The Final Girl Support Group E-Book

Grady Hendrix

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award, and from the author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, comes a New York Times bestselling horror novel that follows a group of heroines to die for.In horror movies, the final girl is the one who's left standing when the credits roll. The one who fought back, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends. The one who emerges bloodied but victorious. But after the sirens fade and the audience moves on, what happens to her?Lynnette Tarkington survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.But the thing about these final girls is that they have each other now, and no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for the Final Girl Support Group

Title Page

Leave us a review

Copyright

Dedication

The Final Girl Support Group

The Final Girl Support Group II

The Final Girl Support Group 3-D

The Final Girl Support Group IV:

The Final Girl Support Group’s New Nightmare

The Final Girl Support Group VI:

The Final Girl Support Group VII:

Final Girl Support Group VIII:

The Final Girl Support Group IX:

FGSG X

The Final Girl Support Group XI:

The Final Girl Support Group XII:

The Final Girl Support Group XIII:

The Final Girl Support Group XIV:

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The Final Girl Support Group XVI:

The Final Girl Support Group XVII:

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The Final Girl Support Group XIX:

The Final Girl Support Group XX:

The Final Girls Support Group XXI:

The Final Girl Support Group XXII:

The Final Girls Support Group XXIII:

The Final Girl Support Group XXIV:

About the Author

Acknowledgements

PRAISE FOR

The Final GirlSupport Group

“Grady Hendrix’s canny new novel, The Final Girl Support Group, gathers all the tropes and iconography of a decade’s worth of slasher movies and throws them into a blender with much more wit and intelligence than any of those movies displayed, in a truly original, compelling, suspenseful tour de force… with a knowing wink. Hendrix has a rare, unique voice in a genre sorely in need of more!”

Mick Garris, writer, director (The Stand, Bag of Bones, The Shining miniseries)

“The Final Girl Support Group is a deft examination of how our culture’s obsession with misogynistic violence destroys the lives of women and how those women are able to keep fighting and living after unthinkable trauma. The beating heart of this book is empathy and it’s set into a lightning-paced, vicious thriller. Reading it was a catharsis. Absolutely unmissable. Horror fans... you’ve never read a slasher like this.”

Mallory O’Meara, bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon

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The Final Girl Support Group

Hardback edition ISBN: 9781789096064

Forbidden Planet edition ISBN: 9781789099133

Waterstones edition ISBN: 9781789099126

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789096071

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: July 2021

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

© Grady Hendrix 2021. All Rights Reserved.

Grady Hendrix asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Amanda,

True love is putting someone else,

Before yourself.

Which is why I thought,

You should walk across that ice,

Before me.

final girl (n.)—the last andsole survivor of a horror movie

—thread from r/lastladies, the Final Girls subreddit

The Final Girl Support Group

I wake up, get out of bed, say good morning to my plant, unwrap a protein bar, and drink a liter of bottled water. I’m awake for five full minutes before remembering I might die today. When you get old, you get soft.

In the living room I stretch and do forty knee strikes, forty palm heel strikes, and side mountain climbers until sweat drips onto the concrete floor. I do elbow strikes until my shoulders burn, then I get on the treadmill, put the speed up to seven, and run until my thighs are on fire and my chest rasps, and then I run for five more minutes. I have to punish myself for forgetting exactly what the stakes are, especially today.

The bathroom door gets padlocked from the inside while I shower. I make up my bed to eliminate the temptation to crawl back in. I make tea, and it’s not until the electric kettle clicks that I have my first panic attack of the day.

It’s not a bad one, just a cramp in my chest that feels like a giant hand squeezing my lungs shut. I close my eyes and concentrate on relaxing the muscles lining my throat, on taking deep breaths, on pulling oxygen into the bottom of my lungs. After two and a half minutes I can breathe normally again and I open my eyes.

This apartment is the only place in the world where that’s possible. A bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom where, as long as I take reasonable precautions, I can close my eyes for two minutes. Out there in the world it’s a nonstop murder party, and if I make the slightest mistake I’ll wind up dead.

I go into the living room and turn on CNN to see what the body count is today, and from the very first image I know that the next twenty-four hours will be bad.

