Chapter 24 Carrie
Carrie
Carrie hugged herself again, both unsettled and heartened by the warmth of Jason’s arms. His earlier apology hadn’t healed the old hurt like she’d hoped, but she was glad they were on the path to developing a new understanding.
So she could be forgiven for taking a few seconds to register that Michael was holding an axe.
He was a tech wizard, not an outdoorsman, and it seemed completely out of character.
Although his hip was cocked to one side and his posture relaxed, like the weapon had always been part of his body.
Carrie’s breath stilled in her lungs as she anticipated the blade biting into Jason’s neck, then Patrick’s, releasing torrents of blood.
“Michael, what are you doing?” She stepped forward, perplexed.
“Get away from him, Carrie,” said Patrick, pulling her back.
“Where did you find that?” Jason asked. He sounded more curious than alarmed. At least he had the good sense to stay calm.
“It was in the kitchen, standing in a corner,” said Michael. “The Slasher must have left it.”
Patrick’s face darkened. “There is no Slasher. It’s you.”
Carrie’s jaw dropped. How could Patrick think that? It was utterly ludicrous. “What?”
Jason’s face was similarly a mask of confusion. Patrick flung out his arm to keep him back from Michael. “Jason, you too.”
Jason shoved Patrick’s arm out of the way as he stood beside his cousin. He was so loyal to Michael. Patrick was a fool to try to stand between them. Carrie felt a pang in her chest. She’d always admired that integrity.
“He can’t be the Slasher. That guy with the axe threatened both of us,” Jason said.
“Are you sure?” Patrick said. “You could’ve easily gotten separated in the dark. Maybe you thought Mikey was hiding, when he actually put on the costume.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”
Carrie grabbed Patrick’s arm. Couldn’t he see how wild this accusation was? “It’s Russ. We all know it’s Russ. He followed me to the cabin, then took the kitchen knife and left his hat.”
Patrick’s face could’ve been carved from stone. “Russ is dead.”
Carrie stared at him, stunned into silence. Her mind raced as it tried to recalibrate. Had she completely misjudged the whole night? Was everything she knew wrong?
“I don’t understand.” Her voice quavered. Events were spiraling out of control. The rules kept changing, and no one had bothered to explain them to her in the first place.
She rubbed her eyes, which still stung from lake water and tears.
She was surprised she’d been able to cry for Tiffany.
Tiffany Podemski, the queen bee of Cedar Lake High, who’d made Carrie feel less than acceptable after The Photo had been shared.
Just a grasping little hussy. Not good enough to rub shoulders with decent people, no matter how hard she tried.
At that moment, Carrie felt as small as Tiffany had made her feel back then. But now was not the time to sink into despair. She reminded herself of her therapist’s teachings. These feelings of inadequacy were only her traitorous brain lying to her.
She silently repeated her mantra. I am a strong woman who can’t be hurt anymore. She could get through this roller coaster of a night. Adapt and pivot. Channel Jordan Knox. A good Final Girl always got up again to fight another day.
“If it’s not Russ, then it must be Daniel,” Jason said. “Not Mikey.”
“Daniel’s dead, too,” Patrick said.
So that was why he was asking all those questions about Daniel. An icy chill feathered down Carrie’s spine. “How can you know that?”
Patrick soberly took out his phone and showed her the screen.
A notification sat on top. Carrie read the news headline, her stomach shriveling with every word.
Daniel Williams, 22. Killed with a Meat Cleaver.
She reeled from the shock of reading his brutal murder distilled into a brief, impersonal sentence.
She didn’t grieve his loss, not after how he’d treated her.
But she trembled, picturing a blade hacking through a body she’d once been intimate with.
“Who would do such a thing?” she croaked.
“Mikey.” Patrick’s mouth was grim.
She glanced at Michael. His eyes met hers, and he shook his head vehemently. She didn’t know what to say. “But why?”
“You know why.”
She did. She swallowed and avoided Michael’s gaze.
“He killed Russ, too,” Patrick added. “And cut the phone line. I took a closer look, and it was definitely cut.”
Carrie stared at him, aghast. “But it rang—”
“Exactly. It rang, and right afterward it stopped working. Someone cut the wires while we were all looking at you.”
“Patrick, lay off,” Jason said wearily.
“It can’t be Michael,” Carrie said. If the Slasher wasn’t Russ or Daniel, who else could it be?
Was there another suspect she’d forgotten?
