The Final Girl(s)

Doors of a dilapidated church burst open as tornado sirens blare into the empty corners of the weathered church from outside. Cassie and Susanna Cruz go through the wooden doors and as Cassie proceeds forward, Susanna shuts the heavy doors and places nearby furniture against them as a barricade. Cassie doesn’t pay too much mind to what Susanna is doing at this point. It doesn’t matter anymore. Every action they’ve tried, every possibility Cassie can think of, it doesn’t matter. Every choice has led them to the same outcome: death. 

A flash of lightning illuminates the stained glass windows of the church. Looking down at her feet, Cassie sees red light cast upon her. As Susanna approaches Cassie after barricading the door, Cassie looks up toward the window and another flash of lightning illuminates the window once again. Saint Vincent Ferrer was looking back toward her as he pointed up in the sky of his stained glass portrayal. This storm was not subsiding any time soon.

“Cassie, we need to get down into the basement. That’s the only way we can live through this storm.” Susanna says to Cassie. In response, she turns and glares at her sister.

“There is no living through this, Suzy. We’ve seen our friends massacred and laid out for us to see at every turn. As if Death is trying to tease us that we have no control over what’s going to happen to us!” Cassie says and begins to walk through the sanctuary to the chancel. Susanna walked close behind her, reacting to the loud flashes of lightning with flinches.

“Cass, each of those times-” a flash of lightning, “- Each of those times, you tried to warn them. It’s not your fault they didn’t listen or believe you.”

“Really?” Cassie turns around to face Susanna. “When I told my boyfriend that his necklace was going to act as a razor blade to his throat and rip out his Adam’s apple if he goes to his shift, did that stop him? Did that stop the MRI machine barreling through hospital doors and grabbing hold, not only of his neck, but also a multitude of scalpels and surgical instruments that imbedded themselves deep into his body? Did him not believing me cause his death or what if he did believe me and he took off his necklace? Would Death still not kill him in some way?” Cassie says and sits in a nearby pew.

“I don’t think having some kind of premonition, or seeing something, is going to stop either of us from dying by Death’s hand and-” Cassie begins to shudder and rests her head in her hands. Covering and pressing the palms into her eyes until she sees bright circles behind her eyelids, she laughs to herself about the situation.

“And?” Susanna asks for Cassie to continue.

“I was tired of seeing my friends die. I felt like killing myself when I saw my boyfriend die.” Cassie picks her head up from her hands and stands up. Throwing her hands and arms out she looks up to the ceiling of the church and screams. “And you didn’t even let me kill myself! You’re letting me rot in my own body as everyone I’ve loved is taken away from me!” She kicks the pew in front of her and spots a sharp piece of wood snap upward toward Cassie. She laughs in response to it.

“Why can’t I join them sooner! Why can’t I have control over my own god damned fate!” Her hoarse screams echo off the walls of the sanctuary. In between raspy breaths, tears begin to fall from the corner of her eyes. She sits back down and begins to try and collect herself. Susanna stands at a slight distance, allowing her sister time. She reaches out toward Cassie but then pulls away, not knowing what she needs at this moment. 

 “Now, I’m going to see how my sister is going to die and see it carried out in front of me.” Susanna looks toward Cassie in fear. Cassie, with tears coming down her cheeks, looks at Susanna and smiles weakly in tragic acceptance of the situation.

“I love you.” She says, allowing her sister to know it was her time to go and Cassie has given up on being a saviour. Susanna’s own sister has given up on her.

“You think this is fair for me? You’re not the only one who watched a loved one die!”

“Oh yeah? Who? Who did you have that could compare to what I had with Derek-!”

“Xavier!” Susanna screams back. “Xavier was going to be my- I just didn’t have the time and then when that freak accident happened- I just couldn’t deal with it. And now I have to deal with this, all by myself?” Susanna looks toward Cassie as if seeing if she had a vision.

“I got nothing.” Cassie says and goes back to feeling tears form around her eyes.

Susanna swallows the saliva in her mouth harshly and looks around more at the flashes of lightning coming through stained glass windows. The history studies courses she had gone through ran through her head as she frantically analyzed everything. Trying to find some kind of sign or glimpse to something she can do to stop this future of death coming for her. Lightning that rumbled the building and caused dust from the rafters to come down on the sisters brightened a stained glass window prominently. Unflayed Saint Bartholomew and his knife were in the window. With his illuminated eyes staring toward Susanna, she felt that it was the message she was looking for. 

“Oh, Cassie, I love you too.” She smiles back with beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She closes her eyes and lets her head down, allowing her hair to cover her face for a moment. Bringing her head back up to face her younger sister, Cassie, Susanna moves her head in a curious manner before looking directly at Cassie.