A live drone shot of a summer camp is buried beneath all the other junk CNN puts onscreen. It shows sedans and emergency vehicles clustered outside the cabins, men in white hazmat suits walking between the trees, yellow police tape blocking the road. They cut to recorded footage of the night before, blue lights flashing in the dark, and the slugline hits me in the gut: Real Life Red Lake Tragedy Repeats.

I turn on the sound and the story is exactly what I feared. Someone murdered six Camp Red Lake counselors who were shutting the place down for the season. They used a variety of weapons—hand scythe, power drill, bow and arrows, machete—and would have had a seventh victim except the last one, a sixteen-year-old girl the CNN chyron tells me is named Stephanie Fugate, shoved them out of the hayloft.

The killer hasn’t been identified yet, but there’s Stephanie onscreen in a class photo with her round face and clear skin, smiling through her braces with a grin that breaks my heart. After last night, she’ll never be that happy again. She’s a final girl now.

You’re watching a horror movie and the silent killer knocks off the stoner, the slut, the geek, the jock, and the deputy, and now he’s chasing the virgin babysitter through the woods. She’s the one who said they shouldn’t party at this deserted summer camp, break into this abandoned lunatic asylum, skinny-dip in this isolated lake—especially since it’s Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or Arbor Day, or whatever the anniversary is of those unsolved murders from way back. The killer’s got a chainsaw/boat hook/butcher’s knife and this girl’s got zip: no upper body strength, no mass, no shotgun. All she’s got is good cardio and an all-American face. Yet somehow she kills the killer, then stares numbly off into the middle distance, or collapses into the arms of the arriving police, or runs crying to her boyfriend, makes one last quip, lights one last cigarette, asks a final haunting question, gets taken off in an ambulance screaming and screaming like she’s never going to stop.

Ever wonder what happens to those final girls? After the cops eliminate them as suspects, after the press releases their brace-faced, pizza-cheeked, bad-hair-day class photos that inevitably get included on the cover of the true crime book? After the candlelight vigils and the moments of silence, after someone plants the memorial shrub?

I know what happens to those girls. After the movie deals get signed, after the film franchise fails, after you realize that while everyone else was filling out college applications you were locked in a residential treatment program pretending you weren’t scared of the dark. After the talk show circuit, after your third therapist just accepts that he’s your Zoloft-dispensing machine and you won’t be making any breakthroughs on his watch, after you realize that the only interesting thing that’ll ever happen to you happened when you were sixteen, after you stop going outside, after you start browsing locksmiths the way other women browse the windows of Tiffany’s, after you’ve left town because you couldn’t deal with the “Why not you?” looks from the parents of all your dead friends, after you’ve lost everything, been through the fire, started knowing your stalkers by their first names, after all that happens you wind up where I’m going today: in a church basement in Burbank, seated with your back to the wall, trying to hold the pieces of your life together.

We’re an endangered species, for which I’m grateful. There are only six of us still around. It used to make me sad there weren’t more of us out there, but we were creatures of the eighties and the world has moved on. They used to dust off the clip packages for our anniversaries or the occasional franchise reboot, but these days it’s all oil spills and Wikileaks, the Tea Party and the Taliban. The six of us belong to another era. We’re media invisible. We might as well not even exist.

As I turn off CNN I realize I miscounted. There are actually seven of us; I just don’t like to think about Chrissy. No one does. Even mentioning her name can mess with your head because she’s a traitor. So I take a minute, even though I only have three hours to get to group, and I take a deep breath and try to get my focus back.

Adrienne’s going to be a mess. Camp Red Lake was where it happened to her, but she bought the place later and turned it into a retreat for victims of violence, mostly survivors of school shootings and kids who got away from their kidnappers. This hits her where she lives. At least it’ll give us something new to talk about besides whatever old business we’re still arguing over today.

When I can’t put it off any longer, I get ready to head out. Group is the only time I leave this apartment except to go to the mailbox place across the street once a week, to check my escape routes once a month, and my biweekly trips to the corner store for supplies. I don’t like risk. My hair is short because long hair can get grabbed. I wear running shoes in case I have to move. I don’t wear loose clothing.

