❪ ﹟NINETEEN  ❫ ࿐ྂ
━━ NYC SUBWAY / ABANDONED MOVIE THEATER !

     BAILEY'S PARTING WORDS are the reason the eight of them find themselves in a crowded subway station, pushing themselves through sweaty bodies and trying not to get separated. "Is this even a good plan?" Ethan asks from the back of the group, sounding nervous.

     "You don't have to come if you don't want to," Tara tells him, only to get cut off by Carina. "Yes, he does. No one out of sight right now."

     "Ignoring that," Ethan says. "So we just peel off and the killer picks us off one-by-one? No, thank you."

      The train has just pulled onto the platform, and Sam sighs. "Let's just get to the theater. Come on, in here." She motions to the open doors. They start pushing through more bodies, and Carina grabs Chad's hand in the chaos.

     "Ah, yes, because it'll be much less scary at the serial killer movie theater," he says sarcastically, gripping her hand in return as the flow of people bumps into them. Because of her height, she can't see much and makes sure she keeps her eyes on the grey of Chad's sweatshirt despite holding his hand tightly. He looks behind him to her, and then behind. "Where's Mindy?"

     Just as they're stepping on the train and the doors start closing, Chad lets go of her hand and starts reaching for the doors. "Mindy! Mindy! Mindy!" Carina turns to see her best friend through the crack in the door, watching in horror as Chad is pulled in the door and it shuts with her on the other side. Having failed to get on the same train as the rest of the group, she's left behind with Ethan.

     Around them, people bump and move through their group, and Chad reclaims her hand. She squeezes it thankfully, trying to look around for the others as things settle. "Where's Mindy?" Sam looks around the train car.

     "She missed the train. I was gonna wait for her, but Cute Boy here dragged me on." He motions to Danny over his shoulder, not looking at the other man.

     "I was trying to keep us together."

     "By splitting us up?" Tara asks, incredulous.

      The lights flicker around them and Carina sighs, dragging her non-occupied hand down her face. People groan in tandem. "There was so much going on. I didn't even realize they weren't on the train until the doors were closing."

     "It's okay," Chad breathes, looking at his phone. "It's fine. She's with Ethan. She'll meet us there." Carina breathes in relief, ducking her head into his chest and closing her eyes, only looking up when Chad cusses. "Oh, shit."

     Looking at his face, she turns to see what he's looking at, sucking in a breath when she realizes. The car is packed to the max with people ready for Halloween, dressed as every goddamn horror movie ghoul you can imagine. Freddy. Jason. Pinhead. Michael Myers. Leatherface. And more than a few Ghostfaces. Most are of course in the traditional mask, while a couple are in the chrome mask from Stab 8. One's even wearing the mask from the Scream TV series. Despite those not being the same as the ones attacking them, it doesn't help her breathe easier. Everyone seems to be staring at them. None of the people scream kids out to party in NYC. To her, they all feel like real monsters.

     "How many stops do we have?" Tara asks, tearing her eyes away from the scene the train car makes. Sam moves to check the map, but the car darkens again for a moment. "Ten," she announces shakily when the lights come back up.

     With that one word, cold fear seems to take hold of the group. The lights flicker again, and Carina almost thinks she hears someone screaming. Ten fucking stops. Ten too many. 

     The whole time they're there, it's like Ghostface's stare at the group, peppered through the train. The train lurches forward again. 

     "Still nothing from Mindy," Chad announces as they come up on the stop for 72nd Street.

     "The service is probably just spotty," she tries to reassure him. "There's no way she missed the train after this one, and it should be right behind us." She looks at the map on the wall again, taking a deep breath. Tries to force herself to believe what she's saying.

     "Guys?" Sam breathes shakily, making them all look up. Slowly, they watch as someone in a Ghostface costume pushes through the throngs of people toward them, and Carina gasps. Chad grabs her by the middle, pushing her behind him and keeping her there, and she watches the scene with wide eyes.

     Just as the Ghostface comes up on them, Danny pushes himself in front of Sam, only for the masked man to pivot and exit the train. Collectively, the group sighs, and Carina drops her head, feeling the weight of the day.

