“Tell them,” she pleads.
“I did,” Letha says.
“She did,” Hardy confirms.
“Then we all know, right?” Jade says. “Good, good, might as well have it all out in the open, why not. Not that that’ll change anything. She’s the final girl, yes, and there’s a slasher around here somewhere, and, I don’t mean to speak bad of anybody, but after Deacon Samuels, it’s more than likely someone from over on the other side of—”
“Under that,” Letha says. “Before all that.”
“Okay, okay,” Jade says to Hardy. “What you caught me printing the other night at the library.”
“The extra credit?” Hardy says, scratching his head.
“I’m sure Mr. Holmes has already told you I was lying about that,” Jade continues, “because why wouldn’t he. Not like I can get detention anymore. That wasn’t a late paper for history. Mr. Holmes is retiring, doesn’t want to read any more of my bullshit. Which is fine, whatever, really. But—I had to tell Letha what was coming. I was trying to protect her. It’s no crime to try to keep someone safe. I can pay back for the paper, and Connie might not even care—”
“Connie’s known you do your schoolwork afterhours there for three years,” Mr. Holmes says, pursing his lips after saying it, and holding Jade’s eyes.
Jade opens her mouth to keep going, finds there’s nowhere to go.
So… so Connie the Librarian’s always known Jade’s hiding just on the other side of the audiobooks aisle after lights out?
And then Jade sees what everybody else here has already seen: now that high school’s over and she can’t tell Mr.
Holmes all her slasher theories, she’s trying to find someone else to latch onto, impress with her slasher Q.
“No, no,” Jade says, backing away from all three of them, which is just going to land her in the lake. “That Dutch boy she found in the water, he—him and his girlfriend, and… they were the blood sacrifice, see? They were the first ones, the proof, the promise of more to come, the appetizer that comes before the meal. That’s how it always works. They trespassed, were somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, so they paid the price, the ultimate price. That’s how it goes, sorry. Then—that Founder, Deacon Samuels. He—this proves that this is really happening, can’t you see?”
Hardy’s fingers worry the brim of his hat. Finally he looks up, says, “Are you saying the bear—”
“It wasn’t a bear, Sheriff,” Jade tells him, tells all of them.
“Bears don’t have revenge arcs. The bear’s just being framed, but nobody’s going to believe that until—”
“A party,” Letha offers, meaning she’s read at least one of the papers.
Jade holds Letha’s eyes, nods slowly, asks her back, leading her so slowly, so carefully, “And… what’s the big party here every year?”
When Letha doesn’t answer, Jade turns to Hardy, to Mr.
Holmes, says, “She’s not from here, she wouldn’t know.”
“Independence Day?” Hardy says with a shrug.
Jade fingershoots that correct, says, “Even in the form of a question.”
“July Fourth?” Letha says all around.
“You’ll see,” Jade tells her.
At which point Mr. Holmes wades into this debate, directing himself to Jade: “And so it was this, this slasher that killed that herd of elk over in Sheep’s Head, then?”
“Sheep’s Head?” Letha says.
“It’s what the old-timers call that meadow,” Mr. Holmes says with a shrug, like that isn’t the important piece of what he was saying.
“I told him he shouldn’t have showed that to you all,”
Hardy says. “It’s exactly the kind of thing that can add fuel to an overactive imagination.”
“No need to use names, Sheriff,” Jade says, pointing at her own temple, the overactive imagination in question.
“Independence Day,” Letha repeats softer, which makes it somehow louder.
“I know you thought you were helping,” Jade tells her, flabbergasted to the point of no return here. “But, and you couldn’t have known this, authority figures—cops, teachers, parents—it’s not possible for them to believe, not until it’s too late. But your impulse to get help, to fight back, to stop this, that’s what we can take from this, that’s what we can weaponize, that’s what we can—”