "They just came down!"
"Lynn, what did you do?" Lucy brushed her bangs aside.
"After everyone got out of my way, trying to get out, I managed to see what was happening through the door." Lynn explained. "I ran down to the generator room and shut off the power leading to the auditorium."
"I never thought that these words would slip through my lips, but, Lynn, you're brilliant!" Lola praised, tearfully.
Once she was able to pry the little girl off of her, Lynn took out her cell phone and dialed Lincoln. Thankfully, he and Luna saved Lana in time. Luna drove everyone back home and they all enjoyed a relatively peaceful dinner. Their mom appeared to be slowly recovering from the aftermath, much to Lucy's relief.
But now that the younger sisters were all safe, it was only a matter of time before Death caught up to them.
That night, before bedtime, Lucy, Lincoln, Lynn, and Luna held a meeting in the poet's room. Following Lucy's instruction, Luna called Lori to warn her that she was next on Death's list. Everyone held their breath as the rocker paced around the room, waiting for Lori to pick up. Hopefully, they weren't too late.
"Yes!" Luna exclaimed, and the others exhaled. "Lori, listen! You're next! Lucy says-wait, what? Seriously? Uh... okay, then. Goodnight."
"What happened? Is she alright?" Lincoln asked as Luna hung up the phone.
"Yeah, she's fine." Luna sounded curious. "She said she almost got hit by a truck today, but somebody pushed her out of the way."
"Then Death skipped her, and now…" Lucy tried to concentrate, thinking back to her vision. "... Luna… you're next…"
The aspiring musician gulped. "Help, I Need Somebody, dudes…" She whimpered.
"Okay, Luna, do you have any plans tomorrow?" Lucy held her hands.
"I-I was gonna go play at Bangers and Mosh after school." She replied.
"Okay, then we're going with you to keep you safe!" Lynn tapped her fist against her sister's arm.
"Bloody Well Right, luv." Luna smiled, weakly.
"Kids! Time for bed!" Rita's voice came from downstairs. As usual, everyone obeyed her without argument. After everyone else had left, Luna looked around her room, nervously. She checked to make sure that the window and door could easily open, secured her instruments so that they couldn't fall over, and unplugged everything electronic to prevent a short-circuit.
Then, taking the blanket and pillow off of her bed, she positioned herself at a safe distance from the empty bunk bed and out from under the ceiling lamp. After ensuring that nothing else could hurt her, she set her alarm clock and, reluctantly, closed her eyes. "You ain't gettin' me, you freaky bastard!" She whispered to herself.
The next day, Luna and her siblings went to Bangers and Mosh as planned. Luna's faithful stagehand, Chunk, was dutifully working on her equipment. "Hey, mate, make sure you don't overload the mixboard…" She advised, sheepishly. "Oh, and watch out for loose cords."
"Relax, Luna." Chunk soothed. "I practically grew up in a recording studio."
Luna knew she could rely on him, but she still felt a little on edge. Scanning the crowd, Luna smiled as she saw her family giving her thumbs up. At last, she moved towards the mic. "Okay… an, uh, any requests?"
"Highway to Hell!" Someone shouted out.
"Any other requests?" Luna started to sweat.
"Welcome to the Jungle!" Lincoln asked, thinking it would make her feel more comfortable.
"Okay, Welcome to the Jungle…" Luna tuned her guitar and started playing.
For the most part, everyone enjoyed her performance, but Lucy was looking around the restaurant for any potential hazards. Just then, she remembered that a cable had sliced off Luna's jaw in her vision, and turned to the power chords. One of the waiters was taking up a pitcher of water for when Luna needed a break.
Much to Lucy's horror, on his way down, he tripped over one of the speaker's power cord and tumbled down the steps with it wrapped around his leg. With a hard tug, it came loose and flew around the stage just as Luna was finishing up.
" You know where you are? You're in the JUNGLE, baby! You're gonna-!"
"DUCK!" Lucy yelled over the speakers. Luna shifted in her position just as the cord hit her. Everyone gasped and stood up in shock.
"LUNA!" The Loud kids cried.
But then, Luna sat up on the stage, frightened, but otherwise unharmed. She looked down at what the cord had hit. Her beloved electric guitar had a giant gash on the body, and the strings had all been snapped. Luna lightly brushed her fingers over the cut that could have been inflicted on her flesh, instead.
"Better you than me, Chloe…" She breathed. The rock star felt much safer once her family huddled around her, hugging her for what felt like hours.
But as she hugged, Lucy couldn't help but plan ahead. "That just leaves Lynn, Lincoln… and then me…"
Author's note: Okay! So far we have three votes for Child's Play and two votes for Get Out. But, we have one last chapter of Final Destinat so keep those votes a-comin'!
Also, *Luna's music references were Help by the Beatles and Bloody Well Right by Supertramp.