     Finally, the group seems to reach their stop, all of them pushing toward the doors as quickly as they can to get off the train. They're across the street from the front of the theater now, and hopefully, Mindy, Ethan, and Amaya are right behind them. They book it across the street to the theater, and Kirby is waiting for them out front already.

     "Hey," she greets, hand on her gun. "I talked to Bailey. I've got everything set up. Where are Mindy and Ethan?"

     "They're five minutes behind us."

     Kirby nods. "Let's get you all inside."

    Carina thinks this a wonderful plan but has to sidestep Sam when the older girl spins around and stops in her tracks. "Not you," she informs Danny, stopping him as well.

     "What?"

     The group all pause to turn and look at them, and Carina feels her eyebrows raise. "'Don't trust anyone', remember?" Sam asks, fists clenching at her sides. "We don't know you, not really."

     Danny takes a deep breath. "You know me," he insists.

     "You're not Woodsboro." Carina winces for Danny but doesn't speak up on his behalf. They don't know him, and she'd never forgive herself if they left him in and it was him. She knows Sam wouldn't either and that's why she was doing this. "We have to finish this and I can't be looking over my shoulder while I do. I'm sorry."

     Danny nods, exhaling. "Okay. I get it. I get it." He steps up to Sam, softening and holding her arms. "Be safe, okay?" He places a kiss on her cheek, and Carina has to look away. "Okay?"

     "You, too."

     He turns and goes, and the rest turn back toward the theater, one less person with them. "Good call," Kirby tells Sam, but the other doesn't respond. Carina looks at the older girl under her hat, confirming to herself that's not what she wanted to hear. 

     Once through the second set of doors, the group looks around the place again. "I cleared the whole place before you got here. So this is the only way in or out." She gestures to the doors. "He steps in through the first door, both doors automatically lock, trapping him inside." They all stare at it, and Carina thinks, Can it really be that easy? "We turn it into a kill box."

     "Weapons?"

     "One gun, and I hold onto it." Before any of them can try to protest, Kirby keeps going. "I'm the only one with a badge here, and that's the way it's gonna be." Carina tries not to let the disbelief show on her face, but something must not work because Kirby sighs. "We're safe here."

     "I'm gonna check in with Mindy, see if they're close," Sam decides after a moment of tense silence. She sheds her coat, and as they all follow her, Tara and Carina follow suit. The stress was making her sweat, and the theater was hot on top of it. Kirby stays by the gates.

     Tara turns to the right at the front of the theater, pointing up. "I'm gonna double-check up there."

     Nodding, Carina runs her hands through her hair, pulling her hat off her head and throwing it on one of the theater seats with her jacket. "Yeah, okay. We'll do the lobby." She looks at Chad to verify, who nods at her.

     Stretching, she walks toward the lobby with the old concession stand, fingers wiggling in the air with her hands in the air. She drops her arms to the door, pushing them open and coughing at the dust in the air. "Jesus," she laughs as she stops coughing. "How long do you think this place sat stagnant?" She looks at Chad over her back, who's smiling at her softly.

     When she catches him, his smile ticks into a smirk before his eyes shift to look around the room. "Probably at least a decade," he guesses, jumping over the concession stand booth once close enough. She leans her elbows on it, ignoring the layer of dust as he mirrors her position on the other side. Thunder rumbles outside distantly. She smiles. "I've always loved storms." Her eyes cast toward the ceiling like she'll be able to see the sky from inside the theater.

     "I love you."

     Carina blinks, once, twice. She looks down at Chad, mind running a hundred miles a minute as she runs the words over to make sure she heard right. "Chad-"

     He's still smiling at her. It's boyish and innocent like he hasn't just turned her entire world upside down with the words. "Just thought I should say it before we possibly get attacked and die all over again." He shrugs.

     "Chad," she chastises, sounding way too fond to do it. "I-" She starts, wanting to return the sentiment, wanting him to know he's not alone and that she loves him too. How could she not? Only to be stopped by a searing and all too familiar pain in her back.  "AH!" Crying out, she slumps forward onto the concession booth with the force of it all.

