7.

With the killer momentarily stuck in the door, we managed to slip into the hallway through Jamal’s room and down the stairs. I ran into the kitchen to find a telephone, but to no avail.

“Do you have a cell phone?”

“Yeah, but there ain’t no bars here, man.”

“You kids sure are making a lot of racket.”

Jamal and I gasped and whipped around to face Mrs. Mildred who had just come in from the laundry room.

“Have you seen Morty?” she asked. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

“I think he’s upstairs,” I said.

“That dude’s gone crazy!” added Jamal. “He’s killing people!”

“Yes, he kills me with those Tom Cruise impressions, too,” she said.

“No, Mildred, look!” I took her by the arm and dragged her to the window, where she could see the body. In hindsight, it was really very convenient to have Sam hanging around as evidence.

“Gracious!” she gasped. “You kids better go get the police. I’ll try to calm him down.” She stepped over to the fridge and opened it, taking out a tub of spreadable butter. “Here, you better take this. The truck’s in the back.”

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“I keep the keys in there,” she said.

I opened the tub, revealing that indeed, the keys were stuck in the middle of the butter. “Why are your keys in butter?!” I demanded.

“Do you know a better place to hide keys?” she asked.

“Come on, let’s just get ‘em and go!” said Jamal.

I had to agree. I grabbed the buttered keys and followed him out the back door. Indeed, there was a rusty red pickup parked in the grass, and we raced to its side. There, I struggled to unlock the door.

“What’s the holdup, man?”

“What do you think!?” I asked. “These keys are covered in fucking butter!”

“Just chill, dude. I brought protection.”

I never thought I would be comforted by Jamal, of all people, but as it turned out, he was really a pretty reasonable guy, if a bit of a bully. But I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant. “Protection? You mean for you and Britney?” And then it dawned on me. It was ingenious, really. A rubber condom would have provided the perfect amount of friction for handling those stupid keys.

“Naw, man, I’m packing heat.” Suddenly, he was holding a gun that he had withdrawn from his jacket.

“You brought a gun!?”

“Seriously, dude, do you think I’d be banging that chick at her daddy’s vacation house without thinking of the worst case scenario?”

“Good point,” I said, and I continued fumbling with the keys. I could hear Jamal taking the safety off the gun and cocking it. “Sorry about Britney.”

“Hey, man, whatevah,” he said. “I think she was gonna cheat on me with chair boy, anyway.” I carefully neglected to mention she was going to cheat on him with me as well. He continued. “Look, man, I know we ain’t been getting along in the past, but I just want you to know that I respect you. Maybe things can be different if we make it out of this thing together.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Same here.” Finally, I think I had finally found the right key. It was just a matter of slipping it into the door. But Jamal grabbed my shoulder.

“Hey! Look at this!”

He was directing me to the back of the pickup. Another body lay dead in the truck bed: it was Mortimer.

“Then who..?”

As if to answer the question, I caught the glint of silver out the corner of my eye just in time to roll out of the way, the keys slipping free from my fingers as I made the dodge. But the blade wasn’t aimed for me: it was now sticking out of Jamal’s chest. He dropped the gun and sank to his knees, coming to rest at the feet of the killer.

I shrieked and dove for the gun, ducking just in time to avoid the knife on the back swing. But with my hands covered in butter, I didn’t have the coordination to aim or pull the trigger. All I could do was grab it and run as fast as I could.

8.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t look back. I didn’t even think about what just happened. I simply reentered the house through the back door, locked it, and ran for the foyer. My sneakers squealed against the hardwood floor as I stopped at the front door. I put my back to the staircase, figuring the killer wouldn’t come from the second floor. There, I paused to clean my hands off on my shirt, giving me the grip I needed to hold the gun properly. Hopefully he’d just come waltzing through the front door, and I’d shoot him.

But even with all these precautions, I knew it was all over. There was no way I was going to make it out of here alive. Devon was the only one smart enough to get out while she could, and I wasn’t significant enough to deserve to go on living. After all, no one in this house could remember something as simple as my name. At best, I was being fondly called “dude” by my former nemesis. But just when I thought I had actually found a friend in him, all hope had been taken away from me. I might as well have been the new ensign accompanying Captain Kirk on an away mission. I was doomed.

As I lowered my head, I heard a sound from up the stairs. It was Mildred, who was shuffling her way down to join me. “I couldn’t find Mortimer…” She circled around and came to face me head on. “Reckon something’s happened to him.” I got the feeling that deep down, she knew what was really going on here, but didn’t want to ask. Instead, she focused on me and my miserable state. “What’s the matter, boy?”