I inventory my pockets: keys, money, phone, weapons. I stopped carrying a firearm on public transport after an incident a couple of years back, but I have pepper spray, a box cutter in my right front pocket, and a razor blade taped to my left ankle. I don’t wear headphones, I don’t wear sunglasses, I make sure my jacket is tight so there’s nothing to snag, and then I say good-bye to my plant, take a deep breath, step out of my apartment, and face a world that wants me dead.

—Dr. Carol Elliott, private notes on group session, September 2010

The Final Girl Support Group II

A cotton ball sheep says, Jesus Loves Ewe!

A trio of very skinny ghosts rising from the grave proclaim, Ghosts are scary . . . but not the Holy Ghost!

He is Risen! shouts a multicolored tangle of Magic Marker scribbles.

That one gives me pause. All of us in group have a complicated relationship with the idea of resurrection.

We should be sitting in a circle, but the five of us sit in a ragged C because none of us will ever put her back to a door again. Dani has her arms crossed, legs spread, sitting cowboy stoic in front of a wall of orange-and-black construction paper jack-o’-lanterns and hissing cats. She’s the last person on earth who needs a reminder that Halloween is coming.

Marilyn has her legs crossed, Starbucks in one hand, new purse in her lap because she won’t let it touch the floor. She told Julia it cost $1,135, but I don’t believe her. You can’t charge that much for a faux purse, and Marilyn would never let leather touch her skin.

“It’s hard for me to focus if I haven’t eaten,” Heather is saying in her never-ending, I-haven’t-slept-since-1988 monologue, leaning forward, hands flapping around. “Because of my low blood sugar.”

Apparently, today’s argument will be about snacks.

Julia sits in her wheelchair, clearly bored, drumming her fingers on her wheels, wearing an ironic World’s Greatest Dad T-shirt, staring at a large, wrinkled drawing of a flying man with his arms held straight out at his sides that reads, “Jeshus is sad dead alive.”

I used to think it was weird that we met surrounded by Sunday school art, but now it’s become the first thing I look at every month after checking my sightlines and my exits. Not because the artistic self-expression of a bunch of potential murder victims interests me in the slightest. I’m looking for warning signs: pictures of exploding guns and bloody knives, boys drawing themselves as neckless monsters with triangle fangs tearing their parents in half. I’m looking for signs that one of these kids will grow up to be my enemy, to be another one of the monsters that tried to kill us all.

“If you ate before group,” Dr. Carol suggests, “maybe that would help?”

Dr. Carol, the only one in the room who can bring herself to put her back to the door, sits in the mouth of the C, like she has for the past sixteen years, posture perfect, pen poised, notepad resting on one knee, treating Heather’s snack obsession with the same care and concern she applies to everything we say.

“That’s off my schedule,” Heather says. “As a recovering addict, maintaining a schedule is important to my sobriety and I have to leave the home early because, you know, the cops took my license and I haven’t gotten it back yet, so it takes me longer to get here because I think it’s important not to be late. Adrienne doesn’t have that same level of consideration, apparently.”

“I’m sure Adrienne has a good reason for why she’s running behind,” Dr. Carol says.

“I’ll be surprised if Adrienne shows up at all,” Julia says. Clearly she saw CNN, too. “Has anyone talked to her? I tried to call but it went to voicemail.”

“I imagine she’s turned her phone off,” Marilyn says, then makes a face like she smells shit. “The press.”

Marilyn refused to do any press conferences or give anyone an exclusive after her crisis, arousing the wrath of every reporter in America, and then she married into a mega-rich politically active Republican family, so she’s gotten it the worst over the years, but we all know the feeling. The phone that never stops ringing until you finally pull it out of the wall; the reporter you’ve never seen who calls you by your first name and pretends to have gone to high school with you so convincingly you start to believe them; a distant cousin showing up at the hospital, all full of concern, with a tape recorder spinning inside her bag next to a check from the National Enquirer.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss Adrienne’s situation with anyone but Adrienne,” Dr. Carol says. “I’m sure we’ll talk about it when she gets here. In the meantime: How do people feel about Heather’s concerns?”

