Carrie’s smile was starting to hurt her aching cheeks. “You don’t have to, it’s just a little weekend getaway.”
The ranger said nothing as he returned to his car, stony-faced.
As she drove away, she felt the ranger’s gaze boring into her back. Her pounding heart warned her she wasn’t getting away from anything. Instead, she was diving right into a hornet’s nest.
2
Patrick
“Do you like scary movies?”
The sinister voice hissed out of Patrick’s car speakers as he’d paired his cell phone for hands-free driving. Under different circumstances it might have sent a chill up his spine, but the ID on his phone screen, visible from its dashboard mount, gave the caller away.
“Hello to you, too, Jen,” said Mikey, leaning forward from the back seat.
The voice cackled, no longer so creepy. “Tiff wanted me to call. Says ETA twenty minutes.Someoneneeded to go back for her fucking hair dryer.”
“The hair dryer at the cabin will probably be from the eighties!” a girl yelled in the background.
Patrick cast a glance at Jason, who was riding shotgun. He was worried Tiffany’s shout might’ve upset him, but Jason had turnedto the window as if they were passing an especially interesting cluster of trees. “We’ll be there in ten,” Patrick said.
“See, Tiff? Patrick’s not losing his shit because we fucked up his schedule,” Jen said.
“I built in a buffer in case one of us got caught in traffic.”
“Of course you did. All right. Later, losers.”
“Don’t call them losers!” Tiffany said.
“Fine,” Jen said. Patrick smiled at the exasperation in her voice. “See you lovely gentlemen in a trice. I anticipate our reunion with bated breath.”
Jen disconnected. Despite her usual sarcasm, she’d summed up Patrick’s feelings exactly. Anticipation with bated breath. One last meeting of the Jumpscare Society, before their old hangout got razed in the autumn.
Patrick had started the Jumpscare Society in his junior year of high school. His father had moved them from the nearby city of Fairvale after his sister Clare’s murder, thinking Cedar Lake was sleepy and safe. It had turned out to be too sleepy for his parents; his father escaped on countless business trips, while his mother treated her grief and boredom with the best rosé her husband’s money could buy.
Mom had been appalled Patrick would start a club dedicated to watching horror movies, especially after what had happened to Clare. She’d been ready to disown him when he and his friends had been invited to join the Rialto’s shadow cast, acting outSlasherfor the fans who flocked to the theater on October weekends and three days a week in the summer.
Patrick didn’t know how to explain it was his way of processing Clare’s death. There were so many questions no one could answer. Had her murder really been random? Clare had been the only Black girl at Sigma Kappa, but she’d recently traded bedrooms with a sorority sister. Did Patrick wish the other girl had been strangled by an unknown intruder instead, andherfamily shattered by the tragedy? It wasn’t a fate he’d wish on anyone.
Underneath the B-movie camp,Slashershowed that sometimes senseless violence happened for no good reason, and contrary to his father’s belief, no amount of money could save you. But more important, slasher movies showed there was always a chance of escape. A girl could fight back. It was like that G. K. Chesterton quote about fairy tales. The point wasn’t that dragons were real, but that they could be defeated.
The Jumpscare Society had understood this, that slashers were more than just one campy cult classic that flooded the town with annoying tourists. Patrick had sorely missed the club’s acceptance over the past few years. At Harvard, his friends in the economics program either thought slashers were too lowbrow or clamored for his opinion, as a Black man, on Jordan Peele’s oeuvre.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Mikey bounced impatiently in his seat as if he were a small child who needed to use the toilet. Jason and Mikey were cousins, and the same age, but Mikey’s puppyish manner had always made him seem more like a little brother.
“I’m driving the speed limit.” A weather notification popped up on the screen of Patrick’s phone. Chance of a thunderstorm later. That was fine, there was plenty of fun to be had indoors. Patrick swiped the message away.
“Exactly.” As if to prove Mikey’s point, a couple of cars passed them on the left, including a Park Services SUV. “C’mon, there was a little old lady at the wheel of that Cadillac.”
“I’m driving the speed limit,” Patrick repeated firmly. Mikey didn’t understand. He’d never gotten in trouble with anyone, thanks to Jason looking out for him in high school. If the cops pulled Mikey over, his blond hair and blue eyes ensured the most he had to fear was a speeding ticket. Patrick, on the other hand, walked the path of the straight and narrow—which was ironic, since he was anything but straight.
Also, risk attracted the unknown. Patrick hated himself for often wondering if Clare had inadvertently done something to draw a killer’s attention. Had she flirted with the wrong guy? Saidsomething flippant to a stranger? He would never know. Violence could be random, but he still felt it prudent to play it safe and not tempt fate.
“I don’t know why we have to go back there,” Jason said, his head still turned to the window.
Mikey spoke first, giving Patrick time to nurse his hurt feelings. “TheSlashercabin? Are you kidding? When it’s gonna be torn down soon?”
Patrick bit his lip. “I wanted to get everyone together. We haven’t all been in the same place since high school grad.”
