Two Final Girl Micros
by Meghan Phillips
In the Town Where All the Final Girls Live
It is always fall, a permanent October. The leaves are always golden and crisp and falling falling falling. There are piles of leaves on lawns, still green and plush despite the chill in the air. There are friendly men with rakes and flannel shirts that wave when you walk by. There are other men standing behind bushes and crouched next to car fenders and lurking lurking lurking under window sills at dusk.
In the town where all the final girls live, there are pumpkins on porches, all kitchen-knife carved. The soft glow of the tea lights spilling from their mouths. There are white picket fences, posts like the most perfectly straightened teeth. Gates that latch but don’t lock. Gates that rattle when a car goes by just a little too fast or when a breeze blows just a little too hard or when an unfamiliar hand fumbles with the catch.
In the town where all the final girls live, something bad is happening. Something bad has already happened.
In the town where all the final girls live, there are second floor windows with curtains drawn back. Cracked open just a bit so the cool air can come in and the warm lamplight can trickle out. There are girls in their rooms deciding what to wear to meet their boyfriends, to party in the woods, to babysit down the block at the Johnsons’. There’s a feeling they are being watched. That there is something just beyond the lemon pool of light on the grass. Something waiting waiting waiting for them to come out.
The Final Girl Takes Her Driver's Test
The last time she was alone in a car with a man he had tried to kill her. His breath ragged through the holes in his rubber mask. His fingers pressing, pressing the tender corridor of her throat. He asked, do you wanna die?
The examiner sighs, adjusts his seatbelt. Busies his hands with pen and clipboard as she adjusts her mirrors. As she checks the backseat in the rear-view (as she checks the backseat in the rear-view). As she eyes the orange cones scattered across the parking lot like teenage bodies across the grounds of Camp Broken Rock. She wraps her fingers around the steering wheel. He asks, are you ready to begin?
Meghan Phillips is the author of the flash fiction chapbook Abstinence Only (Barrelhouse). She was a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. You can find her writing at meghan-phillips.com and her tweets at @mcarphil.
