The Perfect Day

Remember, you have nothing to fear besides fear itself.... heheh...

****

At approximately 8 a.m. the phone rings. Somehow knowing it's me, you quickly answer it.

"Hey James" you say, not having to wonder who's on the other line. "Where've you been? I've been waiting for like half an hour now."

"Help..." I whisper back to you in a frightened voice. "I think someone just broke into my hotel room here. I'm hiding in the closet... please.... help... room 666, sixth floor... please...." I whisper pleadingly.

Getting both scared and worried for my safety, you say in a shaken voice "Ok, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Please... hurry!.... " I whisper. Then suddenly you hear me scream "NO! PLEASE DON'T HURT MEEEE!!!!!" and then the phone call ends as the other line is cut off.

"Oh no..." you whisper to yourself. "James's in trouble.."

****

Just as you run to the door and open it, Jennifer runs up to you with a very scared, nervous, and frantic look on her face. She literally drags you to your own car, gets in the passenger seat, and tells you to drive.

As you start driving to town, you ask her "Jennifer, what's wrong?"

"I met James this morning..." she manages to say.

"Yeah, and?" you ask, knowing that can't be the reason that Jennifer's so scared.

Well, in my opinion, it could be reason enough, but it isn't. ;o)

"Well, he asked me to help carry some things for him" Jennifer continues as she nervously cracks her knuckles and looks around. "But when I carried a box of stuff to the door of his hotel room, I heard some screaming."

"Uh oh..." you say outloud, thinking of every possible worst scenario that I could've ended up in.

"I dropped the box and happened to look down at the floor" Jennifer says before looking at you with THEE most frightened, freaked out look you've ever seen. "I saw blood there Alexis..." she almost whispers, her voice trailing off into nothing.

"Oh God... please let James be safe..." you say, fighting back tears and continuing to drive to the hotel as fast as possible. "Please let him be ok..." you pray over and over again.

****

Within minutes, there you both are, standing in front of my hotel room door, unsure of what to do next. Seeing the door is cracked open ajar, Jennifer decides to push it open a little more and peek inside.

Not finding anyone in sight, she tells you to stay back and then she walks into my hotel room and close the door behind her. With your heart racing a billion mph, you jump when the door automatically locks itself shut.

"Stupid Alexis" you say to yourself, trying but failing to calm your nerves. "You're getting scared over nothing! Calm down girl!" You manage to stay calm for another minute or two.

Then you hear Jennifer's muffled scream...

****

Frantically you try and open the door, but it's locked.

"Jennifer, are you ok in there?" you say in a shaky voice.

No response.

"Jennifer, can you hear me?" you ask, now getting really scared.

Again, no response.

Now really worried for both my safety and that of Jennifer's, you knock, bang, and kick on the door repeatedly, yelling "Jennifer!? James!? Please answer me!"

Just after you yell that, a very sharp knife blade slices through the door from the inside.

You can't stay calm any longer. So, you scream.

The door opens quickly, and a hand and arm covered in black clothing reaches out and grabs your own arm and pulls you in the room forcefully before the door shuts behind you. As you are literally thrown in, you almost trip over something large before you catch yourself and land back on the bed.

Turning around and sitting down on the bed, you look across the floor to see what tripped you.

It's Jennifer's body. Her motionless, bloody body.

You fight back a scream and look quickly around the room, but you don't see anyone.

Now you're wondering who pulled you into the room. Looking at the door, you see the knife is gone.

"Maybe the Intruder left" you think to yourself as you wander around the room slowly, avoiding Jennifer's body as much as possible, too scared to want to find out if she's really dead or not.

****

Remembering that I had said I was hiding from the Intruder in the closet, you go over to it. Looking down at the floor, you see what looks like a few drops of blood. With your hand shaking very badly, you manage to open the closet door slowly. Once you open it completely, what appears to be my seemingly lifeless and somewhat mutilated body falls to the floor in a lump, covered in blood.

As with any normal reaction to this situation, you close your eyes, begin to sob, and prepare to scream. Just before you can scream, however, a hand from behind you covers your mouth, and that alone makes you jump and scream a muffled scream through that hand. Now you begin to pray for your own life to be saved...