“Can you do me a favor, if I really am the next to go, you know?” Susanna asks of Cassie who raises her eyebrows in hope of giving her sister peace.

“Of course, what is it?” Cassie says as lightning flashes once again and winds from the storm whistles in through cracks of the building. Susanna doesn’t flinch this time, instead keeping her eyes on Cassie.

“Can you give me a hug?” Susanna says and opens her arms. Cassie, in response, has tears form in the corner of her eyes again. She stands from the pew and smiles, walking toward her sister, her last piece of happiness, before she’s taken from Cassie’s world. 

*Lightning flashes once again.

Within the flash of a second, Susanna clasps her hands around Cassie’s throat once she’s within arms reach. Grasping hold of her sister’s throat and trying her best to close her hands together around it, Susanna’s smile turns into a menacing grimace as Cassie’s turns into a look of shock, worry and fear.

Choking at the lack of air and closure of her throat, Cassie tries her best to break her sister’s grasp. Clawing at Susanna’s fingers and hands, then trying her face which was just out of reach. Susanna wasn’t breaking her grip and Cassie doubts she was ever planning to. It was only when Cassie grabbed the splintered piece of wood from the old church pew and stabbed it into her sister’s side did her grip loosen.

Susanna screams in pain as Cassie pushes her away and begins to cough. She clutches her throat and then chest as the air painfully went through her recently opened windpipe. 

“What are you-- What the hell are you doing Suzy?” Cassie’s rasp voice shouts toward her sister who was gripping the piece of wood in her side and debating ripping it out. Grabbing hold of it and moving it slightly, she winces in pain and lets a small scream loose. Leaving the wooden intrusion where it was, Susanna focused back on Cassie and laughed to herself as her hair began to wet with the sweat around her paling face.

“So what if there is some kind of Death,” she says in a mocking tone, “We all die, Cass! This all began when you started to have these premonitions of yours only seven days ago,” she picks up a piece of sharp rebar from concrete that fell from the ceiling long ago. “Who’s to say that it won’t end with you too. Who’s to say it’s not your fault that all of this happens? That you saying these things into the universe isn’t making them happen?” Susanna says and begins to walk toward Cassie with the rebar pointed toward her. “If it wasn’t for you, everything would’ve been normal!” 

“If it wasn’t for me,” Cassie starts to say as the winds outside get harsher, “You would’ve died on that boat and have your skin melted off by burning oil! Would you have preferred to die then?” Cassie says and Susanna laughs.

“What difference would it have made? I’m still here! The only difference now is that I can maybe stay here for longer if I kill you first.” Susanna tries to run toward Cassie and winces as she does so, causing her to begin hobbling at a fast speed instead toward her younger sister. Cassie turns and begins to run toward the chancel again. Jumping over pieces of rubble highlighted by the lightning flashing outside, she spots a set of stairs behind a door on the chancel and makes that her goal. 

She felt something immense all around her as she ran, making it feel as if energy was collecting at the center of the church. A presence was here and it was watching this all play out, waiting for the perfect time to strike. 

Winds howl into the church as stones, sticks, and metal begin to come through windows and act like makeshift small bullets and arrows being propelled through the air. Cassie screams as she ducks from the shattered glass and debris. She looks back toward Susanna who allows the glass and rubble to scratch and scar her face and body to gain some ground on Cassie. 

Cassie places her hand on the wooden floor to stabilize herself and looks forward to see a piece of cement come in through a window and land on one of the floorboards closest to her face. The weight pushes the broken floorboard up and Cassie pauses from moving just as her eye was about to be punctured on the splintered end of the board thrown up. She shudders for a moment and moves herself past it, shivers being sent down her spine as she tries to push herself forward. 

As Cassie tries to get herself on her two feet, she stops all together as a piercing pain appears in the back of her calf. Screaming in agony as she turns to see Susanna now twisting the rebar she stuck in Susanna’s calf back and forth. 

“I hope you got your tetanus shot, little sis!” Susanna says as Cassie looks at her older sister in horror. Susanna pays this look no mind as she pushes Cassie over onto her back and lifts the rebar up high into the sky. Plunging it swiftly downward, Cassie is able to adjust her sister’s aim by kicking her knee out with her uninjured leg. The rebar planted itself into the wooden floor next to Cassie’s ear as Susanna lunged downward with its momentum. Cassie, taking the chance to cause more pain, finds the wooden piece Susanna still had in her body and pushes it further inward.

Screams muffled by intensifying winds are heard only by Cassie. Her ears beginning to ring, she looks past her sister laying on top of her in pain and sees the ceiling of the church begin to crack and crumble. Moments later, the winds of the tornado scoops the ceiling off and throws it into the darkness of the sky. The sun barely coming through from a distance, Cassie screams as she feels her body lift off of the floor for a moment. 

