She couldn’t leave him. She was a founding member of the Fright Squad, a descendant from a long line of monster hunters whose lot in life was protecting the innocent, and slaying the evil. Freddy was innocent. Always a little stoned, yeah, but innocent nonetheless.
“Freddy!” Jason called.
It was then that she caught the foul scent of rot on the wind. Cageface was nearby, festering…vomit-inducing wounds and all.
“I’m okay,” Freddy said, though he sounded anything but.
Maddie and Jason tried helping him up, she grabbing one arm, and Jason the other.
“Ow, fuck!” Freddy hissed when he put pressure on his right foot. He lifted it up and balanced on his left. The injured foot hung limply, like a useless deformity.
“It’s broken,” Maddie said. “Jason, can you carry him?” The way she sounded to herself was much calmer than the way she felt internally.
Jason didn’t answer with words. He just bent down and scooped Freddy up in his arms. Freddy protested, mentioning something along the lines of not being gay, but Maddie told him to shut up.
The time they’d spent recovering was time that Cageface had used to gain on them. Maddie heard him emerge from the brush before she saw him. Smelled him, too.
She was currently weaponless.
In their flight from the bar, they’d neglected to grab a weapon, and in the skirmish that occurred there, she’d lost the Glock that had been tucked into her waistband.
“Go!” she shouted at Jason and Freddy. “Keep going. I’ll handle him!”
Jason shook his head.
You beautiful brute, she thought. You beautiful, stupid brute.
He set Freddy down gently as Cageface emerged on the trail, holding an axe. Maddie had no idea where he’d gotten it; maybe he’d broken one of those glass cases. You know, the ones that have ‘IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS’ written on them in bright, blaring red.
It didn’t really matter where Cageface had gotten this axe; the fact was that he had a weapon, and they did not.
He swung at them with manic ferocity. Maddie stumbled backward, hearing the whoosh the blade made as it sliced through the air and thunked against the trunk of a nearby tree.
That could’ve been my head, she thought deliriously. God, she wanted Zack. Needed Zack. He gave her strength, made her feel better in the scariest of times. Though she knew she shouldn’t have been scared—not when she came from a long line of Peppers—she was. Dear God, she was.
As Maddie was stumbling back, Jason was doing the complete opposite. He drove forward, dodged the axe, and barreled against Cageface like a defensive tackle. Two behemoths, one stupid, one dead and stupid, going at it. Place your bets!
Cageface stood his ground, but the axe lowered.
“Go!” Jason yelled. “Go!”
Maddie wasn’t going anywhere. She saw her opportunity, and she took it. She went for Cageface’s legs. Crashed into him with her shoulders. A bone cracked, but she wasn’t sure if it was hers or his. White-hot pain flared, blinding her.
Oh, mine then.
Cageface grunted. It was the first sound he’d made since being resurrected, and the noise surprised her so much that she stumbled backward, forgetting to go for the axe, like she’d planned to. If she had gotten the axe away from Cageface, then who knows what would’ve happened next?
Maybe Freddy would’ve survived.
But she didn’t get the handle.
And Freddy didn’t survive.
Renewed with strength, Cageface swatted Jason away. He fell into the bushes and bramble with a crash someways from the path. Freddy lay up ahead, clawing at the dirt, trying to get away. Cageface was coming for him.
“No!” Maddie yelled.
But it was too late. Cageface had made up his mind. He saw the weakness and smelled the blood. The easy kill.
“No, please! No!” Freddy screamed. “No!” His mouth was opened wide.
Cageface casually flipped the axe in his hand. He gripped the sharp head, and jabbed the handle straight into Freddy’s open maw, cutting his screams short. The wood blasted through the back of his skull, and Freddy’s eyes crossed and looked at the long handle in between his teeth.
Maddie watched in slow horror; she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Poor Freddy had been made into a shish-kebab.
His feet kicked, his stomach clenched, and then he stopped moving. Dead.
Cageface raised him up above his head like a human flag.
