Ten

Arthur rode towards his school on his bicycle. He had the large, sharp knife hidden in his shirt while he rode. The sun was slowly going down, it was approaching dusk.

The end was near.

Arthur tried not to think about anything as he rode towards his school and possibly towards his death, but he couldn't stop thinking about the situation he was in. Nine of his closest friends were now all six feet under. He was the only one left. Except for one other who had been the cause of all of this madness.

Jenna.

The name disgusted him at the very thought of it. He had always thought her a quiet, innocent little girl. She was always very polite and really nice when you got to know her. Or when you thought you got to know her. Arthur now knew that none of them really had ever known her at all. No one in the world would have expected her to carry out such brutal, calculated murders as the ones she had done.

It was a chilly evening. Arthur shivered and tried not to think about how cold it was, although he knew deep down inside that he wasn't shivering from the cold but from the terrible situation he was putting himself into. As he got closer and closer to the school, his stomach felt sicker and sicker. But he knew that if he did not confront the killer now, it would be too late. If he waited, the killer would find him and catch him off guard. Then the fight wouldn't be fair. He was glad the killer had picked neutral territory to fight in. He would use his knife to cut Jenna into pieces. He wanted revenge.

Then Arthur thought a horrible thought. What if he didn't make it out alive? What if Jenna did kill him? Jenna had said that he would suffer the worst death of all his friends. Some of his friends had suffered extremely painful and long deaths, so he didn't know what Jenna had in store for him. Would she take him back to her lair and torture him for days on end? Arthur didn't like to think about the possibilities. He knew he couldn't think negatively, he had to think positive if he was going to survive their final confrontation.

Suddenly, Arthur stopped pedaling and looked up. He had arrived at his school. He took a gulp, and then got off of his bike. He let his bike fall to the ground. He was too nervous to even have thought about it. His mind was focused on only one thing: finding and murdering the killer, the one who had done that to all of his friends. Jenna.

Arthur walked slowly up towards the front steps of the school. When he got to the entrance, he noticed there was no door. Then he noticed it was lying next to the entrance. Jenna must have broken it off of its hinges. He was scared of her strength.

He took a step inside the school. Since the sun was going down, it was getting dark, and all of the lights inside the school were turned off. He knew he should've brought a flashlight, but it was too late for that now. He knew he didn't have time to go all the way back to his house and then come back to the school. By that time it would be too dark to make his way to the school. He felt the end approaching ever closer.

He started walking down the long dark hall towards Mr. Ratburn's classroom. It was very dark, and he could barely see where he was going. He stumbled all the way to his teacher's room. Then, before he knew it, he was standing outside Mr. Ratburn's classroom. The door was open, and the entrance seemed like a gaping hole into eternity. Arthur knew what he had to do. He squeezed his eyes tight, not wanting to open them again, but he had to. He opened his eyes wide, held his breath, and took a step inside.

It was pitch black inside the classroom. Arthur couldn't see a thing, but he could tell there was something else waiting in the room. It was waiting for him. Arthur felt like something incredibly evil and wicked was trying to engulf him. He gulped. He could hear his heartbeat. It seemed incredibly loud to his ears. Worst of all, he had the sense that the killer knew exactly where he was, but he didn't know where she was.

"I've been waiting a long time for this," said a raspy voice that came from the far end of the room. Arthur nearly screamed, but he held it back. He knew he had to appear strong and tough and brave. Arthur hesitated, thinking about what he was going to do. Then he decided on a course of action. He would speak.

"Jenna, I know it's you," replied Arthur in a shaky voice. "Since you know where I am in this room but I don't know where you are, this isn't going to be a fair fight. Your note said you were going to give me a fair fight, and that's what I came here for. A fair fight against you. The light switch is on your side of the room and I'm asking you to turn on the lights because I want a fair fight."

"Fine," replied the killer in that same raspy voice. Arthur felt that the killer was trying to hide their voice for a reason, but he couldn't think about that now. He knew it was Jenna, and he was going to kill her.

Suddenly, the lights turned on. Arthur was momentarily blinded by the brightness. He blinked a few times to get used to the light, then his hand went to his shirt and he removed the knife from its hiding spot. But then he noticed something. The figure standing at the far end of the room wasn't Jenna.

