Tape Side A: F.H
[2] Some things buried deep need to stay that way, they are dug inside our soil for reason.

PRELUDE. summer of ninety-six

( JULY '96 )
11:07 pm.

♰

          IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, there is something out there in the forest. We know that it is here but we must remember to not acknowledge it for it is just our minds playing tricks. Nancy isn't one to believe ghost stories much less one that is surrounding the place where she's getting paid at, good pay or not, so she doesn't quite believe something is out there. That is how most people are when they're exposed to the unknown, they do not believe that it is true until it snaps in front of them with their own wide eyes but even then they will still not believe. Nancy will never believe in the tales that entrapped her workplace, even if they were sad, they were just something to scare her and she wasn't easily spooked. Aside from that; she knows what lies out there and doesn't believe that it exists as many do. But that will be her grave mistake. But she has a job to do and whatever ghost tales that linger will not her inside of her head no matter how hard they may try and reach in; they will not get in her mind.

Surprisingly enough, she's entertaining the tales for a single moment as her fellow coworkers are all huddled around a fire with marshmallows on their sticks they hold over it. She leans on her boyfriend, Parker, and he begins to dramatically cough as a way to get everybody's attention.

"You guys know what happened here right?" Parker asks his fellow counselors but some shake their heads no while others shrug. In response he laughs, "Oh come on?! You all took on this job but don't know what surrounds this place?"

A counselor named Doug shrugs. "Nah man, I didn't really read the fine print about murder ghost stories," everyone laughs at his joke but Parker just shushes them all so he can tell his story.

"So you've all never heard of the Punisher?"

Nancy slaps his arm. "Stop tryna scare them. Maybe ghost stories aren't for everyone."

Parker smirks. "Awe, are you scared babe?" Attempting to kiss her face but Nancy retracts away and shakes her head vigorously as a response.

"No, I'm just saying it's dumb," She huffs and everyone has their attention on her. "It's just something that O'Hail told us about to make sure we wouldn't be scared away or anything—it's only some sad sob story that everyone corrupted into something scary because they watched Friday The 13th too much and, ah! disabled boy scary! When in reality, he just threw himself off and died not turned into some supernatural murderer. And that's the end of it."

Her rant of her thoughts about the tales makes everyone silent, they all stare at her with some of them nodding in agreement. She only shrugs as her boyfriend just gives her squinted eyes and a shake of his head: it's all true, people just need to separate media from real life and stuff like this wouldn't happen. She is a firm believer on how horror movies are bad for the brains of humans but she's not about to give a whole psychology lecture on that right now.

Parker sighs hard. "Babe, you know I don't believe in it. I'm just tryna have fun and set the mood. You get it, right?"

"I know, I'm just saying." She doesn't take any of her words back.

"What even is this "ghost story" ya'll keep talking about?" A girl named Genny piped up from the left, she had a look of confusion on her face. "O'Hail never told me anything about that."

Parker rubs his hands together, a maniac laugh leaving his lips. "Glad you asked, Ms. Gen Gen. I will now tell you the tale of the Punisher." He puts an obnoxious but ominous voice on which makes Nancy just roll her eyes but giggle a bit. Such a huge dork, she thought, she's really got a dork ass boyfriend.

"In '52...there was a boy that died here. This boy was named Timmy Dawn, and was bullied heavily because of his weird ass face that only a mother could love." Parker's voice began to get more sinister. "He took a girl with him, her name was May Cunningham, and they jumped off the cliff together...dying with one another. But May's body was never found, neither was Timmy just a pile of blood was left. But some say that he never died from that fall. That he's out here and lurking in the woods, wanting revenge on the counselors that didn't do anything to stop the bullying and the campers that bullied him. Some even say that he has a shrine for the girl who jumped off with him as she was the only one that understood him."

"And that folks, is the tale of our dear old retard friend, the Punisher!" Parker takes a swig of his beer and everyone laughs at his joke but Nancy only rolls her eyes.