The shock hadn’t left Maddie yet, but her anger had masked it. She would’ve done something stupid, had a pair of hands not grabbed her around the waist and dragged her away from the monstrosity.
“No,” she said, struggling for her words as well as her breath.
“We have to go. C’mon.” It was Jason.
“But Freddy.”
“He’s gone,” Jason said. His voice was pained, full of sadness. Maddie relented and let him drag her away.
36
The Mine
So while Cageface killed Freddy—RIP, my stoner friend—Zack and I came upon the abandoned mineshaft. The dark opening was covered by old, wooden barriers, crisscrossed and half-hidden by overgrown grass and weeds. The exposed wood looked like it would crumble at the slightest touch.
“Not another dark cave,” Zack moaned. “Last time we went into a dark cave, we saw a bunch of breathing eggs and smelly slime. Oh, and the severed heads beneath the cabin. That was a cave, right?”
“Healing, smelly slime,” I corrected. “And yes, totally a cave.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I still can’t get that stink out of my nostrils. From the slime and decapitated heads.”
“You sure that’s not just your breath blowing back at you?” I grinned, letting Zack know I was only joking, but neither of us really thought it was funny. Under the circumstances, and without Maddie here to roll her eyes at our lame jokes, it just wasn’t the same.
“You think she’s okay, really?” Zack asked.
I nodded. “Don’t worry. She’s part of the Fright Squad, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“So are we. Let’s do this.”
I stepped toward the mouth of the cave. My eyes couldn’t adjust to the blackness within. It was not a place meant for humans.
Of course, neither were the Monster Games, yet we’d gone and we’d survived.
Just like we will survive this mountain and this slasher, I thought. I hope.
It was then that we heard rustling, heavy footsteps, and sharp breathing. I spun around in my crouched position. I was ready for anything; ready to fight, if I had to.
I couldn’t say the same for Zack. He turned, and I saw that his eyes were hopeful. I wanted to tell him not to get too excited; I was glad I didn’t.
Jason stumbled out of the brush, and landed in the dirt on his knees with enough force to shake the mountain. He held Maddie in his arms, and when he fell, she spilled out.
Zack and I ran toward them, and I noticed there was blood on Jason.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, my mind running through a million different scenarios.
I hoped he would tell me that Cageface was dead, that he’d ripped the bastard’s head off with his bare hands. He was certainly big and strong enough to do something like that. But then I suddenly felt like I’d failed Octavius; it was my job to protect Jason. That was the whole reason we’d come here, and I couldn’t even do that.
I noticed something else.
Jason coughed. Shook his head. “I’m fine,” he assured me. There was pain in his voice.
“Where’s Freddy?” I asked. My own voice was full of anguish, quiet. I knew the answer to the question before asking it.
Jason shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”
My knees went watery. For a long second, I thought I was going to fall. But what kind of leader would I be if I did that?
“I’m all right, Zack.” Maddie had tears in her eyes. Zack helped her up off of the ground.
>
“He’s coming,” Jason said. “We don’t have time to mourn. If you have a plan, Abe, now would be a good time to set it in motion.”
I nodded. We would have to worry about Freddy later.
“I’m going into the mineshaft,” I told them.
Maddie looked at me like I was crazy.
“There’s dynamite in there. Remember what that guy said at the gas station?” I pressed.
They weren’t getting it. To them, I was still crazy, bent on blowing us all to hell. I looked at them. Maybe I was crazy. Wasn’t all of this crazy in the first place?
I turned away. I’d have to do this by myself.
“Make sure Cageface follows me in there,” I said. “He’s not coming out in one piece.”
Zack stepped away from Maddie, and raised his hand in the air. “Hell yeah!”
Then Jason raised his arm up. “For Freddy!” he said.
“You’re not going alone,” Maddie said. She raised one of her own hands up, though not as high as the others. “For Freddy!”
