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Final Cut: a Short Story
by Zack Roddy, Editor-in-chief
The front door slammed
open, and Rachel ran as fast as her legs could take her. Heavy male
footsteps landed in step behind her, and all she could think about
was survival.
Her mind was in tatters- she was the only one left
alive out of her friends, and that was not going to last for much
longer. When she had first laid eyes on the psycho freak, she
believed she had stumbled into one of her own nightmares. With
yellowish skin, cracked teeth, and gnarled pick axe, Jedidiah Worley
was the scariest man she had ever seen in her seventeen years on
this earth. And now she was trapped in his secluded Georgia
farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
Rachel ran up the rickety staircase in the foyer, tears
streaming down her face, and heard him giggle obscenely at the
bottom. And in a terrible moment of horror, she understood why.
I’m a sitting duck upstairs. There is nowhere for me to
go.
“Oh…oh God. Please don’t kill me.”, she pleaded
with him. “Please.”
“Oh, I’m not just gonna kill ya”, he replied in nasty
whisper, slowly advancing up the staircase, “I’m gonna make you beg
first. You’ll BEG ME!” The axe blade whistled as he swung into the
banister, taking a chunk of wood right out of it. Rachel screamed
and ran down the upstairs hallway. She picked the first door she
saw, practically diving through it, and turned around to see him
running down the hall, straight towards her.
“Don’t you close that door!” he screamed, “Don’t you
dare close that door girly!”
She slammed the door right in his face. It immediately
opened again, and for a split second, she saw her death in his eyes.
But survival overcame fear, and she slammed the door again, jamming
a chair underneath the knob. The knob twisted several times, but did
not budge, and she could hear his screams of hatred and frustration
from behind the three inches of wood. She whooped in happiness, she
had bought herself another few moments of…
THE AXE BLADE BROKE THROUGH THE CENTER OF THE
DOOR!
Wood chips sprayed her face, and she emptied her lungs
as she screamed. Jedidiah’s hand slid through the hole in the door
and threw the chair out of the way. Rachel scrambled to her feet and
stood rigid in horror as the door opened. Glancing around the room,
Rachel realized in terror that there was no way out. There was just
a bed, a closet, a window…
The window!
Without thinking or considering the risk, Rachel
jumped straight through the glass and fell twenty feet into the yard
below, landing hard on her feet and palms. Jolts of pain shot up her
legs, and Rachel screamed in agony. Something was broken or
sprained; she could feel it in her right leg. She got up on her left
leg, and limped as fast as she could away from the house. But as
fast as she could was not very fast at all, and she could hear the
front door slam open from behind her. He was chasing her.
“God-Oh-God-Oh-God.”, she whispered to herself, and
limped feebly into the woods ahead of her. She could hear his heavy
footsteps behind her, and tears poured down her face. She limped up
behind a tree, and held her breath. She couldn’t hear anything. And
then he jumped right in front of her! Rachel screamed but her scream
was cut short as he buried the axe in her stomach. Rachel laid on
the ground, in a feeble heap, and died.
“CUT! THAT’S A WRAP EVERYONE! FINAL CUT!”
Rachel suddenly stepped up from the ground.
“Great job, Penny”, the director said to her.
Penny smiled. “Thanks.”
Jedidiah walked up to Penny and put his arm around her.
“Did I jab you with the rubber axe to hard?” he asked her.
“Nah, it only hurt a second Gary.”
“Okay, good. Let’s go get ready for the next scene.”
And side by side, they walked to the make-up trailer.
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