Parker burps but chuckles with them. "Don't go laughing now, or he's gonna get ya like he did May!"

A loud sigh left her lips. She should've never decided to sit and drink with them, all they were doing was making fun of some poor kid who killed himself right where they're working at. It wasn't right to do nor was any of the name calling funny—it was just....sick. It made her sick to her stomach. She couldn't believe she actually worked with these people, but she hadn't expected much from them at the same time. Nancy got up from her spot on the log, stepping away from the group of disrespectful teens but her boyfriend calls her back.

"Babe?! Where you going?"

Nancy just gave a small glare. "I'm gonna go check on the campers, since that's our jobs. Remember?" Her tone was real sarcastic with a small hint of condescending remark. "Since making fun of a dead disabled child is much better uses of your time."

And with that she walks off, the calling of her ignorant boyfriend doesn't make her stop. She walks into the woods with haste and feels the urge to scream but she does not, she only walks. Her anger just stays hidden deep.

The trees loom over her in a stance that would seem uncanny to her or as if they were all looking down at her and watching her walk down the nearly visible dirt path that leads to the campground. A tingle is on the back of her neck but she attempts to ignore it, she isn't trying to get freaked out by the tall oak trees because her eyesight is playing tricks on her. But if she only knew that her eyes were her best friends. Those are the ones warning her of the tall oaks that watch her so intensely with each step they seem to get closer and closer to her. But she tries to shake it off.

It was only a story, it was only a story. Why is she so scared?

Suddenly she feels eyes on the back of her, she turns her head back to see what's behind her but there is nothing there. She keeps walking, it is just her paranoia playing tricks on her. The feeling of something watching her while she's walking makes her go faster and now she's jogging, the sign to the camp becomes more visible and the darkness surrounding her is rising. She feels something on her neck as she goes faster and faster....
it breathes on her neck and then a hushed voice is heard in her ear, "Nancy...." All the hairs on the back of her neck stands up but she ignores it and goes. She does not stop.

Eventually she makes it to the sign and now out of the woods, onto the open space where the campgrounds is. She turns around again to see what was behind her.

But there is nothing there.

She eyes the barn and then she lets go a breath as they travel towards a sign that has multiple other small arrows and she reads one that says, Campers Cabin. She immediately begins to walk in that direction, shaking off that paranoia.

Each step on the trail towards the cabin she feel as if something is watching her in the treeline but she does not know what. She will not figure out what neither because she is not going anywhere near those woods, she isn't one of those white girls in horror movies that hang around in the woods stumbling to find out what is watching her. She's quick to make it towards Cabin A where all of the girls are and opening the door to a pitch blackened room.

She squints her eyes, she doesn't remember turning it lights off in here. "Girls? Are you alright?" Nobody answers but a foul smell has finally hit her nostrils.

The goosebumps on her neck travel down her back now. She's unnerved, she isn't sure what's going on but she wished she would've brought someone to check on the kids with her because now she's alone and afraid—of probably nothing but something about this....isn't right.

She aimlessly tries to have a lamp, stepping on something with a loud, but icky, squish and eventually she finds the light. "Finally, god." With a quick moment she turns it on and as the room lights up, she turns to find something truly horrific.

A loud throat ripping scream escapes from her lips as the sight before her traumatizes her for life.

There she sees the girl, all mutilated as their bodies are hung up on a wall in a ritual like fashion. Each limb that is creating this satanic star belongs to different little girls that Nancy knew and took care of. Blood is everywhere in the cabin with their bed thrown around the room and misplaced as a nightstand is flipped over as if one of them tried to struggle. There were holes on their mattresses, holes in the walls and one in their chests that is carved out where their heart is supposed to be. Whoever done this had to have been completely animalistic, no human could have done this: it's inhumane.

It's disgusting.

