The flashlight moves closer to my side and half of the corridor goes black.
“Jamie?Are y—Fuck!”
The dull thud of a body hitting a resisting force sounds next to me and the flashlight jostles, hits the side of the bucket I’ve got a death grip on, and falls, casting the left side of the corridor in light.Instead of the bloodstained walls I was expecting, a large pile of wood and velvet and a mishmash of other materials and textures spills down the wall from ceiling to floor.Furniture and chairs are stacked almost six feet high against the wall.Wes reaches for the flashlight on the floor, and I use the short break to check that the glass didn’t go all the way into my foot.When my fingers come away from smooth, wet, sticky skin, I step back and breathlessly survey the structure in front of us.The way it’s been placed doesn’t make sense if they were trying to blockade the hallway.They’ve stacked too many pieces of furniture on one side and left the other clear enough for people to walk through in single file.
“What the fuck?”Wes wheezes, aiming the light directly on the structure.He tries to straighten but lets out a pained breath at the effort and I figure at the very least he’s winded himself from the impact with the barricade.Worst-case scenario he’s broken a rib.
“Do you think someone tried to block Heart Eyes with this?”I ask, reaching for Wes, sliding the handle of the bucket onto my elbow and latching on to his arm to pull him close.When he winces at the movement, I think we might have the worst-case scenario.
“If they did, I don’t think it worked.Are you hurt?”
I whip my head around to the darkness behind us and try to see if there’s a figure stalking through it, but I find it empty.That wouldn’t be his style.Heart Eyes prefers to strike when we least expect it.The slow walk is just meant to build the fear, build the expectation of what he could do to us.That what he could do next is always worsethan the kill before.
“It’s nothing.”Just blood pouring out of my feet.“Are you okay?”
He nods, even though his eyebrows are still furrowed in pain, cheeks pallid.
“I’m fine; let’s go.”
We run from the half-made barricade and I try to avoid the parts of the floor that glimmer.After the fifth or sixth piece of glass shreds the skin of my feet, I can almost ignore the shards altogether.It’s when the darkness ahead of us dissolves into a warm burgundy glow that I know we’re getting to the end of this path.Soon we’ll be in the hallway where I hid from Heart Eyes the first time.Back to where he first made his romantic intentions clear.Then I spy something propped up against the end of the hall and I remember what the others had said they’d found down here.
Campbell.
What was the last thing I’d said to him?Stay in the corner and keep your back to the wall.I never imagined that that would be the way we’d find him.When we reach him, my feet numb, both arms throbbing, Wes’s breath audibly restricted, I can’t just run past.The way Heart Eyes has left him demands to be seen.This is the most posed body I’ve witnessed tonight, and that’s how I know it was meant to be another gift.
I’m pretty sure if Laurie, Jennifer, and I had turned left instead of right when we left the VIP room earlier in the night we would have discovered this.Him.Campbell’s head droops low onto his chest like he’s had too many Kamikazes.The rest of his body is ramrod straight, pinned like a butterfly on display against the wall.And if the sight of the two knives shoved deep into the skin under his collarbones—more under his ribs and throughout his torso—isn’t confronting enough, the bouquet of roses braced between his bloody stomach and his tied hands certainly is.
We need to set that fire.
We need to get out of here.
“Come on,” Wes urges, and slips the flashlight back into his pocket, his hand encircling my elbow and pulling me back down the hallway.The bucket hits against my thigh as we pass each VIP room, poking our heads in and trying to catch sight of a smoke detector.Just as I’d suspected, the building is grossly lacking in appropriate fire safety, and it’s only when we get closer to the mezzanine that we spot one at the edge of the hallway that runs behind the booths.The one where I found Laurie and her cat-covered ass all those years ago.The one Laurie, Jennifer, and I ran down earlier in the night after I saw Heart Eyes for the first time.It’s a full-circle moment.
It feels like the final act now.Like we could avoid the face-to-face with the Big Bad once we set off the alarms.Maybe it doesn’t have to play out like the movies.Maybe the front of the club will burst open just when we need it, and emergency services actually will get here in time.I won’t have to go up against Heart Eyes.I won’t need to take on this role he’s been determined to put me in since he spotted me tonight, and finally,finally, this will be over.
“All right.”Wes digs into his pocket for the lighter and I notice the tight, pursed line of his mouth as the move pulls at his injured ribs.“Let’s do this.”
He’s holding it together, but I know he’s working on pure adrenaline at this point, so I douse the paper towels with hand sanitizer, leaving one sleeve to act as the go-between for the flame to reach the fuel in the bucket as we stride toward the detector.He flicks the lighter on while we’re still moving, before we’ve made it out to the intersection of the hallways, but the scrape of the spark wheel is drowned out by something else.Soft, quick steps from around the corner, near the mezzanine.They get louder and then—
“Jamie!Wes!”
I drop the bucket and swing the stake over my shoulder like asoftball bat.Wes’s knife comes up in the same instant and the flame of the lighter extinguishes as his hand reaches for the butt of a gun that isn’t holstered at his hip.If this were a horror movie, we’d make the perfect image for the poster, but then my brain processes who is standing in front of us.
“Jennifer,” I breathe, dropping the stake back down to my side.
She’s still holding the first aid kit, her brown hair tangled in a low bun, finger-combed into a messy, effortless twist that somehow still looks good.She looks like every Final Girl I’ve ever studied: tense, tired, but radiant with the kind of badass inner glow you can only get from being sick of the killer’s shit.And this is another promising development.
There are two of us.Three with Wes.Four, because Laurie isdefinitelyoutside.Maybe more than four since there’s so many of the daters unaccounted for.We’ve lost so many people, but some of us are still left and we’re going to get out of here.Together.It’s not going to be just one Final Girl draped exhaustedly over the side of a boat or laughing hysterically in the bed of a pickup truck.And the promise that Heart Eyes’s plans are going to fall to shit is the happy ending we all deserve.
“You’re okay?”The laugh that falls out of her mouth isn’t shocked like Stu’s was, it’s relieved.“Oh my god.Thank god you’re alive.And you found everything to set off the alarms.”
I can’t even respond.I can’t find the words to convey just how relieved I am that she’s okay, too.Not when I spot a figure behind her.
“Billie?”
My god, I almost forgot about her.She’s been gone for so long and now she’s leaning against the railing just like when we first came up to this level.From the way she leans into the rail with her hip, her legs crossed casually at her ankles, I’d think our nights had played out in two very different ways since she left.I glance down and noticethe dark stains all over the black material of her pants, the way her chestnut-brown hair is more tousled than before.Maybe not so different then.
“Can’t say I’m surprised you’re still around,” she quips.Her bored stare moves to Wes.“You’re a different story, though.”
