And then there was prom. Liz had never wanted to go to prom. Prom was everything she was scared of; pressed-bodies sweat, body odor and the smell of lip gloss. And trying to talk to people, make conversation, to stutter and redden and try to fit in a dress, a dress to cover up her hideous shriveled ...

He had shouted a lot, at the table, when he had lost at cards. He had been trying to count too, but he did it badly; he lost track when he got excited. He had given her his locker combination and he'd been honest; it was full of soda and chips. She'd scrounged it for dinners for a week, this and the...

(Alice Boucher continued from Wishing Well ) And now, a day later, she was here. A church. And a gun. MP-40. Submachine gun. Alice knew this gun. She didn't know many guns, but this one was different. Alice's father had owned such a gun. Kept it under the floorboards, in a room that was not the bedr...

Liz breathed. It hurt. She felt like she had been screaming for a very, very long time. Someone had been strangling her, and she was not dead. She wasn't sure what had happened, but now the boys were gone. And her knife and her pack were her own. She sat up, and coughed white mucus into her hands. H...

She had forgotten how big Nick the derp was until he smashed her onto the ground. The impact made her head feel sick. "YOU DID THIS! WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID CUT HIS HEAD OFF? WHAT THE FUCK?!" She had also forgotten that he as a wrestler. It was unnerving to be taken down so fast. She didn't ...

Liz got up and tried to move softly past the door. Two boys in the church, hunh? It sounded like a nursery rhyme. She moved past the door. And Nick, in all his goofy happy hunga-munga-ness, chose that moment to open it up. Motherfucking shit! Liz whirled, her arm cocked with the sharp stone. "Y...

(Liz Polanski continued from Come And See ) Manually decapitating a body is hard, even with a knife. Tendons are a bitch to cut (who knew?) and the spine is not only a wiggly, inseparable bastard, but fairly unsettling to deal with. Liz had not played much attention in biology class, but with spines...

The whispers. "It will be alright. It will be alright. I promise you, Sarah. I will not leave you." She was speaking in French. She could not speak English now. Surely Sarah would understand. Alice's Mama had said these words to Alice, once, long ago. It was a lie, it was always a lie. But...

At first, it was easy for Alice to be nonchalant. No one was here. The emptiness was palpable in the old mining buildings, here covered in grey dust. A quarter shined behind the counter in a building that Alice thought had to have once been a depot. She picked it up. It was an American quarter, the ...

(Alice Boucher and Sarah Atwell --> Tactic Static ) And now they were back in the mine. There were rickety wooden buildings above them, a badly tended-to road. Grass was growing between her feet. By some unspoken agreement, she and Sarah had managed to avoid seeing Brock Mason; Alice still dreaded s...

More people had appeared on the hill. Calling, crying, slipping, falling oh no, oh no, I don't want to kill them all! Cock the gun. Shoot her. Cock the gun. You can do it. She won't even notice. And then Sarah said something surprising, and merciful. "I guess you're right. I'd rather not have a...

BANG And Alice screamed. Death, so close. I never - 'till just now, decided to do the right thing, even if it was dumb, just cause it was the right thing. Brock Mason. B060. Eliminated. And there was blood, so much blood, all from his head, so much blood. A the monster gun wasn't a gentle way to go...

Alice turned on the camera, and zoomed, and stared. She sat on the rocks, as far away from Brock and Sarah as she could without looking suspicious. Perched on a rock, knees to her chest. She had strapped him down, taped the gun to him, stuck his fingers to the trigger. She was trying not to imagine ...

Yes. She was cracked. And Brock Mason was charging. It was time for Alice to step in. Her mind was scrolling, moving too fast; she was catching only a few thoughts at a time. She was trying to think about fights, and getting the voice of her school's unhelpful P.E. teacher, who had taught a mandator...

"Alice, I just heard the most incredible story." Alice's mama was giggly tonight. She must have been hitting the wine a little too hard. She had just come in from a dinner party, in a burst of cold night air, and had flopped down on the living room couch, next to her daughter. Alice was w...