Hello, again! This is Chris Hargensen's glorious and well-deserved death scene, though it's based more on the events that unfolded in the 2013 movie version than King's book. Hope you rejoiced in her death as much as I did! Warning: some gruesome imagery.
The valves on a residential fire hydrant ring like bells as they clang repeatedly inside and out of the hydrant, trembling with resistance to the energy tugging at them. A split-second later, water gushes out with killer, unrelenting force. The valves careen into the air and off cars, leaving enormous dents and blaring car alarms in their wake. Tidal waves of water rush over fallen electrical lines, igniting the dark streets with sporadic bursts of fiery light. Faint screams resound off the shells of abandoned buildings, filtering up and down streets void of people. A lone figure staggers through the carnage, seemingly untouched by the invisible forces at work. Something unidentifiable from a distance – some kind of thick, viscous substance – drips from her hair like liquid rubies.
Except that this isn't a fairy-tale, and those aren't jewels.
The foul, pungent stench of blood exudes from the girl, seeping from her very pores. She struggles to place one foot in front of the other, her progress slow but determined, single-minded: her eyes remain locked steadfastly on a car up ahead, engine rumbling like a lion's warning. Despite the various fires burning throughout the town, the air around her nostrils puffs visibly; the temperature has dropped exponentially just within a few hours. Gone is the sunshine and the fresh spring air; everything appears frigid, icy, untouchable. And yet the girl seems unaffected by her surroundings. She continues to walk towards the 1961 Impala with a manic look in her bloodshot eyes. Suddenly, the headlights flash on, blinding her.
"I knew it," Chris Hargensen screams. "It's Carrie! Cut that bitch down, Billy!" She hits the dashboard with the palms of her hands, an irrepressible sense of excitement surging through her. Her bleached-white teeth are chattering – either from the drastic change in weather or her mounting fear, she doesn't know – and her body jerks like that of a puppets'. Next to her, Billy Nolan shakes his head slightly, never taking his narrowed eyes off the girl in front of them.
"Let's mow her down," he says with a beastly grin. "A death befitting a pig."
A bark of hysterical laughter explodes from Chris's mouth. At this point, she's well into being truly insane with fright. Carrie White stands less than twenty feet in front of them, with nothing but the Impala's windshield separating them. Her pink dress is ragged and covered with blood, as are her arms, hair, and face. In some places the pig's blood has already dried, leaving dark red imprints on her ghostly pale skin. The contrast is unnerving. The girl looks deranged, in Chris's eyes. There's something about her expression, in her eyes, that makes her feel like the world is about to end. Or at least her world.
"Go, already," she screams, reaching over to smash her fist against the steering wheel. Billy doesn't seem to need any other incentive; his foot presses all the way down on the gas, and his Impala shoots forward. Barreling down on the ugly bitch, Chris lets out a wild scream, feeling both fearful and manically energized by the crime they're about to commit. Except she considers this "crime" an act that will benefit the world.
The car lurches towards Carrie, but she doesn't so much as flinch. The headlights grow wider and brighter the closer they come, and the noise of the engine is so loud that her ears have become numb to everything else. Her arms, legs, and head ache; her body is a mass of exploding nerves. But it's her heart that pulses with an unending pain. She can barely breath through the agony that so completely engulfs her. Carrie's memories of the night are scattered, disjointed. She can only piece together split-second instances; that's all her brain seems capable of now.
The dress. That's the first thing she remembers. Putting on the dress, the beautiful dress she'd been working on – no, slaving over – for prom. The silky pink folds, all the tiny, shimmering gemstones, the way it fell smoothly across her stomach and hips, how the hem lightly brushed the floor. Then her mother, screaming and crying and begging her not to go, warning her that they would all laugh at her. Laugh at her dress, at her face, at her efforts, at her clear desperation to fit in. Carrie locked Momma up in a closet just to shut her up. Then the prom itself. Entering the gymnasium, which had been transformed into a scene just out of an old movie, with Tommy Ross on her arm. Everyone looked so pretty, and everyone was so nice to her. Then the dancing, the voting, the prom king and queen…and then the bucket.
The blood. Tommy on the floor, eyes open and unseeing. Chaos everywhere. People shrieking, falling over each other in their haste to escape. Sparks flying, igniting, burning. Carrie tore them apart for what they did to her. They ruined the one night that she thought would be perfect, the one night that was supposed to mean something. The boys and girls, her peers, her so-called friends, will burn forever for that. But someone else still has to pay, and the girl in question just happens to be speeding towards her at this very moment.
