"You know, when I was a young boy my father took me into the city to see a marching band."

I looked over at 'Jeff the Killer' warily from the kitchen as he made himself right at home on my couch.

Having known him for all of around two days I already knew the man to be sarcastic, prissy, and all around narcissistic. He liked junk food and his knife, but I didn't know much else about him other than that.

The pale man grinned horribly with that carved smile of his.

"He said 'Son, when you grow up, would you be the saviour of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?'. He said 'Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made?'"

He glanced up at me with liddless eyes, his previously jovial expression had melted into now a solemn mask.

"Because one day I'll leave you, a phantom to lead you in the summer, to join The Black Parade."

I couldn't help but soften up slightly at the sad story. "You must have loved your father very much..." I muttered, wishing my father had told me such things when I was a child.

Jeff stared at me for a few more seconds before the wide grin cracked across his face again and he began cackling madly.

I jumped in shocked fear at the sound and shuffled back a bit further into the kitchen.

"Wow, you really are fucking clueless aren't you?" Jeff cackled at my confused face. "It's a song! Welcome To The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance! Loved my father? Yeah, right! I loved killing him at least!" He broke off into another fit of cackles as I took a shuddering breath.

That's right. This isn't a person I'm allowing into my home, this is a monster. A man who killed his own father, apparently, and probably the rest of his family as well.

"Just... Just tell me how to scare the rest of the monsters away!" I said quickly with false confidence, pulling myself up a little higher.

Jeff's laughter soon died down and he sighed, waving a leathery white hand at me. "Alright, alright. Calm down. Geez, you look like you're about to piss yourself."

I gulped and shrunk back down to my normal hunched height with a fearful nod.

With another sigh Jeff pulled out his knife and threw it up into the air absent-mindedly only to catch it by the handle and repeat the action once more.

"Let's review. What do you do when Ben Drowned is scaring you?"

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to remember. "Throw water at him and call him Link." (Whatever Link was...)

"Good. Eyless Jack?"

"He's blind... So I spray perfume everywhere and make loud noises while I run away."

"Masky?"

"Leave cheesecake out in the open-!"

I was cut off quite suddenly as a murderous look came into Jeff's liddless eyes and he pounced, cutting off my surprised shriek by slapping a hand over my mouth.

I began screaming as he raised up his knife and brought it down my cheekbone, tears welling in my eyes from both the sheer terror and stinging pain.

Jeff lifted a white finger to what remained of his pink-singed lips.

"Shhh. Just go to sleep!" He grinned madly and raised up the knife once again...

Only to have himself be knocked off of my body by what looked like a flying brown teddy bear.

"NO!" A shrill girl's voice shouted from somewhere I couldn't see.

"NO! NO NO NO NO NO! IT'S OUR TURN, JEFF! YOU HAVE TO WAIT YOUR TURN!!"

I watched in horror as the bloodied little ghost girl I have recently come to know as Sally Williams stomped over to where Jeff and the teddy bear were wrestling on the floor with knives brandished.

"She's my fucking kill, Sally!" Jeff snarled, his gaze landing on my bleeding face.

His eyes darted from me to the front door and back again, a silent signal to run whilst he delt with a creature I didn't yet know how to handle.

With a subtle, yet terrified nod I scrambled to my feet and sprinted out of the house.

...

Jeff the Killer watched Kylie Jones sprint away in terror, not even bothering to shut the front door closed behind her.

Idiot... He would have to teach her how to sense the presences of others when this shit calmed down.

For now, at least, he had bigger fish to fry.

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, SALLY!!" Jeff snarled, tossing aside the ghost girl's bloody teddy bear; Charlie, he remembered it being named. "I FUCKING HAD HER AND YOU JUST LET HER ESCAPE!!"

"WELL YOU WENT AGAINST THE RULES!" Sally shouted back, crossing her arms and stomping her feet childishly as Jeff stood from the floor.

"Oh, fuck this!" The man snapped, storming out of the shack and into the woods, pulling his hood up over his head along the way.

