Mere moments after Sidney hung up on him, Dewey received another call; it was from Jill. It was the first time she had utilized his number, and considering her track record of directly defying his orders, this must be serious. He answered only to be met by a frantic Jill, who had been running through the woods being followed by either a crazy ex or the second killer, or both. He tried asking her questions - Which direction from the school had she run? Was there any identifying landmarks that could tell him where specifically she was in the woods? Was she hiding or running? - but he never got the chance to get an answer as she continued to panickily spew before she abruptly hung up. *Damn*.
He hit a U-turn so hard that one side of his cruiser nearly pulled off the ground, tires screeching as they skidded against the pavement. He quickly decided not to tell Sidney where he was going, as he had seen far too many injuries to his loved ones in the past day than he could ever deal with, so he didn't want to add another person to the roster of people he had to worry about - and plus, he subconsciously longed to bust a cap right between this Ghostface's eyes. He still had to call Gale and Tatum and tell them of Sidney and his' whereabouts though. He silently cursed to himself, knowing full well that the moment he said they'd be out late that Gale and Tatum would clock in on what was happening, but it was either that or they were left worried about the status of their partners.
He tried calling Tatum but his call cut out from a lack of reception on the back road he was taking to get to the elementary school; luckily though, he was able to leave a message. "Hey Tate," he said, trying to smooth out his voice. "Gonna be a little out later than usual. You know, with everything that happened yesterday, that they're gonna need me around a bit longer. Oh, and Sidney's gonna be late too. She said she was helping out her Aunt and Jill run some errands on account of them not being able to leave the house at night *and* the new curfew in place. But we'll be back before you know it, alright? Tell Gale I love her. And I love you too, Tate."
He sent the voicemail and prayed to whatever deity there was that the two believed it, even if it was the most unlikely outcome. When he finally pulled up to the school, he jumped out of his cruiser before the car even stopped, pistol and flashlight in hand. He searched around the area to find anything that could clue him in on where Jill, and presumably the killer, went off to, but there was nothing - no loose dirt, no footprints, no snapped twigs. But there had to be something, there's no way the killer, quite literally, covered their tracks their whole trek through the woods.
He began to think that maybe something Jill had said over the phone got lost in translation, and it made him to smack himself in the head. *"Goddammit Dewey, think!"* he thought, but nothing came to him - he had gotten every word of her call, what was he missing? Sidney's last call crossed his mind, and he remembered that she said she was going to the Reed's residence - wait, why there? She was clearly looking for Jill just as he was, so why would she be going there? Did Jill tell her she was there? Was she already caught by the killer and now they were making her tell Sidney and him random places to go to in order to throw them off their scent? Or was Jill...?
"Holy shit," he mumbled, accidently letting his thoughts bypass his lips. He rushed to his cruiser and jumped inside with great speed, almost fumbling his seatbelt from the pure adrenaline pumping through his veins. He blasted down the road in the direction of the Reed's home, his eyes continuously glancing over at his dashboard's clock to see how long it was taking him to get there. He had no time to pick up his phone and call Sidney to tell her what he was thinking was happening, so he hit the pedal harder - thankfully with the new curfew he had set, almost no cars were on the road.
As Tatum and Gale were arguing, Tatum's phone beeped with a voicemail alert. She took it quickly, still sitting in the wheelchair, and listened to Dewey's message, putting it on speaker for Gale to hear. Both of them scowled as they read in between the lines of what he did and didn't say, already knowing from speaking to Sidney what they were actually up to.
"Always trying to protect us," Tatum rolled her eyes, heaving a dramatic sigh. "You'd think they'd learn by now that we aren't going for that, wouldn't you?"
"I still think you should stay here," Gale tried to move around Tatum and her wheelchair, but Tatum grabbed Gale's left uninjured arm with her own stronger right arm, holding her in place.
"You leave me here and I'll press the call button and rat you out to the nurse faster than you can take two steps. You know I will."