     "Carina!" Chad catapults over the booth again, tackling Ghostface from the side. The action forces the knife out of her back jaggedly, and she screams again, falling to her knees roughly. She bangs her temple on the way down, and black spots burst around the room. She blinks them away. Stumbling to her feet, she winces when Chad throws Ghostface into the Stab Movie Posters on the wall.

     "Run!" Chad instructs her, just as Ghostface slashes at him again.

     "Not without you," she yells, shaking her head and pushing herself to her feet. Never without you, she thinks in her head like it's a prayer. Chad throws a punch, knocking Ghostface and kicking him for good measure. He turns, frantically grabbing her and hauling ass toward the doors. "Okay! Let's go! Let's go!"

     They throw open the theater door, jumping back when greeted with the sight of Sam and Tara, both of whom were probably alerted by the screaming. "Fuck!" Chad presses her forward, accidentally pressing into the wound in her back, and she cries out as she stumbles out of the room of Tara and Sam's heels.

     "It's Kirby!" Sam tells them, looking around frantically. "She's the killer!"

     "No shit!"

     Carina winces as she runs, shaking her head. Fuck them for trusting anybody who wasn't themselves.

     Chad starts to the back of the theater where they came in, but stops when Sam yells, "That's locked!"

     "We're trapped?" He demands, coming back toward them and not stopping. Instead, they moved through the opposite side of the theater, all of them searching for exits they knew didn't exist.

     "She made this whole theater a kill box. For us."

     Carina whimpers involuntarily, half because of the pain and half because of the situation. Slamming into Sam's back when the other girl stops, she looks up as Tara rushes through words. "Hey, what about that? There's an exit door." The balcony above them. Some scaffolding on stage right they can climb up. "Maybe it leads to a door on the roof or something?"

     Carina's already stepping toward it. There's no other plan. "There's only one way to find out," Chad agrees from behind her. "Let's go."

     "Bailey's on the way, but maybe-" Sam gasps, and Carina stumbles back into her friends behind her when Ghostface jumps out in front of her from the shadows. "Fuck!"

      Ghostface slashes at them without preamble, striking Tara across the chest and throwing her. Carina side steps, stumbling into a display before using it to catch herself. Sam doesn't meet the same fate, dropping to the ground, the clatter of her knife being flung out of her hand almost deafening to Carina.

     Moving to Chad, Ghostface doesn't stop waving the blade in the air, taking off a mannequin's head in the process. "Beheadings!" Chad shouts, looking at the mannequin before ducking and tackling the cloaked figure.

     WHAM! Chad's holding something in his hand, smashing it against Ghostface's mask. "Smile for the camera, motherfucker." He holds onto the camera, grabbing Carina's hand with his other and pulling her along as Sam and Tara take off past them toward the stage.

     The sisters duck into the narrow hallway stage left, and she and Chad follow blindly. Up ahead, Tara slams into the wall, and Carina almost trips over her own feet. Behind her, there's a commotion as Chad yells, "Get fucked!" She doesn't turn around to look.

     At the end of the hallway, they find themselves back in the lobby, and something crashes behind her as Chad tries to keep Ghostface at bay. Part of her wants to turn around and grab him, push him in front, and pretend it's safer, but she knows that's just her fear talking. It'll be no different.

     Still, she does turn around, watching as Ghostface swipes at Chad with the knife. Back turned to them and focused on Chad, Carina doesn't think as she jumps at Ghostface's back. Sam and Tara are next to her, holding their arms back, and the three try to fight them off Chad. They force them back, holding them as Chad right-hooks them, knocking them down. Once on they're on the ground, Carina stumbles back and Tara kicks them in the face.

     "Go!" Chad shouts, grabbing something from the counter. "Carina!"

     She shakes her head, but Sam and Tara grab her arms, pulling her toward the door to the theater again. She struggles against them, but they don't stop.

     Chad screams. It sets her blood alight. She turns around so fast her feet twist, and she cries out when she sees it. The second Ghostface, with their knife in Chad's side. "NO!" She lurches forward, but Sam and Tara hold her back. "CHAD!"

     No, she thinks rapidly. No. I didn't get to tell him. I didn't get to tell him I love him. Didn't get to show him how much. He can't die not knowing.

