You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight

by Kalynn Bayron

adjust, I realize it’s a hand, clenched into a bloody fist, and on the wrist is a bright pink hair tie.

Mr. Lamont narrows his eyes at me. “No. Not with them.” He keeps the gun trained on me as he speaks. “Do you know where you are right now?”

Mr. Lamont tilts his head. “Did he now?” He seems irritated. “He was a regular chatty Cathy with you, huh? I couldn’t get him to tell me a damn thing. Did he tell you about the ritual too?”

“Did you know my mom’s boyfriend sent me up here to die?” I asked angrily. “Of course,” he says like it should be obvious.

“My father and the remaining members of the Owl Society made a deal. My daddy would start a camp, bring up vulnerable kids, kids nobody cared about. Kind of like you, Charity.”

I hate everything he’s saying because it’s true.

Everything suddenly clicks into place. “The killings at the camp in 1971.”

“I was seventeen. I’d known about the Owl Society my whole life and I thought—well—I thought I could show them that I deserved to be among them. I cut down six people at the camp that summer. Six. Spilled their blood on the earth, fed their corpses to the lake, and said the words I could remember out loud.”

“My mama died when I was six. I think my daddy put her in that damn lake thinking he’d get something he wanted. All I wanted was to have her back.”

There’s a knock. Mr. Lamont smiles and backs up toward the door. He flips the lock and in walks Ms.

Keane, a bandage wrapped around her head and carrying a machete a foot long. I jump up, and Mr. Lamont points the gun at me.

He kisses her on the top of her head, and she locks the door.

“My wife wants in on the fun. It’s only right.”

Ms. Keane marches up to him and smacks him so hard, a mist of spittle sprays from Kyle’s lips.

“You’ve been betraying us this whole time, you selfish little bastard!

“You—you told me Tasha and Javi left in an ambulance,”

“Oh, how fun. We haven’t gotten to the part where you find out that he’s our grandson.”

Kyle doesn’t hesitate. He takes the zip ties and restrains Bezi first and then comes to stand in front of me. He loops a zip tie around my wrists and pulls it tight.

Mr. Lamont raises his gun and fires a single shot. The snap echoes through the dark, and the woman collapses in a heap.

“Not when you’ve been sneaking around helping these people out. They could have gotten away. We need them, and you risked all of that because of your bleeding heart.” She spits on the ground at his feet.

“Of course,” Mr. Lamont says. “The cameras came in handy. I did see that you found my little stash in the control center.” He chuckles. “You can’t fault me for wanting to keep a few mementos. It’s funny how no one ever connects the dots.

people care about the kids least of all.

Mr. Lamont looks like he’s about to answer when Kyle returns. He’s got Tasha’s lifeless body draped over his shoulder.

Ms. Keane approaches me in a rush and hits me in the back of my head with the butt of the machete. Everything goes black for a moment, and then I’m lying on the rocky shore, watching as Ms. Keane and Kyle hold Bezi down.

Suddenly, there are two quick pops, and Mr. Lamont staggers back, clutching his chest where a bloodstain blooms on his dingy white shirt. He falls back.

Kyle approaches her, and there are two more pops. Ms. Keane’s body splashes into the lake next to her husband.

I groan and Kyle is suddenly there, pulling me up to standing. I still don’t want to open my eyes. I lean against him.

something wet sticks to the skin at the side of my face.

feathers sticks to my fingertips. I look up. Kyle’s face is cloaked by the soaking wet owl mask. He utters the incantation and, in one quick motion, draws Ms. Keane’s machete across my abdomen.

There is a splash, and my body is wrapped in a blanket of cold.

me and the inky waters of Mirror Lake.

Technically, it’s off-limits to everyone except law enforcement because they are still pulling body parts from the lake even after all this time. But not Charity. She’s still down there, and that means I am too.

Sometimes it seems so much like a nightmare that I wonder if one day, I’ll wake up and find that it was all just an awful dream.

I was the final girl, and there wasn’t any way to get away from the photographers and the journalists looking for a good spin on the tragedy that

had unfolded here.

She was the one who seemed to know how that night, exactly one year ago, would go. It was her voice that drove Charity and me to make the decisions we did.

“The final act is never really the end,”

return address on the letter at all. That told me that whoever delivered it had brought it to my house and put it in the mailbox themselves.

But as I read and reread the letter, my gut feeling was that it

was real, and that was more terrifying than anything.

I’m sorry, Bezi. I don’t know if you believe me or if you even care, but I have to say it. I should never have helped them. I didn’t have a choice.

I got what I wanted. I’m free from them, but I think about what I had to do to have this. I’m sorry. But I have something I can share with you. I think you know what it is. Maybe it can make up for what I did. You can have money, strength, power, whatever you want. If you want, meet me at the place where it happened

on the day it happened. If you’re not there, I’ll assume you never will...

and I angle my head to the right. Footsteps move closer as the soft sounds of the forest fade away. Almost as if the creatures

that live there know they’re in the presence of a monster. From the tree line, a figure emerges, draped in shadow. “Bezi,” a voice calls. I recognize it. I recognize him.

“It’s the incantation that the Owl Society used. That my grandfather used when he—” “When he thought he’d killed me,” I say.

don’t unfold it. I don’t need to. “What is it you think this will help me with?” I ask as I stare into his eyes without blinking.

“I don’t know. Whatever you want.” I press him. I want to know how he thinks this will make amends. “What does that mean?” He comes another step closer. “You can have anything you want. Or almost anything. My grandfather didn’t get what he wanted the first time around when he killed all those kids.”

“It requires a sacrifice,” I say. Kyle gestures to the lake.

What’s one more if it means you can have some peace?”