3. TAKING IT TO THE GRAVE: A TALE OF THE FIRST GIRL (Oct 2007)

“All too many people believe that a nasty is

something like a hotted up Hammer movie.  It

isn’t; it’s something entirely different.”

 

n  Julian Petley, Two or Three Things I

   Know About Video Nasties.

 

Taking it to the Grave

A Tale of the First Girl

October 2007

Zoe picked bits of hay off her blue underwear. 

Zoe listened to the sounds of the horses moving below her. 

She stood, back to Brian, and slipped her underwear back on.

            Brian still lay behind her.  He straightened out a crooked joint and fired it up. 

He said, ‘You know, one day, Maggie’s going to walk into this barn, climb that rickety excuse for a ladder over there, come up here and catch us fucking.  Then I’ll have to pack up all my shit and make some weird walk of shame out of here.  Then hitchhike my way back home, knock on my parents door, get down on my hands and knees and beg them for forgiveness for dropping out of school to become some hippie farmhand in bumfuck Kansas.   Then, most horrific of all, I’ll return to my old life as a mild-mannered accounting student.’

            ‘Oh, yeah?’

            ‘Yeah.  And you know what?’

            ‘What?’

            ‘For the rest of my dull, braindead, excuse for a life, I’ll think about the homeschooled farmgirl with the blue cotton panties who fucked me like the apocalypse was mere seconds away.’

            Zoe took the joint. ‘I like blue.  I don’t like the word ‘panties.’  No girl likes it. Don’t use it.’

She took a hit of the joint.  ‘You know what I’d think?  If that happened?  If my mom walked in here?  I’d think about the handsome cityboy who smoked too much dope and talked too much shit.  And I’d think about how I fucked him like the apocalypse was mere seconds away.  And I’d think about how scared he was of my mother.’

            ‘I’m scared of you.  Her, shit, I’m terrified of her.’

            ‘She already knows.  About this.  About everything.  She knows all.  She sees all.  She wanted to walk in here, she would’ve done it weeks ago.  I’m a big girl and she gave me the sex talk long ago.  Case closed.  Besides, she’s got other things on her mind.’

            ‘Like?’

            ‘Like things.  Put your pants on, ok?  Time you got back to work.  The stable won’t clean itself.  Much as you might want it to.’

            Brian stood.  Hiked up his jeans.  Fumbled with the button fly.  ‘Worse things in this world than the smell of horse manure.’

He watched Zoe stare out over the acres of land that stretched beyond the stables.  ‘You looking for something?’

Zoe swiveled around on the balls of her small, blistered and bare feet.  ‘No.  Just, you know, surveying the land or something, checking out the breadth of my empire…’

Even though she faced him, Zoe’s attention was elsewhere.  Out somewhere in the cornfields.  He looked at her.  Hard.  Aware this was not going to last anywhere near forever.  Forever, hell, any concept of near future seemed beyond her.

She was beautiful. 

Long dark hair in waving ringlets that touched the tips of her breasts.

A face perfectly angled and proportioned except for hazel eyes a little large and a nose that curved slightly at the tip. 

Slender and sleek but shapely.

Smart and fierce and fiery.

Only seventeen and time would be kind to her as it had to her mother.

            She caught him looking.  Pulled a blue tank top over her head.

Brian said, ‘You’re a lot like her, you know.  Eyes in the back of your head, but you’re still looking over your shoulder anyway.’

            ‘A girl’s got to be sure,’ she said.  ‘A girl’s got to be sure.’ 

Fully dressed, Zoe climbed down from the loft to the floor of the barn. 

‘Thanks for the fuck, Brian.  If all accountants were like you, tax time would be a blast.’

            Brian stared down at her.  ‘Zoe.  When you and Maggie look over your shoulders, what do you see coming?’

            ‘Boy trouble.  Just a little boy trouble.  Nothing you need fret over.’

***

Seth didn’t appreciate Clive driving his 1971 AMC AMX Coupe.  He loved his fucking car.  It was a classic, no doubt. 

            Mauve.  Seth had a thing for all things purple.  In absolute pristine and immaculate condition.  Except for the coat of dust it wore.  

Nobody drove the coupe but Seth.  It was a long-standing rule.  You let someone else drive your ride, they run the risk of fucking it up somehow.  Motherfuckers weren’t so responsible these days. 

So he spread the word:

Nobody drives my car.

            The miles they clocked up, however, necessitated shift driving.  At first Seth was against it, but after falling asleep and swerving off the road a couple of times, he acquiesced to Clive’s pleas to please please please let him drive.

Inside the over-cooled coupe, Seth scratched at his beard.  From the passenger seat he said, ‘Longer it gets, itchier it gets.  Don’t know how you can stand it.’

            Clive said, ‘Stop fucking scratching it, okay?  You’re getting flakes of skin everywhere.  It’s like it’s snowing in here or something.  I’m trying to drive.  Jesus, never met a man with dandruff on his chin before.’

            ‘What?  You getting grossed out?  Thought nothing grossed you out.’

            ‘Dandruff.  Dandruff and boogers.  And shit and period blood.  Man’s got to draw a line somewhere.’

            Seth reached down between his feet.  Felt around the sticky carpet until he found the six pack.  He pulled two cans free from the plastic rings.  Tossed one to Clive, who caught it in one hand, his other still on the wheel.  Seth popped his open and drank.  ‘We getting close now?’

            ‘Fuck.  Are we there yet.  Are we there yet.  Are we there yet.  You’re like a child.  But, yes, for your fucking information, we are close now.  Be there by sundown.  Nice reddish-orange glow will bathe down on us as we kill us a bitch and her kin.’

            ‘I miss Penny.’

            Clive belched.  ‘Penny?  Shut up about Penny.  You’ll see her soon enough.  I miss Penny and Are we there yet?  I’m starting to wish I was in the van with Mom and Mitch.’

            ‘Yeah, but then you’d have to put up with them Christians.’

            ‘They’re not Christians.’

            ‘They look like every Christian I’ve ever known.’

            ‘How many Christians have you known?’

‘Plenty.  They come into the store all the time.  They rent Jimmy Stewart and Julie Andrews and hassle me about when the new Disney will be out.  Like I give a shit.  They’re too neat.  Not natural to be that neat.’

            ‘Just because people are neat doesn’t make them Christians.’

            ‘Maybe.  But they’ve got that weird glazed look in their eyes.  Like goldfish.’

            ‘Seth, you are one random son of a bitch.  Besides, Richie and Joanie are mass-murdering thrill-killers who indulge in drugs on a regular basis and who, I happen to know, indulged in pre-marital sex before they tied the knot.  Doesn’t sound too Christian now, does it?’

            Seth drained his beer, crushed the can and tossed it out the window.  ‘Yeah, but –‘

            Clive cut him off.  ‘Seth!  Fuck!  Don’t throw shit out the window like that.  Mom goes totally bat-shit when it comes to littering.  The van’s right behind us.’

            ‘It’s just a fucking can.  Jesus, mellow-out.’

            ‘You telling me to mellow out?  Don’t you tell me to mellow out.’

            ‘Okay.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Sorry.  Shit.’ 

            Silence. 

Seth broke it.

‘Besides, how do you know they indulged in pre-marital sex, huh?  What, you ask them?’

            ‘Of course I asked them.  Well, not them but him.  Not asking that crazy chick.’

            ‘What did Richie say?’

            ‘He said that Joanie took it up the ass before they got hitched.’

            ‘You’re shitting me.’

            Clive drank his beer.  ‘No, no I’m not. She wanted to preserve her virginity.  So every night, Richie gave her a righteous butt-fucking.’

            ‘Okay.  That ain’t Christian.’

            ‘Told you.’

            ‘Can’t believe your Mom likes them though.’

            ‘Why not?  They’re clean.  Well dressed.  They like killing.  They worship the legend of my brother…they’re like us, only decent.’

            Seth looked in his side mirror.  ‘Look at that van, man.  That is fucked-up.  Looks like a broken old man, running on happy memories.’

            ‘Grandpa used to drive it around when he’d pick up girls for the basement.  If it runs on memories, it runs on the sort even a degenerate fuck like you isn’t ready to handle.  That van, that van is part of the family.’

            ‘Wonder if your ex likes it.’

            Clive hit the brakes and pulled sharply off the road.  In the brown cloud that rose and surrounded the car, Seth felt cut off from everything but Clive’s anger and the strong possibility of his death.

            ‘Don’t you fucking talk about her.  You don’t say her name.  You don’t say the name of the person she looks like.  You don’t mention her at all.  You think you have to mention her, because it’s urgent, because my life or even your life depends on mentioning her…you go ahead and you think again.  You complain about the travel.  You complain about missing Penny.  Cool beans.  But you don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, evereverevereverever talk about,’ Clive hooked a thumb to where the old van had pulled over behind them, ‘her.’

Silence again. 

Something of a stand-off this time. 

Seth thought about his options as he stared into his friend’s broken and anger-filled face. 

One: he could tell Clive to go fuck himself and get out of his car.  Then he could drive on home for some quality time with Penny. 

Two:  he could punch the motherfucker, get beaten to the consistency of old fruit, dragged off the highway, disemboweled and his remains used as a fuck-bed for Richie and Joanie. 

Three:  he could open another beer and take out his frustration on the people at the farm later. 

He chose Three when there was a rap on his window.

            Richie.

            There was something else about Richie that pissed Seth off.  Half-truths flew around about how Richie and Joanie hooked up with the Mitchell’s.  None of them rang true for Seth.  He sensed history and clandestine thoughts flowing between Richie and Ma.

‘Hey,’ Richie said.  ‘Hey, wind down your window, Seth.’

            Seth wound down his window. 

            Richie leaned in, all perfect facial features and preppy checked shirt and tanned forearms.  ‘Everything okay, guys?  Ma’s worried.  She’s also kind of ticked about that beer can you tossed.’

            Seth:  ‘She’s not your fucking Mom, Richie.’

            Clive:  ‘Everything’s fine, Richie.  Sorry about that, buddy.  Been a long drive you know, I’m a little wired.’

            Richie:  ‘Yeah, I get you.  Okay.  Great.  As long as everything’s okay…’

            Clive:  ‘Everything’s fine, Richie.  Go on back to the van.’

            Richie turned to leave.

            Clive:  ‘Hey, Richie.’

            Richie turned back again.  All smiles.  ‘Yeah?’

            Clive: ‘Seth’s right.  She’s not your fucking mother.’

            Clive hit the accelerator leaving Richie behind wiping dirt and dust from his eyes.

            Clive:  ‘I hate that Christian-looking motherfucker.’

            Seth laughed and handed Clive another beer.

***

Inside the back of the van.  Ma Mitchell, Mitch Mitchell and Elisha Maher.

            ‘Have we stopped?  Are we going back?  We really should go back.  You don’t have to do this…’

            The old woman sat up sharply in the old, piss-stained mattress that she never left.  ‘Do you want the gag again, girl?  You remember the gag?’

            Elisha remembered the gag. 

The gag:

a strip of an old T-shirt that Clive would beat off into whenever he thought of her. 

He thought of her a lot. 

Elisha shook her head.  Definitively negative.

            ‘That’s good, girl. We’re doing what we’re going to do.  The literal wheels of motion are currently stopped.  But our thoughts and our plans are still moving.  Didn’t your time with Clive teach you anything?’

            Elisha’s time with Clive taught her many things.  It also made her a small fortune and a career.  She didn’t think it was an answer Ma Mitchell would appreciate.  She said nothing. 

            The old woman leaned over to her bedside shelf for a packet of cigarettes, took one out and lit it.  ‘You broke my boys.  These other girls, these other bitches, you and them, you all broke Jerome.  But we’ll fix that.  We’ll fix that.  He’s indestructible, my Jerome.  That’s his gift.  But Clive, Clive’s just a man.  And a man with a broken heart is something less than a man.  He’s a walking sorrow.  That’s all.  A walking sorrow.  You did that to him.’

            Again Elisha said nothing.  She rubbed her neck where her dog collar chafed and tried to count the links of chain that kept her shackled to the side of the van.  Anything to distract her from Ma Mitchell.  She knew the old woman was slipping again.  Many miles up and down highways had given her an understanding of the old bitch’s brain.

She was scary lucid.

She was far scarier staring off into space, punching her fist into her breast and silently mouthing words of hate and spite and pain at a person never there.

Beside her, Mitch was having a dream.  His ears twitched and he made the odd whimper.  Strange to hear such a mountain of a dog whimper. 

Mitch.  Big, mental Mitch. 

What dreams dare make you whimper, old boy?

Elisha couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of dog Mitch was.  He looked more bear than dog.  He was like a single-headed Cerberus. 

Clive told her, during their time together in the basement, that Ma Mitchell bought Puppy Mitch from the owner of a roadside attraction in East Texas.  He, along with the siblings he killed, was billed as the unholy offspring of coyote and werewolf.  The owner sold Mitch to Ma for a song.  He figured it was bad karma to have a kin-killing devil dog on the premises.

Ma Mitchell was so taken with the creature that she actually suckled him at her own teat.  Not only that, but she somehow suckled him well into the time when he could feed on his own. 

He said he had video of the scarring.

Even the dog had a myth…

Mitch perked up suddenly when he heard the driver’s side door open. 

He growled. 

Sniffed:

Richie.

All cool, no threat to Ma, he went back to sleep.

Elisha heard Joanie:

‘Is everything okay, honey?’

‘Yeah, yeah…just being a couple of fuckin’ assholes.’

Richie stuck his 80’s male-model head through the faded Super-Friends bedsheet that separated the front of the van from the rear.

Ma said, ‘Richie?  Richie?  What’s the problem?’

‘Nah.  There’s no problem.  Clive’s just a bit tired is all.  Forget it, Ma.  He’s already going again.’

‘Did you ask him about that fucking can?’

            ‘Yeah.  I probably shouldn’t have told you about that.  It was just a surprise, thought they had a touch more good sense.’

‘Glad you did tell me.  Can’t abide littering.  Won’t abide littering.’

Joanie stuck her head through:

‘Boys will be boys, Ma.  I don’t know.  I blame Rock and Roll.’

Elisha hated Joanie.  All neat bangs and pearl earrings and gold rings and sensible blouses.

Awful.

Richie, he was just as bad.

They looked like Christians.

Joanie said, ‘Ma, you okay?  You need anything?’

Ma looked square at Elisha and said:

‘You know what I need?  You know what I really need?’

Joanie said, ‘We know what you need, Ma.’

‘That’s right.  So let’s go fucking get it.’

And with that, they were back on the road.

*** 

George bent over to pluck tomatoes from the vine.  Kevin couldn’t help but watch.  Jeans more not there than there. Couple of firm peaches in tight torn denim.  George took to the life with far more ease and grace than either Kevin or Brian.  Natural born hippie.  Strawberry blonde.  Freckled.  Even wore a floppy straw hat and chewed grass when she wasn’t smoking weed. 