Meanwhile Kylie Jones was running as fast as she could through the forest. Her breathing was heavy and she hardly noticed the sticks and thorns that tore through her t-shirt and leggings; nor the fact that she was running barefoot, rocks and thorns digging into the soft skin of her feet.

Terrified tears streamed out of her brown eyes, stinging the slice Jeff had made along her left cheekbone and mixing with the blood, making it run faster down her face and neck.

At her top speed the normally one and a half hour jog to town only took twenty minutes.

Her speed slowed only when she saw the hardware store she often visited.

Slamming the door open, the paranoid woman took a deep, shaking breath, leaning against the doorway for a second before stumbling inside.

"Kylie?!" She heard Dawson Green's familiar voice shout.

The nineteen year old boy ran out from behind the cash register at the sight of the battered woman.

Her arms and legs were covered in barely bleeding scratches and a long gash was practically gushing blood down the side of her face.

The woman whimpered as the boy rushed to her side and just hovered around her frail form, wanting to help but not knowing what to do.

"MR. FRANKLIN!" He called out to his boss. "I-I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

Faster than either of them thought possible, the middle aged man lumbered over to the two and quickly flipped the sign on the door to 'Closed' before ushering the battered woman behind the registers.

The man took out a first aid kit and handed an alcohol swab to his employee. "Clean her face while I get the bandages ready." The man ordered gruffly.

With a shaking nod Dawson complied, apologizing profusely whenever Kylie showed any signs of pain or discomfort.

About ten minutes later, the paranoid woman was sitting behind the counter, her wounds all bandaged and a blanket draped over her shoulders.

Dawson stood back as his boss looked down at the girl.

"Kylie," Franklin began slowly, "What happened?"

The brunette shook her head frantically making the older man sigh. "I know you're afraid of talking to people, but the only way we can help you is if you tell us what happened-"

Franklin was cut off by the chiming of a bell, signaling that someone had entered the store.

Dawson frowned up at the intruder. "I'm sorry sir, but we're closed."

Kylie waited for the man to leave, only for her breath to catch in her throat at his voice.

"Yeah, whatever, Tampons Guy. Jones, you here?" The voice of Jeff the Killer called out.

Kylie froze, remembering the crazed look in the killer's eyes, then looked up and jumped at the sight of those unblinking orbs staring down at her from under the shadow of a hood.

"The pests are gone. You can go back home now."

Jeff had pulled his black undershirt up over his nose and his black singed hair and white hood hid the rest of his whitened skin. Only his eyes remained visible.

Franklin stood to his full height and stared down at the young man on the other side of the counter.

He knew Kylie Jones was scared of human interaction, especially if it was interaction with a shady looking man like the one before him. Something was wrong.

"And you are?" He asked, eyeing the hooded stranger.

Jeff the Killer gave the older man a shrug. "I'm an exterminator-" Kylie flinched at the term, "-teaching Jones here how to get rid of some pests at her place. Speaking of which, we have to get back. C'mon, Jones."

Without so much as a backwards glance the killer turned and strolled out of the store. Kylie scrambled to her feet and gave the two other males brief, shaking nods of thanks before rushing out after him.

...

From across the street a pair of shining black eyes watched in shock as Jeff the Killer and Kylie Jones exited the hardware store together.

Black painted lips fell open in silent awe as the onlooker watched her fellow murderer speak with their paranoid victim as if they had known each other for years.

"You've gotta be shitting me..." The woman breathed.

"What's the word humming bird?" The elfish boy beside her hummed as he stared down at his phone.

"Didn't Sally say that Jeff was trying to kill Jones?" Jane the Killer questioned, still staring at the two as they made their way down the street.

Ben raised an eyebrow up at her, pausing his game of Flappy Bird. "Yeaaah...? What of it?"

Jane shook her head and pointed. "Then what the fuck is that?"

Both of Ben's eyebrows raised to his hairline as he looked to where Jane was pointing and he sat up straight on the bench he was sitting on. "That's a piece of shit, that's what that is."

Jane's black eyes narrowed in rage as the two disappeared back into the forest.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him!"