My Heart Is a Chainsaw

by Stephen Graham Jones

  “They travel in pairs,” Jade tells him. “Common knowledge. Casey and Steve in Scream. Barry and Claudette in—”

  “ ‘They’ being… the Dutch?”

  “I only said that because he was blond. Like on the paint cans.”

  “So you were there.”

  “I was at the party, yeah. Can I not go to parties with my ex-classmates?”

  Hardy doesn’t like her answers, but neither can he take them out at the knees, Jade knows.

  “Then I’m sure you know we made a list of everybody who was at the Tompkins place that night,” he says. “I don’t recall your name being on that.”

  “I left early.”

  “But stayed until the end, too? To see the color of that dead kid’s hair?”

  “Was on my way out.”

  “I’m sure the Koenig girl or one of the others can confirm this.”

  “Tiff’s recall of that night might be… blurry.”

  Hardy shakes his head, impressed—he must know Tiffany K was sloshed—but still, “So either you were at the party or you…” he leads off, using his fingers to pick words from the air, it looks like, “or you have unlawful knowledge about the events that led to that kid being there. Same as the golf club.”

  “Would you believe a bus ran over my evidence, or is that too much like the dog eating my homework?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Third option, I mean,” Jade says, opening her door, hanging a leg out for solid ground.

  “I don’t—”

  “I’ve watched too many horror movies,” Jade says. “I’m just making shit up left and right, because my dad did some unspeakable shit to me.”

  Hardy just sits there, brake pressed in, eyes hidden behind chrome lenses.

  “Are you saying that Mondragon girl was right about him?” he finally asks.

  “I’m saying something’s coming for us, Sheriff,” Jade says, stepping all the way down now. “I don’t know why, I don’t know who, but I do know when.”

  “July Fourth,” Hardy recites. “Speaking of that.”

  This stops Jade. Then she connects the necessary dots.

  “You can beef up security all you want,” she says. “It won’t—”

  “In hindsight, your letter is a credible threat to the proceedings that night,” Hardy says, using the official phrasing. “If you show up and try to self-fulfill your little prophecy, then it’ll look like I was negligent, just some country bumpkin law enforcement officer not paying enough attention.”

  “But—”

  “What I’m saying,” Hardy says, speaking over her, holding her eyes for this, “is that your presence will not be needed that night, Ms. Daniels. Rex Allen and Francie will escort you out if you try.”

  “But you can’t. I’ve been waiting for this for my whole—”

  “It’s for the best,” Hardy says, challenging her to tell him otherwise.

  I’ve been waiting all my life, she wants to say, but can’t.

  All she can do is stand there on the front sidewalk of her ex–high school, her world crumbling around her, all of it just falling away. Hardy tips his hat bye to her and eases away, and Jade can’t even think of anything sharp or cutting to say. She’s numb.

  “Went ahead and clocked you in,” Rexall says in passing, carrying a crumbling pipe over his shoulder, both ends seeping unmentionable sludge. “Thank me later, yeah?”

  Jade doesn’t have any clever comeback for him either, a silence he’s probably taking for acceptance of this deal—timecard-action for later, to-be-ascertained action…

  That’s all distant to Jade now. Happening to some other girl.

  Thirty minutes later she’s trudged back inside, is scrubbing profane words from bathroom stalls. By midafternoon, using her county razorblade, the metal wall by the urinals her dark blue canvas, she’s carving her own profanity, each letter a foot tall and deep, going down to bare metal.

  THE LAKE WITCH SLAYINGS.

  That’s definitely what they’re going to call it the morning after, when all the bodies are floating facedown in the water, blood blooming out from their sides like wings.

  It’s going to be glorious.

  SLASHER 101

  What's lucky is that you can go on teacher vacation for MY WHOLE JUNIOR YEAR but when you come back all the same rules of the slasher genre still keep applying, and we can now finish your education, sir. Or should I say Night Flier. That's not a slasher but it's still from the horror mind of Stephen King, who has a high bodycount in his books and movies but his Freddy Krueger is Pennywise the Clown and his Chucky is Gage and his final girl is Carrie and his Jason Voorhees is a dog, but none of them are really slashers. Really if you want some truth then if you compare Mr. King with a little old lady then she's probably done more to give the slasher legs and arms and a secret face than the acknowledged king. That's right I'm talking about Agatha Christie and the next important slasher ingredient, which is the Reveal.

