Original concept created back in 2011, I hope to remember all characters created for this as I go along.

Dark Before Dawn, Act IV Special: Cold Night

1989 - Alaska

There was a nice, large house at the edge of town, one that overlooked the sea, standing proud and still right next to a large cliff. The house's nickname was "The House On Edge" by the local populace, roughly about three-hundred of them. A tiny town with only an elementary school and few little shops- if you wanted clothes or other stuff that wasn't food, you'd have to fly and move elsewhere, cause this wasn't the place where you could find all that. Sure, maybe you could be so lucky to get it mailed to you, but the bad weather was known to delay it quite often, both inward and outward.

Jenna Henderson was here for the special occasion, the get-together that was hosted by John Jacobs, the man who bought and lived in the big, wooden house. In truth, she had been and was still quite enamored with him, him whom she knew in high school, all four years to be exact, and maybe now, maybe tonight, she could be so lucky.

Jenna was a redhead with a degree in social sciences, if it was worth more than she hoped. She found herself in a rut, having a conflicted dilemma in choice of career, maybe doubting herself, maybe thinking this wasn't the right one for her. Aw, phooey! Twenty-seven years and counting, and she was single, living alone in that tiny apartment complex in that shitty town of Deer Valley, Arizona, where the place was as hot as the desert. She accepted to come because of both John and the heat she needed to just get the hell away from.

A little about John Jacobs; the man was incredibly handsome and suave, a man just an inch away from being a full six feet, of slicked-back black hair, and a complexion of a muscular man. Maybe it was the suit he wore that made him look strong, but Jenna prayed it was as she saw. Behind the scenes, John had traits of a womanizer- cocky, arrogant and abusive if it counted, the real reason he was, at the moment, in the market. Spoiled goods hiding underneath that perfectly-made smile, just a sort-of bravado to hide who he was.

John invited a group of fifry people to come over; these fifty were the ones he knew in high school, the occasion being a reunion from his high school classmates that was likely to be thrown without him. The plan was to bring a slice of that over to him rather than spending for a goddamn plane ticket, the man was that insensitive- and yet, nineteen of these guys came to him, most of which he hadn't seen in years. He beat the system that way, and while he was still young, too.

There was Anna Packer (yes!), there was Arlene Montgomery. Dallas Hayburn. Matthew Monsoon (the only one I could remember). Elle Winston. So many of these old faces, changed, aged. Some were the dame, others weren't, it was rather odd for him to take in. High school was up in South Dakota last when he recalled it, him being a jock on the football team, but one of the top twenty best players they've had. Goddamn Tigers all the way or bust.

John served drinks just around seven in the turning night, going around supplying for them. He smiled, he greeted, and he played along that wonderful facade they loved. Jenna herself seemed to have been the most easiest woman to reel in- too bad John was not into her, or he'd have used his mighty-fine seductive charm to get into those panties she had on, leading her to bed.

If John so wanted to, he'd do it just to reinforce that ugly confidence and ego. Maybe he could... If he drank enough of his Jack Daniels at hand. "Bottom's up!"

Dallas and Arlene were catching up for old time's sake, taking up the entirety of the kitchen. Arlene was the short, cute cheerleader back in junior high, supportive to her now ex-boyfriend Dallas. The girl was a lovable ray of sunshine, but she had a future and he had been caught with the baddie-bad coke that sent his scholarship down the drain. Needless to say that one went to college, no need to even make guesses. Arlene was once Arlene Daggett before this new era, having married Jensen Montgomery and having a girl and two boys with him.

Damn right you could see Dallas' moustache twitch with sudden discomfort- that could have been him married to her. Oh fucking well. He sipped the rest of his drink down with no hesitation as Arlene gave her the follow-up of her life story, and she, despite being a blonde woman, could see that he was somewhat hurt by all of this, and let out an awkward, nervous laugh. "We haven't even gotten to the good part yet!"

Dallas was as Southern as his name implied, almost one clothing away from being a full redneck at most. The accent waa as you could imagine, if anything.

Anna Packer and Elle Winston? Best friends since day one through to the end of senior year- if you believe the rumors. The dramatic truth was that they had a very special connection, a literal curse in actuality, one that not only haunted them but the very families that were also involved. Oh, you wanted the juicy details, did you? Well, it started with Elle, being only raised by a single mother, to have introduced herself to the Packer family. Daddy Packer was an unfaithful man four years and counting before he met the single mother, and behind the scenes, from Anna and Elle's (Hmmm, why don't I just name her Elsa? I didn't even notice LOL! Yooohooo, Disney!) first three years, it went unchecked. Daddy Packer and Momma Winston met on a daily basis, having sex in almost all placed but their houses, and the hard truth came out when she got pregnant.

That's right, the half-brother that unified both families... Or it would have if it wasn't aborted.

