Chapter 40: S#7. Saturday the 13th (2)
by fnovelpia
Blackout in the store.
A narration echoed in my head.
-On the day when 13 were massacred.
The mask was not satisfied with the blood it drank, and the corpses could not sleep in the blood they had shed.
What does it mean when curses and vengeance clash?
The explanation was too short and abstract to understand, but the narrator did not offer any more details.
As usual, it was unhelpful.
Suddenly, a piercing scream rang out again in the darkness.
“Arrghhhh!!!”
It was the store manager’s scream.
It seemed like an attack, but it wasn’t.
He had screamed out of shock.
A section of the store engulfed in darkness was suddenly bright.
However, the lights had not been restored.
The light that brightened the space was not from a bulb.
It was near the checkout counters.
A human, engulfed in bright red flames, was running around.
“Guuuh… Guuuuuh!!!”
Emitting an intense heat, he frantically thrashed around like a piece of dancing magma.
A person suddenly engulfed in flames in a blacked-out supermarket.
The sight was dumbfounding.
I turned my head to look around. There was no fire extinguisher in sight.
While a customer was burning, the manager just kept screaming like a little girl.
The burning person glowed like a firefly, flaring up intensely.
I quickly took off the shirt I was wearing and covered the burning person with it.
It was an act of desperation, even risking burns, but it was futile.
As soon as the shirt touched the fire, it burned up. Far from extinguishing the flames, they grew more intense.
The person engulfed in flames collapsed.
No longer a person. A corpse.
-① Burned to death
The narrator spoke softly.
People screamed in unison as if on cue.
There was a big commotion near the checkout counters.
People were throwing carts and goods aside, hurling their bodies towards the exits.
“Get out of the way, move it!!!”
“I don’t want to die!!!”
“F*ck, f*ck, f*ck, someone’s died, burned up!!”
“Hu… Huaaaahh…!! Don’t push…!!!!”
It was too dark to see well, but it seemed they were fighting to get out first.
The sound of glass breaking was also heard.
The crowd surged out of the dark store.
I wanted to run out too.
But I couldn’t leave Ellen behind.
“Ellen!”
I called out loudly.
She wasn’t visible near the checkout counters.
All that could be seen were dark silhouettes, hard to distinguish.
I called out for Ellen 13 times, but no answer came back.
Nor did I hear Ellen’s voice calling my name.
My heart pounded as if it would split.
Where have you gone, Ellen…?
I couldn’t even ask others about Ellen’s whereabouts.
Everyone was half-mad, engulfed in panic.
Seeing someone burn to death was all too familiar to me, but not to others.
The darkness was horrifyingly thick.
Even if I wasn’t used to the dark yet, it was abnormally pitch black.
Something evil lurking in the store was clearly influencing things.
Something that turned people into barbecue…
I pulled the hand axe tucked into the back of my pants.
“Phew…”
I took a deep breath.
Ellen was gone.
I had to find her and escape this place as soon as possible.
For that, I first needed light.
I approached the corpse burning like firewood.
The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Life had gone out, but the flames were still alive.
Thud—I chopped down at the leg with the axe.
The fiercely burning thigh was cleanly cut off.
Skillfully, I sliced off some of the flesh to expose the bone.
The part of the bone with flesh still attached crackled and emitted light.
It was a human torch.
Although it was disrespectful to the dead, I couldn’t afford to care.
The light was necessary in this desperate situation.
Using the severed leg of the unknown dead as a torch was, in a way, assigning meaning to his death.
It was, perhaps, a true form of mourning.
I hurriedly moved to find Ellen.
I took 13 steps.
Someone suddenly jumped out around the corner.
I was startled.
Just as I was about to chop with the axe, the figure from around the corner fell to the ground.
“Aaargh! Don’t hurt me…!!!”
“…Jerry?”
He was the pathetic employee who had been scolded by the manager at the sports corner.
Drenched in sweat, he looked as if he had just come out of an oven.
Jerry recognized me too.
“Oh, it’s you, customer…!”
“Jerry. What the hell is going on here?”
“I, I, I don’t know…”
Jerry scratched the back of his head with a foolish expression.
“But customer… where is your wife…?”
“I’m looking for her because I can’t see her. And she’s not my wife.”
“Oh… You weren’t together?”
Jerry got up hesitantly and continued.
“Just before the power went out, I saw you grabbing her arm at the checkout counter… It was from behind…”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes…?”
“Are you sure?!”
“It was so brief, I didn’t see well…! I only caught a glimpse as I passed by…!!”
I was breathless.