            He thought about Brian and the intensity of his thing for Zoe.  Brian, sweet and kind.  Zoe hard and paranoid.  It was totally one way.  Kevin couldn’t figure Zoe.  She went beyond boyish in demeanor, mannerism and attitude.  Unlike some girls he knew back home, however, Zoe was the real deal.  She broke a plank of wood over her head on a dare and shot a sparrow from the sky with a faulty air-rifle and seven beers inside her.  She was also sexy, no doubt.  Those long dark pigtails hinting at sweetness, belying the ability to kick-ass, shoot, drink, and, probably, knife-fight.  But she was aloof.  She could be mean and she was as intense as a smack-habit. 

            Kevin liked them softer.  Sweeter.  Genuine-girl-next-door.  Not girl-next-door-meets-pit-fighter.  George looked over her shoulder at him.  Winked.  Bit into a tomato.  Laughed as the juice ran down her chin. 

            ‘Aren’t there pesticides on that?’

            ‘We’re organic here.  But even if there were: worth it for the look on your face.’  George wiped her chin with the sleeve of her orange checked cotton shirt.  Took another tomato bite.

            ‘God.  How can you eat tomatoes like that?’

            ‘What’s the matter?  Don’t you like them?’

            ‘I like them sliced…or…shit…in sandwiches or something.  Can’t eat it like it’s a fucking apple.’

            ‘Yeah, well, I’m hungry, huh?  Someone’s expending energy picking all the fruit.  Someone’s watching the other someone bend over to pick the fruit.  I’ll leave it to you which someone’s you and which someone’s me.  Besides.  They’re soooo fucking good these tomatoes…’

            ‘It’s time for a break, don’t you think?  We should go down to the cornfield.  Take a nap.  Smoke blunts.  Watch clouds.’

            ‘I should run these up to the house.’

            ‘They’ll be here when we get back.’

            Someone came up behind them.  Maggie.

            Maggie said, ‘You guys can go,’ I can take these up.  Been for a bit of a walk.  It is a lovely day you know.’

            Kevin caught a look in Maggie’s eyes.  Her walks.  They were never for the fun of it.  For the sights or for the weather.  Maggie’s never walked.  She patrolled.

            George dropped a couple more tomatoes into a large basket.  ‘Oh, no, Maggie, it’s cool.  It’s my chore.’

            ‘It’s my farm.’

            ‘Can’t argue with the boss,’ Kevin said.  He forced a smile, grabbed George by the arm and began to lead her away.  Maggie made him nervous.  Zoe was a bubbly airhead compared to her mother.

            ‘Have you seen Zoe?’  Maggie asked.

            George looked at Kevin.  Kevin looked at George.

            Kevin: ‘Ahhh.’

            Maggie: ‘Right.  She’s in the barn.  With Brian.  Fucking.’

            George still looked at Kevin.  Kevin still looked at George. 

Beyond uncomfortable.

            ‘She’s a big girl.  I gave her the sex talk long ago.  Off you go.’

            George: ‘Thanks, Maggie.’

            Maggie: ‘Remember.  You see anything remotely odd, weird, different.  You see anything or anybody not of this farm.  You get the fuck straight back up to the house.’

            Kevin: ‘We know Maggie.  We will.’

            Maggie: ‘And you be back by dinner.  Mom’s making pie.  Some kind of pie.  Hell, I don’t know.  A baked dessert of some sort.  It’ll taste nothing like a baked dessert of any sort.  But you be back.  Or she’ll be pissed.  And the rest of us will get bigger pieces.  That must not and shall not happen.’ 

            George: ‘Sure thing.’

            Maggie watched as the kids hurried off through the vegetable garden, careful not to tread on anything grown or growing, down the sloping dirt drive and off into the cornfield. 

Maggie sniffed at the air and peered out and around as far as she could see. 

            She looked down at the bitten tomato George had discarded.  Open like a wound, the bugs were already into it. 

            She felt:

Tight

Ill at ease. 

Edgy. 

Edgy. 

Edgy. 

She popped the tension from her neck.  Failed to roll it out of her shoulders.  She picked up the basket of tomatoes. 

And decided to go clean her guns.

***

Elisha had no idea about Seth, but she knew something about Richie and Joanie.  Richie and Joanie were serial killer groupies.  They corresponded with killers in prison.  Richie told her he fucked Joanie while she read the replies aloud. 

They worshipped the legend of John Jerome Mitchell.  They intended to write a book about the killer nobody ever caught.  The urban legend immortal man-myth-monster-misogynist.  It was during the research for this book that they stumbled upon the Mitchell clan.

Or, more correctly, the Mitchell clan stumbled upon them.  There the details grew hazy and vague and had the stink of untruth about them.  Clive.  He heard about the handsome couple asking questions and sought them out.  Ma Mitchell said he intended to warn them off. 

Elisha knew better.

Clive.  He was a whore for fame.  He was addicted to narrative.  He dreamed away his existence with a false belief in his own creative genius.  Elisha knew he was out to secure royalties and to make sure he was a prominent and re-occurring figure in the book. 

He’d changed a lot since their last encounter.  Clearly more the man his grandfather wanted him to be.  Why?  What had happened to him?  Elisha guessed her own film was a major factor.  She knew Clive had seen it.  He told her so.  In fact, his first words to her in this sequel were:

‘Saw your film, you fucking bitch.  It sucked shit from a dead cannibal’s colon.’

Clive would have seen it.  He would have had to endure the total fictionalization of his relationship with her.  Of their time together.  Of his existence.  Of his entire concept of reality. 

Clive was not equipped to handle a distorted vision of his own already severely distorted vision of the universe.

Elisha, having written, produced and directed the film had total control.  She cast actors who looked nothing like Clive or her.  She knew Clive would hate that too.  That was why she did it.

No matter how much Clive changed, however, she just couldn’t see how he could put up with Richie and Joanie. 

They were living Ken and Barbie dolls with homicidal urges. 

They were film illiterate. 

They were sycophantic kiss-asses. 

They were trying to become Mitchells.  

This family.  The Mitchells:

Whatever they were, they were tight. 

The damn dog sucked at the matriarch’s tit, for Christ’s sake.   You need more than a fan club card to get in.

Perhaps it was just their willingness to go along with the mission.  The mission was all that mattered.  The Mitchells had gone military. 

An old converted van and a 71 coupe as tanks. 

Dreams of bloody revenge as fortification. 

Purpose honed bayonet-blade-sharp. 

Will and desire kevlar-hard.

Joanie and Richie: privates in this private war.  Differently uniformed, but if the Kamikaze is willing…

Elisha Maher: Prisoner of War.  Harassed and tortured into giving up enemy secrets.  Bracing herself for coming casualties. 

Thinking, What a film this will make.

Hating herself for it.

***

Maggie walked back up to the farmhouse.  The walk took far longer than usual; she kept stopping to look behind her. 

She sniffed at the air. 

She grimaced. 

She rubbed her eyes and tried once again to roll tension out of her shoulders.  She failed.  She rubbed her temples and tried to shake foreboding.  She failed.

            She moved double-time.  There were guns to clean and oil.

***

George and Kevin.  Flat on their backs.  Passing a poorly-rolled Kevin-joint between them.  Looking up at clouds.

‘I think I’m going to leave.’

‘Kev, why?’

‘Because this place…we’re all here supposedly on some old-school hippie trip, right?  Yeah, well, this isn’t the Summer of Love.  There’s too much 21^st Century paranoia.’

‘You’re overreacting.’

‘I don’t think so.  Maggie just…she just fucks with my head.’

‘The woman’s got some history, I’ll give you that.’

‘You know something?’

‘Nope.  You just know, you know?  She always looks tired.  Always.’

‘Maybe she misses her husband.’

George laughed.  ‘No.  No, I don’t think so.  I got the balls up to ask about him once.  She said her left her and that he was a no-good cowardly piece of shit that went running back to his Mom’s tit.’

‘Christ…nice to see they remained friends, huh?  I bet he just squeezed himself out from under her thumb.  She’s a strong woman.  I bet she’s got strong thumbs.  I wouldn’t want to be under them.  He’s probably still trying to scrub her print off his forehead.’

George pointed up at a cloud that looking like nothing in particular.  ‘Hey.  That one sort of looks like squinty Clint Eastwood eyes.’

‘You’re stoned.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You going to stay on here after summer?’

‘Maybe?’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.  I like it.  I love it.  There’s no bullshit here, you know?  We work on the farm, we spend all day outside, we take heaps of breaks, we get stoned thanks to Zoe’s little crop, we get paid, we get laid, we get fed.  There’s also an entire library of books for us to read and the time for us to read them.  I read The Red Queen the other week.  Fucking awesome.  I now understand why you so desperately want to screw me all the time and why I let you.’

Kevin laughed.

‘I feel…adjusted here.  I feel normal here.  I feel like I’ve stopped running.’

‘I feel like I’m in a fucking bunker somewhere, waiting for the nukes to start raining down or the terrorists to blow us up.  I feel weird, nameless, bad people are coming.’

‘You smoke too much dope.  You’re getting really paranoid.’  She rolled over onto her stomach and snatched the joint from between Kevin’s fingers.  ‘Give me that.  I should finish it.’

‘Fair enough.  Take it.  But it’s not the side-effects of that.  It’s the side-effects of living with Maggie and Zoe.’

‘Zoe’s a sweetheart.  Don’t say that.’

‘Sweetheart?  Sweetheart?  Anyone who can shoot like she can should be called…plugger or…fuck, I don’t know, deadeye or something.  Not sweetheart.

‘We’re here for her, you know.’

‘Huh?  What’s that?  Sorry, I was thinking about Zoe and guns.’

‘We’re here to give Zoe a taste of something normal.  She’s homeschooled, she’s isolated, she…shoots things.  We’re here to be her social life.  So…’

‘So?’

‘So, you shouldn’t leave.’

‘Why not?  Why am I all of a sudden responsible for the social skills of one particular misfit?  It’s not my fault she doesn’t go to school or hang out with lots of kids.  It’s not my fault she can put a bullet up a bug’s butt or beat up cage fighters.  It’s not my fault she isn’t waving pom-poms instead of sticks of bamboo and fucking quarterbacks instead of Brian the runaway accountant.  Don’t make me feel guilty.’

‘I’m not trying to.  All I’m saying is that Zoe needs us.  Maggie needs us for Zoe.  Yes, they’re weird and need serious couch time with multiple analysts.  Yes, there’re intense and unpredictable and moody and paranoid…’

‘Sell it to me, George.  I think I’m close to buying.’

‘Shut up.  Just shut up for a second.  They are special, special people, Kev.  Don’t you feel that?  I feel it.  I feel like they’re those people you only sometimes meet.  Those people who’ve clearly and obviously been marked out by God or life or the universe or whatever, for something different.  Something special.  And if they need my help in doing that, in getting to where they are going, then I’ll give it to them.’

‘You sound like a cultist.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘George, they are not going anywhere.  They never leave The Farm of Fear.’

‘They’re not scared.’

‘Now you’re being stupid.  Of course they are.’

Silence.  Kevin tried a joke about one of the clouds looking like something that it didn’t.  The joke was stillborn. 

Decided to change the subject instead:

‘George.  I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping.’

He realized, too late, that it was the same subject. 

George appreciated the gesture.  She changed the subject herself:

‘Shit, I wish we brought some food.  I’ve got fierce fucking munchies coming on.’

‘Hang on.  We’ve got Grandma Janson’s pie to look forward to.’

‘Oh, Jesus.  Now that, that, you should be losing sleep over.’

***

Maggie swatted her way past the clothes hanging in her walk-in wardrobe.  She walked up to the mirror at its rear. 

Examined the bags under her eyes. 

Wondered when exactly she’d developed the hard gaze of a hard man. 

Self-consciously flicked at a strand of dark but greying hair. 

Averted her eyes from the sight of her own image.  

Ran the tips of her fingers slowly over the mirror. 

Lightly punched the top right corner.

Muttered:  ‘alakazam.’

The mirror sprung open on secret hinges.

She reached up and yanked on a thin cord.  A fluorescent tube popped into life with soft plink-plink noises that for some reason always calmed her.

Beyond:

The arsenal.  Guns of all size, shape, weight and description.  All mounted to walls.  All gleaming from innumerable polishings from a disturbed, obsessed and paranoid woman.

Below:

The trapdoor.  Fitted so seamlessly into the floor it was near impossible to spot.

Below the trapdoor:

More weapons. 

Backpacks filled with emergency escape provisions: dehydrated meals.  Water.  Cash.  First-Aid kits.

Secret Final Girl files. 

A Tunnel.  A Tunnel that led under and around the house and out into the cornfield.

All this paid for by an ex-husband who married her for her beauty but left her for the compounding weight of a trauma never exorcised. 

He was shallow and selfish, but even the kindest of husbands could not have dealt with the irrationality, anger and paranoia she threw his way.  With the brainwashing she gave and the fierceness she instilled in their beautiful daughter.

Still, however shallow, his pockets were deep.  From their union came Zoe.  From their union came also the mother/daughter war chest and their homes hidden fortification and defence features. 

Maggie’s in-laws were big-shot owners of a Kansas construction company.

The construction was done clandestinely and permit-free.

Anything to cut Maggie loose.

The arsenal came from a friend of Fourth Girl:

 Batton Thumb was his name.  Monster-slaying was his game.  The procuring of guns for endangered and abused women was his hobby.  That and pro-wrestling. 

Maggie plucked a shotgun from the wall.  Felt its reassuring weight and coolness.  Rested the barrel between her breasts.  And held it. 

***

Mitch the Devil Dog sat on Elisha’s thighs.  He was quite the load.  Elisha lost feeling in her legs maybe five minutes ago. 

            Mitch’s fucked-up face was inches from Elisha’s.  He dared her to make a sound.

            His breath smelled like meat and shit.

            It cloyed in Elisha’s throat.  She could taste it on her tongue.

            Soft rolling growls escaped from between clenched jaws.  Drops of melted-marshmallow thick saliva dripped from his jowls onto her naked knee.

            Behind him: 

            Ma Mitchell.  Smiling hideously.  A finger to her cracking lips:

            ‘Shhhhhhh.’

            Outside the van, a skinny gap-toothed fuck with a wispy moustache pumped the Mitchells some gas.  He couldn’t take his eyes off Joanie. 

            She stood on tippy toes.

            She stretched her arms up over her head to the Lord.

            She sighed throatily, her breasts pressed tight against her blouse.

            Gap-tooth watched as Richie slipped his thick arms around her waist.  She responded in kind and the lovebirds kissed demurely.  Conservatively.  Sans tongue.  Sans passion.

            They needed death to stoke their fuck-fire.

            The golden couple.  Destined for one another. 

            They met online.  At a website for people with unusual sexual proclivities.

            Richie was trawling through member details.  Pathetic fucks with sad needs and sadder habits.  Would-be sexual extremists who believed that the ultimate in sexual exploration lay in rubber suits, double-ended dildos and anal lubricant. 

