For most young couples in America, eventually taking their relationship further was hardly unusual. Ash and Heather, however, had not reached that point yet, despite already spending plenty of nights in the same bed. The reason was simple: Heather's injury had not completely healed, and Ash refused to risk tearing the wound open again just because she insisted they could be careful.
Heather leaned between the front seats and gave him a mischievous smile. "You know, we could always take it slow."
"No."
"That was a very fast answer."
"You're still healing." Ash kept his attention on the highway. "I'm not reopening your wound because you're impatient."
Heather rested her chin near his shoulder. "And here I thought my wonderful boyfriend was asking about my injury because he was finally losing his self-control."
Ash sighed dramatically. "I was showing concern. How did you turn that into something dirty?"
Heather laughed and brushed her fingers lightly across his cheek. "That's funny coming from you."
She whispered something else near his ear that made Gwen, sitting in the passenger seat, slowly turn her head.
Ash immediately straightened behind the wheel.
"Behave. I'm driving."
"Of course." Heather leaned back with exaggerated innocence. "You're driving."
Gwen stared between them for several seconds before understanding enough to regret listening. A faint blush appeared across her face, and she cleared her throat.
"Could you two at least remember that there's another person in this car? Watching a couple flirt for hours should qualify as psychological warfare."
Ash gave her a solemn nod.
"My apologies."
He instinctively followed it with an unfamiliar phrase remembered from his previous life.
Gwen poked him in the side of the head.
"There you go again. You keep using words that don't exist anywhere I've ever heard."
Heather leaned forward curiously. "You do that sometimes. What language is it?"
Ash could not exactly tell them that fragments of another life occasionally slipped through his mouth.
His recovered memories had revealed something much stranger than a few forgotten expressions. This world's geography was not identical to the one he remembered.
Entire regions of his old world either did not exist here or had developed beyond recognition. The enormous Asian landmass from his previous life was absent from modern maps, replaced across much of the eastern hemisphere by open ocean and several drastically altered territories. Europe, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, and Antarctica remained, but the shape of the world beyond them was fundamentally different.
Even the oceans had different names. The Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic still existed, while the waters east of Africa were known as the East African Ocean. Farther east stretched another enormous body of water simply called the Eastern Ocean.
Human migration had developed differently as well. People whose ancestry resembled populations Ash remembered from East and South Asia still existed, but their communities were scattered across Russia, Australia, North America, Europe, and other regions instead of being concentrated on a single continent. Languages Ash remembered as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and several others survived only in small cultural communities and historical records, making them almost unknown to ordinary Americans like Gwen and Heather.
Ash had spent some time trying to understand how such a radically different world could still produce so many familiar countries, cities, movies, and people. Eventually, he gave up. The supernatural already existed, dead killers climbed out of lakes, and demons could possess serial murderers.
A missing continent was somehow no longer the strangest part of his life.
By the time the Ford reached Woodsboro, July had begun and Gwen's starting date at the newspaper was approaching quickly. Their road trip had lasted far longer than originally planned, but the familiar streets finally appeared ahead of them.
The family home looked unchanged.
Aunt Beverly was still at work when they arrived, leaving the house quiet and empty. Heather immediately joined Gwen in unloading their luggage while Ash carried several bags of souvenirs inside.
They had collected more things during the trip than expected. Some came from roadside shops, others from West Virginia, Texas, and New Jersey. There was little reason to unpack everything because they would soon be moving again.
Their next destination was New York City.
Before Gwen started her new job and Ash began college, they wanted to find an apartment and move their belongings into Manhattan. Most of the souvenirs could stay packed until then.
While Gwen and Heather organized the luggage, Ash walked to the house phone and dialed Sidney Prescott's number.
The call rang several times.
No one answered.
Instead, a recorded message played through the receiver.
"Hi, you've reached the Prescott residence. We're away on a family trip right now, so leave a message after the beep."
Ash raised an eyebrow.
Apparently Sidney had gone traveling too.
The machine beeped.
"Hey, Sidney. It's Ash. We finally made it back to Woodsboro alive, which turned out to be more difficult than expected. I'll be heading to New York soon, so call me when you get home. If we miss each other again, we'll figure something out once school starts."
He paused before adding, "Hope your vacation was less eventful than mine."
Ash hung up.
Sidney still did not own a cell phone, although she knew his number. Since both of them would be studying in Manhattan, Ash assumed Neil Prescott would eventually buy her one before the semester began.
If Ash already knew their New York address, he could have left that information too. Unfortunately, they had not rented anything yet.
That became the next priority.
The three gathered in Ash's bedroom and started searching apartment listings online. Ash and Gwen shared the desktop computer while Heather stretched across his bed with her laptop open in front of her.