There’s an awkward moment as we all wait to see if anyone’s going to take the bait, but no one does. We’re final girls. We’re good at escaping traps.

“I’m just saying,” Heather says, filling the awkward silence. “I have certain needs, and since I don’t have the advantages all of you do, then I would really like us to have some coffee, some cookies, something, because this big bare room is depressing.”

She’s really not going to let this go, but that doesn’t surprise me. We’re the women who kept fighting back no matter how much it hurt, who jumped out that third-story window, who dragged ourselves up onto that roof when our bodies were screaming for us to roll over and die. Once we start something, it’s hard for us to stop.

“I don’t mind what Heather brings,” Marilyn says, her bracelets dancing as she waves her Starbucks cup with its dark red lipstick print on the lid. “Bring a pizza. But can we please change the topic?”

“That’s interesting,” Dr. Carol says, although she’s the only one who thinks so. “Does anyone else feel the way Marilyn does?”

When you’ve been in a room with the same six people for sixteen years, you know what they’re going to do before it happens. Like a chemical reaction, if certain conditions are met, certain outcomes will take place. Right on cue, here comes Julia.

“I think people eating and drinking in group is a form of deflection,” Julia says, because she can’t pass up a chance to argue with Marilyn. “Marilyn’s Chai Soy Big Gulp is a prop that shows us she’s distancing herself from group.”

“I declare,” Marilyn fake-marvels in her flat Texas accent. “How do you come up with these things?”

“Two sessions ago you complained we were trapped in the past,” Julia says.

Marilyn looks at each of us.

“Well, does anyone think this is as necessary as it used to be?” she asks. “The way we snipe and peck, I feel like we could all use a vacation. Isn’t the point of therapy that one day you don’t need it anymore?”

I feel my lungs cramp and I count breaths—seven in, seven out, keep it slow, keep it steady. She doesn’t mean that. Group is the center for all of us, even Dr. Carol. Her self-help empire is built on the work she did with us back in the nineties, but the reason we’re in this church basement and not one of her swank, camera-ready clinics is that this is our shared secret, our one safe place free from the stalkers and the superfans, the reporters and the profile writers. How can Marilyn talk so casually about giving it up?

“Some of us can’t afford a vacation,” Julia slings back. “Not everyone married for money.”

“Bless your heart,” Marilyn says. “Isn’t that exactly what your ex did?”

That’s low, even for Marilyn. Julia was still learning how to live with her wheelchair when she married her physiotherapist. I understand the urge all too well. Someone comes along saying they’ll save you and you throw yourself into their arms and let them make all the decisions. You can only hope that by the time you come to your senses they haven’t done too much damage. In Julia’s case, by the time she woke up he’d sold her franchise rights, cleaned out her bank accounts, and left her with nothing.

“Is this how group’s going to be today?” Julia appeals to us. “Slinging insults? Picking at old wounds? There’s no reason we should act this petty. We’re powerful, strong women. Dani’s resourceful and self-sufficient, Marilyn’s got more money than all of us put together, Adrienne’s practically a Nobel Peace Prize candidate . . .”

“What award are you accepting, Meryl Streep?” Heather asks. “Because I am going to suffer a serious relapse if you start reciting your bio again.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything about myself,” Julia says, wounded.

“You were building to it,” Heather says.

“Think what you want,” Julia says, crossing her arms, leaning back in her wheelchair.

Heather throws herself forward so her chest is on her knees, one hand raised like she’s swearing on a Bible.

“I will pay you twenty dollars if you can look me in the eye and swear that you were not about to start listing your degrees.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Julia says, appealing to Dr. Carol. “Instead of using our energy productively, we undermine each other. Group has gotten hijacked by personal conflict. It’s counterproductive.”

“Twenty dollars,” Heather repeats.

“You don’t have twenty dollars to bet,” Julia replies.

“I’ll borrow it from Marilyn,” Heather says.

“‘Borrow’ isn’t the word I’d use for what you do,” Marilyn says.

“Don’t you dismiss me!” Heather explodes. “I’ve handled crap you can’t even dream about! I’ve dealt with some higher-level astral bullshit that would make you drop a log in your satin panties.”

“Cool it,” Julia says to Heather.