The wooden barriers did, in fact, crumble at our touch. On the outside of the entrance were signs as old as dirt. They read, ‘DANGER’ and ‘STAY OUT’ and ‘SAFETY FIRST’.
I found a torch on the wall. Jason pulled a lighter from his back pocket, and I wondered if it was Freddy’s, I wondered if there was blood on it, already drying. But I didn’t ask.
He lit the torch, and the flame ate away the shadows in this dank, abandoned place.
“Wait, do you hear that?” I asked. I strained my ears, listening hard.
Maddie and Zack were looking toward the darkness beyond the entrance, back where we’d come from.
Those footsteps, those heavy footsteps, echoed.
“Hey, ugly!” I shouted.
“Yeah, fuckface!” Zack yelled. “We’re in here!”
“Is this really a good idea?” Maddie said. “We don’t have the dynamite yet.”
“We have a head start,” I said.
“Duh, Maddie,” Zack said as he cupped his hands over his mouth, about to shout, but Jason beat him to it.
“C’mon, asshole!” he yelled.
“Oh, my God,” Maddie whispered. “We’re all gonna die here.”
She was probably right.
37
The Locked Box
When we heard Cageface moving, we took off down the mineshaft. The walls got closer and closer the deeper we went. The air got cooler. The darkness grew darker. Already our torch was guttering out.
“In here!” Zack yelled. “Keep coming, shrimp-breath!”
“‘Shrimp-breath’?” I asked.
He shrugged.
Maddie was up a little ways, feeling along the walls.
Jason kept looking back over his shoulders. He was scared, I could tell. A guy his size shouldn’t have been, but then again, he’d just watched as one of his best friends was murdered by the same monster that was now chasing us.
“Guys!” Maddie said. The excitement in her voice gave me hope. We rushed up to her, past the last of the wooden support beams that had been erected to prevent a cave-in. Here, the mine opened on a large cavern, much bigger than the one below Camp Moonfall.
“What?” Zack asked.
Behind us, Cageface was groaning, the acoustics of the mine echoing the sounds off the walls. He sounded pained, and more than a little pissed off.
“Look!” Maddie pointed to a cart on a rusty track.
“Oh, dude, we’re not about to go all Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom right now, are we?” Zack asked.
Jason didn’t get the reference.
“Not that,” Maddie said. She was now pointing beyond the cart, at a box marked ‘DANGER! EXPLOSIVES! HANDLE WITH CARE’.
“Dyno-mite!” Zack said. “Literally.”
The footsteps thundered up the walkway behind us.
Is he running? I thought. Is Cageface actually running? So much for slasher tropes…
“Quick,” I said. “Watch out.” I made a move toward the box.
“Be careful!” Maddie called.
Then the growling was everywhere. I didn’t want to look over my shoulder, but I had to.
There was Cageface, his chest rising and falling, like he was out of breath.
You and me both, pal, I thought.
In one hand, he held a bloody axe. In the other, he held Freddy’s head. Freddy’s mouth was closed, and blood was dripping from the veins and bone beneath his chin, looking like the exposed wires of a destroyed electronic.
Freddy shouldn’t have been dead. Ellen, either. Or the few poor souls who’d gone out the way they had, back at the bar.
I couldn’t help but think it was my fault, even though it wasn’t me who’d resurrected Cageface. It may not have been my fault, but I was going to fix the mistake that Tiffany made below Camp Moonfall. I was going to put a stop to Cageface once and for all, even if it killed me.
The problem?
I turned to the box of dynamite and saw a heavy padlock preventing access. Unfortunately, it was in better shape than the box; there was no way I’d break it.
Zack saw this, too. He took out his gun and aimed at the box.
I slapped his hand away. “Whoa, dude! You can’t shoot that!” I said.
“Oh…right,” he said.
“Can you guys bicker some other time?” Maddie asked. “We, uh, kinda have a problem.”
Cageface threw Freddy’s head in our direction. Zack, of course, shrieked in a high voice, and dodged it, and the head rolled and came to a stop at Jason’s feet.