Me, holding Ellen’s arm. That’s not true.
My worst fears were confirmed.
Someone had taken Ellen.
I asked Jerry to guide me in the direction Ellen went.
“Uh, it must have been that way…”
We went deep into the dark store.
The power was still out. The space was dark and eerie, like an underground dungeon.
The human torch I was holding crackled and burned.
I was thankful to the deceased who left a streak of light in the darkness.
“But customer, where did you get that torch…?”
“I made it from the leg of the burning corpse.”
“Ha ha… no, you’re joking…”
Suddenly, I saw a flashlight attached to a display stand.
I discarded the human torch and used the flashlight, like a civilized person.
When I pressed the button, a bright beam of light shot out.
Just as I was about to move forward, I stepped on something squishy.
A foul stench of blood filled my nostrils—it was a piece of intestine.
The floor was soaked with red blood.
When I shone the flashlight ahead, I saw a corpse sprawled on the ground.
-② Crushed to death
The corpse was flattened as if run over by a steamroller.
It was a horrific scene, like something out of a gore movie.
The setting of a blacked-out supermarket added to the eeriness.
“Ugh… Ugh, ugh, blegh-.”
Jerry vomited at the sight of the corpse.
I shone the flashlight on Jerry.
About 13cm above Jerry’s head, two feet were hanging in the air.
…What is that?
I raised the flashlight beam.
A middle-aged woman was hanging from the ceiling, her swollen neck wrapped in a thin rope, sagging down.
-③ Right next to the woman, hanged to death, was a fat man.
Unlike the woman, his neck was twisted 180 degrees.
It looked as though his head and body might snap apart at any moment.
-④ Broken neck
“Ugh… What, what is it, customer…? Is there something above me?”
“No, Jerry. Don’t look up, just keep throwing up.”
It was a series of shocks.
A burned person, a crushed person, a hanged woman, a man with a twisted neck.
In a blink of an eye, four people were murdered.
I had faced all sorts of bizarre entities before… But this opponent was particularly tough.
Jayce Borison.
According to the radio broadcast, Jayce Borison’s corpse had disappeared.
At the same time, a fire broke out in the evidence room, and Jayce’s hockey mask also vanished.
There was only one possibility I could think of.
Jayce Borison had come back to life, to resume his bloody massacres.
The slasher from the movies is invincible, no matter what.
He survives falling into water, being trapped in burning buildings, getting shot, or falling out of windows.
Even after being declared dead, he miraculously returns.
You might think he’s dead— but he keeps coming back, again and again.
The slasher’s immortality isn’t just a cheap trick for setting up sequels.
It’s a metaphor for fear.
Fear can be temporarily driven back, but it can never be completely eliminated.
It’s a part of us.
The slasher is like fear.
He can be temporarily driven back, but he can never be completely eliminated.
His cruel and sadistic nature is a part of us.
When we crave fear, the slasher gloriously resurrects on the screen.
And the twilight grips the blade.
The problem now is that the slasher, Jayce, has resurrected in reality, not on the screen.
Jayce has attacked the store and killed four people, each in a different manner:
① Burned
② Crushed
③ Hanged
④ Broken Neck
Jason, wearing a hockey mask, is trying to recreate the massacre committed at the cabin, here.
Exactly like the 12 people he killed.
① Set on fire
② Crushed with his knees
③ Strangled with a rope
④ Neck broken
⑤ Electrocuted with live wires
⑥ Abdomen pierced with a long pole
⑦ Strangled with hands
⑧ Mouth blown up with gunpowder
⑨ Decapitated with a machete
⑩ Thrown from the lodge’s roof
⑪ Drowned in a lake
⑫ Body sawed in half
After “④ Broken Neck” comes “⑤ Electrocution.”
Soon, someone in this dark store will be electrocuted.
This situation eerily reminded me of <Final Destination>.
My hands are sweaty. The axe handle slipped from my grip.
I was worried about Ellen.
Ellen was the benefactor who took me in. She was as precious as family.
The resurrected slasher has taken her.
It was as though she was bitten by a man-eating shark and dragged into the sea.
She might be dead.
This thought made my blood run cold.
I moved, drooling from the tension.
Jerry moved his trembling legs and barely followed me.
There were bloodstains on the floor. Red footprints surrounded them chaotically.
Thirteen footprints leading to the electrical room.
I raised the flashlight and see the back of a man inside.
“…Jayce.”
I called out quietly. The man turned around.
His hockey mask was smeared with blood.
It was Jayce Borison.
Without hesitation, I threw the axe.
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