Sticks and Stones: Part 4
A found-footage horror
This is Part 4, there will at least be a Part 5. More if the voices in my head don’t shut up.
I’ve also started a new Final Girls slasher serial story available only for paid subscribers, check that out here.
“C’mon it’s fine, just smile and act normal,” Jesse says.
Vanessa sits on the edge of the bed, arms crossed over her chest, not even giving him the satisfaction of an angry glance.
“I’m not in the mood,” she says.
Jesse waves his phone in front of her face. “Just smile for the camera, just once. Pleeeease. That tape got me thinking he should make a home movie. If you catch my vibe…”
Vanessa turns and looks at him. “Why would I? I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m creeped out. So fuck off.” Jesse is oddly obsessed with making everything a piece of content for his YouTube channel. From failing at frying eggs to pseudo-porn. Normally, Vanessa is fine with it all. But not tonight.
Jesse groans like a child who was told he can’t have any more candy. He tosses his phone on the bed, and sits next to Vanessa.
“It’s fine. Yeah, that shit in the bag was hella sketch. But you gave it to the cops and they’re dealing with it, right? They told us not to worry.”
He rubs her bare right shoulder. His touch is warm and the night is cold. A part of her wants to lay back and let him keep on touching. It comforts her and that’s what she really needs right now.
Comfort.
After finding the empty gun, the tiny axe, the razor wire, and that VHS in the bag, she was in need of all the comfort she could get. The bag unnerved her, implied things to her. She imagined some psycho out in the woods, kidnapping girls and sawing off their legs. Wearing their skin or some Silence of the Lambs shit like that. And whoever dumped it on their bed while they were out hiking was in the cabin at one point.
So, she didn’t care what the cops said or what Jesse was trying to do right now. No, it wasn’t comfort she needed. It was safety. To get the fuck out of here.
Right now.
“I think we should leave,” she says.
Jesse looks at her. Blows a strand of blonde hair out of his face.
“Leave?” he asks with a smile. “We literally just got here babe. Look,” he stands up and shows her his palms, as if that will calm her down, “let’s just stay put tonight. Hike some tomorrow and if you still feel iffy, we can bounce. If there is some crazy guy there, we don’t want to have to walk out in the open right?”
She sees the immediate recognition that he said something stupid fall over his face as his smile morphs into a wiry grimace. It’s one of the many things she finds cute about this boy. He’ll say whatever dumb thing crosses his mind and he’ll actually do what he says.
But tonight she wishes he hadn’t said that.
Vanessa gets up and crosses the room to the window. Pulls back the curtain and peers out into the darkness. “I want to leave, now.”
She hears Jesse groan and fall back onto the mattress. After a moment of silence, he gets up. “Okay, I’ll pack the shit,” he says, all the life drained out of him now.
Vanessa turns to face him. “Hey babe.”
He looks at her.
“Thank you,” she says. “You can record the rest of the night if you want to.”
His sullen face lights up like a boy opening a Christmas present. “Even…?”
“Yes,” she says and winks at him.
“Fuck yeah! You pack up here, I’ll get the car ready.” He sprints out of the room, smacks his shoulder into the doorframe, doesn’t notice, and keeps on running.
She smiles to herself.
What have I agreed to?
She grabs their clothes and starts packing them into the one suitcase they brought.
Jesse dumps the milk out into the sink. Tosses the unopened beer cans into his backpack. Grabs his guitar from over by the fireplace. He opens the front door with his foot and pushes it out of his way.
Walks over to the Jeep, and loads it up. Leaves the back door open as he turns to face the cabin.
Stops.
Thought he heard a twig snap somewhere off in the pine forest. He listens for a moment. Jesse knows he’s not the smartest of men, but damn it if he wouldn’t do everything in his power to keep Vanessa safe.
There are no more sounds, save for the wind through the trees, much like the sound of an ocean wave breaking gently on the shore.
He walks to the cabin and pulls out his phone.
She did say I could record everything.
He turns it toward his face and hits record.
“Hey guys it’s your brudda Jesse Flint way out in the middle of bum fuck California. Had to cut our epic day of hiking short because, well, the missus got a lil’ spooked. To be fair she’s not a wuss. Some guy left this creepy bag in our cabin tonight and—”
Snap.
