Scream8 - Chapter 1
Plot : A few months after the last killings, Tatum starts college, thinking sheâs escaped the nightmare. But Sidney Prescott receives a horrifying video: the brutal murder of a figure from her past, sent as a personal message from Ghostface. This time, the killer isnât after new victims⌠the survivors from the past are the targets.
TW : Contains violent and bloody scenes typical of horror/slasher films.
Note:Â This story is a fanfiction that builds on the events of the seven Scream films to imagine an eighth installment. These are only my ideas and do not imply that an actual Scream 8 will follow this storyline.
English is not my first language âĄ
Chapter 1
The darkness in Sidneyâs bedroom is pierced only by the cold, bluish glow of her phone resting on the nightstand. It is 2:17 a.m. The silence is so thick you could almost hear the blood circulating in her veins.
A new message arrives. No sender name. Just a video file. The title flashes in white letters on a black background: Gift for Sidney
Sidney stares at the screen for long seconds. Her heart is already beating a little faster, as if it knew before she did. She reaches out hesitantly and taps the video to play it.
The voice bursts out immediately, distorted, metallic, at once familiar and alien: âHello Sidney⌠Happy to see me again?â
The image lurches abruptly. No masked face for now. Just the exterior of a modest house, typical of Woodsboro: white siding peeling from decades of sun and rain, a yellowed and patchy lawn, a municipal streetlamp flickering weakly like a tired heart. The camera slowly descends, almost reverently, toward the crooked mailbox planted in the frozen ground. The black plastic letters, half torn away by time and weather, still clearly spell: L O O M I S
A hoarse breath, almost a stifled laugh, accompanies the camera as it pushes the already ajar front door. The long, deliberate creak of wood sounds as though the killer is taking his time, savoring the moment, letting the dread settle in.
Inside, the air is heavy, stagnant: the smell of mustiness, accumulated dust, alcohol, stale tobacco, and a loneliness that clings to the skin. The living room is dimly lit by the television left on standby mode: an old black-and-white western loops at very low volume â you can barely make out the crack of revolvers, distant horse whinnies, wind whistling across an endless plain. A young John Wayne, solitary and stoic silhouette, walks toward a horizon that never arrives.
The walls are covered with framed photos, yellowed by time and smoke. Almost all show the same face: Billy Loomis as a child, then as a teenager. Billy at ten, beaming smile on a baseball field, cap on backwards, catcherâs mitt too big for his hand. Billy at fourteen, in football gear, helmet under his arm, proud and already hard gaze. Billy in pajamas, sitting on the front steps holding a basketball, looking distant. A smaller photo tucked in a corner: Billy and Hank together, clumsy fishermen by a lake, Hank still young, black hair, one arm around the son who looks at him with absolute trust. No other presence in these pictures. The frames are dusty, some slightly crooked, as though no one has dared touch themâor remove themâin thirty years.
Hank Loomis sits in his cracked leather recliner, the kind of furniture that hasnât been moved in twenty years because it has become part of the walls. He is old, hunched, his body worn down by years and regrets. His grayish-yellow hair is plastered to his skull with sweat and neglect, strands stuck like spider webs. Several daysâ worth of white, patchy beard gives him the look of a castaway stranded on his own couch. His once-clean navy-blue bathrobe is now speckled with brown stains: spilled whiskey, cold pizza sauce, dried vomit turned greenish. His sweatpants hang on bony hips, the fabric worn to transparency in places. His bare feet, veined, swollen, covered in purplish varicose veins, rest on a stained footrest marked with dark rings.
An almost-empty bottle of Jack Danielâs sits on the right armrest, the neck still wet from his last sip. He brings it to his lips in a slow, mechanical, almost ritual gesture. The amber liquid runs down his wrinkled chin, drips onto his hairy chest, and trails down to his navel in glistening streaks. He coughsâa deep, wet rattle that vibrates his hollow ribcage, as though his lungs were filled with liquid.
Suddenly, the front door closes behind the killer. A soft, almost polite click, followed by the discreet snap of the lock turning.