****

"Hello Alexis... Don't scream, don't do anything stupid, and don't move, and I might let you go" a mysterious, unseen, disguised voice, sounding remarkably similar to that of the Masked Killer in Scream, only much lower, says in your ear. "Do anything like that though, and you'll regret ever being in this room. Understand?"

Scared to death and not wanting to actually find out what the voice meant by "regret ever being in this room," you simple nod and stay quiet. Slowly, the hand covering your mouth is removed.

"Please... don't kill me..." you say in nothing much more than a whisper between sobs.

"Oh, I don't plan to kill you..." says the mystery voice. "I only plan to torture you for awhile."

Right then and there your heart almost stops. Torture? Is he serious?

You feel your hands pulled behind your back and then a cloth wrapped around them, effectively tying them up behind you, making them useless, and then a gag is tied around your head, keeping you from breaking your promise of not screaming.

"Turn around slowly..." the mysterious voice says. "NOW!"

Resisting the urge to jump, you turn around slowly and now face the owner of the voice.

He is wearing all black, from head to toe, except for the mask. It's that mask that the killer in Scream wore. In fact, the whole outfit is exactly as the killer's in Scream. You see this and force yourself from screaming again.

Then you feel it...

You feel a hand grab your ankle. A cold, bloody hand. You scream through your gag as loud as possible. Killer or no killer, not even God Himself could stop you from screaming that time...

****

You and the Intruder both look down and see that Jennifer has been the one to grab your ankle. Coughing up blood, she whispers "Heeeellllpppp meeeee...." and you almost faint when you see her and hear her say that, with her face all covered in blood and cut all over, not to mention the mutilation done to the rest of her body.

Helpless to stop him, you watch the Intruder reach down, grab Jennifer by her arms, and then toss her into the closet where I had been hiding earlier. He then leans over her, and as she looks past him and right into your eyes, he takes the knife in his hand and stabs her heart with it. Seconds later she stops moving again.

The Intruder grabs my lifeless body and then tosses it into the closet as well on top of Jennifer's, before shutting the door, turning to face you, and showing you the bloody knife in his hands. Afraid for your life, you slowly back up, until you fall back on the bed.

The Intruder walks up to you slowly, saying nothing while he waves the knife.

****

You lie there on the bed with your mouth gagged and your hands tied behind your back and you wait as he gets closer to you. Then you rear back and kick him with both your feet and he flies back into the far wall and then he falls to the floor, seemingly motionless.

You see your chance to escape and you take it.

The Intruder takes it back from you.

As you hop up from the bed and run past the Intruder towards the door, his hand reaches out, grabs your ankle, and pulls you back, and you land on the floor and roll over on your back. Seconds later, he pounces on you and pins you to the floor. Calmly, he presses his bloody knife close to your face.

"I told you not to do anything stupid Alexis..." the Intruder says in an angry and annoyed tone. "And to think, I was going to be nice and let you go... well, now you'll be lucky if you leave here alive..."

Your life passes before your eyes.

The Intruder tosses the knife he's holding to the side and then he unties your gag and tosses that next to the knife.

"Do you have any last words?" the Intruder asks, much too calm and evil.

"Please... don't kill me..." you manage to whisper.

Laughing evilly, the Intruder replies "I told you once already, I'm not going to kill you."

"Then... why did you kill them?" you ask as you motion with your head to the closet.

Again he laughs evilly, sending a shiver down your spine and giving you goose bumps.

"I killed James to get to you. I had to. And the girl there shouldn't have been here. She got in the way. No one gets in my way. She knows that now..." he answers, too matter-of-factily and calmly.

"So what are you going to do to me?" you ask, worriedly.

"Torture you" is all he replies.

****

Seeing your reaction of absolute pure terror like I've never seen before, I can't help but grin a very wide, happy grin as I pull the black hood back and take off the mask. I am the Intruder.

"What the?" you say, confused.

Right then I forget whole act and burst out laughing. I laugh so long and hard that I almost cry. During this whole time, you finally realize what has actually gone on here, and then you get angry.

Finally, I calm down and grin down at you as I still have you pinned beneath me. My grin soon fades to a worried look of concern as I immediately see a look of rage and humiliation in your eyes that I have never seen before.

