Final Cut, page 6
By the time they’ve found the danger, it’s usually too late to run.
6
When the other actors come out of the museum a few minutes later, I’ve calmed down enough to act normal again. Brooke drives us back to the motel—after texting Wren to assure her she hasn’t lost half her cast—and no one asks me anything else about my mini breakdown, which is good, I think.
I hop out of the car as soon as we park, giving Brooke a quick thanks before heading for the stairs. I’m almost there when Nina calls my name.
“We’re thinking about ordering pizza for dinner,” she says, catching up with me. “Maybe hanging out in my room for a bit. Want to join?”
I hesitate. Hanging out with the cast sounds really nice, actually. Probably good for me, too, I think, with an echo of Mom’s voice whenever she’d gently prod me about making friends at school.
But Claude’s words are still winding around my brain. All those holes in Cal’s story …
My heart thumps, and I reach instinctively for my headphones, eager to quiet its beating.
“I think I’m going to hunker down and memorize lines,” I tell Nina. “But thanks.”
She looks disappointed enough that I almost take it back. But then she smiles.
“Well, if you want to run lines or anything later, we’ll probably be doing that, too.” She glances back to make sure Cameron and Lucas aren’t listening and then lowers her voice, a little mischievous. “Cameron tried to give me an acting note during one of our scenes earlier, and if he does it again, I might need backup.”
“You got it,” I say. “Practicing my right hook.”
I mime a joking little swing, and Nina laughs, turning to catch up with Lucas and Cameron. As she goes, Cameron starts to look over his shoulder at me.
Heart jumping, I put on my headphones and head for my room before I can see whatever infuriatingly knowing look will be on his face.
Once I’m locked inside, my slasher playlist blaring in my ears like it might drown out my own thoughts, I do what I’ve been thinking about since the museum: I open my phone and search Cal Dupre plea hearing.
The screen fills with results—articles about Cal’s guilty plea and sentencing, video clips from news channels, the same onslaught of information I’ve seen countless times. I’m scrolling in search of the hearing Claude mentioned when my phone buzzes with an incoming call.
Mom. Like somehow she can sense exactly what I’m doing from hundreds of miles away.
I bite the inside of my cheek. I should pick up. She’ll be worried if I don’t. But if I talk to Mom now, she’ll hear it in my voice. She’ll know that something is wrong.
And I don’t know if I’ll be able to lie to her again.
I let it ring until it stops, and then, after a few minutes, I shoot her a text:
Sorry, just missed your call. I have a lot of work to do tonight. Call you tomorrow?
She sends me back a heart emoji, and I drop my phone on the bed, guilt swirling in my gut as I stare up at the mildewed ceiling.
I’m fine, I tell myself. Just doing my due diligence. Harmless research.
But as I open up the search results again, I see Cameron’s crooked smirk in my memory—like we both know I’m lying.
* * *
“All right, team,” Autumn says. “Let’s dive in.”
We’re back at the high school for our second day of shooting, and I’m buzzing from a combination of too little sleep and the two coffees I’ve already had to make up for it.
After a couple hours of digging through search results last night, I couldn’t find anything concrete to confirm or deny Claude’s suspicions. Eventually, my eyes were going numb, and I had no choice but to give up and memorize my lines for today’s scenes—starting at the sensible hour of 11:30 P.M. Needless to say, I’m fighting hard to stay awake and on my A game.
“So, starting with some context,” Autumn continues. “At this point in the film, Brittany and Bill have both been murdered by our masked killer, and now the surviving students, Sam, Rich, and Anna”—she gestures at me, Cameron, and Nina—“have started to suspect that their teacher might be involved.”
Just like Cal. His name rings out like an alarm at the back of my brain, sending anxious sparks all the way down to the roots of my teeth. I clench my jaw.
