My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy #1)(63)

It’s kind of too bad, though. The no more money thing, sure —that means no more phone, next billing cycle—but she also had big plans for one of Rexall’s illicit recordings being instrumental in unmasking the slasher, or at least documenting a kill in grainy black and white.

But that’s Letha’s job, Jade reminds herself, staring across the lake while Hardy straightens his desk calendar and drones on about destruction of county property, broken trust, no more second chances, adult responsibilities, civic pride, misuse of cleaning tools checked out to her name, abuse of key privileges, Henderson Hawk school spirit or the lack thereof, and somewhere in there she unfocuses her eyes as much as humanly possible, wide enough to just float in some muted state of mind through the whole rest of her Sunday, wash up on the shore of Monday pushing slasher after slasher into her VCR, trying to find a line back to herself. She drifts off ten minutes into each, though. She tries to convince herself it’s about finding the right movie for her mood, but how can none of them be right, when they’ve all been right before?

Then, “Tuesday?” she says, looking around. With no school and no job, the days don’t really matter anymore, do they? She hides her head under her pillow, sleeps until noon, then sleeps some more. Well, stays in bed anyway, staring at the ceiling, wishing for a glass of water to ungum her mouth but not wanting it quite badly enough to actually go get it. Because, she hisses to Hardy, she’s not a go-getter, right? Everybody knows that. She’s a coaster, a rider, and where do people who go with the flow always end up? The drain, yes.

Specifically, that one in Janet Leigh’s black-and-white shower.

It’s a good enough comeback that Jade’s finally able to sit up and take stock.

Her dad should be at Terra Nova for the day, and her mom —why is she even thinking about her? It’s because of the debacle Saturday was, right? It is. It’s because she had to see her mom through Letha’s eyes, sort of: as the future Jade. As if. No way will Jade end up here—no way does she ever shack up with some version of her dad, no way could she endure that same question her mom must get fifty times a day: “But…

isn’t this the dollar store? How can this cost two dollars?”

One thing Mr. Holmes told the class one wistful seventh period was that nobody ever makes it past twenty with the same hopes and dreams and certainties they once thought so dear and vital and true at seventeen. Nobody except me, Jade had assured herself, but she’d also had to wonder if that was even a partially original thought—if every other student in history class that day wasn’t thinking the exact same thing.

It doesn’t matter. Come the very last day of July she’s eighteen, will be out of the house. Hopefully Boise is ahead of her somewhere, but Boise, she knows, takes bus fare, and bus fares cost money, and now there’s no more paychecks coming in, shit.

With that, Jade can’t seem to muster the will to untangle from her sheets. She’s most definitely circling that Psycho drain, is just sitting there ticking off the things she’s not: a custodian; a high school graduate; a final girl; welcome at the big Independence Day party; any help to anybody at all, even herself.

It makes sense, she supposes. Has there ever even been an Indian in a slasher? In Friday the 13th Ned wears a war bonnet and claps whoops from his mouth, does his high-knee dance, but he’s still the same idiot he was before. In Halloween 5, there’s another war bonnet, but it’s just skating past in the background. There is that one Indian dude in Sweet Sixteen, Jade supposes. Or, two, counting his grandfather. Along that same line, though: outside of Leprechaun 6, has there even been a black final girl before? Usually in slashers, the black girls are the friends— Scream 2, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. And that they’re in part 2’s means they’re a response, a bandaid.

She thumbs through her videotapes for something else that can count, that Letha could use as model, as guide, but there’s nothing.

Which is why she needs me, Jade reminds herself.

Not that that compels Letha to listen.

This is the part in the movie where Jade’s supposed to rally, she knows. She’s not supposed to mope, she’s supposed to be gearing up, pouring black powder into lightbulbs, hammering nails into the business end of a bat, that kind of stuff.

But there’s no camera on her, she knows. And there never was.

It doesn’t mean she’s wrong about what’s coming, what’s already happening, but it does mean that now she can sit back guilt-free and just watch it all happen from her I-told-you-so place, right? Maybe that’s why she couldn’t get into any of her slasher tapes earlier. In comparison to the one she’s in, they’re kind of pale.

But she will be goddamned if Hardy can keep her out of the water on Saturday. She’s gonna be there front-row, shoving popcorn in, maybe wearing a clear poncho and goggles against all the blood.

Just, what to do until then, right? When it was going to be her and Letha working together, the week couldn’t be long enough for all the slasher ground they had to cover. Now, without that, and with no litter to stab, no hours to log, it looks to stretch forever.

“Meddling kids,” yeah. More like a bothersome ex-janitor with big ideas.

Jade guesses she could always go in, try to complete her community service, but if Meg was watching her close before, now Jade’s going to be under a microscope. Granted, that’s better than Rexall’s hidden fisheyes, but still, it’s not the kind of attention she really wants.