by Sergio Gomez
Chapter 51
He floored the accelerator, but the Honda wouldn’t go any further. Its engine was too weak, and the frame was too low for it to push past the tangle of bushes under it. Gavin slammed his fist on the side of the steering wheel.
“FUCK!” he screamed. “FUCK! FUCK!”
His plan to drive back to Camp Slaughter wasn’t going to work. The face of the salesman who’d sold him the car, who’d promised ice-cold AC and great gas mileage from the Honda, flashed into his mind and he hated him in that moment.
But that quickly faded away, because he knew the car salesman had nothing to do with what was happening. It was Gavin’s fault. All his fault, and only his fault. No one else had even wanted to come on this stupid trip. He’d practically had to beg his best friend to come, for fuck’s sake.
Come on Fredster, it’s our last summer before we turn into boring adults. Let’s do it big. And all Fred wanted to do was hang out with this girl in the passenger seat next to him who for some reason had gone along with his crazy (now failed) plan.
If it wasn’t for him, for him and his stupid fucking ideas, Noelle and Fred wouldn’t even be here. They’d be back in the burbs, maybe getting ice cream or having a picnic at some park. They’d be somewhere safe. Somewhere where cannibals didn’t chase you through the woods to cut your head off and weird old men didn’t ask you to be in their YouTube videos.
He’d done this to all of them. Noelle, Fred, Fletcher, Wayne, Brooke, Vanessa, Brooke’s cousin. It was his fault they all got caught up in this shit. His mind wasn’t letting itself entertain that others might be dead by now, not just his little brother and Dalton, because the guilt of having brought them out here into this situation was enough.
“Gav, we have to figure something else out,” Noelle said, forcing herself to hold onto braveness that was quickly fading. “We’re wasting time just sitting here.”
He lifted his head off the steering where he’d rested it in frustration. “Yeah, you’re right… But what? What can we do?”
“I—I don’t know… Something. Anything…” She didn’t finish her sentence, but Gavin had an idea what she wanted to say.
Anything was better than sitting here, waiting for the cannibal to come kill them and eat them—
Something popped into his head. The old man and the woman, they’d come into Camp Slaughter in a Subaru. That meant there was a way to get to the campgrounds by car.
Gavin threw the car into reverse, and then floored the accelerator. The bushes it was on top of sprung up to their regular size as the car shot back into the dirt trail. They hadn’t gotten far down the path before they were stopped, so it wouldn’t take long for them to return to Lakewood Cabin.
“Gavin, what’re you doing?” The suddenness of this reversal worried Noelle that his plan B was even crazier than plan A.
“The old man and the woman. They drove into the camp. I’m going to see if I can find the road they took to get there. I remember which way they came in from, so I think I can find it.”
I did say “anything,” Noelle thought, sitting back in the car seat. She took in a deep breath, letting the smell of pine trees and honeysuckles coming through the window fill her nostrils. Clutching the ax she got from the cabin tight against her chest, she wondered if this was the last time she’d ever smell summer again.
Chapter 52
Varias Caras was using a pair of tweezers to pull out the bullet lodged into his shoulder. It hadn’t gone in too deep because his shoulder bone had stopped it, but it was in there nice and snug. He had to wiggle it around like a loose tooth to get it to start coming out. He let out short grunts of pain as he pulled the bullet out of the wound.
It came out slicked with blood, and hurt on its way out more than it had going in. Most of that had to do with the adrenaline of his hunting wearing off, but to Ignacio it was all the same. He dropped the bullet to the barn floor. It clattered, and rolled, leaving little red stains in its wake.
Luckily for Ignacio, that was the only bullet he had to deal with. The one that had gotten him around the ribs had torn through his body. He’d have to bandage the wound up, so he’d stop leaking blood everywhere, but that was it.
Before he could go over to where the medical supplies were to take care of that, he heard the barn door opening behind him.
Someone was here. He hadn’t heard the person coming to the barn because he’d had his guard down again. Estupido.
Ignacio turned around. The silhouette standing in the doorway was thin and hunched over, in a posture that suggested they were uncertain of what they were doing. And scared, too.
Ignacio could hear the person’s heart beating in his ears now that he was focused on it. It beat loudly and fast.
Ignacio’s own heart started to beat rapidly when he saw the outline of the gun in the person’s hand.
“W-w-who there!?” Ignacio shouted.
Behind him, Nadine screamed as if in response to his question, but what made her scream was the same concern Ignacio had. The gun. A gun meant bullets would start flying while she was out here in the open; immobilized and unable to duck for cover.
“Who there? Tell me who there!” Ignacio’s lips quivered.
The person walked into the barn, getting lost in the pocket of darkness between the sunlight coming in through the open door and the torchlights.
Ignacio felt his heart speeding up, and the barn walls getting smaller. He wondered if this was how his prey felt before he killed them.
He opened his mouth to ask the question a third time but stopped himself as Molly stepped just short of arm’s length. The torchlight shined over the revolver’s metal.
Ignacio swallowed. The barrel was pointed right at his chest. She was going to kill him.
