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The phone woke him up. 

Jackson slowly stirred from his sleep, lazily using his right hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. For the past several hours, he had been pouring himself over books he borrowed from the library. Books about folklore and witches, a Latin dictionary and a book that covered every ghastly riddle your ears could hear. And so far, almost none of them even remotely had the answers to the problems he had. Hence, him falling asleep for a couple minutes... or for a couple hours. 

He sat up, frowning down at the opened book he was drooling on while he slept. To his right was a half drunken glass of bourbon that he had been rewarding himself with for his extracurricular reading. It may or may not have been a contributing factor to him dozing off. To be fair, if one had a revelation that forced him to read about silly little fairies and witches, and not so silly monsters, drowning his senses with alcohol ought to make him easily convinced by fairy tales. 

Using the sleeve of his cashmere sweater, he wiped the saliva from the corner of his lips and sat up. Hopefully it would dry up on the page, and if not, the librarians certainly wouldn't be flicking through the pages to verify its quality. He leaned back in his chair, interlinking his fingers and raising his arms above his head as he stretched. When the sleepiness wore off, realisation hit him like a brick wall. 

The phone was ringing.

Swallowing thickly, he got to his feet and made his way into the hallway. Of course he would ring while no one else but Jackson was there to answer the phone. Half the students who live in the dorms barely sleep in their rooms, and the other half were too busy enjoying the lack of lectures brought on by the investigation. But why target him? Was it for money? Jackson had quite a bit of money left to him by his late parents, although he never told a soul about his inheritance. Revenge? He never wronged anyone, and certainly not nearly enough for a stalker and a killer to play this sickening cat and mouse game. 

A hand reached out and curled around the handle of the phone. He didn't want to pick up the phone, but if he didn't, more people would drop dead. More blood would be on his hands. He couldn't afford to think like the killer, who found the people he murdered to be ultimately meaningless. 

Bringing the phone to his ear, he muttered out a response. "Hello?"

"Question for the philosophers: is your brain leaking?" 

Jackson let out a heavy exhale of relief. He could sob with joy that the voice on the other end belonged to Kai Parker. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear your voice."

"Why? Thought I was the weirdo threatening you? Tell me, were you shaking in your boots hearing the phone ring?"

He let an offended huff, even though that's exactly what he had been doing prior to picking up the phone. "Don't be ridiculous."

"Yeah, but you can't call me stupid. Or forgetful," While Kai's tone was playful, the undertone held something much darker. "You forgot, didn't you?"

Confusion was swept away by the dreadful wave of realization. He felt ridiculous opening and closing his mouth, struggling to find the words to verbalize how sorry he was. "Kai..."

"Forget it, I'm coming over. I wanna see what's got your panties in a twist."

The line clicked, indicating that Kai had hung up. Jackson returned the phone to its holder and stepped back. He would much rather take a sullen Parker than a creepy killer who asked him stupid questions. Although, it did make him feel embarrassed for being scared senseless over a man who asked do you like scary movies? 

And in truth, he thoroughly disliked horror movies. They were tawdry and tasteless, basing the plot entirely on blood and guts and murder, without any stream of intellectual thought or symbolism. It was puzzling how Kai and Jimmy adored horror, especially when the latter bragged about how he could easily survive a horror film because he studied all of Jamie Lee Curtis' Halloween. He learnt to keep this aspect of himself a secret from Kai - if Kai ever found out, he'd probably be sat down and berated for his lack of taste in film genres.

Jackson turned, about to walk back to his room, when the phone rang again. He rolled his eyes, picking up the phone to answer once more. "Kai, whatever question you have can wait—"

"Hello, Jackson."

He straightened, panic rising from the constraints of his body. "It's you. Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

"You tell me. Heh, college students are dropping like flies just now, like a horror movie. Do you like horror movies, Jackson?"

Horror movies. Jimmy liked horror movies. "Is that you, Jimmy? 

"Answer the question. You know what happens when I'm not happy."

The Campbell squeezed his eyes shut, whispering out a shaky response. "No, I don't like horror films."

"Why not? Too scared? Or does it make you paranoid about where you live? All on your jack, as the saying goes? Answer me honestly, because I'll know if you're lying: are you alone?"

Against his will, his lips twitched as he weighed his options. Yes, the stranger on the phone could kill him, but that would bring to an end the unnecessary murders of innocent students. "Yes."

"Good boy. Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner, soon about to die."

Not the stupid Jack idioms. He bit his tongue, preventing him from snapping. All those Jack idioms, especially the nursery rhymes, were always thrown at him and he didn't appreciate it one bit. 

"He looked behind him, and there stood the reaper grim, and said 'I'm not going to live past tonight, am I?'."

"Fuck you, I'm hanging up."

"If you hang up on me again, you'll die just like your parents!"

Jackson could pass out right then and there. "Do you wanna die, Jackson? It'll be my pleasure to kill you."