            Fucks who needed different skin color to get them off.

            Flab rolls.

            Armpit hair.

            Foot odor.

            Huge tits.

            Small tits.

No tits.

Missing tits.

            Blood.

            Shit.

            Piss.

            Animals

(either watching or participating).

Three-way.

Four-way.

(Insert-number-here)-way.

            Pathetic.

            Joanie read right.  Joanie read real.  Joanie read RANDY:

                        I DON’T BELIEVE IN ALIASES OR HANDLES OF ANY SORT,

                        SO CALL ME JOANIE BECAUSE THAT’S MY NAME.  I WRITE

                        IN FULL SENTENCES BECAUSE I DON’T APPRECIATE THE

                        BASTARDIZATION OF OUR LANGUAGE BY COMPUTER

                        CULTURE.  WANT TO WRITE TO ME?  THEN YOU TOO WILL

                        WRITE IN FULL, COMPLETE SENTENCES. 

                        I DON’T WEAR COSTUMES.  I CAN’T PLAY SUBMISSIVE AND

                        I WON’T DO DOM.  I DON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M

                        LOOKING FOR BUT WHAT I’VE GOT AND WHAT I’M DOING

                        AREN’T ENOUGH.  I’M THE RANDY LIBRARIAN.  I’M THE

                        NERDY GIRL YOU ALWAYS WANT TO TURN SLUT.  I’M THE

                        SCREAM QUEEN WHO’S HOT FOR HORROR.  BUT I WON’T RUN

                        AWAY SCREAMING.

            Photos exchanged and a few emails later, they met for coffee.

            Date number one:

            They talked highbrow.  They talked literary.  They talked cultured. 

They clicked.

They wanted to be sexual literary outlaws.  Bonnie and Clyde gone De Sade.  They wanted to talk to serial killers and write eloquently terrifying accounts of their exploits.  They wanted to use the material as sexual fuel.

Date number two.  Conclusion of:

Richie drove Joanie home to her parents house.  On route, he ran over a dog.

Joanie laughed. 

Richie thought maybe she was a fucking whackjob.

Joanie suggested laying the doggie corpse on the back seat of the car.  Joanie suggested using the doggie corpse as a pillow while they fucked.

Richie knew she was a fucking whackjob.

Joanie ran out of the car.  Scooped Poochie off the road, ran what remained to the car, trailing gore.  Whooping it up the whole way.

Richie couldn’t get his Calvin Kleins off fast enough.

It was wild.

The perfect couple consummated their whirlwind romance and fell

madly

heatedly

completely

in love.

***

Seth drained another beer, crushed the can in his hand and scratched his flaky beard.  ‘Fucking look at those two.  Just look.  So much for a low profile, huh?’

            He leaned on the trunk of his car.  He stroked it.  He tapped on it. 

            He and Clive had pulled over.  Waiting for the van to fill up.  He watched as Joanie displayed her feminine goodies to gap-tooth.  He watched the embrace with Richie.  The peck of a kiss.

            Clive said, ‘I don’t want you pissed, now.  I think you should stop drinking.’

            ‘In her, butter wouldn’t melt, my man, butter wouldn’t melt.’

            Clive, sick of watching from the rear-view mirror, got out, decided to have himself a stretch.  Seth turned as he did it.  Seth tried to superimpose Joanie over Clive. 

Failed. 

Said fuck.

            ‘You know what they say about the quiet ones,’ Clive said, approaching Seth.

            ‘If I didn’t have to hang with her and travel the fucking length of the country with her and listen to all her B.S about this and that and the nature of the fucking universe and if I didn’t have Penny, bless her sexy self, I would fancy the hell out of that Gap-wearing, tooth-whitening cooze.’

            Clive clapped Seth on the shoulder.  Leaned on the trunk alongside him.

            ‘You’ve been bitching about her the whole entire day.  You don’t have anything good to say about her.  You never have.  You called her a Christian for Christ’s sake.’

            ‘I know.  I know.  But look at her.  The sun’s coming down on her, lighting her up real nice.  There’s that nice breeze blowing at her skirt.  You see how her titties squeezed up against her blouse when she stretched before.  Damn.  From here, from back here, she looks nice.  She looks fine.  I know enough not to go any closer.’

            ‘You’re drunk.  You know you hate her damn guts.  I’m going to hurry this shit up.  Don’t drink anymore.’

            Clive pushed himself off the coupe’s trunk and strolled over to Richie and Joanie. 

‘Hey.  King and Queen of the Prom.  Let’s wrap it up and get moving, huh?’

            ‘Sure, Clive, sure.’  Richie.

            Richie pulled out his wallet and paid gap-tooth.

            Joanie climbed into the passenger seat of the van.  Clive got in with her.  He leaned across her.  Pulled back the Super-Friends curtain. Joanie grunted her displeasure at being squashed.  Clive could give a fuck. 

            Clive tried not to look at Elisha cowering in the corner, Mitch sitting on her lap.  The damn dog didn’t even twitch an ear at his presence.  He was fully focused on Elisha. 

            Clive clicked empathy.  He knew how Mitch felt. 

            He avoided her eyes.  She clinked her chains to attract attention. 

The wily bitch. 

Clive glanced at her.  Yep.  She still looked like Lina Romay.  She still did things to his insides he wasn’t prepared to admit.

            He touched his mother on the shoulder.  She raised a gnarled, callused, bony hand and lay it on top of his.  ‘Hi, Sugar,’ she said.

‘You okay back here, Mom?’

            A smell came off Mom Mitchell’s mattress.  She’d soiled herself at some point recently.  He was going to ask, but she’d just blame Mitch.  Again.

            ‘Fine, sweetness, fine.  I’ve got Mitch…look at what a wonderful job he’s doing…and I’ve got food and drink and smokes.  And I’ve got your little tart.’

            Clive closed his eyes.  Elisha saw it.  When he opened them again, they were on her.  ‘She’s not my tart, Ma.  She’s nothing to me.’ 

            Clive took one of his Ma’s cigarettes.  Lit it.

            ‘It’s not nice to lie to your mother, Clive.  I know things.  Mothers always know things.  This bitch.  She’s in your blood.’

            Clive pulled away.  Pulled the curtain closed.

He looked at the Super-Friends. 

He looked at Green Lantern.  Thought about how cool it would be to have that ring of his so he could fly the fuck out of here.

He looked at Wonder Woman. 

Her face changed into Elisha’s. 

She winked at him. 

She blew kisses at him. 

She hiked up the elastics of her star-spangled panties. 

She threatened to expose her Wonder snatch.

Clive took his cigarette and burned her face off.

Richie got in the van and said some shit about fire safety and the flammability of old cotton.

Clive ignored him.  Said to his mom:

‘The only thing in my blood right now is the desire for retribution.  The only thing on my mind right now is vengeance incomplete.  Let’s stop all this chat and go do something about that.’

Ma said:

‘That’s my boy.’

He pushed his way past Joanie.  Ignored a glare from Richie.  Went back to the coupe. 

Seth had his head in the trunk.

‘Seth.  Get your fucking head out of that trunk and let’s hit the road.’

Seth obeyed.  Shut the trunk.  Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  Wiped the back of his hand on his jeans.  Got in his car.

Clive peeled out fish-tailing as only a fucked-off comeuppance crusader can. 

In the van, Richie muttered fuck as he lost the coupe to a long, straight, dry stretch of road.

In the back of the van, Elisha hoped that Maggie really was as paranoid as she heard she’d become.  As edgy.  As fuck-questions-shoot-first dangerous. 

In the back of the van, Elisha hoped that everything she’d heard about Zoe was true.  That she was a young punk amazon with immaculate aim and her mother’s frayed edges.

Pretty much everything depended on it.

*** 

The Farmhouse:

            Zoe looked out her bedroom window.  Picking up on her mother’s vibes.  Scanning for non-farm lifeform movement. 

            Maggie’s Mom baked the unnameable pie in the kitchen.  Her dad read the paper. 

            Maggie pretended everything was cool.  Meanwhile, she was fully packed.  Wearing an unseasonably warm jacket to hide gun-butt bulges.

            Upstairs, she heard the boys swearing as somebody destroyed somebody else on some video game.  She heard the humming of her water pipes – George in the shower. 

            She stood, grabbed her keys from a hook on the wall.  Made her way up the stairs.

            Upstairs:  two large bedrooms, one for boys, one for girls, a bathroom/toilet and a third bedroom, converted into a small lounge, where the boys sat on the floor playing. 

            Brian was apparently getting the better of Kevin by simply mashing his fingers into the control pad randomly.  Maggie liked the technique.

            ‘Hey guys.’

            They both looked up at her from the floor.  ‘Hey,’ said in unison.

            Maggie dangled her keys.  ‘You should go out.  Take the truck. Take Zoe and George.  Go into town.  Make mischief.  Escape the coming pie.’  Her smile felt strained even to her.

            The boys looked at each other.  Brian said, ‘Sure.  Sounds good.’  Stood.  Took the keys.  ‘Thanks, Maggie.’

             ‘Great.  I’ll go round Zoe up.  Make sure she’s got her fake I.D.  You boys get ready.’ Maggie left.  Felt some of the tension ease from her shoulders.

*** 

‘It’s going down, huh?  That’s why you want me out.’

            Canny Zoe, channeling her Mother’s energy.

            ‘No, no.  It’s just been a while since you went out, that’s all.  I just think –‘

            ‘Oh, bullshit.  You’d be more convincing if you weren’t wearing your winter coat.’

            Maggie sighed.  ‘I have no proof, Zoe.  I have no reason.  I just have a bad feeling.  I’m probably going to be stalking around the farm all night.  Again.  I don’t really want you to see that.  Again.’

            ‘I have that bad feeling too, Mom.’

            ‘You have it because I have it.  That’s all.’

            ‘Mom.’

            ‘Right.  Let’s assume that they’re coming, okay?  Let’s assume that I’m not just being a madwoman and that the Mitchells are on their way with guns and horror.  I want you to get the others out of here.  I don’t want Brain and George and Kevin anywhere near this.  They’re here to help with the farm and they’re here to help you to be somewhat normal after all my years of what probably amounts to psychological abuse.  They’re not here to be grist for the Mitchell killing mill.  All your training with Batton.  All the work we’ve done.  If they’re coming, you have to get them out of here.  You have to protect them.  I can’t.  I have to make sure they don’t get what they’re coming for.’

            ‘Call Batton, Mom.  Call Selina.’

            ‘What?  They’re just going to appear suddenly?  Teleport from L.A?  No.  Besides, I can’t call them every time I get like this.  Go.  Please.  And before you come home – call first.’

            Zoe acquiesced to her mother.  Zoe gave her mother a hug.  Zoe took a handgun from her mother and stuffed it down the back of her jeans.  Zoe chose an unseasonably warm jacket to cover gun butt bulge. 

Mother and daughter laughed at how foolish they looked and how fucked up they were.

            But only for a moment.

***

George was good at taking a long time in the shower.  So good, it was like a super-power.  Once she got out, she jumped at the chance to hit town with Zoe.  Get her away from the farm for a bit.  Blow Brian’s ‘Farm of Fear’ bullshit out of the water. 

            Kevin and Brian drummed their fingers on an old sofa.  Waiting for her to choose a damn T-shirt.  Zoe sat with them, in the upstairs lounge, staring at a switched-off TV, hatching a plan.  Seeing it on screen:

            Hit town.  Skip out on the others.  Call the cops.  Spread out some shit.  Get them to the farm.  Get back to the farm herself.

            Fuck all this no cops, no outsiders Final Girl vendetta crap. 

            Fuck all this circle of secrets nonsense. 

            The Mitchells wanted one of Maggie’s secrets. 

            Maggie wouldn’t give it up.  No way.

            She’d take it to the grave the Mitchells would dig for her.

            Zoe wasn’t going to let that happen.  No way. 

            So on the long drive, she faked smiles more far more real than her mother’s.  She nodded her head to music.  Drummed out the beat on Brian’s thigh.  Waxed lyrical about the sunset.  Ignored comments about the jacket.  Ignored the gun sticking in her ass crack and convinced the others that a long night of hilarity lay ahead. 

            For a split-second, she convinced herself too.  In that split-second, an old mauve coupe passed them on the opposite side of the road.  Zoe thought nothing of it. 

The strange patchwork van which followed some distance behind it: that tripped a mental trigger.

            Her plan needed changing and expediting. 

            She grabbed George’s cell phone without asking.  Lent over and killed the radio. 

            The others caught the distraught and urgent vibe and stifled sounds of discontent and wiped frowns from their brows.

            Zoe demanded utter and absolute silence.

Zoe spoke her shit into the phone, her voice low and manly.

            Zoe pressed a button, killing the call.  Tossed the phone back into George’s lap.

            George:  ‘Zoe.  What -- ?’

            Zoe:  ‘Kevin.  Turn the car around.  Now.’

            A moment of puzzled silence.

Zoe: ‘Kevin.’

            Looks exchanged.  Mutinous talk contemplated.  Abandoned.

            Zoe: ‘Kevin.’

            Brian: ‘Turn the car around, dude.’

            Zoe leaning forward, jacket riding up.

            George glancing down.  Noticing the gun bulge out of Zoe’s blue panties.

            Kevin turning the car around.

            George: ‘Zoe.  What the fuck is going on?  Why did you make that call?  Why is there a gun in your underpants?’

            The others stiffening at the word gun.

            Zoe, hating herself, thinking fuck the circle of secrets, saying:

‘It’s a secret.’

***

‘Why’d you send the kids away, Maggie?  Gill made a big damn pie.  That means bigger pieces for us…’

            ‘Dad, I –‘

            ‘Shhh…she’s back.  Act interested.  Excited.  Something.’

            Maggie’s Mom approached from the kitchen, wiping her hands dry on a dishcloth.’

            Maggie’s Dad: ‘Mmmm.  Something smells good.’  A little too earnest.

            Maggie’s Mom: ‘Why’d you send the kids away, Maggie?    Ahh well, more for the two of you, I guess.’

            Maggie smiled weakly.  ‘It’ll keep.  Mom, Dad, look…I want you to pack an overnight bag.  I want you –‘

            Maggie’s Mom looked confused.  Maggie’s Dad took a deep breath.  Anticipating a quarrel reborn.

            ‘Overnight bag?  Mag, not this again.’

            ‘I want you to pack an overnight bag.  I want you to take the flashlight from under the sink.  I want you to go out the back door and follow the trail over and up to the Hanley’s place.  I’ll call them after you leave.’

            Mom: ‘Why?’

            ‘Because they like your company.’

            Maggie’s dad got short.  ‘Maggie.  Your mother is asking why you want us to go.  I wouldn’t mind hearing this myself, truth be told.’

            Maggie fell silent.  Felt the tension return to her shoulders.  In spades.

