Final Girls

by Riley Sager

  Tina shakes her head and sighs. Opening her door, she says, “Then I guess we’re going in.”

  My body starts to buzz. Adrenaline churns my blood. I see the knife on the dashboard and lunge for it. Tina does too, snatching it away from my springing hand.

  She’s right. She is faster.

  I go for the keys next, aiming for the plastic key fob. Again, Tina beats me to it. Yanking the keys from the ignition, she carries them and the knife out of the car.

  “I’m coming back in a second,” she says. “Don’t try to run. You won’t get far.”

  She heads off to the cabin, leaving me alone in the car, scrambling to come up with a plan. I jam my thumb into the buckle at my hip and the seat belt recoils with a snap. I then search my pockets for my phone.

  It’s gone.

  Tina took it.

  But I have another. The memory of it is a whirling dervish in my drug-addled brain. I shove my hand into my shirt, fingers fumbling for the stolen phone still secured under a bra strap.

  Through the windshield, I watch Tina at the cabin’s front door. She stands directly beneath the crooked Pine Cottage sign, trying to get inside by jiggling the doorknob. When that doesn’t work, she throws her body against the door, leading with her shoulder.

  I turn on the phone, holding my breath as I check the battery level. It’s in the red. There’s also barely any signal. A single bar appears and disappears in quick intervals. I estimate there’s enough juice and signal for one call.

  I hope.

  But calling 911 isn’t an option. Tina will hear me talking. She might take the phone away. Or worse. I can’t risk that, even if I suspect that worse part is going to arrive eventually anyway.

  That leaves texting. Which leaves only Coop. Because I’m not using my phone, I know he won’t recognize the number. That might work to my advantage, considering what happened last night.

  I look to the cabin again and see Tina still shoving herself against the door. Now’s my only chance.

  I text Coop quickly, summoning his number from my hazy memory, fingers skating across the quickly dying phone.

  its quinn sams holding me hostage at pine cottage help me

  The phone beeps when I hit Send, confirming the text is on its way. Then the phone’s screen goes black in my hand, the battery giving up the ghost. I shove it into my pocket.

  At the cabin, Tina succeeds in breaking through the front door. It yawns open, the threshold a dark and festering mouth, ready to swallow me whole. The car’s headlights point directly at it, the beams slicing the quickening dusk all the way into the cabin, where a patch of dusty floor basks in the glow.

  That glimpse inside the cabin triples the dread that’s formed in my lungs. It feels like glass, puncturing the spongy tissue, cutting off airflow. When Tina marches back to the car, I have no choice but to run.

  Only, I can’t.

  Standing is far different from sitting up. Now that I’m out of the car and on my feet, the drugs take hold again, knocking me off balance. I drift sideways, steeling myself for the inevitable fall. But Tina is there, holding me upright. The knife flies to my neck and hovers there, blade scratching my skin.

  “Sorry, babe,” she says. “There’s no getting out of this.”

  Tina hauls me toward the cabin as I thrash in her grip. My heels dig into the gravel, doing nothing to slow us, twin trails of resistance all I have to show for the effort. One of my arms is trapped under one of hers. The arm that holds the knife, which I can’t see but can certainly feel. My chin bumps the hilt every time I scream. Which is often.

  When not screaming, I try to talk Tina out of doing whatever she intends to do.

  “You can’t do this,” I say, huffing the words, spittle flying. “You’re like me. A survivor.”

  Tina doesn’t answer. She just keeps dragging me to the cabin door, now only ten yards away.

  “Your stepfather was abusing you, right? That’s why you killed him?”

  “Something like that, yeah,” Tina says.

  Her grip loosens. Just a hair. Enough to make me know I’m getting to her.

  “They sent you to Blackthorn,” I say. “Although you weren’t crazy. You were protecting yourself. From him. And that’s what you’ve been trying to do ever since. Protect women. Hurt the men who hurt them.”

  “Stop talking,” Tina says.

  I don’t. I can’t.