Terrified, Jackson quickly hung up and grabbed the phone again, dialling 911 with shaking fingers. It was cowardly but he didn't want to die, and he didn't want anyone else to die because of him. He held his breath as the phone rang for several seconds, before the operator on the other end picked up. 

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Police, I-I need the police right now for Beaumont's halls of residence. There's a killer here—"

Ding!

In Jackson's head, all time came to a stop. His blood ran cold hearing the elevator at the far end of the hallway ding open. Slowly, while his heart thumped in his chest and blood roared in his ears, he turned around to look. There at the opposite end of the hall was a tall figure dressed in a cheap Grim Reaper costume and mask, covering almost everything except for his shoes, which were thick black boots. In his right hand was a big hunting knife, glinting in the harsh white lights overhead. 

He watched as the Grim Reaper took a step out of the elevator, standing there while the elevator doors closed. The phone slipped from Jackson's clammy grasp, dangling inches away from the floorboards. There was a door to the stairs to his left, just a couple steps away, but any sudden moves and he would set the killer off. At least... at least there was the comfort that the killer wasn't as tall as Jackson. 

Everything was dead still. Soft, shaky breaths rattled in and out of Jackson's lungs. His eyes were wide, using his blinks sparingly. He wanted to curse his heart for beating so loudly in his chest, even if the Grim Reaper couldn't hear it. To his horror, he watched as the Grim Reaper tilted his head ever so slowly. It made Jackson realise that the killer was delighted by his fear, like an entertained cat playing with a mouse. It was all just a game to the Grim Reaper.

The Grim Reaper flipped his knife over, to reveal blood staining the sharp edge. Then, he took a step forward. And another one. Jackson decided that tonight was certainly not the night that he would die. He made a dash for the staircase door, which triggered for the killer to do the same. But Jackson opened and slammed it shut before the killer could get to him, and he could hear the Grim Reaper slam his fists onto the wooden material. The Campbell locked the door, standing in shock while the hammering continued, then declined, then stopped altogether. 

The elevator.

No doubt the killer was making his way to the elevator to catch him down in the reception. Jackson scrambled down each flight of the spiralling staircase, panicking at how long it took to get him all the way down. He nearly tripped when he flung open the door leading into the reception and sprinted down the corridor. To his right was the reception office, where he saw a blonde girl sitting dead in an office chair, her throat slit. Dear God, he killed Lindsay. 

He pushed open the double doors and out into the night, his primary source of light being the lamp posts that glowed a soft yellow. Jackson paused to gasp for air, glancing around to calculate which of his friends were closest to the halls of residence. 

A heavy hand clamped onto his right shoulder and he flinched, dread filling him as he turned around. Relief soon followed when he realised that the owner of the hand belonged to Kai. The Parker frowned, confused by the previous terror on Jackson's face. He couldn't care less, he was just glad to have someone else with him who - unlike the Campbell - knew how to fight. 

"Thank bloody Christ it's you," Jackson breathed, his hands grasping the Parker's upper arms. "I thought I wasn't going to live past tonight."

Kai's brows shot up in surprise. "What the hell is going on? Who's trying to hurt you?"

"I don't fucking know but I think he's stuck in the building for now," He glanced over at the doors to make sure no one was going to be using them, his hands dropping from Kai's arms. "The killer was there, he was holding a knife. He... he wanted to kill me. I was going to be next."

"Hey," Kai's voice was soft but firm. "You're okay now. He can't get you here with me."

That was a start with getting Jackson to relax a little. He definitely needed to hear that from Kai. Sirens from the distance grew closer and closer, until the familiar red and blue lights from two police cars were nearly blinding him. Kai pulled him into a warm embrace, and Jackson rested his head on the Parker's shoulder. He was safe now.

That was until he felt a hard object between them. Jackson frowned, pulling away from the brunet to see what he had felt. There, in Kai's jean pocket was an object. Jackson grabbed it before the Parker could react. It was a small, black mobile phone; a Nokia 2110. 

The Campbell's mind was racing, thinking back to the stalker's words. Sure, Jimmy loved horror movies, but so did Kai. And Kai was the only one he knew that occasionally used Jack idioms. He knew about Jackson's parents too. Brown eyes met blue, and he could see Kai realise what Jackson was thinking about. 

"Jack, listen to me," Kai tried to take a step closer to him, but Jackson took two steps back in response. "I didn't do it. I would never do this to you."

With his voice raised, Jackson shouted to the cops: "Over here! It's him, he's the one behind this."

A couple of police officers made their way to the two and grabbed Kai, guiding him towards one of the police cars. The Parker didn't bother to resist arrest, however, instead furrowing his brows at Jackson. More officers made their way into the building, including Stevie's brother, Nick. He dreaded the thought of them having to tell Lindsay's mother about the fate of her innocent daughter.

As he glanced towards the police cars, the dark eyed man watched as one of the cops bent Kai over the hood of the car, while the other one adjusted the handcuffs on the Parker's wrists. There were words he could catch, like I didn't do shit and call my father.

He never saw someone who looked as hurt and betrayed as Kai.