  But first a reveal of my own if you don't overmind. Since this is the 2nd week of class only that means this 2 pager in your extra credit box is me putting money in the bank. Because Halloween is going to be here before we know it.

  So, the Reveal in the slasher is when all will be said out loud and made clear as to Who's been doing all this and Why and also How. So when I'm mentioning Mrs. Christie above what I mean from the one book of hers I mostly read titled And Then There Were None which has nearly as many titles through the years as A Bay of Blood, where people are dying and who's doing it, who's doing it, then at the end, SURPRISE! It was this one dude all along, and here's why, and he's showing his secret true face at the end.

  Or if Scooby Doo is more your thing then that's the very same thing, sir. I know he's a hippie dog to you but he also faces ghosts and werewolves who all pull their masks off at the end and explain WHY they were doing all this, which made great money sense at the time to them even if it was a LOT of trouble, on par with some of the Joker's schemes.

  But in the slasher where there's real necks getting the axe, how that works is, okay, pretend all the people who have been killed in the movie get to be alive again for five minutes in a living room and then the slasher comes in and explains to them why he did what he did to them and they all look at each and nod and say that, Yeah, they probably did sort of deserve this. It sucks that it had to hurt so bad and it was pretty scary and they really had other plans and their families are going to be sad and who's going to feed their dog now, but they should have thought of that before doing whatever Bad Thing they did to someone who couldn't protect himself or herself at that point, and for sure wasn't even close to asking for it any way whatsoever. At which point any good slasher will unlimber his machete and kill them all over again, just paint that living room red.

  However note that this is only for slasher movies of the mystery variety like Scream and not the supernatural variety like A Nightmare on Elm Street. Scream at the end has Billy Loomis giving a lecture REVEALING why he's been doing this, while Nightmare has Freddy giving his lecture through the whole franchise with quips, because while Tina does pull his face off, showing his animatronic skull, Freddy's really only more of himself without it, which isn't really a Reveal, just a magnification.

  Though if we're talking Agatha Christie like this then we need to talk about fish and fishing, Mr. Holmes. Specifically, Red Herrings. Coming soon to an extra credit box near you.

  VISITING HOURS

  It’s not Rexall who fires Jade for leaving graffiti when she was supposed to be erasing it—that’s Hardy’s job—but she’s pretty sure he’s the one who ratted her out, either as payback for stealing his glory at graduation or because she never does slow-motion shirt changes under any of his spycams.

  It’s kind of too bad, though. The no more money thing, sure—that means no more phone, next billing cycle—but she also had big plans for one of Rexall’s illicit recordings being instrumental in unmasking the slasher, or at least documenting a kill in gra
iny black and white.

  But that’s Letha’s job, Jade reminds herself, staring across the lake while Hardy straightens his desk calendar and drones on about destruction of county property, broken trust, no more second chances, adult responsibilities, civic pride, misuse of cleaning tools checked out to her name, abuse of key privileges, Henderson Hawk school spirit or the lack thereof, and somewhere in there she unfocuses her eyes as much as humanly possible, wide enough to just float in some muted state of mind through the whole rest of her Sunday, wash up on the shore of Monday pushing slasher after slasher into her VCR, trying to find a line back to herself. She drifts off ten minutes into each, though. She tries to convince herself it’s about finding the right movie for her mood, but how can none of them be right, when they’ve all been right before?

  Then, “Tuesday?” she says, looking around. With no school and no job, the days don’t really matter anymore, do they? She hides her head under her pillow, sleeps until noon, then sleeps some more. Well, stays in bed anyway, staring at the ceiling, wishing for a glass of water to ungum her mouth but not wanting it quite badly enough to actually go get it. Because, she hisses to Hardy, she’s not a go-getter, right? Everybody knows that. She’s a coaster, a rider, and where do people who go with the flow always end up? The drain, yes.

