Primal

Chapter Twenty-Two

Silence.

Dead air. The kind that settles over a room after a gunshot. After you realize the cops will be too late.

Bet Mom’s asleep in full witch makeup, her pillow smeared with glitter and fog residue. Dad’s probably snoring on the couch, three candy corn shots past his limit.

They’ll wake up to news alerts. To my name. Maybe my shoe in a ditch.

Should’ve gone to their place. Helped Mom string the lights. Handed out candy beside Dad in his bloody apron.

Should’ve crossed the street. Checked out Max’s ‘Garage of the Damned.’ Said hi to Kade. Maybe laughed at his moaning ghost impression. Maybe done some moaning of our own.

Should’ve invited Kristy and Lana over, argued about which horror movie deserved top billing—instead of starring in some straight-to-streaming slasher reject. The kind with no safe word and zero chance of a sequel.

Kade’s thigh presses against mine on the pew, warm through our ruined clothes. He’s sitting upright, shoulders squared like a guy who took a beating but still won’t admit he’s hurt. That shake? Not quite a tremor. More like adrenaline with nowhere to go.

Kristy’s on my other side. Pretty sure she hasn’t even blinked yet.

We need a plan. A way to get out … or survive long enough to make Derek and his psycho pet pig regret every fucking choice that led them here.

Thirty minutes. That’s all we’ve got. Derek calls it ‘intermission.’

He’s busy now. Dragging Noah’s body by the wrists, boots scuffing through the mess, humming that same shitty tune.

He props Noah up on a pew near the front, elbow-to-elbow with Mia. She could be asleep if not for the black-red canyon across her throat, the crater where her eye used to be.

Pigface emerges with a silver tray filled with plastic cups.

Here comes the Kool-Aid.

It stops at Wesley first.

The tray hovers under his nose until he gets the message. Wesley takes the cup, knocks it back in one swallow. His face does this twitchy thing—bracing to drop dead or start speaking in tongues.

Nothing happens.

The tray shifts sideways—next stop, Leatherface. He takes a cup, stares into it. Glances at Wesley. Then gulps it down.

Pigface moves on to the college girls. One of them chokes it down like she’s doing a keg stand. The other starts crying and shakes her head.

“Come on now,” Derek drawls, smoothing the party hat over what’s left of Noah’s skull. “Drink up. Wouldn’t want to piss off our lovely host.”

The girl sobs harder, shoulders caving in.

Her friend grabs a cup and presses it into her hand. “Chloe. Please. It’s fine. We’re gonna be fine.”

“You p-promise?”

Derek strides over.

“Drink it,” the other girl snaps. “Just fucking drink it.”

Chloe’s throat works as she forces it down.

Derek saunters past them, pausing only to adjust the party hat over her matted hair.

The tray appears between Kristy and me.

I peer into a cup. Looks like the same neon punch they served us at check-in.

“Bottoms up,” I mutter, reaching for one.

Kade snatches it first and drains it.

“I’ll take hers too,” he tells Pigface.

The thing tilts its head—at me, at Kristy. Nudges the tray closer.

Kade grabs my hand. “You don’t know what’s in it.”

“I know what happens if I don’t.”

He holds my stare. Begging me not to.

As if I had any choice.

Kristy grabs hers. Downs it. Slams the empty cup back on the tray.

Fuck it. I grab mine.

Kade glares. A breath through his teeth.

Too fucking bad. If he and Kristy go down, I’m not walking out clean either.

The drink tastes exactly like the punch from earlier. Sugar and food dye and Derek’s sick sense of humor.

Pigface lingers a beat longer, snout tilted—judging the performance, maybe savoring it, whatever a swine-faced sadist does when it’s not tasing people.

Then it pivots toward the altar without a sound.

Save for the low hum of electronics, none of us so much as breathes. Waiting for the other shoe to drop—counting seconds until someone froths or twitches on the floor.

Kristy nudges me.

I turn my head slightly, half-expecting to find her clutching her stomach or going pale.

Nothing. All limbs accounted for.

I raise an eyebrow.

Her gaze flicks down. Toward her zip-tied wrists. Her face all sly but wary. Like earlier, when she showed off her smuggled phone.

Something’s in her hand. The broken antler.

Of course she’d arm herself mid-massacre. Girl could probably smuggle a grenade in her G-string.

The tray clatters. Too close.

Kristy nudges me again, harder this time.

I glance down—just as she slips the antler tine into the pocket of her shorts.

Pigface prowls toward us, a real-life version of the slasher you spot too late at the edge of your vision.

Kristy’s already sitting perfectly still, hands folded. The only evidence is a tiny smear of blood on her thigh where the edge nicked her.

Except now the antler’s jutting from her pocket.

Fuck.

Pigface’s boots scrape closer.

I lean into Kristy like I’m slumping from exhaustion—let my bound hands ‘accidentally’ brush her thigh. My fingers hook the fabric of her neon shorts—tug just enough to cover the point.

Pigface pauses. That grotesque snout dips toward us.

