Chapter Text
Loved ones were able to watch over those they left behind after they passed on.
The saying was largely true for the ghosts of Shadyside, stuck in the town even after death because of the curse.
Not for the Shadyside Killers.
After Ruby Lane snatched a razor and killed her seven friends and herself at her best friend's slumber party, she didn't find herself in the version of Heaven described by the pastor in church she attended on Sundays with her mother.
Neither Hell. Thank Goodness.
She found herself back in her bedroom.
"I was dreaming?" Ruby heaved a huge sigh of relief. “It was all a dream.” She let out a small giggle, snuggling against her pillow.
An awful nightmare, nothing else…
"Hate to break it to you kid, it was very real." A voice she did not recognize spoke. A man's voice.
Heart in her throat, Ruby slowly turned to face the intruder.
“February 1965…sounds like an interesting year ahead," Harry Rooker, the Milkman Killer, sat comfortably on a chair next to her bed, flipping through her latest edition of Teen magazine. "Ten-minute hairdos for teens on the go, seventy-five great looks for you," he read before he grimaced. "He loves me, he loves me not…"
Naturally, Ruby let out a bloodcurdling scream, grabbed the nearest object to use as a weapon(which somehow happened to be a shaving razor), slashed the blade across the Milkman's already disfigured face, then kicked her feet out, toppling him over along with the chair.
Stumbling out of her bed, she hopped over the groaning killer, ripped open her bedroom door and sprinted out. "Mom! Mama! There...in my room...Harry…Harry Rooker! He's in my room!" She yelled between pants. "Mama where are you—" Ruby choked back her terrified screams and skidded to a halt in the hallway.
A massive hallway, not of small house, but a mansion. Mansions she had seen in Sunnyvale.
"Where…" Her panicked gaze swung back and forth as she gripped the razor in her trembling hand. "W-Where am I?"
She received no answer from the many portraits which adorned the wall. Though they looked familiar. She only realized why when her eyes fell upon Sheriff Goode's painting at the far end. Which meant the others were his ancestors. Which meant she was in the Goode Mansion.
And Harry Rooker was somehow here too. Along with her whole bedroom?
No. No. It didn't make sense. Something was very wrong and—outside. She had to go outside right now!
Ready to bolt, Ruby spun on her heel and collided into something. Or rather someone.
"Careful, Miss Lane," a new voice cautioned.
She had to arch her head back all the way just to catch a glimpse of the masked face attached to the massive body.
The Grifter, the killer who gutted girls, held a tray toward her, stacked with pancakes, eggs, sunny-side up, toast with raspberry jam and steaming cup of hot coffee. "It's good to see you awake," he said pleasantly. "I hope Harry explained everything. Oh I also hope you enjoy the pancakes. Unless you prefer waffles?"
The razor blade slid out of Ruby's palm and clattered onto the wooden floor.
Ruby swooned on her feet and followed soon after.
When Ruby's eyes fluttered open, she found herself back in her bedroom again.
Not alone again.
Her hand slowly reached for the razor on her nightstand.
"Easy! I'm not gonna hurt you," Harry assured, holding up his hands in surrender, seated next to her bed again. There was no sign of the wound she inflicted earlier with the blade. "You're safe here, no one is going to hurt you," he promised so sincerely that Ruby almost believed him. "Give you my word."
Ruby grabbed the razor, holding it threateningly towards him. "Where is he?"
"Who?"
"The…the Grifter," Ruby whispered, afraid the giant of a man would come tearing through the door if he heard his name pass her lips.
"Oh you mean Isaac?" Harry said.
Yes. Isaac Milton that was his name.
Ruby nodded shakily.
"Probably down in the kitchen making lunch for all of us. Don't worry," Harry dismissed with the wave of his hand. "He's harmless as a fly."
Ruby blinked in disbelief. “All of us?”
"Harry, what's all this for?"
At the child's voice, Ruby quickly moved the hand holding the razor behind her back.
A boy appeared beside Harry, holding up fistfuls of her make-up brushes. His other hand held her make-up and jewelry box.
"Oh that's for..." Harry glanced inside the open box. "Looking pretty."
He wrinkled his nose. "Why?"
Harry chuckled affectionately. "You would have to ask Miss Lane that question, Billy."
"Oh." Billy eyed Harry for a long moment before he turned to Ruby. "Can Harry use this?"
"What the—" Harry sputtered but Billy giggled and fled along with Ruby's make-up box and brushes.
Harry scoffed though Ruby could see the fondness in his eyes. "He'll return it. He grew up before the twenties so he's just curious about new things. New people."
After a beat of tense silence, Harry stuck a thumb at himself. "I'm Harry by the way," he introduced. "Harry Rooker."
