Slasher Summer(50)
She nearly dropped it as she dodged a growing maze of whiplike saplings. Just her luck. She’d stumbled on a section of new growth, where the young trees were too slender to hide behind. Half of them were broken, too, probably from that ice storm in February. Daddy had told her all about it on the phone while she’d been away at college. At the time she hadn’t given a fuck about downed power lines and fallen trees. But when she nearly gouged her eye out on the ragged tip of a broken branch, she did. She most definitely gave a fuck about what the storm had done to her escape route.
She realized now how stupid it was for the Jumpscare Society to have split up. Fuck Jason, he should’ve known better. Why had they watched so many slashers after school, only to make this newbie mistake? Amateurs. Okay, it had made sense at the time, but that was before they were sure someone was out to get them.
Jen dared to glance over her shoulder. Shit. The Slasher seemed to be getting closer, even though she was running and he was following with long strides. She thought that happened only in movies. Was she just that out of shape? Moonlight glinted off the axe’s blade. A scream burst from her mouth again. This time her lips formed the word Help. Who was she? She’d never asked for help in her life.
She’d observed before that fear stripped you down to your core self, and it seemed too late to acknowledge that Jennifer de la Fuente was a mask as artificial as the Slasher’s. Underneath she was nothing but an animal. Helpless prey whose only thought was of survival in the face of a ruthless predator.
Her arms swung harder as if they could increase the length of her stride. The flashlight flew out of her sweating fist, catapulting away and rolling into the underbrush. “Shit!” Jen yelled in frustration as its fuzzy beam began to dim. She still had her phone, but maybe it was for the best she’d lost her light. She could hide better in the dark.
She zigzagged away from the flashlight beam, hoping to secrete herself in the shadows. Thank God she was wearing black, and her fishnetted legs were splattered with mud. Carrie might have been wearing the Final Girl uniform, but that white tank top was impractical for hiding from killers in the dark.
There! She spotted the stump of an older tree that had survived the natural disaster or prescribed burn that had created this young, spiky gauntlet of a forest. It was about the height of a child, and Jen was thankfully petite. She slipped behind it, panting silently, hardly feeling the sting of rough bark against her bare elbows or the tug on her scalp as her hair snagged on the shoots sprouting from the old wood.
The Slasher’s footsteps stopped.
Jen clasped the knife tighter. It was no better than a toothpick compared to the axe. She wouldn’t be able to get close enough to use it, not without getting within the Slasher’s range. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she searched for anything else she could fight with. A long, dark shape lay at her feet. She nudged it with her toes and felt a glint of hope as it shifted.
She tucked the knife into her belt and carefully crouched down to grab what was either a branch or the top half of a young tree. She couldn’t tell if the Slasher was still out there. She hoped he’d given up the chase, but she’d seen the movies. She knew how it went. Just when you thought the killer had given up—bam. He was right in your face. The same thing had happened to Heather in the movie. You could never get cocky in horror films. No one cocky ever survived, from the smug nerd to the defiant rebel. Attitude was rewarded with death. You had to be a timid weenie like Carrie from the start. You had to respect your killer.
Would-be killer, Jen told herself. Slowly, very slowly, she picked up the branch. It was about the size of a baseball bat, but not too heavy to hold with both hands. She winced as it dragged a little, sending a murmur out to the universe, and she prayed the Slasher would chalk it up to normal forest noise. He probably couldn’t hear very well with his hood up, anyway.
Jen leaned back against the stump, splinters from her find digging into her palms. She still couldn’t hear the Slasher. She inched to her right, rolling her upper back along the stump’s surface, and lifted her eyes over her shoulder.
Nothing. There was no one there. Either he’d gone or—
Dead leaves crunched to her left. There was no time to think. Jen swung the branch with all her might in that direction, yelling like an Amazon. The branch connected with something firm, and the Slasher crumpled with a grunt.
She should’ve dropped the branch and run, but logic cut in for this dance. So many times she’d yelled at the stupid kids on TV to make sure the killer was actually down. So many times she’d thrown her hands up in exasperation when a victim dropped their weapon because they thought they were safe.
The Slasher wasn’t moving. The axe lay by his side, fingers still curled around the haft. Jen hoped she’d hit him in the head. But she wasn’t taking any chances. She hefted the branch again, ready to smash him in the face, remembering too late that she should’ve unmasked him first. Exposed his identity and taken his photo so he couldn’t terrorize anyone ever again.
She swung—and the Slasher spasmed to life, raising the axe and lopping the branch in half. Jen stood dumbfounded for a heartbeat, holding her now-useless club. It could have easily been her arm, or a leg. Or her torso. Or her head, like poor Cindy in the movie.
And then Jen was off again, running and screaming like her hair was on fire, without any thought as to where she was going. She only knew she had to get away, wherever that magical place might be. The trees, the fucking trees all looked the same, again making her feel like she’d hardly moved. It was like she was back onstage at the Rialto, jogging on the spot while the audience brayed for her blood. While an unknown guest in a cheap craft store mask lurked in the wings.