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Dewey let out a sigh of relief as they all made it into the elevator. He pressed the button to close the doors multiple times, silently cursing the fact that doing so wouldn’t make the doors shut any faster.
“Head, Dewey! Head! Shoot him in the head!”
He froze as Sidney’s voice rang through his mind. He’d shot and possibly knocked out whoever was in the Ghostface costume but that meant they could come back and hurt or kill someone else.
Dewey’s arm shot forward, preventing the doors from closing. He stepped forward, pausing in the opening and blocking the doors with his body. “Head,” he said, staring down the hallway.
Sam frowned. “What?”
“You have to shoot them in the head or they always come back,” Dewey explained, looking back at them. Out of everyone that had worn the Ghostface costume to go on a killing spree, most of them hadn’t actually been shot in the head. Stu had been electrocuted to death from the TV Sidney had dropped on his face (and, Dewey acknowledged, probably blood loss from Billy stabbing him). Mickey had been shot multiple times in the chest. Mrs. Loomis had been shot in the throat by Cotton Weary (and then the head by Sidney). Charlie had been stabbed to death by Jill when she turned on him. And Jill had finally died after Sidney had shot her in the chest. Only Billy and Roman had been shot in the head as the way to finally stop them.
But it still felt like a rule that needed to be followed and whoever was behind the mask this time seemed more ruthless than most of the others that had come before them so Dewey wasn’t going to take a chance.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Sidney something felt different about this one. He couldn’t place it but he was determined that these kids would survive. That Gale and Sidney would survive one more time because no matter how determined Sidney was to never come back to Woodsboro, he had a feeling something would bring her back here and Gale had already ignored his warning to stay away.
“Dewey,” Sam protested, supporting her sister. “Who gives a fuck?” She looked like she wanted to reach out and drag him back with her, he realized. They barely knew each other but he could still see that Sam wanted him to stay. Whether it was for protection or because people bonded hard and fast in these types of situations, he didn’t know. And, in the end, it didn’t matter because he had to do this.
He stepped fully out of the elevator, turning to face them fully. “I do.” He watched as the doors slid shut, cutting off the protests of all three.
Dewey turned and slowly walked to where he knew the killer was sprawled out, emptying the chamber of his gun as he went and quickly reloading. He knew that if the killer wasn’t knocked out and was only faking until they could get away, then he’d just given away the fact that he was walking towards them. Then again, if they weren’t knocked out, they’d probably heard Sam, Tara, and Richie shouting as the elevator doors closed so it didn’t matter either way.
It felt like it took forever and no time at all for him to reach the killer. He kept his breathing even and raised the gun, hand as steady as ever.
His phone rang and Dewey instinctively glanced down.
As if that was the signal they’d been waiting for, the killer lunged forward, knife in hand. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, Dewey twisted out of the way, raising the hand holding the gun above his head and reaching out to shove the killer in the back with the other hand. Their momentum combined with the shove caused them to stumble into the corner of the opposite wall.
Dewey didn’t hesitate to raise the gun again, leveling it at the killer’s head, even as they straightened and spun around. They raised the knife and had only started to run forward when Dewey pulled the trigger.
He let out a breath as the killer flew backwards, landing in an awkward sprawl against the wall in a position reminiscent of how they’d fallen against the wall that was behind him earlier. For a few moments, Dewey stared at them before he took a cautious step forward. He paused and then lifted the gun and fired a second shot into their head.
“Not today,” he said softly, repeating the words he’d thrown at the killer earlier.
Though he wanted to take a few moments to allow his heart to stop pounding, Dewey slowly moved forward to the killer. Two shots to the head meant they were definitely dead but years of being attacked meant that he wasn’t going to just let his guard drop either.
Kicking the knife away from the killer, he let out a shaky breath. A small part of him thought he should probably wait until backup arrived since he was sure Sam would have called the police by now. But the rest of him just wanted to know who it was behind the mask.