            ‘You’re carrying so much ordinance I’m surprised you can move.  It’s a little…unnerving.  Take off that coat, for God’s sake…’

            ‘I’ve got a bad feeling, dad.’

            ‘You’re always having these feelings.  For five years you’ve been having these feelings.’

            ‘Not like this.  Never like this.’

            ‘Once more: it’s been five years.  It’s over.  It’s going to stay over.’

            Maggie shrugged herself out of her coat.  Exposed a sawn-off pump action in a special holster on her left.  .357 Magnum on her right.  Gun butt lumps at her waist under a T-shirt.

            ‘It’s never over with these people, Dad.  You know the story as well as I do.  Pack your bags.  Please.’

            Maggie’s Mom pulled her daughter towards her.  ‘If these…people…were coming they would already be here.  Listen to your father, Maggie.  And even if at some point, they do come…well, then, we aren’t going anywhere.  We told you, Maggie.  We’re with you in this.  To the end.’

            Maggie felt a crack in her tough-guy persona.  Her mother felt it too.  She hugged her daughter.  Maggie pushed away.  From fear her tough-guy persona would shatter.  From fear of weakness creeping in tonight of all nights.

            I’m the First Girl.

            I’m the First Girl.

            I’m the First Girl.

            I’m the First Girl.

            I’m the First Girl.

            I’M THE FIRST GIRL.

            Mantra.  Affirmation.  Reminder.

            The First Girl put her own coin into tracking the other five survivors down.

            The First Girl instigated the Final Girl Team-Up. 

The First Girl led the hunt for John Jerome Mitchell.

            The First Girl, by right of ranking, drove her blade into the monster before the others on that night five years earlier. 

            She was the oldest.  The wisest.  THE ORIGINAL.

            Selina was tougher.  Pumpkin was prettier.  Elisha was smarter.

            But Maggie – she was the first to survive the monster. 

            The first two-fisted scream queen to go toe-to-toe with him and win. 

            It was a point of pride.  However fucked up she had become, however paranoid and delusional, however traumatized, that thought gave her strength.

            Maggie stood tall.  First Girl once more.

            ‘I want you to pack your bag…’

            The front doorbell rang.

*** 

Richie was pissed.  Clive was long gone.

            Lucky he memorized the route.  Lucky he had a back-up map in his back pocket.  Just as well Joanie had memorized the map and had a drawing of the route in her handbag.

            Clive.  You fucker.

            Thank God for pre-planning and contingency arrangement and foresight.  Otherwise Richie would be driving the van around the asshole of Kansas all night.  Missing vengeance unfolding.  Missing murder.

            Clive and Seth.  You fuckers.

            You’re already there.  Bringing death to those who deserve it.  Who asked for it.  Hogging the mayhem for yourselves.

            In the back of the van.  Ma Mitchell screeching into an old walkie-talkie.  One of several purchased at a surplus store months back.  Big old thing you could beat a man to death with, you had a mind to do it.

            Ma Mitchell cursing her son’s impertinence.  His recklessness.

            WAIT FOR YOUR MOTHER GODDAMNIT.

            There was no answer from the other end.

            Ma Mitchell fuming and ranting from her deathbed.

            Elisha stifling a smile.  Elisha hoping Ma popped a vein.  Had an aneurysm.  A stroke.  A heart attack.  Spontaneously combusted.  Anything as long as it was bad and permanent and fatal.

            Elisha thinking: 

            Clive.  When did your head get so hot?  Did I do that to you?

            Hothead Clive may soon be Dead Clive.  He might fuck up.  He might tip the Janson chicks off through sheer hot-headed foolishness.

            Forewarned is forearmed.  The Janson chicks were always armed.  Forewarning would only increase the amount of arming.

            For some reason Elisha felt proud of Clive.  Even as she prayed he was driving to a bullet-ridden death at the hands of mother-daughter furies.  Elisha felt proud.

            You’re not the brother in the basement anymore.

***

Guns cocked. Trigger finger super-itchy.  Maggie snuck a peek through the peephole in her front door.  Her parents hid behind the sofa.  Her father held her sawn-off at the ready – from skeptic to believer in the time it took the doorbell to chime.

            Maggie turned back to her parents far behind her in the loungeroom.  ‘It’s cop.  Or a guy dressed as a cop.’

            Maggie’s dad lowered the shotgun.  Stood up.  Rubbed his wife’s arm protectively.  Reassuringly.  ‘I knew it.  Ah, shit, Maggie.  Put the gun away and open the door.’ 

            He slid the shotgun under the couch.  He walked over to Maggie.

            She put an open palm on his chest, halting him.  ‘Dad.  No.  I don’t know about this.  It could be –‘

            ‘It could be what?  A trap?  It’s a cop.  Open the door.’

            Maggie rubbed her eyes with her gun-free hand.

            ‘Okay.  Okay.  Stand back, okay?  At least give me that.  Stand back…’

            Dad backed off, nodding,

            Maggie opened the door a crack.  Not even wide enough for the thick chain to tighten.  She peeped out.  Felt the pulse in her finger softly drumming against the trigger guard.

            The cop smiled. 

            He read real.

            He read authentic 100% cop.

Hands on hips, thumbs hooked into his gunbelt.

He unhooked one.  Lightly tipped his hat at the attractive middle-aged woman with the frizzled expression and the searching eyes.

‘Ma’am.  Sorry to intrude.  We received a report of a disturbance at this farm.  Are you a…ahh….,’ he flipped through a small pad whipped out of a breast pocket, ‘Margaret Mary Janson?’

Zoe. 

Crafty Zoe calls the cops.  Crafty Zoe causes a call-out.

‘I am.’

‘Right.  Well, I checked the property Ma’am.  Parts of it anyhow.  You alright in the house?’  He tried to peer around her, catch a glimpse inside. 

Maggie let him.  She unlatched the chain.  She opened the door further.

The cop saw Dad reading the paper.  He wasn’t anywhere near close enough to catch his hands trembling.  Mom sat beside him.  Hands folded in her lap. Staring out and off at some part of the floor.

Weird old spacey broads didn’t constitute a disturbance.  Didn’t constitute much of anything, actually.

‘Alright, Ma’am.  Sorry.  Appears someone’s got their wires crossed.  Sorry to bother you, Ms. Janson.  Alright with you if I take a look around the rest of your property?’

‘Sure.  Thank you.  I’d appreciate it…I…’  She shut up.  Wasn’t convincing enough to play the scared housewife.  It read phony.  The cop felt it too.  He looked at her strangely.

He started to speak but Maggie didn’t hear what he said.

Into the dying light came a man.

Into the edge of her vision came another.

They moved slow.  They moved silent.

They raised guns.

Maggie read it too late. 

Too focused on the cop: is he or isn’t he? 

Too focused on the uniform: real or fake?

On the body language.

On the facial expression.

On the accent.

On the role: there’s nothing strange going on here officer.  I’m not holding a gun officer.  I wasn’t inches away from shooting you officer.

She went wide-eyed.  Reflexes somehow overcame petrification and she hit the floor.

Shots fired ripped through the door.

Shots fired tore through the cop.

Bullets from his exit wounds stuck in her doorframe.  Shattered her windows.  Went wild and got lost inside her home.

Cop blood and bone and tissue sprayed.  The cop slumped into the door knocking it WIDE OPEN. 

He landed on the floor.  He landed on Maggie leaking and missing a face.  Maggie lost her gun.

Clive stepped over Maggie and cop corpse.

Maggie’s Mom screamed.  Clive shot her.

Maggie’s dad rolled away from the shot.  He had time to utter a groan of disbelief before Clive pistol-whipped him.

Clive turned back to a screaming and thrashing Maggie, reaching for her gun.

Seth cocked his gun.  Sat down cross-legged.  Put his gun to Maggie’s temple.  Said, ‘Shhh.’

Maggie looked up.  Clive towered over her.  Seth sat next to her.

Clive said, ‘Maggie Janson, I presume.  Nice to meet you.  This is Seth…’

Seth said hi.

‘…I’m Clive.  I believe you know my brother.  His name’s Jerome.  Where is it?  Where’s my brother’s head?’

Maggie.  From the floor.  Dead cop blood seeping into her clothes:  ‘It’s a secret.’

Clive squatted.  His knees popped.  ‘A secret.  Really.  You hear that, Seth?  It’s a secret.  You like secrets, Seth?’

‘No.  No, I don’t like secrets at all.  Secrets are the root of all trouble and disquiet in this world, Clive.  They make a man do things he wouldn’t normally do.’

‘Like what, Seth?’

‘Like, I don’t know.  Like bad stuff, Clive.  Like real bad stuff.’

Maggie laughed.  ‘There’s no way you’re putting that monster back together again.’

Clive and Seth exchanged smiles. 

Clive:  ‘That your pops over there?  Appears to be twitching, the old boy.  Shall we wake him all the way up, Seth?’

Seth: ‘Yeah.  Let’s.’

***

Kevin had had enough.  Guns and weirdness and high-speed pursuits of old hippie-vans gone Gothic got to a man.

He hit the breaks.  He pulled over.  He undid his seatbelt.

Zoe: ‘What are you doing?’

Kevin: ‘What am I doing?  What the fuck are you doing?  Jesus Christ.  We’re not going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on.’

Zoe undid her seatbelt. 

Zoe pushed past Brian and forced her way out of the car.  She walked around to the driver’s side.  ‘This is my mother’s fucking truck.  If you don’t want to drive, fine.  Get the fuck out.’ 

Kevin:  ‘No.’

The others spilled out of the car.  George put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder.  Zoe shrugged it off. 

George: ‘Zoe…’

Zoe: ‘There’s no time.  There’s no fucking time for argument.’

She stared down Kevin: ‘I’m not messing about.  Get out of the car.’

Kevin: ‘What, you’re just going to leave us out here?’

Zoe: ‘Better for you.  Get out.’

Brian: ‘Zoe.  You’re really freaking us out.  Please…’

Zoe looked at the kind boy she was fucking.  She looked away.  He was too much genuine concern for her to handle.  A whisper: ‘If I don’t get back to the farm, my family will be killed.  I’m not joking.  It will be nasty and bloody and full of pain.  And it may already be too late.’

A heartbeat of silence.  Minds ticked over.  Consciences weighed.  Consensus reached telepathically: What can you say to that?

Brian: ‘Kev.  Let’s go man, everybody in.’

They piled in.  Kevin drove off.  You could almost see cartoon bad-mood storm clouds black and rolling over his head.

Zoe: ‘You’re not coming inside.  I’m not letting you inside.’

Kevin: ‘You’ll be lucky if I drop you off at the gate.’

** *

True to his word and to Zoe’s satisfaction, Kevin let Zoe out at the rear of the property.  Zoe would have to make her way up to the house through the hidden tunnel door in the cornfield. 

            She stayed low, .38 clasped so tight her fingers popped every time she adjusted her grip.  It was dark now, so at least she had some cover, but it was nervous work.  

Tall stalks of corn snapped crisply with her passing. 

Wind and imagination combined to create rustles and footfalls of foes not present.

Ahead: the scarecrow.  The trapdoor marker.

***

Kevin thought it was all bullshit.

            Zoe’s instructions: Do not turn on headlights or radio or anything that could in give you away until you’re far far far gone.  Get out of here.  Call the police again anonymously.  Go into town and never come back.

            Against her instructions, they sat in the car, pondering in shocked silence.

            Kevin was up for splitting.  He’d had enough Janson girl bullshit.  Mother and daughter craziness.  Mother and daughter creepiness.  Guns and horror movie paranoia. 

Fuck it.

            George kept looking over her shoulder.  She felt weak.  She felt like she was abandoning the girl she wanted so dearly to help. 

            Brian, to his own shame, began to think that maybe accounting was the career for him.  Dreamed of a future numbed by numbers.  Blessedly boring.

            Kevin broke the silence.  ‘Right.  We’re out of here.  Any debate, save it for the road.’  He turned on the ignition.  Flicked on the lights.

            George:  ‘Zoe said –‘

            Kevin: ‘Zoe’s not here, George.’ 

            He paused to light a cigarette.

A squeak of front passenger seat vinyl as Brian leaned forward.  He tapped his index finger against the windscreen.  ‘What the fuck is that?’

            In the headlights.  Sitting in the middle of the track.  Something big and black and red-eyed. 

            Mitch. 

            The Devil Dog.

           

***

Zoe looked up at the scarecrow.  It was big and ugly and it worked.  Crows never came near it. 

            She squatted down, brushed some dirt around and found the door.  She cracked it open.  Cool air came up from the dark narrow tunnel below.

            She dropped into it.  It was shallow and narrow.  Coming up to her ribcage and not much wider than she was. 

            She squirmed into it, closing the trapdoor behind her.  She felt around for the flashlight her mother placed at every entry/exit point.  She found it.  Turned it on.  Saw a large cloth sack. 

            She popped the flashlight in her mouth and untied the knot that kept bound the sack.  She pulled out: 

Guns. 

Knives.

More guns.

            She awkwardly and hurriedly armed herself as fully as she could.  She looked like Elisha’s Furie fantasy – dusty and sexy and utterly PACKED. 

She crawled along the tunnel, flashlight in one hand, .45 magnum in the other. 

            Zoe would make the Mitchells shit themselves with pain and fear before they died as agonizing a death as she could give them.

            Zoe would do what Selina, her mother and all the others before her had failed to do. 

            She would give this an ENDING.

***

Mitch had left the van and Mom Mitchell’s side for a shit and a patrol around the perimeter.  Instead he found this:

            The holy trinity of quarry/prey/dinner.

            The truck rolled towards him.  He sat calmly.  He could wait.

            Brian said, ‘Jesus…it’s not moving…’

            Kevin said, ‘Well, it better fucking move.  I’ll run that ugly…whatever it is… down like the dog it might be…’

            ‘You can’t run it over,’ George.  Aghast.

            Mitch stood, shooting Kevin a blood-red stare.

            Kevin swore the thing was smiling.

            Kevin tried to stub his cigarette out in the truck’s ashtray.  He failed.  It smoldered away.  ‘After all we’ve been through tonight, after all this bullshit, you’re worried about some freaky animal?’

At that, as if sensing the insult and the intent, Mitch slowly backed away from the truck.  Eyes still locked on Kevin’s.

Brian.  The voice of reason: ‘It’s okay, guys.  He’s backing off.  See?’

Mitch made his move. 

He vaulted forward.

He leapt up onto the bonnet.  It groaned and sank under his weight and the force of his landing. 

He came head-first through the windshield. 

His own blood spilled down into his already red eyes. 

He didn’t care. 

He cut himself all over on the glass.

He didn’t care: 

There was an exposed throat in front of him.

He removed it with a snap of the jaws and a shake of the head.

Brian died trying to scream.

*** 

‘Stop fucking kicking her.  We need her talking.’

            Joanie kicked Maggie again.  The prissy bitch was deliberately defiant.  ‘Pop the dad, Clive.  She’ll talk then.’