On Mamá’s birthday.
He had to act quick. He threw the tweezers at her since it was the only thing he had in his hands, and Molly pulled the trigger.
At the last minute, her aim was thrown off and the bullet hit him in the shoulder—the same one that was already damaged, but that didn’t stop him. He jumped forward and grabbed Molly by the wrist of the hand holding the gun. Ignacio squeezed as hard as he could until he felt the wrist bone break.
Molly screamed and dropped the revolver.
Nadine saw the shiny, metal object falling out of the woman’s hands as Varias Caras attacked her. It slid across the floor, as if it were on a track, as if destiny itself were pulling it closer to her. She couldn’t believe her eyes when it finally stopped, and she got a good look at the object.
It was a revolver.
She crawled over to it, but the chains stopped her a few inches short of it. There was still some slack to them, though, and as she reached out, she pulled hard on her restraints. The metal cuffs dug into her skin, but it worked.
Her hand curled around the gun. And it felt like the world was right once again.
Varias Caras had Molly in a bearhug and lifted her up off her feet. She felt like she was suddenly in a vice made of flesh that smelled like meat and grease. Molly tried kicking at his genitals, but without seeing where she was aiming, it was useless.
Ignacio flexed his arms. There was a series of pops as bones broke in her body. Molly felt her ribcage shatter, and then her body felt like it was closing in on itself. Her organs felt like they were about to pop out of the nearest orifice.
Then, Varias Caras relieved some of the pressure, only to pump his arms as hard as he could again.
Crack. Pop. Snap.
This time it was the disks in her spine that made the noise as they were dislodged from the column and broke at the same time.
Molly’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, her legs stopped kicking, her arms stopped clawing at his mask. She was dead.
Ignacio dropped her to the ground and fell back on his ass. He was out of breath, scared, hurt, and bleeding.
Behind him, the old Barbie continued to scream at the top of her lungs.
Too much noise! Too m
uch noise!
He got up, and ran over to the wall, smashing his head into it as hard as he could to try to drown out the sound and shake out the bad thoughts in his head, but it was no good. All he did was manage to make his head hurt.
He pounded his fists against the wall and screamed—adding to the noise, adding to his anger.
Mamá’s birthday was ruined.
Nadine’s screams were only a bluff to get him to come close enough for her to shoot him, but she hadn’t expected him to charge the wall head first at full speed.
The impact shook the entire barn, and for a second Nadine thought she’d fucked up and the whole structure was about to collapse on top of both of them.
Please don’t, please!
God must have been hearing her pleas, because the barn stayed intact.
Varias Caras had fallen to his knees, but he was still conscious and started getting up to his feet. Nadine reached behind her, where she’d put the revolver to keep it hidden until she was ready to use it. She felt the cool metal in her hands.
This was going to be tricky. She would only have one shot to kill him.
A Hail Mary.
But her weapon this time was better than a porcelain lamp.
Her throat felt like sandpaper when she gulped.
Chapter 53
“I don’t want to do this Gavin,” Noelle finally said, as they drove down a narrow road that seemed to lead to nowhere.
He’d been driving with the eyes of a person possessed. Only this wasn’t some demon that possessed Gavin, it was thoughts of killing the cannibal. He wasn’t thinking clearly. Wasn’t thinking clearly at all.
Gavin slammed on the brakes and hit the button to unlock the doors. “Then get the fuck out if you don’t want to help me.”
“Listen to me, Gav. For one second, listen to what someone else is telling you.”
Her tone took Gavin by surprise. It was the meanest and loudest he’d ever heard her and stirred something in him. He shifted in his seat, and said, “What? What do you have to say?”
“You have no idea where this road leads,” she said, pointing to the greenery ahead of them that looked like the rest of the woods they’d been dealing with. “You’re gonna get us lost—get yourself lost. Then what? Then what, Gavin? Your parents lose two children to these fucking woods?”
Gavin gritted his teeth. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked out the windshield, hoping that by some miracle they’d see the Camp Slaughter sign—the one with the fading family—or anything hinting that they were on the right path, but there was nothing. She was right. It was like staring at an abyss of trees and leaves. He had no idea where this dirt road led, and they were at a point where it wasn’t too late to turn back.
“Brooke was right,” Noelle continued, seeing he was considering what she was saying. “We need to get the police out here. This is a job for them, not us. Not us, Gav. Do it for your brother. Wayne wouldn’t want you to get killed for him, would he? Turn the car around before we get lost, Gav, please.”
“You’re right,” he said, meekly.
All they had was a fire poker and an ax and his balls of steel. If it really came down to a confrontation, would any of that make a difference against a crazed cannibal?
No, it wouldn’t. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, this was an awful plan that would just get them killed.
He made a U-turn on the dirt road, having to drive several feet into the grass in the woods to complete it, and then headed back to Lakewood Cabin for the second time.
From there, they would take the road they knew back to the main roads. It would be at least forty-minutes until they were in a town, and this didn’t sit right with Gavin, because it was possible everyone they were leaving behind would be dead by then.
But Noelle was right. There was no better option.
