Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I was barely able to move thanks to what my mother had done to my mind. I felt like the entirety of my body was a wobbling mess. I’d only managed to survive the asylum by pushing down my emotions and tightening my self-control. In an environment where absolutely nothing was under my control but my reaction to things, being the stoic had kept me sane. My mother had ripped all of that away and left me weak as a kitten.
The fact that she was decapitated and her body on the ground didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. Lamia had died before and would undoubtedly die again. Killing her permanently, if such a thing could be accomplished at all, would require the power of beings far more powerful than ourselves. She was the source of slasher immortality, though her being our race’s mother contradicted the story Bloody Mary had told me. Either way, I was certain she’d be back and pissed off even if she’d been temporarily stripped of her vampiric powers by the Necronomicon.
Right now, I had bigger problems than my momentarily deceased mother, though. Mike had taken advantage of the temporary interruption in my mother’s mind control to kill her, but his movements were immediately moved from savoring his kill of our ancestor to turn against us. He was completely silent as he moved and yet I could feel the power radiating off him. He lifted his knife to strike at us, only to have Nancy’s battle ax bury itself in his head.
“This is for my mother, you bitch!” Nancy snapped.
“Twice in one day!” Carrie shouted from behind Mike, slowly trying to get up. “You are just a filthy mouthed harlot now!”
“Shut up,” Nancy said, taking a step back, and looking at Mike who only stumbled a step before backhanding her across the room with the same level of force a superhero might use to throw a car.
“Oh hell,” I said, getting up to a crouch.
Mike casually pulled the ax out of his face and came at me with his knife. I managed to catch both of his arms as he attacked me even as I had to brace myself against the floor. Mike exerted more force than any human being—any dozen human beings, could against me—but, I managed to hold firm against him. I was not any more human than he was and had the blood of demons running through my veins. Even so, I could feel him slowly press the weapon down against me. He was the subject of an entire world’s nightmares, the popularity of his movies giving him an endless wellspring to draw from.
So I proceeded to smash my head into his plaster mask, shattering it and causing him to back away in order to cover his face. It was a surprising motion, but I realized that he was only as strong as his ability to embody the fears he cultivated. Lifting the battle ax, I stared at him in contempt. “Have you ever fought anyone who could ever fight back? Oh right, you have, and they kicked your ass every time.”
Mike looked up at me with his perfectly normal, even handsome features and I could see the utterly empty creature behind his eyes. There was no guilt or remorse, but my words triggered something within him. He was now officially pissed off and that was probably not a good thing. Even cut off from his power, he was still one of the strongest slashers of all time.
A series of gunshots rang out as an entire clip of bullets was emptied into Mike’s back, one of them missing him and whizzing past my face. Gerald was standing behind him with Carrie, holding the weapon badly and shaking. It was easy to see that he’d never held a gun before in his life but had managed to mostly hit his mark, if for no reason than men built like Frankenstein’s monster were hard to miss.
Mike stared back at Gerald, perturbed, but otherwise unharmed.
“Oh hell,” Gerald said. “Can we run now?”
“No,” Carrie said.
“But I’m really scared!” Gerald snapped.
“Silence, slave!” Carrie said, lifting a 151-proof bottle of Bacardi rum from the bar and hurling it at Mike before it shattered against his face. Mike started walking toward her before Carrie lifted her still-burning joint off the ground then flicked it at him. Mike proceeded to go up like a Roman candle, burning across his shoulders and face but continuing to walk.
“And now he’s on fire,” Gerald said. “Great plan, Carrie!”
“Shut up!” Carrie said, looking scared for the first time.
That was when Cujo bit Mike’s leg, savagely attacking it and doing his best to defend his mistress. Mike responded by kicking the dog and there was a sickening crunching sound as it smacked against the wall.
“No!” Carrie screamed.
I swung the battle ax around and buried it in Mike’s spine. Mike flinched despite the fact he’d barely registered he was on fire and turned around. He proceeded to stab me through the front of my chest, hitting the wrong side of my chest for my heart, then started to move his flaming arms up to strangle me. I stared at him and he stared at me.