Her sister screams as well and holds onto the rebar she had planted into the ground. Her body being lifted enough for Cassie to crawl out and try to scurry away. Her injured leg slacking behind her as she couldn’t bring herself to move it. 

“Don’t you dare leave me to die like this!” Susanna screams into the wind and tries to crawl toward Cassie with the longer piece of a broken cross in her hand as her new weapon, the dusted metal looking bright compared to the rest of the church, it was easy to spot. Once again grabbing hold of Cassie’s injured leg, she drags her back against the splintered floor and turns her over. The wind from the vicious tornado outside stops quickly as light from the Sun shined through the parted clouds and onto Susanna as she once again raised her weapon to the sky to plunge it into her sister. 

Cassie looking up through the non-existent ceiling saw they were in the eye of the storm, perfectly for a moment, there was no immense wind within the church, just the heaving breaths of both sisters. 

“See? Almost like nature agrees that this was supposed to be the outcome either way. You, dead.” Susanna says. As she raises the piece of metal even higher, Cassie notices the hair on their bodies raised and a particular vibration in the air.

“You’re right, Suzy.” Cassie says and places her good leg underneath herself, ready to push herself away from her sister. “Death is the outcome for everyone.” Cassie pushes off of her good leg with all her might away from her older sister. Susanna begins to try and plunge the  metallic ‘holy’ weapon into where her sister was but instead was struck by a lightning bolt from the storm formed with the tornado. Her body being propelled a multitude of feet away from where she was once standing, it lands with a thud against the wooden floor, certain limbs of her body smoking and twitching. 

Cassie, blown back from the lightning bolt’s impact and her own effort of pushing her body away, lifts herself up to look back at where her sister was previously standing. Shocked by the outcome, she looks up toward the sky again and sees the tornado isn’t finished yet. 

“Shit.” She says and rolls over onto her belly to try and lift herself up onto her good leg. Using the old pews as momentary crutches, she hobbled to the stairs she noticed before the murdering of her sister. Gathering herself together just in time to make it to the doorway leading into the church’s basement, Cassie feels wind begin to pick up harshly behind her. 

Looking back, Cassie sees the sizzling body of her sister running toward her with her burnt hands still clutching a metallic piece of a broken cross, screaming with all her might. Cassie opens her eyes in fear as she tries to push the heavy wooden door shut.

Watching Susanna gaining speed, she knows she won’t be able to close it in time. Just as the thought crosses her mind Cassie notices the wind pick up heavily as the tornado is proceeding past the church again. Multiple stained glass windows break as the wind flings the shards of colorful glass against the body of Susanna. Cassie finds her strength for one final push against the wooden door, disregarding her sister now getting flayed with shards of what were once beautiful things. Her screams echoed down into the chamber Cassie was taking shelter in. As the door closed fully, darkness was all that Cassie could see. Darkness and wind were the only friends she had at this moment. Cassie closes her eyes and places them in the palm of her hands again, rubbing them until she sees white circles against her eyelids.

“And?” Susanna asks for Cassie to continue.

Cassie, hearing Susanna’s voice in such a calm manner, opens her eyes in shock. Yet, there she was: alive, unflayed, unburnt. Looking toward her with care and worry. Cassie looks around and sees the church they were in was back to how they first entered. Ceiling still there, stained glass windows mostly intact, it’s almost like deja vu. 

“Cass? Did you have another premonition?” Susanna asks.

“Uh,” Cassie starts and stands up. The pew in front of her having a piece of wood splinter and break off just as it did before, or just as she predicted it was going to. Looking to her sister who was beginning to sweat profusely, Cassie debated what to do.

“Cass. What did you see?” Susanna moves toward Cassie and grabs her shoulder. “What did you see?” She asks, sounding a bit more aggravated. Cassie in response looks back to the window of Saint Vincent and then looks Susanna in her eyes. 

“If you trust me, go outside.” Cassie says.

“Wha-?”

“If you don’t want to die like how you did in my premonition, go outside!” Cassie screams in desperation. Susanna raises her eyebrows in worry but flinches at the lightning from outside. 

“Or do you not trust me, like everyone else before?” Cassie says and tears up turning away from her older sister.

Susanna takes a look at the front doors of the church and then back at her sister.

“Okay. I trust you. I’ll unblock the doors.” Susanna says before beginning to walk toward the doors and undo the barricade she just finished. Cassie however slowly turned and walked toward the door she was behind in her vision. Closing it with some effort, Cassie heard her sister call for her.

“Cass?” She said in fear.

Cassie didn’t care though. Nothing mattered anymore to her. Every outcome led to Death and now she’s simply allowing It to come and blow away her final problem.