"JAMES!!! GET OFF OF ME AND UNTIE ME, RIGHT NOW!!!!" you yell angrily.

I don't hesitate at all, and within two seconds you are free from your confinements and we are both standing up. Then you slap me across the face, hard, and you begin to cry.

"Ouch..." is all I even dare to say now.

"How DARE you do this to me? What do you think you're doing, anyway? YOU COULD'VE BEEN IN REAL TROUBLE!" you yell at me through your sobbing, before pointing to the closet. "And then there's Jennifer! I saw you stab her! Why?!?!"

"I didn't stab her" I reply. Picking up the knife, I say "Look" and then I push the blade in, which goes back through the hilt and then springs back out when I let it go. This makes you even more angry at being fooled.

"Jennifer!!! GET OUT HERE!" you yell to the closet.

Jennifer opens the closet door from the inside, tosses out the dummy dressed up to resemble me (if I were ever mutilated, that is), and then climbs out and wipes away the fake blood and cuts on her.

"Why would YOU do this?" you ask your friend as you look at her through your tears.

"Because it's fun!" Jennifer retorts before sticking her tongue out at you. "And, I'd love

to stay, but I've gotta get going." Peeling and cleaning the rest of the fake blood and wounds off, leaving herself in a t-shirt and shorts, she says to me "Thanks for the lil adventure here," I nod, and then she walks out the door.

****

As soon as Jennifer is gone, you go to the bed, sit down, and continue to cry. I go over and sit next to you, but when I try to hug you, you scoot away from me, so I just look at you and begin to feel guilty.

"God, James... I thought you were actually in trouble.." you say between sobs. "I... I thought that both you and Jennifer had died! Do you know what I felt next? Huh?" you say as you look at me through your tears.

I simply shake my head no.

"I felt that you had really died and I felt alone... so alone... " you answer yourself as you cry some more. "I could never make it through my life without you around. How could you do something so mean?" you say as you calm down and dry some of your tears.

Feeling so guilty now that my heart actually begins to ache, I look at you and apologize. "I'm sorry Alexis... I didn't mean to hurt you... I just... wanted to scare you... I guess I maybe took it a little far... I'm sorry..."

****

Grinning at me only seconds later, you say "I bet you feel guilty now, don't you? Well, it serves you right, you little punk!"

"Hey! You mean you're NOT mad at me?!?!" I ask, now a tad annoyed at being taken as a fool.

"How could I be mad at you, James?" you say with a smile. "I'm glad you're OK. Maybe I'm not so glad about being humiliated and scared this morning, but like I said, I couldn't live through my life without you here." Kissing me softly, you then whisper "Just remember... paybacks can be hell... and you had better NEVER try that stunt on me again." Then you grin.

Shaking my head at you and grinning back, I leave you to sit on the bed as I go change my clothes and clean up the hotel room mess of fake blood that I made. Packing it all in my backpack and duffel bag a few minutes later, I take your hand and help you stand up.

"My job here is done" I say with a grin. "So, let's get out of here, shall we?"

"Are we gonna go to the pool now, or do you have other plans?" you ask as we walk out of the room and reach the elevator nearby.

Stepping into the elevator after you and pressing the "Lobby Room" button, I reply

"Very funny. Of course we're going to the pool! Hey, before we go, could we go rent some movies for later?"

As we both start grinning at the idea of watching scary movies, you simply agree and for the next half hour, we search the rental stores for scary movies until 9 a.m. Satisfied we have the scary movies we want to see later, we both get in your car and head to the pool.

****

Fifteen minutes later we pull up to the Community Pool's parking lot. We've changed clothes and brought some towels and suntan lotion, and are ready for a day at the pool.

We've also fixed up a basket of food for a picnic later in the park.

I look at you and smile, and you smile back. You've dressed in your bikini, with a tight t-shirt and even tighter cut-off shorts covering it. I can tell you have your bikini on because I can see your top through your t-shirt. As for me, I've got my t-shirt and swimming trunks on. We're both wearing sandals and we both are carrying our backpacks, which have clothes for later and the pool supplies.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" I say with a grin. "Let's go!"