            Things had pretty much gone to hell since the arrival of the homicidal Barbie and Ken.  Clive felt the huge surge of power and authority and control he had shooting his way into the house ebbing.

            Seth hovered over Maggie’s Dad, who still lay on the floor in a pool of nose-blood.

            Seth sneered up at Richie.  Daring him to come close. 

Clive rubbed his eyes.  Post-homicide adrenaline rushes could turn this into the mother of all fuck-ups. 

            Richie and Joanie smelt blood.  They wanted in on the spilling.  They went from vain, servile fucks to kill-crazy, blood-hungry vampires at the sight of the red.

Richie stopped pacing.  He held out the antique walkie-talkie.

Clive looked at him.  Looked at it.  Looked back at him.

‘Your mother wants to talk to you, Clive,’ still holding out the walkie-talkie.  ‘You think she was pissed about the beer can, you should see her now.  There’s so much bile coming from the other end.  Put your nose to the walkie-talkie.  You can almost smell it.’

Clive stared at Richie.  Screened a movie in his head:

Richie.  Being stabbed so many times you couldn’t even tell it was Richie anymore. 

Clive did the stabbing.

Back in the real world, the stare-off continued.

Richie’s arm began to twitch slightly.  The walkie-talkie was a bit of a load. 

Ma Mitchell’s insistence on the use of these cumbersome relics was ridiculous.  It reeked amateur. 

The relic crackled to life.  Carrying static and the voice of the matriarch:

‘What’s going on?  Where the fuck is my son’s head?  You boys better not have fucked this up, I tell you what.’

Clive sighed.  Took the walkie-talkie from Richie.  It was almost the size of his thigh.  Absurd.  He turned his back on Richie.

‘Mom, it’s me.  It’s okay.  We’re all here and we’re all fine.  We’ll have Jerome’s head shortly, okay?  Just settle down now, okay?’

‘Why did you drive off?  Why didn’t you answer me?’

Clive turned round.  Richie smiled smugly, thinking, yeah, Clive, answer that.

‘Sorry, Ma.  These things are so fucking old you know?  They were probably used in Korea.  I think we’ve got a loose con—‘  He smiled back at Richie.  Began fracturing his speech.  ‘—better—ont—ink—late—‘

Clive turned it off.  Dropped it to the floor.  Hoped it would break.  The thing thudded and bounced.  Built to last.

Like Maggie Janson.

Unlike Mr. Janson. 

Who he was about to torture.

‘Vampire Ken.  Vampire Barbie.  Go take out the phones.  Computers.  Whatever.  Check this place out top to bottom.  Check we’re alone.  Check to see we’re not going to get interrupted.’ 

Clive pointed his gun at Maggie.  ‘I hear there’s a Final Girl Jr. around somewhere.  Find her.’

            Maggie.  From the floor.  Spitting blood from the kicks.  ‘She’s not here.  She’s not here.  She’s not here.’  Too rattled.

            Clive picked up the vibe.  She won’t tell even if we kill the old man.  She will tell if we threaten to kill the young girl.

            Vampire Ken and Vampire Barbie rankled.  They threw out pissed vibes at the nicknames.  They beamed telepathic messages of death at Clive.

But they acquiesced.  Vampire Ken put his foot through the loungeroom TV.  Then they went up stairs.  Gun-toting, big smiling, death dealing supermodels.

            Clive picked up a framed photo from the floor.  It spilled from Richie’s TV kick. 

            Mother and daughter.  Neither of them smiling.  Both of them beautiful.

            Clive said, ‘Damn, some daughter you’ve got.  She’s no Lina Romay, but she’s a cutie.  She looks like Rachel Leigh Cook.  Don’t you think so, Seth?’

            Clive tossed the photo frame to Seth.  Seth fumbled the catch.  It fell to the floor again.  Broke this time.  Seth brushed broken glass off the picture and pulled it free from the frame. 

            Seth said, ‘Yeah.  Yeah, she does…’

            Clive said, ‘I always wondered what she looked like nude.’

            Seth said, ‘Yeah.  Me too.  Guy I know got some pictures, but I don’t know, they looked doctored to me.’

            Clive said, ‘Well, maybe we’ll find out soon enough.’

            Maggie eyed the shotgun under the couch.

            Maggie prayed Zoe was far far away.

            Maggie knew Zoe was close.

*** 

Mitch.  Covered in blood.  Some of it his.  Most of it not.  Snout deep in an empty hole of a throat snapping and lapping.  Fur a muddy cloying red.

            Brian still wore a look of surprise.  The word help forming on his dead lips. 

            Kevin and George had legged it.  Car doors flung wide open and left that way.  Together, screaming unrestrained.  Together, off the dirt track and into the field.

            Stalks of corn whipped at them as they plowed on through.  Running awkwardly.  Comically.  Knees high.  Tripping and stumbling.  Uncaring.

            Minds collectively conjuring up the Devil Dog.

            Snapping at their heels.

            Back at the truck: Mitch licked gore-smattered chops, washed blood-coated snout.  Huffed to himself.  Leapt out the open passenger door.  Cocked a leg.  Pissed long and hard on a hubcap.

            Boy Meat.  Girl Meat.

            Girl Meat.  Boy Meat.

            Boy Meat.  Girl Meat.

            What a decision I have to make here…

            George and Kevin split up.  See ya.  It’s been real.  Every man-slash-woman for him-slash-herself.

            Opposite directions taken.  Screams stifled.

            Boy Meat.  Girl Meat.

            Mitch plodded along trailing thick terrified scents and broken stalks.

            Scents diverge.

            Girl Meat.  Boy Meat.

            What a decision I have to make…

BOY MEAT.

***

On scuffed hands and scraped knees, Zoe crawled through the tunnel.  Built for escape not assault.  Built to flee not to fight.

            She willed herself to be calm.  She failed.  Sparring is one thing.  Shooting targets is one thing.  Kicking real live Mitchell ass was another.  Shooting bullets into real live human flesh was another.

            She thought of her legacy.  What she represented.  Daughter of the first Final Girl.  Daughter of the woman responsible for stopping John Jerome Mitchell.  Finally. 

            As close to Finally as anyone had ever come.

            What does it mean to be a Final Girl? 

            It means confusion.  It means the you that was is no more and the you that is is strange and new.  It means trauma.  It means empowerment through the slaughter and destruction of everything and everyone around you.  It means you are alone.

            I don’t want to be alone.

            I will not lose my mother.  I will not watch my grandparents die.

            Tunnel twists and turns were navigated and followed.  The destination was reached: Maggie’s room.

            Zoe put her ear to the hatch.  Straining to hear over her own heart.  For the first time terrified.  Her mind conjuring grisiliness:

Her mother’s ravaged body

            naked and outstretched on her bed

            hands nailed to the headboard

            eyes lifeless and glazed.

            STOP IT.

            OPEN THE HATCH.

            .38 at the ready.  Silence above signalling loudly:

GO AHEAD

            Zoe opened the hatch.  A crack.  Hands wobbling the hatch.  Wood knocking faintly on wood.

            Be still.

            Be still.

            A noise from the hall.  Footfalls.  Voices.

            A man and a woman.  They came into the room.

            Zoe eased the hatch shut.  She listened.

            The man and the woman smashed things overturned desks and bedside tables.  Pulled out dresser drawers.

            ‘Take out that phone.’ The man.

            Loud smashing followed.

            ‘Check under the bed for the little bitch.  I’m going in here.’  The woman.

            Footsteps overhead like a stereo sound effect.  In one ear and fading over to the other.

            Zoe could shoot.  Zoe could take her out.

            Zoe waited.

            The woman: ‘Honey.  Check this out.’

            More footsteps overhead.  Heavier.  The man.  ‘She’s not here.  There’s nobody fucking here.’

            ‘Look at this wardrobe. Why does this ole farmgirl need a walk-in wardrobe?’

            Zoe below.  Shit-scared.  Through the looking glass beyond the woman – a hidden universe of firearms.

            Clothes were riffled through.  Hangers scraped along the rack.  Walls were prodded.  Hit solid – probably with gun butts.

            The mirror was tapped.  Unknown guns beyond smelling of oil and metal.  Gleaming with the paranoid polishings given. 

            ‘Maybe she likes clothes.  I don’t know.’  The man.  He sighed heavily.  ‘I want to fuck someone up, baby.  I want to fuck someone up bad.’

            ‘Badly.’

            ‘Whatever.’

            ‘Look at this mirror.  She’s not pretty enough to have a vanity monument like this.’

            ‘She’s not unattractive.  She’s certainly not plain.  I found some old photos in the kid’s room.’

            ‘There’s something funny here…’

            More taps.  Sharp and glassy.

            ‘Fuck it, honey.  There’s nobody here.  Jerome’s head’s not here.  Let’s go.  Maybe you can kick the old girl again.’

            ‘Oh.  Wouldn’t want to mess up her face.  You sound like you’re smitten.’

            The lighter pair of footsteps landed above Zoe.  Passed over her.

            ‘Aw.  Come on, Joanie.’

            JOANIE.  I’ve got your name, bitch.

            The man sighed again.  Heavier.  Under his breath, something about: jealous trips.  Damaged goods.  Manipulation.  No time. 

            Fading from a murmur to silence.  Footfalls gone.

            Zoe counted off heartbeats.  Tried anyhow.  B.P.M seemed impossible to track.  She kept trying in an effort to stay calm.  In an effort to kill time.  To make sure ‘Joanie’ and her pussy-whipped man were gone.

            The waiting had nothing to do with terror.  With petrification.  With her body’s unwillingness to move.

            What must have been a million beats later, she opened the hatch.  She peeked out.  She gently slid the hatch back, convinced every minor scrape or knock would trigger a what the fuck was that noise from downstairs.  Nothing happened.  She eased herself up and out and wondered what she could possibly do.

            Phones smashed.  Computers destroyed.

            What could she possibly do?

***

Maggie:  ‘I’ll bite my tongue off before I tell you.  I’ll spit my lifeblood in your face before I choke and drown on it.  Do your worst.  Get out your rusty pliers.  Shoot out my kneecaps.  Finish off my father.  I don’t care.  You’re not getting the head.’

            Clive loomed.  Sour BO.  Sour breath.  ‘We’ll find her, you know.  We’ll find your daughter.’

            Maggie smiled.  ‘Good luck.  She’s halfway out of the state by now.’

            Seth stood.  His knees popped.  He walked into the kitchen.  He turned over chairs.  Tables.  He kicked at cupboards.  He put his foot through walls.  He ripped the kitchen apart.

            Clive needed calm.

            Clive needed order.

            A rattled Seth meant a winning Maggie.

            Richie and Joanie came down the stairs.  Silently.  Almost elegantly.  Like the clean handsome killers you find in the movies.  Clive watched them.  The screen in his mind opened for business.  It framed and contained the killers.  He slowed them down.  He watched Joanie flick her hair away from her face.  He watched Richie reach back and touch her thigh.

            He hated them for their beauty.

            At the base of the stairs, Richie waved Clive over.  Clive walked towards Richie.  Joanie passed him.  Beaming.  Strolled over to Maggie.  Beaming.  Stepped on Maggie’s kneecap.  Beaming.

            Maggie bit into her tongue. 

            Eyes on Clive, she let blood trickle out of her mouth.  A warning:

            I’LL GO DEEPER. 

            Clive:  ‘Back off, Vampire Barbie.  Give the bitch some space.’

            Vampire Barbie paused.  Locked eyes with Clive.

            Clive felt his scrotum tighten.  Joanie was suddenly ferocious.

            Vampire Ken – The Diplomat: ‘Honey, you’re not helping…’

            Joanie went tsk.  Joanie stepped off Maggie.  Bent over Maggie, hands on hips.  Bared her incisors at Maggie.

            Richie:  ‘There’s nothing up there, Clive.  There’s no girl and there’s certainly no head.’

            Seth broke shit in the kitchen.

            Joanie hissed at Maggie.  Said: ‘Tell us where it is.  I’ll make it quick.’

            Maggie laughed.  Said, Jesus.  Maggie hocked up bloody phlegm and launched it into Joanie’s face.  It hit in gobs and scattergun flecks.

            Joanie wiped her eyes.  Licked her lips.  Slapped Maggie.  Forehand.  Backhand.  Forehand.  Backhand. 

            Clive felt like a thread came loose from his mind.  He felt like someone was tugging on it.  Since when was he the yardstick for control and sanity?

            He walked over.  He pulled Joanie off by the hair.  Joanie tried to slap him.  Clive blocked it.  Headbutted her.  Joanie hit the floor.  Richie walked over, ready to fuck Clive up.

            Seth pulled his gun.  Aimed it at Richie.

            Richie stopped cold.  Frozen.  The iceman cometh.

            Clive rolled up his sleeves and rubbed his forehead.  He put a boot on Joanie, pinning her to the floor.  She thrashed and scratched like he’d pulled out a string of garlic.  A hipflask of holy water.

            ‘Be still.’

            She looked at Richie.

            Richie nodded.

            She was still.

            Clive: ‘Everyone needs to just calm the fuck down.  I don’t need any kill-crazy bullshit right now.  I need some clearer heads and some better thinking.  Joanie.  I’m going to let you up.  I want you and Richie to go outside.  Sweep the grounds and try to find the girl, the head, and whatever else that might be out there.  Okay?  Okay…’

            He let her up.

            Joanie beamed more telepathic messages of death at him, but played it superficially demure. 

            ‘Seth.  Put down the gun and please stop smashing shit for the sake of it.  Think of this like a mystery, okay?  Not too many mysteries get solved by shit getting smashed.  We need to think.’

            Seth lowered his gun.  ‘Sorry.  These Christian-looking mothers…’

            ‘It’s okay.  Forget it.  Just think, okay?  Fuck.  Leadership.  What a fucking drag.’

            Maggie stared on, unbelieving.  Slowly becoming convinced that maybe she could survive.  She looked at her father.  He needed to finish this fast for him to survive along with her. 

            She couldn’t look at her mother.

            Upstairs, Zoe listened.  Not breathing.  Not moving. 

            Listening and plotting.

***

Kevin ran.  Everything in slow-mo except the beating of his heart and the pumping of his legs.  He ran without reference:

To time.

To place.

To his own embodiment.

            Dislocated from everything except his own fear.  Terror reterritorialized the landscape into something dreamlike.  Shifting and surreal and alien.  Everything a threat.

            He popped a mother of a headache.  Pain either brings you back or casts you away.  It brought Kevin back.  It re-embodied him.  But still too scared to look behind – the Devil Dog could be chomping at his heels.

            Up ahead: a clearing.  Up ahead: cars. 

            He rushed onward.  The sight of the cars juiced him.  The cars became clear.  The cars became familiar. 

            An old '70s coupe.  Purple with a white racing stripe.

            Déjà vu up the ass.

