Chapter 21 Patrick #2
There was no sign of the machete, however.
Shit. Someone must have reorganized the artifacts after Carrie had disrupted them.
Patrick searched the shelves feverishly, wondering if he’d missed it.
Most of the props were innocuous, like a pile of generic school backpacks and outdated textbooks, but Patrick spotted one of Cindy’s red-and-white cheerleading pom-poms and the baseball cap the doomed hunter had worn in the first scene.
Patrick moved on to the next shelving unit—and halted.
Tiffany’s head sat at the end of the aisle, her face peeking out from the shadows.
Patrick jammed his fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out.
His eyes widened in horror as they scalded with tears.
No! He’d only just left her. Ranger Russ and his axe couldn’t have caught up to her so quickly.
Is this what Russ had in store for all of them?
Transforming them into props for his Slasher reboot, to compensate for the time he’d never had with the Jumpscare Society?
First Freddy and now Tiffany. The kills were getting increasingly brutal. Just like a movie.
Tiffany gazed accusingly at him, tendrils of blond hair framing her pallid face.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, Tiffany,” he whispered, holding back the urge to vomit again.
It was all his fault for organizing this reunion, for insisting they come to the cabin.
Jason had been right. They should’ve met up someplace else.
Someplace with less history. Just because Patrick’s memories of Cedar Lake were mostly good, didn’t mean they’d been good for everyone else.
Against his better judgment, he moved down the aisle toward Tiffany’s head. Through his wet, blurred vision he noted how smooth and rosy her cheeks were. Tiffany had great skin, but this was too perfect.
Like a model.
Patrick snorted back snot and tears. It was a model. Cindy’s head, chopped off by the Slasher after he catches her and Derek having sex in the woods. Under the flashlight’s fuzzy beam, it looked much more realistic close up than it had on-screen.
Patrick wiped his eyes and continued the hunt with renewed resolve.
Tiffany might still have her head, but who knew for how much longer with Russ on the rampage.
He couldn’t get distracted from his main goal.
His friends’ lives depended on it. He urgently searched every shelving unit, mentally cataloguing each item, until he found himself back at the clothing rack.
The flashlight found another waxen face, tucked behind a long garment bag.
The striped blanket wrapped around it had fallen away, revealing a long nose and glassy, bulging eyes.
Patrick didn’t recognize the profile. A replica of nerdy Ralph, maybe?
Patrick had assumed the actor had played the corpse, but maybe they’d used a dummy since his body had bobbed facedown in the lake.
The dummy was slouched against the wall. Patrick crept closer and tugged at the blanket to uncover the rest of the face.
He staggered backward as if he’d uncovered a ticking bomb.
Russ Meachum stared back at him, his mouth gaping like a cheap blow-up doll, Cindy’s other cheerleading pom-pom protruding from between the wide, narrow lips.
Patrick’s breathing quickened. No. It couldn’t be. Russ was out there with an axe, hunting him and his friends.
Patrick yanked down the rest of the blanket, revealing the black plastic hilt of a chef’s knife sticking out of the center of Russ’s knobbly throat. Congealing rivulets of blood ran down his neck and soaked the collar of his uniform shirt.
Patrick’s stomach roiled with nausea. At least now he knew where the missing kitchen knife had gone. But if Russ was dead, who the hell had chased him in the woods? Who had killed Freddy?
Who was upstairs?
Terror coursed through him like an electric current. He swallowed, tasting bile, and briefly considered taking the knife out of Russ Meachum’s throat to defend himself with. But the thought made him sick. The cheap knife wouldn’t be a match for the axe anyway. He had to find that machete. Or—
His eyes caught on a shiny object dangling at the waist of Russ’s khakis.
A carabiner, with keys. Yes! The keys to the SUV.
They were saved. Patrick could take them and go for help, although he didn’t like the thought of leaving Jason and the others behind.
Maybe he could hide in the car and wait for them to return, and everyone could drive off together.
“I’m sorry, Russ,” he rasped, detaching the carabiner from Russ’s belt loop. “And I’m sorry you never got to join the Jumpscare Society. I’ll make sure your mom is taken care of.”
Patrick quickly scanned the room one last time. The machete was nowhere in sight. He hated to give up on it, but the car keys were more important now. The plan had changed. Surprisingly, Patrick felt good about it. He had his next step.
He just had to make it out the front door first.
Padding up the stairs, Patrick turned off the flashlight and stowed it back in his pocket. He pressed his ear against the cellar door, listening for the Slasher. The hardwood floors were silent. The heavy footsteps had moved on.
Patrick pulled his Oxford shirt away from the crack under the door, and slowly unlocked it, careful to not make any noise.
He opened the door a crack and peered out, letting his eyes adjust to the moonlit corridor.
The cabin’s interior was silent and deserted.
The Slasher had gone. He hoped. The person who’d killed Freddy and Russ could still be waiting for him outside the cabin.
Patrick was just going to have to take that chance and not overthink the risks.
If he wanted to help his friends, he had to make it to the car.
He slipped into the hallway and then ran like hell for the open front door, his fingers wrapped so tightly around Russ’s keys he was surprised the metal teeth didn’t draw blood.
After the dank confines of the cellar, the open air was almost overwhelming. Patrick vaulted off the porch, unable to keep his pulse in check. His heart leaped in his mouth and threatened to beat him to Russ’s car. He darted for the passenger side and crouched like he was dodging gunfire.
Panting, he listened for any signs of life besides the chirping crickets and whippoorwills. He didn’t hear anything that could’ve been the Slasher moving about—but that meant he didn’t hear his friends, either. Despair welled in his gut, but he told himself to keep his eyes on the prize. Get help.