Yes, the bloodbath has begun, hopefully it will be just as bloody and fulfilling as the actual movie, and many other slasher movies out there. So, keep those wonderful reviews coming!

Chapter Nine

Emergency

Sadie poked her out of the tent where she had been lying out Ramsey's sleeping bag, brow knitted. "Did you guys just hear something?" She questioned, looking over at Kyle, who was massaging his girlfriend's shoulders, and Richard who was gathering sticks to attempt to light a fire.

"What?" Richard asked, dropping his pitiful pile in front of the tent. "What's the matter?" He was quite interested in just what was bothering his girlfriend now, and was certain that whatever it was she was simply just imagining it; some figment of her guilty conscience.

Sadie climbed out of the tent and cocked her head, gazing off toward the woods where Virginia had disappeared only moments before. "Some sound...or something, coming from over there." She explained, looking over to where she had indicated, trying to notice anything out of the ordinary. The woods were silent and still, as though there was nothing amiss at all; Sadie wondered if she had heard anything after all.

"A sound or something?" Ramsey remarked, glaring at the girl. "These are woods, there are like...squirrels and bears and stuff." She rolled her eyes, leaning against her boyfriend who kissed her shoulders before glancing over at the brunette.

"Or killer hillbillies?" He remarked, mocking the girl who clearing wasn't the mood for the couple's pathetic double-teamed insults.

Sadie decided not even give them a remark but reached inside the tent and pulled out the flashlight. "I heard something, I'm going to go make sure that Ginny is all right." She explained, shining the light off toward the brush, which was still silent and motionless.

Richard frowned when he realized that his girlfriend was really going to go traipsing into the woods chasing after something that was probably just a rabbit. "I'll go with you." He offered, hoping that the sooner they'd go out, the sooner Sadie would realize that there was nothing out there.

Without a word, Sadie headed toward the path Virginia had taken with Richard in tow, holding the flashlight out so that it played upon the still brush and trees. They walked for a moment in silence before Richard caught up with his girlfriend and placed a hand on her shoulder, causing her to stop and turn around. "Sadie, what's all this about?" He questioned, causing her to raise an eyebrow. "Do you really believe that there are killer rednecks in the woods or you just feeling guilty for lying to your sister?"

"What if Jessie's right, Rich?" Sadie questioned, her love for her sister overshadowing her doubt in the story, though Carly, Scott, Evan and Francine were all dead after all. However, she had been lied to before, but she wanted desperately to believe her sister.

"And what if she's wrong? Well...not wrong but just confused. You know, people that suffer traumatic experiences are often so shocked that they can't rightly remembered what happened to them." Richard pointed out, pulling Sadie closer to him as he continued to speak. "Forget about your sister for a weekend, forget about killer rednecks. After all, we're here together for a hopefully romantic camping trip..." He trailed off, gazing, he hoped, seductively into his girlfriend's eyes.

Sadie knew exactly where he was going, though he hadn't finished his sentence: a romantic trip if you don't keep bringing up your sister and murderous rednecks. She knew that he still didn't believe her and probably never would, despite the corpses buried in the graveyard, but she still let him kiss her, let him believe that he had won for the time being. It took far less energy then it would have to keep up the argument. "Okay, I'll try." Sadie relented with a smile when the kiss was broken. She turned away from him and back toward the path that headed down toward the lake, still interested in finding out if Virginia was all right.

Richard started to protest as Sadie started forward, but was cut off when his girlfriend stumbled over something and tumbled to the ground. "Sadie, are you all right?" He questioned, not bothering to move forward for he didn't want to fall as well. Who knew what Sadie had tripped over.

Sadie frowned as she lifted her head, looking for the flashlight which had rolled out of her grip; her palms burned from where she had used them to brace her fall and she was certain that her left hand had been cut by a rock. She stopped the flashlight and stretched out her hand to grab for it, curious to see what she had stumbled over, for it didn't feel like a rock or a root.