It was Francine.

Arthur let out a terrified gasp and dropped the knife in shock. It clattered loudly on the floor, but Arthur didn't notice that. He was staring straight into the eyes of Francine. The killer. She had a wicked grin on her face. She licked her lips and Arthur's heart froze. The he looked down. In her right hand, she carried a large, deadly knife. Arthur looked to find her other hand, but found that it was missing.

"Hello, Arthur," Francine said in her normal voice. She was no longer trying to hide who she was now that it was out in the open. "Surprised to see me? I thought you would be. Don't worry, Arthur. I'll be the last one you'll ever see."

Arthur was fighting his shock and his fear. Words did not seem to want to come out of his mouth. For ten seconds he just stood there, looking for something to say in response to Francine, but he couldn't. Finally, he answered her.

"Wh-wh-why?" asked Arthur in a small voice. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

"Why what?" Francine answered angrily. "Why what? Why did you treat me like that for all of those years? Why did I harbor a deep hatred of every single one of you for all of this time? Why did I never tell you what I thought of you? Why were you so inconsiderate to me? Why you pushed me to do what I did?"

"Why?" Arthur asked again. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

"I'LL TELL YOU WHY!" screamed Francine at the top of her lungs. Arthur shook and fell back on to the floor. He expected Francine to rush up and kill him, but she remained standing where she was.

"I'll tell you why!" Francine screamed again. Arthur could see she was clearly insane. "I did it because I hated you. All of you! I hated every last one of you with all of my heart! And that's why I did it. I brutally murdered all of you because I hated you!"

"But we thought you were our friend," replied Arthur. He did not understand why Francine would ever hate them.

"I was your friend, or so I thought. But all of these years, you have always treated me horribly. All of you treated me like I was a piece of trash, like I wasn't deserving of anything. Every single one of you pretended like you were my friend. You talked a good game, but you never treated me like I was someone you cared about. None of you ever cared about me! And that's why I had to kill you."

"You killed random people from our school; you didn't just kill people you hated. You killed Fern first, what did she ever do to you?"

"I killed the least deserving ones first. Fern had always annoyed me. She told her stupid stories and was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes. She cared more about him than she did about me. Still, her offense against me wasn't that bad. That's why she was removed early from the game. I saved the guiltier ones for later so fear would eat away at their minds."

"What about Sue Ellen, what did she ever do to you?"

"Sue Ellen was my rival. She was good at sports and I was good at sports. There could only be one number one."

"George?"

"George and that stupid Wally disgusted me. He needed to go."

"Prunella?"

"Prunella with her fake psychic powers also disgusted me. She tried to control all of us with her mumbo jumbo, but I saw through the smokescreen of her lies and saw the true person that lay underneath. She deserved to die."

"Binky?"

"Binky was a bully who bullied all of us around, including me. I couldn't keep him alive, now could I?"

"But then next I thought you died?"

"Ah, and here is where my genius comes into play. I faked my own death, although I must admit it cost me dearly. I fooled that idiot Muffy and everyone else by leaving my hand at what everyone thought was a murder scene. In reality, while Muffy was going to the bathroom I chopped off my left hand and placed it on the floor of her room. I grabbed my bag filled with pillows to make it look like I had a body in there when Muffy looked out of her window and then I climbed out of her window and escaped into the night. And nobody was any the wiser for the trick I had played on all of them."

"What about Brain?"

"Brain is where everyone started to get very, very guilty. Everyone else before then hadn't done anything purposefully evil, but Brain was the first of the very guilty ones to die. Do you remember that soccer practice incident where he insisted I was out of bounds but in reality I was safe? I never got over that, and neither did he. I knew he still thought he was right, and I knew he needed to have a horrible murder to pay for what he had done to me."

"What about Muffy? She was your best friend in the whole world, and you killed her and left her body in her pool!"

"Muffy wasn't a real friend. Don't you remember all the fights we had? Don't you remember how much we used to argue. I came to realize that Muffy was just as stupid and selfish as the rest of you, but she was really bad because she was the one who pretended to be my friend the most, and that is why I killed her."

"But what about Buster? You two never fought! He was my best friend!"