“I don’t need you, of all people, defending me,” Marilyn tells Julia.

“Yeah, Julia,” Heather says.

“You watch your step,” Marilyn tells Heather.

“Okay, let’s step back and assess,” Dr. Carol interrupts. I wonder if she prescribes herself something to take the edge off these sessions. At least no one’s talking about snacks anymore. “Did anyone else notice how quickly the conversation between Marilyn and Heather about snacks turned personal? Does anyone have any thoughts about why that happened?”

If Adrienne were here we’d actually be getting along. When she’s in the room, we all feel like we have to live up to our reputations.

“It was a joke,” Heather mumbles.

“Stop being dramatic and buy yourself a Starbucks before you come,” Marilyn says. “Caffeine is an appetite suppressant.”

“Some of us can’t afford rich-people coffee,” Heather says. “AA always has free coffee and cookies. Why don’t you buy me a Starbucks card? You owe me, anyway.”

“Ladies—” Dr. Carol begins.

“What, exactly, do I owe you?” Marilyn asks.

“You screwed me on that All-Stars of Horror deal,” Heather says. “I had everything set up and you came in and wrecked it. How’m I ever going to pay you back if you keep screwing up my business deals?”

“Who’re you kidding?” Marilyn asks, rolling her eyes. “We both know you’re never going to pay me back.”

Heather goes ballistic, and I tune her out. We all do. We’ve heard every single one of her monologues before. How dare Marilyn slight her honor? How can she possibly suggest that the solemn word of a junkie who has smoked, snorted, and shot up every chemical on the planet is not legally binding? How dare Marilyn imply that Heather’s word is not the verbal equivalent of an ironclad contract drawn up by a team of lawyers?

Heather’s always on the hustle. She doesn’t bother me and Julia because she knows we don’t have any money, and she’s given up on Dani because there is no way to make Dani do anything Dani doesn’t want to do, but she’s constantly coming at Adrienne and Marilyn with projects, licensing deals, collaborations, appearance opportunities. The bottom-feeders of this world long ago learned that Heather is our weakest link.

“I know that money is a stressor for several of you,” Dr. Carol says. “Can you help me drill down on this, Marilyn? Or what about you, Lynnette?”

“Um,” I say, caught off guard. “Adrienne’s twenty-six minutes late.”

“How is that making you feel?” Dr. Carol asks.

“Anxious?” I try.

“Look,” Julia says. “Why are we talking about money? Marilyn thinks group doesn’t serve a purpose anymore, and when we spend half the session deflecting over snacks I can’t disagree. What’s wrong with us? When did we get so petty?”

“I just want,” Heather says, taking a deep breath, “someone to bring coffee and cookies. Period.”

Dr. Carol is preparing to address the Great Snack Crisis of 2010 when Dani interrupts. She’s usually cowboy-silent, so whenever she talks we listen.

“I have something to say,” Dani says. “Then you can go back to snacks.”

“Or not,” Julia says.

“This is my last session,” Dani says. “I’m terminating.”

There’s a long, horrible pause.

Dani is one of the original final girls, along with Adrienne and Marilyn. Losing her would change the group, and the group hasn’t changed in forever. We did Clinton’s impeachment and 9/ 11 together. We were here for each other after Columbine and Virginia Tech. When gay marriage got legalized in Massachusetts we all chipped in and bought a nice little Beretta Nano for Dani, and even had it engraved with her and Michelle’s names. When they rebooted Marilyn’s franchise and she went into hiding, she still flew into L.A. once a month to come to group.

But over the last couple of years Dr. Carol has started ending a few minutes early, Marilyn has started having less patience for people, Julia has become pushier about her politics, and I get the feeling that if it wasn’t for Heather some of us would have terminated a long time ago. But there’s always been an unspoken agreement that we have to keep coming, no matter what, because this is the only consistent, dependable thing in Heather’s life.

Surprisingly, it’s not Heather who takes it the hardest.

“I knew it was a sign when Adrienne was late,” I say, and then I cover my face to get some kind of privacy because I can’t go to the bathroom alone.

“Oh my God,” Heather says. “She’s totally crying.”