Sadie let out a stunned scream when she saw what she had tripped over; the beam from the flashlight had played over the still bleeding corpse of Virginia Corman, who was sprawled out across the path were she had undoubtedly fallen while fleeing her murderer. She screamed again, this time in fear and disgust, jumping to her feet and nearly dropping her flashlight once more.

By this time, Richard had turned around to see what his girlfriend had been screaming at and caught sight of his sister's murdered body as the light bounced over it. He stood for a moment, too stunned to react, staring at the corpse in disbelief; his sister had been murdered, he was staring at her body, yet it didn't seem true. The second time Sadie screamed, the situation became very realistic, for he could see the still bleeding wound in the back of Virginia's neck, jagged and crude.

"Sadie..." Richard trailed off, unsure of what to say next. He wanted to ask if she was all right again, though that questioned seemed stupid because she wasn't the one, after all, laying murdered in the dirt.

Trying to get control of herself long enough to figure out what to do next, Sadie swallowed down the bile that was rising in her throat and took a step forward, only to stumble back when something whizzed past her face, grazing her forehead, and embedding itself in a nearby tree. Surprised, she touched her fingers to her forehead, shocked when they came back bloody and turned to look in the direction that object had flown from. Standing, partially obscured by leafy bushes, was a disfigured, bulky man notching an arrow into the curved bow he held in his overly large, knotted hands. Sadie screamed Richard's name before the archer let lose another arrow, warning him about the monstrous man; she stepped over Virginia's body before grabbing her boyfriend's arm and dragging back down the path, hearing the sound of the arrow hitting a tree behind her. "Run!" She commanded when her boyfriend still stumbled along. It was only a matter of time before the archer fired another arrow.

"Sadie what's going on?" Richard questioned as he followed his girlfriend back toward their campsite, sounding frightened and confused.

Sadie didn't think she had the breath to answer, so she continued to run, heart beginning to speed up when she heard the brush crashing behind her, signaling that they were being pursued. Jessie was right all along she thought, stumbling over the gnarled brush at her feet.

Up ahead, they could see the light from a tiny fire that Kyle and Ramsey had succeeded in lighting and the couple rummaging through the cooler they had packed. "Get into the car!" Sadie shouted to the couple as she and Richard got nearer to their campsite.

Ramsey and Kyle turned in her direction when she shouted, looking rather confused; that look didn't last for long when they saw Richard and Sadie's attacker, looking even more disfigured and villainous in the flickering firelight. Ramsey leapt to her feet and yanked the keys to the SUV from her pocket, fumbling for the right one as she stood before the car.

The disfigured archer paused as he watched his prey scrambled into the backseat of the SUV, which was the first door Ramsey had managed to get unlocked. He pulled another crudely formed arrow from the quiver upon his back, fashioned from the skin of one of his former victims, and notched it into his bow. He watched as Sadie pulled the door shut behind her and slammed her palm down on the lock, as though a simple lock and door could keep him out; for a moment, he aimed his arrow at the window, simply to see the look of fear on the brunette's face, before firing at the bottom right tire, which popped instantly. Before turning to head back into the woods to find his other two family members, he fired an arrow into the tire on the passenger side of the car, grinning awkwardly at the screams that came from inside the car.

Sadie waited fifteen minutes after the tires had been popped before peering out of the window, afraid of what she might see; however, she saw nothing but their empty campsite, no sign of the disfigured man that had been shooting at them. "I think he's gone." She mumbled as she dropped back from the window, sliding back onto the floor where the other three were huddled together. They had all entered the car in a jumble, eager to get away from the man before they ended up like Virginia, and they were still tangled together on the cramped floor of the SUV.

"Man?" Ramsey echoed, clinging to her boyfriend. "Didn't look like a man to me."

Sadie had to agree, but didn't want to waste any time verbally saying so. "It popped out tires, we can't leave." She pointed out, a fact that everyone else all ready knew.

