❪ ﹟TWENTY  ❫ ࿐ྂ
━━ ABANDONED MOVIE THEATER !

"OF COURSE ME." Bailey tilts his head at them like they're being stupid. "Frankly, I expected more from the three of you after what you did to us."

Carina looks at the two Ghostfaces behind Bailey, scowling. "I knew to expect two. But three of you motherfuckers?" she grits out, still white-knuckling the brick in her hand.

Tara waves at her to shut up, and she scoffs. "What do you mean, 'us'?" the shorter girl questions, referencing what Bailey just said.

Slowly, the Ghostface on Bailey's left removes his mask. Ethan Landry's face smirks back at them, lips turned up in a smirk so unlike that of the sweet and shy boy they'd bet at the beginning of the year. "Ta-da!"

"Mindy was right," he chuckles sinisterly, tilting his head at them. "It was easy to juke the roommate lottery. I mean, all I had to do to meet you was room with a conceited, condescending alpha--literally named Chad. Fuck, it felt good to kill him!"

Carina screams with rage, lunging for Ethan, only stopped by Sam's arms around her waist. "He trusted you, you sick son of a bitch!" Twisting in Sam's arms, she squeezes the brick so hard she feels it dig into her skin. She imagines bringing it down on his head.

"Uh, uh, uh," Ethan tuts, flicking the wrist with the knife in front of him, mocking her. He looks at the mask in his hand, showing it to them and looking at Sam. "This was your grandmother's, Sam. Nancy Loomis? Really runs in your fucking family, doesn't it?" His face drops, along with the mask. "Speaking of family..."

"Wait for it," Bailey chuckles, arms crossed in front of him like he's waiting in line for a baseball game, not about to try and kill everyone Carina's ever loved. "...my name's not Ethan Landry, is it, Dad?"

Ethan, or whatever his name is, is smiling like he's playing a joke, and Bailey is laughing like it's the funniest one he's ever heard.

"'Dad?'" Tara voices, speaking for all of them.

"Wait. If it's you two, that leaves..." Carina's mind runs through the options, trying to think faster than her overloaded brain can at the moment. The third Ghostface turns to them, and Carina breathes heavily. Mindy was the only left. But, it can't be. Can it? "...Mindy?"

Ethan looks at the last masked villain, smiling knowingly as they pull their mask to reveal...a dead woman. "Quinn?" She thinks she's stopped breathing. Maybe she died with Chad. It's the only reasonable explanation.

"Hey, roomies. You didn't see that one coming, did you?"

"Yeah," Tara shouts, "because you died!"

"Kind of didn't, though." She looks at her dad and...brother? Her head pounds at the thought, and she brings a hand up to rub at her temples. "It was a good way to get off the suspect list. Stab Gale Weathers, stab Mindy on the train." She lifts her knife like they need proof. "That sort of thing."

"Stab Mindy on the train?" She asks redundantly, heart dropping. Of course, no one answers her, and she watches as Bailey drops his arms over his kids' shoulders.

"Yep, and I made sure I was first on the scene so I could switch her body out with a fresh one. Little fake blood, a prosthetic. You'd be amazed what a grieving father can get away with." Stupidly, the first thing Carina wonders about is whose body it was. Who was mutilated and used for a cause they didn't believe in, all because of this sick-in-the-head family. God, it's so fucked up.

The brother and sister split down the aisles and the three turn to keep their eyes on them. Quinn holds up her mask next, looking proud. "I got Stu Macher's mask. He was my favorite." She points it at Carina. "Too bad your mother isn't here to see the exhibit. I'm sure she would've loved it."

"Don't bring her into this," she growls, glaring at Quinn.

"Nice. That's number three." She spins to look at what he means, taking in the way Ethan has placed Nancy Loomis' mask over the head of the mannequin wearing her suit. "That's two." He points at Stu's mask in Quinn's hands. "Which leaves..." With a flourish, he pulls the most cracked Ghostface mask of all from his pocket. "...your father's." He holds it out to Sam. "This is what we were counting down to, Sam. I'm gonna need you to put it on."

Enraged, Sam slaps the mask away with the hand holding the brick. "Fuck you." Carina hopes she hit some fingers. Fueled by the motion, Ethan lunges at the eldest Carpenter and swipes the knife across her arm, cutting it open.

