She still has nightmares, you know. Even after all these years. You would suppose that was to be expected, though - you don't forget an incident like the Black Prom in a hurry.
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees the devastation. The raging fire, the bloodied corpses, the hysterical townsfolk screeching and screaming and running for their lives. She feels that familiar ice-blood of fear poisoning her veins, the faint taste of bile at the back of her throat. The swooping panic in her stomach as she quickly starts to realise the extent of the damage: x is dead. y is dead. Tommy, surely, must be dead.
Worst of all, she finds herself walking through that car park as though wading through long, dark grass: forcing her way slowly through the thick air, like swimming through treacle, barely able to see her own hands in front of her face. And she finds Carrie. Creepy Carrie. Shy, awkward, painfully backward Carrie, lying motionless on the tarmac. Her stomach turns anew - there's a knife sticking out of Carrie's shoulder. With a shudder, and as gently as she possibly can, she rolls Carrie onto her back. She moans, not like a person but - what was it Emily Bronte said? - like a savage beast.
Sometimes, she simply relives that terrible invasion of her mind and her intrusion into Carrie's. Sometimes, she'll look down and Carrie, with the face of a monster, will lunge at her. Sometimes Carrie will have Tommy's face, or Chris', or Bill's. Sometimes, she is Carrie, and can feel herself being turned over, slowly bleeding to death. Sometimes Carrie has her own face.
I could have done something. Why didn't I do something? Why didn't I stop them?
She lives in New York now, where she it's never quiet enough during the day to think about anything but getting safely from A to B. She has never dared go back to the state of Maine again, let alone the little town she once called home. The memories there are too raw, like an open cut exposed to the elements, even after the passage of time. She knows she's not alone. The town has been largely deserted, and those who still do live there remain haunted by the massacre. Every once in a while, one of the handful of survivors will contact her. Ask her how things are going. She doesn't respond.
She has no husband, no partner. No man could deal with that kind of emotional baggage. Year upon year of PTSD therapy proved a fruitless exercise, good only for money-wasting. She scrapes by on office work, and occasionally something she writes will be published somewhere for peanuts. Once, she was asked to contribute to some bint's book about the Black Prom. Reliving that night via interview led to a close call with some shoelaces - her saving grace was the woman next door, and her reward was a year of institutionalisation - but she still gets a few bucks every time one of the books gets sold. So there's that.
Her neighbours are kind, though. They are a sweet, young family - a Mommy, a Daddy, a pair of noisy twin boys and a shy, gentle daughter. She's watched those kids grow up, and that's given her something close to happiness, since she'll never have kids of her own, now.
The girl is in her room, separated from the next house by just a wall. Her brothers are teasing her, taking away her book and waving it above her head, just out of her reach. She's trying to fight back.
A single lightbulb flares and dies.