“I’m just surprised,” I say, wiping my shirtsleeve across my eyes. “These are tears of surprise.”

“I’m sorry,” Dani says softly to me.

I shrug, but I want to scream. I want to scream, You’ve ruined it! You’ve ruined everything for everybody! Marilyn’s phone starts buzzing deep inside her purse. We used to have a strict “phones off” policy, but that’s another thing we’ve let slide over the last few years.

“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s fine. Let’s change the subject.”

Marilyn’s phone keeps buzzing and I want to yell, Answer your phone! Just answer it because if you don’t you’ll be wondering who called for the rest of group! If you’re going to leave it on, you might as well answer it!

“You look like you have something to share?” Dr. Carol says to me.

“No,” I say. “I don’t have anything to share. I just . . . I just don’t think Dani understands the consequences of what she’s doing.”

“It’s a two-hour drive each way,” Dani says.

A digital xylophone plays and I shoot Julia a look and hold it until she silences her phone. Am I the only one who pays attention to the no-phones rule anymore?

“What do you think the consequences are?” Dr. Carol asks.

How can they not see it? Julia sits in her wheelchair with her grad student politics, her hipster bangs, and her ironic T-shirts, right next to Marilyn, who looks like a big, brunette, camera-ready Texas housewife on some reality show. Heather is all stick limbs, knobby elbows, scabby knees, barely held together with the clothes she’s scrounged out of a donation bin, and Dani looks like Bruce Springsteen if he were a woman. None of us belong in the same room together.

“It’s pretty obvious,” I say. “I don’t think I need to spell it out. I mean, it’s pretty clear to me. Dani’s going to leave, and eventually Adrienne’s going to stop showing up. Marilyn and Julia hate each other, and one of them will stop next, and that’ll be all the excuse Heather needs to go back on drugs. Then who’s left? Me? If one of us leaves we’ll all fall apart. Maybe not in one session, or two sessions, or even three, but eventually this will just be a big empty room full of folding chairs and wall art. I mean, that’s pretty clear. It’s no big deal, it’s not like it’s a problem, I mean, I get that everything ends, and we all have to move on, and sixteen years is a long time, but I just feel like someone should spell it out. Someone should explain to Dani exactly what it is she’s doing.”

Marilyn’s phone buzzes again, an irritating punctuation mark at the end of my big speech.

“I need to be around Michelle right now,” Dani says. “I came to tell you in person out of respect.”

I think about staying home the first Thursday of next month. I think about my life shrinking to the size of my block, to the size of my apartment, to the size of my four rooms. I think about never seeing another human being who really knows me ever again.

“But after Michelle dies you’re going to be alone,” I say, knowing it’s the wrong thing to say. “You’ll need us then. You’ll come crawling back.”

“Okay,” Dani says, standing up. “I’m done here. You all know my email address.”

“Please stay,” Dr. Carol says. “There’s still half an hour. Can you at least tell us what led to your decision?”

Dani sighs and runs her hand through her gray buzz cut.

“When I turned fifty I started thinking that I’m closer to the end than I am to the beginning. I don’t want to dwell on my past anymore. I want to move on.”

“And you don’t feel like group is helping you move on?” Dr. Carol asks.

“This isn’t just about the past,” I burst out.

“Talk-back,” Dr. Carol warns.

I ignore her.

“What about us?” I ask. “We’re about the present, too. We’re friends, aren’t we? We’re all part of each other’s lives. This is about all of us. It’s about . . . about friendship.”

Dani looks around the circle, pausing at each of us, and Marilyn’s phone starts buzzing, buzzing, buzzing like it’s laughing at me, and I can tell Marilyn isn’t even focused on what’s happening, she’s just thinking about her goddamn phone. Then Julia’s hand jerks as her phone starts vibrating, too.

“All I see,” Dani says, “is a bunch of women I barely know who are obsessed with what happened to them in high school.”

“Who you barely know?” I ask. I can’t even believe she said that. “We’ve known each other for years.”

“What do we know?” Dani asks. “You won’t even tell us your home address. When’s the last time any of you asked me about Michelle? I’m tired of pretending this is something it’s not.”

“What about Heather?” I shout, and my voice bounces off the walls. Dani studies me, then turns to Heather.

