I Don’t Wanna Be Famous
A Total Drama SI story
Disclaimer: Total Drama belongs to Fresh TV Inc. I’m simply borrowing it to tell some stories.
Author’s Notes: I had a canceled appointment on Sunday, so I got time to finish the chapter early. Enjoy!
Oh, and (slightly early) Happy Halloween, everybody!
Chapter 19: Total Screamarama
Chris stood on the dock as he addressed the camera.
“Previously, on Total Drama Island…”
Clips began rolling, showing scenes from the previous episode.
“After some juicy drama following Gwen’s departure from the island, the campers had to build their own hot wheels in a motocross challenge to race for invincibility.
“There were big winners, and big-time losers. There was even some wicked, off-the-track motocross stunts!
“But in the end, it was Heather who crossed the finish line and double-crossed Lindsay by leaving her and their alliance in the dust, proving Heather really is a backstabbing user who will do anything to win. But this time her backstabbing may have backfired, as Jason’s position is now stronger than ever!
“Lindsay ultimately lost the race and the challenge, which meant goodbye to Lindsay and her luxury luggage.
“Who will be the next winner? Who will be the next loser? Who will renew my contract for next season?!
“All these mind-probing questions revealed on this episode of Total. Drama. Island!”
During breakfast the day after the bike challenge, Heather found her gaze drifting to Jason again and again. The boy – or rather, the bane of her existence – was happily chatting with Izzy, DJ and Eva, showing no sign of anything unusual.
Heather sighed. Was he a genius? Or just crazy? Was there even a difference, in his case? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pin him down. It was like trying to grapple with smoke. Everything she did he either countered or turned back against her, somehow, like he was catching a ball and throwing it back in her face. His methods were as inexplicable as his sudden shifts in personality; he could go from friendly to mocking to playful to… to anything in an instant. She had never met anyone like him in her life.
And she had underestimated him. Again. And thanks to that, now her position was more perilous than ever.
Heather sighed again as she looked back to her mostly untouched breakfast. She was not in the mood for eating at all. Her thoughts kept going back and forth, between considering Jason as a person, on the one hand, and trying to figure out how he had managed to anticipate her latest schemes with such ease, on the other.
He’s not a mind-reader, is he…? No, that’s preposterous.
Sighing for a third time, Heather looked away. To her dismay, when she did her eyes met those of another: Courtney. The Hispanic girl had a sly smile on her and kept winking and not-so-subtly jerking her head in Jason’s direction. Her right eye twitching, Heather turned her back on the girl.
Courtney frowned. What was Heather being so shy for? With Gwen gone, now was the perfect opportunity for her to make a move! So why hadn’t she?
It had been several days already, and Heather had done… nothing. Zip. Nada. Zilch.
Was she chronically shy or something? She hadn’t struck Courtney as such, but maybe she simply hid it well? It would have made some amount of sense; she knew that, like it or not, Heather was a bit of a schemer. Maybe she had trouble doing things directly, and had developed her scheming as a workaround?
“Hey, Duncan,” Courtney whispered as she elbowed the delinquent in the ribs.
The boy turned to her. “What?”
“I think we need to give Heather another push,” she said conspiratorially. “At this rate, nothing’s going to happen because she’s too shy to do anything!”
“Yeahhh… No.”
Courtney blinked. “What?”
Duncan looked this way and that before leaning in and whispering, “Call me crazy, but... I’d like to live, okay? I’m staying as far away from that psycho as I can.”
“What? Heather’s not a psycho!”
“Not her. I’m talking about Jason, of course.”
“What are you on about? Jason’s a great guy! Sure, I guess he might have a bit of a temper, but-”
Duncan shook his head. “No way. I’m out.”
“Duncan, you- Hey, get back here! Duncan! …Fine, then! I’ll do it by myself!”
But how…?
The rest of the day transpired pretty much as rest days usually did, sans me spending time with Gwen since, well, she wasn’t around anymore. Instead, I went on another walk.
Come the evening, however, something rather unusual happened. Chris showed up with a couple interns to deliver a projector and one of those roll-up projector screens. In addition to having the day off, we would be allowed to watch a movie!
And the movie? It was a third-rate horror flick featuring a guy with a-
“He’s coming out of the woods with a big hacky chainsaw!” Izzy exclaimed and immediately gasped, adding, “That’s sooo cool!”
-chainsaw killing a bunch of teenagers, played rather unconvincingly by no-name actors in their mid-twenties. Currently, there was a scene with-
“Oh, no, the psycho killer’s going for the car!” Trent exclaimed in turn.
-two teenagers parked in a car and-
Courtney leapt to her feet. “Hey! Idiots! Stop making out and start the car, already!”
… You know what? Screw it.
“They’re gonna be chainsaw sushi!” Izzy chimed in with a laugh, then gasped when the girl in the movie shrieked.
Trent gasped as well. “And now the car won’t start!”
“Oh, man. I hate scary movies,” DJ complained, even as he peered at the movie in-between his fingers covering his face.
“Run, the psycho’s gonna get ya!” Izzy called out.
DJ gasped and dropped down onto the ground, putting his lower body behind his stump as he shielded his head with his arms and whimpered.
I shot the Jamaican boy a pitying look. “Seriously, man?”
“Oh, no, they’re too late!” Courtney said, her eyes growing wide with horror as the chainsaw roared, right before the killer sliced up the young couple on the screen. She shielded her eyes with her arms and then turned right around and buried her face in the chest of the – pleasantly, by the look of it – surprised Duncan. “I can’t watch!”
