Chapter 23 Patrick
Patrick
Patrick clung to the car door as the loud bang shattered the nighttime silence.
The front windows of the cabin flashed like lightning, revealing two figures behind the filmy curtains.
Patrick recognized one of them at once. Jason.
He was unharmed. The knot of tension Patrick didn’t realize he was carrying in his jaw unraveled.
The other figure was slightly taller, and also broad-shouldered.
Mikey. The knot in Patrick’s jaw retightened as he recalled his earlier suspicions.
The initial glare had died down, but the cabin’s front windows glowed erratically.
Jason and Mikey appeared to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Patrick let go of the car and sprinted for the cabin.
He burst through the door and into the scene of a disaster. The air was thick with smoke and Jason and Mikey’s agitated shouts. “Patrick!” Jason cried out, his face brightening.
Patrick tried to say Jason’s name, but the smoke filled his mouth and stung his eyes.
Flames were licking the top of a bookcase and the support beam above their heads.
The antler chandelier swung precariously as Jason valiantly battled the flames with a fire extinguisher.
Thank God he was all right, and Patrick spared a moment to acknowledge that meant more to him than the damage to the cabin.
“What happened?” Patrick managed to cough out.
“The Slasher. I scared him off with the flare gun, but I’m afraid we’ve lost our security deposit,” Jason said, sweeping the extinguisher’s nozzle from side to side.
Mikey had lifted his shirt to cover his nose and mouth. “Don’t joke,” he said through his makeshift mask. “Did you see what he did to Freddy, Patrick?”
Patrick nodded, a lump forming in his throat.
“It’s lucky you packed the fire extinguisher,” Jason said.
“Two fire extinguishers.” Patrick dug the second one out of the box. He pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle at the bookcase, wincing as the blast sent scorched paperbacks flying off the shelves.
“You packed two extinguishers?” Jason raised an eyebrow.
“With Freddy’s smoking—”
“Fair enough.”
“Why didn’t you just run from the fire?” Patrick demanded.
“I know how much this place means to you.” Jason’s eyes cut through the clearing smoke to hold Patrick’s gaze.
Something twanged behind Patrick’s sternum.
His scratchy throat clenched and he took a step forward, lips parting.
Their earlier disagreement about the reunion seemed so far away now, so unimportant.
“Also, the Slasher ran outside,” Mikey said. Patrick broke his gaze from Jason’s face. Right. They weren’t alone. “As long as we’re in here—”
A woman’s high-pitched scream sliced through the room so sharply it should’ve cut a trail in the smoke. Mikey’s T-shirt slipped from his nose as his eyes widened. “That must be Carrie.”
Shit. Carrie was out there, and so was the Slasher. Patrick lowered the extinguisher, torn between helping her and helping Jason.
“Go! We’ll put out the fire,” Jason said.
Patrick shoved his fire extinguisher at Mikey and ran back out the door.
Outside, the scream crystallized into a single word. “Help!”
Carrie’s cry was coming from behind the cabin, down by the beach. Patrick didn’t hesitate. He ran down the rocky path as fast as he could. A slender figure was standing thigh-deep in the water near the dock, bowed over what looked like a large bundle of seaweed.
“Carrie!” he shouted.
She glanced up. Her clothes were drenched and her hair plastered to her scalp.
Her round, staring eyes only made her pale face seem more luminous.
It took Patrick’s breath away. Carrie was one of those girls who was more beautiful when she was tragic, like a romantic movie heroine with a terminal illness.
She was a drowned Ophelia. A Final Girl, her unadorned features full of pure emotion.
A dark stain softly bloomed across her wet tank top like an aurora. At first Patrick was afraid she was hurt, but breathed a sigh of gratitude when he got closer and her skin and clothing appeared intact. It was someone else’s blood. But whose?
He peered at the bundle she was cradling.
Only a few short hours ago, Carrie had dragged Tiffany out of the water.
Carrie had tried to save her again, only it was too late.
Tiffany was unnaturally still. She gazed up at the sky, wearing her pink bikini and a shroud of seaweed.
Her bare skin was bluish in the moonlight, like the hide of a butchered pig.
