“Oh, God!” Tiffany said. “We don’t have time for that, there’s a killer out there somewhere. He could be watching us right now!”
Maddie put her hands on her hips. Her chin jutted out. “We’ll handle the killer, don’t worry. Attacking us all together would be stupid.”
“How? We don’t have any weapons,” Tiffany continued, babbling.
“And we’re scared and confused—” Freddy finished for her.
Zack and I pulled out our guns at the same time. Black Glocks, courtesy of Storm.
The counselors’ eyes ballooned; they must’ve never seen a gun before. And I knew how this looked. Their friend was dead, and here were a couple of strangers, pulling out deadly weapons.
Saying it didn’t look good would be a drastic understatement.
“Put those away,” Maddie said.
“What—why do you have th-those?” Freddy said. “Holy shit, I was right! You guys are the killers.”
Zack walked over and slapped Freddy in the face.
The glazed look in the counselor’s eyes was replaced with one of great shock.
“Don’t hit him!” Tiffany yelled.
“Everyone, just calm down!” I said. “We’re getting out of here, but if we’re attacked, we have weapons. No need to worry.”
“Who are you?” Jason asked me. I could hardly hear him. His voice was low, wheezy.
“We’re the Fright Squad.”
17
Marching On
Of course, me telling them that we were the Fright Squad didn’t do anything. No one knew who the Fright Squad was. As of this writing, I think we have thirteen likes on Facebook, and I know everyone who’s liked the page.
Oh, well. BEAST doesn’t want us out there spreading the word about the things that actually go bump in the night, so our lack of popularity kind of works out.
That’s beside the point.
Anyway, Jason arched an eyebrow at us. “The Fright Squad?”
“Our friend is dead, and you’re giving yourselves silly names?” Tiffany said. “Oh, God. We are beyond screwed.”
I shook my head. I could tell I’d already lost the crowd. No going back.
“Just…nevermind. We specialize in this kind of stuff—”
“So you’re cops?” Jason asked.
“Not exactly,” Zack answered.
“Can we just stop this?” Maddie chimed in. “Let’s get to the cabin, then let’s get the hell out of this place.”
“What about Elle?” Tiffany asked.
“Does it matter?” Freddy said. “Her head isn’t even here.”
“We’ll come back for her,” Maddie promised. “When we have cell service and can call the cops. Now, let’s go!”
We filed out of the lodge. Our pace wasn’t a run, but it was pretty damn close. Maddie led the way, while Zack and I brought up the rear, making sure none of the would-be counselors strayed from the path. The distance to the cabin wasn’t far, but you never know…
“What happened to the torches?” Jason asked.
No one answered. No one knew.
We got to the cabin.
“Are you coming in or staying out?” I asked the three of them.
All at once, they answered “Coming in!”
The darkness must’ve influenced that decision. Again, I didn’t blame them. At the lodge, they were by the lake, and although it was dark, they would be able to see if there was someone or something coming out of the water. Here, in the throes of the camp’s layout, we were surrounded by woods. Anything could be lurking in the trees. Waiting.
I shivered.
We went inside, the three counselors behind me.
No less than three steps in, I heard a loud noise, like a baseball bat smacking a fastball. A split-second later, I felt a blaring pain, as if said fastball had pummeled into the back of my head.
My knees gave out. Vision went black. I remember thinking as I fell to the floor—feeling weightless, despite the red-hot pain in my skull—that I really hoped I wouldn’t fall through.
18
Not-So-Dumb Blonde
Zack’s lips were moving, but I wasn’t hearing any words. He had his gun out, that black Glock, and he was pointing right at me.
It all started to make sense.
Zack wasn’t pointing his gun at me. He was pointing it behind me.
Still, my brain was a little fuzzy, and I thought, Cageface? Is Cageface behind me? Did he punch me in the back of the head?
