Final Girls

by Riley Sager

  He gives us a pleased-with-himself grin. I turn away. Although I know I should be grateful, a rash of annoyance creeps across my skin. Sam, though, is grateful. She thrusts out her hand, her SURVIVOR tattoo peeking from her sleeve. Jeff looks to me as he shakes it, sensing something is wrong. I refuse to meet his eye.

  Instead of a handshake, Sam gives me a quick hug. “Quincy, it was good to finally meet you.”

  “Wait—you’re leaving?”

  “I think I’ve caused enough trouble,” she says. “I only wanted to see how you were doing. Now I have my answer. You’re doing great. I’m happy for you, babe.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “Here and there,” Sam says. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  She starts to walk away. Or maybe she only pretends to, knowing I’ll stop her. It’s hard to tell, with the knapsack giving her a slow, uneven gait. Still, I know I can’t let her slip away again. Not like this.

  “Sam, wait,” I say. “I know you don’t have a place to stay.”

  Wind whips hair across her face as she turns around. “Don’t sweat it. I’ll be okay.”

  “You will,” I tell her. “Because you’re coming home with us.”

  10.

  The minute we get home, Jeff and I confer in the bedroom, the door closed, our voices emerging in exhausted half whispers so Sam can’t hear us from the living room.

  “She can stay one night,” Jeff says.

  “The night’s almost over,” I say, still mad at him for reasons I can’t articulate. “Two nights. At least.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation.”

  “Why are you so against this?”

  “Why are you so gung-ho about it?” Jeff says. “She’s a stranger, Quinn. She didn’t even bother to tell you her real name.”

  “I know her name. It’s Samantha Boyd. And she’s not a stranger. She’s a person who went through the same things I did, who now needs a place to stay.”

  “We’re in Manhattan,” Jeff says. “There are thousands of places she can go. Hotels.”

  “I’m pretty sure she can’t afford a hotel.”

  Jeff sighs, sits on the bed, kicks off his shoes. “That alone should give you pause. Who travels from God knows where to New York without any money? Or any plan, for that matter?”

  “Someone who’s really upset about what happened to Lisa Milner and now wants to do something about it.”

  “She’s not our responsibility, Quinn.”

  “She came here to see me,” I say. “That makes her our responsibility. My responsibility.”

  “And I got those charges dropped. I think that’s enough charity for someone we don’t know.”

  Jeff shucks off his shirt, slides out of his pants, and crawls into bed, ready to put the whole night behind him. I remain by the door, arms crossed, sending out waves of unspoken anger.

  “Yeah. You did a swell job.”

  Jeff sits up, blinking at me. “Wait. You’re actually mad at me for that?”

  “I’m mad that you were so quick to play the victim card. All it took was one mention of the Nightlight Inn.”

  “Sam didn’t mind.”

  “Only because she didn’t hear you. I’m sure things would be different if she had.”

  “I’m not going to apologize for keeping her out of jail.”

  “Nor should you,” I say. “But you can at least acknowledge that there might have been a better way to do it. You should have seen the way that cop looked at Sam. Like she was a wounded dog or something. That’s why she changed her name, Jeff. So people would stop pitying her.”

  But I’m angry at him for reasons that go beyond Sam. When he whispered to that cop, I caught a glimpse of Jefferson Richards at work. The lawyer. The guy willing to say anything to help his client, even if it meant reducing her to an object of pity. I didn’t like what I saw.

  “Listen,” Jeff says, reaching out for me. “I’m sorry I did that. But at the time it seemed like the quickest way to resolve the whole thing.”

  I tighten my arms across my chest. “If the roles were reversed and it was me who had been arrested, would you have done the same thing?”

  “Of course not.”

  I detect a streak of falsehood in his voice. There’s a thinness to his words that brings the annoyed prickle back to my skin. I scratch my neck, trying to make it go away.

  “But that’s what I am, right?” I say. “A victim? Just like Sam?”

  A frustrated sigh from Jeff. “You know you’re more than that.”

  “So is Sam. And while she’s staying with us, you need to treat her that way.”

  Jeff tries to utter another apology, but I cut him off by whirling around and throwing open the bedroom door. When I leave, I slam it shut so hard the walls shake.

  • • •

  The guest room is small, tidy, stuffy. The red shade of the nightstand lamp throws a rosy glow over the walls. Because of the hour, everything feels shimmering and dreamlike. I know I should try to sleep, but I don’t want to. Not with Sam seemingly wide-awake, pulsing with heat and energy and life. So we huddle on the queen bed, shoes discarded on the floor, our feet shoved beneath the comforter for warmth.

  Sam retreats to the knapsack she dropped in the corner and removes a bottle of Wild Turkey.

  “A little pick-me-up,” she says, climbing back into bed. “I think we need it.”

  The Wild Turkey is passed back and forth, both of us swigging directly from the bottle. Each swallow is a burning lump sliding down my throat. They ignite faint traces of memory. Me and Janelle on the first night in our dorm room. The two of us shoulder to shoulder, her drinking wine coolers she had flirted from a junior across the hall, me sipping a Diet Coke. We became best friends that night. I still think of her as that. My best friend. It doesn’t matter that she’s ten years in the grave and that I know our friendship wouldn’t have survived even if she had.