The two of them stared each other down for several moments before Gale relented, rolling her eyes right back at Tatum.
"Fine. If you die, you better let Sid and Dewey know first that it's not on me, I told you to stay your ass behind."
"No worries, I'll send a message in the afterlife," Tatum said breezily. "Let's go, we're losing time."
"Weapons," Gale reminded her. "Not about to go into a kill zone without any."
She peeked out of the doorway of Tatum's room and immediately noticed that the room across the hall from her had an unconscious patient, a tray full of doctor's tools set out before their bedside, and was currently empty. No telling just when the doctor would come back, so with a fast look back and forth, she darted into the room, seized two scalpels, and practically leapt across the hall back to Tatum's room, pressing one into Tatum's hand. She slid the other up the sleeve of her borrowed jacket, rolling the cuff to keep it in place, and Tatum secured hers under her thigh in the wheelchair. Gale started to push Tatum's wheelchair with purpose, head up, her movements awkward with having only one arm free to use to push, but she tried to use her body to propel it forward as well, even though this sent flares of pain through her bruised stomach. She hoped that the wheelchair concealed most of her hospital gown from being seen, as well as the fact that she was in socks.
They had almost left the wing entirely when they heard a doctor speaking in the distance. "I'm missing two scalpels- has anyone-"
At that, Gale quickened her pace shoving through the exit doors of the wing. Now in the waiting room of the ER, she made fast strides towards the exit, hoping that no one would pay enough attention to them to stop them. Luckily for her, there was an influx of patients coming up to the front desk, signing in, and several others asking about wait times, so she and Tatum slipped out the door without being stalled. However, a new problem occurred to Tatum as soon as they hit the sidewalk in front of the hospital.
"Gale. Gale, we don't have a fucking car!"
Gale halted, realizing with frustration that this was true. Hers had been towed from the barn back to her and Dewey's house, and Sidney had of course taken hers to Kirby's. Even if a taxi was an option in Woodsboro, which it wasn't, neither of them had money to pay for it with.
"Fuck!"
Just then, opportunity struck. As Gale scanned the parking lot, desperately trying to think of a way to convince someone, anyone, to give two people in hospital gowns a ride from the hospital they obviously were not supposed to be leaving yet, she saw a slowly approaching vehicle- not quite a car, but something close enough to count. It was a shuttle used to escort patients from the various parking lots to different areas of the hospital grounds, especially at night or if the patient had mobile difficulty. It resembled an elongated golf cart, and it was currently pulling up to the ER doors, driven by a worker with a single elderly passenger seated behind him. As Gale watched, almost holding her breath with hope that things would happen as she wanted, the driver got out, keys still in the ignition, and began to help the lady out of the shuttle and across the short distance from the drive area to the sidewalk in front of the hospital doors, clearly intending to help her inside.
That was there chance, and Gale seized it.
"Now!" she hissed close to Tatum's ear, and with all the strength she could manage with one arm, she helped hoist Tatum out of the wheelchair and to her feet, half dragging her to the shuttle and up into a seat behind her. Running around to the driver's seat, Gale moved it out of park and floored the engine- at the unbearably slow full speed of 20 miles per hour that it was designed to go.
"Hey! Come back here! Stop!" she heard the man yelling behind them, but twenty miles per hour was still faster than he could run, and she felt her face break into a grin as Tatum whooped with glee behind her, hollering her encouragement.
"Goooooo! Faster, faster! What the hell are you waiting on, gooooo!"
"This is a glorified golf cart, Tatum, this is as fast as it will go!" Gale snapped, even as she tried in vain to push its limits, socked foot pressing down hard on the gas. "Good thing Kirby lives less than five miles away from here."
"Are you serious- that means it will take like fifteen minutes to get there at this rate!" Tatum groaned, as Gale shot back at her, "Do you have a rocket somewhere to make it faster? Then shut up and be glad you're coming along at all!"
