My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy #1)(104)

“How are we going to—?” Letha asks, then they both see the answer: there’s a sort of tunnel in, held open with fresh-cut lodgepole pine. Which explains why the chainsaw was handy.

But why would Theo Mondragon have been boring a temporary tunnel into all this rotting meat and bone, all this horn and hoof?

There’s no time to figure it out. He’s almost to the trees now, his chainsaw already ripping the night in two, its pungent exhaust seeping in ahead of him.

Jade pushes Letha in first, not because she’s suddenly valiant or anything, but to be sure Letha doesn’t chicken out, start running.

But would that really be so bad? She could stay ahead of her dad, scary limp and all.

This is already happening like this, though. For better or worse.

Jade still has her open hand to the small of Letha’s back when Letha’s muscles contract in a way Jade’s are already starting to: the smell in this tunnel, this literal hell hole. It’s almost sweet, but it’s oily on the roof of Jade’s mouth, too.

Thick and oily and there’s not a clean breath anywhere. Worse, they can’t see what they’re touching, can only hear it squishing, feel it between their fingers, and on their lips, against their eyes.

It’s warm, too.

Because… Jade tries to remember, isn’t sure she can: does decay kick off some sort of methane gas, maybe? She becomes extremely aware of the lighter already in her hand, that she was about to spark into light for them.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

They’re only about ten, twelve feet in, too. And hunched over, the only thing keeping the pile up is two X’s of cut tree trunks.

Is this his evil lair, what? At least Jason had the decency to have candles. At least Freddy’s kind of fit a theme. Jade doesn’t have time to wonder anymore, as Theo Mondragon’s headlamp is washing across the elk, the chainsaw idling. Jade lunges across, clapping her right hand tight over Letha’s mouth, pressing her back into the wall of flesh and skin.

Letha’s tears drip down over Jade’s skin, but, instead of fighting free like she could, Letha covers her mouth as well, both her hands over Jade’s one.

The light peers in but the stubby tunnel’s not a straight line, is more like a comma curving to the right. Theo Mondragon makes a retching sound, and now Jade understands why he really had that gas mask. This is even gross to him.

“Hold on, hold on,” Jade whispers to Letha, and Letha nods, and when the light flashes over her perfect face for a tenth of a second, what Jade sees to either side of her is the reason Theo Mondragon was prospecting into these elk: Cody’s pressed into the meat and bone to Letha’s left, and Mismatched Gloves is impaled on sweeping antlers to her right, one of the tips coming out through his mouth, the velvet horn dark black with gore, now.

And then Theo Mondragon’s gone, calling his daughter’s name elsewhere.

Jade lets Letha’s mouth go and Letha sucks air in.

“Now we can—” Letha says, pushing off either Mismatched Gloves or Cody to escape this fetid pit, but Jade blocks her in, whispers, “What slashers do is make you think they’ve left.”

Letha stiffens, is maybe going to make a break for it, but then she falls back, sobbing.

It’s the proper response, really. And why Jade isn’t best friend material, even if she’d ever had one? It’s because she’s not thinking about consoling Letha right now. What she’s running through her head is that paper she wrote for Mr.

Holmes, about how final girls curl up into a chrysalis before emerging as their true killer self. And what is this elk pile but a custom-made transformation chamber, right?

Everything’s working out. It doesn’t smell good, it’s dangerous as hell and twice as hot, but it’s also just what Letha needs in order to become her truest self.

“We need a high school annual,” Jade says. “Henderson Hawks, 198—when did your dad graduate?”

“You’re trying to distract me,” Letha says.

“No—”

“Keep going, please.”

“He must have passed through here for a year, a semester,”

Jade says. “And—and I don’t know. Something happened while he was here. Maybe he took a history class, maybe one of those four kids who bought it at Camp Blood back when were related to him, maybe he was there when Hardy’s daughter—”

“I wasn’t looking for you,” Letha says.

“Say what?” Jade says, trying to see through the darkness.

“I told you I was looking for you earlier, in the Pangbornes’

house,” Letha says, sobbing now, but quietly, thank you. “I— the sheriff did call, but, but—”

“Shh, shh,” Jade says, reaching across for Letha’s mouth, finding her shaking shoulder instead. Letha’s hands immediately clamp onto Jade’s own.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Letha’s saying.

“You were looking for your dad?” Jade asks, trying to give her a way out—trying to be sort of a friend, anyway.

“I was going to burn it all down.”

Jade tries to process this, finally says, “With that candle?”

She feels Letha nodding.

“Why?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Letha says, shuddering now, holding the back of Jade’s fingers to her mouth, speaking warmth right onto them.