Cameron’s eyes flick over to me, and I force myself to relax and focus on Autumn, even as his stare burns like a spotlight on my face. Cameron hasn’t said anything to me about it, but he’s been looking at me weird ever since the museum—probably wondering why I got so freaked out. But now that we know this movie has clear parallels to Cal, I refuse to be thrown off by it again.
“So, our three friends sneak into Mr. Torrance’s classroom after school one day and go through his desk, hoping to find some clues,” Autumn continues. “When they open the desk”—she gestures to Heather the PA, who demonstrates with the drawer—“they find a camcorder with a video of Sam and Rich in an intimate moment, taken through Sam’s bedroom window.”
My stomach squirms at the thought—but that, at least, wasn’t a part of Cal’s story. When the police went through our house, there were no damning camcorders. At least not that anyone knows about.
Claude’s suspicions creep into my head again, and mentally, I tell him to shut up.
“Did that happen with the real Pine Springs Slasher?”
Cameron’s question cuts through my thoughts like a rusty old blade, and I have to keep myself from flinching. It seems to throw Autumn off, too, because her eyes widen for a second before she schools her features back into directorly calm.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Cameron shrugs, casual. “The character names, the suspicious teacher … we put together that Swamp Creatures was based on real-life events.” He doesn’t look my way, but I know he can feel me watching him.
Over by Evan and the camera, I catch Wren looking up from her laptop, her expression hard to read.
“Right,” Autumn says, running a hand over the fuzzy hair of her undercut. “We’ve definitely drawn inspiration from the case, but no, this isn’t a true-crime film. We’re telling our own story here, so we want you to bring your own experience and choices to these characters.”
“Gotcha.” Cameron smiles, but it’s less convincing than usual—tight, with a shred of insecurity behind it. For the first time, I wonder if he might be as unsettled by the Pine Springs Slasher connections as I am.
Before I can linger on that thought, Autumn jumps into blocking, and a few minutes later, we’re almost ready to roll.
“Kyle, can we soften this light a bit?” Autumn asks, scrutinizing the monitor.
“Copy,” he says, grabbing some kind of filter to attach to one of the lamps. He adjusts it, tongue poking out of the side of his mouth, and then turns back to Autumn for approval.
She looks at the monitor and gives him a nod. “Great. Let’s go.”
When the camera’s rolling, Evan’s assistant, Marlena, does the slate again.
“Scene twenty, take one. Marker.”
Clap.
“Action.”
20 INT. CLASSROOM – DAY
Sam, Rich, and Anna sneak into Mr. Torrance’s empty classroom. Sam moves quickly to the desk while Anna and Rich keep watch.
ANNA
Are we sure about this?
SAM
We have to. It might be our only chance.
Sam opens the desk drawer and looks inside. She takes something out: a camcorder.
SAM (CONT’D)
Wait, here’s—
My voice dies in my throat before I get to the rest of the line.
The prop camcorder wasn’t the only thing in the drawer. There’s also a piece of paper, printed with what looks like cheesy word art, but the message is partly obscured by a bracelet sitting on top of the page: colored leather straps braided together, turquoise and emerald. With an unsteady hand, I pick up the bracelet so I can clearly read the words on the page.
You’re invited to the Film Club wrap party!
When: June 10, 7:00
Where: Mr. Dupre’s House, 113 Pine Creek Drive
At the bottom, someone has written, in violent red pen:
See you there, Hazel:)
The rest of the room sucks into blackness, nothing but that message glowing in a bright hot light.
June 10. The anniversary. It’s only three days away.
And here’s my invitation.
The thought jolts me back into my body, and it’s like everything is making up for lost time: heart ramming into my ribs, adrenaline firing down to my fingertips. I grip the bracelet harder, hands shaking.
“What is it?” Nina asks. It’s her next line, but her face is bunched in confusion.
I lock my eyes on the camera, the people behind it like darkened shapes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I—”
There’s a creaking sound from somewhere up above. I look just in time to see a lamp detach from its stand and hurtle directly toward Nina’s skull.
7
Nina!” I shout.
