Just outside San Jose, California

We open on a night scene, with nothing but a roaring camp fire to light the way. A group of five young people, who seem to range in ages from late teens to early twenties, are seated in fold out lawn chairs around the blaze. Barely illuminated just in the distance is a house. It's of modern design, rounded with walls of glass, and situated on a high bluff overlooking the ocean. But, even from this distance, the signs of decrepitude are clear. The grasses are unmowed, unchecked ivy has started to choke the exterior, and shingles have started to fall off the roof. Even more telling, are the spray painted sigils and words are over the glass and stucco walls. Some of them are just demonic images. But others read “Mercy's going to get you” and “Mercy KILLS” and the like.

The shot closes back in on the fire. A young man in a letterman jacket pulls a Bud Light out of a nearby cooler. When a hot blond moves to grab one for herself, he pulls her down onto his lap.

AH! Asshole, I could have fell in the fire! The blond howls.

Yeah, but you didn't. The jock in the letterman jacket cracks open the beer one handed. Now you get to sit on my dick instead.

Real classy, Bryce. Karen, I hope you squish one of his nuts. A young African American boy says. He looks athletic himself, and sports an expensive stud in his ear and a close cropped fade.

The other two parties present, one boy and one girl, look at each other and share a soft chuckle. This draws Bryce's attention. So you two gonna fuck tonight or what?

The girl goes beet red, and the boy looks down at the ground.

Oh, leave them alone. My little bro will sew his oats when he's good and ready right Kevin?

The boy, who is dirty blond with a slight smattering of freckles, is wearing a Stranger Things shirt. He still looks mortified, but is able to reply with a, Yeah. It'll happen.

Bryce snorts derisively. The final girl, who was casually attractive with shoulder length brown hair and glasses, tamps down her embarrassment long enough to ask a question. So Karen, you going to tell us the story behind this place?

That's a great idea Hailey. Karen extricates herself from Bryce's lap and returns to her own seat, beer in hand.

This better not be corny.

Ja'quan, chill. Let my sister tell her story. I wanna hear it too.

I promise you all, its good! Prepare to shit your pants. Karen takes a swig of her beer and leans forward towards the fire, playing up a sinister mien. So have any of you heard the story of MOTHER MERCY?

They all shake their heads. Ja'quan tops off a poker with a marshmellow and feeds it into the fire.

Okay, well, many years ago, there was a beautiful woman who wanted to be a famous model. It was her dream! And after months of auditioning and shoots, she finally attained her dream.

This sounds like some personal wish fulfillment shit to me, Karen.

SHHHHH!

This woman, who though beautiful had come from modest means, suddenly found herself drawn into a world of money, celebrities, high class restaurants and fancy cars. In fact, she bought this house you see behind us with her first 6 months of salary.

Ooooh. Bryce intones spookily.

But, all good things must come to an end. The woman got older, and the modeling jobs started drying up. And all she really knew how to do was pose for the camera. With bills mounting and savings dwindling, the woman started to go a little bit crazy. I mean, she was still beautiful, but she started to not see things that way. Now, years of rejection had started to twist and mutate how she saw herself. She lost her mind and started investing in all kind of plastic surgery. But plastic surgery is expensive and her money was running out. And what she already had just wasn't good enough. She needed more! So she started turning to back alley doctors and chop shops, real hack doctors! Karen makes a chop motion with her hand with a sadistic smile. One of them fucked up one of her surgeries real bad. She got an infection, and they had to scoop out some of her insides, including her uterus.

Now this woman, she always really wanted a baby too. And now, that just wasn't possible. Which drove her just a little bit more batty. Without a womb, and with her body ravaged by infection, she started to see herself as less of a woman and more of a MONSTER. But she still lusted after the beauty and high life of her youth! So, she started stalking beautiful people and attacking them, using filthy needles to draw out their blood in the hopes that if she injected it into herself she's be pretty again! But the blood didn't do the trick of course...so what did she do?

She started eating their flesh! Karen makes a campy scary expression. And so the story goes, Mercy is still alive and stalking the California countryside, hunting down pretty faces and devouring them in the hopes of feeling more like a beautiful, whole woman once more. The end!

