The Final Girl

by Kenneth Preston

  She stepped through the open front door a few steps behind Harry. A group of uniformed officers was standing in the foyer at the entrance to an adjacent hallway. Their eyes were fixed on something beyond her field of vision. A few of them glanced at her as she approached.

  And she approached slowly. She’d seen it three days ago. She wasn’t anxious to see it again. But there was no getting around it. The girl was there, waiting to be seen.

  She stepped past the uniformed officers and saw red—red on the floor, red on the walls. There was so much red that the body was nearly camouflaged in it, appearing as a five-foot-five-inch lump on the carpet. It had taken a special kind of rage, a special kind of savagery to spill this much blood.

  Harry, standing in the hallway just outside the circle of blood, looked at her. There were tears in his eyes. And that shook Darlene as much as anything she’d seen over the past few days. This man, who had seen everything in his years as a cop, including the bodies of four teens three days ago, had finally been pushed to his breaking point.

  It was all too much, she silently agreed. And she cried with him.

  It didn’t make sense. They had their man. Richard Caulfield was dead. Who―or what―did this to Katie Beckham?

  Randall Turner? Darlene couldn’t believe, wouldn’t believe, that Jill had brought him back from the dead. That hole in the ground back there in the woods was just that―a hole in the ground. But a Randall Turner who was very much alive, who had abandoned his wife and child, who was stalking his daughter, watching over her, writing to her, telling her that he was going to watch over her, protect her at all costs, that was more than possible. That made perfect sense.

  ―

  “Her throat was cut,” Harry said when the crime scene investigators took over. “Multiple stab wounds, as far as I could tell.”

  They were standing under the awning on the front doorstep as the rain poured down. The CSI team entered and exited the house. Mr. Beckham was still seated in the back of the cruiser. Darlene couldn’t see him clearly through the rain, but his body language told her that he’d stopped crying. He was numb at this point, Darlene knew from firsthand experience. No doubt he was in shock. How could he not be? Before long, he would be taken to the hospital. Physically, he was fine. But he was not going to be okay, not for a long time.

  “We should talk to Mr. Beckham before they take him away,” Harry said.

  “I don’t know if he’s any condition to answer questions.”

  “He’ll never be in any condition to answer questions, but whoever did this is still out there. If we’re gonna talk to him, it has to be now.”

  She nodded.

  A seconds-long run to the patrol car left them drenched.

  Darlene sat on George Beckham’s left, Harry on his right.

  “I went outside,” George Beckham said. He sniffed, cleared his throat. “I left the door open. I went around to the side of the house.” A pause. “That’s when I heard the door slam. I hesitated. I thought..." His voice quavered. "I thought Katie shut it. But then… But then…" He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, God.”

  Darlene said, “It’s okay, Mr. Beckham. Take your time.”

  George Beckham hesitated. “When I searched the yard and didn’t find anything, I went back to the door, and it was… it was… locked. I knocked. No answer. Then I panicked. I called 911. Then I kicked the door in, and that’s when I found...” He trailed off. He buried his face in his hands again and sobbed.

  Darlene placed a hand on George Beckham's trembling shoulder. "I'm so sorry for your loss." The words sounded so hollow, she was almost ashamed to have uttered them. She doubted that George Beckham even heard her.

  “We have to go,” Harry said. He was halfway across the front lawn before Darlene exited the vehicle. She raced to catch up and was about to ask him where they were off to when it hit her. The second girl to back out of the camping trip on Saturday night.

  Diane Wright.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  He’d heard the sirens as he was driving the knife into Katie Beckham’s body and had had to run. He’d been sloppy. He’d spent too much time outside the Beckham residence. He’d allowed Katie to see him. She’d been up, pacing her room, phone in her hand. His daughter had called, he knew, warned her that he was coming, and Katie had run to tell her father. George Beckham had come outside, phone pressed to his ear, shotgun cradled in his arm. Randall had watched him from the bushes, was tempted to draw blood, to kill him. But George Beckham wasn’t the target. The target was inside, and the target was of the utmost importance.