She screams, jumping away just as the lamp crashes to the floor. It shatters with a sickening crack, sparks jumping as the glass scatters across the ground. Nina’s eyes lock on mine, wide with horror.
“Nina!” Autumn rushes toward her. “Are you okay?”
She nods weakly, taking another step back from the ruined lamp. Her hands are quaking at her sides.
Autumn’s glare turns on Kyle. “How did this happen?”
“Hold on.” Evan steps out from behind the camera. “He just added a gel. This isn’t his fault.”
“He was the last one to touch it!”
“Autumn, stop.” Evan’s voice quivers with an anger that I wouldn’t have expected from him. “This wasn’t Kyle’s fault. My students know what they’re doing, but even if they didn’t, throwing blame around is not going to help.”
Autumn shoots daggers back at Evan, a silent standoff. Then she huffs air out of her nose, closing her eyes and massaging her brow.
“Everyone, take ten while we clean this up.”
No one moves, like taking a step might set off a land mine.
“Back in ten,” Wren announces pointedly, and the spell is broken.
Crew members get moving with glass cleanup, and Kyle looks on like he might actually be sick. His eyes snap to Nina.
“I’m so sorry,” he tells her. “I…”
She shakes her head. “I need a minute.”
Nina rushes out of the classroom, and Wren follows with a frenzied expression.
“It’s okay,” Evan tells Kyle, putting a hand on his shoulder. “She’s okay.”
“Haze, what is that?”
It’s not until Cameron says it that I remember I’m still holding the invitation and the bracelet. I shove both in my pocket, balling my hands to keep them from shaking.
“Nothing,” I say, even as panic burns in my chest like reflux, threatening to climb up and choke me from within. Someone put that invitation there, my name in bloody red.
Cameron gives me a look, like he’s about to say more, but I can’t talk about it. If I do, I have the humiliating fear that I might start to cry.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I say.
I just need to think, I tell myself as I rush out to the hall. Breathe. I grab my phone from the holding room and then keep walking, the movement clearing my head, until I push through the front entrance of the building. The air is as hot and muggy as ever, but it helps—feels less stuffy than inside, somehow. Calms me down.
Realistically, I know the invitation is just a joke. One of the PAs, or something—someone wanting to give us a little scare, make the reaction more authentic. The fact that I saw it right before the lamp fell is just a terrible coincidence, made worse because I was already rattled from last night’s deep dive on Cal.
I reach my hand into my pocket again, brushing the leather bracelet. I take it out. I don’t recognize it, but it looks old. Handmade. Probably someone left it in the desk by accident.
I put it back in my pocket and take one last breath. I’m fine, I tell myself. Just understandably a little freaked out by seeing Nina almost get crushed. But she’s okay. Everything is okay, and I should get back before people wonder where I am.
I’m just turning back to the door when I realize I’m not alone.
Wren stands at the edge of the parking lot, smoking a cigarette and tapping anxiously at her phone. Sensing me, she turns and immediately snuffs out the cigarette, like a kid caught by their teacher.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You can smoke.”
I’m not a fan of cigarettes, but Wren looks so freaked out that I can’t help feeling bad.
“I’m trying to quit,” she admits as I make my way down to meet her. “Autumn hates it.”
I picture the way Autumn snapped on set, lashing out at Kyle as soon as she was sure Nina hadn’t been smashed to a pulp.
“She’s worried about my lungs,” Wren goes on with a sheepish smile. “One of her grandmas died of lung cancer, so…”
“Oh,” I say. “That sucks.”
“Yeah.”
It hangs awkwardly like the remnants of Wren’s smoke in the air.
“I’m really sorry this happened,” Wren says. “We should have hired a professional gaffer, but our budget is tight, and Evan had a bunch of excited kids from his film class who wanted the experience and came cheap, so…” She eyes the stubbed-out cigarette like she’s thinking about picking it up and taking another drag. “It won’t happen again. And Autumn is a great director. I know she blew up a bit back there, but it’s only because she cares.”