"I know," Ruby said, not letting her eyes off the Milkman. "I saw your picture in the papers. And Billy Barker’s too.”
“Oh.” Harry Rooker broke into a grin and tugged on his red bow. "I hope they were handsome pictures?"
Ruby brought the razor back and Harry groaned. “Come on? Really!”
"The Grifter…he…killed those girls,” Ruby began in a hushed voice. “With his bare hands."
Harry sighed warily, shoulders slumping. "He did."
"And you…you killed all those housewives. Your customers."
Harry bowed his head, guilt and shame contorting his burnt features. "I...I did, yes."
"And I…" It was now she noticed the blood on the razor and the long, deep gashes, starting from her wrists. "I-I…I did something too?" Something she would never do. To her friends. Boyfriend. And singing till the end. "It...wasn't a dream...I really..." Ruby's breath hitched as she slowly lowered the razor. "I really did those things?"
Harry could only offer a sympathetic look. "It wasn't your fault."
Ruby swallowed the sob threatening to tear across her lips. Then whose fault was it? She wanted to scream. But there was another pressing issue gnawing at her. "W-Where's my mother? I-I want to see her.”
Harry gave her a regretful look.
"What?"
It was Pastor Cyrus Miller who delivered the crippling news which killed her again. "You can't. None of us can leave this place," the three-hundred-year-old man informed her grimly. "Because of the curse. And we all were chosen."
Ruby barely reacted to the taxidermy of goat and ram heads which decorated the vast living room. Or the clear absence of eyes as Cyrus Miller gazed forlornly at the fireplace.
Tears burned hot as they slid down Ruby's scarred face. She needed her mother. Her mother needed her. Her kind and loving mother who would be all alone now. To face the consequences of her actions. Even if everything was Goode's fault.
And her friends…
"My friends…C-Can I see them atleast?” she asked hopefully. “Since they're also…?" Dead. Because of her. Because of Joseph Goode. She had to talk to them. Explain. Beg for forgiveness.
Pastor sighed deeply. "You have no idea how much I want to see Hannah again..."
Hannah?
"His daughter," Harry whispered at her confused stare.
“And Constance and the other children…” Cyrus’s expression became pained. “But so far…I haven’t come across any of them. Only those the Goodes sacrificed.”
Later when Ruby returned to her room, staring up at the ceiling, Harry hovered near by. “If you need anything...anything, we'll come running before you can think of saying waffles. Alright?”
Ruby shrugged non-committedly.
She still felt Harry hovering. When she turned to give him a questioning look, she found him looking at her wrists, the self-inflicted wounds they bore with a puzzled expression.
"I-I'm sorry for staring,” he apologized at being caught. “It’s just that…we couldn't stop yourselves when we…so everyone is kind of curious."
Ruby turned her wrists, pressing them against the covers. "I don't remember."
Harry nodded slowly. "It'll take time to come back. Don't worry, Miss Lane.”
"Ruby. Just call me, Ruby,” Ruby said, hugging a cushion. “Miss Lane is my mother."
"Ruby," Harry corrected. “Got it.”
Ruby's hand reached to absently fiddle with her locket. A memory surfaced. Her mother's face, pale and stricken after a minor car accident she had been involved in when her friend was driving. And now Ruby was dead—
Ruby swallowed thickly.
Atleast she still had her mother in one form.
Her hands fumbled as they worked on opening the heart shaped locket. After much struggle, it finally clicked open.
Ruby peered inside and her heart dropped.
"What? What's the matter?" Harry asked worriedly.
"The picture…my Mom, holding me as a baby,” Ruby whispered numbly. “It's gone."
Harry cursed quietly, as if hating himself for being the person to constantly deliver bad news. "Right, sorry. Forgot to tell you. There are no pictures here."
Ruby’s head began to shake. "But I saw all those paintings."
"All the first born Goodes." Harry scowled darkly, before his features softened. "Just nothing of our loved ones."
Letting out a bitter laugh, Ruby hurled the necklace away and collapsed into inconsolable sobs.
She sobbed like a child for three days. Or weeks. Time was hard to tell in the Void. The only measure of passage of time was when another Shadyside Killer was selected apparently.
Ruby does remember a hesitant Billy approaching her bed and depositing a teddy bear near her tear-streaked face. "He helps me stop being sad. Maybe he can help you too?"
It doesn't help. Neither do the trays of delicious food left outside her room by Isaac. Or Harry’s outrageous war stories to cheer her up.
Ruby didn’t feel like she died. It felt like the whole world ended and she and the other Shadyside Killers were the only people left alive on Earth.
She wasn’t alone.
That perhaps may have been the only thing which lessened the heartbreak as time passed.