We hop out of the car and then race to the pool. Only a minute later we're finally at the pool area, setting down our things next to two long pool-lounging chairs. The Community Pool isn't fancy, but it is very neat and the pool itself in the already warm weather looks really inviting.

The pool itself starts at 3 feet deep and goes to 6 feet, and it's built oddly, circling around with no real corners. It was designed that way to add to the fun for the younger children, I suppose. Then there are areas all around the pool for loungers, sunbathers, and parents to rest and get tanned. Some have grass on them, others don't. We decide on a grassy and semi-shaded spot.

"Wow... not many people here yet" I say as I take off my t-shirt and glance around, noting that there are no more than 10 people here now, including us. This lack of people doesn't really surprise me though, since it's still early in the day.

To our right and a good distance away sits a couple in their late 20s or early 30s who are both lying on their stomachs, letting their backs get tanned. Across the pool from us there's an older couple sitting on the pool's edge, both of them wading their feet in the water and talking to each other. Inside the pool swimming there's a young boy, probably 12 or 13 years old. Occasionally he stops, looks to the older couple, then yells "Gramma! Grampa! Look what I can do!" and then he'll dive down and back up.

His grandparents smile, clap, and congratulate him every time he does this.

After exploring the surroundings, I turn back to where you are. You've taken your t-shirt and shorts off, and now you're clad only in your bikini. My jaw drops and I stare at you in awe... speechless at the sight.

You glance over at me as you unpack pool supplies and then you grin. You stop, stand up, wrap your arms around me and kiss me softly, then you pull back and smile. "You like it?" you ask. "I got this just a week before you came here. This is the first chance

I've had to wear it since I bought it."

"You look great! You spend, and wear, your money well" I answer and grin again.

"Thank you" you say as you kiss me again, then pull away.

"So.. why aren't there any lifeguards around?" I ask curiously after realizing the lifeguard post is empty.

"Oh, there aren't any lifeguards out here until 10, when the younger children are allowed to be here. Any emergencies that may happen before that are handled by a lifeguard inside. The one who handles the slide over there" you say, pointing to the large, blue cyndrical slide at the far end of the pool with water rushing out of it.

"Ah... I see... ok" I say as I glance at the pool again. Turning to you I raise an eyebrow.

"Last one to the pool is a rotten egg!" I say, before turning and running to the pool.

"Hey, get back here you little punk!" you yell as you run and catch up to me just as I reach the pool.

Not stopping, you and I just jump high in the air and we both cannonball into the water at the same time, then resurface and giggle at each other.

****

We swim closer to each other, and eventually we wrap our arms around each other, and then kiss each other softly, not noticing or even caring about the others are around us. We continue to spin in a circle in the pool, our bodies intertwined with each other and our kisses becoming deeper and deeper.

You pull back and grin. "We'd better slow down... we're in a public pool... and there are people around..."

Regretfully I agree. Then I glance up and see the sun is just about right. "Let's go back to the lounge chairs and rest for awhile. That'll give us a chance to tan up." I say as I smile and climb out of the pool.

Nodding, you climb out after me and then we reach our lounge chairs, place towels on them, and then stretch out across them. I am ready to tan, with my eyes closed, when I hear you call my name softly. Taking out a bottle of lotion from your backpack, you ask me "Could you rub some lotion on my back for me, please?" and grin.

****

Grinning back I say "sure babe" and I then sit up in my lounge chair as you stretch out on your stomach and rest your head in your hands. Then I put some lotion on my hands and begin to rub it onto your upper back, until I reach the strings that tie your top together.

"Should I untie this" I ask as I smile and continue to rub some lotion on your upper back, "or do you mind having tan lines?"

Glancing around quickly and not seeing too many people around, you turn your head back to me and smile. "No, I don't want tan lines. Go ahead, untie the top. May as well slide the shoulder straps down while you're at it."

I nod as you turn back and rest your head in your hands again. I continue to massage in more lotion, as one of my hands pulls gently on a bikini string, which unties your top from your back. Then I lay the strings away from your back and push the shoulder straps to the side and down your arms. Without saying a word, you work the straps the rest of the way off your arms and then rest your arms on top of them. Now you completely free of your bikini top, having only to stand to have it fall from your body.