Video Kill Read Online Free Page A

was spending the three-day holiday with her boyfriend in Malibu.
    Sharee unlocked the door to her apartment and pushed it open. Darkness greeted her, and she fought down her childish fear. While she no longer believed in monsters or ghosts, she still had to gather her courage to step into the dark apartment and lock the door behind her.
    Heart pounding, Sharee ran across the living room to snap on the light. Then she heard the shower running in the bathroom. She’d been in a hurry when she left for the party, and she must have forgotten to turn it off.
    Sharee tossed her tote bag on the couch and hurried down the hall. Clouds of steam rolled out to meet her as she opened the bathroom door. She was just reaching for the knob to turn off the shower when she saw a man in a black executioner’s hood standing at the far corner of the room. Steam swirled around him, and he looked as if he’d just materialized from a horror movie.
    At first Sharee was too startled to scream. Then she spotted a video camera on a tripod next to the shower. Sharee’s mind clicked into action again, and she laughed as her earlier fears evaporated. She knew who owned that brand of camera. The man in the executioner’s costume was Bob Beauchamp, a colleague from her acting class, and he was filming another of his surprise projects.
    â€œBob! You rat!” Sharee faced him squarely with her hands on her hips. “How did you get in here? And where did you rent that ridiculous costume?”
    There was no reply, and Sharee’s smile faltered. Her green eyes showed a tiny flicker of fear as the executioner stood silent and unmoving, watching her through the eyeholes of his mask. Sharee felt her throat go dry, and she swallowed with difficulty. It wasn’t like Bob to carry a joke this far. Surely he could tell she was frightened.
    â€œCome on, Bob. That’s enough! I brought home a bottle of champagne from the party. If you stop recording, I’ll share it with you.”
    Silence filled the room, and suddenly Sharee realized that the executioner was at least four inches taller than Bob. Terror swept across her face, making a parody of her beauty. She willed her frozen body to move, and with what seemed like agonizing slowness, she turned to run. The executioner’s arms were like steel cables, reeling her back, and Sharee clawed at him in a frenzy, kicking and twisting and biting to get away.
    Sharee’s long, polished nails raked deeply, and for one brief moment she had the advantage. But before she could recover her balance, he had her again, his grip even tighter this time. Sharee thrashed wildly as she felt herself lifted. She struggled blindly against the inevitable, like the butterflies her older brother used to pin in his collection box, but the executioner shoved her roughly forward, under the stream of scalding water.
    A thin, high, inhuman scream punctured the haze of her panic. The sound grew louder, bouncing off the white tiles, and Sharee dimly realized that it was coming from her own throat. As the knife slashed downward, her scream reached a crescendo, tapering off into deafening silence.
    A puzzled expression crossed Sharee’s face as she crumpled, her hands sliding against the wet, slick tiles. There was no pain, only bone-chilling cold as the knife rose and fell. And through the steam and the gathering cold, she saw the gleaming eye of the camera as her blood colored the water pink and then red until it disappeared down the gurgling drain.
    Brother left his star in the shower, lifeless green eyes staring up into the spray. One last shot of her crumpled body with a slow pan to her beautiful untouched face, and it was finished. He picked up his equipment and stepped out into the warm summer night, secure that he had captured the first segment, exactly as he had intended.
    A string of firecrackers rattled in the distance as Brother walked across the silent courtyard. At first he was startled, but