The Final Girl Support Group

by Grady Hendrix

  Huge, primordial ferns rise from the ground around him.

  “He was all cooped up in that pot,” Marilyn says. “There was no room for him to grow. I mean, his poor little roots were traumatized. I hope I did all right.”

  Fine won’t be coming with me anymore. He won’t sit on his perch and watch TV with me ever again. He isn’t mine anymore.

  “It’s great,” I tell Marilyn. “It’s perfect. I think I was holding him back.”

  “There’s a lovely pepper bush in there waiting to come out,” Marilyn says. “He’s going to just grow and grow. Next time you see him, I bet you won’t even recognize the little guy.”

  You see, I tell Fine inside my head. You’re going to be better than ever.

  “And now you’ve got an excuse,” Marilyn says.

  “For what?”

  “To come visit,” she says.

  She tucks her phone back in her bag and I sit on the hard plastic chair and stare at the humming vending machines on the other side of the room and try to figure out why I feel so lonely.

  “I miss Adrienne,” I finally say.

  “Me too,” Marilyn says.

  “She was the best of us,” I say, and my chest aches.

  I turn my head to study a mural on the far wall. It’s of a sunset on a tropical beach that looks like it was painted with several different shades of mud.

  “No,” Marilyn says, and she takes my chin and turns my head to face her. “You’re the best of us, Lynnette. You never quit. You never stopped. You saved everyone.”

  Faint lines radiate from the corners of her eyes, and tiny indentations mark her upper lip. I can see her roots. A single hair sprouts from her chin. I’ve never seen anyone this closely before. I’ve never been seen this closely before.

  She leans back and rummages in her purse, looking for gum.

  “I’m in suspense about Dani,” she says, finding a pack of Big Red. “The visitation rules said no denim, no camouflage, and no fabrics that resemble state issued-inmate clothing. What’s she going to wear?”

  After Dani disappeared inside that day, I stood out back by myself for a while and looked across the desert. Hordes of cicadas sawed their legs together in the eucalyptus trees as cliff swallows swooped and darted, chasing bugs. Something stirred into motion far to my right, and I watched the sandy tail of a snake disappear beneath a creosote bush.

  White moths fluttered between dusty scrub underneath a pale crescent moon in the early-evening sky. Away in the hills, cars glittered and flashed like tiny jewels, and I thought about how many people were out there. There were so many people.

  Something tapped my foot and I jumped, then realized it was just a cricket. It sat there on my shoe, pulsing for a split second, and then, with a snap, it was gone. In the distance, I heard one of the horses snort.

  There’s so much life and it just keeps going. Maybe not everyone’s life, but Life. It doesn’t stop for anyone. Chrissy said there were only two forces in the world and they balance each other: life and death. Creation and destruction. But she’s wrong. There’s only one. Because no matter how hard we try, we can’t stop life. No matter how much we fight, no matter how many we kill, things keep changing, and growing, and living, and people get lost, and fall away, and come back, and get born, and move on, and no matter what it’s all so much, it’s all so hard, the way life just keeps going and going.

  “Hey, y’all!” Marilyn hollers beside me, waving one arm. “Over here.”

  Julia and Dani roll toward us in their wheelchairs from the far end of the room, Julia talking and talking at Dani, who’s totally focused on steering her way through the plastic tables to where Marilyn and I sit in a small circle of folding chairs.

  “They tried to make us use prison wheelchairs,” Julia says. “I asked them how they’d feel about an ADA lawsuit and I practically had to draft one before they let us through.”

  I look at us with our wheelchairs, and stitches, and gauze pads, and aluminum canes. We look like models at a surgical supply convention.

  “Your man’s waiting outside,” Dani says as she rolls to a stop.

  When my taxi pulled up outside the CCCF earlier, I didn’t see Garrett P. Cannon at first. He had on an obnoxious new dove-gray hat and matching suit with one of his bolo ties so I don’t know how I missed him. He caught me as I limped across the sidewalk to the entrance.

  “Gratitude comes hard for you, I know,” he said, dropping his Dutch Masters cigarillo and grinding it out with the heel of his cowboy boot. “But even so, I’m thinking you should spare some thank-you-kindlys for the law enforcement hero who made this all possible.”

  “Hello, Garrett,” I said.

  “I hollered your name three times,” he said. “At least.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. The pain from my injuries make it hard for me to walk so I really have to focus. That must be inconvenient for you.”

  Once I get started walking, I can’t stop for too long or I start to stiffen up, so I kept going but I moved so slow it was easy for Garrett to keep pace.

  “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Lynney,” he said. “I’m just saying, I had to bend a lot of rules and call in a lot of favors to get y’all some alone time in there. Not many men would do that for a woman who treated them the way you treated me.”

  “I’m very grateful, Garrett,” I said.

  “So this afternoon I’m going to call my agent about our book,” Garrett said. “You said we’d write it if I set this up, and I think you’ll agree that I’ve done a hero’s duty. Obviously my name will go first on the cover.”

