The Last Word

by Taylor Adams

Opinions are like assholes, the saying goes, and the internet has millions of both.

Or maybe it’s the victimhood, the cringy implication that this “author” is entitled to a full-time living from a job without actually being competent at it.

Red herrings.

It’s nice to submerge yourself in someone else’s world, to luxuriate in the handcrafted details and admire the false ceilings.

She’s lost twelve pounds since arriving here. Not on purpose. Maybe something is wrong with her body, but eating has become a dull and unrewarding process, as joyless as sitting on the toilet. Some days she forgets entirely. Others, she wishes only to sleep and must drag herself down the halls like a zombie.

She’s been told introverted personalities recharge with alone time, something like managing a social battery. And while that’s accurate—because most people tend to exhaust the ever-loving shit out of Emma—she’s always pictured herself more like clay, a shapeless form that reluctantly morphs to meet the daily needs of her surroundings.

Very little frightens her—the worst thing that can happen to any human already happened to her months ago—but she fears what she becomes when she’s alone, where her mind will go if she lets it wander.

In annual precipitation, Strand Beach is second only to a certain Washington town a short drive north, famous for its sparkling vampires.

It’s not about the story’s quality. It’s about distracting herself, putting her mind on a treadmill. Anything is better than being alone with her thoughts.

Emma doesn’t like to be seen. Being seen burdens you with an image you have to maintain.

But I hope there’s something after death, too. Because I know you’re right, that being immortal would be agony. But I guess . . . I guess I just want to know you for longer than forty years. It’s not enough time.

This poor girl

More often, their comfortable evenings at home were spent apart. Rather than joining each other in their respective worlds, she would read alone with Laika curled at her feet while Shawn quietly toiled on his model trains downstairs. She regrets this now. You never know how finite your time together really is until it’s up.

🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

The last two hundred pages read like something a psychopath might masturbate to.

Just spat my water all over the page

He drove a gray Honda CR-V and ate six Wendy’s Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from the Drive-Thru Value Menu. He listened to a Spotify playlist of Ed Sheeran, Death Cab for Cutie, and Coldplay while driving exactly the speed limit with his fedora on the dashboard, hooked atop a plastic hat rack he’d purchased for $9.99 on Amazon.

What’s with the fucking fedora!?!

While he waited for the rain to subside, he vaped his favorite e-juice flavor—synthetic butter—and he allowed his mind to wander through curls of creamy fumes.

Who vapes butter!?

Dying tonight? Fine. Having her death immortalized in a shitty e-book? Also fine. Letting Laika die, too? Fucking unacceptable.

Same girl same

Emma Carpenter herself is deceased

I am going with no. He just is “writing” the book as he kills

A driving, two-handed thrust delivered from an impressive core of physical strength.

Such an inflated viewpoint of himself

His face is freckled and stubbled with curly ginger neckbeard. His cheeks are plump, boyish, hanging over fleshy jowls. His mouth is a small and dirty-looking orifice, as puckered as an asshole. Behind his fedora, she can see the author’s red hair is worn long and greasy. He must be at least six-three and two hundred and fifty pounds, oversize in a clumsy and sad way. His trench coat is pulled taut to contain his cauldron belly. His cargo pants bulge in odd places. None of his clothes fit quite right.

I will never forget what this guy looks like based on this

She expected Jason Voorhees. She got a life-size Chucky doll.

Actually cackling

He’s trying to fight it. But his hand is trembling. His hand was perfectly still.

She sees one thing He thinks another I’m going with her as the reliable narrator

In this video he’s two years younger, his chin freshly shaved with ginger stubble. He wears a black T-shirt featuring Pepe the Frog, khaki cargo shorts, and New Balance sandals with black socks. And of course, his wool felt fedora—a chic testament to his strength and unwillingness to take no for an answer.

I have no words

She tries to remember, her thoughts thickening with another wave of paralyzing horror—how many books has H. G. Kane self-published? Sixteen.

“I may be a monster,” Henry monologues as the SWAT team closes in, “but you all abandoned me and attacked me and ignored me. Today’s blood is on everyone’s hands.”

This man is absolutely delusional

Within a year of graduating from college he was gainfully employed and could afford any swords, airsoft guns, or video games he wished for.

😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😒😒

glass. The towering Chucky doll advances, his piggy eyes locked on her, still carrying a knot of her hair.

Idk if I wanna laugh or be disgusted …. Loving this cheesy horror movie vibe

A second starburst explodes over Deek’s house: fiery orange.

Ya Deek, burn this mother fucking house down!!!!!

It barely hurt. He didn’t scream or even grunt. Howard had always been a well-muscled and capable close-quarters fighter with an exceptional

Whatever you need to tell yourself bro 😂😂

The sword stops inches from her cheek. Her eardrum rings with impact. The steel blade vibrates, lodged at least an inch into the house’s load-bearing column beside her.

😂😂😂 fucking idiot

Over years of home training, he’d practiced numerous killing strikes using his nondominant hand.

“Wanna do Karate in the garage”

kept Laura’s teeth and her earrings and the sword I used to dismember her body behind a loose board in my bedroom wall. Above my bed. It’s still there. I suck on her teeth from time to time and look at my Polaroids and try to pretend I did it on purpose. But do you want to know the truth? What really happened to Laura?”

What the fuckity fuck fuck fuck is that?

“I tied her knots too tight. And she suffocated.” He forces a jaundiced grin. “That’s it. That’s all I did. I’m basically innocent. I needed her to stay in my basement. I hadn’t even touched her yet. But when I left for school, Laura tried to tip her chair and escape, and the unlucky, one-in-a-million way Mom’s stupid antique chair landed must have constricted her airway. And she asphyxiated on the floor while I was in class. She killed herself, basically.”

Of course whatever you think. 100% her fault

by the way.” Howard spits on the floor, a startling wet glob. Jolted, Emma almost pulls the trigger. Something small clacks across hardwood, stopping by her foot and slowly spinning to stillness. It’s a long earwig shape, gray and calcified. A human tooth. I suck on her teeth sometimes. She swallows a nauseous shiver.

magnum opus

“Incredible. Most people wouldn’t fight that hard.” “A dog person would.”