It seemed like a valid assumption. We left him, and he had risen from his state of stone-cold deadness while we were running after Maddie. Now we were back, and he was up and hungry for blood. I mean, that was what serial slashers did, right?
Right.
But I was wrong.
Against all the pain wracking my body, I managed to turn my head to the left and look upward at my assailant.
It wasn’t Cageface. Wasn’t Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. No slashers at all.
It was Tiffany, the dumb blonde who’d played her part well enough to convince me, a well-versed watcher of horror and slasher movies.
I had not been expecting that twist. She had taken on the appearance of the old woman again, drooping flesh and malicious eyes. I chalked it up to the hit I’d taken.
My hearing started coming back. Jason was breathing rapidly to my right, from where he and Freddy were pressed up against the wall. The floor creaked beneath all of us.
“Drop it!” Zack yelled.
“See, you are police,” Freddy whispered. “Only a cop would say that.”
“Or a guy who’s seen Lethal Weapon too many times,” I said, trying to get up. “Ow, my head.”
A flipflop kicked my back, and I fell to the floor again. Hard. Dust plumed up into my nose, and a sneezing fit overtook me. Not cool.
Once I stopped, Tiffany seized the opportunity for her bad guy monologue.
I wished for another sneezing fit—I’d heard too many bad guy monologues in my time. Another one might drive me crazy.
“Fright Squad, huh?” Tiffany began.
“Just drop the gun,” Zack said.
Maddie had sidled off to the side, out of the line of fire, and was inching toward the pack full of weapons.
“Stop!” Tiffany shouted at her. “Stop right now!”
She did.
“C’mon, Tiff,” Jason coaxed. “What are you doing, babe?”
“Oh shut up, you big, dumb jock!” Tiffany said, sneering. “Or I’ll shoot you, too.”
“Way too high for this. Way too high,” Freddy was on the verge of panic.
“Shut up!” everyone except me said simultaneously.
Freddy decided that shutting up was probably his best course of action.
“Get up,” Tiffany said to me. “Get up now.” She jammed the barrel of my gun into my back; she must’ve gotten it after she knocked me out. The amount of force she was using hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as the throbbing wound on the back of my head. I got up, anyway, though, because how could I not? “You’ve proven to be a little more difficult than I had wanted, Fright Squad.”
“Let me guess,” I said, holding my hands up, talking out of the corner of my mouth, and watching Tiffany from my peripherals, “Doctor Blood sent you.”
“Doctor Blood?” Tiffany said. “Are you joking? Do you think this is some kind of low-budget horror film?”
“So he didn’t send you?” I inferred.
“I’ve never heard of a ‘Doctor Blood’, but that’s a stupid name.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Zack agreed. “Almost as bad as ‘Cageface’…”
“Zack,” Maddie whispered urgently.
“Oh, right—drop the gun, Tiffany! Leave Abe alone,” he ordered.
“Shut up!” Tiffany cried. “Cageface is not a stupid name!”
I wasn’t feeling much fear, only a good deal of confusion; I’d been in worse situations. A gun to my back was a walk in the park. I was just worried about what
Tiffany’s play here was. Maybe she was just crazy, unhinged. If that was the case, then this was going to be pretty bad.
“Okay,” Tiffany said, considering Zack. “I’ll leave Abe alone, as long as you take his place.”
“For what?” he asked, tilting his head.
“For the sacrifice,” she answered.
“Oh, no, never mind,” Zack said. “I’ll pass on that one.”
“Gee, thanks, Zack,” I said.
He offered me a hesitant smile. Maddie was standing over by the bunk, maybe about five feet from reaching our bag of weapons, and she rolled her eyes at Zack’s lack of bravery. I didn’t blame him, though. Not really. I could handle myself.
It was just a matter of when I would get that chance. It didn’t seem like it was going to be anytime soon.
“Then Abe will do,” Tiffany stated. “He looks pure.” She poked me in the back, prodding me forward, toward the hole in the floor. “I see you’ve discovered my office.”
