Final Girls(36)

He rocks backward and the folder drops from his arm. It flaps open on the way down, spitting out its contents. Dozens of newspaper clippings fan out across the floor, their headlines shouting variations of the same story.

Pine Cottage. Massacre. Survivor. Killer.

Low-quality photos accompany most of the articles. To someone else, they’d mean nothing. Copies of copies, all pixels and smudges and Rorschach blots. Only I can see them for what they really are. Exterior shots of Pine Cottage, taken both before and after the murders. Yearbook photos of Janelle, Craig, the others. A picture of me. The same one that graced the cover of People against my wishes.

He’s there, too. His image is in a separate box right next to mine. I haven’t seen that face in ten years. Not since that night. I shut my eyes, but it’s too late. That single glimpse breaks something loose inside me, not far from where His knife went in. A croak belches from my throat, followed by a sick rattling as that broken chunk of myself pushes upward, black and bilious and thick.

“I’m going to throw up,” I warn.

And so I do, spewing onto the floor until every single article there is covered.





Pine Cottage, 6:18 p.m.

Quincy and Janelle stood in the cabin’s kitchen area, separated from the great room by a waist-high counter. It was Janelle’s suggestion that each of them prepare some aspect of dinner. A surprise, seeing how the most elaborate thing Quincy had ever seen her cook was ramen noodles.

“Maybe we should just roast hot dogs,” Quincy had said when they were planning the weekend. “We’re camping, after all.”

“Hot dogs?” Janelle replied, affronted. “Not on my birthday.”

So there they were, colliding with Amy and Betz, who had been tasked with the main course of roast chicken and several side dishes. Quincy was on cake duty, and she had lugged along an entire bag of baking tools to use for the occasion. A cake pan. All the necessary ingredients. An icing bag with detachable tips. Yes, Janelle’s mother and stepfather had paid for the cabin rental, but Quincy was determined to earn her keep in cake.

Janelle had an easy job—bartender. While Betz and Amy fussed with the chicken and Quincy decorated the cake, she set out several bottles of liquor. The large, cheap kind that came in plastic jugs and were meant to be poured into red Solo cups, of which Janelle had brought plenty.

“How long are you going to let Joe stay?” Quincy whispered to her.

“As long as he likes,” Janelle whispered back.

“Like, all night? Seriously?”

“Sure,” Janelle said. “It’s getting late and there’s plenty of room. It could be fun.”

Quincy disagreed. So did everyone else, in their own muted way. Even Joe, with his odd cadences and filthy glasses that clouded his eyes, seemed unenthused by the idea.

“Has it occurred to you that Joe might want to go home?” Quincy said. “Isn’t that right, Joe?”

Their unexpected guest sat on the threadbare couch in the great room, watching Craig and Rodney kneel in front of the cavernous fireplace and bicker over the best way to start a fire. Realizing he was being addressed, he looked Quincy’s way, startled.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” he said.

“It’s no bother,” Janelle assured him. “Unless you have somewhere you need to be.”

“I don’t.”

“And you’re hungry, right?”

Joe shrugged. “I guess.”

“We’ve got plenty of food and drink. Plus we have a couch, not to mention an extra bed.”

“We also have a car,” Quincy said. “Full of cell phones. Craig could call a tow truck or drive him anywhere he needs to go. You know, like back to his own car. Or his house.”

“Which will take hours. Besides, maybe Joe wants to join the party.” Janelle looked his way, hoping he’d second that thought. “Now that we’re all friends.”

“Technically, he’s still a stranger,” Quincy said.

Janelle flashed the exasperated look she always got when she thought Quincy was being a goody-goody. Quincy saw that same expression before both her only sip of beer and her single hit of a joint. In both instances, Janelle had used sheer force of will to coax her into doing something she didn’t want to do.

Now, though, Janelle’s frustration was amplified by the situation. Everything about the weekend—the cabin, her birthday, the absence of oversight of any kind—made her slightly manic. She was like a kid on Christmas Day, hyper from presents and sugar cookies.

“We’re here to have fun, right?” she said. There was something accusing about the way she said it, as if she suspected she was the only one there intent on a good time. “So let’s. Have. Fun.”

That seemed to settle it. Joe would be staying as long as he liked. The birthday girl again got her wish.

“What’s your poison?” Janelle asked Joe once the makeshift bar was complete.

He blinked at the bottles, alternately confused and dazzled by the choices. “I-I don’t really drink.”

“Seriously?” Janelle said. “Like, not at all?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “I mean no.”

“Well, which is it?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to drink,” Quincy said, again the voice of reason, the angel perpetually perched on Janelle’s shoulder. “Maybe, like me, Joe prefers to maintain control over his mental faculties.”