You Shouldn't Have Come Here

In You Shouldn’t Have Come Here, the motif of death is introduced at Calvin’s ranch house, its walls lined with taxidermized animal heads. During their first meal together, Calvin and Grace must rescue ducks and chickens from a murderous raccoon. Later, she nearly dies by a mountain lion in a pasture—until Calvin shoots it, creating another animal trophy. Human death is also prevalent: Calvin and Joe’s parents and Calvin’s girlfriend Lisa died a year ago. As the two first-person narrators’ true colors come to light, Grace discovers Calvin’s trophy case, containing the heads of three other women. She kills Calvin and the Gunslinger 66 gas station attendant to protect her identity, as she has done for years as a seasoned killer.

Capturing the ubiquitous nature of death is Grace’s fall into a pit of dead animals. This incident symbolizes her stay at Calvin’s ranch: The longer she remains, the more death she will encounter in addition to her own agenda. When she frees the kidnapped Briana from Calvin’s locked shed, she wrestles with whether or not to kill her to cover her tracks. In allowing Briana to live, Avery ends the ranch’s legacy of death.