Heather had already graduated but had not found permanent employment. She spent part of every day submitting applications to law firms throughout New York, from large Manhattan firms to smaller practices in the surrounding boroughs. Because she did not yet know where she would eventually work, she had little reason to insist on a particular neighborhood.
Ash and Gwen had much clearer requirements.
Hunter College was in Manhattan, making it the obvious choice for Ash. Gwen's newspaper job was also based there, meaning an apartment somewhere on the island would dramatically shorten both of their daily commutes.
Before their road trip, finances would have limited them to cheaper neighborhoods and older buildings.
That was no longer the case.
Between the money recovered after the West Virginia cannibal case and other rewards, Ash had roughly two hundred thousand dollars available. Heather had inherited the Carson estate along with more than a million dollars in financial assets. Even after reserving money for renovations, taxes, and management expenses, she remained far more financially secure than either Ash or Gwen had ever expected.
That difference quickly became obvious in their apartment search.
Ash and Heather naturally clicked on newer buildings with better locations, larger rooms, modern kitchens, and upgraded security. Gwen repeatedly dragged the search back toward cheaper options.
After nearly an hour, Gwen found a three-bedroom apartment near the outer edge of Manhattan. The building was old, the kitchen looked decades out of date, and the rooms were hardly luxurious, but it had enough space for all three of them and the rent was manageable.
"This one works," Gwen said. "Three bedrooms, reasonable commute, and we won't burn money for no reason."
Heather looked over from the bed.
"The bathroom looks like it survived World War II."
"It works."
Ash scrolled through the photographs.
"The living room is depressing."
"You're going to college, not opening a luxury hotel."
Heather turned her laptop around.
"Then look at this one."
The listing showed a modern apartment in a much better section of Manhattan. It had three proper bedrooms, large windows, newer appliances, good security, and easy access to public transportation. Hunter College and Gwen's workplace would both be reasonably close.
Ash immediately approved.
"This is better."
Gwen looked at the price.
Her expression changed.
"Five thousand dollars a month?"
Heather smiled carefully.
"It is Manhattan."
"That's sixty thousand dollars a year."
Gwen turned toward Ash as though expecting him to be the reasonable one.
"My monthly salary probably won't even reach five thousand when I start. Paying that much just for rent is ridiculous."
Ash leaned back in the chair.
"We can afford it."
"That isn't the point."
"It's at least part of the point."
Gwen crossed her arms. "Heather doesn't have a job yet. Her mansion is still being renovated, so it isn't generating rental income. I haven't started working, and I don't even know exactly what my take-home pay will be. You're about to become a full-time college student."
She looked between them.
"None of us currently has stable income."
Heather sat upright.
"That's true, but we aren't broke either."
"That doesn't mean we should waste money."
"It isn't necessarily a waste," Ash said. "Location matters. If we choose somewhere cheap but spend hours commuting every week, we're paying for it with time instead."
Gwen remained unconvinced.
Ash continued, "I already have enough money to cover my share through college even if I don't earn another dollar. Heather has more than enough to handle hers, and you're about to start working."
"That still doesn't mean we need a five-thousand-dollar apartment."
Heather joined the argument.
"We're not talking about some penthouse overlooking Central Park. It's a comfortable three-bedroom place in a good neighborhood. We'd have better security, shorter commutes, and enough space to live without wanting to kill each other after six months."
Gwen looked at her.
"You and Ash already share a bed half the time. Why do you need three bedrooms?"
Heather went silent.
Ash coughed.
Gwen's lips curved slightly.
"That's what I thought."
Heather recovered quickly. "The third room can be an office."
"Convenient."
Ash looked back at the listing and considered the numbers. Even at five thousand dollars a month, splitting the rent three ways would make the individual burden manageable. More importantly, the money he had already accumulated meant he was not relying on Gwen's salary or Heather's inheritance to survive.
"This situation is temporary," Ash said. "Heather will find a job eventually. You'll have your newspaper salary. I can figure out income while I'm in school if I need to."
Gwen sighed.
"You say that very confidently for someone who hasn't attended his first college class."
"I've survived Jigsaw, Ghostface, mutant cannibals, Leatherface, and Jason Voorhees."
Ash gestured toward the computer.
"I think I can survive a landlord."
Heather immediately nodded.
"That's the strongest argument anyone has made so far."
"It's not an argument," Gwen replied.
"It convinced me."
"You were already on his side."
Ash and Heather exchanged a glance.
Gwen saw it and rubbed her forehead.
She had entered the discussion hoping to negotiate with two reasonable people.
Instead, she had somehow ended up negotiating against a couple with more money than caution.