Bailey laughs manically, and Carina circles one side of Sam, Tara on the other. "You stay the fuck away from her!" Tara shouts at Ethan as the killers begin to circle them like lions playing with their food.

"What? What is this?" Sam asks, still desperate for answers. Carina felt desperate to have an excuse to you the brick in her hand. "You did this as a family?"

"Hell yeah, bitch!" Quinn asserts, stepping forward with her knife wielded. Carina tested the weight of the brick in her hand. "You should know why better than anyone!"

Ethan laughs at them as they stare at the two cloaked killers, eyes portraying their confusion. "They're still not getting it!"

"Look, I don't know what you believe, but I didn't commit those murders in Woodsboro. It wasn't me!"

"Oh, we know that." Bailey waves her off when Sam looks at him, and Carina laughs at the hysteria of it all. What? "Of course you didn't! What, do you think this is based on some bullshit conspiracy theory?" He laughs. Does he have anyone other response? "Come on. Who do you think started the rumors about you in the first place?"

Quinn raises her hand proudly as the three turn to look at her again. "Do you know how easy it was to turn Sam from the hero of Woodsboro into the villain? How easy it is to convince the world to believe the worst in people rather than the best?"

"Because it's not enough to just kill someone these days. You have to assassinate their character first. So when Dad here 'discovers' your horribly mutilated bodies--" Quinn lunges at them with the knife again, still a lion playing with her food, Tara gasps and jumps back. "--posed with Sam wearing her father's mask? He'll say some poor dumb bastard read on the Internet that you're the real Ghostface and took matters into their own deluded hands!"

"Exactly!" Carina spins to look at Bailey, the other two still staring at the siblings. "That's why it's the perfect alibi! Because all the best lies are based on the truth." Sam looks toward Bailey, and Carina pivots to look at Ethan, rage curling in her stomach at the sight of him. "You're a killer, just like your father."

"No, I'm not!"

"Yes, you are, you motherfucker! You killed our brother!" Quinn shouts, and Carina tenses. All of them are unstable, and she'd bet Ethan is the most, but Quinn is toeing the line right behind her apparent brother.

"What are you talking about?" Sam breathes, and Carina rolls her shoulders, shaking her head.

"None of you motherfuckers are making any sense!" She shouts before she can think better of it, gripping her brick in preparation after the outburst. Thankfully, none of the three move.

"You said your brother died in a car accident." Ethan cackles at this.

"Oh no, no, no, you sweet dumb thing. He died in Woodsboro, at the hands of your bitch sister."

Carina's eyebrows furrow, and she shakes her head. She looks at Sam for help, but the older girl actually looks like she might understand what they're talking about. "You're Richie's family." The thunder rumbles outside, and Carina suddenly thinks about her earlier statement of loving storms. The urge to take it back bubbles up alongside the regret of what the rest of the moment was.

Ethan lunges again, and this time he stabs Sam right above the collarbone, drawing more blood. "Ding-ding-ding. She's finally starting to get it!"

With the attack, Tara grabs Sam and pushes down a display, clearing a way for the three and shouting at them to go. The three stumble, pushing their way through with no idea where they're going. Quickly, they find it's nowhere, blocked on the side with both Quinn and Ethan trapping them in. Carina weighs the brick in her hand again, raising it at Ethan. Part of her wanted him to come close enough to use it.

"Now! It wasn't until I saw that photograph of what you'd actually done to him that I knew. That I knew you had to fucking die! You had to be punished!" Bailey turns his finger on Carina. "And you-" he clicks his tongue. "What you did to Amber? How you might as well have burned her at the stake? Richie loved her."

Looking at the old man with wide eyes, her stomach lurches. Behind her on the other side of the circle, Quinn speaks up. "She was like the sister I never had."

"Don't think your fucked up family needs any more monsters in it," she calls to the walking-dead girl without taking her eyes off Ethan. She watches the rage flicker there.

Bailey chuckles, shaking his head. "You all had to be punished. Along with anyone else who stands in our way."

"There she is," Quinn says, and Carina turns to see her right against Sam. "There's the fucking killer."

"Great parenting job, by the way."