            Next to it:

            An old, beat-up van.  A Frankenstein’s monster of a van. Patched together from pieces of others.  Grimly chopshopped.  Visible welding ran jagged like scars.  Cracks in the windows. Patches of cancerous rust.  It would be comical if it wasn’t so menacing.  The black van that flipped Zoe out.  The van she forced him to follow.  The van he lost when he pulled over for a face-off with Zoe.

            Slowly, slowly, he edged forward.  Muffled voices came from within.  Muffled voices raised.  One harsh and cackling.  The other soft but sharp.

            Listen close.  Let the muffling become words.  Filter out incoherence.  Distill sounds into words and words into conversation.

            He crept up further.  He peered through the passenger window.

            Bad vibes came off the van.  The things it must have seen.

            Behind him: a growl.

            He turned.  The Devil Dog neared.

            He hit the dirt.  He rolled under the van.  It was a close fit.  He tore his T-shirt and scraped his back.

            Mitch bounded forward.  Pissed.  He growled.  He snapped.  He rammed his big thick dog head into the van.  Tried to squeeze under it.  Snout only made it.  Jowls peeled away.  Teeth clenched.  Kevin noticed the damn dog had an underbite.  Mitch pulled back.

            Mitch stalked.  Mitch circled.  Mitch tried all the angles.  He couldn’t fit.  No way.

            Kevin rolled into the fetal position.  He hugged himself tight.  He shut his eyes and willed himself into a ball.

            Mitch charged.  He rammed the truck.  He butted he scratched.  He threw himself into it.  He would have Kevin.

            Inside, Ma Mitchell yelled, ‘Mitch.  Mitch.  What the fuck are you doing out there, boy?’

            No respite.  No quit.  Mitch pretended not to listen.  The Devil Dog would have his quarry.

            Mitch picked his spot.  He scraped at the dirt.  He dug and dud and dug.  He’d either dig his way under the van or he’d flush Boy Meat out the other side.  Whichever came first.

            Kevin opened his eyes.  Kevin saw huge paws shifting earth.  He saw a scratch in the ground become a dent.  He saw a dent become a hole and he knew.  He knew the hole would become a trench.

            The Devil Dog was on his way.

***

The man on top of her mother told the man named Seth to go upstairs.  To re-check.  To re-search.  He didn’t trust Richie.  He didn’t trust Joanie.  Too busy staring at each other’s privates, is what he said. 

            The man named Seth laughed and said sure.

            Seth. 

Another name.

            Richie. 

Another name.

            Zoe grabbed a marker from her mother’s upturned desk and scrawled her shit list on her arm.

JOANIE

RICHIE

SETH

            She pocketed the marker.  She knew there would be more. 

            She heard Seth.  He jogged up the stairs.  He moved quick and eager.

            Zoe stood behind her mother’s bedroom door.  Knowing this was her time.  She stood, breathing heavily, listening to Seth trash already trashed rooms.

            Zoe held a broken desk leg.  She’d wallop the shit out of Seth.  She’d make the other man come to her.  She’d wallop the shit out of him.  She’d rescue her family.

            Simple.

            Seth was close.  He swore.  He kicked things.  He punched walls.  He put holes in walls.  Looking for secret places.  Looking for severed heads.  Looking for her.

            Seth walked into Maggie’s room.  He scratched his beard.  He flaked on his Truck Turner T-shirt.  He looked about.  He froze.  He got wide-eyed.

            Shit.

            Zoe fucked up.

            Her mother’s overturned dresser on the opposite end of the room.  It had a mirror built into the oak.  In it:

            Seth wide-eyed.  Mouthing fuck.  Reaching towards the .45 in his pants.  Behind him.  Zoe.  Clutching a cracked desk leg.

            Seth grabbed his .45.  He spun.  He fired.  Zoe hit the floor and rolled.  She rolled into the door.  Inadvertently pushing it shut.  Inadvertently trapping herself in the room. 

            She grabbed her own .45 as bullets punched through walls around her.  She snapped off shots.  Too late.  Seth had scrambled for the cover of the oak dresser.

            Maggie’s room was big, but no place for a fucking shootout.  Zoe snapped off more shots.  She clicked empty chambers.  She grabbed her .38 and emptied it rolling.  For the wardrobe.  For the tunnel hatch.

            Downstairs.  Clive and Maggie looked at each other.  Looked up towards the direction of the shots.  Clive said fuck and stepped forward.  Maggie threw herself into his knee, chop-blocking him down.  His momentum rolled him over and Maggie was on top.

            Maggie bit.

            Maggie raked.

            Maggie gouged.

            Maggie punched his throat his nose his balls.

            Clive tried to cover up with one hand.  He gasped.  He hacked.  He popped tears.  He hauled off.  He punched Maggie in the jaw.  Her head snapped back.  Her eyes glazed.  She refocused.  She threw herself forward.  On top once more.

            Maggie attacked him renewed.  Frenzied.  She punched Clive so hard and so fast that she broke her fingers.  She drove two of her knuckles halfway back towards her wrist.

            Clive punched her again.  Kicked her off with his feet.  Maggie landed hard.  Maggie landed on the old walkie-talkie.  Broken hands grabbed at it.  Twitching arms hefted it. 

            Clive was up.  Wiping blood out of his eyes.  He stepped towards her.  He stepped right into Maggie’s swing.  The walkie-talkie smashed into his face.

            Upstairs:

            Seth had shot wild.  Seth had shot stupid.  Seth had near shat himself seeing the wild, club-wielding snarling chick in the mirror.

            If he found her at all, Seth expected her cowed and quivering.  He was fucking wrong.

            Scary as the shooting was, the silence was more so.  Seth checked himself for holes and leaks.  Trembling, he reloaded.  He made his move.  He leapt up.  He shot.  He emptied his gun inside an empty room.

            Zoe was gone.

*** 

Richie and Joanie had reconciled their earlier fight. 

            When they heard the shots from the house, they were looking up at the moon.  They pledged to each other that once this was done, once John Jerome Mitchell lived and breathed again, that they would settle down.  That they would breed.  That they would bring forth a child of such perfection that it would break hearts.  That it would melt minds.  That it would have opportunities laying in wait before it.

            They wanted a girl.  They would name her Edwina.  They would call her Ed for short.  After a serial killer of huge importance and notoriety. 

            The shots stopped the talk.  They turned back to the house.  They began a jog.  Guns at the ready.

            Richie hit the lead.  He quickened the pace.  He ran track in college.  He could run a 9.9 when not loaded down with ordinance. 

            Joanie watched her husband get further and further ahead.  She wanted to catch him.  She wanted to overtake him.  She wanted to burst into the house and empty her gun into Maggie’s face and use her brains as lubricant.  But:

            Peripherally she saw something.  Faint and fast.  She stopped.  She turned.

            Behind her.  Running for her life.

            A girl.

            Joanie took off after the girl.  The sight of actual prey juiced her.  She knew where the girl was headed.

            Just out of sight: 

            The stables lay ahead.

*** 

Upstairs:  Seth slumped over the dresser.  Relieved to be alive.  Relieved to be alone.  Thinking: there’s a way out.  Something in this room.  A crawlspace.  A doorway.  Something. 

            Downstairs: Maggie pummeling Clive with the walkie-talkie.  Screaming: ZOE.  GET OUT.  GET OUT.  GET OUT.

            Clive a mess.  Facial cuts pumping crimson.  Left eye swelling shut.  Teeth loose/cracked/swallowed whole.

            Upstairs: Seth.  Skittish hunter who worked up the nut to get on the move.  He looked high.  Nothing.  He looked wide.  Nothing.  He looked low.  Jackpot.  A faint outline.  A minuscule seam.  A square hatch.

            Reloaded, ready, he ripped the hatch open.  Peered in.  Nothing but black.  He looked around the bedroom. Grabbed an overturned lamp, lampshade hanging skewiff.  Yanked at the cord.  Pulled it over to the hatch.  Turned it on.  Thought: miracle of miracles, something goes right.  The lamp blinked on.  Peered back into the blackness.  Felt a draft against his face.

            Fuck.  A tunnel.  Who the fuck has a tunnel? 

            He stuck his head all the way inside, half-expecting to have it blown off.

            From in, echoing down: scratching, breathing.  The little hellcat on the move.

            In the tunnel: Zoe knowing she’d blown it.  Knowing she’d messed up.  She saw a small sack leaning against the tunnel wall.  She opened the sack.  She poured out the contents: thumbtacks.  She spread them around, sobbing, grieving.  Knowing in her heart that this was it.  That she was part of a process now.  A process that her mother before her went though.

            She was becoming a Final Girl.

            Downstairs:  Richie enters the house.  He steps over the cop-corpse.  He sees Maggie wailing on Clive.

            Richie ran over.  He hauled Maggie up thrashing and screaming.  He threw her headfirst into a wall.  Maggie lay still.  Plaster like powdered snow crowned her.

            Clive was up.  Clive said thanks through busted lips. 

            Out of character, Richie thought.  Beat goofy, Richie thought.

            Seth charged down the stairs, so fast he tripped over his own feet.  He grabbed the banister with both hands.  Dropping his gun.  It tumbled down.

            Clive closed his eyes, imagining a discharge.  A stray bullet.  The way this was going, it would punch him between the eyes.  He almost prayed it would happen.

            It didn’t.

            Seth regained composure.  Scrambled for his gun.  Screamed wacky shit about escape and tunnels and a little girl with a lot of balls and a lot of bullets.

            Clive opened his eyes.  He spat out a tooth.  He said, ‘What?’

            Seth took him upstairs.  Seth showed him.  The hatch.  The tunnel.  Clive went down it, first ordering Richie to find his missing wife and Seth to stay with Maggie.

            Clive crawled.  Let’s see how tough the old girl is with her daughter cut into pieces in front of her.

            Let’s see.

***

Joanie opened the stable door.  Slowly.  Enjoying the drama of it.  Enjoying the fear psychologically encoded into loud creaking noises.

            The horses stirred.  Whinnied some.  They were beautiful in their skittishness.  Already palpably picking up the fear-vibes the hidden girl threw out. 

            Joanie shot the grey one first.  She always thought they were kind of grotesque, the grey ones.  It slumped over, half its head missing.  Joanie pumped her shotgun.  She giggled.  High and girlish, but demented. 

            The other four horses went mad at the booming of the gun.  They bucked.  They kicked against the wooden stable walls.  They neighed and made that awful noise only terrified horses can make.

            Joanie yelled, ‘Come out.  Come on, little girl, come out.’

            She shot the white gelding next.  Several times.  Then the brown Philly.  Finally, the young dark foal.

            She laughed at her slaughter.  She beheld her butchery and licked her thick sexy lips.  She stood by the foal.  She dipped her fingers in its blood and painted her mouth harlot red.  She smacked her lips together.  She walked over twitching bodies of blown-apart equines.  Giggling all the while.  Savouring the saltiness on her lips.

            George was upstairs in the small loft.  Only hours earlier, Zoe and Brian had made love here.  Where they lay and clutched each other, George now lay.  She clutched a rusty pitchfork.

            She listened to the woman below whooping and cackling.  Intermittently screaming GET OUT HERE.  From laughter to rage in an instant.

            When the horses were gunned down, George vomited.  She pissed herself.  She clutched her pitchfork and prayed for deliverance.

            Instead, George got Richie.

            He came running in, alarmed by the gunfire.  ‘Where did you go?  Where did you go?  You disappeared…’

            ‘Hey, baby.  I saw the girl.  She’s in here.’

            ‘The girl was in the house, Joanie.  Shit…things went to hell.  Tunnels.  There’s a fucking tunnel leading out into the field somewhere.  It connects to the crawlspace under the house.  We should have known about that.  This family.  They can shoot.  They can fight.  We should have known about that, too.  Elisha’s holding out on us.’

            ‘Then there’s another girl.’

            ‘Maggie, she beat the shit out of Clive.  He’s a mess.  Seth and the girl got into a gunfight.  Seth makes it sound like he’s lucky to escape with his balls.  The girl split.  Where did you get to?’

            ‘I told you.  There was a girl.  I followed her in here.’

            ‘Jesus.  The horses.’

            Joanie let loose another giggle.  ‘Yeah.  I’m playing boogeyman with this bitch’s head.’

            ‘That’s hot.  Jesus, you slaughtered them.  There’s another girl?’

            ‘Yes.  There is another girl.  That is what I’ve been saying since you burst in here.’

            ‘Well, let’s roust the filly out.’

            They kissed.  Richie squeezed Joanie’s ass and sucked the horse blood from her lips.  Joanie sucked at his tongue and nipped at his mouth.  She drew some blood.  She sucked at it.  She moaned.  He reached down.  He felt the heat come off her crotch.  He wanted to taste her there.  But business first.

            He pulled back.  He drew in breath.  He sighed.  He glanced around the stable.  He looked up.  He saw the loft.  He tracked it with his eyes.  He saw the rickety ladder.  ‘You check up there?’

            ‘Not yet.’

            ‘Well, let’s get to it.’

            At the sound of the ladder being climbed, George pushed her up against the wall.  Pitchfork pathetically at the ready.  Richie and Joanie appeared.  It didn’t take them long to see her.  Hay-covered.  Quivering.  Pitchfork outstretched.

            Joanie giggled hee-hee.

            Richie said, ‘Little girl, what do you plan on doing with that?’

***

Zoe crawled.  She sobbed.  Sprinkled thumbtacks behind her.  In the distance: the faint scratchings of someone coming for her.  She didn’t know what to do.  Get the head and run.  Try and find another way back and save her family.

            She cursed her mother for making her feel ready for this.  She cursed her mother for the strength that drove her forward. 

            Grab the head.  Hit the road.  Embrace the Final Girl way: leave the dead behind.  She was the only one left.  The weight of it hurt her.  The responsibility of it jumped on her back. 

            Clive came forward.  Stunned by the tunnel.  By the insanity of it.  By the disturbed, paranoid brilliance of it.  He picked up his pace.  He couldn’t hear the girl’s sobs any more.  There was a good chance she was already outside. 

            Richie and Joanie might see her.

            Richie and Joanie might catch her.

            Fat fucking chance.

            And if they did, would they keep her alive?

            Sharp pains in his palm.  He should have brought a fucking flashlight.  Another error.  One fuck-up piggybacked another.  He swore.  Felt his palm.  Pulled out two thumbtacks.

            Oh shit.

            He gingerly felt forward.  Pin-pricks lay ahead and all around.

            No room to turn around.  He could reverse-crawl back to the house.  He could.  He would lose the girl for sure if he did. 

            He sucked it up.  He moved forward.  Pins stuck him.  Pins pricked him.  He drove them into his palms/elbows/ knees/shins.  He cried out in anger and pain.  He howled with hate.  He stumbled.  He fell forward, chest-first.  He shot up.  He smashed his head into the top of the tunnel.  He shook his hand.  Some tacks shook loose.  Most didn’t.  Her thought about performance artists and Indian gurus hanging from meathooks, pulling cars with chains attached to the hooks.  Driving needles through tongues and cheeks.