Duncan snaked one arm around the Hispanic girl even as he laughed in delight at the movie. “Ha ha! Gross!”
Izzy stood up, cheering. “Aw, gross! Aw, the chainsaw psycho’s going back to the woods! He’s gettin’ away! Yeah! Good ending! Izzy loves scary movies!”
Moments after Izzy's impromptu review, the credits started rolling.
DJ sighed. “Am I ever glad that’s over. I really hate scary movies.”
Duncan smirked. “Oh yeah? What scares you most? The, uh, part where everyone meets a grisly death? Or the psycho killer with the hook?!”
As he spoke, the delinquent used his free hand – the other still holding on to Courtney’s shoulders – to pull out his hook prop, the same one we’d used to scare everyone on the camping trip weeks before.
DJ screamed in terror and hid behind Trent as the rest of us laughed. Yes, including me. I may have had a bone to pick with Duncan, but that was downright funny.
“C’mon, DJ,” I said aloud from my seat. “For a slasher flick, it wasn’t all that bad. They barely showed anything.”
“Yeah, there was hardly any hacking. Not like Bloodbath 2: Summer Camp Reign of Terror!” Duncan chimed in in agreement before looking over at me with a look that I judged to be half-amused, half-pleading. It was a weird look.
“Never heard of it, but the point stands,” I said with a shrug.
“Oh, well, yeah, it’s a really great movie! You should watch it!” Duncan said, giving an obviously forced smile.
“Eh, maybe,” I said noncommittally. If he wanted to pretend things were square between us, I wasn’t going to call him on it. At least, not right at the moment.
Heather rolled her eyes at us. “Aww, looks like Jason and Duncan have more in common than just a bad fashion sense,” she said. “It’s just mindless guts and gore.”
“Hey, horror movies can be way more than just guts and gore,” I protested.
“Yeah, they’re loaded with psychological trauma,” Duncan agreed. “Heh, look at DJ.”
Indeed, DJ had latched onto Trent in a quite literal fashion – sitting on the boy’s lap much like Izzy was sitting on mine, only with his arms wrapped around the other boy’s head rather than draped around his neck. Annoyed, Trent tried vainly to get the Jamaican boy off him, but alas, DJ was far stronger than he was.
Heather rolled her eyes again. “Whatever. Does anyone have any idea what our next challenge is going to be?”
“Hey, yeah,” Eva said in a suspicious tone as she looked around. “Where’s Chris?”
It was at that moment we all heard the sound of an engine coming from over on the nearby dock. Looking over, we could see the Boat of Losers pulled up to the dock, and the shadowed figure of Chef loading what looked like luggage onto the boat.
Very suspicious.
One by one, we all stood up and headed for the dock. Duncan was in the lead, and was the first to address the man.
“Hey, yo, Chef! Where’s the fire?”
Chef Hatchet gasped in surprise and directed a fearful look at Duncan, then the rest of us as we approached. Without saying another word, he jumped onto the boat and ran into the cabin. Through the window, we could see both him and Chris, looking strangely fearful right before the engine revved and the boat pulled away at high speed.
“Uh, dude?” Trent asked as he picked up the lone backpack that had been left behind on the dock. He called out, “You forgot this! Huh?”
A rolled-up newspaper dropped from the backpack. Picking it up, Trent stood closer to one of the lit torches decorating the dock and read aloud.
“Escaped psycho killer on the loose. Be on the lookout for a man wearing a hockey mask with a hooked hand and carrying a chainsaw,” he read, his eyes growing wider and wider as he spoke.
Izzy laughed. “Haha! He’s on the loose!”
“Oh, come on! They don’t expect us to fall for this? ‘Scary movie’ followed by ‘hasty exit’ followed by ‘strategically placed lame prop’?” Heather said and crossed her arms over her chest.
DJ gulped. “I-I dunno. He looked pretty spooked.”
The Asian girl directed a disdainful look at the Jamaican boy. “Puh-lease. It’s all part of their little stunt to freak us out.”
“Yeah, this seems a bit too coincidental,” I agreed.
Trent, meanwhile, pulled what looked like a small bottle out of the abandoned backpack. “If this was a stunt, would Chris leave behind his… hair gel?”
At the revelation, everyone but myself and Heather gasped in alarm. For my part, I simply blinked as I stared at the bottle, and the tiny photo of Chris on the label.
“Seriously? Chris has his own line of hair gel?” I deadpanned.
Heather snorted. “He would.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Courtney interjected. “This is for real?!”
“So let me get this straight,” DJ said, his voice starting to go up, “Chris left us for dead and now we’re alone while that escaped psycho killer with the chainsaw is on the loose?!”
Duncan smirked. “Nooo. We’re alone while that escaped psycho killer with a chainsaw and a hook is on the loose!”
Once again, the delinquent pulled out his hook prop and, predictably, DJ screamed like a little girl and cowered on the dock with his arms over his head. “I told yo, dude! Not. Funny!”
“And neither is your Chicken Little routine,” Eva interjected. “Be a man, DJ.”
“I can’t help it. I feel like we’re being watched!”
Heather tapped herself on the forehead. “Uh, duh. It’s a reality show. We’re always being watched.”
Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location somewhere on the island…
Chris chuckled as he turned to the camera. “Heather’s right. And tonight, we’re watching to see who can survive a real life scary movie, with special guest appearance by… the escaped psycho killer with a chainsaw and a hook!”
