The Douglas Murders
5
by Scott

  Tabby was among the huge crowd that turned out for a humongous new casino being built just half a mile away from the school she went to, Douglas High.  In fact, the school administration actually were the ones who planned to build it, arguing that the profit from the casino- named, "The Patriot's Palace of Gold"- would help benefit the school.
   A huge tarp was placed over what was probably a four-story tall building.
   The superintendent was at a podium, giving a speech.  "Now, be prepared for the most fabulous thing to hit education since- well, EVER!"
  "This is SO gay!" she said to her friend, Nik, who was standing right next to her.
   The tarp was brought down, and fireworks blasted into the air as the casino was introduced.  It was huge.  Maybe not huge by Vegas standards, but for the little town of Box Elder, there wasn't a building anywhere near this size.
   "Think we should go in?" Nik asked.
   "Are you kidding?  It's so stupid!" Tabby snapped back.
   "I don't know," Nik said, almost hollering over the noise of the crowd.  "It might be pretty cool."
   "Trust me, Nik, this is going to be the absolute stupidest thing to ever hit this shabby little town!"

   Five minutes later....
   "Tabby!" Nik called.  "What are you doing?"
   They were both inside the casino now, and Tabby was quickly plunging quarters into a slot machine.
   "Tabby!"  Nik continued, "You're not old enough to gamble!"
   "Actually, no it's not..." someone behind them said.
   Nik and Tabby turned around to see the new superintendent, Dr. Schlong.  He explained, "You see, ladies, the school district managed to buy this land from the government, sort of like a reservation, and we were able to buy the rights to create our own laws on our piece of real estate, and one of our laws is, 'Any person over the age of 12 will be able to gamble without prosecution'."
   Dr. Schlong left them, heading to a couple of waitresses or something, with playboy-bunny style rabbit tails on their dresses.
   "Come on, Tabby," Nik said.  "You were right, this place sucks.  We should get out of here and see a movie."
   Nik snapped, "No way!  This totally rocks!  It's SO addictive, too.  I feel like I'm on a high whenever these quarters jingle together..."
   "OK, you're getting WAY too wierd, I'm outta here, whether you want to or not," Nik mentioned, walking through the doors.
   What's her problem? Tabby thought.  She loved winning all kinds of money.  OK, so maybe she only won a couple bucks, but she was on a roll.  At this rate, she'd be rich in like an hour.
   What seemed like minutes later, she had to take a piss.  What the hell? she thought.  I just went to the bathroom a few minutes ago!
   She looked at her watch.  What seemed like a few minutes turned out be more than an hour long!  She didn't want to leave the awesome slot machine, but she had no choice.  Looking around, she followed a narrow hallway she thought would bring her to some restrooms, but she soon found that it was a dead end, with only some unmarked doors to the sides.  Were any of these restrooms?
   Tabby was about to go back to the main gambling area when she heard a flush and someone walked out of one of the doors with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
   Good, Tabby thought, They really should've marked these doors.
   Tabby quickly ran into the bathroom and got into a stall.  She sat down as she closed the stall door and did her business (I won't go into detail).  She heard some dripping, which probably wasn't unusual for a restroom, but it seemed to be coming from the stall next to her.  There was also some creaking behind and underneath her, as if she was putting a lot of weight on the floor and toilet.
   The dripping sound got louder and faster, and it was efinitely coming from the stall adjacent to the one she was in.
   "Are you OK in there?" Tabby asked, just in case someone was in the stall.
   No answer.
   "Hmm, must be some leaky toilet or some crap like that," she said to herself.  Pulling up her pants, she was about to flush it, when she was SHOCKED to find that...
   The flusher was coin operated!
   "Shit!" Tabby remarked under her breath.  Those cheap greedy bastards, didn't care how much money they squeezed outta people.  She dug out a quarter that she worked so hard to earn from the slot machine and put it in.  The toilet flushed.
   The weird creaking sound that she heard earlier got even louder as the water went down the toilet, and Tabby was bewildered.  What was wrong?  Then the creaking got even louder as the floor beneath her gave way, and she fell into the darkness below.
   She got up and looked around.  She looked like she was in some kinda basement.  She looked up.  There was a hole just big enough for her to fall through on the ceiling (that's where she fell from) and some broken pipes were leaking water.  Then something else dripped from the hole in the ceiling.  Something red.  Blood.
   Did she cut herself along the edge when she fell?  No, it couldn't have been that.  Where was it coming from?
   Then, something fell from the ceiling, almost crashing into Tabby.  It was the corpse of some guy, with still fresh stab wounds!
   Looking up, she saw the killer, looking back at her from the hole in the ceiling, wearing a Scream costume.
   Not sticking around to see what happened next, Tabby ran like there was no tomorrow, her pants soaking wet (from the water in the pipes, not pee, you moron!).  She went through a bunch of really dark corridors, lit only by a few faint light bulbs that hung from the ceiling.
   Once again, there were a bunch of doors along the sides and a dead end.  She tried one door. Locked.  Another.  Locked.
   "Dammit!" she cried.
   Then she stopped. What was that sound?  Coming from one of the rooms, it sounded like a phone ringing.  She found the door it sounded like it was coming from, tried to open it, but it was locked.
   Someone was coming down the hallway.  Was it the killer?  No.  It was someone in a fisherman's suit, his face concealed in the shadow underneath his hat.  Tabby was about to run to him for help, but then he noticed he carried a hook.  She saw enough horror movies to know that anyone wearing a fisherman's suit and armed with a hook probably isn't gonna try to save you from being murdered.  (If you're really dumb, this mean's that the fisherman is another killer!)
   The phone was still ringing.  Although the door was locked, it looked like it was made out of aging wood, and she might be able to kick it down.  She rammed into it with her shoulder.  It buckled, but still was intact.  She kicked it again.
   The fisherman was coming closer.
   The door looked like it was finally starting to loosen up, but would she get it down in time?  She rammed it again.  No progress.  Again.  Some dust dropped from the edges.
   The fisherman was coming closer.
   "Stay back!" Tabby yelled.  This didn't stall the fisherman any, but she didn't really expect it to.  She hit the door once more.  SUCCESS!  The door broke free of its hinges and flew to the floor.  Tabby immediately ran inside.
   The room had no lights, and was illuminated only by the hanging bare light bulb from the hallway.  Still, she could see that there was another door at the oposite wall, and  desk with a phone- the one that was ringing.
   She quickly picked up the receiver.  "Hello?  You'll have to hang up, I gotta call--"
   "Hello, Tabby."  Whoever it was on the other end said.
   She knew that voice.  "Who- who is this?"
   "You know who I am," the killer replied.  "I mean, you wouldn't forget the voice of the Scream killer, would you?  I'd like to thank you for picking up that phone- now I know EXACTLY where you are!"
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