I Was a Teenage Slasher

Instead of walking home from the grain elevator, Tolly goes to Amber’s house. He is unable to remember the particulars of his movement, which he blames on Justin’s blood infecting his brain. He apologizes to Shannon and Lesley, hoping they can remember him as a face in the bleachers rather than as a slasher.

Tolly wakes up in Amber’s family barn and is brought into the house for breakfast by Amber’s dad. Amber’s mom treats Tolly’s head wound. Amber arrives reading an encyclopedia, which amazes Tolly since Amber has never been much of a reader. He suspects that Amber is trying to firm up her college plans. Amber nearly steps on an ailing baby bird, which she tends to immediately. She offers to take Tolly home. Tolly asks to show her something.

Going in the direction of the Fireworks Camper, Tolly suggests running away from Lamesa. Amber expresses her concern about finishing high school. When Tolly challenges her newfound sense of responsibility, she insists that she will look after the baby bird. She holds back on cussing, which Tolly finds uncharacteristic of her.

Tolly asks Amber to explain whether Justin had any agency as a slasher. Amber explains the slasher’s motive of revenge, driving him to kill whether he was in control of himself or not. When they reach the Fireworks Camper, Tolly confesses to killing Lesley and Shannon. He also reveals that he killed them after the two of them had sex, which Amber cannot believe because of Lesley’s sexuality. Amber thinks Tolly has a concussion and doesn’t know what he’s saying. Tolly tries to show her Shannon’s corpse, but it is missing. Lesley’s corpse is also missing from the utility pole. Amber is offended when Tolly swears on his father that it happened. Tolly insists on his claims.

Sheriff Burke and Tolly’s mother find them near the grain elevator. Amber explains Tolly’s night-time movements as a symptom of his concussion. Sheriff Burke confirms that Lesley and Shannon are missing. Tolly is taken to the hospital by his mother. He has a bad dream of finding a blood-stained marching band hat-feather in one of his dad’s pump tanks. While thinking of Shannon’s mother, Tolly is reminded of his own. Tolly’s mother was a flag girl for several years. After her mother’s death, she took out a loan to buy the hardware store. The rest of her life is defined by the sudden loss of her husband and the fear of losing her son.

The doctor advises Tolly to get a good meal and some rest. He insinuates that Tolly is grieving the loss of his schoolmates. Tolly and his mother plan to go to the local drive-in cinema, the Sky-Vue, to eat. The older Tolly notes that when a fictionalized television movie about the 1989 Lamesa killings was produced, it prominently featured the Sky-Vue. This is one of the many embellishments the movie deployed, along with the decision to change Tolly’s name and mythologize his origins.

Tolly asks his mother to drop him at the hardware store so he can help out the worker-on-duty, Rodrigo. When he arrives, he finds Amber already there, falsely collecting tools to construct a birdhouse. Amber reveals that she spoke to Mel, which bothers Tolly given the role she played in his near-death experience. She wanted to know who else had strapped Tolly to the lounge chair, confirming that Lesley and Shannon were among them. She hypothesizes that Tolly had merely fantasized about killing them as a way of projecting his desire for revenge. She confirms that she knows who else had participated in the prank but refuses to tell Tolly who they were.

In the store breakroom, Amber makes Tolly pick up a butter knife. It makes the same “Schting!” noise that the knife made when Tolly picked it up in his kitchen the previous day. She makes him try it with six other kinds of knives. They all make the same sound. By contrast, Amber picks up one of the knives herself and makes no noise. Tolly manages to make the noise again when he picks up a fork.

Amber reveals that Justin’s parents have been spotted in town. Because they moved to Georgia after Justin’s death, their presence raises questions about the poolside massacre. Sheriff Burke considers them her prime suspects. Amber adds to this by suggesting they could have been responsible for Shannon and Lesley’s disappearance. Since Amber cannot supply a potential motive for killing the marching bandmembers, neither of whom were involved in Justin’s death, Tolly insists that he was the killer.

The older Tolly points out that however concerned Amber might have been for him at the time, she didn’t really have to worry since his slasher abilities included self-healing. He describes having experienced an internal organ rupture several years before he began writing his life story. The organ healed itself after two nights.

Amber lets Tolly throw several nails into a dartboard. All of them hit the bullseye with minimal effort. Amber asks for some space, so Tolly goes to help Rodrigo with cleaning and fitting new spark plugs into a pair of chainsaws. Rodrigo is skeptical that the chainsaws will work, on account of their age. Tolly accidentally pulls the ripcord on one of them, which instantly activates it. Amber watches and tells Tolly to try activating the other one. It works perfectly.

Amber pulls Tolly aside to ask him to recount his experiences the night before. When Tolly tells her about a possum he had seen near the camper, she tells him that the colorblindness he experienced enhanced his ability to see in the dark. They reach the high school and go to the football field, where a pack of wild dogs is eating scavenged food. Tolly’s presence scares them away almost at once.

Amber makes Tolly run 40 yards on the track, timing him to get his average pace. They discover that he not only runs quickly; he can also sprint faster when injured, as Amber discovers when she puts a sharp rock in his shoe and makes him limp. They embrace, frightened by their discovery.