“Yeah, DJ,” I agreed, trying to sound soothing. “There’s fixed cameras and cameramen everywhe- Wait, where are the cameramen?”
There was a moment of silence as everyone looked around, but there was not a single cameraman in sight. While their numbers did tend to thin out as the day turned into night, it was rare for there not to be a single one about as long as any of us campers were still up and about. And since we were currently all up and about…
“Oh, shit,” DJ summed it up.
“Okay, look,” Courtney said. She was pacing back and forth and kept wringing her hands in obvious fright. “It doesn’t matter if this is real or a challenge. Right? We need a game plan.”
DJ nodded vigorously. “Yeah, yeah, we need a game plan!”
Okay, this might actually be serious… Unless they’re trying to trick us? I wonder if-
Heather put her hands on her hips. “You little fright wigs might need a game plan, but I need a facial.”
My thought process came to a screeching halt. That was just too good to pass up. I caught Heather’s gaze and quirked one eyebrow at her while an amused smirk made its way onto my face. Almost instantly, her cheeks became tinged red.
“Not that kind of facial! You’re so gross!”
“I didn’t say a word. You came up with that one all by yourself.” If anything, Heather’s face only became redder as I pointed this out. I chuckled. “Hey, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I like a girl with a dirty mind!”
“I do not have a dirty mind! Augh, I’m leaving!”
“Lemme know if you need any help with that facial~!”
“Shut up!”
I laughed as Heather angrily stomped off towards the public bathroom, thoroughly humiliated.
“And the bossy mean chick seals her fate,” Izzy interjected and then slid a finger along her neck while making a sort of messy shick sound.
“Oh, nice sound effect,” I said appreciatively. Then I grinned as an idea entered my mind. I leaned over and whispered, “Hey, Izzy. Do you like pranks?”
“Izzy loooves pranks!”
I chuckled. “Perfect. Come with me…”
“Where are you guys going?!” I heard Courtney call out behind us as we walked off toward camp. “We need to stick together! Hey!”
Courtney grunted irritably. Normally, she would be all for Jason trying to spend more time with Heather – after a fashion – but this was an emergency situation!
… Also, did his flirting have to be so crude? They were going to be on TV, for crying out loud! There could be children watching!
Shaking her head in exasperation, the Hispanic girl turned to the remaining campers. “I say we go back to camp and discuss strategy. Who’s with me?”
Duncan shrugged, DJ nodded vigorously again, and the rest of the campers just mutely nodded their agreement.
Courtney smiled. “Great! Let’s go make a game plan.”
A few minutes later, Courtney, Duncan, DJ, Trent and Eva were all gathered around the newly-lit bonfire. The others were seated on the stumps while Courtney paced back and forth in the area between them and the bonfire.
“Okay, we need to establish some ground rules,” she began. “In scary movies, people always go off on their own and get killed, so not doing that has to be rule number one. Rule number two… don’t go into secluded areas, like the woods or an empty building. Rule number three-”
“Is there a point to this?” Eva interrupted. She looked bored. “If there really is a psycho killer, I say we arm ourselves, set up an ambush, and then kick his butt.”
Courtney let out an irritated groan. “No way! Those two guys tried that in the movie, remember? They got chainsawed to death!”
Eva snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “Only because they shouted ‘Geronimo’ before they jumped the guy.”
“That’s not the point! We have to stay away from danger!”
Trent looked around. “Speaking of danger, should we really have let Jason run off like that? I hate to say it, but he seems like a handy guy to have around when there’s a psycho killer on the loose.”
There was a pause as everyone considered this.
There was a meaty smack as Courtney’s palm met her forehead. “Crap!”
Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen with Izzy, busily putting my prank idea into action. I had pulled a bowl out of a cabinet and was deftly making sure I got just the right mix for what I had planned.
“So we take some of this, and mix it with this…”
Izzy giggled. “Oh, this is gonna be sweet!”
“I know, right? Heather’s gonna flip! Now, come on, let’s heat this up for the right consistency…”
In an undisclosed location somewhere on the island, Chris flipped a switch on the console in front of him and spoke into the microphone.
“Hey, Chef? Lay off the lodge and the bathroom for a bit. I wanna see where this goes.”
Heather had just finished putting on her exfoliating face mask and then shaved her legs when she heard a scratching noise at the door leading outside the communal bathroom. Clad as she was in only a towel around her body and another around her hair, she would have felt very exposed and vulnerable… if she didn’t know exactly who was out there.
“Very funny, Jason,” she said aloud. “I know it’s you, so you can just drop it. I’m not scared. Now get lost, jerk.”
The scratching stopped. Smirking, Heather took a step toward the waiting shower stall, only to stop and spin around in alarm when suddenly the door opened.
“Jason? What are- Izzy?!”
“H-Heather,” the redhead gasped and staggered inside. She almost fell, but managed to catch herself on the sink. As she came into the light, Heather could see there was something red splattered all over her chest.
Izzy covered her mouth with her free hand as she began coughing violently. When she removed her hand, it came away bloody. She looked at Heather, her eyes coming unfocused.
“R-run… away…”
With those two words spoken, Izzy lost her hold on the sink and collapsed onto the floor, more of the red liquid spilling from her mouth with the impact. Her eyes stared vacantly at nothing as her breathing stilled.
To say Heather felt shocked would have been an understatement. She knelt next to the redhead, her fingers going for the girl’s throat, trying in vain to feel for a pulse. “I-Izzy? You… You’re joking, right?!”