  I stopped and faced him.

  “Garrett,” I told him. “When I said I’d write a book with you? I lied.”

  I started limping forward again to the sound of him cursing me up one side and down the other.

  Inside the visiting room, Marilyn asks, “When does this start? We’re all here.”

  No one knows where Heather is, but we assume she’s okay. I would have liked to tell her that I don’t blame her for calling the cops but, as always, Heather isn’t going to give anyone an ounce of satisfaction. Marilyn set up a small bank account for her and told us there were regular ATM withdrawals. Maybe someone killed Heather and took her card. Maybe she’s looking for the Dream King. Maybe she’s just out there somewhere, being Heather.

  We all turn when we hear the door open at the far end of the room, but it’s only a tall corrections officer with a big belly striding between the tables. He’s wearing a beige shirt and dark green pants and for some reason people in this field still think it’s okay to have a mustache.

  “I’m Captain Winslow,” he says, and none of us get up.

  He goes around our circle, introducing himself to each of us in turn. I’m surprised at how soft his hand is when we shake.

  “I want you ladies to know that I need to be in here with you the entire time,” he says, looking sad about it. “But I will respect your confidences. Just pretend I’m part of the wall.”

  We all nod, and then he’s gone, and no one says anything. Sitting hurts, and my joints ache. The air in the room gets too thick to breathe. Right now, we’re all having second thoughts, but before anyone can change their minds, the door opens, and Captain Winslow leads Stephanie into the room.

  She’s not wearing makeup, but her hair is thick and glossy, and it looks like she’s got polish on her nails. She’s wearing a light blue shirt and jeans, with shackles on her wrists locked to a chain around her waist. There’s a look of terror in her eyes that she carefully replaces with bored nonchalance as Captain Winslow brings her closer.

  This was my idea. Everything I’d predicted back in that Camp Red Lake hydrotherapy room had come true. Stephanie hadn’t actually killed anyone, just put Dani in a wheelchair and me on a cane. She’d shot one of the food service workers and they’d lost an eye, but all t
he rest of the murders were Skye.

  The two of them had put a lot of effort into the whole thing but where Skye was all cold calculation, Stephanie drove him crazy by improvising. She’d done the first part according to plan—befriending Christophe Volker, letting him into Red Lake, telling him where Adrienne lived, and then she pushed him out the hayloft because she thought it looked more real. When I showed up at her house, she decided to come with me on a whim. That was Skye she’d been talking to at the rest stop on the way back to L.A., reassuring him everything was still on track.

  His master plan had been to murder everyone his mother ever cared about, to leave her all-important career broken into pieces that could never be repaired, to humiliate her in front of the whole world, but he teamed up with an erratic partner who got her rush from near misses and close calls. He probably would have shot Stephanie at the end out of sheer frustration if Heather hadn’t stopped him first.

  Stephanie would have been victim number nine.

  A long time ago I tried to watch one of Adrienne’s Summer Slaughter movies, but I turned it off after twenty minutes when I realized they weren’t going to tell us about any of the victims. I remember how sick I felt as human beings with families and dreams were reduced to splatter effects who only got first names. It’s important to remember their names.

  There was Russell Thorn.

  The woman at Red Lake who lost an eye was named Eva Watanabe.

  Jack Burrell.

  Brenda Jones.

  Marcie Stanler.

  Edna Hockett.

  Julius Gaw.

  Amanda Shepard.

  Remember their names but let the world forget Skye Elliott. Let them forget Stephanie Fugate.

  Stephanie’s parents got a lawyer who claimed her PTSD from the Tennis Coach Killings made her an aggressive hybristophile. She lost herself in the love of a Monster in a version of the “if you can’t protect yourself from being killed by them, join them” philosophy. I don’t think her lawyer was wrong. Skye spent two years seducing her, grooming her, transforming her into his perfect playmate. Another girl to add to his list of victims. She got twenty-five years for each of the three charges of assault with a deadly weapon, and three of battery causing serious bodily injury. She’ll be in here for the rest of her life.

  I thought about it for a long time, but I couldn’t see it any other way. Technically, she might not fit the description, but no matter how you look at it, she’s been victimized by a Monster and I have a responsibility. I’m not leaving anyone behind. It’s what Adrienne said to me once when I told her I thought I didn’t deserve to survive.

  “That’s your vanity talking,” she told me. “You just want to be special. Let me tell you something: no one is too far gone to be brought back. No one is too lost to be found. No one.”

  This probably won’t work. Stephanie will resist everything we do, she’ll mock my efforts, she’ll fight us all the way, but if there’s one thing I learned from Adrienne it’s that it doesn’t matter. We can’t help ourselves. This is what we do. You never stop trying to save your Sisters.

  It still surprises me that everyone agreed. Then again, maybe we all need a reason to keep seeing each other. Maybe we all need a reason to live.

