“Blood steaking down his brow, Arthur hobbled across an overgrown lawn, up a woodpile that once served as a front porch staircase, and through a broken window and then collapsed between a cotton-spewed loveseat and an overturned table.” I climbed on my feet and gazed over a bonfire flame at three individuals who stared at me, seated on logs, leaning forward. “Suddenly, Arthur’s name echoed, and he peered through the window and saw a disfigured woman dressed a charred wedding gown. ‘Arthur,’ she said. ‘You ran out of the ceremony. At least stop-by the reception.’ She laughed, and Arthur shook his head. ‘Ellaine, you’re a corpse, you’re not real,’ he said. ‘What do you mean, I’m not real?’ ‘At the ceremony, you locked the doors and started the fire, but you made one error—you were supposed to kill everyone and be a lone survivor, but you killed everyone, including yourself, except me, the actual lone survivor.’ Ellaine clapped as she strolled to the woodpile. ‘Bravo,’ she said. ‘You know, I always knew my future mother-in-law hated me.’ She reached over her shoulder, snatched a butcher’s knife out her back, and lifted it into moonlight. ‘Because why in the world would someone conceal such an instrument in their purse at a wedding?’ Arthur huffed. ‘She considered the bride.’ Ellaine nodded. ‘Touché. Had it not been for her, I would’ve made it. Can you believe it? Stabbed in the back at my own wedding. Oh well, I’m glad she’s dead.’ Arthur balled his fists. ‘Go to hell, Ellaine!’ Ellaine put a foot on the woodpile. ‘Well, yes, I’m on my way to the reception, but I wouldn’t dream of arriving without you.’ Arthur inched backward. ‘You’re a monster’. Ellaine shook her head. ‘I don’t like monsters. They creep up on you without notice. Would I do that do you?’ Arthur shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Would you?’ He heard no answer, peeked out the window, and saw no one. ‘Good. She didn’t deserve to know I helped kill her.’ Suddenly, behind him, a floor board creaked, and he turned and saw Ellaine lunge toward him!”
Out of the blue, I leapt over the bonfire flame, arms wide. “Rooooar!”
The others jolted away. “Aaagggh!”
I laughed, felling to my knees. “You all are too easy.” Before long, behind me, I peered through the trees, over a rear yard, and at a silhouetted house whose first-floor window illuminated. “Hey, Aunt Trudy’s home, let’s go see if she’ll let us watch a horror movie!” I started toward the house but the others halted me.
“Wait a minute,” someone said. “You didn’t finish the story!”
“Yeah,” another said. “How does it end? Does Arthur survive?” I sighed. “Ellaine buries the knife in Arthur’s chest, they both make it to the ‘reception’, and I prefer salt and butter on my movie popcorn.”