Russ Meachum stared back at him, his mouth gaping like a cheap blow-up doll, Cindy’s other cheerleading pom-pom protruding from between the wide, narrow lips.
Patrick’s breathing quickened. No. It couldn’t be. Russ was out there with an axe, hunting him and his friends.
Patrick yanked down the rest of the blanket, revealing the black plastic hilt of a chef’s knife sticking out of the center of Russ’s knobbly throat. Congealing rivulets of blood ran down his neck and soaked the collar of his uniform shirt.
Patrick’s stomach roiled with nausea. At least now he knew where the missing kitchen knife had gone. But if Russ was dead, who the hell had chased him in the woods? Who had killed Freddy?
Who was upstairs?
Terror coursed through him like an electric current. He swallowed, tasting bile, and briefly considered taking the knife out of Russ Meachum’s throat to defend himself with. But the thoughtmade him sick. The cheap knife wouldn’t be a match for the axe anyway. He had to find that machete. Or—
His eyes caught on a shiny object dangling at the waist of Russ’s khakis. A carabiner, with keys. Yes! The keys to the SUV. They were saved. Patrick could take them and go for help, although he didn’t like the thought of leaving Jason and the others behind. Maybe he could hide in the car and wait for them to return, and everyone could drive off together.
“I’m sorry, Russ,” he rasped, detaching the carabiner from Russ’s belt loop. “And I’m sorry you never got to join the Jumpscare Society. I’ll make sure your mom is taken care of.”
Patrick quickly scanned the room one last time. The machete was nowhere in sight. He hated to give up on it, but the car keys were more important now. The plan had changed. Surprisingly, Patrick felt good about it. He had his next step.
He just had to make it out the front door first.
Padding up the stairs, Patrick turned off the flashlight and stowed it back in his pocket. He pressed his ear against the cellar door, listening for the Slasher. The hardwood floors were silent. The heavy footsteps had moved on.
Patrick pulled his Oxford shirt away from the crack under the door, and slowly unlocked it, careful to not make any noise. He opened the door a crack and peered out, letting his eyes adjust to the moonlit corridor. The cabin’s interior was silent and deserted. The Slasher had gone. He hoped. The person who’d killed Freddy and Russ could still be waiting for him outside the cabin.
Patrick was just going to have to take that chance and not overthink the risks. If he wanted to help his friends, he had to make it to the car. He slipped into the hallway and then ran like hell for the open front door, his fingers wrapped so tightly around Russ’s keys he was surprised the metal teeth didn’t draw blood.
After the dank confines of the cellar, the open air was almost overwhelming. Patrick vaulted off the porch, unable to keep his pulse in check. His heart leaped in his mouth and threatened to beathim to Russ’s car. He darted for the passenger side and crouched like he was dodging gunfire.
Panting, he listened for any signs of life besides the chirping crickets and whippoorwills. He didn’t hear anything that could’ve been the Slasher moving about—but that meant he didn’t hear his friends, either. Despair welled in his gut, but he told himself to keep his eyes on the prize. Get help.
Checking the back seat first—he’d seen too many horror moviesnotto check—he opened the door and scrambled inside, slouching as low as possible. The sudden silence as he shut the door shocked him. The interior of the sturdy SUV was like a church. The only sound was his rasping breath as he grappled with accepting he might be the only one of his friends left alive. He’d been in the cellar for a while, and Jason, Tiffany, and Carrie should’ve found their way back by now after that tumble from the ridge.
It was up to Patrick to step up and be the Final Girl, even though what he really wanted to do was vomit his guts into the footwell and then curl into a ball until morning.
The thought of Clare kept him going. If she were alive, she’d want him to do all he could to survive. And hadn’t he gotten this far? Without a flowchart or schedule or to-do list?
Jason would be proud of him for living in the present.
The thought of Jason possibly hurt or even dead filled Patrick with fresh determination. He took a steadying breath. Time for a new plan. This was what he was going to do. He’d wait in the car for ten minutes, and if none of his friends showed up, he would drive until he could get a signal and call 911. That was the best thing he could do for everyone. Jason wouldn’t thank him for sticking around and getting himself killed, too.
Patrick took out his phone to check the time. Another news notification had snuck in. The man killed with the meat cleaver had been identified as Daniel Williams, 22.
Patrick sucked in a breath. Could it be Carrie’s ex-boyfriend? He shook his head. Daniel was a common name.
But what if—
He pictured sylph-like Carrie holding a meat cleaver and almost laughed out loud. She wouldn’t be able to hold down a grown man and reduce him to pork chops.
Then another thought came, unbidden, sending a shiver of pins and needles through Patrick’s body.
What ifMikey—
No. It had to be a random murder, of a random man.
But Patrick remembered the feral look on Mikey’s face when he’d attacked Russ. Mikey had always been infatuated with Carrie. Could he have killed Daniel before coming here? All part of his campaign to prove to her—and the world—that he could be a tough guy. He might have charged at Russ, believing he was Daniel, because he was afraid he hadn’t finished the job. Someone who’d killed a man with a meat cleaver wouldn’t be thinking logically. The modus operandi implied a crime of passion, not reason. That kind of irrational thinking might lead Mikey to put on a Slasher mask and take down everyone who might get between him and Carrie.
Patrick dragged a hand down his face, as if he could scrub away this train of thought. It was ridiculous.Anyonecould be behind that mask. It was a cosplayer obsessed with theSlashercabin and trying to pick them off, the way Timmy Thompson had in the films.
Patrick had always poo-pooed the pearl-clutching about horror movies. Movies didn’t make people any more violent than playing video games. It was all good old-fashioned Satanic Panic from middle-aged folks who wanted to blame society’s ills on things the younger generation were interested in.