Sidney pulled into the Reed's driveway shortly after Gale and Tatum had hijacked the hospital shuttle. She took her gun in hand as she left and locked her car, taking in the surroundings of the exterior carefully. There were two cars other than Kirby's that she didn't recognize- Trevor's and Robbie's, maybe? She took her time, checking the close by bushes and other objects that a killer could be lurking behind, before making her way to the front door. It was unlocked, and as she made her way inside, still frequently scanning her surroundings for any movement or danger, she edged into the living room. There was no sign of Trevor, Jill, or Robbie, but Kirby Reed lay partially on, partially off of her couch, eyes open wide and glassy with shock, her hands pressed feebly against a stab wound to her stomach. Blood was still seeping steadily through her shaking fingers, and her face was pale, her brow lined with sweat.
"Kirby," Sidney spoke her name with some urgency, quickly scanning the room for any sign of the killer. Seeing nothing, she kept her gun drawn, asking her, "The killer- where is he?"
"I don't- I don't know," Kirby stuttered, her eyes shifting to Sidney's, but showing no relief at her arrival, only fear shining in their surface. "I don't know- am I- am I going to die?"
"No, no, you're not," Sidney tried to reassure her, going to her hurriedly and using her left hand to put added pressure over Kirby's on her stomach. She kept her right on her gun, still looking around them for movement. "Do you know who it was? Where are Trevor and Jill? Robbie?"
"I- I don't know- I…"
Her words were starting to slur, her eyes rolling back, and Sidney pushed down harder on her wound, speaking to her again.
"Kirby, stay with me. Kirby!"
But the girl was losing consciousness, even as Sidney put down her gun for a moment to lightly tap her cheek. She snatched it up hurriedly, whirring around, when she heard the noise of footsteps coming through the front door - only to find herself now pointing a gun at Gale and Tatum, barefoot and still clad in hospital gowns, nevertheless somehow standing with her in Kirby's living room. Gale had her uninjured arm around Tatum's waist, and Tatum was limping, leaning on her heavily, but they were there- and was that a fucking scalpel that Tatum had in her right hand? And another one in Gale's left, way too close to Tatum's body for anything sane and cautious minds should be attempting?
"Hi babe," Tatum said, absurdly breezily, actually waving her scalpel hand in greeting. Sidney, lowering her gun, gawked at her, eyes bulging with a combination of shock and frustration at the very sight of her and Gale both.
"Are you two actually out of your minds? What are you DOING here, how did you even get here? Do you have no self preservation instincts at all?"
"We could say the same thing about you," Gale shot back, even as she continued to struggle to hold Tatum up one-armed and Tatum struggled to stay standing after walking more in the past twenty minutes than she had in the past two days. "What the hell are you thinking, going into the final act alone? We fucking stick together, Sidney, all of us- and where the hell is Dewey, anyway? Where's Jill?"
"I haven't seen her yet, I've been a little preoccupied," Sidney shook her head, gesturing behind herself to Kirby's still unconscious frame. "Tate, come here, for god's sake, you shouldn't be standing up, let alone coming out here!"
She hurried forward to take Tatum off of Gale, helping her to sit on the couch, and started giving out directions quickly. "Tatum, put pressure on Kirby's stab wound. Gale, call Dewey and see what's holding him up, he should have been here by now, tell him to send back up. I'm calling 911. We're all staying right here, with our weapons, in the same room, we need to make sure the killer is outnumbered and surrounded."
Standing, she walked a few steps away from Tatum and Kirby as Tatum set her scalpel down beside her leg and attended to Kirby. Sidney fumbled for her phone in her pocket and took it out to dial 911 as Gale went to the landline phone on the small table beside the couch and took it out to dial Dewey's number.
"911, what is your emergency?"