"And here is where the real truth starts to reveal itself. I killed you because he was your best friend, Arthur. I killed him because he was keeping me from you."

"What?"

"Don't you get it yet, Arthur?" Francine shook her head. "Don't you get it by now? I loved you! And in a way I still do. And that is why you and Buster had to die last. Buster had to die because I was always jealous of him. He was your best friend, but I was not. But I loved you Arthur. I loved you. And I knew that if Buster was in the picture then I would never get closer to you, so I killed him."

"But if you love me, then why are you going to kill me?"

"I'm going to kill you because you never loved me back. Not once in your whole life did you ever recognize my love for you and love me in return. And that is why I have to kill you. You broke my heart into a little million pieces and I suffered more than all of you suffered in your deaths combined. That is why I need to finish what I started tonight. And that is why you will face the worst death of all."

Arthur couldn't take it. He slumped to the floor and lay there. He knew he could never fight back after everything Francine had told him. Tears rolled down his cheeks. All of his friends were dead because Francine had never felt she was loved. He knew deep down in his heart he was too heartbroken to fight her anymore. He would let her kill him, and he would join his friends, wherever they were.

He saw Francine advancing on him, clutching the knife. He knew she was going to kill him. He didn't want to die, but he was powerless to save his own life. The only thing he could do was to not think about what was happening to him, but he found that impossible. His face was wet with tears and he wished he wouldn't die.

When Francine got to where he was lying, she bent down next to him and raised the knife.

"Your death is going to be painful. I want you to know that the game is about to end and that I'm going to enjoy it with all of my heart. So think your last thoughts and breathe your last breaths because you are now going to die." Francine began to lower the knife towards Arthur's body. Arthur knew that this was the end.

Suddenly, Arthur heard a loud bang come from the corner of the room. In an instant, Francine's forehead exploded. Blood and brain matter sprayed all over Arthur. Her head had a large, gaping hole in it. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her body slumped to the ground next to Arthur's.

She was dead.

Arthur blinked several times to process what had just happened. He slowly got up and looked down at Francine's cold, dead body. Brain matter and blood oozed out of the hole in her head. A pool of blood started to form around her head. Her mouth hung slightly open and Arthur could see her tongue.

Arthur was still confused. Why had her forehead suddenly just exploded like that. Who or what had just saved his life? He turned around and saw the last thing he had ever expected to find.

In the corner of the room stood Jenna. She was holding a gun.

For a few moments, the two of them just stood there, staring at each other. Jenna was in shock over what she had just done, and Arthur was in disbelief. Finally, Arthur spoke.

"How did you…?" Arthur's question trailed off.

"I just had a feeling," replied Jenna. "As everyone started to get picked off one by one, I knew the clues said I wasn't one of the intended victims. I wasn't afraid like the rest of you, but I didn't know how to catch the killer. But then something inside of me told me to come here tonight. It told me to wait here until the killer showed up. I don't know if it was a message from beyond or just instincts, but I got here before Francine did. At first I thought you were the killer, but when I saw Francine come in I knew something was terribly wrong. Then I waited for an hour while she waited. She didn't know I was in the room with her. Then finally you came, and I watched everything that just happened. When she was about to kill you, I knew I had to act. Luckily, whatever told me to come here also told me to bring a gun, so at the last minute I shot her."

"Wow," replied Arthur. "I'm sorry for ever thinking that you were the killer. Thanks for saving my life."

"Aw shucks," said Jenna. She smiled. "It was no big deal."

"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked Arthur.

"I know what we should do."

"What is that?"

"Let's go home," Jenna said. She smiled at Arthur, and for the first time in a very long time, Arthur smiled back.

The two friends left the classroom and walked out into the hallway. They knew they would have a lot of grieving and a lot of explaining to do later, but now, they were just happy to be alive. Standing at the exit, the two friends took each other by the hand and walked out into the cool night air.

Arthur was happy that he and Jenna were alive. He was happy that Francine was dead. He was happy that his friends could now rest in peace. But he was happy for one thing above all. He had beaten Francine's sick and twisted game. He knew that after all the troubles he had faced, he had triumphed in the end. And after all of that, he knew that it was just one thing:

GAME OVER