“You shouldn’t have hurt the dog,” I grunted as I felt fire scald my neck and face. I then reached up and grabbed him by his flaming head, feeling pain surge through my nerves that rivaled anything I’d ever experienced in my life. That was when Mike’s eyes widened as I put my foot on his chest and proceeded to rip his head clean off, tossing it to one side. My face burned, my shoulders, and then the rest of me, but it was worth it to defeat the serial killer. Falling to my knees, I prepared for another death. Perhaps one I wouldn’t recover from. I had no idea if slashers could kill other slashers permanently.
Oh, spare me your maudlin sense of self-sacrifice, Bloody Mary said. You’re not dead yet and keeping you down would require at least decapitation.
Are you still here? I asked, annoyed. It was amazing how little pain I started to feel after just the first few seconds of burning alive.
That’s shock, my dear. Unfortunately, this is not your death, William, Bloody Mary said. I’m not done with you yet.
My answer was interrupted by Gerald emptying a seltzer bottle in my face and putting out the flames consuming my flesh. “I promise I’ll get you to the hospital, William! We can get some plastic surgery done and save you! Just promise me you’re not going to use this as an excuse to come back as the Burning Guy and kill a bunch of camp counsellors for it.”
I looked up at him, steaming.
Gerald blinked. “The Burning was a 1981 movie by Harvey Weinstein. It’s literally the only slasher movie I’ve ever seen.”
Carrie looked over at one of the corpses next to the bar. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s going to be making any more of those.”
“What a shame,” I muttered, having a bad feeling about the guy since I’d first seen him on the news. “How do I look?”
“Horrible,” Gerald said, showing his mastery of bedside manner. “You look like someone, well, set your face on fire. It’s kind of pizza-y if you want my medical opinion. You look like an entirely different slasher now.”
“Worth it,” I muttered.
“Cujo!” Carrie shouted, running over to the fallen form of her dog. She grabbed up the fallen mini-pit bull and cuddled it close to her arms.
“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up while still smoldering. The rest of my body was regenerating, but I didn’t know about my face. “He was a good dog.”
Carrie looked on the verge of tears.
“You still have a knife stuck in you,” Gerald said, delicately. “Uh, I can remove that, but it should probably be under controlled circumstances. You don’t want to start bleeding out.”
“Not now,” I said, turning around to see if Nancy was alright.
Nancy was hunched over, carrying the severed head of Aiden Cassidy who, going by the hideous expression on his face, was still animated. “Sorry, broke my back. That’s taking a little while to heal. The zombie here tried to make a play for my throat while I was disabled. He found out the hard way that wasn’t a good idea.”
Aiden’s head mouthed various misogynist insults ranging from whore to more explicit language. It seemed some people never learned, even if their unlife literally depended on it. Nancy lifted the head, stared at it, and then threw it down the hallway. Aiden’s head bounced against the ground and slid down the hall in an amusing fashion.
“I see,” I said, nodding in approval to her actions. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Nancy paused and looked at me. “You look like...well, you don’t look good.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, frowning. “I know it must affect your feelings for me.”
“Wait ’til I get a few drinks in me,” Nancy replied. “I think I see your face healing over. Is that supposed to happen?”
“No,” I said, blinking. “At least I don’t think so.”
“Well, we are half-vampire,” Carrie replied, laying down Cujo’s body next to the Necronomicon. “Be happy, William. I know I am. I would never want an ugly brother. Your sexiness has always been a boon to my mood.”
Everyone looked at her oddly.
“Sorry, I’m just making conversation while I prepare to raise my dog from the dead,” Carrie said, putting her page back into book and flipping through it. “I’d prefer to do this at a pet cemetery but we’ll just have to make do.”
I stared at her. “The moral of that book is completely lost on you, isn’t it?”
“No,” Carrie said. “Don’t be mean to your undead demon cat and it won’t murder your child.”