Right then, a figure appeared in the open doorway. The figure stepped inside, revealing its face was almost entirely obscured by a tightly-drawn hood. And clutched in its right hand was a knife, covered in blood. The figure let out an angry roar and lunged, knife reared back to strike.
Heather screamed in terror and vainly covered her face with her arms as she closed her eyes. When the end did not come, she felt suspicion blossom inside her. When she heard a low chuckle that soon turned into gasping laughter, suspicion made way for confusion.
She opened her eyes. There, standing before her, was her knife-wielding attacker, only he was now holding himself up against the wall with his knife hand, the other clutching at his stomach as he laughed hysterically.
Heather stared. “Wha…?”
“Heh heh heh heh heh, we gotcha!” she heard Izzy speak, and she looked down to see the redhead giggling to herself on the floor. She slowly got up on her knees as she looked up at Heather, her face a mask of mirth. “We gotcha good!”
Her brain not quite processing what was going on – filled as it still was with terror-induced hormones – Heather looked from the redhead to the knife wielder, who by now had removed his hood to reveal the countenance of Jason, his expression one of hysterical amusement.
Slowly, confusion began to make way for blind rage inside Heather’s mind. She opened her mouth to give the boy a piece of her mind when she was interrupted by a loud, echoing gasp. She turned.
There, standing in the still-open doorway, were DJ and Trent, their eyes wide with surprise and horror as they beheld the scene inside the bathroom. For a long moment, everybody simply stared at one another.
Izzy was the first to actually react. She picked herself fully up off the floor and began to stagger toward the newcomers, her arms outstretched, fingers grasping at the air.
“Braaaaaains… Braaaaaaaaaaaaains!”
The two boys hugged each other and screamed.
“Braaaaaaaains…!”
Still holding onto one another, DJ and Trent abruptly turned on a dime and ran, Izzy staggering on after them with a surprising burst of speed, all while repeating “Braaaaains!” over and over. Soon enough, the noise died away into the night.
There was silence. Slowly, Jason and Heather turned to look at each other. Jason spoke first.
“Well, guess we got three for the price of one! Not bad for a-”
“GET OUT YOU ASSHOLE!”
“And stay out!” Heather said firmly as she pushed me outside. She grabbed the door and began to slam it shut, but stopped right before the last light disappeared. Slowly, she opened the door a bit wider, in the process increasing the amount of light coming through the opening. As I still had my back to the doorway, I didn’t see her directly, but I could see her shadow on the ground.
There was a pregnant silence. I could feel she wanted to communicate something, but for whatever reason couldn’t find it in herself to actually say it out loud.
“… Want me to wait out here until you’re done?”
There was no reply, but I saw her shadow nod before the door closed, leaving me in darkness.
Heh. What a scaredy-cat.
Of course, Izzy and me did just scare the living crap out of her, so it wasn’t all that unexpected. Still, she should’ve at least had the courage to say so out loud.
“Ah, well, whatever,” I muttered as I leaned against the wall. “Guess I’ll wait for a bit.”
I looked up at the night sky.
Stars are nice tonight…
For a long while after kicking Jason out, Heather stood with her hands resting on the sides of the sink, staring into the mirror. Despite the rage that had welled up inside her, her eyes were still wide with the terror she’d experienced beforehand.
That asshole. That freaking asshole!
Despite putting her weight on the sink, she could feel her entire body was still trembling. Her arms felt weak and rubbery, her legs like jell-o.
I just need to shower… and go to bed, she told herself, again and again. Shower… and then bed. Shower… Bed.
… Damn it all, she couldn’t see herself leaving the bathroom. Not by herself. Jason better still be out there!
W-wait. What if he… No, he wouldn’t. Would he…?
Her eyes darted to the door. She couldn’t hear anything outside. No scratching, no muttering, no breathing. Nothing. A fresh wave of fear welling up inside her, Heather went for the door, only to find her legs barely obeying her commands to move. She staggered over, barely catching herself by grabbing the door knob. The sound of the impact seemed to echo inside the empty bathroom. And still, there was no sound coming from outside.
He didn’t actually…? No. No way.
Heather turned the knob and the door clicked. She swung the door slowly open, the hinges vainly protesting with a high-pitched whine that made her skin crawl. She looked to the left and to the right, but there was no sign of Jason.
He left?! That no-good, irresponsible-
“Oh, you’re done already?”
Heather fairly jumped out of her skin when she heard Jason’s voice from around the vicinity of her waist. Looking down and behind the door, she saw him sitting on the ground, partially obscured by the door’s own shadow. His fingers gently clutched the pommel of the knife, slowly twisting it around, the point digging a shallow hole into the dirt.
“N-no!” she stammered, “I’m not done yet!”
The boy cocked his head at her. “Then why’d you come out here?”
“None of your business!” she snapped and then slammed the door shut. The nerve of him, hiding like that!
Heather briefly closed her eyes and took a few slow breaths to calm herself. It was no use, however, and she moved instead to the shower stall, tossed her towel over the side of it, and turned the shower knobs. She waited for the water to reach the right temperature, then stepped inside. The pleasantly warm water felt soothing, not just for her skin, but for her nerves. How dare Jason scare her like that! And Izzy was in on it, too!
Still, it felt a little reassuring to find that Jason hadn’t actually left, after all.
Just a little.