Carrie feels a smile slide over her lips.
Twenty feet, fifteen, ten. The Impala closes the distance between them with leaps and bounds, and before she knows it, the car is seconds from hitting her. But she knows that she has the power to stop that from happening. She has the power to fight back, but not only that; she has the power to win against those who have been trying to destroy her. Tonight's a night for dying, but Carrie isn't the one who's going to perish. The world's been too cruel for far too long; now it's time for some payback.
The harsh glare of the headlights block out everything, but before they can overwhelm her, Carrie lifts her arm and thrusts her hand in front of her, palm-out. The movement is languid, seemingly effortless. The Impala, six feet away, halts in its tracks, made immobile by an invisible force. The front bumper folds in on itself, the metal screaming as it's pushed inward. The hood crunches, and the force exuding from Carrie ripples across the surface of the car like a heat wave. In the driver's seat, Billy lurches forward, his nose connecting with the steering wheel. The delicate bones shatter, and blood pours out like a dam has broken. Chris, who's wearing a seatbelt, jerks violently at the sudden cessation of motion, and she screams wordlessly as the joints in her shoulder pop out of place. There's a deep mark embedded in the skin of her neck where the belt digs in, and her back immediately aches from whiplash. Beside her, Billy's body curls in, and he's doubtlessly been rendered unconscious from the blow to his head.
Chris takes a deep breath as the tires bounce back to earth.
What if he's dead? she thinks, panic blooming within her chest. She leans over, frantically shaking his limp arm, but instantly stops when pure agony flares from her dislocated shoulder. Groaning, she blinks and spots Carrie through the windshield, no more than five feet away now. No! How are you still alive? You fucking bitch, you fucking freak! Before she can restart the car or reach for the door handle, however, her seatbelt takes on a mind of its own and digs into her body, restraining her. She thrashes, but that only succeeds in tightening the belt on her neck. The pressure escalates, and her throat closes up. Chris madly scrambles to jab the release button, and just as her vision starts to fill with black, she hears a distant click, and the seatbelt flies off.
Gasping, Chris gazes with terrified eyes through the windshield. She can't see Carrie anymore. Where is she? the bruised girl thinks wildly. Where is the little bitch? Rubbing her neck, she latches onto the door handle and tumbles out of the totaled Impala. Staggering sideways, she glances back just in time to see Billy's body lift into the air. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Dangling limply twenty feet above the ground, Billy remains dead to the world, his arms and legs swinging lazily back and forth. She isn't really sure what to make of this, but a mounting sense of dread informs her that whatever happens next isn't going to be good.
Suddenly Billy's head snaps up, and his eyes open, though they stare blearily ahead. Chris lets out a surprised gasp. He doesn't say anything or make any move to get down. His expression also remains blank, neutral, indifferent. From behind her, she hears a low chuckle. The sound is far from human. Whirling, Chris spots Carrie standing in the middle of the darkened road, her hand outstretched. She's concentrating on Billy. A wild thought enters Chris's head: Is she…controlling him? Is she the one who lifted his head and opened his eyes? She laughs aloud, a startled, hysterical noise. No, this isn't possible, none of this can happen, not here, not to us, but especially not to fucking Carrie White, of all people. That's just too ironic, that someone like her could do something like this.
A loud, sharp noise breaks Chris out of her heightened state of panic. At first, she assumes something hit the shredded Impala because it sounded like metal glancing off metal. Or maybe a pipe snapping in two. But then she sees Billy's arm, bent and twisted at an inhuman angle, his elbow and wrist jutting out in odd places, and she realizes that most of the bones in her boyfriend's right arm are broken.
"No," she whispers, horrified.
Then the noise comes again. This time, Billy's left arm is the focus of Carrie's wrath; the skin looks warped and his elbow sticks out in a grotesque manner. The arm's twisted behind his back in an impossible way. And then the noise comes a third time. His left leg breaks in several places, the bones sticking out through his calf. His knee is bending the complete opposite way that it should, and his foot is turned all the way around so that the heel is in front and the toes are in back. As Chris watches, all of Billy's toes are twisted into a vertical position. The noise comes again, this time from his right leg. The same thing happens; broken bones through his calf, knee bent, foot turned, toes ripped loose of their rightful positions. Billy's mouth works soundlessly against the pain.