            He thought about tribes of Native Americans who used pain to transcend the physical realm.  He tried to transcend.  He strained for a hint of transcendence, 

            The closest he got was a vision of a topless Lina Romay in Ilsa the Wicked Warden a.k.a Greta, the Mad Butcher.  Lina getting needles stuck into her tits by a heavy-breasted wig-wearing Dianne Thorne. 

Lina morphed into Elisha.  Elisha opened her eyes.  She said, ‘Stick me Clive.’

Clive screamed again.  Hit his head again.  Deliberately this time.  Forced himself to cataloge Lina movies chronologically in his head:

            1972:  The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein

            1973: The Loves of Irina

            1974: Lorna, The Exorcist

            1975: The Picture of Doriana Gray

            1975: Barbed Wire Dolls

            1975: DeSade’s Juliette

            1975: The Shining Sex

            1976: Jack the Ripper

            1977: Ilsa, The Wicked Warden

            1979: White Cannibal Queen

He got through the field of tacks at 1980’s Eugenie.  He saw a shaft of Bluish light ahead.  He crawled into the light.  He hauled himself out of the tunnel.  He lay on his back.  He pulled out thumbtacks.  He got to his feet.  He wavered.  He said, ‘Thank you, Lina.’  He stumbled onward.  He shuffled like a B-movie Zombie.  He groaned like a B-Movie Zombie.    He looked like a B-movie Zombie, all blood and dirt, right out of a Fulci flick. 

He muttered, ‘Fuck this.’

He reached for the dog whistle around his neck.  He put it to his lips and blew.

‘Deal with Mitch, bitch,’ he said.  ‘Deal with Mitch.’

***

Elisha wondered just how fucked-up things were going to become.  It was all her fault.  She rolled over on Pumpkin.  On Selina.  On Gwen.  On Millie.  On Maggie.

            The Mitchells had no idea just how strong Maggie was.  Just how deadly Zoe was.  Things were clearly backfiring.  The smash-terrorize-and-grab mentality of the mission had clearly gone to hell.  It was clearly the chaos she’d visualized and plotted.  The mother-daughter furies unleashing mayhem of all forms upon them.

            But the van was rocking. 

            Something kept smashing into it.  There was growling and scratching.  Mitch.  But what the fuck was he doing? 

            Ma, too, was panicked.  Was Mitch trying to smash his way back inside?  Why wouldn’t he listen to her?

            Whatever.  He wasn’t listening.  The Matriarch’s authority wavered. 

            Ma swung between seething foul-mouthed rage and panic.  Panic at the thought that one of her babies had slipped her leash.

            Under the van, Kevin sobbed.  He licked at his tears and his snot.  Curled in a ball shaking and twitching.  Each time he opened his eyes, Mitch dug himself further and further under.

            He could roll out the other side.  But then what?

            The Devil Dog would chase him.  The Devil Dog would catch him. 

            Mitch could smell Kevin’s shit.  His snot.  His fear.  Fear juiced Mitch.  His balls throbbed with the thrill.  He anticipated another meal.

Then:  loud and long and for his ears only.

            The whistle.

            His brother’s call.

            To be obeyed above all else.

            He ignored it.  Fuck Ma.  Fuck the whistle.

            The sound of it came again.  Harder.  More insistent.

            Mitch was stuck with a doggy dilemma: loyalty or food.

            Clive might be hurt.

            Clive might need help.

            Clive was his brother.

            Clive might have more food.

            If Mitch could talk, he would have growled out, all Scooby-Doo, ‘Kid. You are one lucky soiled-pants wearing motherfucker.’ 

            He backed out.  He barked.  He turned.  He loped off.  The whistle still blew.  His shrill siren song.

            Clive.

            Some siren.

                ***   

The man who followed her wandered off.  He stumbled.  Lurched.  Muttered something like Mitch over and over again. 

            Zoe crouched low, hidden amongst the corn stalks.  Jerome’s head was so close.  All she had to do was take it and scoot. 

            Leaving behind her mother.  Her grandparents.  And the person she was. 

            She couldn’t do it.

            She couldn’t leave.

            She couldn’t spend the rest of her life wondering if she left her mother, her grandparents, breathing.

            She couldn’t storm the house.  That was madness.  She was unarmed and still unsure of what awaited her.

            She looked at her shit list:

JOANIE

RICHIE 

SETH

            The other man was out here with her somewhere.  Still yelling for Mitch.

            Zoe took the marker from her back pocket.  Added

MITCH

to the list.

There was only one thing for it: back into the tunnel.  Back into her mother’s room.  Open up the looking glass.  Grab some instruments of hurt from the hidden universe of guns.

She wiped old tears from her eyes.  She took a deep breath.  She crawled to the hatch.  She glanced up at the old scarecrow marking it.  She said, ‘Scare that fucker away, why don’t you.’ 

She dropped down into it and remembered:

Oh shit.

The thumbtacks.

She just started crawling when she heard it.  A snuffling.  A growling.  It echoed long and loud.  Satanic in its scariness. 

She said, ‘What the fuck is that?’

Hoping her mother would reply, ‘Don’t worry about it.   It’s nothing.  Everything’s alright now.  You come on out of that hole.’

Her only reply was the Devil Dog panting.  He was happy.  He found an opening he could enter.  No trenches needed.  He found prey he could chase. 

Zoe hauled ass.  Suddenly scared again.  Afraid of the unknown something that shared her space.  That growled.  That slavered its way toward her.

Outside, Clive smiled.  Mitch had come through.  In the pre-dawn light the old boy had looked blood-caked, dirt-covered and truly monstrous.  A Doctor Moreau man-beast devolving into the creature it once was.

For the first time, Mitch even scared Clive.

Clive plucked another thumbtack from his elbow.  He wandered.  He saw the stables.  He saw the open door.  He thought of Richie and Joanie.  He sighed and hobbled on over to it.  A thumbtack trail in his wake.

***

Zoe plowed on through the field of thumbtacks.  She screamed.  She cried.  She forced herself onward.

Past exhaustion.

Past shock.

Past whatever hidden reserves of guts she didn’t even know she had.

Onward.

Mitch barely felt the tacks.  They were insect bites.  He smelled Girl-meat ahead and crawled towards it.  In hot single-minded pursuit.

Zoe stopped.  She felt around the tunnel ceiling.  It was here somewhere.  She knew it.  She felt around for the lever.  She knocked and scraped her hands.  She couldn’t find it.  She heard the Devil Dog closing in.  She couldn’t find it.  She cursed and cried and spat.

She couldn’t find it.

She threw herself forward.  She ran her hands along the tunnel ceiling.

She found it.

She smelt the Devil Dog’s breath as she pulled the lever. 

The lever loosened specially designed load-bearing support beams.  The tunnel caved in on Mitch.

Inches away from girl-meat.

It was a small section of tunnel only, but it was enough.  Mitch’s hind quarters were trapped in rubble.  He pulled himself.  He didn’t budge.  He turned and squirmed and strained.  He got doggie-exasperation.  He was tired of digging.  It was hot and it was boring.

He’d make the girl pay for this. 

He pulled again.  He budged this time. 

Zoe didn’t look back.  She just kept going.  She hit the hatch and, playing the odds, just threw it open.

The room was empty.

As she strained to haul herself up, she heard Mitch.  Unstoppable.  Free again.  In pursuit again.  She fought against the new tears and the new fear.  She pushed herself up and out. 

She lurched for the walk-in wardrobe.  She pulled at tacks in her hands.  She caught her left foot in the hatch.  She fell flat on her face.  She knocked the wind out of herself. 

She heard Mitch coming.

Zoe rolled free and clear.  Zoe pulled herself up.

She heard Mitch coming. 

Zoe saw a strange, scary woman coming at her.  Her heart stopped.  Her bladder let go.  The woman stopped.  A dark stain spread across the woman’s jeans.

The woman was herself reflected in her mother’s mirror.

Jesus.

She looked like the ghost of Final Girls future.

Zoe through the looking glass.

She heard Mitch coming.  He was close.

She ignored her own image, the unrecognizability of it.

She tapped at the mirror.  It refused to open up.  She pushed its edges.  Nothing.

She heard Mitch growling.

She said, ‘Oh God, come on, come on, please…’

The mirror didn’t open.

She slumped to the floor and punched herself in the forehead.  She busted herself open on the thick glass ring she wore.  As blood trickled down the bridge of her nose,

Mitch burst through the open hatch.  He barked and growled.  He threw himself forward.

Zoe screamed as Mitch came up and at her.

Mitch stopped.  He let out something like a moan.

He was stuck in the opening.  His girth was too great.  He was too fucking fat.

Zoe leapt up.  She hit the mirror renewed.  She said FUCK IT and threw herself into it.

The mirror shattered.  Her skin tore.  She bled.

Mitch thrashed.  His skin tore.  He bled.  He cut himself deep.  Wood gouged his broken ribs.

Zoe grabbed a handgun.  A big one.  A .44.  She cocked it.  She tried to think of something witty to say.  She realized her mother never did that and unloaded into Mitch.

Mitch jerked and thrashed even more as the bullets hit him.  He vomited up blood and boy-meat and died.

Zoe crawled over to him.  She looked at what remained of his head.  No way was he coming back for more.  She poked him with the long barrel of the .44 anyway.  Satisfied, she checked out his thick leather collar.  She read the engraved tag.  She yanked the tag free and put it into her pocket.  She pulled out her marker:

MITCH

She jumped to her feet.  She pulled a shard of glass from her shoulder.  Thought about the thumbtacks.  Decided it would take too long.

A gun cocked behind her.

She turned.

The man with the Truck Turner T-shirt and the itchy beard.

Seth.

Seth said, ‘You just killed the family dog…’

***

Clive found the slaughter of the horses compelling viewing.  Dead animals always took him back to his childhood.  For the first time since Elisha was in the basement, he wished he had a camera.

The loft smelled like death and fucking. 

Clive found Richie and Joanie buttoning flies and blouses.

Clive saw a pretty young girl lying naked and dead.  He said, ‘Fuck’s sake,’ and climbed back down the ladder to look at the horses some more.

Richie and Joanie joined him momentarily. 

Richie said, ‘Clive.  You look fucked-up.’

Clive rankled.  Then couldn’t be fucked.  He was too exhausted.  He touched his swollen shut left eye gently.  ‘Yeah, well, while you two were here getting your kicks, the rest of us were having our asses handed to us by a little girl and her middle-aged mom.  Get back to the fucking house.  Help Seth.  I’m going to see Ma.  Tell her they had an army of ninjas or some shit protecting the place.  This has been a fucking debacle.  I’ve fucking had it with you two.’

With that, Clive left, head hanging.

Richie watched him leave. 

Joanie kissed her husband on the cheek.  She rubbed her belly.

***

‘I told you to get away.  I told you that if this ever happened you were to get the hell away from here and never look back.  I told you: the most important thing is you.  More than me.  More than the head.  It’s most important that you live.  The most important thing.  And you fucked it up.’

Zoe huddled next to her mother on the floor.  Maggie wouldn’t could look at her.  Zoe had never seen Maggie so angry.

‘I couldn’t leave you.’

Silence.

‘Mom.  I couldn’t leave you.’

‘They’re going to kill you, Zoe.  They’re going to kill you and they’re going to make me watch it.  They’re going to do it slow.  They’re going to do it painful.  They want me to give up the head.  I can’t do that.  You know I can’t.’

‘Mom –‘

‘Shhh.  Listen.  No.  I love you.  I love you more than anything.’

Seth hovered.  Picking his teeth.

‘But they can’t get the head, honey.  They’re not having the head.  So I’m telling you this.  I’m telling you I love you, because I want you to know.’

Zoe felt tears.  Zoe felt a hotness in her throat.

‘I want you to know I’m not going to save you Zoe.  I can’t save you.’

Seth mock cried.

Seth boo-hooed.

Seth sniffled.

‘Don’t sweat it, little girl.  Your Mom.  She’ll talk.’  He still picked at his teeth.  Made smacking sounds: tongue against gums.

‘Clive and me, we’re going to do things to you she won’t be able to bear.  She’ll want to look away, but she won’t be able to.’  He came close to them.  Smiled at them.

‘We’re going to hold her head.  We’re going to safety pin her eyelids to her eyebrows.  There will be no looking away.’

Seth walked over to the fridge.  While searching for the head earlier, he found some blue cheese.  Seth liked blue cheese.

Maggie turned to her daughter.  Locked eyes with her. 

‘You’re going to have to save yourself.’

*** 

The beast has gone.  The beast has gone.

But had he?

Maybe he just wandered off to do a beastly shit. 

To lick his dirty beastly balls.

To lure him out.

Still curled up in a ball, Kevin opened his eyes.

It had been maybe ten minutes.  He decided to wait another five.

Time passed.  Slowly.  Silently.  Without doggie appearance or incident.

Kevin breathed deeeeeeeeep.  He rolled out.

To his feet as quickly as possible.  Quick scattergun glances confirmed it:

No Devil Dog.

He turned back to the insistent muffled voices coming from the van.

He peered in through the driver’s side window.  He saw:

The keys in the ignition.

He opened the door a crack.  Raised voices covered the sound.

YOU BITCH.  YOU BITCH.  YOU BITCH.

Over and over.  High.  Tight.  Screeching. 

‘What didn’t you tell us?  What?  What?’

‘I don’t know what –‘

‘Oh, you know, bitch, you know.  You tell Ma.  You tell Ma all.  You owe me, bitch.  You owe me for my boys.  Both of them.  One of them in pieces.  The other broken.  You owe.  You TELL.’

‘I owe you?  For what?’

‘FOR MY BOYS.’

‘Your boys?  One of them killed my friends with a machete.  The other kidnapped me and imprisoned me in your fucking basement.  How any of this is my fault is beyond me.’

‘BITCH.  BITCH.  BITCH.  BITCHBITCHBITCHBITCH.’

Kevin thought: oh, Christ.  Someone’s mind just snapped loose.

‘Fine.  I’m a bitch.  Whatever.  I did what you wanted.  I brought you here.  I told you what I knew.’

Kevin slipped in.  His ass made a squeaking noise on the vinyl seats.

‘If Maggie’s beating you all down, it’s got nothing to do with me.  You created your own cluster-fuck.  Coming out here all half-assed.’

‘What happened between you and Clive?  Tell me.  You bewitched him.  You changed him.  And Mitch, what did you do to my Mitch?’

‘Your son is an obsessed, demented psychopath with a severe problem distinguishing between this world and what goes on in his head.  Your dog, shit, I’ve got no fucking idea about your dog.  Maybe all that sour titty milk you fed him warped his mind.’

Kevin heard a slap.

‘BITCH.  BITCH.  BITCHBITCHBITCH.’

A Super Friends bedsheet separated him from the rear of the van.  From the insanity unfolding behind.  Old.  Faded.  Wonder Woman had a hole burnt in her head.  Weird.

He dared move the curtain.  He dared peek through.