Bryce starts clapping. The rest of them look somewhat unimpressed.

Well, it wasn't too scary. But it was kind of interesting. Like a feminist allegory, you know?

Oh JESUS! Bryce moans. Here we go!

Just think about it! Mercy's entire sense of self worth was shaped by hollow societal expectations of what beauty should be. And she sacrificed everything to meet those stupid expectations, ironically sacrificing even her own femininity in the process. She ended up with no real sense of who she was in the end because of our toxic obsession with good looks.

GAAAAAAAYY!

Kevin turns to Hailey and gives her an awkward smile. I think you're right.

Ja'quan finishes polishing off his marshmellow. I don't really care either way. I just wanna get in that freakshow's house and take some sick shots for my Instagram.

Did you bring the bolt cutters?

Of course!

Hailey starts. Wait, we're breaking in? Nobody told me that!

Yeah, we didn't tell you because we didn't want you to be a big wet blanket about it.

Bryce gets up and claps Ja'Quan across the shoulders. Alright dawg, you get those cutters and meet us back at the house.

Yup, yup! Ja'Quan waves goodbye at the group as they depart, plastering on a fake smile which promptly drops away as soon as their out of sight. White boy call me dawg one more motherfuckin' time. Swear to God I'm gonna be all up in his bitch by the time this night is through, show him.....

He continues to bitch all the way back to the car, but finally reaches it and goes to pop the trunk with his key fob, but it doesn't open. He presses it again and still nothing. Dammit.... he mutters, before opening the driver's side door and plopping down in the seat to grab the manual release.

Suddenly, a black garbed figure with a horrific doll mask sits up in the backseat! HOLY SHIT!



Ja'Quan happens to look in the rearview mirror, and his bowels damn near evacuate. OH FUCK! OH FUCK ME! He goes for the door, but MERCY reaches over the seat and slams it shut on his face. Tumbling back into the seat, Ja'Quan cries out in pain. Oh Jesus, this can't be happening! You're actually real?! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!

WhErE'S mY.....

Mercy starts to intone, her voice an eerie, breathy monotone. But then, Ja'Quan cuts her off. Pointing a finger in the air, he cants his head with a pinched expression.

Wait a minute....am I the first one you're killing?

Mercy pauses before responding. Yes.

Ja'quan looks out the window, and then back at Mercy with an irritated look on his face. So you're killing the black guy first?

Mercy is silent again.

Oh shit, this is so fuckin' TYPICAL! You know what....YOU A RACIST!

Mercy jerks back a bit, as though stung. ...what?

Yeah, bitch, you are! Well guess what? Today BLACK LIVES MATTER! And I'm surviving this shit!

He goes to reach for the door again, and Mercy grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him back down into the seat. Ja'Quan again looks irate. What bitch, you gonna choke a brother out for slingin' some loosies? Huh?

I'm not racist. Mercy's tone is still largely monotone but now a shred of irritation is starting to creep in too.

Yeah Becky, that's what they all say. Well....

Mercy slashes at Ja'Quan's throat with a scalpel, opening up a crimson trench just beneath his Adam's Apple. Blood begins to spurt out from the wound like a wayward sprinkler, turning Mercy's eerie chalk white mask a bright crimson. Then, taking hold of the poor young man, she faces him forward and pulls down on his forehead, cranking his throat open wider and causing a cascade of more blood to hit the windshield. Finally, completely depleted, Ja'Quan dumps over into the passenger seat a cooling slick corpse.

I didn't kill you first because you're black. Mercy protests to...no one in particular. Her body visibly relaxes then, and she dips her hands in the gore and starts smearing more of it on her face and pressing it into the slim mouth hole of her eerie mask.

Mmmmmm....the camera's flash....the heat of the lights....she coos. All eyes on me. She rubs the blood down her shoulders, smearing it down the length of her form fitting black bodysuit. Who amongst you knows what it's like to lose it all? Hmmmmm.....?

You know nothing.

A grim cadence enters her voice now.

A body sick with infection! And all because I wanted one more dalliance with all those lenses? Is that so wrong? So UNREASONABLE? And that I should lose the very hearth of my womanhood for it?!

She pounds a coiled fist against the window, splattering blood everywhere.