Another twig.
A distant electric whirl that reminds him of the dentist.
Jesse flashes his phone’s light at the trees, no longer aware that he is recording everything. The silver beam cuts through the dark and reveals pale-looking trees and no more.
Somehow the light makes everything around it look even darker.
“Okay, fuck this, we out.”
Jesse turns back towards the cabin.
Snap! Snap!
Whirl.
He spins around. Thinks he sees something moving just past the Jeep.
“Hey!” he shouts as he walks toward the intruder with his fists balled.
Vanessa just finished zipping up the suitcase when she hears Jesse yell something right outside the bedroom window.
Her blood runs cold and her arms shake as if she’s had too much caffeine.
“Jesse!?”
He does not respond.
She hears the wind, no longer gently flowing over the pines, it is full on flooding them. It sounds a bit mechanical now. A tree cracks so loud it sounds like it’s going to fall over. She feels the rush of wind against her skin.
Realizes the front door is wide open.
Vanessa walks, almost crawls, towards the hall and peeks out at the exit.
The front door is swinging open. Beyond the light of the cabin, nothing but darkness in the void the door has revealed.
“Jesse!”
She calls his phone.
His No Sleep Till Brooklyn ringtone sings out from over by the bedroom window.
She turns.
Realizes she never put the curtain back over it.
There is a light at the window. A phone light pouring in like a neon firefly. Held by someone she can’t see due to her own reflection in the glass.
“You fucker! Scared me!”
She stomps over to the window.
Realizes something is wrong.
The person holding the phone is very tall. Much taller than Jesse. The silhouette of their frame suggests a man who has to hunch over to look into the window.
The phone light goes out and the figure is gone.
The sound of a circular saw revs up from somewhere outside.
Jesse—so clearly she knows that it’s his voice—screams.
Her hand flies to her phone and she dials the number the cop gave her earlier tonight when she handed off the duffel bag. She runs to front door. Not knowing if she will run out to help Jesse, or shut and lock that door instead.
She makes it to the hall.
The phone is ringing but no one is answering.
There is a man in the open doorway.
She drops the phone.
The man’s skin is as white as unblemished paper. Save for the purple veins bulging along his exposed skin, for he is naked. He has what looks like sticks nailed to his head. Six of them, in fact. Dark and dried blood runs down from his scalp to his chin like war paint. His hair is curly and black and shoulder length. His ribs press hard against his skin like he hasn’t eaten in days, maybe even weeks. In his right hand he is holding what looks like a circular saw.
It is running hot and fast and hungry.
In his left hand is Jesse’s phone. Light on and recording.
Both his hands are red. Not with old blood like his face. His hands are scarlet and wet. They glisten in the light.
Vanessa dashes back into the bedroom and closes the door. There is no lock on it. She grabs her suitcase and pushes it against the door. Grabs the mattress but it is too heavy for her to move much more than a few feet.
Moments later the saw comes screeching through the wood of the door. Sawdust flies off and she is screaming. The saw works its way down top to bottom. The stench of rotten meat filters in through the cracks.
“Must see,” the man says. “Make them see.”
Vanessa runs to the window and opens it. Thank God it was unlocked. She straddles the windowsill, one leg still in the room. The door splits open and the crazed man kicks through the splintered wood and barges into the room. She pulls her leg up onto the sill and falls out onto the grass.
She looks up and sees the man at the open window. Saw screaming her name.
“Make them see,” he whispers yet somehow she can hear his voice above the whirl of the saw. Like it’s in her head, closer than her thoughts.
She stands and runs to the Jeep. Jesse always kept a spare key in the visor.
She rounds the corner of the cabin and sees the car.
And what is displayed in front of it.
Like a child’s crude toy, it is Jesse—bits of Jesse—attached to sticks and stones. His head is sliding down a stick that has been pierced into the steaming hood of the Jeep. One end pokes through his mouth. His arms and legs are nailed along the sticks that form an archway in front of the car, as if beckoning her to walk under it. His organs and spine are wrapped around a child-size rock that stands erect under the archway. Blood trickles down onto the pine needles.
From behind her, a voice.
“Make them see.”
A flash of light as if from a camera.
Vanessa flees screaming into the forest.
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I really hope that wasn't a rental car....
Loved this!