Love is Murder Story 01 - Grave Danger

Screaming, she tore at the netting.
    And she heard the shuffling sound of his footsteps.
    “Victor, you bastard! Where do you think this will get you? Let me go, you ass! Stop this!” she cried. “Ali!”
    She heard her name shouted. It came from far away; it had to be her imagination. It wasn’t. It was Greg. “Greg!”
    She didn’t hear the shuffling sound anymore. Instead, she heard a chuckle. “He’s coming, Ali. How sweet. The script is complete. The detective is coming to save the maiden in distress. Ah, but not all horror movies have happy endings these days!”
    “Greg, no!” she cried. “No…!”

    Ali! He’d heard her; she was on the second floor. He raced past the shelves of props toward the stairs. There was something coming down for him. Big, enormous…coming out of the shadows.
    “Stop!” he roared.
    The thing kept coming. He shot.
    It fell.
    He raced up the stairs to it.
    Laughter seemed to sound all around him. “Congratulations, cop. You just killed a dead werewolf. Watch out—the zombies are coming next.”
    Greg stepped over the fallen beast. The bastard, Brill, had gotten on to some kind of a microphone. His voice would sound as if it was coming from everywhere, no matter where the guy was. He eased down the hall and looked into a conference room. Nothing there but a bunch of models for fairies in little glass domes. He hurried on, past one conference room, then another, and another….
    He looked in the last conference room. Even in his panic, he paused. There was a life-size statue or mannequin of Blake Richards. He was affable-looking, a smiling and white-haired man with kind brown eyes.
    “For the love of God, help me!” Greg pleaded.
    He hurried out of the conference room and to the last door. The door to the storage room.
    “Ali!” he shouted her name.
    “No, Greg!”
    He shoved the door open, and there she was. His Ali. She was tied up in a cocoon of white, and at her side was a skeleton with a raised knife. A knife that dripped blood. The blood of the man who had so recently perished in the graveyard.
    Greg took aim at the skeleton. “Get the hell away from her!” he ordered.
    The skeleton just started to laugh. And, as Greg stepped into the room, both hands on his gun in regulatory stance, Ali screamed.
    A second web came crashing down, entangling him instantly. The fall of the web wrenched the gun from his hand, knocking it down near his knee. Tension and fury filled him; he refrained from instantly reaching for the gun.
    If he wasn’t careful, it would fall through the mesh….
    “Oh, Greg, I’m so sorry!” Ali said.
    He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I love you,” he told her. “I always have.”
    “This is so sweet! So, so sweet!” Victor said. “Do go on.”
    “Victor is the Slasher,” Ali said.
    “Yeah, well, we’ve been trying to catch him, night and day, for a year,” Greg said.
    “Of course. And you would have gotten him. You’re a great cop, Greg. Dedicated—to everyone. A little late, but I’m seeing that now.” He could hear the regret in her voice; she was looking at him through all the mesh that tangled them both. Ali was beautiful. Even now, there was strength and pride in her eyes. “Yes, but….”
    “Greg, forgive me. My timing sucks on this, but…we may die. I love you. I was wrong,” she said.
    “No, no, I just…there was a kid. I couldn’t turn my back on a child.”
    “Oh, such drama, I love it. But enough,” Victor said. “I’d only imagined the pleasure of slicing up my dear coworker, the beloved Ali! But, now, I get to cut her up in front of you. A cop! A big old cop who fell right into my trap.”
    “Well,” Greg said, trying to maintain calm; it was their only chance. He had to reach the gun. “You are an ass, Victor—as well as being a true psychopath, of course. I understand that this place may have a lot of soundproofing, but you must have heard some of the sirens tonight. The place is crawling with cops. Every psycho eventually makes a mistake. You made yours tonight.”
    “I don’t think so. By the time the cops actually get here, I’ll be tangled in mesh, too. And they’ll think I’m the victim who survived when they scared away the real perp!” Victor said.
    “You worked with this idiot, for real?” Greg asked Ali. Slowly, slowly, he stretched his fingers toward the gun. The nylon strained, tearing into his flesh.
    “Good jobs are not easy to come by in the film industry,