A woman, young and beautiful.  A dog collar around her neck.  Chained to the side of the van.  She cowered back some, arms outstretched, eyes shut.

A woman, old and haggard.  Near-desiccated.  On a soiled mattress.  He couldn’t see her face, but he could see her handgun.

Booze on her breath.  So strong, Kevin could smell it.  Cigarette lit in her mouth: exhaling smoke as she ranted.  Exhaling smoke like a cloud of manifested rage.

‘I’ll shoot you.  I’ll shoot you.  I’ll fucking shoot you.’

The young woman suddenly got strong.  She glared defiant.  She glared oh yeah?  She stuck her head forward.  Rested her forehead on the barrel. 

‘So do it.  Fucking do it.  Who’s going to help you find the others, huh?  Who?  Who’s going to do that?’

‘The bitch with my son’s head.  Maggie.’

‘Maggie?  She won’t give you shit.’

The young woman leaned back.  Her chains clinked. 

The old woman breathed.  Hard.  Fast.  Near-hyperventilating. 

‘I hate you.  I despise you.  I will break you, pretty whore.  I will break the hold you have over Clive.  When I have all I want, when my Jerome is whole again, I will make Clive kill you.  I’ll watch him and direct him.  He likes movies, my Clive does.  He makes his own.  He has a big imagination.  It’s how he was raised.  Your death will be my movie, girl, I’ll screen it in my head every hour on the hour until the event of my peaceful death.’

‘Be a short season.’

The old woman laughed. 

The young woman looked away from her.  Looked at her chains.  Looked up at the eye that looked at her through the curtain.  Looked up at Kevin.

Her eyes went wide and full.  Suddenly scared.

Kevin was struck by how beautiful she looked at that very moment.  Something caught in his throat.

The young woman shot forward, straining against her chains.  She clawed at the old woman.  She screamed:

‘GET OUT.  RUN.  RUN.  RUN.  GET ME SOME FUCKING HELP.’

Shocked, the old woman slapped at her.  Scratched at her.

Kevin pulled aside the curtain.  To help the young woman.  To free her.  To save her.

The old woman whirled.  Suddenly fast.  She waved her massive handgun.  She fired.

It went wild.  It nicked Kevin’s ear and blasted through the roof of the van. 

The girl screamed:

‘GET OUT OF HERE.  GET OUT.’

Kevin made a weird squealing sound.  He grabbed at what was left of his ear.  Blood poured over his hand.

The young woman slapped the gun out of the old woman’s hand.  It was so huge and heavy it was no difficult task.  The gun hit the floor with a heavy clatter.

Kevin forced himself up.  He made a grab for the gun.

There was a booming sound.

Elisha wondered what happened to the boy.  One moment his head was there.  The next it was gone.  In shock, she picked bits of the boys face off of her own and she saw him:

CLIVE.

He’d shot through the windscreen.  He’d blown the boy’s head out through his face.

Clive climbed in.  He pulled the boy’s body off the front seat.  He sighed at the mess.  He peeled off his T-shirt.  He mopped at blood and brain.  His shirt a new colour, he lobbed it at Elisha.

Ma Mitchell regained her gun.  She looked up at Clive.

‘Your own mother was almost killed.  I came this close to the end.  Because of your little movie tart.  You can’t even protect your own mother.’

Clive: ‘I thought that was Mitch’s job.’

‘He went rabid or something and ran off.’

Clive started up the van.  ‘Just like your other boys, huh?’ 

Clive pulled closed the curtain.

Elisha counted chainlinks.

She got to twenty before she began to cry.

***

Richie and Joanie.  In full Vampire Ken and Barbie mode.  Wide-eyed and horny at the fresh veal huddled by her sow of a mother.

Vampire Ken and Barbie.  They told Seth about George.  About what they did to her.  About the noises she made. 

Seth couldn’t help but laugh.

Maggie covered Zoe’s ears:  ‘Don’t listen.’

Zoe looked away from Vampire Ken and Barbie.  She looked at her Grandfather.  He’d stopped moving.

Maggie covered Zoe’s eyes: ‘Don’t look.’

Maggie said, ‘I’m sorry about what I said.  Before.  I have to keep my Final Girl face on in front of these assholes.’

‘I understand, Mom.  I know.’

‘But it is partly true, Zoe.  I’m not giving up the head.’

Maggie looked her captors over.  Seth and Richie spoke with a façade of civility.  Joanie looked right at her.  Bared her teeth in an orthodontically perfect grin.

It was truly awful.

Maggie whispered to Zoe: ‘You’ve got to get out of here.  These sick bastards have hard-ons for death and they aren’t going to be able to restrain themselves for much longer.’

‘How?’

Maggie glanced around.

‘Fuck it.  Go through the loungeroom window.  Out into the field.’

‘Mom.  The other one.  The man.  What’s his name?’

‘Clive, honey.  His name is Clive.’

Clive.  There’s some bare skin waiting for your name.

‘Go to Selina, baby.  Go to Selina and then go to the others.’

Joanie: ‘What are you two whispering about?  Little heart-felt messages of love, I hope.  Sweet mommy-daughter goodbyes, I hope.  I never told you how much I loved yous and you’re everything to mes and I’m so proud of yous.  Anything else, any little plots hatching like quail eggs, and I’ll fuck you up for it.’

Joanie rushed over to the mother-daughter furies.  She waved a .45 about maniacally.

‘Fuck you.’  Maggie.

Joanie charged forward.  Hot with hate.  ‘What was that?  What was that?  You got something to say, you old cunt?  Out with it.’

Joanie slapped Maggie hard.  So hard, Maggie rolled forward onto her stomach.

‘Whoh.  Whoh.’  Seth.

Joanie kicked Maggie.  Stomped on her.

Zoe got to her feet.  Fast.  Like she had wings on her feet.  She dropped Joanie with a kidney punch.

Seth and Richie approached.  Guns pointed.

Seth: ‘Back off, little sister.  Back off.  Don’t give me a reason.’

Richie checked on his wife.

Seth held his gun on Zoe.  She was panting with rage.

Maggie rolled.  Stopped.  Gasped.  Saw:

Under the couch. 

Holy shit.

Her shotgun.  Her father stashed it there when the cop showed.

Zoe, panting still: ‘Okay.  All right.  She asked for it though.’

Seth: ‘Point taken, little sister.  Slide that sweet young ass back down towards the floor, if you please.’

Zoe sat down.  From the floor, to Joanie: ‘I can beat you until your insides are on the outside, you tarted up bitch.  Don’t touch my mother again.”

Seth:  ‘Settle down, girl.’

Joanie, in her husband’s arms: ‘If you hurt my baby, I’ll pull your intestines out through your pussy.’

Richie: ‘What?  You’re pregnant?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Really?  Oh my god.  Since when? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Since before.  In the barn.’

Seth: ‘Oh, sweet baby Jesus…’

Richie: ‘What?’

Joanie: ‘I conceived.’

‘You what?’

‘I conceived.’ 

‘Joanie.’

‘I conceived. Fuck you, daddy.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.  A woman knows.’

Seth laughed.

Richie beamed telepathic messages of death at Seth.

‘Um, honey.  I think you’d better just take a second to think about this…’

Seth:  ‘Wait.  Wait.  Wait wait wait.  I just realized something: you two fuckers were off fucking?  In the fucking barn?’

Joanie:  ‘Stables.’

‘Whatever.  I don’t believe this.  I do not fucking believe this.  What is wrong with you people?  Jesus.  What were you thinking?  No, no, wait; don’t answer that.  I really don’t want to know…’

Richie: ‘I know it was inappropriate.  I know that the timing was bad.’

‘Bad?  Bad?  Oh my god.’

‘Joanie and I, we –‘

‘Save it.  Oh, Christ.  Just fucking save it, ok?  This, this we’ll have to deal with at a later date.  Fuck, I should just shoot you two right here.’

Joanie: ‘Try it you try hard little fuck.  You video clerk jerk-off.  Try it…’

Richie:  ‘He’s right, Joanie.  This isn’t the time.’

Zoe cradled Maggie.  She stroked her bruised and broken face.  She wiped the blood from her nose.  From her mouth. 

Maggie said, ‘Get ready.  Your chance is coming.  Take it.  Don’t look back.  If you look back, I’ll shoot you myself.  Save us both the pain.’

Maggie pushed herself up to her knees. Forcing herself from her daughter’s embrace.  ‘Hey.  Pretty lady.  Something’s running down your thigh.  It’s got your eyes.’

Joanie jumped on Maggie.  Slapped her.  Bit her.  Screamed obscenities at her. 

Richie tried to pull his wife off.  He failed.   He clung to her armpits, tugging madly. Armpit stubble tickled his palms.

Seth kept Zoe down with a shake of his head and the cock of his gun hammer.  ‘Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.  Don’t.’

Maggie feigned fear.  Maggie tried to roll away from Joanie.  She rolled towards the couch.

Seth to Richie:  ‘Stop her.  You stop her, Richie, or I will shoot her myself.  I swear.  Clive comes in here and sees all this, he’ll fucking do us all.  Let’s tie these bitches up, for god’s sake.’

Maggie could see it.  She reached under the couch for it.  Felt the hardness of it.  Felt the heft of it in her grip.

Richie kept tugging at his wife.

Maggie pulled out the gun.  Maggie rolled over pumping it.  Maggie pointed it at Joanie.

As Maggie fired, Richie shoved Joanie down hard.  His shirt turned red at the chest as he rocked back.

Maggie pumped. 

Before Richie hit the floor, he took another blast.  It near cut him in half.

Maggie pumped again.

Seth turned toward her.

Seth fired.

Repeatedly. 

As the bullets ripped into her mother, Zoe bolted.  She leapt through the loungeroom window thinking Clive Clive Clive as the glass cut her anew.

Joanie threw herself on top of her husband.  Banshee-screaming.  Beating his head into the floor.  Begging him to wake.

Seth ran to the window and shot at the disappearing shape.

Zoe was oddly lit.  Car lights.

Seth realized.

Clive.  He was here. 

***

From inside the van, Clive heard the shots.

From inside the van, Clive saw Zoe come crashing through the window.

He stalled the van dead.  He opened the door.

Ma said, ‘Fuck’s going on?’

Elisha said nothing.

Zoe hit the ground rolling.  She was up and gone by the time Clive hauled his beat-up ass out of the van.

Clive had lost her.  He knew.  He didn’t care.  He chased anyway.  He pulled a gun and shot randomly.  He ran until he puked and sealed up cuts re-opened. 

Then he ran some more.

He ran in no particular direction.  He just ran.  He puked again.

He kept running.

Gun click-click-click-click-clicking on empty.

***

Joanie wailed.  She punched Richie.  She punched him until her hands bled.  She punched him until Richie didn’t look like Richie anymore.

Seth contemplated just how much worse things could get.  Maggie lay dying.  Richie lay dead.  Mitch was wedged in a trapdoor missing most of his head.

And Clive was here.  Ma was here. 

Seth saw Clive run off.  Screaming.  Shooting at nothing and everything. 

Not good.

Maggie looked up at Seth.  One hand cradled what was left of her chest.  The other raised.  Middle finger extended at him.  She laughed.  She crawled over to her father.  A red wash marked her path.  She reached her father.  She reached for his hand.  She touched his fingertips with hers.

She closed her eyes.

***

Clive ran on.  There was nothing left for him to puke up but stomach lining.  It came up like cappuccino froth.  He had vomit in his beard and tears in his eyes.

He thought about how a little girl had beaten him.  It took a small army of vengeance-fueled, hate-addicted grown women to stop his brother.

He felt trapped in one of Elisha’s movies.  He felt the plot of his life spiraling out and away from his grasp.  He cried for Jerome.  He cried for his brother’s dismembered corpse.  Scattered far and wide across the land.  Pieces held like trophies by the Final Girls.  Each part twitching and feeling.  Each part waiting for him.

He thought of Elisha.  He thought about how much he still loved her.  Obsessed over her.  Hated her.  He hated her skill.  He hated her imagination.  He hated her for forcing him out into the world.  He hated her for forcing him to fill Jerome’s gore-blotched workboots.

Without knowing it, he had run in scattered, criss-cross patterns.  He pushed his way through the cornfield.  Noting stalks broken earlier.  The whole night had criss-crossed back and forth.  Events overlapping.  Reoccurring.  Reinventing themselves.

He was back at the scarecrow.  Back at the spot he first lost the little girl. 

The scarecrow was stick thin.  The scarecrow was shabbily dressed.  It was placed to mark the tunnel hatch.  It looked blue in the pre-dawn light.  Its ragged feedsack-skinned face mocked him.  He punched it.  He kicked it.  He beat it until hay spilled freely from its chest and its arms lay snapped, broken and hanging.

He punched its face so hard that he decapitated it.  The head hit the ground.  It was soft.  It was heavy.  Clive kicked at it, sent it rolling.  Stopped.  Thought:

I’ll be damned.

He ran over to the head. 

He ripped open its feedsack skin.  Underneath: black plastic bags.  He tore at one.  Another underneath.  He tore at the next.  Another underneath.  He tore at the third.  Another underneath.  He ripped the free the tape sealing it shut and opened it.

The smell made him retch and hawk up more lining.

He laughed and wiped foam from his lips.

He peered into the bag, tasting the wafting decay.

He said, ‘Hi.’

Inside the bag –

Jerome opened his eyes.

***  

My mother is dead.

            My Grandparents are dead.

            My friends are dead.

            Final Girls numbered One through Six.

            Call me New Girl.

***

The house burned.  All the bodies piled up inside.  Morning had come, bright as the flames.

            Ma wept.  Punched herself in the chest.  Grieving for Mitch.  The Devil Dog gone to doggie-hell.

            Joanie stood watching the flames.  Thinking about her husband ashes mingling with those of their victims.

Clive rested a hand on her shoulder.  He felt kind.  He didn’t know why.

‘The girls we chase.  The girls we hunt.  You’re the mirror image of them.  You are their monster.  They are yours.  What this is Joanie, is your origin.  All that’s come before – useless backstory.  Let this transform you.  Let it change you.  Become their new monster, Joanie.  Let it out.’

With that, Clive walked off to find Seth.  Joanie turned to watch him limp away. 

She rubbed her belly.

She screamed and pulled at her hair.  Whole locks tore loose.  Strands floated on the morning breeze.

Seth popped the trunk of his coupe.  ‘Hey,’ he said.  ‘I’m unscathed.  You ok in here?  You look good, babe.’

He leant in and kissed Penny on the lips. 

She was getting awful ripe.

Seth didn’t care.  He loved her. 

Clive approached.  He had Jerome’s head in a bowling bag he brought specially.  ‘Hey.  We’ve got to split.  Now.  We’ve got a lot of work to do.  Joanie’s driving the van.  She hauled ass out of here, man.  Let’s catch them, huh?’

Seth whispered something to Penny and shut the trunk.

Clive got in the passenger seat. 

He was asleep before the coupe hit the nearest road.