  Specifically, that one in Janet Leigh’s black-and-white shower.

  It’s a good enough comeback that Jade’s finally able to sit up and take stock.

  Her dad should be at Terra Nova for the day, and her mom—why is she even thinking about her? It’s because of the debacle Saturday was, right? It is. It’s because she had to see her mom through Letha’s eyes, sort of: as the future Jade. As if. No way will Jade end up here—no way does she ever shack up with some version of her dad, no way could she endure that same question her mom must get fifty times a day: “But… isn’t this the dollar store? How can this cost two dollars?”

  One thing Mr. Holmes told the class one wistful seventh period was that nobody ever makes it past twenty with the same hopes and dreams and certainties they once thought so dear and vital and true at seventeen. Nobody except me, Jade had assured herself, but she’d also had to wonder if that was even a partially original thought—if every other student in history class that day wasn’t thinking the exact same thing.

  It doesn’t matter. Come the very last day of July she’s eighteen, will be out of the house. Hopefully Boise is ahead of her somewhere, but Boise, she knows, takes bus fare, and bus fares cost money, and now there’s no more paychecks coming in, shit.

  With that, Jade can’t seem to muster the will to untangle from her sheets. She’s most definitely circling that Psycho drain, is just sitting there ticking off the things she’s not: a custodian; a high school graduate; a final girl; welcome at the big Independence Day party; any help to anybody at all, even herself.

  It makes sense, she supposes. Has there ever even been an Indian in a slasher? In Friday the 13th Ned wears a war bonnet and claps whoops from his mouth, does his high-knee dance, but he’s still the same idiot he was before. In Halloween 5, there’s another war bonnet, but it’s just skating past in the background. There is that one Indian dude in Sweet Sixteen, Jade supposes. Or, two, counting his grandfather. Along that same line, though: outside of Leprechaun 6, has there even been a black final girl before? Usually in slashers, the black girls are the friends—Scream 2, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. And that they’re in part 2’s means they’re a response, a bandaid.

  She thumbs through her videotapes for something else that can count, that Letha could use as model, as guide, but there’s nothing.

  Which is why she needs me, Jade reminds herself.

  Not that that compels Letha to listen.

  This is the part in the movie where Jade’s supposed to rally, she knows. She’s not supposed to mope, she’s supposed to be gearing up, pouring black powder into lightbulbs, hammering nails into the business end of a bat, that kind of stuff.

  But there’s no camera on her, she knows. And there never was.

  It doesn’t mean she’s wrong about what’s coming, what’s already happening, but it does mean that now she can sit back guilt-free and just watch it all happen from her I-told-you-so place, right? Maybe that’s why she couldn’t get into any of her slasher tapes earlier. In comparison to the one she’s in, they’re kind of pale.

  But she will be goddamned if Hardy can keep her out of the water on Saturday. She’s gonna be there front-row, shoving popcorn in, maybe wearing a clear poncho and goggles against all the blood.

  Just, what to do until then, right? When it was going to be her and Letha working together, the week couldn’t be long enough for all the slasher ground they had to cover. Now, without that, and with no litter to stab, no hours to log, it looks to stretch forever.

  “Meddling kids,” yeah. More like a bothersome ex-janitor with big ideas.

  Jade guesses she could always go in, try to complete her community service, but if Meg was watching her close before, now Jade’s going to be under a microscope. Granted, that’s better than Rexall’s hidden fisheyes, but still, it’s not the kind of attention she really wants.

  To try to be part of the day, Jade makes a bologna sandwich with mustard—her dad’s fancy mustard, that’s supposed to be only his—eats it in her underwear in the kitchen, being sure to avoid all the reflections of herself in the oven window, the stolen napkin dispenser, the chrome faucet. Not everybody can be Julie James or Sarah Darling, at least not without a personal trainer, a nutritionist, and an airbrush. Sure, the Indian maidens on all the truckstop blankets are always swivel-hipped, stacked like a Disney princess, but Jade figures she must be from a different tribe.