He looked down, tears pooled in his eyes, and yelled loud enough for me to think the mineshaft would collapse on top of us. Then, like the athlete he was, he took off. I pictured a track star bursting forth from the starting blocks.
Jason’s rage didn’t surprise me at all.
“Let’s kick his ass!” Zack yelled, and beat on his chest with his fists. He sprinted toward the lumbering monster.
“Get that open!” Maddie said. She took off, too.
They went at him with flying fists and feet. The style they used was unofficially called “We Don’t Know What the Fuck We’re Doing,” but it caught Cageface by surprise.
He stumbled backward. The axe in his hand fell to the ground with a thump. All the light down here was coming from our one guttering torch, so a lot of the fight was obscured by shadows.
This act of bravery by the rest of Fright Squad and Jason would probably not end well, but it would buy me some time. That was all I needed.
But I didn’t have anything to open the box with, and I certainly wasn’t about to go digging for bodies in the rubble, bodies of miners who may or may not have the keys attached to their utility belts.
I bent down, grabbed the lock, and rattled it. Flakes of rust fell off, covered my hands.
“You like that, asshole?” I could hear Zack saying.
I looked back over my shoulder, afraid of what I’d see. The three of them had Cageface surrounded. Zack kicked at the back of the slasher’s legs, and Cageface wavered and dropped to a knee. Jason took this opportunity to swing a mean right hook into the side of Cageface’s face, but at the last second, the monster turned, and Jason’s knuckles connected with the thick metal of the bear trap. He cried out in pain and agony.
I was sure he’d broken his hand, sure he’d be out of the fight, but it only slowed him down slightly. He shook the bad hand, and swung his left elbow. This one connected with Cageface’s throat, and the monster made a sputtering cough.
I thought they could maybe handle the slasher, after all.
But then, in the flame’s low light, I noticed that Cageface was wearing something close to a smile on his pulverized, dead face, and for the first time since he’d been resurrected, there was something like life in his usually lifeless eyes.
Is he enjoying this? Is he just toying with them? Playing with his food before eating it?
I looked around for something I could smash the lock with.
That was when Jason cried out again. I turned just in time to see him go flying behind me, to the right. He hit the cart sitting on the rusty rail. His clattering bones made a ding when they hit the iron vehicle, and he almost tipped it, too.
“Quit hurting my friends!” Zack shouted. He growled and ran at Cageface. Cageface raised one of his heavy boots, successfully causing Zack to run right into it. He fell to the dirt, thrashing, and said, “My nose! You motherfucker!”
Cageface raised his other boot, intending to stomp Zack’s face in, but Maddie wasn’t having it. With a shout, she jumped and latched onto Cageface’s back. He turned around in a circle, trying to find the source of this current stress. Maddie locked her arms around Cageface’s throat while Zack got up, with blood running down around his mouth and dribbling off his chin.
As I watched all of this, my hands continued searching for a rock, anything to hit the lock with. I came up empty-handed.
Zack, the epitome of bravery (or stupidity), was throwing haymakers into Cageface’s sternum. Each connecting fist made a squelching sound that set my teeth on edge.
Maddie held on.
Cageface had a hell of a time choosing a target, between Maddie and Zack.
That was when I saw it. The axe he’d dropped. I went for it, deciding it was best not to hesitate. If you hesitate, if you dip your toe into the water to feel the temperature, it will always be cold, and you’ll never find the right time to jump in…or, in my case, go for the axe.
As I ran, I saw Jason getting back up. His arm was broken, hanging uselessly to one side.
“Stay down,” I told him.
He wasn’t happy to oblige, I could see that much, but his body and I were in agreement. His eyes rolled back, and he took a seat in the dirt, leaning up against one of the old wooden support beams.
Cageface must’ve seen me coming, because he lunged forward, pushing Zack along with him. He reached out for me as I bent down, almost grabbing me. I felt the cold death of his fingers nearly grab the back of my neck.
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