Another rogue player in this drama? Someone else stalking her because of The Photo.
Or the gas station attendant, who’d warned her to stay out of Cedar Lake.
He could have a personal reason why he didn’t want people coming here.
Maybe he was dressing up as the Slasher to frighten people away, like an episode of Scooby-Doo.
The possibilities made Carrie dizzy.
Ranger Russ still made the most sense. “How do you know Russ is dead?” she asked Patrick. “We thought he was near death before, and we were wrong.”
“I’ll show you. He’s in the cellar.”
Patrick stalked off inside the cabin. Michael shifted the axe to his other shoulder, and for a breathtaking moment Carrie thought he was going to take a swing at Patrick. She grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Michael,” she pleaded.
He had the decency to look abashed. “I wasn’t gonna do anything. His accusations just made me mad.”
Michael marched after Patrick, leaving Carrie to trail behind them with Jason.
She clung a little closer to him. Not because she still had feelings for him, although she felt a little zing across her skin as she held his arm.
Because he would protect her if things went south.
Jason’s answering smile was weak but comforting.
The cabin was still and quiet. She avoided looking up at Freddy, but his scent hung over them like a ghost. The stench of sandalwood and human excrement mingled with the artificial pine fragrance, and Carrie didn’t know which smell was worse.
She’d hated cleaning the Slasher cabin as a teen, because of the air freshener the rental office insisted on using to mask the mothball reek of all the thrifted eighties decor.
It seemed to reach right into her nostrils to tickle her sinuses.
Patrick flung the cellar door open and paused.
“Well? What’re you waiting for?” Michael said, gesturing to the darkened maw of the cellar with the axe.
“I’m not going down those steps while you’re behind me holding that.”
Michael sighed. “Fine.” He set it down inside the door and spread his hands in surrender. “You happy now?”
Patrick nodded tersely and started descending with his flashlight out. “Jason, you stay behind Mikey in case he tries something,” he called up to them.
“He’s not going to try something,” Carrie said exasperatedly. Michael wouldn’t attack Patrick. She hoped.
Beside her, Jason said quietly, “Thanks for taking Mikey’s side. I don’t know what’s gotten into Patrick.”
“He doesn’t seem like himself.” It was true.
Patrick’s hair was wild, khakis torn and dirty, and at some point he’d lost his shirt.
He was like Patrick’s evil twin. The trauma of being confronted with one’s mortality could change a person, Carrie knew.
It was a classic Final Girl transformation.
Fear stripped away all niceties and manners, until there were only pure, violent urges.
A coming-of-rage. Liberation from expectation.
It could make him very dangerous.
Jason followed Mikey, leaving Carrie to take up the rear. She recognized the ragged remains of Patrick’s blue button-down shirt sitting at the top of the stairs. So he’d been in the cellar earlier. She was afraid of what that meant. What had he found?
She shuddered as she descended, the lower temperature of the cellar cooling her wet clothes and hair.
The shiver was from déjà vu, not the sudden cold on her skin.
The memory was a knife to the gut, as sharp and unforgiving as the one that had killed Freddy, and likely twice as painful.
It had been a mistake, coming down here four years ago to raid the props.
Carrie forced herself to trail the others with cautious but determined steps.
She had to keep going and face her memories.
She’d come so far already. She wouldn’t heal if she continued to punish herself for an impulsive thing she’d done in high school.
Her therapist had told her confrontation was good.
Facing your issues and allowing yourself to feel those difficult emotions, without shame or judgment, was how you put them to rest.
“This way,” Patrick said. Carrie shivered again, this time with dread and anticipation at what they might find. She had the sneaking suspicion the day’s events were about to come to a head.
Patrick led them between the shelving units of props to the back of the room.
Jason swore as a couple of life-size cardboard cutouts of the Slasher loomed out at them from the shadows.
Even Michael cringed. Only Carrie wasn’t surprised, since she’d been in the cellar before.
Although the Slasher’s masked face was a harsh reminder of her role.
The Final Girl. The one who fights back, at last.
In a darkened corner, the beam of Patrick’s flashlight illuminated long, pale features, made even paler in death.
It was unmistakably Russ Meachum.
Carrie’s damp skin prickled with icy needles. “Fuck,” Jason said. Michael winced. Ranger Russ, huddled in a blanket, silently screaming around an old pom-pom while a kitchen knife nearly pinned his throat to the wall.