  He’d crossed another name off his list.

  Five down, three to go.

  Lights. Sirens. A police car passed, then another. He waited, stepped from the bushes. Headlights. Flashing lights. An unmarked vehicle.

  He ducked back into the bushes and watched. He recognized the car’s occupants. The two detectives.

  His daughter had called them, he knew. They’d gone to the house that had once been his house looking for Jill, but they’d been too late to stop her from coming after him.

  He wasn’t angry with Jill. She had done a very bad thing in calling the police. This was a struggle between father and daughter. And she’d done a very bad thing in killing him. But he was still her father. He would never stop being her father. And he would do what he had to do to protect her.

  Even if it meant killing her.

  He’d meant it when he’d told her that he was coming after her. He was a killer of everything she hated, and she hated herself, whether she knew it or not. But it was not Jill’s fault; it was the woman’s fault. She’d done this to their daughter, sentenced the girl to a lifetime of isolation, taught her that it was wicked to live like the sullied kids lived, taught her that her natural desires were impure. The woman had taught their daughter to hate herself, to bully herself.

  The woman.

  That woman.

  The woman he’d called his wife.

  The woman he’d loved to hit.

  Oh, how he’d loved to hit her. It hadn’t been the alcohol, as his wife and daughter had assumed. Drunk or sober, he’d wanted to hit her. But the alcohol had suppressed his sense of morality, had brought out the worst in him.

  Thinking of her now, he wanted to hit her, wanted to leap from the bushes, run back to the house they’d shared, and let loose like he did all those years ago.

  She did this to him. She’d verbally abused him, driven him to drink, made him hit her. She’d turned their daughter against him. Jill had used that gift of hers to push his face in, to turn him into a monster. He was angry with the woman he’d called his wife. He wanted to tear her apart.

  He would have his time with the woman, but not quite yet.

  The police were pulling up to the Beckham residence. They would find a devastated George Beckham and the body of his daughter. The neighborhood would soon be crawling with cops.

  No time to waste. He still had three names on his list.

  Lightening. Thunder. Another storm was upon them. How fitting.

  The sky opened up. The rain fell.

  He walked to the Wright residence, conveniently located a mere three blocks from the Beckham’s.

  The ranch home was lit from within. The Wrights were up and about. He surveyed the surrounding homes. Most of the neighborhood was up and about.

  The sirens, of course. And the fact that four local teens were murdered a few days prior. The area was, understandably, on high alert.

  He crossed the lawn, looked through the living room window. A man and a woman, Mr. and Mrs. Wright. And a teenage girl, Diane. He knew her at first sight, just as he'd known Katie. He'd seen them both through Jill's eyes. She'd been bullied by both of them, as she'd been bullied by the others. Her stalking had led him to Katie’s, and her stalking had led him here, to the sixth victim on his list.

  Yes, Jill had been stalking them. Now, she wanted to stop him. Why? These evil children had been picking on his daughter f
or the better part of a year. Yet, she mourned their passing. And she was trying to prevent him from crossing the remaining names off his list. She was conflicted. They had a psychic bond. He saw what she saw, and he knew what she knew. He knew that she hated these people. He knew that she wanted them dead. She just couldn’t do it herself. That’s why he was here. That’s why she’d brought him back. He was a killer of everything she hated.

  Time to cross another name off the list. And he didn’t have a moment to waste. The police were smart. They’d compiled their own list, and they would be heading to the Wright residence next. He had to get into that house as quickly as possible, and the quickest way into that house was to be invited in.

  He stepped onto the porch, rang the doorbell, and waited. They would be surprised to see him. They would be confused. They would be concerned. But they wouldn’t be terrified, not immediately.

  Not until the blood started flowing.