Hank frowns without turning his head. He mutters to himself, voice thick and broken: âThose damn kids hanging around againâŚâ
He sets the bottle down with exaggerated care, as if it were the last thing tethering him to the world. He straightens painfully. His vertebrae crack like dry wood snapping. He stands, swaying slightly, one hand braced on the back of the recliner to keep from falling. He fumbles for the light switch, grunts when his fingers slide on the greasy wall.
The camera plunges into absolute darkness.
All that can be heard now: Hankâs wheezing, irregular breathing, his worn slippers dragging across the scratched and sticky hardwood, the distant, uneven ticking of a wall clock that seems to be slowing down too.
Then, the shrill ring of an old landline phone slices through the silence like a scalpel.
Hank swears under his breath. He snatches the receiver roughly; the handset trembles in his hand.
âHello Dad⌠Whatâs your favorite horror movie?â
The voice is calm, almost playful, with a childish mocking edge.
Hank freezes for a second. Then a bitter, broken laugh escapes him, hoarse and joyless. âFuck⌠Youâve been pulling that same stupid joke on me for over thirty years. Got nothing better, you little shit? Go fuck yourself.â
He slams the receiver down so hard it bounces off the cradle and nearly falls. He collapses back into the recliner. The leather creaks under his dead weight. He grabs the bottle again, takes a long burning swallow that makes him grimace. His eyes lose themselves once more in the muted television screen, where the lone cowboy keeps riding aimlessly.
The black lasts. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty.
Then a small metallic click. The unmistakable sound: a blade being slowly deployed, metal scraping lightly in the silence.
Hank turns his head. Very slowly. As though he already sensed death before seeing it, as though his worn-out body still retained one last survival instinct.
The silhouette is there. Right behind him. Black cape motionless, almost sculptural in the gloom. White mask gleaming under the televisionâs intermittent blue light. Empty eye sockets stare unblinking at the old man.
Hank opens his mouth. Not to scream. Just to breathe, to draw one last gulp of foul air.
The blade plunges.
A sharp, precise, almost surgical motion. It pierces the frontal bone with a wet, dull crack, like an eggshell shattering under a hammer. The metal sinks several centimeters into the soft brain, severing nerves and tissue with a muffled sucking sound. An arterial jet of blood arcs powerfully forward and slightly upwardâtoward the lit television screen directly in front of the chair. The blood hits the glass with a wet slap, splattering in red droplets that run down the black-and-white cowboys, distorting John Wayneâs face as he draws his gun. A wider, lower part of the jet falls back onto Hankâs body, his shoulders, his bathrobe, and when his body jerks violently backward then forward, a secondary spurt hits the framed photo on the small side table next to the reclinerâthe one of Billy in high school, now streaked with fresh red running slowly down the glass, blurring his frozen teenage smile.
His eyes widen enormously. The pupils dilate until they swallow the irises, then freeze. A thin stream of blood flows from his flared nostrils, from his hairy ears, drips onto his parted, tobacco-yellowed lips. His body jerks againâuncontrollable spasms, as though electricity is still trying to travel through severed nerves. His hands claw the armrests, broken yellowed nails raking the worn leather, leaving deep red furrows. A wet gurgle rises from his throat: not a scream, just bubbling blood and saliva vibrating his Adamâs apple.
The blade withdraws with an obscene sucking sound, pulling out a bit of pinkish-gray matter that clings to the steel like sticky jelly. The killer casually wipes the blade on Hankâs stained bathrobe, leaving a wide, glossy red-black streak across the fabric.
Hankâs body slumps forward like a sack of rags. His eyes remain wide open, glassy, staring at nothing. A pool of blood slowly spreads beneath the recliner, soaking the threadbare carpet to the backing, dripping onto the hardwood in small dark beads that spread like oil.
The video cuts off abruptly. Black screen.
Brutal return to Sidney.
She is sitting on the edge of the bed, phone still clenched between white, tense fingers. Her breathing is short, ragged, as though the air refuses to enter her lungs. Her dilated pupils reflect the glow of the now-dark screen.