“Heather?” she asks. “What about you?”

“I don’t know what that fruitcake is yapping about,” Heather says.

“She’s going to relapse,” I say. “You know this is why we all keep coming. Don’t you know how much she needs this in her life? Don’t you get that this is the one thing she can depend on? If you’re not going to stay for yourself, stay for Heather.”

Dani looks embarrassed. Marilyn plays with her purse. Heather pinches the skin on the inside of her wrists in a classic Heather pose, and none of them are looking at me except Julia, and she looks confused.

“I thought we all kept coming for you?” Julia finally says.

It’s a joke, it’s another one of Julia’s stupid jokes.

“For me?” I laugh, but it’s a strangled seal bark. “We don’t come here for me. Why would I need this? I don’t need this. I’m fine.”

No one’s saying anything, not even Heather, as if I’m the embarrassing one, and Marilyn’s cell phone starts buzzing again, and then Julia’s, and someone has to say something, so I turn to them and say what I’ve been dying to say for the last five minutes.

“Will you please answer your fucking phones?”

“I think we all need to take a pause and regroup,” Dr. Carol says. “What do you say, Lynnette?”

“I don’t need a break,” I say. “Dani’s the one who needs a break. This is how she pushes people away.”

“I push people away?” Dani asks.

“What do you call this?” I say. “You live in the middle of nowhere. Your nearest neighbor is ten miles down the road. You’re leaving group.”

“I’m married,” Dani says. “Are you?”

Julia tries to get involved because Julia likes to think she’s the most reasonable person in the room.

“You guys are talking past each other,” she says. “Dr. Carol’s right, let’s take a break.”

“Oh, stick it up your ass, Rollerderby,” I say, turning on her. “We only let you into group because we all felt sorry for you.”

Julia wants to say something, but Heather smells blood and climbs in the ring.

“Why don’t you take your own advice, Rain Man?” she says to me. “You’re not even a real final girl.”

I realize this has gone too far. I open my mouth to try to put everything back together when Marilyn stops me. When Marilyn stops everybody.

“My word,” she says, so slowly and softly that we all turn to stare at her staring at her phone. We all know in our hearts something bad is coming.

“Adrienne’s dead,” Marilyn says.

ACTH dumps into my bloodstream and activates my adrenal gland, my veins constrict like a net being pulled tight, my hands and feet go cold, my pupils pop wide and the room brightens, and my muscles tense, making the hair on my forearms stand up.

The monster got her. The monster finally got Adrienne. Any one of us could be next.

—“Never Say Die: Final Girls Are Back,” Time magazine, 1998

The Final Girl Support Group 3-D

We don’t stick around, we scatter. We’re final girls; taking care of ourselves is what we do. Upstairs it’s one of those bright, autumn Los Angeles days where nothing bad seems possible. We could be a bunch of soccer moms leaving church after planning a really terrific carnival with face painting and pony rides. Marilyn is on the phone all the way to her E-Class Mercedes. Julia takes the elevator to the parking lot, puts her chair in the back of her minivan, and swings her way to the driver’s seat on crutches. Heather cuts across front yards and driveways, wandering off down Alameda. Most people wouldn’t spot the only detail that makes us different: Dani standing by her truck, a matte-black Beretta Nano in one hand, holding it behind her leg, watching over everyone to make sure we all get out safe.

I’m fragile and plastic and full of static, but I have my system and after all these years it takes over and keeps me safe. I walk to the bus stop, my suburban ESP on high. I stick to the street, staying on the outside of parked cars, avoiding the sidewalks, keeping my head on a swivel, checking my corners, assessing threats.

My focus keeps getting broken by what Julia said. I’m watching out for people following me, for cars with out-of-state plates, for men in sunglasses with their hats pulled low, but my mind keeps arguing with Julia.

I’m not the problem. Is the man sitting in that parked car only pretending to be on his cell phone? Why did he slide lower when I spotted him? I’m not the crazy one. I’m not the reason we all keep coming to group. Heather is the one we have to watch out for. She’s the one who needs us. I’m the sane one. I’m the safe one. That Honda making a right turn has Utah plates. I memorize the number in case it comes back around the block. I’m watching for tinted windows. I’m watching for motorcycles. I’m not thinking about what Julia said. I’m not thinking about how no one argued with her. I’m watching for vans. Don’t get me started on vans.