  Captain Winslow sits Stephanie down in a folding chair, then disappears to the other side of the room. Stephanie’s made her face bored and blank, radiating contempt, already determined to ignore our appeals to her better nature, already opening her mouth to say something shocking.

  I beat her to the punch.

  “Stephanie,” I say. “Welcome to the Final Girl Support Group.”

  Ever wonder what happens to those final girls? After all their plans go belly up and all their weapons fail? After their defenses crumble and they’ve been shot in the head? After they’ve trusted the wrong people, made the wrong choices, and opened themselves up at the worst possible moments? After their lives are ruined and they’re left at thirty-eight years old with nothing in the bank, no kids, no lover, and nothing to their name but a couple of ghosts and a handful of broken-down friends?

  I know what happens to those girls.

  They turn into women.

  And they live.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author wishes to thank certain individuals who made big impressions in the movies, without which this book would not exist.

  Summer Slaughter

  Adam Goldworm (R.I.P.), Teddy, Summer Slaughter II, Summer Slaughter Part III in 3-D, Summer Slaughter IV

  Stephen Graham Jones, Bisected Counselor, Summer Slaughter V

  Harold Brown, “Machete Head” Reporter, Summer Slaughter VII

  Daniel Passman, Evil Lawyer, Summer Slaughter VIII: Teddy Goes to Washington

  Patrick Chu, director, Summer Slaughter IX: Teddy Zero G

  Panhandle Meathook

  Joshua Bilmes, producer, Panhandle Meathook 2, 3, 4

  Eddie Schneider, Man in Freezer, Panhandle Meathook

  Brady McReynolds, Sunbaked Cadaver, Panhandle Meathook

  Valentina Sainto, “Suzy”, Panhandle Meathook

  Susan Velazquez, “Marilyn”, Panhandle Meathook

  David Litman, Deputy in Bear Trap, Panhandle Meathook 2

  Gnomecoming

  Jessica Wade, producer, Gnomecoming

  Alexis Nixon (French Horn), Danielle Keir (Tuba), Fareeda Bullert (Mellophone), Daniela Riedlova (Piccolo), Jin Yu (Timp Toms), Marching Band, Gnomecoming

  Claire Zion, Screaming Girl, Gnomecoming

  Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Vice-Principal Hunt, Gnomecoming

  Emily Osbourne, Wallflower, Gnomecoming

  Megha Jain, Coroner, Gnomecoming

  Laura Corless, Stabbed by Paintbrush, Gnomecoming

  Slay Bells

  Cat Camacho, producer, Slay Bells 2: Hell for the Holidays, Slay Bells 3: Evil Elves

  Julia Lloyd, Caroler, Slay Bells

  Luke Dunlavey, Lawn Dart Victim, Slay Bells 2: Hell for the Holidays

  Laura Price, Scary Elf #1, Slay Bells 3: Evil Elves

  Lydia Gittins, Cantor, Slay Bells 4: Festival of Frights

  Deadly Dreams

  Doogie Horner, Dead-Eyed Pizza Monster with Beard, Deadly Dreams II: Sweet Screams Are Made of This

  Nicholas Rucka, director, Deadly Dreams 3: Dream Queens

  Roxanne Benjamin, Baby Doll Monster, Deadly Dreams IV: The Final Frightmare

  Ted Geoghegan, “Gorpus”, Deadly Dreams IV: The Final Frightmare

  The Babysitter Murders

  Hannah King, Psych Ward Nurse, The Babysitter Murders

  Kristin Johnston, Candy-Eating Girlfriend, The Babysitter Murders

  Nicholas Scott Sanburg, Furious Neighbor, The Babysitter Murders

  Mike Hickey, Dead Vending Machine Repairman, The Babysitter Murders II

  Diana Romanova, Dr. Strumpf, The Babysitter Murders II

  Cat Scully, Mainframe Technician, The Babysitter Murders III: Samhain

  Kris Gilbreth, Human Sacrifice, The Babysitter Murders III: Samhain

  Eric Mueller, Druid, The Babysitter Murders III: Samhain

  The roots of the slasher movie stretch back to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), based on Robert Bloch’s book of the same name. While Bloch stated many times that his book was based on the real-life crimes of Ed Gein, far more clippings were found in his files regarding Wisconsin’s infamous children’s entertainer and serial poisoner, Floyd Scriltch. When Hitchcock purchased the rights to Bloch’s book, he also optioned the life rights from the sole survivor of Scriltch’s infamous “Easter Bunny Massacre,” Amanda Cohen. Cohen was instrumental in the detection and capture of Scriltch and paid a heavy price for her bravery. This book is dedicated to her memory.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gra
dy Hendrix is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter living in New York City. He is the author of Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism (which is being adapted into a feature film by Amazon Studios), We Sold Our Souls, and the New York Times bestseller The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (currently being adapted into a TV series). Grady also authored the Bram Stoker Award-winning nonfiction book, Paperbacks from Hell, a history of the horror paperback boom of the '70s and '80s.

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