  “And at Blackthorn, you met Him.”

  I’m no longer talking about Earl Potash. Tina knows this, for she says, “He had a name, Quincy.”

  “Were you close? Was He your boyfriend?”

  “He was my friend,” Tina says. “My only fucking friend. Ever.”

  She stops our tumultuous drag to the cabin. She tightens her grip around me, the knife’s edge pressing into the flesh right under my chin. I want to swallow but can’t, out of fear it will cause the blade to break the skin.

  “Say his name,” she orders. “You need to say it, Quincy.”

  “I can’t,” I say. “Please don’t make me.”

  “You can. And you will.”

  “Please.” The word is choked out, barely audible. “Please, no.”

  “Say his fucking name.”

  I swallow against my will. A gulp that forces my neck further onto the knife blade. It stings like a burn. Hot and pulsing. Tears pop from my eyes.

  “Joe Hannen.”

  A rush of vomit follows, riding the words as they spew from my mouth. Tina keeps the knife where it is as I heave up the contents of my stomach. Coffee and grape soda and parts of pills that haven’t yet wormed their way into my body.

  When it’s over, I don’t feel any better. Not with the knife still at my neck. Not with five short yards separating me from Pine Cottage. I’m still sick, still dizzy. More than anything, I’m spent, my body weakened to the point of paralysis.

  Tina resumes pulling me to the cabin and I comply. There’s no more fight left in me. All I can do is cry as strands of puke droop from my chin.

  “Why?” I say.

  But I already know why. She was here that night. With Him. She helped Him kill Janelle and all the others. Just as she had helped Him kill those campers in the woods. Just as she later killed Lisa, despite her claims to the contrary.

  “Because I need to know how much you can remember,” Tina says.

  “But why?”

  Because it will help her decide if I need to be killed too. Just like Lisa.

  We’re at the door now, that insidious mouth. A chill whispers from deep inside, faint and shivery.

  I begin to scream. Panicked ones that erupt from my bile-coated throat.

  “No! Please, no!”

  I grab the doorframe with my free hand, fingernails digging into the wood. Tina gives one sharp tug and the wood snaps in my grip, breaking away. I drop the splintered chunk and keep screaming.

  Pine Cottage has welcomed me home.

  40.

  I fall silent once I’m actually inside.

  I don’t want Pine Cottage to know I’m here.

  Tina lets me go and gives me a shove. I tumble into the middle of the great room, skidding across the floor. Inside, it’s blessedly dark. The grimy windows block most of the waning light from outside. The open door lets in the yellow glow of the headlights—a rectangle of brightness stretching along the floor. In its center is Tina’s shadow, arms crossed, blocking my escape.

  “Remember anything?” she says.

  I look around, curiosity mingling with terror. Water stains darken the walls. Or maybe it’s blood. I try not to look at them. There are more stains on the ceiling, circular ones. Definitely water damage. Nests and cobwebs crowd the rafters. Sections of floor are splattered with bird shit. A dead mouse lies in a corner, dried to leather.

  The whole place has been empti
ed, all that rustic furniture carted away and hopefully burned. It makes the room seem bigger, save for the fireplace, which is smaller than I remember. Seeing it brings to mind Craig and Rodney kneeling before it, boys trying to act like men, fumbling with kindling and matches.

  Other memories fly at me in short, startling bursts. Like I’m flipping channels, stopping for a second on each, catching flashes of movies I know I’ve seen.

  There’s Janelle, dancing barefoot in the middle of the room, singing along to that song we both loved until everyone else started to hate it.

  There’s Betz and Amy, preparing the chicken, bickering until they giggle.

  There’s Him. Staring at me from across the room. Dirty lenses hiding his eyes. Almost as if he knows what the two of us will be doing later.

  “I don’t,” I say, my voice amplified in the empty room. “There’s nothing.”

  Tina leaves the doorway and jerks me to my feet. “Let’s take a look around.”