I don’t relax until I’m on a city bus. On the street, anyone can come at you from any direction. On the bus, there are limited angles of attack. They’re advertising a horror movie overhead and the red signs makes me think of Adrienne, but I need to stay focused. Some boys with instrument cases sit at the back, heads bowed, engrossed in something on one of their phones. Men don’t have to pay attention the way we do. Men die because they make mistakes. Women? We die because we’re female. Look at Adrienne. No, look at their shoes. Memorize their faces, their clothing, their shoes. Especially their shoes.

I take the bus all the way downtown, get off at Olive and take major streets to a nearby multiplex. Outside, I put my back to the wall and pretend to check my phone. Anyone following me is going to have to either stop short or pass me by. Bright white Nikes go through my field of vision, shined-up black Rockports, fat-laced Timberlands; if someone’s following they can change their jacket or their hat, but it’s a whole lot harder to change their shoes.

I don’t need to look at the roofline or check windows. It’s shoes I have to worry about because the monsters in our lives prefer to get up close and personal. A sniper attack would be like mailing me their penis. They need to touch me.

After I buy my ticket I stand in the lobby, back against the wall, and watch shoes again. Betsey Johnson ballet flats, beige Uggs, confetti-colored children’s sneakers, Sperry Top-Siders.

My movie is on previews. I sit in the front row, then turn back around like I’m looking for my date. It’s a computer-animated children’s movie, so it should be easy to spot an unaccompanied adult male. It’s not impossible, but chances are low that anyone following me would bring a child for camouflage. I keep my eyes on the redheaded muscle shirt with brunette twins and the blond male with the beard and the little boy. Both of them scanned the theater when they came in, like they were looking for someone.

When the movie finally begins I break for the emergency exit to the left of the screen, dash down the stairs, and come out on the street. I don’t see the redhead or Mr. Beard. I do see another Honda with Utah plates but it’s a different number. I memorize this plate, too, noting its dusty windows and mud-spattered bumper, the Triple A sticker on its back windshield. I catch a bus to the Beverly Center.

Riding the bus, I sit as close to the driver as possible. At every stop I watch shoes. I try to stay focused—Doc Martens, Caterpillar steel tips, scuffed Nikes, white nursing shoes—but Adrienne keeps hijacking my train of thought. She and Julia have thrown me off my game.

Adrienne was the first and best of us. She’s the reason most of us joined group. Her crisis set the template. Plenty of women survive violence, but what makes those of us in group our own toxic little category of final girl is that we killed our monsters, or we thought we did, and then it happened to us again. We all thought Adrienne was the only one who never got a sequel, but we were wrong, because thirty-three years later, here came her monster one more time, back to finish the job. Adrienne thought she was safe, but she was wrong. What else were we wrong about?

Adrienne’s crisis happened the same summer as Marilyn’s, and they were similar enough that the press got interested, but she got really famous because of what happened later, with the movies. She was a counselor at Camp Red Lake, and staff had shown up early to get the place ready for campers. Cabins had to be aired out, hornets’ nests had to be sprayed, canoes had to come out of storage. On that first night, nine of her friends were murdered. Four of them were first-year counselors she didn’t know very well; five were people she’d known since they’d been Red Lake campers together as kids. It was twelve long, dark hours that changed the rest of Adrienne’s life.

The killer turned out to be the former camp cook, a single dad named Bruce Volker, who claimed that twenty years ago, two counselors had let his son, Teddy, drown while they were having sex. He said that Teddy had come back from the grave to kill all the counselors for revenge, although he never really explained why Teddy had waited so long to start. Anyhow, the killings stopped when Adrienne decapitated Mr. Volker with his own machete.

Things got worse when they found out that Bruce Volker never had a son who’d drowned at Red Lake. In fact, he didn’t have a son at all. Bruce Volker was just a lonely old man with a fixation on kids and a good swing, but he made Adrienne the first final girl, and Adrienne used that to make all her dreams come true.