The Final Girl Support Group

by Grady Hendrix

I know what it’s like. You don’t want someone angry at you, especially a man, so you say yes to things you don’t want to do because there’s no road map for where you are, nothing to guide you except a neon sign in your head that says Do not make men angry.

I look down. He’s wearing heavy black tactical boots, way too clunky and noisy for sneaking out of the house.

“I totally strolled right past them,” Tommy says. I mean, Skye. That’s what Skye says.

He grumbles but after a second I hear his sneakers scuffing up the stairs behind me.

when did he change into sneakers? she said "heavy black tactical boots" earlier

“There you go,” he says. “Someone installed TeamViewer.”

I risk a look over at Skye. He’s got Tommy’s profile.

There are two lines you can’t come back from once you cross them. Killing people is one. Eating people is the other.

I get in a cab and forty-five bucks later it’s ‘Yo homes, smell ya later, I’m the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.’ ”

All the deaths I’ve ever seen were fast and messy. Tommy. Gillian. Mom. Dad. I’ve never been around this slow fade before.

She got him to focus entirely on her for a long, long time. She was a good victim. I hope it didn’t hurt. I hope she was drunk.

Once again, Garrett was waiting for me when I came out of surgery, ready to take credit for saving me a second time.

The first time we had sex was in my hospital room. He was twenty-three years older than me. I didn’t care.

He had a wife and kids, but when he wasn’t at my apartment I’d call his house crying, begging him to come protect me.

Getting me out to L.A. and into the first Slay Bells movie was a big deal for him at the time.

Sometimes an entire year will go by when I believe that’s the whole story. But in my heart I know I deserve to be in prison. In my heart, I know I deserve to be in Hell.

I was a virgin when Ricky Walker came to our house on Christmas Eve. I never slept with him. How would that have even happened? I didn’t write this letter. The handwriting is the same, and the stationery is Holly Hobbie, but she’s baking muffins. In all the Holly Hobbie stationery I remember owning, she’s gathering wildflowers. Conclusion: some of these aren’t my letters. Some of these are forgeries.

Stephanie Fugate. I think of her folder on Dr. Carol’s desk. Her big, dumb, hopeful, brace-faced teenaged grin. Her wide eyes peeking out from underneath her bangs. The way she looks like Gillian. She looks just like Gillian.

“I have spent my life trying to build a world where women like you don’t have to exist.”

URGENT HELLO. I MUST SELL A LARGE QUANTITY OF ITEMS FOUND IN A MINI-STORAGE LOCKER THAT I PURCHASED. MY BOYFRIEND SAYS THAT YOUR SITE MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN THEM. THERE ARE SEVERAL PHOTOS AND SOME CLOTHES THAT BELONG TO THE KIND OF PEOPLE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN. PEACE OUT (that was Stephanie’s touch), MARCIA

If I’d been an actual final girl they’d be worth more like eight hundred each.

“Murder is man’s attempt to steal birth from women,” she says. “We make children, they kill them. We create life, they create death. It’s the way it’s always been.”

The email is from orchomenus@hotmail.com.

“I thought it would be obvious,” she says. “Orchomenus is Dr. Carol.”

But it’s what’s written on the monster’s chest that takes my breath away. Sky.

Sky Man will kill them all the enemies! Then mommy will come home again!