Kade angles his body forward. A human buffer if Pigface decides to look too close.

I go limp against Kristy’s shoulder. “God, please tell me you’re done with the cult juice,” I mutter, loud enough to carry.

Derek snorts from the altar. “Aw, someone’s a lightweight.”

The mask tilts. Then—finally—Pigface turns away.

Kristy’s exhale is barely audible. The antler’s hidden.

For now.

Derek snaps his fingers. “Dollface. Bring me the good mic.”

Pigface heads toward the altar.

“Baby giraffe,” Kristy breathes in my ear.

I give her a look. What the fuck?

“Boots,” she whispers.

I watch the hem of Pigface’s robe sway with each step.

A flash of black leather. Shiny. Familiar.

Chérie Noir.

Amanda’s fucking thigh-highs. The ones she took off, whining about tripping.

What if she put them back on?

What if Pigface is Amanda?

Kristy gave her a pep talk and called her ‘baby giraffe.’ I offered her a cold towel. We even took a goddamn group selfie.

Now, the girl who needed a hype squad to power-walk through the woods is racking up kills like a fucking pro.

She said she hated this place. Hated the running, the rules, the whole twisted circus. Maybe when you’ve got that much hatred rotting inside you, there’s only one way to let it out—stab first, ask questions never.

And the whole time, every breathless whine, every doe-eyed wobble …

Bitch was playing us.

I glance at Kade. My zip ties bite, but there’s enough slack to let me brush his forearm. He tenses and shifts closer, head cocking slightly.

I can’t explain. Not here. Not with the bitch hog watching.

I drag my index finger across his knuckles, writing A-M-A-N-D-A.

He traces back on my palm—W-H-O?

P-I-G-F-A-C-E!

P-L-A-Y-E-R?

Y-E-S

His fingers tighten around mine. Understood.

Pigface—Amanda—stops mid-stride.

Shit.

I try yanking my hand back. Too late.

Bitch is already staring. Already closing in.

Kade doesn’t let go—even as Amanda looms over us, that stupid robe brushing my knee.

I catch another flash of those thigh-highs, and my free hand balls into a fist.

You fake-ass, backstabbing, blood-thirsty, conniving little—

She does that head-tilt thing again. Baby giraffe meets American Psycho.

“Aren’t you two the cutest,” she drawls through the Ghostface modulator—as if we’re a fucking Hallmark ad instead of her next playthings.

My spine locks as she pulls out a knife.

Knew it. That robe wasn’t just for hiding her boots.

She presses the hilt into Kade’s other palm, curling his fingers around it. Then she turns to me, modulator buzzing:

“Now, you take the other end, Thirty-one.”

Thirty-fucking-one. Bitch can’t even say my name.

Kade’s jaw flexes. His grip tightens.

snap-hiss.

The taser sparks an inch from his nose. Kade just stares up at the mask like he’s memorizing exactly where to drive the knife in.

The taser crackles again—this time close to my neck. “Don’t be stupid. You think you’re fast? I light her up before you even move.”

“Dollface,” Derek calls from the altar, not even looking up. “Quit flirting and get your ass up here.”

Amanda snatches the knife back and stomps off like a pet denied its chew toy.

“I hugged that psycho,” Kristy mutters.

I blow out a breath. “Yeah, me too.”

Kade squeezes my hand.

I look down—right where our fingers are still tangled up.

His thumb skates across my knuckles.

That gun came so close to splitting his skull open.

I hook my pinky around his—a promise. A fuck-you to fate. Or just a crazy plan wrapped in hope.

God knows how we can pull it off with a shiv antler versus tasers, knives, and guns. Maybe we simply need a distraction.

Wesley can punch Derek in the dick. Chloe can hurl her party hat at Pigface.

Whatever works.

I let myself imagine that escape. The moment we blast through those doors—the college girls, Wesley and his friend, Kristy beside me and Kade right behind—the seven of us flipping Derek and Amanda the bird as we tear through the woods.

Maybe we run so fast the past can’t catch us.

Maybe this whole place explodes, and we get to watch it burn.

Maybe we get to live.

I can almost taste the cold air, see our breath fog as we sprint—

Next to me, Kristy’s leg bounces. She doesn’t believe in fairytales. Thinks even virgins should die in horror movies. Probably wondering how to make good use of that antler.

Me? I’d jab it into Amanda—an eye for an eye.

“Time’s up.” Derek’s voice booms through the chapel even without a mic. “Now, who’s ready to make a mess?”

Pigface—Amanda—drags two tripods into place, both already loaded with cameras.

“Come on now. Don’t make me choose again.”

Derek hops onto the altar, grinning under that stupid Ghostface mask for sure.

“Eenie …” The knife points at Chloe. “Meenie …” Swings to the other college girl—the brunette whose name I never caught. “Miney …”

His mask swivels to Kristy.

My stomach twists. Not Kristy. Please not—

Derek steps forward. Boot scuffing stone. The knife swings lazily at his side. Those black eyeholes land on me.