“What was all that screaming about?” Courtney asked. She’d been busy making a chart and had only been dimly aware of the commotion. She looked around. “And where are Trent and DJ?”
“DJ needed to take a piss and took Guitar Boy with him,” Duncan said with a shrug and a slight smirk. “Pretty sure they were the ones screaming, too.”
Courtney groaned. “Why am I surrounded by idiots? I told them we have to stay together!”
“Yeah, I don’t see the point,” Eva said then and rose. To Courtney’s rising annoyance, she began to walk away toward the girls’ cabin. “Nothing’s happening. I’m going to bed. See ya.”
“W-wait a minute!” Courtney stammered. She grabbed Eva by the wrist, only to find the gym girl turning on her with a snarl.
“You’d better let go if you know what’s good for you,” she said threateningly, and Courtney complied with an “Eep!”.
“L-look,” the Hispanic girl said, mentally regrouping as Eva crossed her arms over her chest. “With DJ and Trent gone, we’re the only ones left! If you leave, then-”
“Life’s not a horror movie,” Eva said resolutely. “Heather’s a bitch, but she’s right this time. I’m going to bed.”
“But-!”
Without uttering another word, Eva soon disappeared into the darkness. After a few moments there was the sound of a door opening and closing, then nothing.
“Looks like it’s just you and me now, Princess,” Duncan said smugly as he leaned back in his seat, his hands behind his head. A few seconds later, he blinked. “Hey, are you okay…?”
Exasperated, Courtney threw her hands at the sky.
“Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?!”
“Braaaaaains! Braaaaaaaaaaaaains!”
Zombie Izzy’s guttural voice echoed in the night as DJ ran, holding onto Trent for dear life as tears of terror streamed down his face. He was dimly aware that the other boy had stopped running and was simply being carried along, but he didn’t care.
I don’t wanna be a zombie!
“D-DJ!” Trent stammered. “We gotta split up!”
“NO!”
“We gotta!” Trent insisted. “She can’t catch both of us if we run in opposite directions!”
Okay, not being caught by Zombie Izzy sounded good. Alas, in his terror-addled state, DJ found himself unable to actually let go of the other boy.
“I-I can’t!”
“Yes, you can! Just let me go, and-”
“No, I mean I can’t let go! My arms are stuck!”
“What?!”
“Braaaaaaaaaains!”
“Oh, God, she’s getting closer! How is she getting closer?!”
“DJ, let go!”
“I ca-a-a-a-a-a-an’t!”
“Damn it, I didn’t wanna have to do this!” Trent exclaimed. DJ felt the boy move about in his arms, and soon after he heard a plop followed by a wet, cold sensation on his arms. Then Trent abruptly disappeared, leaving behind only a lemony scent.
DJ gasped in alarm, but didn’t stop running for an instant. “T-Trent?! Where’d you go?!”
Suddenly, he heard the sound of running feet catching up to him. His eyes wide with terror, DJ looked over his shoulder and almost fell over from relief to see it was Trent and not Zombie Izzy.
The other boy held up a small bottle. “Guitar oil!” he said triumphantly. Then his expression hardened and he gestured toward the large rock a ways in front of them. “All right, when we reach the rock, you go right and I’ll go left.”
“Don’t leave me, man! Please!”
“It’s our only chance! Go!”
They reached the rock. As planned, Trent turned left, while DJ continued toward the right.
He was alone.
“Nooooooooooo!” he howled, holding his face with his hands as he ran. There was no going back. He was alone in the dark, with only the stars and the moon to light his way, and he was being chased by zombies!
Well, a zombie.
… Actually, hold on. Now that he thought about it, DJ realized he could no longer hear Izzy’s strange, shambling sprint, nor the drawn-out “Braaaaaaaaains!”.
Did it actually work?! Was he sa-
“Oh, hey, DJ.”
DJ jumped in fright, but with his forward momentum the jump turned into a tumble which turned into a crash when he slammed into and got his limbs stuck in what turned out to be a fold-out chair.
“Oh, no! I’m stuck! I don’t wanna diiiiiiiiiiiiiie-!”
“Dude, you’re safe!”
DJ opened his eyes. It wasn’t dark anymore. In fact, it took several agonizing seconds for his vision to adjust enough to the light that he could see Chris standing before him.
“Chris?! I thought you ran away! I- Where are we?”
“In my command tent,” the host said smugly. He gestured toward a table, upon which stood a console with a keyboard and several screens mounted above it, showing images from across the island.
“Your… Huh?”
“It was all a challenge,” Chris explained. “Watch a scary movie, then live a scary movie. Chef even dressed up for it and was supposed to scare the bejeezus outta you… But apparently Izzy beat him to it.”
DJ stared as his fear-addled mind slowly put two and two together. “Wait, so Izzy’s not a zombie?!”
“Nope. She and Jason played a prank on Heather and then you and Trent walked in on ‘em.”
“Oh, man, that’s a relief,” DJ said and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Then he blinked. “Hold on… Where’s Trent and Izzy?!”
Trent mentally berated himself over and over as he ran quickly – but carefully – through the shadowy woods, closely pursued by the surprisingly quick Zombie Izzy. When he suggested the plan to DJ, he’d assumed Izzy would go after the other boy! After all, being bigger overall meant bigger head which meant bigger brains, right? That was how it worked, wasn’t it?
“Braaaaaaaaains!”
… Apparently not. Damn it all, maybe if he climbed a tree he could shake her? Zombies couldn’t climb, right?
