happy little trees

by Kate Horsley

Since the day you pulled out the knife from the block in the kitchen, I can’t set foot in there, remembering the rush of blood. I hole up in the living-room where Bob Ross tells me humans don't make mistakes and for a while I can feel that each stain on the lino is one of Bob’s happy little trees. After a while, Bob signs off, replaced by Scream. I slump in the cushions and watch Drew Barrymore answer the phone and make stove-top popcorn and begin – too late – to feel scared.

Cue creepy music.

"Wise up," I tell Drew. "Think how a final girl would think."

Drew drops the phone and stares through the screen. “How 'bout you wise up, Sandy?” she asks.

I grin, unfazed (recent tragedy has left me incapable of surprise). “Bet I’d last past the first five minutes of your film.”

Drew’s pretty face stretches into a cruel smile. She presses her hands to the TV and it shivers, the soundtrack distorting. Her fingers probe the screen, oozing out onto the red rug, where she crouches, jolting with static.

She crawls through the shadows. “Sure you have what it takes, couch potato?”

I struggle up and dart towards the television, parting the glass, treading water, spilling breathlessly into Scream.

When she sees that we’ve swapped places, Drew - who looks like me now - throws her head back and laughs. “I can’t believe that worked,” she gasps, wiping away tears. “You know you can never get out of there?”

“Who says I want to?” I shrug, grabbing a mitt for the popcorn.

I empty the kernels in a bowl and pull a steak-knife from the block and lock myself in the basement where Ghostface can’t get me. I sit cross-legged with the bowl in my lap, eating popcorn and watching Drew get the measure of her new life. The cold bed. The crappy apartment.

I watch as the day of your accident replays in her head. I watch her realise what hell feels like (recent tragedy has left me unable to be kind).

I watch her run in circles like she did in Scream.

I watch her find the closed door to the blood-stained kitchen and grab the handle.

I pick up another piece of popcorn and savour it.

“Don’t go in there,” I say.

Photo of Kate Horsley

BIO: Kate Horsley’s first novel was shortlisted for the Saltire Award. Her second was published by William Morrow. Both have been optioned for film. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines like The Cincinnati Review, The Citron Review, Fictive Dream, BULL, Paragraph Planet, Storyglossia, Ink, Sweat, & Tears, Fish Barrel Review, Cake, and Strix, and placed in competitions including Bath, Bournemouth, Bridport, Oxford and Smokelong. She's a creative writing lecturer. You can find her online on Instagram - @inkfishmagazine - and Bluesky - @katehorsleywriter.bsky.social - and her website is https://www.katehorsley.co.uk/