Thirty-Six

Sally did not like being alone.

Not because she'd be any safer with the others, but because their presence prevented her from succumbing to terror altogether and losing her mind.

The plan had failed miserably. The plan they'd reasoned out as their best option. Simple, only it also happened to be very dumb. Again, Sally felt like she was living one of her horror movies, where people made dumb decisions all the time. She could now appreciate why they did—because they were young people filled with existential terror and not highly trained Special Forces operatives.

Think, she told herself. Take a—

A crashing sound near the sea made her jump. Sally took a step toward it, opening her mouth to call out for Clare but stopping herself in time.

No, she thought. Take a moment and think.

Being alone offered one advantage: a broad latitude of options. The only problem was they all sucked. She did know not to rush around blindly.

Think of it like a scene.

Goal: She wanted to help Clare and survive the night.

Obstacle: Max would be waiting for her.

No victory: The director would hit her with the world's biggest jump scare, and the last thing she ever saw would be the gaping lens of Arthur Golden's camera.

Okay, now change the script.

The Final Girl triumphed when she stopped seeing herself as prey and transformed into predator. That idea had already flopped, but the main thing was to avoid playing Max's game and play her own.

Then play to win or die trying.

Wheeling, she ran toward the trailers standing dark at the campground. She'd radio Dan and his cop friend for help. That was the best way to save her friends.

Passing a ruined house, she froze midstride.

Did a double take.

And forced back a horrified scream.

In a grisly tableau, Johnny Frampton sat slouched with his legs spread in front of him, as if some precariously balanced force kept him sitting upright. His head slumped with his chin resting on his chest, and for a moment she pictured him raising his head to grin at her with glowing eyes.

But Johnny wasn't about to do anything. Surrounded by a veritable lake of dark, congealing blood, he remained still as a statue, stone dead. A glistening loop of intestine peeked from below his oddly bulging shirt. A bag of potato chips rested upright near his left foot, placed like a midnight snack offering to anyone who might swing by.

Sally took an instinctive step back, fighting the urge to retch. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone staring at her.

Bill!

She swung toward him. "You're alive—"

What she saw didn't make sense. He seemed to be in two places at once, and her similarly fracturing mind couldn't put it together.

His body lay on the floor.

While his head stares at me from a dusty old sofa chair.

Eyes like cold blue marbles.

Staring and staring but forever unseeing.

Eyes that had seen her as a woman only hours earlier over dinner. Eyes that had brimmed with life and flashed with youth. Eyes with which her own had exchanged glances loaded with meaning and exciting potential.

Now they saw nothing but eternal darkness.

"Not me," Sally said, and blanked out.

She revived to the sound of shouting in the ruins. Another crash. Clare and Max were fighting an all-out battle.

I have to do something.

She couldn't remember what it was. Her mind teetered on the precipice of flooding. If it did, she'd turn inside out, living entirely in her head.

While in the real world, she'd be paralyzed and helpless. Easy prey.

It's not me, Sally thought. It's not me—

The scenery changed. The trailers appeared around her. She shambled along, dragging her feet one step at a time like a zombie, propelled by this mantra.

Not me, not me, not me—

Wake up, girl.

"Goal," she mumbled. "See if the Winnebago has keys."

Maybe Max left them in the visor, and she'd get lucky. She could drive out of here. Floor it all the way to her apartment, where she'd hide under her blankets for as long as it took to process the horror she'd witnessed.

Not without Clare and Nicholas, though. She had to figure out a way to find them before Max killed them both.

She reached the Winnebago and opened the door.

No victory. That left the radio.

Dan, you'd better answer the goddamn phone.

She mounted the short steps and yanked open her trailer's door.

An apparition raised a pair of scissors to strike—

Sally smacked it in the face with the stick she still held in a tight grip.

"Ow!" Nicholas rubbed his cheek. "What the hell?"

She hit him again.

"Ow! Ow! Quit it, Sal! I'm on your side!"

About to whack him again, Sally lowered the stick. It had felt satisfying to rediscover her anger, so much healthier than terror's numbing toxins.

"What are you doing in here?" she said.

Smoking up her trailer, from the smell of it.

"If Max killed you, I didn't think he'd look for me here. I couldn't lock the door, though. It's busted."

Max had thought of everything.

"Why?" she demanded.

Nicholas glared back. "I like living. I don't know if you saw Johnny and Bill on the way here, but I don't want to end up like them."

She tightened her grip on the stick. "That's not a real answer."

"Fine! If Ashlee's dead, one of us would wind up being the Final Person. I figured if you and Clare got him, then mission accomplished. If he got you instead, I'd still win."

"It's the Final Girl, Nicholas."

"Don't be sexist, Sal," he scolded. "Anyway, while I walked over to meet him, I kept thinking what a dumb plan it was. I mean, you and Clare didn't take him out, right? If I hadn't made a run for it, I'd be dead now."

Sally opened her mouth to shoot him down but closed it.

Because he wasn't wrong.

"There is no final anything," she said. "He might be planning to subvert audience expectations by killing us all. Did you think of that?"

"Well, then we should stick together, don't you think?"

"Why? So you can push me in front of the camera and make a getaway?"

"Of course not." Nicholas huffed with indignance.

His performance was so convincing, though the calculating glint in his eyes betrayed him. Even if he hadn't planned to use her as a human insurance policy, he sure as hell imagined its wonderful possibilities now.

Sally eyed him with a quiet, seething fury. She thought about whacking him a few more times with the stick just because it felt good, but she had things to do.

"Break a leg, Nicholas," she said.

"Wait! You're leaving me here? What are you going to do?"

She reached into the closet and yanked the lid off a shoebox to expose the handheld radio. "I'm calling for help. Don't touch my shit while I'm gone."

Returning to the brisk desert night, Sally let the door slam behind her. She switched on the radio and mashed the talk button.

"Uh, Dan? Dan, are you there?"

White noise.

"Dan, answer me, please."

Nothing.

She slowly lowered the radio. "Oh."

They were on their own.

The radio burst to life.

"Sally!" Dan's voice. "Sally, is that you?"

Relief and terror poured out of her in a tearful flood.

"Dan, he's killing everyone, I'm so scared, you were right, I need help!"

"What's your ten-twenty?"

"I'm at the trailers! The campground west of town, by the beach."

"Hold tight, my love," said Dan Womack. "The cavalry is on the way. McDaniel and I are coming to rescue you. It's all going to be over soon."