Alas, Trent never got the chance to test his theory, because when he dashed around another tree in his path he found himself unexpectedly slam face-first into something that, while it didn’t feel like a tree, might as well have been one for all the yielding it did. He landed on his back, the air knocked out of his lungs with the impact.
He looked up. There, silhouetted by the moon peering down between the leaves, was a massive figure, face covered in a hockey mask, left hand ending in a hook, and the right clutching… a hockey stick tied to a chainsaw?
Trent’s eyes widened. It was the psycho killer from the newspaper!
It was then he heard the strange, shambling, yet high-speed gait of Zombie Izzy approach and slow.
“Braaaai- Huh?”
Trent tilted his head backward. There was Izzy, covered in blood, but no longer wearing the dead-eyed expression she’d had before. Instead, she wore a surprised expression as she looked not at Trent, but at the psycho killer. Very slowly, Trent raised his head once more and followed her gaze.
The psycho killer revved his chainsaw.
““AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!””
“Hey, did you hear that?!” Courtney asked in alarm. “It sounded like a scream… somewhere far away…”
Duncan shrugged. “It was probably just a wolf howling at the moon,” he said noncommittally.
“How can you be so calm?!” Courtney asked as she turned to look at him. To her surprise, the boy had lit not one, but two sticks of wood on fire. “Hey, what are you-”
Before she could finish, Duncan reached out one of the fiery sticks and set fire to the sketch pad and easel that had, rather inexplicably now that she thought about it, been standing by the fire pit.
“My chart! Why?!”
“There’s a time for charts and there’s a time for action,” the delinquent said gravely as he rose, prompting Courtney’s rising anger to evaporate into confusion.
“Huh?”
Duncan shot her a confident grin. “Come on, Princess. We’re tracking down the psycho killer.”
Courtney frowned. “I’m not a- We’re WHAT?!”
“And with three down and five to go, our ‘psycho killer’ is set to strike again!” Chris said happily.
Behind him, Chef Hatchet smirked and pulled his hockey mask back down over his face before exiting the tent, leaving the host alone with DJ and the two newcomers Izzy and Trent. Their reactions to the ordeal had been… slightly different.
“Oh, man, you really got me. You got me good!” Izzy said, giggling. Behind her, Trent sat on the ground, rocking back and forth with his arms clutched around his knees while DJ tried in vain to snap the boy out of his shell-shocked state.
“Trent, snap out of it!”
Really, taking advantage of the news of the unexpected prison break to stage a horror-themed challenge had been a genius move! Oh, this one would have to go into Chris’s autobiography, no questions asked!
“Come on, man! It was all just a prank! Wake up!”
Trent did not respond.
Chris laughed.
Things were going great!
Eva sighed. Although she’d told the others she was going to bed, she couldn’t sleep. She would never have admitted it to the other campers’ faces, but in truth, she felt… uneasy. Yeah, uneasy, not scared. Definitely not scared of made-up psycho killers with a chainsaw and a hook, escaping from prison and…
Eva cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She was not scared. She was just having a little trouble sleeping, was all. It was just a little insomnia. Nothing to be- What was that?!
The gym girl sat up in bed and stared at the window, but saw nothing. She could have sworn she heard something tapping on the glass, but… there was nothing out there. No silhouette or face in the window, just darkness. She lay back down.
There was nothing out there. It was just her imagination. Right. That stupid movie and that stupid newspaper and her stupid fellow campers just had her a little riled up, that was all, and now her mind was playing tricks on her. There was nothing going on at all. Everything was fine. Everything was-
Suddenly, the door to the cabin opened with a bang, and Eva bolted upright, this time to see the silhouette of a veritable giant of a man standing in the doorway, arms raised above his hockey-mask-wearing head. The left arm ended in a hook, while the right-
The man revved his chainsaw.
Eva screamed.
“Where are we going?”
Duncan didn’t bother turning around. He’d given one of his makeshift torches to Courtney, so he knew she could see just fine. “I told you, we’re tracking down the psycho killer.”
They’d been walking for barely fifteen minutes, at first headed away from the camp into the woods and then slowly circling back around in a wide semi-circle while staying on the lookout for the psycho killer. Another few minutes and they would once more have the camp in sight, and assuming they didn’t see their quarry anywhere, Duncan planned on going in another semicircle across on the other side of the camp.
“This is insane!”
This time, Duncan did look back at the girl. He winked at her. “You know, you can hold my hand if you’re scared.”
“In your dreams! I’m not scared at all!”
“If you say so, Princess.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a-”
There was a sudden hooting as an owl flew past.
“… Not scared, huh?” Duncan asked slyly.
Courtney, who’d run forward and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, didn’t immediately reply. After a moment, she looked up at him, her face scrunched-up in an adorably frightened expression for a brief, brief moment before she frowned.
“I’m not. Scared!”
Duncan barely kept in a laugh. “Whatever you say.”
Courtney’s annoyed expression began to waver, then fell away entirely as a wolf howled in the distance. She buried her face in Duncan’s chest once more, her grip on his torso tightening. Try as he might, the delinquent couldn’t keep from grinning.
Things were going great!
“… Hey, do you smell something burning?” Courtney asked suddenly.
It was then that Duncan realized his shirt was on fire, ignited by the makeshift torch still clutched tightly between the Hispanic girl’s fingers.
“EYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
“I-I wasn’t scared. Not one bit. I knew it was a prank all along!”