And the noise comes again. His neck snaps, but his eyes are still aware, still searching aimlessly for relief.
Again. His pelvis cracks, fracturing into bit-sized pieces.
Again. His ears are pulled away from his head, making a rubbery, slapping sound as they hit the pavement.
Again. His fingers are pulled off one by one by one, bones popping like the cork out of a wine bottle.
Slowly, methodically, Billy Nolan is pulled apart, piece by meaty piece. Blood oozes from every orifice; his bulging eyes, toothless mouth, the holes where his ears had been, his broken nose. Broken veins ripple through his body, turning his skin black and blue. Carrie doesn't take her eyes off the body until she has ripped his still-beating heart out of his chest. She makes it hang in the air for a moment, letting Chris get a good, hard look, before she tosses it away with a flick of her wrist. It lands in a patch of dead flowers. Then, gently, almost reverently, Carrie slides the distorted, monstrous body back into the driver's seat.
It's only when Carrie's attention turns on Chris does she open her mouth. "NO," she screams, her voice so unnecessarily loud in the silence. "No, no, no, no, no!"
But Carrie merely smiles and nods, as if to say, "Oh, yes, yes, yes!"
"Please," Chris shrieks, tripping over her feet as she moves backward. Carrie just lifts her far enough into the air so that her feet can't touch the ground. Sobbing, the trapped girl writhes in mid-air, arms and legs flailing helplessly. Her captor watches with mild amusement, but the sadistic gleam doesn't leave her eyes. She's nowhere near done with this one.
Carrie closes her out-stretched hand into a fist. Immediately, Chris's eyes start to bulge and her hands grope at her throat. The oxygen flow is now restricted to little more than a wisp here and a wisp there; Carrie keeps the pressure on as she takes her time breaking her fingers. The Hargensen girl's mouth opens wide each time with an exhalation of intense pain, but since there's no oxygen, there's no sound either. Carrie thanks the lord Himself for that. This would be much more difficult if she had to deal with the girl's annoying whining and screaming. Finally, growing somewhat bored with the torture and having finished with her fingers, Carrie releases her invisible grip on Chris's throat, and she gasps and gasps, tears streaming down her face and into her open mouth. Black mascara covers her cheeks. Now who's the ugly one, Carrie thinks with a manic sort of happiness.
Keeping her in the air, Carrie mentally punches the rest of the broken windshield into small, jagged pieces and brings them, swirling and glinting, through the air in a magical dance. They float around Chris, the sharp edges menacing even as they bounce and twirl. Reopening her fist, Carrie lets all of the glass pieces strike her enemy's face. The girl does scream now, long and loud, as they bury deep within the skin of her cheeks, jaw, and forehead. One hits her directly in the eye, and her screams turn blood-curdling. Carrie's mouth twitches. She hates the sound of her voice, and yet the agony is so clear; she sighs, at peace now that the girl's finally suffering. Well, almost at peace.
Tossing her body carelessly into the passenger seat of the Impala, Carrie locks the doors and tightens the seatbelts around her prisoners, although it's far from likely that either one of them is in a state to escape. Still, she can never be too careful. She releases Chris from her mental grip and instead lifts up the car itself, spinning it around so that it faces to the right. About five-hundred feet away, an empty gas station waits solemnly. Smiling, Carrie starts the engine, presses down on the gas pedal, and flings the car into the gas pumps.
The explosion shakes the earth, Chris Hargensen's final screams filling the cold night air. The heat fans over Carrie's body, momentarily catching the hem of her dress on fire. She barely glances at it before waving a hand to put it out. Car parts fly in different direction, impaling trees and breaking through store windows. A particularly large piece smacks against a car and flips it on its side. Flames and voluminous smoke rise high into the gloomy night, reaching for the full moon hanging above. Carrie can smell gas more than anything, but there's an undercurrent, a subtle smell of…burning flesh. She feels laughter building in her throat, but she won't allow herself to admit victory until she rids the earth of one more unnecessary woman.
Momma waits at home, pain and punishment awaiting her return. But won't she be surprised when Carrie arrives, fire in hand, to take her down? It will be an easy task; Momma relies on the Lord for help, but the Lord never returns her pleas. Such a stupid woman. Skipping down the dark road, stomach and chest and heart filled with longing and madness, Carrie looks up at the sky and sees the reflection of everything burning down on earth. Everything's burning; the sky, the ground, the air, the bodies…
At last, she thinks. The monster is dead.
And one more will soon follow.