“I am so alone,” I moaned. “Everybody’s dead!” I felt like I was going to cry.

“There, there,” she said, stroking my hair. “You’ve still got me, Chad!”

Her sentence was punctuated by a wet thump. I looked up just in time to see her gasp in a final breath through a fountain of blood coming out of her mouth. Behind her, the killer stood glaring over her shoulder from the depth of his scuba goggles. His lips retracted from the snorkel breathing apparatus for a moment so he could speak the only words I would ever hear come from his mouth.

“It’s Craig, actually.”

With that, he ripped the knife out of her back and slowly raised it back to the ready stabbing position. With the light of dawn creeping in through the eastern windows, I could finally see the killer in his full glory: dripping red hair, pale, freckled face, snorkeling gear obscuring blazing blue eyes. His arms were adorned with yellow inflatable swimmers, and he wore nothing but a soaking wet T-shirt and festive red swimming trunks. I thought this would surely be the last sight I saw in this world, but just before he went in for the kill, the front door burst open, revealing a familiar feminine silhouette in its frame.

“Craig!”

It was Devon. She had come back. The sound of her voice speaking my name once again invigorated me with a feeling of self-worth. Damn it, I wasn’t insignificant. I was Craig, the main fucking character, and I wasn’t going to take this anymore! But soon I realized that the killer had now turned his eyes on Devon and had started sloshing in her direction.

“No!” I cried. I stood up and lifted the pistol. Timmy faced me again and simply laughed a sick, wet laugh, but I was undeterred. “You picked the wrong timeshare today, Timmy!” And with a somewhat less feminine cry, I let out a yell that seemed to go on forever as I shot Timmy in the chest three times, each bullet sending him back a step until he finally fell on his knees and dropped the knife. I stepped forward and kicked him square in his masked face, and he fell to the floor, still, cold, and dead.

9.

Devon rushed to my side, circling around the fresh corpse. “What the hell just happened here? Is that the guy from the driveway?”

“Yeah,” I said, catching my breath. I took this opportunity to wrap an arm around Devon as we made our way out onto the front porch. She didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she found the hoarseness of my voice made me sound manlier. “He killed them all. Everybody’s dead, Dev.” Could I call her Dev now? I thought so, having just shot a guy trying to stab her to death.

“I told them this would happen,” said Devon dryly. She gave me an appraising look. “That was some nerd rage you pulled just then.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She glanced warily over her shoulder toward the foyer. “You know what usually happens now, right?” she asked.

“We immediately make out despite the fact that all your friends have just been ruthlessly slaughtered by a psycho killer?” I asked. It was worth a shot.

She let out a soundless laugh. “Well, technically, only one of them was my friend, and he died because he was being a sleazy douchebag.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and we leaned toward each other to accept one another in a passionate embrace.

Suddenly! The third hand of the night reached out and grabbed my shoulder from behind. Apparently Timmy wasn’t quite as dead as I thought, and I was about to die a virgin. I screamed and covered my face with both arms, dropping the gun onto the porch with a wooden thump.

But just as Timmy began to wring my neck with his cold, wet hands, another shot was fired, this time from the hands of Devon herself. Timmy was hit right between the eyes, and he fell to the ground. I leapt up off of him as if I’d just been thrown into a pit of hot coals.

“Holy hell,” I said. “Thanks, Dev!”

But she wasn’t done. She stood there, shooting him over and over in the face until the clip was fully unloaded. Then she traded the gun for the knife Timmy had dropped and proceeded to stab him in the neck over and over. It must have taken thirty or forty strokes. She even paused to switch arms after the first one got too sore to go on. Eventually, the head did come off. She then proceeded to pull a lighter out of her pocket, which she used to light the porch itself on fire. We both backed up toward her van and watched as the body itself, and soon the entire house, were engulfed in flames.

“That was certainly thorough,” I remarked.

“Yeah,” said Devon. “Nothing like a blazing inferno to let the cops know something has gone awry.”

“Indeed,” I said. This time with one eye open to watch our peripheral, I leaned in and kissed Devon her sweet pierced lips. Her palm met my cheek, her fingers stroked my hair, and I even felt her slip me the tongue for at least three seconds. Though we had to cool our jets when the police finally did arrive, the romance was merely postponed until after we had been released from questioning. I lost my virginity in Devon’s van Saturday night, and all-in-all, I’d say the trip was well worth the fifty bucks.

 See also Parts 1-3 & Parts 4-6.