Something in the way she says it snags at me. There’s an extra weight to that “she cares,” almost like it’s personal.
“Y’all live in New Orleans, right?” I ask.
Wren nods.
“Is that the connection, then? I mean … why a movie about the Pine Springs Slasher?”
It still feels weird to say the name out loud, like some kind of playground curse meant to conjure a monster.
“Autumn has always loved horror,” Wren says. “I have, too. It can get a bad rap for being misogynistic, sure, but sometimes, it also feels like the only genre where the girls get to fight back.” Her eyes drift away, out at the town square. “I’ve never been much for true crime—it feels invasive to me. Wrong. But Autumn liked the idea of giving this story the movie treatment, I guess. It makes the kids the focus. Because in real life…” She shrugs. “Everyone’s always so fixated on the killer that it’s easy for the victims to stop feeling real.”
I start to shudder and hug my arms around myself to stop it. She’s right. Half the time, people don’t even mention Cal’s victims by name, and even when they do, no one ever really cares about the actual details of their lives, who they were. All they care about is how they died.
Wren is silent, still looking out at the town.
“Why’d you do it?” I ask.
She turns to me, surprised. “What?”
“The movie,” I say, realizing that sounded accusatory. “If you don’t like true crime, was it just because of Autumn?”
Wren’s lips twitch into a tiny smile. “Maybe it’s a bad move to follow your girlfriend onto a project, but honestly?” Her eyes turn serious. “I’d follow her anywhere.”
I nod like I understand, but I don’t, not really. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have so much faith in a person, so much attachment that you can’t stand the thought of being without them. I’m sure a psychologist would have plenty of theories about that, all of them related to the fact that my mom married a serial killer.
We’ve gone quiet again, and the wrap-party invitation burns a hole in my pocket. We’re probably almost at the end of this break. I should go back in, but another question crawls to the tip of my tongue.
“Why isn’t the writer on set?” I ask. “Jason Hooper. If he’s producing, too, shouldn’t he at least stop by?”
Wren blinks, a little caught off guard.
“Well, he’s a busy guy,” she says. “He works in LA on a few different projects. Autumn and I check in with him over the phone, but he’s trusting us to steer the ship.”
Wren smiles proudly, but there’s a hint of anxiety beneath it. I want to press for more, but then her phone buzzes. Wren looks down at the screen.
“I have to take this,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
As Wren accepts the call and walks off, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s trying to escape. Suspicion churning in my gut, I take out my own phone and google “Jason Hooper.”
His IMDb page is the first result, and I click on it, his headshot filling the top of the screen. Pretty much exactly what you’d picture when you think “screenwriter”: bearded, thirty-something white guy with glasses and a self-serious air. The credits on his résumé go back years: mostly TV writing credits, a few producing ones, a lot of them from reputable studios. As far as I can tell, nothing suspicious here.
Still, I’m about to scroll deeper when an incoming call pings from the top of my screen. My blood runs cold.
That same number. The one that called me on the first night I got here.
My thumb jabs the Reject Call button almost on its own. Not now. I slip my phone into my pocket and speed back up to the school entrance, one foot in front of the other. Counting my breaths, focusing on the ordinary functions of my body to remind myself that I am fine. I just need to get back to set.
But even once I’m back in the cool air of the building, I can’t fight the fear still ringing in my head, as impossibly heavy as the invitation in my pocket, its own little threat whispered straight into my ear.
You can’t ignore me forever, Hazel.
8
If Pine springs wasn’t already the perfect setting for a slasher, all you’d have to do is take one look at the swamp to be sure.
After wrapping today’s school scenes, we move to a swamp-tour company just outside of town, and I can tell everyone’s relieved to be leaving. Everything went fine after the fallen lamp was cleaned up, and Nina seems okay—but still, there was a nervous energy in the air, like we were all tiptoeing around broken glass even after it was swept away. Everyone needed the change of scenery.