But what she doesn't notice is someone in the corner in the room. Hidden in the darkness that consumes the room; the potato sack that is placed over his head with two holes where his eyes are. Blood staining his makeshift mask but he doesn't even flinch at it, almost as if it's a decor to him. His blue eyes watch every movement of Nancy but she does not notice it.

She covers her mouth and sobs into it that is until, she hears a floorboard creak.

He's still in here.

He's been watching her.

Nancy immediately waste no time and runs out the Cabin where the dead girls are, each step is quick and calculated. She's not staying inside there any longer and finding out whoever done this, she needed to warn everyone and get out of here.

As she runs, she turns around and sees the man in the sack hung over his mask running right for her with a large axe in his hands. The blood on it gives it an unnerving shine and it makes Nancy's skin crawl before she turns back around and tries to make a better pace on him.

She's about to make it back into the woods, but a loose branch makes her lose her footing.

"Fuck!" She trips on the ground but the girl waste no time on getting right back up, mud getting all over brown jacket and threaded color dress.

She turns to see the man still chasing her and makes a sharp turn back into the woods where her boyfriend and coworkers are at. She runs, and runs, and runs. She does not scream or cry, she only runs and runs because that is all she can do. If she could, she would admit that she was wrong. That the Punisher is real and he's after her—after these innocent people that had nothing to do with what happened to him.

But are they really innocent? Do they not deserve this?

With incredible pace, getting cuts from breaking line of sight and cutting through trees losing her hooped earrings, she finally makes it back to the large campfire where her friends should be.

But she finds that nobody is there.

The only person she sees is her boyfriend, laying on the ground with a large gash in his stomach. "Parker! Oh my god..." she runs over and tries to pressure on the wound but she doesn't know if it's going to work. It might've been too late. "We gotta go, please! Get up."

But he does not get up, whatever has tore into him with a large claw mark seemed to make teared into his neck as well. Chunks of it were scattered around the dirt and some had been embedded into it. Parts of his tore open throat were covered in tiny canine marks and blood continued to pour from the open wound. Red crimson created a large pool of the ground, infecting it like a virus but the dirt seemed to enjoy it.

It moved as more blood poured out and Nancy looked at it horrified. She gasps and sobs in her her bloody hand, just trying to stop the bleeding....but it does not work.

Someone had been eating him.

Before Nancy could do anything else, a foot is pushed into her side. She flies over her half eaten boyfriend and the wind is knocked out of her as she coughs up blood at the kick, she looks up at the culprit and sees the Punisher above her.

She kicks him in the groin in retaliation and he falls into himself, she crawls away and coughs out blood holding her stomach. Suddenly a swing of the axe hits her in back, she lets out a loud scream as her voice cracks. She coughs up even more blood as now the axe is torn forcibly from her back with a boot to her back, she falls to the ground. And again, it's swung back into her back.

She lets out another pained scream, but he does not let up. He swings again and again until her back is completely covered in large gashes with her spine making an appearance as she arches her back in pain. She cannot move anymore or feel any of the next swings he takes onto her as he's hit a deep part in her body. Her eyes threaten to close and she doesn't scream anymore, only letting out small grunts as more blood pools around her.

One last swing is put deep into her back; the axe gets stuck onto her spinal cord and the Punisher stomps on her head to pull his weapon out.

Nancy, now just a mutilated corpse on the ground, takes her final breath as she feels herself getting dragged against the dirt. Almost as if she's a stack of meat instead of a person.

The Punisher as claimed another victim and he isn't done yet.

authors notes: just a little prelude on what happened in 96, nothing more nothing less....hopefully you'll see some of the foreshadowing in this 😭🤫👀. hopefully this is a reminder to get your applications done! deadline in three days!

idk if this was uncomfortable or scary but if it was that's what i'm aiming for. so if you cannot handle that, please do not read this!

also nancy was def a final girl if i had set this in 96. she gave off those vibes 🩷🩷❤️❤️. too bad she got her back caved in by an axe. (she's in the gif above she's so pretty too bad she's dead af!)