Blood wisped like tattered wings from under her shoulders, and her arms and legs—
The model of Cindy’s severed head had shown a perfect white circle of bone. There was nothing perfect about the jagged edges protruding from bloodless peaks of flesh. Tiffany’s limbs had been hacked off, the bone visible like the ham hock Patrick had made into soup last week.
Patrick knew bones. He’d handled them in his butchery class.
He’d cracked them open to prepare the marrow.
It was different knowing that the human body was just as fragile and fecund.
His stomach lurched, the horrible sight finally sending him over the edge.
He turned his head and threw up on the rocks, retching until nothing else came up.
The edge of the lake rolled and obligingly washed his sick away.
Although the horror of Tiffany’s death left him hollowed out, he reached deep inside himself for any remaining strength.
It was time to live in the present again, for Carrie’s sake.
The Slasher—the man with the axe—could return any minute.
Patrick had to make Carrie let go of Tiffany so they could rejoin Jason and Mikey.
The Slasher surely wouldn’t attack all four of them at once. There’d be strength in numbers.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Patrick waded into the water until it reached his knees.
The lake was calm and lukewarm, indifferent to the tragedy that had occurred there.
Carrie barely noticed him, clinging to Tiffany’s mutilated body like it was a life raft.
Her chest heaved, breath wheezing deeply as she cried.
“Let her go, Carrie,” Patrick urged. “Let go.”
Carrie only sobbed, likely in shock. He gently pried her arms out from under Tiffany’s armpits, all the while glancing over his shoulder for any approaching axe murderers. He wasn’t sure if Carrie even knew he was there, until she whimpered, “Help her.”
Patrick reached out and closed Tiffany’s eyes. They would never flash with excitement or fury again. “This is all we can do for now. We’ll bring her to shore.”
One hand on Carrie’s warm arm, and another on what was left of Tiffany’s cold one, he guided them both to the beach.
He dragged Tiffany on to the sand and laid her on her back.
There. Now it looked like she was sleeping.
Missing parts of her body, but sleeping.
He thrust his grief deep down, into the box where he’d stashed his anguish at Freddy’s death.
There would be time to mourn later. If he and his friends were lucky.
If they banded together and figured out how to survive the night.
Something stirred inside Patrick, and it wasn’t just the nausea and terror tossing his guts around like a basketball.
It was the sensation of falling into a pattern.
He felt like he was backstage at the Rialto again, holding the Super Soaker of fake blood and anticipating his cues.
He’d watched so many horror movies that he always knew in his bones when the action rolled over like clockwork into the third act.
He could never put his finger on what gave it away.
A visual hint, like a shot of the full moon in a cloud-dusted sky.
A change in background music, perhaps. A shift of mood, and character development.
Maybe his acceptance of the Slasher’s existence and his determination to survive had triggered this feeling.
Or maybe it was because they’d reached the part in the movie when everyone finally realizes the extent of the danger.
That was when shit really got ugly.
In any case, he and Carrie would be reunited with Jason and Mikey soon.
All the remaining characters back together in one place, which meant it was time for the final showdown.
A voice in the back of Patrick’s head gibbered with anxiety.
He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t prepared. No checklists, no agendas, no documented processes he could follow to the letter.
As if you could make a Kanban board or decision tree for this kind of situation.
All he had was the panic streaming through his veins.
He straightened and took a deep breath. At least he could breathe. If he could breathe, he was alive, and that was all that mattered now.
Carrie hunched beside him, hands over her mouth like she was praying or trying hard not to throw up. Probably both. “Freddy’s dead, too,” she said weakly. “I should’ve never run away from him. I was so stupid.”
“Then you probably would’ve been killed, too. Did you see who did it?” Patrick asked.
Carrie shook her head, wiping her eyes. “No. After we all fell down the hill, I went back to the cabin. I peeked through the windows and saw Freddy’s body, but I didn’t see anyone else.
I heard a motorboat, so I ran to the lake to get their attention.
I thought they could help. But then—” She gulped.
“I heard Tiffany scream. I—I freaked out. I ran to the trees and hid. It’s all my fault, Patrick.
Tiffany and I had our differences, but she didn’t deserve this. ”
Carrie broke down into a fresh wave of sobs. He drew her into a hug. Her clammy skin burned against his, although maybe he was just chilled from their predicament. “There was nothing you could do,” he said soothingly. There was nothing any of them could’ve done.