"Shut your whore fucking mouth!" As she pushes at Tara in a moment of rage, Carina knows she misjudged Ethan being the most unstable of the three around them. As Tara was shoved, Sam and Carina followed, the three coming back to the middle of the aisles.

"Have I been a perfect dad? No," he admits, saying like his kid did something as minor as shoplifting. Not killing multiple people. "Have I maybe overindulged Richie's love of these little movies? Yeah, maybe. For me, they're just a little dark." Carina laughs bitterly, shaking her head and looking up at the ceiling, shoulders slumping. "But, Richie really loved them. He even made a few of his own." He looks toward the movie screen. "Did you know? Did you know?"

Up on the screen, a Richie younger than the one she met last year appears; talking to the camera. She can't make out what he's saying, and after a moment of just looking at his face, she decides she doesn't want to know.

The corrupted police officer walks toward the scream, almost like he's caught in a daze. "There's a very special bond between a father and his first son." Carina looks over her shoulder at Ethan when that comment is said, and secretly revels in the jealousy clear across his face.

"Which is why I helped him build this collection." He gestures to the museum around them.

"This was all his?" Carina looks around again, almost seeming to take it in with new eyes. She thinks of the Richie of last year before he was a killer, the Richie who pretended he didn't know anything about Stab, or who any of them were. Oh, how deceiving he had been.

"Yes, he's a very passionate collector." Was, she corrects in her head, reminding herself that at least two sickos--Richie and Amber--are dead. "And he inspired others. Ah, we had to kill those two wannabe film students because, well, we had to kill you first, Sam. I put the theater in their name, then Good Ol' Detective Bailey would've stumbled upon it, but I didn't have to because, by golly, that Gale Weathers is one hell of a journalist."

He holds his hands at his side. "I built a tribute to my son. Which is why this is where you have to die, Sam, surrounded by all the things he loved the most."

"What happens next? What, after you're done with us you just disappear?" Sam hisses at him, hatred filling her voice as she does. It reminds Carina of a snake winding up to strike its prey.

"No," Bailey chides like it's the stupidest thing he's ever heard. "We got to hurry over to the hospital to make sure Mindy and Gale don't pull through. Because everybody dies, Sam!" Bailey shouts, raising his gun to point at Sam. Carina looks at Tara with wide eyes. Down to the brick in her hand and the one in her own, eyes communicating more than she could with words at that moment. "Everyone who had anything to do with the death of my son suffers and dies."

"Yeah!"

"Fuck yeah, they do!" The twisted twins cheer behind them, and Carina feels her muscles tense with the restraint it takes not to hit them over the head just yet. She turns to eye them, hating not having an eye on all of them at one time. "Now put on the mask."

Carina doesn't turn around as Sam starts talking, trying to make sure she's prepared if Ethan or Quinn becomes too engaged. "He was so pathetic."

"That's not true." Yeah, Carina thinks, direct hit. Why she's choosing to provoke them Carina can't guess, but she's not going to underestimate her now. Her grip on her brick tightens.

"Yeah. Your son? He was a man-baby who made his girlfriend do all the killing." Holding back a laugh, Carina tilts her head as she thinks back on it. Richie really didn't have much nerve.

"He was a strong, virile young man!"

Imaging the twinkle in Sam's eye as she speaks, Carina revels in it. "He was a limp-dick little fuck who cried before I slit his throat."

"Shut the fuck up!" Quinn cries out in rage, and Carina shifts her weight just minutely as she lunges at Sam while screaming bloody murder. As soon as she's in reach, she brings the brick down on the side of Quinn's face, throwing all of her body into it. As Quinn flies to the ground, she stumbles to catch her own weight on her feet.

Just as she catches herself, she ducks down on instinct when a gun fires behind her. Spinning frantic, she gasps when she sees Kirby standing, with her gun trained on Bailey. "Kirby!" She turns to watch Bailey fall with a shot to the chest but doesn't let it stop her.

"Come on!" Tara shouts next to her, but she's frozen watching Ethan tackle Kirby.

"You motherfucker!" Running at Ethan, she uses the same bloody brick that hit Quinn and brings it down on Ethan's head, images of Chad running through her head. Footsteps follow behind her, and she looks at Sam over her shoulder as she leans over Kirby.