I blinked. As an alternative Aesop, it functioned well. “I’m just saying perhaps Cujo is in a better place.”
“I don’t want him in a better place, I want him with me,” Carrie said, flipping through the book. “Ooo, here’s a spell about alternate realities.”
Nancy and I exchanged a glance.
“I’m just glad this is all over,” Nancy muttered.
“Oh no,” Gerald felt his face. “You’ve jinxed it.”
“That’s not a real thing,” Nancy said, looking over at Mike’s corpse. “We’ve beaten...son of a witch.”
I turned around to see there was no sign of the serial killer’s corpse. Both his head and his body had disappeared.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
“This is why you never take your eyes off the slasher,” Nancy muttered. “There’s always a sequel.”
That was when I saw my mother in the reflection of the bar mirror, her arms crossed and looking quite upset. “It appears we’re not going to have to wait very long for the sequel. Her ghost is hanging around.”
Nancy did a double take as she saw Lamia looking at us. “Oh crap. Can she do anything to us?”
I could hear my sister muttering an enchantment behind us. “Well, given Billy could rip into an alternate dimension as a ghost, I’m going to say that my mother is able to do a lot more. We should probably move.”
My mother’s stare burned itself into my mind, though, as she stretched out her arms and began speaking in the same language as the Necronomicon. I couldn’t hear her but saw her make the invocations to the Elder Gods.
You can’t stop her here, Bloody Mary whispered. But I can.
I’ll take my chances, I replied. My soul is my own.
Ha! Bloody Mary laughed. Your soul is already damned. You’ve called on my power and I have placed my mark on you. The only question is whether you will reign in hell or suffer in it. Besides it, I know the person you’d sacrifice it for.
What do you— I started to think.
“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,” Nancy said, staring at the mirror.
That was when the blood-soaked figure of our dark goddess appeared behind Lamia and stabbed her through the back of the chest with a wicked looking demonic sword. Lamia’s eyes only registered shock for a second before her body immolated. I still didn’t think this was enough to put her down permanently, but it probably meant she’d be a lot longer returning from the grave. But at what price?
“Nancy, what have you done?” I asked, shocked.
“What I had to do,” Nancy said.
That was when I heard the sound of a happy bark. I turned around and saw an undead Cujo snuggling against Carrie, licking her face and leaving behind some cute little bloodstains. “Bark-bark!”
Gerald stared at the results. “Are you guys related to Tim Burton? It would explain so much.”
“Probably,” I replied, feeling my face.
It was hard to believe it was all over, but somehow, we’d managed to do it. Lamia was defeated. She’d done the lion’s share of work slaughtering the Fraternity of Orion, and we’d managed to rescue the TAA sorority’s members. Well, honestly, they’d rescued themselves, but I was going to give us points for the assist. Mike and Lucky had managed to survive, but we’d put Billy’s ghost in the ground permanently. It was, in simple terms, a good couple of days. All it had potentially cost was my face and Nancy’s soul.
No, I said. I’ll fight for it. I’ll get it back. No matter the cost.
Bloody Mary didn’t respond.
That was when I started hearing moans coming from all around us. They weren’t coming from any specific body around us. Instead, I heard them from every single one of the bodies around us.
“Uh,” I looked at Nancy. “Are you hearing that?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
Gerald looked around. “Is this Lamia’s doing? I mean, because I was thinking she’d turn me against the rest of you and I’m really surprised she didn’t.”
“Mom would never remove my slave,” Carrie said, cuddling her now animated zombie dog. “That would just be rude.”
Gerald sighed.
“Either my mother’s magic is raising everyone here from the dead to kill us all or it’s a side effect of you misusing the Necronomicon,” I said, calculating just how many zombies we might be dealing with. Staring down the hallways and seeing the furthest corpses twitching, I suspected the answer was all of them.
“So, we gonna run?” Nancy asked. “Or fight?”
“One hundred and twelve,” I replied.
Nancy nodded. “Run!”