"Hello, we have a stabbing victim, her name is Kirby Reed, she's 17 years old, she's breathing but unconscious," Sidney reeled off quickly. "Her attacker may still be in the house, we don't know yet if there are other people who have been hurt-"
Behind her, Gale too was on the phone with Dewey.
"Dewey? It's me, I'm at Kirby Reed's house, no time to explain. Sid and Tatum are too. Kirby's been stabbed, Jill called Tatum and said she couldn't reach Sid but Sidney said no one tried to call her. We don't see Jill now, but you need to get here as soon as-"
She cut herself off as the dark robed, white masked figure of Ghostface appeared unseen by Tatum, Sidney, and Kirby just behind the couch, and she screamed out a warning.
"He's here, look out!"
But even as Sidney whirled around, dropping the phone as she drew her gun with both hands, the killer's hand came down, shoving Tatum back against the couch and holding her there as his other hand raised high, bringing the sharp blade of the knife down into her stomach. Tatum's features contorted with pain, and she cried out, the hands on Kirby's stomach automatically coming towards her own as the killer withdrew his knife and raised it again. Sidney shot him twice, but hit his torso rather than his head when he twisted and dove to the ground behind the couch. As she came around its right side in pursuit, the killer scrambled on his hands and knees around the left, grabbing Gale's leg and pulling her to the ground with a sharp tug. Gale uttered a pained inhalation as she landed on her injured arm and shoulder, but she managed to grab her scalpel from the table holding the landline phone, stabbing it into the killer's armpit as he raised his hand to stab her. She heard a gasp of pain, and she fought back, kicking out at him. It wasn't enough to stop his knife from jabbing into her left side, scraping hard against rib and reopening long ago healed scar tissue from her gunshot wound.
There was another shot fired, and suddenly the killer went still, the weight of his body fully over Gale's. As Sidney came forward, rolling him off of her, Gale shuddered, breathing rapidly, and tried to pull herself up to a sitting position, but with her right arm immobile and her left side now reinjured, it was impossible. Sidney tugged the mask off of the prone figure between them, revealing the face of Robbie Mercer, one of the other members of the Woodsboro Cinema Club. Sidney showed little expression as she stared down at him.
There was one bullet left in her gun, and she was left with the uneasy feeling that the identity of all the killers or would be killers had not yet been fully resolved. What had happened in Jill's bedroom? Where were Trevor and Jill, if Robbie was the other killer?
"Stay here," she said in an undertone to Gale and Tatum, although they had little choice in the matter by now. "Help's coming, it's going to be okay. I'm going to look for Jill."
"Sid, I don't think-" Tatum started, her voice shaking, but Gale shushed her, keeping her voice low.
"Shh. Dewey's coming, and she called the police. Play dead. Keep your hand on your wound, close your eyes, and be still."
With a last glance back at the others, Sidney started down the hallway, listening hard, every muscle tensed as she watched for any further movements ahead or behind herself. As she drew further down the hallway, she heard what sounded like a faint whimpering noise. Gun ready, she threw open the door closest to her, revealing a bathroom. Stepping inside and looking behind the shower curtain, she found nothing. Back in the hallway, the whimpering sounded louder to her, and it appeared to be coming from a smaller doorway to her left. A hallway closet?
Sidney opened it with one jerky motion, and out tumbled a tangle of arms and legs, long dark hair briefly obscuring the faces of the two whom had been inside. But the petite limbs of the female scrambled backward on her hands and feet, sobbing, hyperventilating, and Sidney recognized Jill, her features taut with fear. The other person, lying at her feet, was a tall, dark-haired young man whom Sidney didn't recognize, but then, it didn't appear to matter. The young man was dead, his torso and face slashed with stab marks, but most shocking to Sidney was the blood spread thickly over the crotch of his pants. Had he been stabbed in the penis?