Anna and Elle disliked the other, and did their best to avoid each other. The thing was-

Anna gasped at the sight of the curly-haired ginger. "Why is she here?!"

Elle was more levelheaded than Anna, but even for her, she could not withstand the verbal blasting. "No, I can't- Not with her around..." Elle had immediate regrets on coming to John's now. "I can't-"

"Yeah, fuck you and what your mother did to my family!" Anna accused. "Pack of sirens!"

John and Dallas assembled around as the others looked on in interest. "Laides, please!" John tried to control. "We're all adults here, I'm sure we can talk it out!"

Anna eyed the glass in her hand and let Elle have it all, splashing it right into the ginger's face. "Take this, you fucking slut!"

"Hey!" Dallas moved in and locked his arms around Anna. "There's no need for that!"

"Let me go, you hillbilly freak!"

"I need you to be cool, Anna!" Dallas insisted. "Elle has come in-"

Elle gave in and did what was done unto her, taking put both Anna and Dallas in her move. "This oughta cool you off, you snob."

Dallas licked away the beer off around his face to save whatever drop he could, he was like that, an alcoholic, and one to be impressed by. "Ease up!"

"My mother-" Anna wailed. "My father left her in shambles, and she could not take the pressure, the shame! Your mother enabled this, made mines c-commit-" Anna's voice broke emotionally. "My own mother!"

Elle regained some of her cool, having been ignorant of the after-details. "Oh... Oh, she-?"

John cleared his throat to make his presence known. "Dallas, if you could see to it that Anna calms down, I would highly appreciate it."

"Right away, hoss," Dallas agreed, leading the crying woman away from the scene.

Elle stood silent, her head bobbed downwards to shoe that she was showing some degree of guilt over this. It was just so awful, such a grievance that she could have never asked for. It humiliated and embarrassed her in front of all these people whom it didn't concern.

Anna and Dallas wandered out into the cold night, the outer atmosphere being too damn chilly for them to be out in, but Anna's pain proved to be stronger than the air at the moment. "Nobody told me she'd come, Dally!"

"I wasn't made aware of the whole thing- Geez, I truly am sorry for your loss, but-"

"Ugh, I can't-" Anna kept sobbing. "I don't eanna be in there, not when I know that she's going to be close by. No, fuck that-"

Dallas sighed, nodding. "John would understand, he's a good man, but just let them know you're leaving, will you?"

"Yeah, I- I just need a minute, if you-"

"Oh, with pleasure, miss-" Dallas nodded to fulfill her wish, giving her solo time. "I'll be at the porch if-"

"Thank you," Anna expressed, sniffing in the cold. She wandered away around the side of the house, seemingly to walk it off, and Dallas returned to the porch, standing right over the breaking wooden planks. Damn, if this house was older than his grandmother...

Anna was alone, haunted by the dark of her thoughts and memories. The very last few good times of her with her mother were fading, and she had to keep playing them over and over so the memory would be kept alive- yet all the same, it wasn't truly a healthy case in the long run. Her mother. Her mother... The bastard father that helped himself to forbidden seconds. Elle was here for some reason, and it was just so funny, so...

She caught the case of the sniffles all too fast, but it wasn't able to be distinguished from her teary mood. There were just so many words she needed to say to relieve the weight of the burdens she felt. Too many that she could have just-

-Had enough reason to try and kill Elle if it were possible.

Behind her, she heard the faint clatter of footsteps in the snow, and turned to see the person who seemed to be trailing her. She caused friction in her hands while doing so, effortlessly trying to keel warm. "Huh?"

There was not a single soul that she saw. Weird. Maybe it was the fragility of her mind that made her hear things. Surely, that was it, had to be. Still, she kept looking back, expecting Dallas to keep a closer eye on her. The man was a goofball but had a dumb, old heart at most, she could totally respect that in a man. "Dally?"

No response, and she shrugged it off. "You're crazy, Anna, you're too damn-"

She heard a footstep again, closer this time, but in another direction. Further, just beyond the darkbess, out of the lights' reach. "H-hello?"

Dallas heard Anna from the distance, sensing something was off. He moved his ass from watch position and followed where he saw her scatter off to in her state. A pity he could not do anything more than what he did, but surely she'd have her own resolve that got her right. "Hey, Anna!"

He ran around the house's perimeter to find nobody around; Anna had simply vanished. "Uh- Anna? An-"

The figure that laid concealed a few feet away began closing in...

Inside, the party continued on, but Elle had locked herself in the second floor bathroom, left alone by the others. Arlene drank away right where she was, talking with Neil Anderson, the ex-president of...- Oh, she didn't remember it now but it had to do with politics, she guessed. Neil Anderson was the scrawny nerd you would either pity or pick on back then, but where he lacked in muscle, he compensated in brain power, and he was a successful businessman now. He was taller, but not up to six feet yet, devilishly handsome and rocking behind them glasses, his confidence having skyrocketed from what it was back then. It was as if this wasn't Neil at all, just someone who shared the name and much of the old looks. "Unresolved drama..."