Mamá’s birthday was ruined, but that didn’t mean the fun had to end.
Ignacio got control of himself and looked over at the new Barbie. Blood continued to come out of her wounds, with no signs of stopping. She would probably bleed to death and die without him fixing her up, but so be it.
There was too much work to do to worry about it. He had to save Mamá’s special day. And the only way to do that was by killing those who ruined it.
Ignacio turned his attention to the old Barbie, whose back was pressed against the wall. She was looking at him with sunken eyes swimming with fear. A croak escaped between her dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Her bones could be seen through her yellowing skin. And her hair—Oh God, her hair—it was awful. Stringy, thin, and greasy.
She would have to be replaced soon.
That was OK, though. It was the beginning of summer, there would be plenty of campers around until early November. The old Barbie would be replaced well before that, but in the meantime, she would continue to be his toy.
Ignacio walked over to her and licked her cheek like it was ice cream. The skin was wet and salty from her tears.
“Shh, shhh, shh,” he said to her. “Okay…everything okay.”
He put his arms around her and cradled her close to him like a baby.
Now, Nadine thought. Now was the time.
In a quick motion, Nadine reached behind her buttocks, grabbed the revolver, and swung her arm to aim at Varias Caras.
But he was quick to get up and jump backward, making the shot just a bit harder. Nadine pulled the trigger, but the gun was too heavy, and her hands were too weak to hold a steady aim, and she missed.
Too good to be true, Nadine thought, watching him hurtle through the air in what seemed like slow motion, but there was nothing she could do. This was it. This was the end for her. She was as sure of this as she’d ever been of anything.
Varias Caras screamed as he grabbed her throat. He smashed her head against the wall, the impact was so hard that the revolver flew out of her hands. The bones in her body seemed to all rattle at once.
He brought her forward again, still holding her by the neck, then slammed her head into the wall as hard as he could. The wall shook, a bolt flew off from the metal where the cuffs were chained to, and the back of Nadine’s head cracked open. The blood and bits of bone that stained the wall looked like raspberry pie being thrown against it. Nadine was dead, but Varias Caras had lost all control of himself. He slammed her against the wall a third time, making the mess of blood and brain matter on the wall bigger.
He got up, wiped his hands on the front of his pants, and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he’d done. Or rather, he couldn’t believe what it had come to.
In his outburst, his hearing sensitivity had gone all the way up, and he could hear a car engine out in the woods. It was about half a mile out, maybe a little more, but he knew what it was. Nothing in the natural world of the woods sounded anything like the rumbling of a vehicle’s engine. It was the sound of prey to him.
Ignacio barged out of the barn, not bothering to open the door and instead bashing it open with his good shoulder.
He closed his eyes and focused his hearing to get the location of the car. The leaves the car rustled as it blew past them told Ignacio where it was and where it was heading. They were trying to get away, but they weren’t far enough yet. He knew how to get ahead of them if he hurried through the woods.
Ignacio ran into the barn. He needed more than his machete (which was still hanging on his back) for this one, because he wanted there to be carnage.
These campers ruined Mamá’s birthday, and they would pay for it.
He grabbed his chainsaw from the shelf and started off into the woods.
Chapter 54
The advantage of traveling by foot was that he didn’t need to stay on the cleared roadways. Ignacio cut through the trees, sprinting as fast as he could, revving the chainsaw. Meanwhile, he kept his hearing focused on the car. He could hear it whizzing through the roads. They were speeding.
Going fast, fast, fast.
But that was fine. His shortcut was faster.
A few seconds later, he emerged out of the woods on the road in front of the car. He could hear where it was coming from better now. It would only be a couple of minutes until it came around the bend he was standing in.
That was plenty of time to prepare. He found a branch on a tree that looked good enough for what he had planned and headed to it.
It was Gavin and Noelle that Ignacio was waiting for around the bend and up the incline, because Brooke Florentine was long gone. She was flooring the accelerator, with getting to safety the only thing on her mind.
Guilt of having left the others behind tried to invade her thoughts, but she didn’t let it. The others had made their choices. Gavin and Noelle could have escaped with her, but instead decided to go back where the cannibal was. Where gunshots had been heard.
A stupid decision that they must’ve known could (would, Brooke thought) cost them their lives. And if it did, that had nothing to do with Brooke.
She’d stop at the first store she saw and use their phone to call the police, to let them know that her friends were in the woods with a maniac trying to kill them. She’d have to do it that way because in the madness of arguing with Noelle and Gavin and scrambling out of the cabin, she’d forgotten her cell phone.
The phone didn’t matter to her as much as it once had. All that mattered was getting out of these damned woods and finding safety. The first car she’d see would look like a godsend.
The first road sign would, too, for that matter.
Gavin whipped the car around the bend so fast Noelle was sure that they were about to tip onto two tires. She let out a shriek, but it was nothing in comparison to the scream that came out of her next.
The Honda went up the hill at the end of the bend, and there he was. The masked cannibal stood on top of a boulder, waiting for them. He was holding a hefty tree branch like a spear, and it was aimed right at the car.