"S-Sidney?" Jill sniffled, looking up at her cousin with wet brown eyes. "Oh my god, Sidney…I was s-so scared! Oh god…"
She started to get to her feet with apparent difficulty, flinching, and Sidney lowered her gun, moving to help her up. Jill clung to her with both hands, crying and talking rapidly.
"It's Robbie, he- he got Kirby…he did this to Trevor," she wept, tears streaming as she looked up at Sidney pleadingly. "I-I tried to help him… he was hurt so bad, and I-I pulled him in the closet with me to hide. But he was…he was too bad off…he's dead, isn't he? Everyone's dead but me, I could hear the shooting, I could hear people scream- where's Robbie? Oh my god, where's Robbie?"
"I got Robbie, Jill, it's okay," Sidney tried to calm her down, keeping her voice low and soothing. "He's dead, I promise. You're going to be okay, it's over."
Slowly, all traces of tears disappeared from Jill's face, and a wicked smile curved her lips.
"Good," she hissed.
Letting go of Sidney suddenly, she elbowed her in the throat with a sharp, vicious jab. As Sidney's eyes bulged and she choked, her fingers automatically opening and going up to protect herself, her grasp on the gun loosened. Jill followed up with a second elbow to her solar plexus, causing Sidney to fall to her knees, doubled over and gasping for breath as she dropped the gun. Jill snatched it up and held it to Sidney's head, still smiling as she followed up, "Then my plan has all worked out perfectly. It's just me and you- and soon, it will just be me. The new and better Final Girl."
Still struggling to breathe, Sidney stared up at her, stunned, unable to speak. Finally she managed to choke out, "Jill…why?"
She chuckled without warmth or humor, raising her voice. "Don't you get it, Sidney? I thought you were so smart, I thought you always figured this shit out! I'm the victim- but I made fucking sure of it. Charlie was game- between his being so pathetically in love with me and his love for fucked up gory movies, he got off on being a bigger, better villain than everyone else before. And Robbie- well, he was a late game addition, thanks to you. I couldn't have a little thing like you killing Charlie fucking up my final act, so Robbie needed just a little persuasion to play the role of his lifetime. Threatening to kill him if he didn't kill everyone else first was all the motivation that little pussy needed to find his inner murderer. And now?"
She chuckled, stroking the gun in her hand almost lovingly. "Now, it's my turn. Everyone is so in awe over you- Sidney Prescott, the victim, the hero, the survivor, Sidney, the fucking superstar! You don't even live here anymore and everyone talks about you, every fucking year, every fucking day! Even my own MOTHER can't stop herself from talking about you and your slut of a mother, do you have any idea how the two of you have ruined my life? I can't be anything but Sidney's cousin, Maureen's niece- but now, I'm going to be the famous one, I'm going to be the one everyone talks about! It's over for you, Sidney- it's my fucking turn to shine!"
"I never wanted any of this, Jill," Sidney tried to reason with her, her voice still hoarse. "I never asked for this. I-"
"No, you didn't ask for this, but you still fucking got it! All this fucking attention, all these people fucking worshipping your name, and you didn't even WANT it! And what the fuck do I have to do for the same thing- I have to go and do more than you ever did, I have to actually work for it, I have to make things happen!" Jill shouted, jabbing her gun at Sidney until it almost hit her in the face. "I deserve this, Sidney, more than you ever did. I earned this!"
"Jill, you won't get away with this," Sidney rasped, still trying to buy herself time, to stall Jill just long enough that she could get away, lash out with enough strength to avoid getting shot in the process- or to let the police arrive. "The killers never do. You know how things happened before, you know how they happen in the movies. The villains die. You want to be a villain, you'll die too."
"But that's the beauty of it, Sidney," Jill said coldly, the same twisted smile on her face. "I'm not the villain, remember? I'm a victim- I'm a survivor. This was all Charlie and Robbie- they were the ones in the masks. Too bad for you that they killed you first, before I could save you."
She lifted the gun, holding it steady to Sidney's head.
"Any last words, Former Final Girl?"