  The door opened. Mr. Wright. Behind him, Mrs. Wright. They were gaping at him, as expected. But they weren’t afraid of him because they didn’t see him as a threat.

  Diane stepped into the foyer. She looked at him, furrowed her brow, opened her mouth, and said, “Jill?”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Diane Wright started for her room when she heard the doorbell but stopped just outside her door. She had to know. And sitting in her room just wouldn’t do. The walls were thick; the voices wouldn’t carry. And she needed to hear those voices, needed to hear the police or a neighbor―She hoped it was the police or a neighbor―tell her parents that everything was okay, that there was nothing to be alarmed about, that there wasn’t a killer on the loose, stalking the kids who’d been bullying Jill Turner, the bullies who hadn’t shown up at the campsite that fateful night, the bullies who’d managed to slip through his grasp.

  She’d believed that the killer was dead―or she’d wanted to believe. But the sirens. And the anxiety gnawing away at her, whispering in her ear that something was terribly, terribly wrong, that she wasn’t out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, that she and her family were far from safe.

  Her family.

  It was that concern that sent her back up the hallway toward the foyer, where she heard the door opening followed by an inexplicable silence. Somebody should have been saying something, she told herself in the moment before rounding the corner and stepping into the foyer.

  She rounded that corner to find her mother and father standing before the open door. She peered between her parents to see…

  “Jill?”

  The girl looked strange, pathetic, and not in her usual strange and pathetic way. She looked like a little, lost puppy that had been caught in the rain, but there was nothing adorable about her. Disturbing would be more accurate. There was something off about her. It was in her eyes, like she was there but not really there. If she said anything, Diane didn’t hear it over the distant sirens, the torrential downpour. But Diane was pretty sure that the girl hadn’t spoken. Her lips were frozen like the rest of her. She was waiting for something, waiting for one of them to make the first move, to invite her in.

  Her mother stepped past her father, wrapped her arms around Jill Turner, and ushered her in.

  Jill locked eyes with Diane and smiled. But the eyes weren’t Jill’s eyes, and the smile wasn’t Jill’s smile. At least they didn’t feel like they belonged to the Jill she knew. She couldn’t recall Jill looking at her the way she was looking at her now, and she didn’t know if she had ever seen Jill smile.

  “Hi, Diane,” Jill said.

  And seriously, what the hell was she smiling about? She was the lone survivor of a mass murder that had taken place three nights ago. Why was she walking in the rain? Why did she ring their doorbell? What the hell was she doing here?

  No, this wasn’t right. Something was wrong with this girl. Something was seriously wrong with this situation.

  Diane didn’t return the girl’s greeting. She couldn’t. She wasn’t even sure she knew who this girl was.

  Her father pulled his phone from the pocket of his robe and tapped the screen.

  “You’re calling the police?” Jill asked.

  “I have to let somebody know you’re here,” Diane’s father said.

  “No!” Jill grabbed for the phone. Diane’s father pulled it away.

  Diane’s mother placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “It’s okay, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Diane, honey,” her father said. “Why don’t you take Jill to your room and get her a towel, maybe give her some dry clothes to put on?”

  Diane hesitated, her eyes locked with Jill’s.

  “Diane,” her mother said.

  Diane hesitated a moment longer before looking at her mother.

  “Your father asked you to take Jill to your room and find her some dry clothes.”

  Diane glanced at Jill. “Come on,” she muttered before turning away and heading toward her bedroom. She could hear Jill's soft footsteps trailing behind her, and it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel safe. Something was wrong with Jill Turner. She was different. She looked like Jill Turner, but she didn’t feel like Jill Turner.

  Diane stepped into her room, Jill’s footsteps following her in. She had a sudden, terrifying thought. Jill attacking her from behind, knocking her down, bashing the back of her head in.

  She felt a wave of panic and turned to face her. She was standing just inside the door, still as a statue, staring at her, expressionless.