  She pulls me toward the open kitchen, now a shell of its former self. The oven’s been removed, leaving a vacant square of leaves, dirt, and gauzy strips of dust. Gone too are the cupboard doors. Bare shelves sit exposed, littered with mouse droppings. But the sink is still there, rust holes in four different spots. I latch onto its edge for support. My legs remain unsteady. I barely feel them. It’s as if I’m floating.

  “Nothing?” Tina says.

  “No.”

  So it’s into the hall, Tina leading the way, her merciless grip pinching the flesh of my upper arm. She stomps. I float.

  We both stop when we reach the bunk-bed room. Betz’s room. Empty except for a single gray rag bunched in the center of the floor. The room holds no memories. Until tonight, I’ve never set foot inside it.

  When I say nothing, Tina pulls me to the room I was supposed to share with Janelle. Just like at school. One of the two beds remains, stripped of its mattress. It’s been pushed away from the wall, nothing but a rust-mottled frame.

  This room brings back memories. I think of Janelle and me talking about sex while trying on dresses. Things would have turned out differently had I not worn that white dress Janelle let me borrow. If I had insisted on spending the night in here and not in the room just down the hall.

  Tina shoots me a look. “Anything?”

  “No.” I’ve started to cry. Being here again, reliving things again. It’s all too much.

  Tina wastes no time in pulling me to the room across the hall. The waterbed is gone, of course. Everything is. The only notable detail in the empty room is a large swath of floor turned dark with rot. It stretches to the doorway and under our feet before crossing the hall to the last bedroom.

  My bedroom.

  I hesitate at the doorway, unwilling to enter. I don’t want to be reminded of what I did in there. With Him. And what I did after. Marching like a madwoman into the trees. Clutching that knife. Leaving it there once I came to my senses. Practically placing it in His hands.

  It’s all my fault.

  He and Tina might have killed them, but I’m the one to blame.

  Yet even though he had the chance, He didn’t kill me. He made sure I’d live, giving me those nonlethal wounds that made Cole and Freemont so suspicious. I was spared because of what He’d done to me. What I had let Him do.

  Having sex with Him was the only thing that saved my life.

  I know that now.

  I knew it all along.

  Tina notices something in my face. A twitch. A flinch. “You remember something new.”

  “No.”

  It’s a lie.

  There is something new. A slice of memory I’ve never had before.

  I’m in this room.

  On the floor.

  Water seeps under the closed door, rolling toward me, then around me. It soaks my hair, my shoulders, my whole body, which convulses with pain and terror. Someone sits next to me. Tears chime inside his ragged breaths.

  You’ll be okay. We’ll both be okay.

  From the other side of the door comes a terrible slick-swish. Footsteps in the water. Right outside.

  More memories. Brief snippets. Pounding on the door. A rattling of the doorknob. A slam. A crunch as the door breaks open, smashing against the wall. The flash of moonlight on the knife, glinting red.

  I scream.

  Then.

  Now.

  The two screams collide until I can’t tell which is in the present and which is in the past. When someone grabs me, I start yelling and kicking, fighting them off, not knowing who it is or when it is or what’s happening to me.

  “Quincy.” It’s Tina’s voice, cutting through the confusion. “Quincy, what’s going on?”

  I stare up at her, firmly in the present. The knife remains in her hand, a reminder that I can’t disappoint her.

  “I’m starting to remember,” I say.

  41.

  Details.

  Finally.

  In my memory, I’m edging in and out of consciousness, my eyes opening and shutting. Like I’m in a closed-off room and someone is flicking the lights. I’ve rolled onto my back, hoping it will make the stab wounds at my shoulder hurt less. It doesn’t.

  Blinking at the swirling stars overhead, I hear the others on the deck, screaming and scrambling to get inside.

  What about Quinn? It might be Amy, her voice plaintive. What about her?

  She’s dead.

  I know that voice. Definitely Craig.

  The back door is slammed shut. A lock clicks.