  Sitting at the sagging table in the kitchen, the sandwich on her right thigh, she leans her head back, stops chewing, wonders what it would be like to choke alone in the house like this—what regrets reel through your head?—and then jerks hard when the screen door rattles. By the time the front door swings open, Jade’s rolled off the chair, is crouched by the fridge, sandwich in-hand, eyes wide.

  Rexall belches into the living room. She’d know that burp anywhere.

  “Dude,” her dad says about it, his keys jingling into his pocket.

  “That’s nothing,” a third voice slurs, one Jade doesn’t know.

  Fucking great. Her dad’s not at Terra Nova for fifteen an hour, and Rexall, with nobody to supervise anymore, isn’t working either. It’s a drinking day. Another “high school never ended” day. Perfect. Wonderful. And the side door out of the kitchen involves the hallway, which is one of two directions these three can take, as the bathroom’s that way.

  The other way they can take is right here, into the kitchen.

  Jade’s heart hammers in her chest. Not only is she only wearing a bra and panties, but these aren’t even good ones, are even particularly bad ones.

  And the voices are getting closer. Meaning they didn’t swing by to crash on the couch for an hour or two, watch one of her dad’s old westerns. This is a pit-stop, a refuel. They won’t be staying in the living room, are definitely coming this way.

  But, which way?

  Or, which of them is going to find Jade crouched in her underwear by the fridge, holding half a bologna and mustard sandwich, her eyes wide, pasty black hair everywhere?

  Shit. Shit shit shit.

  Jade takes stock again, clocking both doors, and then… no, she can’t.

  The back door?

  When footsteps start both crunching up the hall and resounding on the hollow part of the living room floor that leads to her, there’s no choice: still crouched, she scurries for the back door, twists the weak deadbolt over and falls out as quietly as she can, pulling the door shut softly behind her.

  Voices in the kitchen now.

  Two beers cracking open, then a third.

  And—no, no, no: the door handle Jade’s still gripping, it twists under her hand.

  She swings with it when the door opens, i
s dangling over the open space past the cement block under the door, is trying to flatten herself to the side of the house, and then has to hold that trembling position while one of them pisses a pale yellow line out into the grass already burned by a thousand other pees.

  Jade risks a look up through the back door’s window and… Clate Rodgers? Would Hardy let her have her mop back if she called in, whispered that his daughter’s killer was back in town again? Or does Hardy’s skin crawl all on its own every time Clate steps over the county line?

  When Clate finally dribbles down, grunts through his shake-off, and hauls the door back over, Jade lets go, falls into the sharp weeds that grow by the house, and makes herself as small as possible, hopes nobody across the way’s looking out their window.

  Two seconds later, footsteps still crunching in the kitchen, the window over the sink opening to blow cigarette smoke from, Jade sees her salvation billowing on the laundry line: the coveralls Hardy didn’t think to ask her to surrender. Unlike Michael Myers, she won’t even have to kill a mechanic to step into them.

  Pulling them on in the shade of the house, she falls down like a boneless thing when a little brown bird explodes up from the leg. It’s so close to Jade’s face she feels the air from its beating wings, her hand coming up hours too late to protect her eyes. She pats down the arms for if this was a flock, then pulls the coveralls the rest of the way on and creeps around to the front, lifts her dad’s backup muck boots from the bed of his truck, which she bets Hardy would just love to hear about.

  A block down, almost to the lake, she realizes she’s still holding the bologna sandwich. She takes a bite but her dad’s mustard is too sharp, too warm. She tosses the sandwich in front of her, steps purposefully on it, mashing it into the concrete, and then shimmies through the gym door of the high school, which Hardy explained was strictly off limits to her. Forever.

  Like he didn’t know that was an invitation?

  Jade goes through Lost and Found for mismatched socks, a confiscated t-shirt—green, a seventies Corvette dramatic on the chest—then does her make-up as best she can in the usual mirror, but only after roundly flipping Rexall off.