  “Are you okay?” Diane asked.

  Jill hesitated. “I’m fine.” A pause. “You?”

  It was Diane’s turn to hesitate. “I’m okay.” But she wasn’t okay, far from it. She felt that she was in danger. She was so sure that she was in danger that she decided that she couldn’t let Jill out of her sight.

  Her eyes on Jill, she opened her closet, reached in, and grabbed the first towel that her hand fell on. She handed it to Jill. Jill took the towel and removed her jacket.

  And that’s when Diane saw the blood. The front of her shirt was covered with it. And she didn’t just see it; she smelled it. The pungent coppery smell assaulted her nostrils.

  She closed her eyes and held her breath. She didn’t want to see the blood, didn’t want to smell it. Maybe if she ignored it, it would go away. Or maybe it wasn’t there. The stress and the paranoia of the past few days were taking their toll on her. It was her imagination. That’s all it was. Just her imagination.

  Then why couldn’t she open her eyes? Why was she holding her breath?

  She opened her eyes, allowed herself to breathe. The blood was still there.

  She could feel her heart now, thumping harder, faster.

  “Diane.” It was Jill’s voice, and Jill’s lips had moved. But somehow, it didn’t sound like Jill, not the Jill that Diane knew. The Jill that Diane knew was timid. Strange but timid. The girl standing before her was confident. Her voice was deep and gruff. It wasn’t quite the voice of a man. More like a teenage girl trying to sound like a man. “It’s time.”

  Jill reached behind her, into the waistband of her jeans, and brought forth a large kitchen knife, caked with dried blood.

  “You tormented her,” Jill said. She was referring to herself in the third-person. The girl was possessed, it seemed. She was not Jill, after all, not where it counted. "You tormented her. You made her life a living hell."

  It was true, Diane knew. She’d always known. And though she’d always been more of a bystander than a participant, she was as guilty as the others.

  “How do you think that made her feel?” Jill asked.

  “Small,” Diane said without hesitation. “I was bullying Jill when I should have been bullying myself. I’m sorry.” And she meant it. She could have stepped in, could have stopped the bullying. But she’d stood by, let it happen, and now she was going to die.

  She wondered if it would be quick and decided that it didn’t matter. If she was meant to suffer, so be it.
/>   Chapter Forty-Six

  Harry and Darlene were en route to the residence of Diane Wright, two blocks from the Beckham’s. Sirens and flashing red lights joined the early morning thunderstorm. The sirens weren’t necessary for traffic―there wasn’t any at this hour―but Darlene wanted the residents up and as alert as possible, and she wanted whoever they were pursuing to know they were coming. She didn’t want him getting away, but she didn’t want him comfortable enough to take his time terrorizing the neighborhood.

  Darlene’s phone rang. She pulled it from her jacket pocket and nearly dropped it as Harry accelerated into a sharp right turn. The car hydroplaned before Harry got it under control. Part of her was tempted to tell him to slow down, while another part of her was tempted to tell him to drive faster.

  “Detective Moore,” she answered loud enough to be heard over the siren and the cascading rain.

  “Detective Moore, this is Kyle Griffin from Questioned Documents.” A pause. “I caught you at a bad time, didn’t I?”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” she said. “But I’m guessing you have some news for me.”

  “Indeed, I do. But I can call―”

  “No, give it to me.”

  “Okay, so after a thorough examination of the documents you gave me, I was astonished to find that they were not written by the same person.”

  She hesitated. “Wait, did you say that they were not written by the same person?" She glanced at Harry, who returned the glance and even managed a creased brow. She was tempted to tell him to keep his eyes on the road.

  “I did, and like I said, I was astonished. I’ve never seen anything like this before. I’ve never seen two handwriting samples this close without being written by the same person. I couldn’t see it with the naked eye, no matter how closely I examined the documents. But the equipment picked up on subtle differences, specifically with regards to the size of the hands used in these samples.”