“Um,” Letha says back, in a way that makes Jade follow where she’s still looking: a space between two trees, like trying to confirm what she just saw. Except why would what she just saw hang around where it just was? Jade looks two trees to the right from that, which is away from the lake, then three trees ahead, focusing on a jagged slash of moonlight, and — A hunched shadow flits from one blacked-out tree to the next, as skulky and silent as any Ghostface ever was.
“He’s coming,” Jade says, Letha’s hand in hers again.
“He? ” Letha asks, panic rising in her voice.
“Run.”
They do, Letha pulling ahead without effort, dragging Jade now, and… and this is what it’s like for a final girl to save you, isn’t it? Jade was at the periphery, watching this slasher happen on a drive-in screen she could barely see through the telescope of all her hopes and self-assigned homework, but now she’s right at the center of it all. It’s terrible because it means she can die at any moment, but here at the center of the hurricane, dead bodies down this hall, through that window, falling from the sky, it’s kind of a goddamn wonder, too, isn’t it?
Until the toe of her boot catches under a rock and her left leg stays in place while the rest of her tries to keep going.
Letha loses her grip, falls ahead, has to touch her fingertips lightly to the dirt to keep from spilling. But she’s already looking around, probably thinking a wall of fishhooks have slung forward to hook into Jade’s face, pull her soul apart.
Well—no, Jade corrects. That’s what the horror chick’s thinking. The final girl doesn’t know Hellraiser from Hannibal, and why would she.
“My foot?” Jade hisses, feeling down her calf with her hands.
It’s not a root.
“Oh, shit,” Letha says.
It’s a bear trap. Of course.
“What the hell?” Jade says, trying to wedge her fingers in between the metal teeth.
“We thought the bear might come back,” Letha tells her, taking a knee.
“To this tree?”
“All those dead elk?”
Jade looks ahead and nods, remembering them at last.
“My dad had some of the guys stack them up in a pile.”
“Interesting,” Jade says, meaning pretty much the direct opposite, still trying to get her fingers into the metal teeth.
“Here,” Letha says, chickenwinging her arms out and breathing in for the coming effort. “Cinn and Ginn aren’t even supposed to come out this far.”
“Me either,” Jade mutters, and draws her lips back from her teeth when Letha jams her fingers down along her calf. That she can at all tells Jade there’s blood. But it bit shut from side to side instead of front and back, meaning her shin bone isn’t involved, just her muscle.
“Do it,” she hisses, looking behind them.
A head-height pinpoint of light is bobbing through the trees, taking an indirect line towards them.
“One, two,” Letha says, and on three she gives all her muscles and weight and effort to the bear trap, and, impossibly, it creaks open. Jade guides her foot up, up, and…
her boot.
“You—have—to—” Letha strains out, her shoulders starting to tremble.
“Already doing it,” Jade says, and reaches under to undo the knot her laces are in, slither her foot up and out, just making it past the teeth when the trap springs shut with a hard clack.
“Where are we going?” Letha asks, handing Jade’s boot over.
“The long way around to Proofrock,” Jade says, lacing up, standing with Letha’s help, giving her right leg what weight she can.
It’s not broken, she’s pretty sure, but she’s not running anymore. Or hiking the long way around the lake.
“Shit,” she says, trying to take another step.
“Here,” Letha says, ducking under to be Jade’s too-tall crutch, and Jade lets her for a hopping step or two. Until she stops them.
“What?” Letha asks.
“Do you know how to recock it?” Jade asks about the sprung trap.
Letha looks behind them, must not see the headlamp. She is sensing this danger, though. It’s palpable. Anything can happen, and’s probably about to.
“Why?” she asks.
“Why do you think?”
Letha considers, considers, then gently lets Jade stand on her own. Together—but mostly Letha—they wrench the steel jaws open again, this time far enough to click the trigger in place.
“Worst mousetrap ever,” Letha says, stepping away, the trap practically humming with tension.