Pure?
“If that’s an office, then I’m totally not pissing myself right now,” Zack said. He trained his gun on Tiffany, but she didn’t seem to care much.
We walked along the dusty floorboards.
“Down,” Tiffany said. “Jump.”
“How high?” I replied.
No one thought this to be funny. I decided it was probably best to let Zack handle the humor from now on.
Tiffany, deciding I wasn’t going fast enough, gave me a push. I fell down the hole and landed hard on the dirt. At least three bones in my body cracked. Which ones? I had no idea.
I was on my back, looking up to the dimly lit room.
“Are you okay?” Maddie asked from above.
“Peachy,” I responded. I would’ve been surprised if she heard me, because my voice was coming out in a wheeze. I sounded like I’d been smoking cigarettes all twenty-one years of my life.
“Now, we can all go down in an orderly manner, or you can go down like Abe, there, did,” Tiffany proposed. “There’s an option number three, as well, of course.”
She paused for dramatic effect.
“That would be death,” she finished.
Shuffling steps came from overhead. Jason was the first one down the bunk bed ladder. He knelt by me, and asked me if I was okay. I tried looking tough and said, “Yeah, just fine,” but it was hardly convincing.
“Now you,” I heard Tiffany say.
Then Maddie came down the ladder. She stepped back when she saw the heads on the walls. It was only then that Jason seemed to notice them. He looked sick again, his skin waxy.
“Looks like we’re in a standoff,” Zack said. “Guns pointed, each ready to pull the trigger. I’m not going down there again, and you’re not forcing me, either—not while I have a gun.”
“I guess we’ll have to do something about that, then,” Tiffany said.
“Guys, uh, can I go down there now?” Freddy’s voice was weak. “I don’t wanna get shot.”
About three seconds later, I heard the sound of a foot connecting with a midsection, and Freddy cried out before falling down the hole. Luckily for him, I was there to soften his blow. Though he looked pretty thin, as most stoners do, he weighed more than I thought he did.
“What you don’t realize,” Tiffany scoffed, “is that I have the upper hand.”
I pushed myself up, started looking around the weird cavern for some sort of weapon. It was a pain to walk, and I did more hobbling than anything, but it didn’t matter much. There were no weapons except for the broken, flimsy pieces of wood from the floor, and I figured they wouldn’t do too well in a gunfight.
Maddie whispered for me to stop, arguing that I was going to hurt myself even more, but I was frantic. I knew what was going to happen, what Tiffany’s plans were. The room just behind me—the one containing the remains of Cageface, framed by a pentagram and an assortment of candles—brought a fresh crop of goosebumps to my skin.
She was the crazy one who meant to bring Cageface back to life.
“You have the upper hand?” Zack said. “How so?”
“I’m not afraid of a little pain,” Tiffany answered.
The next thing I heard was the thunderous boom of a gun going off.
19
In Love with a Slasher
“Zack!?” Maddie yelled.
I had lost my breath, otherwise I would’ve shouted for him, too.
There was a long moment of silence, in which the gunshot and Maddie’s scream hung in the air. Who pulled the trigger? I hobbled over to the hole, looked up into the shifting stream of dust, illuminated by the one electric lantern, but I couldn’t see much.
Quietly, I ventured, “Zack? Zack, are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” he shouted.
“Oh, thank God!” Maddie said. She looked up through the hole, and I leaned on her.
The pain in my body was more than I wanted it to be.
“She freaking shot at me!” Zack said.
“But she missed?” I called up.
“On purpose,” she taunted. “Now I have both guns.”
“Oh, are you serious?” I called back.
“Yeah…” Zack said. “I dropped the gun because I thought she shot me in the balls.”
“That would be poetic justice, after what you did to Rip back at City Hospital,” I said.
“Oh, not now,” Maddie grumbled.
“Go,” Tiffany commanded. Not long after, Zack came sulking down the bunk bed ladder.