Bracing himself in case a second killer came out of nowhere, Dewey reached out and pulled the mask off, stepping back as he did so.
“Sometimes, I hate being right,” he muttered, staring down at the girl who had sat only a few feet away from him earlier that day. Amber, he remembered Mindy calling her after Sam had left. The love interest or one of the close friends was always likely to be the killer. Or one of the killers.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there before the elevator dinged and he tensed, turning and raising his gun slightly. Maybe it was just the police but in this situation, it was definitely better to be prepared.
“Deputy Vinson,” Dewey said, lowering the gun as he spotted the deputy that was supposed to be guarding Tara while she was on this floor along with a number of other deputies. Then again, if he’d been here, he’d have most likely been dead.
“Sir,” Vinson replied. Dewey knew the man could never bring himself to refer to Dewey simply as Mr. Riley or by his first name but he also didn’t want to confuse things by still calling him Sheriff Riley, despite the fact that Vinson still thought of him that way. So Dewey had become “sir” once he’d been forced to retire. Vinson stopped suddenly as his eyes landed on the body against the wall. “Shit,” he blurted. “Amber Freeman? The Sheriff was just interviewing her the other day.”
“Yeah,” Dewey sighed. “I shot her twice in the head.” He held out his gun, knowing procedure.
Vinson swallowed and straightened, looking passed Dewey and to the body of his partner. He knew he should take the gun as evidence but Sheriff Hicks and her son had just been murdered, his partner was dead only a few feet away, and if things had gone just a little bit differently, he was sure that they’d be bagging Sheriff Riley’s body as well.
The Ghostface killer was dead but...well, he knew how these situations went. This was Woodsboro after all. And that meant there was probably one more killer out there that they hadn’t found yet.
But if the killer lived to be arrested for once, he didn’t want things to be screwed up because he didn’t follow proper procedure.
“Your CCW is current?” he asked.
Dewey nodded. “Yeah, I keep it up to date.”
“Okay. Then I’ll bag that and we’ll see what else we can get you unless you have another one?” Off of Dewey’s look, he shrugged. “There’s always two, right?”
“Yeah, usually,” Dewey agreed. “And no, I don’t have another gun.” He probably should have gotten a second gun at some point but a part of him had honestly thought he was done with people in Ghostface costumes trying to kill him and the people he loved.
Dewey waited until they’d started processing the scene to head towards the elevator, letting the paramedics with the body bags holding Vinson’s partner and Amber Freeman go first.
Christ, he was going to have to tell Sam and Tara that it was Amber. Sam had mentioned that Amber was Tara’s best friend and that’s how Ghostface had gotten her to play their game on the night she’d been attacked. Except now he knew it was Amber that had so brutally stabbed Tara and broken her leg.
He blew out a breath as the elevator reached the ground floor and stopped as soon as he exited the elevator, closing his eyes and allowing himself a few moments to prepare for the news he was about to deliver.
“Just do it, Dwight,” he whispered, opening his eyes. He headed for the doors and sucked in a breath at the sight that met his eyes.
Gale, screaming and crying as Sam and Richie held her back while the body bags were being loaded.
No one had told them who was killed, he realized. Without him there with the kids, Gale thought he was dead.
Shit, he thought, breaking into a run. He burst through the doors and headed straight for them. “Gale,” he called. He watched as all their gazes snapped towards him and he almost faltered when he realized that while Gale and Sam looked happy and relieved, Richie looked a mixture of pissed off, disbelieving, and grieving before his expression morphed into one that mirrored Gale and Sam’s.
Even as Gale broke out of their grips and ran towards him, Dewey knew he was going to have to find a way to come up with a plan with Gale to protect Sam and Tara and keep Sidney out of town.
He glanced over Gale’s shoulder as she threw her arms around him and wished he was wrong. But the look on Richie’s face just moments before told him he’d been right when he’d laid out the rules for Sam earlier.
Rule number one: Never trust the love interest.