"I hear that," Neil nodded. "Hatchets are made to be buried here."

"I agree," Arlene believed. "John didn't invite us to have a fight, he wanted to see us, that's the least we can do, not fight-"

"I don't know why John- Hear me out-" Neil raised up a finger right up to her lips. "Why did the man seclude himself here?"

"Beats me," Arlene shrugged off. "He had a good reason, he's a reasonable man-"

"Isolating yourself from society is not reasonable."

"Well, then go ask the man instead of being all sneaky and making assumptions!" Arlene then retreated from the kitchen, faintly grunting irritably.

In the blink of an eye, the entire household was subjected to an unscheldued power outage without warning, and the partygoers froze in place, their heads and eyes wandering all over the place. Murmurs followed, the careful steps. "What happened to the lights?"

In a time without cellphones, the adults had to work for it, to scamper around in the dark for light sources. "Where are the flashlights?"

"Hang on!" John tried to control. "No one move, I'll go check the circuit board outside! If that won't work, I've got a generator. You guys just stay put, don't move around too much!"

"Is this John supposed to be funny?" Arlene rolled her eyes, unseen by anyone. "I'd rather not."

John headed outside, circling around to the right side of the house, searching for the circuit box. His first idea was that it had to be someone messing with it- No way would he lose power just like that, and it wasn't like it ever happened before either. Surely had to be someone playing a nasty prank on them for some reason. The second he came to the box, he found it open, most of the switches having been turned off. "Goddamn-"

John let his fingers feel around, turning them on to its correct flip. The lights were restored, and he drew a great sigh of relief and turned around to return to the house only for the mysterious figure arrive on scene to attack him with an axe from the shed out back. The unlucky John received the deadly end of the axe to the face.

Inside, the adults celebrated with a clap and a drink when John has fixed the problem. At that second, a pair of headlights appeared just outside of the house, going noticed by half of the partygoers. Neil, Jenna and Arlene were mesmerized dearly, distracted away. "Who is that?"

"Isn't that John's car?"

"Where's he-?"

The headlights then grew closer, perceived as a trick of illusion until the vehicle, a Toyota Tundra of the black color, crashed right into the house, plowing through thw window and stopping only when the rear wheels were caught hung up right on the porch. By miracle, no one had been run over, but the glass and shards of metal had flown around towards them, only a few being cut up around their hands. And then, the cold air would start coming in.

"What the fuck is he doing?!"

Neil looked around and pointed out the lack of a driver in the cab. "Who was driving...?"

A few of the guys moved close to investigate, peeking their heads into the truck. "His keys are here, but-" Then, they spotted an object rather revolting in the back, which made them stop or jump back in shook. One of the guys suddenly gagged and vomited right onto the floor. "Hey, keep back!"

"Stay back!" Another warned, waving his arms away at the group.

A third man sprinted around. "DID ANYONE SEE A TELEPHONE?! DOES JOHN HAVE A PHONE?"

"In the kitchen!" Arlene pointed out. "What's going on?!"

In seconds, the truck was being manned, backed away from the house slowly.

The instilled fear on the faces of the partygoers had terminated the life of John's festive, most of them centering away from the large opening.

The man who tried the phone found it to be faulty; he growled, so annoyed and scared all ths same. "Damn it, John!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Arlene shook him, "what did you see? What was there?!"

"Cut it out, Arlene," Terrence Michaels jerked her away. "Don't be snooping around that truck, y'hear me?"

"Terry, don't be like that-"

"Where's Dallas and Anna?" Jenna asked the others, looking around for them. "They were last outside-"

Terrence used that as an excuse to abandon Arlene. "Boys, with me! Neil, that means you too-"

"I don't like this!" Neil exclaimed.

"You're about to like it a whole lot less if you take a peek in the truck," Terrence shared.

"I believe you..."

"Everyone, stay back and close to each other!" Terrence ordered at the others. "We're gonna see if we can find John, Dallas and Anna!"

"B-be safe!" Jenna prayed for them.

Terrence and company didn't split up, but they would have, if not for the sliced-off hand right in the truck that so heavily implied a psycho killer in their midst. They were already believing it to be John by then and no one else. The hand could have belonged to Dallas but there was no way of knowing as of yet. "Some fucking party..."

"That fuck John done snapped, Terrence! I knew I should have rejected!"

"Don't be spooked!" Terrence reinforced. "He's one and we are multiple, we can take him!"

"Damn right we can!"

Matthew Monsoon coughed as he synchronized with the pack, catching the attention of the others. "Don't forget me."

"Monsoon, you cowardly stick-in-the-mud!" Terrence cheered. "Finally being a real man, are you?"