Kirby cries out as Sam pulls the knife out of her abdomen. "Sorry, but I kind of need this." She howls in pain again, but Carina hears her say "Fuck 'em up."

At her feet, Ethan starts to stand again, and she practically growls. Bending, she smashes the brick on his temple again. He keels over again and she stands and grabs Sam's arm roughly. "Come on, we got to go!" Pulling, she directs the older girl back toward Tara. Sam bends to pick up Kirby's gun on the way, but the two don't stop. Carina drops the brick next to the ladder, pulling herself up as quickly as she can behind Tara.

The three are rushing across the balcony and maneuvering around the abandoned renovation pieces when they have to climb on the ledge to get around. Tara and Sam get in front of her when she stops to grab a piece of broken pipe, and just as she's following them, a gun goes off from below. "Fuck!" She screams as she loses her balance and falls off the edge of the balcony. The pipe clatters to the ground as she uses both hands to grab the railing, and she immediately looks under her.

"Carina!" Sam and Tara both shout. They fly over the balcony, leaning over to grab her, but her hands slip right off the grime of the railing and they miss her hands. Falling, she smashes to the ground below in a pile of limbs, and Ethan reappears looming over her. Her head swims and she blinks rapidly as she tries to center herself. Eyes flying, she takes in how Ethan's bleeding pretty consistently from his temple, even as he grins at her evilly. If it were a different time, she might even feel pretty smug about that. Instead, she looks around her, eyes falling on the pipe she dropped just as Ethan stabs her in the stomach at an upward angle.

He bends down, leaning over her and laughing. "I don't think anything will compare to killing Chad, but you might be a close second."

"Fuck," she spits, trying to breathe through the pain, "you." Reaching blindly for the pipe, she silently thanks anyone who's listening when her bloody fingers wrap around something solid and cold. "You always were a pathetic nobody," she tells him, just as she swings the pipe up, connecting with the back of his head.

Ethan lurches forward, his head dropping toward her chest, and she uses the moment of weakness to kick at him. Her foot connects with his stomach, and she does it a few more times, effectively pushing him away from her. "AH!" Digging her nails into the bloodied hands still holding the knife in her stomach, she tears them off, gripping the base of the knife and pulling it out herself. "Fuck!" she howls, stomach tearing.

In front of her, Ethan is still stumbling back, but he's shaking his head like he's trying to clear it.

Knowing it's now or never, Carina pushes herself to her knees and then into a standing position. Advancing on Ethan, she grabs him by the back of the neck and brings the knife to his throat, holding him there. Every part of her was on fire from either pain or anger, and he only fueled it when she saw the fear in his eyes. "If you cared so much for your brother, I'll at least give you the privilege of going out like him," she whispers into his face right before she silts his throat, blood spraying her across the face and coating her front.

A sense of satisfaction fills her as she watches the light flicker out of Ethan's eyes, and she drops his body carelessly to hear the thump. A laugh bubbles out of her, and she can't stop it. Lets it take her over as she readjusts her grip on the knife in her hand and looks up toward the scaffolding where Sam and Tara are. Quinn's joined them now, and behind her is Bailey.

"Watch out!" She calls, trying to warn them about the other man, but it's drowned out by the echo of a gun being fired. 

None of the sound travels down to her but she can recognize it when Kirby's gun runs out of bullets because Sam and Tara charge at the older man, all of them coming tumbling off the side of the balcony with the force of the collision. "Tara! Sam!"

Running, she drops to her knees next to the sisters and ignores the stretch of the open wound in her abdomen. With a hand on each of their shoulders, she shoves roughly. Tara sits up with a gasp, propelling herself forward and grabbing Carina's arm tightly. "Tara!" she hisses, pulling on her arm. "It's me!"

"Rina," she breathes. Her grip loosens, and she brings a hand to her head. It seems to take a minute for it to all hit her again, but when it does, the other's eyes widen. "Sam!" She twists to look at her sister, and Carina's relieved to see the other slowly blinking her eyes open. Eyes moving to Bailey, she counts the small mercies that the other man seems to still be out cold.

"We need to move," she whispers urgently to them as Sam sits up, wrapping her arms around her sister. "Find help." Neither says anything, and she pries her eyes away from Bailey to see the two sharing a look.

