And Then There Was One

Patrice Bergeron halted in front of one of the other player’s doors. The door was cracked ajar and being a curious Bruin, he peered inside.

He spotted, what he hoped was a joke. He saw a big briefcase. No joke, it was huge. And it was opened up, wide. The Bruin ventured into the room. He gazed down at the contents. There was tape, ropes, an array of knives and even a gold chain with a metal circle at the end. The kind used to hypnotize people.

“What the hell----?” He muttered to himself, as he gazed at the horror. “So you’re the killer!”

(RUN BERGY!!! LEAVE!!!! GO NOW!!!!)

He spun around and came face-to-face with one of the players he thought was a friend. His heart leapt in his chest. He stepped backward, bumping into the bed. He was trapped.

“What----?” The Bruin choked out, as his eyes went wide with trepidation.

“Nosy Bruin! You should have stayed the course!” His voice was stern and dark. It wasn’t normal sounding. It was evil and it freaked the Boston centre out.

"Marchy!” The cry for the name departed his lips. For the name of the man who had been his closest companion for the longest time he could remember; the man who had shoved him out of the attack of a Montreal Canadien player's range at the expense of his own body and quite possibly his own life. "How dare you..."

The familiar man’s stern glare pierced through Patrice’s body, sending chills through his spine. There was no remorse in this man's expression, no indication of any awareness that he was going to attack a fellow hockey player, no sign of free will – just a blank, emotionless look that was fitting of his current status as a mindless killing machine under someone's control. Or his own.

And he didn’t seem to care about the fact that he was killing off hockey players, who were in chance friends to him and maybe even more talented than him.

Patrice gave him a pleading glare. “Why did you kill? Why are you killing us? What did we do to you?”

“Any last words, Patrice?”

You son of a bitch, Patrice wanted to say, wanted to yell and screech in the evil murderous hockey player's face, and it didn't cross his mind how ugly and unbecoming that would be of him. How dare you...

"How dare you do that to everyone here...!" Patrice muttered darkly, his voice in a low whisper. His trembling intensified as he tried his best to remain calm and keep the panic at bay.

A strong black, material-covered knee pierced his gut, before he could do anything.
Then a fistful of his hair was grabbed and tugged. Followed by the head of his enemy ruthlessly smashing into his own, and the blade of the sharpest knife slicing across his upper torso, at the throat. He pressed it against his neck, holding his head up, so he gazed at the ceiling and the killer’s face.

“You can kill me, but you won’t be able to live with it!”

“Who said anything about needing to live with it, Patrice?”

In a flash of red, blood spritzed across the wall. The man looked on excitedly as his knife slashed across the Bruin's throat again, sending the poor human into a fit of gurgling. He slashed again and again, making sure that his victim didn’t live.

Through it all, however, Patrice bit his tongue and gave not even so much as a whimper. His face might have been ruined, and his chest and head might be giving him hell, and his stomach was still sore from the man’s forceful shove, but he fought through the pain like a warrior. His throat was blistering from the blood and bile that he had choked on. But Patrice simply kept his teeth clenched and made no sound even as he fell to the ground; bleeding, wounded and dying because of the revengeful killer.

A single tear rolled down his cheek, as he whispered out his last words. The name of his friend, Brad Marchand. His life flashed before his eyes as he saw the beginning of his NHL career, being so young and talented. And then when he made friends with Brad and Tyler and they had a sick line going on. The second line of unstoppable scoring.

And then he remembered the poem on the table with the dolls in the library:

“Five professional hockey players could withstand the gore,
One was slashed across the neck and then there were four.”

Patrice Bergeron, the Boston centerman, was no more. He bleed out on the ground of the room. A pool of crimson marked the end of him.

The man moved to wipe his knife clean on the sheet next to him. No one could stop him! He was totally getting away with murder. He smeared his blood knife across the sheets a few times and decided it was good enough.

The murderer dragged the bleeding corpse out of the room, into the hall and dropped him down. He grinned sinisterly. “Three to go!”