"Things change, Terry," Matthew, the short-haired blond man, believed. "People change."

In mere seconds, they came across the hacked corpse of John Jacobs and the axe sticking out of him, lying right on the snow bank. It was horrible, and the smell of the blood was caught between their noses, driving some of them back. Terrence and Matthew could only stare in putrid horror at the grisly scene. "Jesus... It- It's not John..."

"Wait, look-" Terrence pointed to John's hands. "Both are intact, and in the truck- G-get back to the house!"

"Wait, what about Anna and Dallas?!" Neil inquired.

"LOOK AT THE BODY, GEEK!" Terrence blared. "THIS JUST GOT-!"

Matthew retreated out of there, being the first to do so without a second thought. Soon, the rest followed. No sign of Anna gave them hope but a sense of dread, but the hand... Who did it really belong to?

Terrence, Matthew, Neil and the other guys returned quickly, beginning to block themselves in from the killer out there as well as the cold. "Everyone, go to the rooms and get blankets! We're going to have to stay the night!"

"Stay the night?!" Arlene found it rather idiotic. "Not like that! It's going to be real cold!"

"Turn on the heaters then! The stove if you have to!"

"What about-?"

"We'll make it to morning..." Terrence delivered. "We need someone to stay on guard!"

"Guard- Why?" Jenna needed to know what it was they saw out there. "I don't understand.

"WE FOUND JOHN'S BODY OUT IN THE COLD!" Neil finally dropped, bringing about dead silence before it escalated into fearful panic.

"Idiot, way to keep them calm!"

"Are you serious?!"

"GOOD LORD!"

"TRY THE FUCKING PHONE AGAIN!"

"Everyone stay calm! Best thing we can do in this situation is maintain ourselves!"

"Terrence is right, we've gotta stick together!"

""No one leaves outside!"

"We'll be fine! We'll be okay... Won't we?"

Somewhere around them, not too far away from the visitors, the murderer lurked about, either hiding within the cold darkness just beyond the house, or actually within their own perimeter. Who could say? Who could ever know where the bloody culprit lied in wait? Who could possibly know and predict the next move of death on their part?

Jenna and Arlene were shaken up, especially when Terrence and company weren't saying much, other than having spilled about John. Surely they were thinking about the statuses of both Dallas and Anna at the moment- and what was seen in the truck. Of all places, of any point in time, it had to be tonight, in such an isolated part of the world.

And funny enough, it was damn smart of this killer to have made a move like the way they did now.

"I wish I was home," Jenna whispered away to Arlene. "Anything is better than this, Arly. Being stuck when it's too cold to head into town."

"The truck is like, right there, how are those guys being idiots in not taking off to get the police?"

Jenna shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, hey- That's not a bad suggestion!"

"Duh!" Arlene flicked her hand off towards the men. "Go tell them that, or it'll be worse."

"Sure-" Jenna got up, "Right after I check on Elle. No one's gone off to tell her, I'm guessing."

"Oh, we were all distracted that it slipped put minds..." Arlene followed Jenna's lead. "I'm coming with you."

They wandered off to the bathroom in silence, knocking away at the door that separated both girls from Elle. "Elle, hey," Jenna spoke through the wood. "There's an emergency."

Arlene pressed the side of her head against the door, trying to listen in. "Don't hear anything, did she leave at some point?"

"No, I don't think so..." Jenna tried the doorknob, gradually finding it locked. "Elle? Elle, it's Jenna! Please- I need you to open the door, this is serious!"

Still no answer. "Maybe she fell asleep?"

"ELLE!" Jenna rammed her frail fists.

Arlene eyed the doorknob closely, then made the obvious realization. "Oh, it's one of those that don't need a key!" Needless to say, she gave Jenna a sense of stupidity when she unlocked the knob with the nail of her index finger, and turned the door open. "Girl power! Elle-!"

Elle was there, but laying face down on the floor, right in the pool of her own blood, and in the sink were fragments of the shattered mirror and some blood droplets; she hsd committed suicide, leaving Jenna in great shock, and Arlene, unable to withstand the atrocity of the scene, ran from it, breaking into tears.

They'd soon find the dead Elle, cover her body with the sheets but being unable to move her, making the bathroom off-limits for the most part. There would be crying, mourning for tonight's fallen, and it has gravely escalated to such an unbearable, horrific catastrophe no such one of them could have seen right out of any existing horror movie. After that, no one was really talking anymore, hence the commencement of the hours-long waiting game that took until morning, fit for only the insane to withstand.

Who was the insane whom could last that long here, in the state they were in?

They were trapped, they were cornered without the proper essentials; cold air coming in, no radios or phones, and the very little food and water that could not be divided in a balanced portion for them all- they could try, only to fail. This was how the killer would win.

This was the best case scenario, and all the murderer had to do was wait for his next victim to be isolated.

End.