“Sure, Eva, sure,” Chris said soothingly, though the toothy grin on his face revealed just what he thought of her words.
Eva bristled. “I’m telling the truth! I wasn’t scared at all!”
“Yeahhh… Tell that to DJ,” the host remarked, prompting Eva to blink and look down.
“Hand… crushed… bones… breaking…” the Jamaican boy whined, teary-eyed.
“Sorry!” Eva said and quickly let go of the death-grip she hadn’t realized she’d had on the boy’s hand. He rolled up into the fetal position, whimpering and clutching at his injured hand.
Slowly, Eva raised her gaze to find Chris’s grinning face looking at her. Heat rushed to her cheeks.
“I wasn’t scared!”
By the time they finished stomping out Duncan’s shirt, Courtney found her fears had dissipated into nothing. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the distraction or because of the boy’s presence, but despite the darkness and the strange sounds of the night she no longer felt afraid.
“Duncan, I-”
“Aw, man, I liked this shirt,” Duncan said, holding up his shirt and inspecting the large new hole in it. As he did, some pieces of the frayed and burnt edges fell away.
Courtney felt her face flush. In part because of the reminder that she had been the cause of the shirt’s destruction, but also because, well… Duncan was shirtless. And they were alone. At night.
Oh, my…
Pointedly clearing her throat, Courtney turned away. “Um, I’m really sorry about the shirt.”
The delinquent sighed. “It’s okay. It was getting old, anyway.”
Courtney sighed. Even now, he was trying to make her feel better. Maybe there really was a softer side to the boy…?
Actually, now that she thought about it… he’d been incredibly patient, hadn’t he? She wasn’t blind; she’d been fully aware of all the flirting he’d been doing over the past few weeks. Only, because she’d been so focused on trying to get Jason and Heather together, she hadn’t really… responded.
Courtney gently bit her lower lip. Maybe it was time she focused on her own love life, even if just for a moment…?
Yes, it was. Steeling herself, Courtney turned around to face her would-be paramour once more.
“Duncan, I…”
The delinquent looked at her. “What?”
Very slowly, Courtney raised her right hand and pointed a trembling finger behind the boy. Blinking, he turned.
The psycho killer revved his chainsaw.
“Man, you took forever.”
“Shut up, you ass!”
Heather had finished showering and removing her mask, and now, clad once more in nothing more than a pair of towels, she had stepped out of the communal bathroom… to be met with Jason giving her attitude.
Him! Giving attitude! To her!
“Whatever. Just… escort me to my cabin, and- Where are you going? The cabin’s that way!”
Heather hurried her steps to catch up with the boy, who for some unfathomable reason had started walking not towards the girls’ cabin, but the main lodge!
“I gotta put the knife back in the kitchen, first,” Jason replied, and although she couldn’t make it out in the dark, she had the distinct feeling he was rolling his eyes at her. Also…
“You used a real knife?!”
“Of course I did. Where the hell do ya think I’d find a prop knife out here?”
Heather was at a loss for words. Not because she couldn’t argue the logic, but because she found herself briefly overwhelmed by the sheer stupidity.
Seriously, how could someone be so smart yet so incredibly dumb at the same time?! It boggled the mind!
“Fine. But once you put it back, you’re escorting me to the cabin.”
“Nah.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m hungry. I’m gonna make a sandwich.”
“You-!”
Alas, Heather’s complaints fell on deaf ears as Jason opened the door to the lodge and stepped inside, only stopping to hold it open for her.
… Well, okay, at least the boy had some manners. She stepped inside without a word, the door closing behind her.
Heather found herself blinking when the lights came on. By the time she could see again, Jason had already gone into the kitchen, and she resigned herself to wait for him. Sighing, she sat down at one of the tables, leaning her cheek on her hand and her elbow on the table.
It had barely been a minute when the door to the lodge opened. Heather lazily turned her head, going from watching Jason making a sandwich to have a look at the visitor.
It was a veritable mountain of a man, his face covered in a hockey mask and clutching a chainsaw in his right hand, while his left was hidden under what was obviously a hook prop.
Heather let out a disgusted sigh as she straightened. “Seriously? You plant the newspaper, and then have some actor dress up as the guy in the picture? You’re getting sloppy, Chris.”
The man said nothing.
“Oh, my gosh, Duncan! You were so brave!”
“Uh, yeah.”
“The way you pushed me out of harm’s way and tripped him up to buy me time to escape! So noble!”
“Uh, yeah.”
Duncan didn’t dare tell Courtney he tripped on his own feet while trying to push her out of the way so he could run. He’d planned to confront the psycho killer on his own terms, not get ambushed from behind! That the psycho killer – actually Chef Hatchet in disguise, as it turned out – had then gotten his own feet tangled up with Duncan’s flailing limbs and fallen over on top of him hadn’t exactly helped the delinquent’s self-image.
Still, the way Courtney kept hugging him and kissing his cheek wasn’t all bad, though Duncan could do without the audience. His gaze roaming around the tent that Chef had brought them to after scaring the living daylights out of them, he took it all in.
Chris, Chef Hatchet, Izzy and DJ kept grinning and giving him a thumbs-up.
Eva had turned her back on them and was looking at Chris’s assortment of screens, her face slightly flushed.
And finally, Trent sat in a corner, gently rocking back and forth.
Courtney, for her part, didn’t seem to care about the audience at all.
Duncan had never felt so uncomfortable in his life. He needed a distraction. Something. Anything.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Thank you, Eva!