  “This is just for tonight, you know,” Sam says. “I’ll be gone in the morning.”

  “You can stay as long as you need.”

  “And I only need one night.”

  “You should have told me you were struggling,” I say. “I’m happy to help. I can loan you money. Or whatever.”

  “I’m sure that’ll go over real well with your boyfriend.”

  I take a swig of Wild Turkey and cough. “Don’t worry about Jeff.”

  “He doesn’t like me.”

  “He doesn’t know you yet, Sam.” I pause. “Or should I call you Tina?”

  “Sam,” she says. “The Tina thing is just a formality.”

  “How long has it been since you did that?”

  Sam takes a drink, talking while swallowing. “Years.”

  “When you disappeared?”

  “Yeah. I was sick of being Samantha Boyd, the Final Girl. I wanted to be someone else. At least on paper.”

  “Does your family know?”

  Sam shakes her head and passes me the bottle before scooting off the bed. Her first destination is her knapsack, out of which is pulled a pack of cigarettes. Then it’s on to the window, where she says, “Can I?”

  I shrug my permission and Sam opens the window. Outside, thin clouds streak the bruise-black sky. The darkness hums with faint energy. Dawn is approaching.

  “I need to quit,” Sam says as she lights up. “Smoking’s gotten too damn expensive.”

  “Not to mention deadly,” I say.

  She blows a stream of smoke through the window screen. “That part doesn’t worry me. I’ve already cheated death once, right?”

  “So you started after the Nightlight Inn?”

  “I needed something to calm me down, you know?”

  Oh, yes, I know. Besides the Xanax, my go-to relief valve is wine. Red, white, or in between, it doesn’t matter. I’
m certain Janelle would have found that ironic.

  “I’m surprised you and Lisa never started,” Sam says. “It seemed so natural to me.”

  “I tried it once. Didn’t like it.” A question pings into my head. “How do you know Lisa didn’t smoke?”

  “I assume she didn’t,” Sam says. “She didn’t mention it in her book or anything.”

  The first half-inch of her cigarette has become a cylinder of ash, on the verge of dropping to the floor. She steps away from the window, the hand holding the cigarette remaining by the screen while her free arm reaches for the knapsack and pulls out a portable ashtray. Leather and baglike, it looks like a coin purse with a snap clasp. Displaying the dexterity of a longtime smoker, Sam flicks it open and, with a tap, deposits the ash dangling from the cigarette.

  “So you did read her book?” I say.

  Sam inhales, nods, exhales. “I thought it was okay. It sure as hell didn’t help me deal with what happened to me.”

  “Do you think about it a lot?”

  I take another swallow of Wild Turkey, getting used to its warmth in the back of my throat. Sam reaches out an arm, seeking the bottle. When I hand it to her, she takes two hard swallows, only a puff of her cigarette separating them.

  “Constantly.”

  She passes the bottle back to me. I raise it to my lips, my quiet words reverberating against the glass. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Sam finishes her cigarette with a single, grand exhalation. It’s then tapped out in the ashtray, which she promptly shuts. When the window is closed, smoke continues to sting the air of the room, lingering like a bad memory.

  “You think it only happens in the movies,” she says. “That it couldn’t happen in real life. At least, not like that. And certainly not to you. But it happened. First at a sorority house in Indiana. Then at a motel in Florida.”

  She slides off her jacket, revealing more of the black dress underneath. Her arms and shoulders are exposed, the flesh tight and moon-pale. On her back, a tattoo of the Grim Reaper has been inked just below her right shoulder, its skeletal face momentarily bisected by the strap of her dress.

  “Calvin Whitmer,” she says, climbing back into bed. “The Sack Man.”

  The name prompts a deep, internal shiver. It feels like a chunk of ice is tangled among my organs.

  “You said his name.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’ve never said His name.” There’s no need for me to clarify. She knows who I’m talking about. “Not once.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” Sam says as she pulls the bottle from my grip. “I think about him all the time. I can still see him, you know? When I close my eyes. He had cut eyeholes into the sack. Plus a little slit right over his nose for air. I’ll never forget the way it flapped when he breathed. He had tied string around his neck to keep the sack in place.”

  I sense another chunk of ice forming in my gut. I take the Wild Turkey from Sam even though she’s not finished with it. I swallow two gulps, hoping it will melt the chill.

  “Too many details?” Sam says.

  I shake my head. “Details matter.”

  “What about you? You remember any details at all?”

  “A few.”

  “But not much.”

  “No.”

  “I’ve heard it’s not a real thing,” she says. “All that repressed-memory stuff.”

  I help myself to another swallow, trying to ignore the vague needling from Sam. Despite all we have in common, she’s incapable of peering into my brain and seeing the black hole where memories of Pine Cottage should be. She’ll never know how comforting yet frustrating it is to remember the very beginning of something and then the tail end. It’s like leaving a theater five minutes into the movie and returning right when the end credits start to roll.

  “Trust me,” I say. “It’s real.”

  “And you don’t mind not remembering?”

