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Support is an addiction.

The thought passes through Laurie’s head like a brisk wind on an otherwise sunny day. She wants to cast off the thought, but why else would she be in her bedroom at her computer poking the other girls in her private chat room at two in the morning? Because she wanted that support? No.

She needed that support.

Laurie typed a name.

Laurie: Asami?

She rubbed her temple while waiting for her friend’s response from faraway Canada. The indicator that someone was online—a thumbs up or thumbs down—clearly stated Asami was offline, but Laurie had to try. Better than reclining on a bed, not being able to sleep, reflecting on how a man wearing a pig’s mask killed all her friends because of his obsession with her.

Goosebumps erupted across her skin as she recalled the masked, burly man carrying his sledgehammer toward her across the campsite. Laurie was the most physical female camp counselor—stronger than most boys. But her head only came to the maniac’s chest, and he must have clocked in at least three times her weight. His broad shoulders and muscular arms made even police officers hesitate to cross him.

Don’t think about him. He’s gone.

Six well-placed arrows from Laurie’s favorite bow had finally stopped him. But Hans should’ve been dead after the third missile pierced his throat! Why didn’t he die? How did he keep coming after her, swinging his sledgehammer that dripped with blood?

Before Hans, the summer had started well. She had met all the other counselors at Camp Happy Trials, advertised as a place of safety for poor, inner-city children. The summer had been proceeding as planned with only a few minor injuries. Nothing unusual according to the directors of the site. Midsummer, one weekend was set aside to clean, disinfect, and replenish the camp for the rest of the season. The camp counselors had three days to themselves. The counselors, all teenagers, had worked long hours during the day. At night, out came the beer, music, skinny-dipping, and time spent in the hammocks together.

Laurie was up for all of it, and the first night had been nirvana. She had snuck away with Taylor, who had caught her eye. She had capped off the celebration in her lover’s arms at Makeout Point. And yes, the morning brought nausea, headache, and lethargy, but the party had been worth it.

Hans had ruined the prior night for Laurie, too. She couldn’t help but think of Taylor’s broken body outside the utility shed whenever she thought back to those blissful times.

Focus on your new friends. The ones you met after Hans. 

Like Asami. Asami hadn’t responded to her summons, but she tried again.

Laurie: Asami, I could use your advice.

Advice, not help. Laurie wouldn’t seek help from anyone. She confronted her nightmares alone. But if Asami came online, she wouldn’t have the answer to Laurie’s restlessness either. But that’s okay. Asami understood. She had survived a similar experience and had believed her when Laurie voiced her doubt Hans was human.

Laurie snorted. Asami had to believe her, didn’t she? Asami had no choice because she had met her own unusual psychopath. She had defeated a different adversary with powers no one could explain. In some ways, Asami was worse off than Laurie. The police blamed Laurie’s account of events on hysteria. For Asami, everyone had chalked it up to her losing her sanity.

For Laurie, they hadn’t suggested a psychiatrist as they had with Asami. No one had pumped Laurie full of drugs. Laurie’s psychologist had mentioned that memory was tricky in life-or-death situations, and what one recalls in the present might not be what had happened. Statements like…

“Laurie, your arrow likely grazed Hans’s neck, not hit it dead-on.”

“Laurie, even a large man like Hans doesn’t shake off the bear trap you set for him. It’s impossible. He tripped it with his sledgehammer, I’m sure.”

“Laurie, Hans was brutal. He could sustain a lot of damage, but he wasn’t superhuman. In the end, you stopped him with the arrows, and that’s all that matters, doesn’t it?”

…showed their contempt for her theories. Hans was a butcher, yes. But his eyes also glowed in the moonlight. He may have been human before his night of carnage, coming from that screwed-up family, but he wasn’t normal the instant he stepped on Camp Happy Trails grounds. An evil—

Something. Spirit? Demon?

—had possessed him. But if an evil entity threatened this world, then a good one existed, too. Otherwise, Laurie would’ve never found Asami.

Laurie had read Asami’s story online. She hadn’t encountered a broad-shouldered killing machine like Hans, but someone far more craftier. Asami’s claims that the man who had hunted her had powers to animate objects had made Laurie wonder. Was Asami really all there? Eventually, Laurie had reached out to her and discovered Asami surprisingly lucid. In Asami, she viewed herself. A girl who opposed not only a madman but an unbelieving world as well.

But Asami didn’t appear to be online tonight. Laurie would have to try again. Her thumbs flew over the keypad.

Laurie: Sheila? You there?

Laurie and Asami had chatted for a couple of weeks about their encounters with madmen, their loneliness of others dismissing what they had experienced, and their deep-rooted fears that the supernatural walked the Earth. Laurie’s friends of the life before Hans had distanced themselves from her. Asami had filled the void of acceptance, and Laurie had a new bestie. Though Laurie and Asami had never met in person, they kept in touch daily. But one day, Asami had posed an interesting question.

“What if there are more like us?” Asami had typed.

“What do you mean by us?” Laurie had returned.

“Girls who have faced monsters” was the response. “Girls who lost everyone. Girls who were targeted. You know…final girls.”

And with that exchange, they had a moniker. Laurie had adopted the title as much as her first name. She and Asami were Final Girls. And Laurie had a purpose, too. She didn’t believe the two of them were the only ones.

Laurie had found Sheila. Many miles separated Laurie’s home from Sheila’s, though they both lived in the United States. If Laurie’s story lived on the boundary of believability and Asami’s story was one foot in this world and one foot beyond, Sheila’s experience was completely across the line. Sheila’s encounter was so bizarre that she had kept it to herself. She had been hesitant to talk about it until Laurie and Asami had opened up. When they convinced her to tell what had happened on Maple Lane, Sheila conveyed her story with such sincerity that she had been inducted into the team immediately.

Laurie’s attention returned to her phone. No answer from Sheila, so Laurie typed in the last name of the Final Girl brood. Alice.

Laurie: Alice?

Asami had read about Alice online. Alice’s brush with the supernatural had been as terrible and surreal as the rest of theirs, but her family and community believed it. Something haunted Creech Manor.

Sometimes, Laurie wished she was Alice. Nobody questioned her. But she knew Alice suffered the most because she had never defeated the spirit that had plagued her.

A thumbs-down indicator displayed next to Alice’s name. No surprise, though Laurie sent them messages at odd hours, and usually someone was awake. Often, one of them had trouble sleeping through the night after what she had experienced. But not tonight. Laurie was alone. She grunted and eyed her bed, covers tossed to the side. Tonight would be a long night.

When she turned back to her display, Laurie spotted an answer. For a split-second, she thought one of the Final Girls was online. However, the response wasn’t associated with a name. The message made her blood go cold.

???: This isn’t over, Laurie.