101721

[101721]

INT. DARK ROOM OF UNDISCLOSED LOCATION.

The room is the same as the last time a video has been released. Static fades to clear image, which focuses on another clip of ARIELLA SCHMIDT. She looks just as terrified as she did in the last tape, but still unharmed. She’s been crying, as evidenced from the smeared makeup on her cheeks, but she looks less exhausted than previously. She is wearing the clothes she was reported missing in. The date in the corner of the video is marked two days after her disappearance.

ARIELLA

I ... want to give an explanation of why I ran away. The full story.

There is movement in the back of the frame. A large figure, clothed in black. You cannot see his face.

ARIELLA

There’s a man, in town. We, uh, we started talking because I knew his youngest daughter from the youth group at church. We were texting about innocent things, at first. Uh, good things?

She’s shaking, and a muffled voice in the background coaxes her to continue. Her shaking persists, jerking the chair slightly. A gloved hand rests gently on the back of the seat, steadying it. Dangling at the side of the figure is the silver glint of a knife. The figure remains there, ever present as she speaks.

ARIELLA

And it just got out of hand. One night he sent me ... pictures. And I sent them back. And when we met up next ... he ... I.

The hand brushes her shoulder, and she stiffens, and jerks away as much as she can from her position fixed to the chair. The cool metal of the side of the knife is pressed against her arm, and she returns to the original position.

ARIELLA

We did all sorts of stuff we weren’t supposed to. Mommy, Daddy, I’m so sorry. I know you didn’t raise me like this, I know.

Ariella begins to cry, and the hand tightens in the new position on her shoulder. Sobs make it difficult to speak, but after a moment of recollection, she begins to speak again through choked tears.

ARIELLA

It kept going on and on for weeks and weeks. I knew he had a wife, I knew he had children, but I kept going. We both did. Hebrews 13:4 ... it says that “marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure because God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” God, I’m sorry. Mama, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to his wife. I’m sorry to his children.

She sounds robotic now, even though her emotion, as if she’s reciting something. Being guided. Eyes stay glued to the corner of the screen and dart back and forth, as if she’s reading something.

ARIELLA

I am a whore, and I will be judged as harshly as the man who lay ... lay beside me. I have desecrated their holy union, and ...

A voice begins to overlay with hers. someone reciting the same thing she is. It is clearly masculine, and not with the same pitch of youthfulness hers carries. He sounds just as afraid. It doesn’t belong to the figure, and is unfamiliar to a viewer of the tapes.

ARIELLA & OTHER VICTIM, UNISON

I will be punished severely. I deserve all that is coming to me, and will burn in hell for sins unforgiven. The town of Jericho needs to know all the wrongs I have committed. Goodbye. Goodbye, may my apology

Ariella’s voice fades out, and the camera cuts from her position to the man reciting. You can only see his torso, not his face. He is wearing a torn button down white dress shirt, stained with dirt and blood, and black pants tarnished in a similar fashion. He holds a paper this time, though his hands are cuffed in front of him and his legs are tied the same way Ariella’s are.

OTHER VICTIM

Be what you remember of me, and not my sin.

The screen is black, and a masculine scream of pain is heard, assumed to belong to the unknown other victim. One word appears on the screen, in white text.

NEXT

[101721]

INT. DARK ROOM OF UNDISCLOSED LOCATION.

The screen is blurry with some static, which eventually focuses to a clip of who the town of Jericho recognizes as ARIELLA SCHMIDT a pretty blonde teenager of about seventeen. She is sitting in the middle of the room, in a plain wooden chair. She looks terrified, but physically in good condition and unharmed. She looks dead into the eye of the camera and speaks.

ARIELLA

So ... I just want everyone in town to know that I'm fine. I ran away of ... (coughs) my own accord. Mom, Dad, I just couldn't be at Home anymore. But know that I am happy and healthy and —

Out of the corner of her eye, she seems to spot something. She whimpers quietly, and her demeanor, previously only a little off turns panicked.

ARIELLA

You — you said you wouldn't if I made the video — stop, please, please —

The person she speaks to is still off screen, unknown to the viewer. ARIELLA is crying now, clearly distraught. Out of the left corner of the screen, a black metal crowbar comes out of nowhere and smacks her directly on the forehead. Her eyes become glossy and there is a large red welt on her forehead, but she's still conscious. She whimpers again.

ARIELLA

Mommy? I — I want my mom. I want my mo —

Her screech is cut off by a hand, large and covered in a black glove down to the wrist, where pale skin covered with some dark hair is revealed. A blade goes directly into the side of her neck, red blood squirting out like something out of a gory horror film. She gargles as she speaks.

ARIELLA

Mama?

She falls over frontwards of her own accord, flopping lifelessly. The fact that she remains semi-upward in the chair shows she was tied there, the ropes now visible as she hangs forward. A gunshot rings out, shooting a bullet directly through the red mark on her forehead, shooting her already dead body. An UNKNOWN MALE moves in front of her body, framing himself directly in the center of the camera. He is large, and only the bottom half of his face is visible, though only through a bandana. His voice is gruff and commanding, masked by some sort of software.

UNKNOWN MALE

The town of Jericho is full of sinners and liars and crooks and thieves. Little whores get cut and shot (pauses) and filmed just like they liked when they were alive. This isn't the end of our very own rapture, friends. All the heathens will soon come home.

The screen turns black. There is silence, and then, overlayed, cries that clearly belong to ARIELLA before she was killed. She yells out for both her parents, pleads for whoever the man was to stop, and screams. There is then more silence, and the video ends.