  “I think it’s probably better that I don’t.”

  “But don’t you want to know what really happened?”

  “I know the end result,” I say. “That’s all I need to know.”

  “I heard it’s still standing,” Sam says. “Pine Cottage. I read it on one of those shitty true-crime sites.”

  I had read the same thing several years ago. Probably on the same website. Once the investigation was over, Pine Cottage’s owner had tried to sell the land. No one wanted it, of course. Nothing sinks land values more than blood in the soil. When he went into bankruptcy, it passed into the hands of his creditors. They couldn’t sell it either. So Pine Cottage remains, a cabin-size tombstone in the Pennsylvania woods.

  “You ever think about going back there and taking a look?” Sam asks. “Maybe it would help you remember.”

  The very idea nauseates me. “Never.”

  “Do you ever think about him?”

  It’s obvious she wants me to say His name. Anticipation pulses like body heat off her skin.

  “No,” I lie.

  “I figured you’d say that,” Sam says.

  “It’s true.”

  I have another swallow of Wild Turkey and stare into the bottle, taken aback by how much we’ve had. Actually, by how much I’ve had. Sam, I realize, has barely touched it. I close my eyes, swaying a little. I can feel myself teetering on the edge of being drunk. One more drink will do the trick.

  I tip the bottle back, take two gulps, relish their burn.

  Sam’s voice has become distant and tinny, even though she’s right beside me. “You act like you’re totally over what happened, but you’re not.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say.

  “Then prove it. Tell me his name.”

  “We should try to sleep,” I say, looking to the window and the increasingly lightened sky. “It’s late. Or early.”

  “There’s no reason to be afraid,” Sam says.

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s not like it’ll bring him back to life.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why are you being such a pussy about it?”

  She sounds exactly like Janelle. Nudging. Prodding. Goading me into something I don’t want to do. Annoyance swells inside me, tinged with anger. When I try to tamp it down with more Wild Turkey I realize Sam’s taken the bottle from my hands.

  “You are, you know,” she says. “Being a pussy.”

  “That’s enough, Sam.”

  “If you’re so over everything that happened, then a simple name shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

  “I’m going to bed.”

  Sam grabs my arm when I try to leave. I jerk free of her grip, slide off the bed, and hit the floor. Hard. Pain spreads up my hip.

  Drunk on both Wild Turkey and lack of sleep, it takes some effort to stand. The whiskey sloshes sourly in my stomach. My vision swims. Sam makes things worse by saying, “I wish you’d say it.”

  “No.”

  “Just once. For me.”

  I turn on her, wildly unsteady. “Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

  “Why are you so against it?”

  “Because He doesn’t deserve to have His name spoken!” I yell, my voice loud in the predawn silence. “After what He did, no one should say His fucking name!”

  Sam’s eyes go wide. She knows she’s pushed me too far.

  “You don’t need to freak out about it.”

  “Apparently I do,” I say. “I’m doing you a favor by letting you crash here.”

  “You are. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

  “And if we’re going to be friends, you need to also know that I don’t talk about Pine Cottage. I’ve moved past it.”

  Sam looks down, both hands on the bottle, cradling it between her breasts. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t
mean to be such a bitch.”

  A moment of sobriety arrives as I stand in the doorway, hand on my throbbing hip, trying my damnedest to not look as drunk as I truly am. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is best if you leave in the morning.”

  Having spoken coherently, drunkenness again crashes over me. I sway out of the room, needing multiple attempts to close the door behind me. Then it’s into my own room, where more wrangling with a door ensues.

  Jeff is half-awake when I flop into bed, murmuring, “I heard shouting.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” I reply, too exhausted to say more.

  Before I free-fall completely into sleep, a thought cuts through the fuzz of my brain. It’s a flash of memory—an unwelcome one. Him during the moment we first met. Before the killing started. Before he became Him.

  A second thought arrives, one more troublesome than the first.

  Sam wanted me to remember.

  What I don’t understand is why.

  PINE COTTAGE

  5:03 P.M.

  Janelle decided she wanted to explore the woods, knowing full well the group agreed ahead of time to do the birthday girl’s bidding. So off they went, tramping into the trees that practically nudged up against the cabin’s back deck.

  Craig, the former Boy Scout, led the way with a determination that was almost silly. He was the only one who brought along proper footwear—hiking boots with heavy-duty socks pulled over his taut calves to guard against ticks. He carried an absurdly long walking stick, which struck the ground in a rhythmic thud.

  Quincy and Janelle were right behind him, less serious. Wearing jeans, striped sweaters, and impractical Keds, they kicked their way through the fallen leaves that coated the forest floor. More leaves continued to fall, the late-afternoon sunlight shining through their brittle thinness as they spun, tumbled, and whirled. Falling stars speckled red and orange and yellow.

  Janelle grabbed a leaf in mid-fall and tucked it behind her ear, its fiery orange glowing against her auburn hair.

  “I demand a picture,” she said.

  Quincy obliged, snapping off two shots before turning around and taking one of Betz, trudging heavily like she’d done all day. To her, this trip was more burden than gift. A weekend to be endured.