Slasher Summer(88)
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “When I started out, it was all about revenge. But a funny thing happened when I lured Daniel into that alley and showed him my new meat cleaver.”
She stood framed by the arched doorway to the dining room. The flour had rendered her hair into a pale wimple about her face. Saint Carrie of the Axe, about to fulfill her sacred destiny.
The corners of her mouth curved up in a radiant smile, and she almost seem to glow. “I liked it.”
Jason finally understood. Carrie, the outsider and underdog, had tasted power. God help him, he sympathized with her. Envied her, even. To seize control over your own fate and dance to nobody’s tune—this past year he’d been chasing that, too.
“The Final Girl is always transformed by violence,” she said. “When she has nothing left to lose, that’s when she finds her hidden strength. Her true self.”
Her expression was almost beatific. Maybe it wasn’t too late to appeal to the sweet, shy girl who’d had a crush on him. But he’d be doing her a disservice. Maybe he’d never seen her at all, the way people had never seen beyond his image as a star athlete. Maybe this was who she’d always been. A vitriol-spouting, self-righteous Fury. An avenging angel, forged in the fires of her mother’s God-fearing moralizing and tempered by their classmates’ hostility. He would admire her, if not for the fact that she’d cold-bloodedly murdered all their friends.
Jason dove behind the sofa with the snow globe as she advanced, heartbeat counting down the last seconds of his life. He grunted as his injured shoulder hit the floor, the impact sending fireworks exploding behind his eyelids. His breath came fast and shallow, adrenaline squeezing out every last drop of fight in him. He couldn’t last much longer.
Hope ignited in his chest as he came face-to-face with the fire extinguishers he and Mikey had abandoned. He peered upward, expecting Carrie to be looming over him. The Slasher peered back. Not Carrie in costume, but another cardboard standee. Watching impassively in front of a side window, machete drawn.
Jason carefully rolled the snow globe toward the standee. The cardboard Slasher stirred. So did Carrie. The axe bisected the cardboard through the midsection with a rip that Jason felt in his own abs.
While she was distracted, he grabbed the fire extinguishers and started hurling them at her. The first one flew too high, glancing off the charred support beam. The antler chandelier rocked precariously. The second hit her square in the chest and she stumbled backward beneath the antlers. For one promising second the axe handle slipped in her grip, but then her long, gloved fingers wrapped securely around it again.
She regained her balance, shaking her head. “I’m not dropping the axe, Jason. It’s the only thing in this world that hasn’t let me down.”
He sprung to his feet. There was only one object left within reach. The rotary phone was heavier than he’d expected, especially in his weakened state. It would have to do. He had nothing else, except desperation.
He hurled the phone upward. Carrie’s face lit up with triumph as it sailed over her head—then crumpled in a frown as Jason’s hopeful expression never wavered. She glanced up, following his gaze.
He hadn’t been aiming for her.
The phone collided with the chandelier, the receiver’s spiral cord flying over the crooked antlers like a grappling hook. As he’d hoped, gravity did its job. The extra weight yanked the chandelier’s electrical wire out of the blackened support beam.
The ring of antlers plunged. Straight down onto Carrie, like a merciless coronation. She didn’t even have time to make a sound. One sharp prong stabbed through an eye socket; another gored the spot below her collarbone. She dropped the axe at last and crumpled to her knees, chin sagging, a scarlet blossom spreading across her tank top while a jellylike ichor slid down the yellowing bone from the ruin of her left eye.
The body of the falling phone thumped the crown of her head, driving her face further into the antlers. The discordant jangle of chimes was the sweetest sound Jason had ever heard. A prong pierced Carrie’s cheek, screeching like nails on a chalkboard as it grated against her back molars. Her limbs twitched like she’d received an electric shock and her lips parted, blood drooling over her chin.
She slumped and was still. Ash fluttered and settled around her body. It was over. Jason folded in half, panting like he’d just run a hundred-meter sprint.
There was no time to rest, however. He had to check on Patrick, then get help. He dragged himself upright, wondering if he had enough strength to make it to the main road. Or at least try to fire the flare gun with his left hand to signal the summer camp. Did Patrick pack extra cartridges? The cardboard box sat in a corner, so far away from his jellying legs.
At least the sun was rising. A fragile light seeped through the windows, bathing Carrie’s antler-ringed body with a rosy glow. Saint Carrie martyred by her crown of thorns. Her suffering was finally over, and Jason’s was just beginning. The adrenaline was ebbing away and soon he’d have to pay the physical and emotional toll. Grief flared across his skin, but it was muffled, far away, as gentle as a warm bath. He was so damned tired.
He took a step toward the box and fell to his knees.
Maybe he could lie down for a bit. Catch his breath. Only for a minute. Then he’d figure out what to do.
He collapsed face-first to the floor, his eyelids fluttering closed.