    No part of her stops fighting against Sam and Tara, even as the first Ghostface stands and the both of them grab him. It's like a trainwreck. She doesn't want to watch as they take their anger out on him, but she can't look away. "CHAD!" She sobs again, shaking her head and losing her fight as the blood pools out of his mouth.

     "Run," he says through it all, not taking his eyes off her. "Go." I love you, he doesn't say, but she knows it. She wishes he did too. Wishes she hadn't wasted time and had been brave enough to tell him before. Wishes she didn't have to watch him collapse like nothing without knowing the truth of it all.

     Both Ghostfaces turn back to the three of them. Then, like the monsters they are, each does the goddamn bloody knife wipe from the movies in unison. "Motherfuckers," she spits.

     Sam and Tara turn and finally force her through the lobby doors, running back into the theater and toward the scaffolding once again. Yet, they're stopped again by a Ghostface emerging from behind the stage. When they turn around, they're faced with the second, who followed them from the lobby. They wave their knife mockingly.

     Now trapped in the middle of the floor, the flight turned into a fight with no other option left. Sam picks up three bricks, forcing one into each other their hands. She puts Carina and Tara behind her, and when the latter cries, Carina steps that much more in front of her. In an instant, she's no longer scared, or sad. Instead, she's pushed all of that away to fit the anger. It's the only thing good to her right now.

     "Ready?"

     "Yeah," she breathes raggedly, raising her brick.

     "Tara, you need to be ready too." Carina looks at the younger Carpenter out of the corner of her eye as she takes a deep breath. She turns to look at Sam at her sister's instruction, doing so like a wounded animal. Carina doesn't look away from the Ghostface in front of her, grip tightening on the brick.

     "I'm ready," Tara says, turning and growling at the Ghostface. "Come on, motherfucker!"

     Just as she's imagining it, bringing her brick down on this person's head, gunfire sends the killers disappearing in opposite directions. She turns, still holding her brick high, watching the shooter reveal themself.  Stumbling out from behind the movie screen is Kirby. She's bleeding from a gash in her temple, unsteady on her feet. Could she be faking? Her heart pounds on her ribcage.

     They all eye her warily as she approaches. "It's okay."

     Carina shifts her footing. "The fuck it is!"

     "Stay the fuck back!"

     "We know it's you, Kirby!" Tara moves next to her sister, and all of them bunch together.

     Kirby stammers, stumbling on her feet from the apparent blood loss as she approaches them. "One- one of them knocked me out." She points behind the stage, the direction she came from.

     "Kirby stop!" A voice yells from the front, and the girls spin to look at Bailey near the entrance of the theater. "Get away from the girls!" Kirby raises her gun, and Bailey rushes in with his poised the same way. The gun is trained on Kirby, rage in his eyes. She aims at him as he comes down the aisle.

     "What are you doing?"

     "Did you kill Quinn? Did you kill my daughter?" There are tears mixed with the rage in his eyes, and Carina's eyes ping pong between the two emotional officers with loaded guns and familiar trigger fingers.

     "Jesus Christ!" She turns to the three in the aisle. "Whatever he's been saying to you, don't listen to him. He's probably the killer."

     Trying to read Kirby, Carina watches her eyes shift wide. "Behind you!" Suddenly, one of the Ghostfaces darts out of the shadows, knife raised, running at Bailey. Kirby shifts her aim but doesn't get very far. Instead, she's knocked down by the bullets flying from Bailey's gun, the older man not even turning to look at what Kirby called out for. Just shoots the FBI agent twice in the chest.

     A scream rips from her chest. Sam and Tara gasp, all of them leaning toward Kirby but not daring to move. The Ghostface who ran at them stops and stands calmly next to Bailey, and Carina feels her stomach coil. "Oh, fuck," she breathes, stepping toward Kirby's body.

     Bailey lowers his gun with a smirk. He tilts his head toward the Ghostface on his right. "Good job." His attention shifts as the second Ghostface comes out of hiding and joins them. "Both of you." Together, the three of them stare the three in the aisle down.

     "You?"

madi speaks! 💌
slightly longer chapter (& i'm sure the next will be even longer) i honestly wasn't sure where to split it but guys!! we're so close!!