"We're gonna die, just like Virginia." Richard moaned, running his hands through his hair as he thought about his slain twin sister.

"We are not going to die." Sadie said forcefully, leaning over Ramsey and Kyle and fishing around in the front seat, finally pulling out her cell phone with its brightly colored butterfly cover.

Ramsey's face brightened when she noticed what the brunette had recovered. "We have a cell phone! We can call the police to come rescue us!" She trilled happily, feeling suddenly very relieved. She wasn't going to die after all, she was going to live to be crowned the queen of her senior prom.

"I'm going to call my sister." Sadie mumbled, knowing that her decision wasn't going to be widely accepted. She started dialing Jessie's apartment number.

Kyle nearly jerked the cell phone from her hand as he heard her words. "Your sister!" He exclaimed, causing Sadie to cringe slightly. "We're being chased by fucking murderous maniacs and you're calling your goddamn sister?!"

Sadie pressed the phone against her ear as it started ringing. "I don't have a lot of battery left, not enough to make the police believe us. Jessie's been through this, she'll know exactly what I'm talking about. She can help us." She explained, hoping that what she was right. It sounded like the man had come back.

* * *

Jessie was standing in the kitchen, watching Chris unwrap the takeout sushi they had ordered from the Japanese restaurant down the street; she didn't generally like seafood but Chris had gotten her to like some kinds. Chris had been telling her about a lady who had come into the doctor's office that morning, thinking that she was ill but when it turned out she hadn't been, she had refused to pay a fee. "She said that since we hadn't really done anything, she shouldn't have to pay." He explained, setting some California rolls upon a paper plate for Jessie.

The brunette laughed, mostly for his benefit, and rolled her eyes. "My day wasn't that exciting." She told him, leaning against the counter, though she had already mentioned her boredom once before.

Setting aside some squid and California rolls for himself, Chris turned to face the brunette with a boyish grin. "Well, Miss Burlingame, your evening will hopefully be a lot more interesting." He said in the seductive way that always managed to get her. He went to wrap his arms around her but Jessie stepped aside with a grin.

"Don't touch me, you have fishy hands." She commanded with a laugh, giggling even more when he continued after her. Chris had finally managed to corner her into the cabinet in front of the sink, tickling her with a grin on his face, when the phone rang, causing them both to look toward the living room.

"We don't have to answer it." Chris muttered as he kissed Jessie gently. She looked at him for a moment wistfully before stepping away from him in headed toward the phone cradle; she didn't know why, but something inside of her told her that she needed to answer the phone. Perhaps it was someone from one of the many companies she had applied to work for.

Jessie picked up the phone and clicked it on, though she wasn't even able to finish saying 'hello' before the person on the other end of the line started talking. "Jessie, it's Sadie; this is an emergency. I lied to you, I went camping in the woods and something out there is chasing us. He...it killed Richard's sister and popped our tires so we can't leave and-" The panicked voice of her little sister was cut off by the sound of glass shattering and someone else screaming. "They're back, Jessie you have to help us! They're going to kill us! Please, we're just off Bear Mountain Road. Jessie-" The line suddenly went dead, leaving Jessie staring at it in disbelief. Phones didn't simply just die unless there was something wrong; had Sadie been-

Chris interrupted her thoughts by saying, "Jess, what's the matter?" He had a concerned look upon his face as he exited the kitchen and headed toward her.

All of the sudden, Jessie felt a wave of fear cross over her and she suddenly felt panicked; her little sister was in trouble, in the clutches of the same 'people' that had murdered her best friends. "Sadie she... she went camping and they found her. Those things that killed Carly and Scott." She looked at Chris with anxiety upon her face. "Oh Chris, they're going to kill her...we have to..." She trailed off, knowing that she had to save Sadie but worried that they couldn't make it in time.

Chris wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him; this time Jessie didn't resist and let herself be comforted by him, just as she had all those nights she had woken with nightmares. This time, the nightmare was real.