Where are all my babies, Atara? Where did they go? Her voice is once again an insane coo. My, but you look FERTILE. You have a glow about you, girl. A vitality. I bet you'd make beautiful babies. With those looks, those genes, it's all but guaranteed. Pretty face. Perhaps I should like to take it for a spin? Will you? Will you let me have it? She reaches for the camera, and we see that her finger tips are tipped with blades and syringes. Your looks are your lifeblood, like every other basic girl that walks through those doors. A living doll to be propped up and displayed. Prodded and gawped at. And that's all well and good until the looks start to fade and the attention wanes. One day the camera shall avert it's all seeing eye onto someone younger and prettier and more moldable. It happened to me. It'll happen to you too.

Oh, but those vaunted wrestling abilities of yours, you will no doubt protest. She flicks the blades on her finger tips, making them sing. Tell me how easy it is to execute a stepover armlock camel clutch when you're bleeding out from EVERYWHERE. Oh my dear....I'm going to make you GHASTLY. This is a weapons match, honey! And that's one thing I'm rather proficient with, wouldn't you say? So answer me this rather un-hypothetical scenario. My blades are going for something vital and for your face at the same time. Which do you preserve? Your fight or your vanity? If you spent even a fraction of a second thinking about that, I have you beat. I've got no pretty left to loose. My body is a cesspit of infection. My very blood itself is poison. I'm going to flay you while you duck and cover those pouty lips of yours.

She sits back in the leather seats, and it creaks beneath the strain.

And then we have the Impaler himself. Or some reasonable facsimile. I suppose I shouldn't assume you're not the real thing. Why, week in and week out the men and women of the XWF shoot fireballs and traffic with Satan. Nothing's impossible. And the notion that you may truly be the vaunted Dracula? She quivers with delight. All those centuries of harvested blood pumping through those veins. You must be a smorgasbord of life giving essence. I think that, should I have even a TASTE of what you have to offer, I just might be invincible.

Hmmmm....and then, Brian Lance. She clacks a blade absent mindedly against her mask. I was rather surprised to discover just how much we have in common. We both have experienced our fair share of pain. We've both been driven a little bit....mad....by the unrelenting brutality of modern life. But unlike you, I only have one personality. One voice. And it tells me every day to take back my years of pain and misery in blood. And though you may be an ugly little imp, with no hint of beauty or grace to offer me, I'll take what I can get of your weak blood.

You seem to me like one of those petty little fools who puffs out his sunken chest and lays claim to enjoying pain. Nobody truly ENJOYS pain, you dim wit. But I'm more than willing to test that theory on you. Does that notion turn you on? Get your tiny, dirty little prick hard? You want to take some pictures, boy? Or maybe you want me to take some of YOU. **Click** **Click** goes the camera, and Brian is choking on his own blood and thinking maybe this isn't quite so much fun anymore. “Innovator of pain”? Tell me what you've done to EARN that, Brian. Because its easy to slap a trite scary sounding moniker on a t-shirt. It's a whole different beast to do what I do. Bathing in viscera doesn't sell so easy in the shop.

Mercy steps out of the car, her cat like suit still a gory mess. She slides her hand through the blood that coats her, building it up on her weaponized glove. In the end, you'll all end up like this fool in the car. A cooling hunk of inert flesh. I'm coming to Savage with a vengeance, and I'm going to get my fill in GALLONS. She turns to the only clean window left inside the car and spells out some words in the blood. “Not a racist.” Heh. I don't see color. Other than red. A world weary sigh escapes her. Now....to find my baby....

Meanwhile....

The rest of our intrepid young people are amassed at the house, staring at the thick chain across the front door.

Where did Ja'Quan go?

Who knows. Probably jerking off. Bryce has a look around and spots a sizable rock. He walks over, deadlifts it and heaves into one of the glass walls, which shatters spectacularly.

Jesus, dude!

Well, that's one way to do it. Come on. Karen steps confidently over the broken glass, followed by Bryce.

Kevin steps in as well as Hailey looks around tentatively. Holding his hand out for her, he smiles warmly. It's ok. I'll help you.

Hailey considers the offer, and finally takes his hand, taking the leap into the darkened abode....