“Welcome to the party,” I said, sarcastically.
Maddie hit him in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“I can’t believe you lost the gun!” she admonished.
“Sorry,” he answered.
Finally, Tiffany came down the ladder. She descended one-handed, her other occupied by holding a gun, its aim never leaving us. We outnumbered her four to one, but she had two guns while we had none.
“All right,” she said, taking a breath. “Now we can get this party started.” She motioned toward the door on the opposite wall, the one that lay down the slope, and sat adjacent to the sleeping bag and the unlit electric lantern. “Well, Fright Squad, since you’ve already been here—I’ll be expecting compensation for roof repairs, by the way—why don’t you do the honors and lead us?”
“Uh, I think I speak for all of us when I say…no,” Zack said.
Tiffany flashed the pistol in his direction. “Do you want me to shoot you for real this time?”
“Uh, also no,” he answered.
She flicked the gun in the direction of the door. “Then go right ahead. If you don’t, I’ll shoot your girlfriend first, and you second.”
“Hey, Abe isn’t my girlfriend!” Zack said.
Maddie growled, wanting to hit him again. She didn’t.
I was glad; I think any sudden movements might’ve been enough cause for Tiffany to pull the trigger. She was trying to give off the vibe that she was in control, but I knew unnerved when I saw it.
“Now’s not the time for jokes,” Maddie warned, seeming to echo my thoughts.
Jason stepped forward. He was so much bigger than Tiffany, than all of us, but he looked defeated. A puppy left outside in the cold rain.
“Tiff,” he pleaded. “What are you doing? What is all of this?”
She smirked at him, her sultry, attractive self—no longer the crazy psycho holding us at gunpoint in this weird basement shrine full of decapitated heads and the dead body of a serial killer who had a bear trap embedded in his bloated corpse flesh.
“What do you think this is?” she replied.
Jason swallowed. I heard his throat click, saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “I have no idea what—”
“I’m a villain,” Tiffany interrupted.
That’s good, I thought. Cut right to the chase. No need to beat around the bush.
“Why?” Jason took a step closer toward Tiffany.
He could’ve crushed her in the palm of his hand, could’
ve crushed all of us.
Maddie reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. “Uh-uh, big guy,” she said.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t if I were you,” Tiffany said.
Jason’s eyes widened. “You’d shoot me? You’d really shoot me? I love you, Tiff; I thought you loved me, too.”
She said nothing. Her bottom lip quivered.
Is she conflicted? Is she actually in lo—
Then the quivering lip stopped quivering, and she burst into laughter, even bending over and resting her hands on her knees. The gun was no longer on us.
If we have a chance, it’s right now.
We outnumbered her. We could take her.
But the chance flittered away.
Tiffany wiped tears away from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hands. “I never loved you,” she said. “I’ve never loved anyone except—”
“Oh, God,” I cut her off. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with Cageface.”
She flared her nostrils, and gripped the gun a little tighter.
“Jesus Christ…” Zack moaned.
“Who is Cageface?” Jason said. “Not that urban legend…? The one that drunk was talking about in town?” When the answer became obvious, he moaned, too, and put his big hands on his face.
“Sorry, bro,” Zack said. “Your girlfriend is in love with a dead serial killer.”
“He’s alive in my heart,” Tiffany said, defensive. “And there’s more to this. More than you could understand!”
Zack said, “Aw, come on. We don’t want to understand…it’s weird.”
Tiffany raised the gun higher, level with Zack’s face. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch.
Her eyes were as big as twin moons and bloodshot. A vein that had popped out on her forehead was throbbing.
“Watch what you say to the girl with the gun,” she snarled.
Zack mumbled an apology.
Tiffany flicked the gun in the direction of the door again. “Now open it,” she ordered.
Reluctantly, we walked toward the door.
“You two,” she beckoned, and Freddy and Jason walked toward my right. “Up against the wall.”
Night of the Slasher Page 8