The gym girl pointed at one of the screens. “If Chef’s in here, then who’s that in the lodge with Heather?”
Everyone – even Trent – turned to look. Indeed, there was a guy there in the lodge, wearing a hockey mask over his face, with a hook on his left arm and a chainsaw in his right hand. His build was virtually identical to Chef’s, and if not for the obviously white skin the two could have been twins.
DJ gasped. “Oh, shit! It’s the real escaped psycho killer with a chainsaw and a hook!”
Almost as one, everyone ran out of the tent and made a beeline toward the camp.
“This could be really, really good for ratings,” Chris gasped out between breaths as they ran, “or really, really bad for lawsuits!”
“Okay, I understand actors without speaking parts don’t get paid much,” Heather said as she faced the hockey-mask-man. “But seriously, you need to invest in a dental plan. When was the last time you flossed? It’s gross.”
The man’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but Heather wasn’t intimidated in the least. After everything Jason had put her through that night already, nothing Chris could throw at her would even so much as faze her.
“And what’s with that hook prop? It’s so tacky.”
Wordlessly, the man put down his chainsaw and used his now free hand to pull the hook off his arm, revealing a fleshy stump underneath.
Heather recoiled slightly at the sight, but found herself oddly fascinated at the same time. “… Huh. How’d they get it all scabby like that…?”
The man put the hook back, then picked up his chainsaw. He revved the chainsaw at the exact same moment the door to the lodge was thrown open to admit pretty much everyone – Chris, Chef Hatchet, Duncan, Courtney, Eva, Izzy, DJ, and Trent. Oddly enough, they all looked frightened. And they all opened their mouths at the same time.
“““““Heather! He’s the real escaped psycho killer with a chainsaw and a hook!”””””
Heather’s eyes widened. The real…?
The psycho killer revved his chainsaw one more time and raised it high above his head. As Heather began screaming, he brought it down, and she instinctively shut her eyes tight as she threw herself backward.
But, much like in the bathroom, the end never came. Instead, she heard running footsteps, followed by a loud smack and what sounded like someone stumbling. Then there was a loud snapping noise and a shrill scream that was abruptly cut off by a series of meaty smacks. Finally, there was a crash that made the floor shake.
Heather shuddered. Somewhere in there the chainsaw had shut off, and as such she heard what came next quite clearly.
“Are you okay?”
Gingerly, she opened her eyes. Standing before her was Jason, leaning forward, his arm outstretched and his hand open, as if offering to help her up.
It was then Heather realized she’d actually dropped out of her seat to sit on the floor. Not quite managing to meet his gaze, she took Jason’s proffered hand and let him help her to her feet. As she rose, she saw the psycho killer laid out on the floor, seemingly unconscious. What’s more, his mask was gone and his face covered in blood, his hook was rolling about on the floor, and his right arm was… bent at an unnatural angle.
Oh, that’s what the snapping noise was, she realized, wincing at the sight. Slowly, she turned her gaze from the psycho killer to Jason. Their eyes met, and she saw – perhaps for the first time – just how entrancing his eyes were, all in shifting shades of blue-green, with speckles of brown interspersed in-
Her cheeks burning hot, Heather lowered her gaze. In doing so, her eyes landed on Jason’s hand holding hers… and the warm, red liquid now covering them both. Her embarrassment momentarily forgotten, she looked back up at him, her face scrunching up in equal parts disgust and shock.
“Oh, it’s not mine,” Jason said reassuringly, completely misinterpreting her expression. He flicked the thumb of his free hand toward the psycho killer. “It’s his.”
At that moment, the chainsaw – which had somehow gotten stuck in the ceiling – came loose and fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Nearby, DJ fainted.
Heather tore her hand away. “Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew! EW!”
Later that night, we were all gathered at the bonfire, following our rather unusual challenge. Tonight, like last time, there was no voting, the elimination instead being decided by the result of the challenge itself.
I glanced toward Heather, but the Asian girl was very pointedly not looking at me. I sighed.
How was I supposed to know breaking the guy’s nose would turn it into a fucking fountain??
Chris, either oblivious to or disinterested in my mental state, chuckled. “Well, it’s obvious to everyone Jason wins invincibility. And sadly, it’s equally obvious that DJ walk the Dock of Shame. Since he was the only one who screamed, bolted, and got himself eliminated without the psycho killer even being there. But… no hard feelings, dude. You will be missed.”
Trent was the first to speak. “Aww, come on, people, group hug!”
Said and done, we all got up off our asses and gave DJ a group hug goodbye. As we did, my hand briefly touched Heather’s arm before she pointedly moved it away from my touch.
I groaned internally. I was gonna hear about the “blood incident” for forever, wasn’t I? For fuck’s sake…
Heather sat in the confessional, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at the camera. Her expression held none of her usual haughtiness, nor the stunned surprise she sometimes expressed after having one of her schemes thwarted. No, this time, her expression was different, uncertain.
The Asian girl opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and closed it. After a moment she opened it again, but no words came out, and she instead bit her lip as she looked away. At long last, she spoke.
“I… I-I can’t do this!”
With those words, she rose and hurriedly left the confessional.
End Chapter 19
The roster
The Screaming Gophers: Gwen, Trent, Heather, Cody, Lindsay, Beth, Izzy, Owen, Leshawna, Justin, Noah
The Killer Bass: Geoff, Bridgette, DJ, Tyler, Sadie, Katie, Courtney, Jason, Duncan, Eva, and Harold