  I want to look but can’t. Pain tears through my shoulder when I try to turn my head. It hurts so bad. Like I’m on fire. And the blood. So much blood. It pumps out in time to the panicked thrum of my heart.

  He’s still crossing the frost-crusted grass to the cabin, feet crunching over it. When He reaches the deck, the grass crunch changes to wood creak. Inside Pine Cottage, someone screams at the window, the sound muted as it bounces off the glass.

  Then the window shatters.

  I hear another click, the creak of the door, screams of multiple people making their way deeper into the cabin. They fade until only one scream remains. Amy again. She’s screaming and screaming just inside the now-open door. Then one of her screams is cut short. A sickly gurgle follows.

  Amy is silent.

  I moan and close my eyes.

  The lights are flicked off again.

  • • •

  I’m jostled awake by hands on my arms, pulling me to my feet. The movement reignites the pain blaze at my shoulder. I cry out and am instantly shushed.

  Quiet, someone whispers.

  I open my eyes, taking in Betz on one side of me and Rodney on the other. Betz’s hands are stained with blood. Every place she touches leaves a red print. I’m covered with them. Rodney is also bloody, smears of it on his face and shoulder. A tourniquet has been wrapped around his forearm, damp with gore.

  Come on, Quinn, he whispers. We’re getting out of here.

  They throw my arms over their shoulders, not caring how it hurts so much I want to scream. I swallow the sound, choking it down.

  As we leave, I get a glimpse of Janelle, lying right where I left her. She’s on her side, head lolled, eyes wide open. One of her arms is pitched forward, stretching across the blood-drenched grass, as if she’s begging me to stay.

  We leave without her, the three of us crossing to the cabin. Betz and Rodney do all the work. I’m just along for the ride, weak from blood loss, delirious from pain. I’m so helpless that Rodney’s forced to lift me up the deck steps.

  The two of them whisper over me as I’m planted upright again.

  Is he there?

  I don’t see him.

  Where’d he go?

  I don’t know.

  They grow quiet, listening. I listen too, hear
ing only night noises—the last of the season’s crickets, bare branches crackling, the ghostly whisper of falling leaves. Everything else is silent.

  Then we’re moving again, faster this time, crunching over a pile of glass near the door before bustling into the cabin.

  Amy is just inside the door, propped against the wall like a discarded doll. She even resembles a doll. Eyes as blank as plastic buttons, arms limp at her sides.

  Don’t look, Rodney whispers, his voice breaking. It’s not real. None of this is real.

  I want to believe him. In fact, I almost do. But then we step in a slick of blood and I skid forward, releasing a yelp. Rodney slaps a hand over my mouth. He shakes his head.

  Then we’re on the move again, into the great room, toward the window by the front door.

  Where are we going? I whisper.

  Rodney whispers back: As far away from here as possible.

  The three of us stand at the window, watching. For what, I don’t know. Until suddenly I do.

  Craig is outside. Running in a crouch toward the SUV that brought us here. The SUV where all our cell phones have been stowed. Craig opens the door slowly, hands shaking, recoiling when the interior light pops on. Then he’s inside, starting the engine.

  Now! Rodney yells.

  Betz flings open the front door and we hustle outside, caught in the SUV’s headlights, our shadows looming large against the front of the cabin. I turn to look at them—three dark giants, menacing and tall.

  A fourth giant joins them. He holds a knife, its shadow on the wall three feet long.

  Suddenly I’m being jerked back toward Pine Cottage. There’s more screaming. From Betz. Maybe even from me.

  Inside the cabin, Rodney slams the door shut and slides the ratty armchair against it. Betz and I return to the window. The SUV’s headlights sweep over us as Craig steers it into a U-turn.

  He’s leaving! Betz yelps. He’s going without us!

  The SUV gets about ten feet before it slams into a large maple next to the driveway, shaking loose leaves that rain onto the windshield. Steam hisses through the dented grille. The engine sputters and dies.

  Inside the SUV, Craig slumps over the steering wheel, his chin pressing on the horn. The noise breaks the night silence with a steady blare.