"No," Sam disagrees. "We need to finish this."

Tara nods next to her, and Carina's eyes widen. "Okay. Finish this like stab him in the heart right now as he lays unconscious or?" Her eyes flit between the two sisters, and even as she says the more practical option, she knows the look in their eyes. That's not enough for them, and she can't ask it to be. "Okay," she sighs. Pushing up and to her feet, she sways a little. No part of her wants to know how much blood she's lost between the wound in her back and the one ripping her in midsection in half, and she doesn't need to know to know it's been too much.

Looking at Bailey's body next to her on the shattered display case, she resists the urge to drive her knife into his still-warm body. "You guys do what you need to do." Her eyes jump to Ethan's body, cooling on the floor some feet away. "I did." Finally, she looks back at the sisters. "I'm going to stay with Kirby. Try to keep her awake until help gets here." She couldn't save Chad, at least now she can help someone else.

The sisters nod at her slowly. "Are you sure?" Sam asks, eyeing her warily. Carina flips the knife in her hand, the handle connecting with her palm again. "I'm sure."

"Okay." The two rise to their feet as well, and Sam squeezes her arm briefly. "We'll see you again at the end of this."

Together, the sisters peel off toward the stage, and Carina makes her way in the opposite direction toward where Kirby last was. To her horror, the FBI agent is still lying there in the open, her breathing shallow.

"Kirby," she breathes as she comes up next to her. "I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt." The blonde shows no sign of hearing her, but she doesn't let that stop her. Grabbing under Kirby's arms, she pulls them both behind the last row of seats. Halfway there, Kirby groans in pain, and Carina shushes her.

She gets Kirby behind the seats and places herself next to her in the aisle, just out of sight but still with an eye on the middle of the theater and the stage Sam and Tara disappeared behind. Just in case. Turning, she presses the hand not holding the knife into Kirby's wound, shushing her when she cries out weakly. "Shush, Kirby." The agent's eyes flicker to her hazily, and she shakes her head. "It's almost over."

For a moment Kirby doesn't react, but then she nods ever so slightly, and Carina takes it for what it is. Keeping the pressure the best she can, she looks back toward the main floor and stage just in time to see Bailey sitting up. She holds her breath at the sight, suddenly afraid to make even the slightest noise. Maybe she should have asked what the idea of the plan was at least.

Well, too late now. Now, she just had to wait and hope her trust in Sam and Tara wasn't misplaced.

Bailey's phone rings and the sound makes her jump, pressing into Kirby's stomach a little more roughly. She looks at her in apology, wincing she sees the older woman has to bite her lip harshly to stay quiet.

In front of her, Bailey disappears behind the curtain on the stage, and she loses all visual. Instead, she can only listen as a gun goes off more than once.

That is, until someone in a cloak and Ghostface mask emerges from the shadows, walking in front of the curtain and toward where Carina assumes Bailey is. "Jesus," she mutters at the sight. Someone screams, and then Ghostface pushes past the curtain, knife raised.

"NO! NO! NO!"

Bloodcurtingly screams emit from where she can't see, and Carina still has to look away until they stop. A part of her is relieved because she knows that meant Bailey is dead, but another part of her--the one that's come back since the adrenaline has crashed--still needed to take a deep breath. She focuses instead on Kirby, whispering to her to keep her focused on her. Focused on staying alive.

When she looks back, Tara and Sam are exiting from behind the curtain, and she laughs breathlessly. Slowly, they walk through the screen and come down from the stage. Despite them both looking exhausted, they might just be the best thing Carina has ever seen.

     Would be, if Carina could stop thinking about Chad. But she knows she won't. Not ever. There hasn't been a day in God-knows-how-long that she hasn't thought of him, and that's definitely not going to stop now. Her head falls back against the wall behind her as she sobs and doesn't try to stop it. Instead, she lets herself feel it. Feel the love and the grief and the pain and the anger. Feels all of it because of Chad and for Chad. And as she closes her eyes and cries, she just hopes that somehow, he knew before she lost him.

madi speaks! 💌
only one more chapter to go!! sweet little thing to wrap it all up (and for carina to find out chad is alive...hahaha)