A whisper escapes her mouth, barely audible, trembling: âNo⌠not againâŚâ
She lifts her eyes toward the bedroom door. The house is silent. Too silent.
And somewhere downstairs, a phone begins to ring.
Sidney descends the stairs in silence, barefoot on the cold wood. Each step creaks under her weight. She picks up the landline before the fifth ring.
âSidney?â
The voice on the other end is hoarse, tense, familiar.
âSam⌠Samantha Carpenter.â
A brief, heavy silence.
âI received a video,â Sam says in a rush. âItâs Hank Loomis. My⌠biological grandfather. Ghostface killed him.â
Sidney closes her eyes for a second, receiver pressed to her ear.
âMe too,â she answers calmly, though her voice trembles slightly. âI have the same video. Itâs starting again, Sam.â
Sam exhales loudly.
âI know Iâm being targeted. You too. Iâm hitting the road. Iâm coming to your place. We handle this together.â
âNo,â Sidney cuts in. âNot here. Not yet. Iâm going to get Tatum. Sheâs at college. Alone. Iâm leaving to pick her up now. If Ghostface started with Hank, he wonât stop there. Stay moving. Donât come alone. Call Gale if you can. And get a weapon.â
The sound of a drawer being opened on the other end.
âAlready done,â Sam whispers. âIâm leaving in ten minutes. Be careful, Sidney.â
âYou too.â
They hang up at the same time.
Sidney returns to the bedroom. Mark is sleeping deeply, back turned, breathing steady. She kneels beside the bed, places a firm hand on his shoulder and shakes him gently but urgently.
âMark. Wake up.â
He groans, rolls over, eyes still half-closed.
âSid? Whatâs wrong?â
âGhostface is back. Ghostface killed Hank Loomis, Billy Loomisâs father. I received the murder video. Itâs happening again.â
Mark bolts upright, sleep gone in an instant. He turns on the bedside lamp; the harsh light highlights the shadows under his eyes.
âShit. The girls?â
âTatumâs at college. Iâm going to get her now. You take Rebecca and Emma somewhere safe. Go to the place we planned to go if it ever started again after the last attack. Call the police on the wayâtell them a new psycho is restarting the killings and is almost certainly targeting survivors of the previous attacks.â
Mark grabs his phone from the nightstand, already in action mode.
âIâve got it. Iâll wake them, weâre leaving. Be careful.â
He kisses her quickly, hard, then gets up to go to the younger girlsâ room.
Sidney opens the wall safe. Inside: a loaded revolver, spare magazine, fixed-blade hunting knife. She slips the revolver into the waistband of her jeans, the knife into her right bootâthe cold blade against her ankle. She puts on a dark jacket, grabs her car keys and phone. No bag. No time.
Outside, the night is freezing. She climbs into her car and peels out. The tires screech on the paved driveway of her isolated house, far from everything, hidden from view.
On the deserted road toward Tatumâs universityâan hour and a half from her secure propertyâshe dials her daughterâs number. It rings. Once. Twice. Three times.
âMom?â
Tatumâs voice is sleepy, a little annoyed. Itâs almost 3 a.m.
âTatum, listen to me carefully. Donât speak loudly. Donât trust anyone. Not even your closest friends.â
âMom, whatâs going on?â
âItâs starting again. The killer is back.â
Silence on the other end. Then a short breath.
âMomâŚâ
âTake the knife I gave you. Lock your door. Donât open for anyone except me. Iâm on my way. Iâll be there soon. Donât move.â
Tatum lowers her voice to nearly a whisper.
âMom⌠if the killer comes here, he wonât just come for me. Stella is in the same dorm. Gale Weathersâs niece. Sheâs connected to Gale the way Iâm connected to you. If this is about finishing the cycle⌠sheâs in danger too.â
Sidney grips the wheel tighter. The headlights sweep the black road; trees flash by like ghosts.
âI know. Iâll handle everything when I get there.â
âOkay. Hurry, Mom.â
âI love you. Stay alive.â
Sidney hangs up. She accelerates. The road races beneath the tires. In the rearview mirror, the lights of her house fade away.




















