Sarah

**“***Billy, I need you to run and find somewhere to hide. [...] Do it!***”**
— **Sarah during Neokalus Burr's break-in**

**Sarah** is a playable character and the main protagonist of *Babysitter Bloodbath*, as well as its novelization of the same name.

## Description

### Appearance

Sarah is a Caucasian teenage girl with dark brown, pompadour-styled hair and a ponytail. She wears an orange polo shirt with yellow stripes, a grey long-sleeved undershirt, dark grey jeans and black flats with white socks. At the beginning of the game, she is briefly seen wearing a black leather jacket.

The cover of the novel alternatively depicts her as having bangs. In the story, she is also described as petite, making her slim enough to fit through the narrow laundry chute.

### Personality

Sarah acts her age, usually appearing as a stereotypically bratty, begruding and overall moody teen. Her interactions with the Johnsons show her to be somewhat careless and underhanded, as she once calls Billy a "little bastard" for wanting food and makes use of their alcohol supply without prior agreement. Sarah is catty with her friend Jill and precariously flirty with Jack, though if upset, she is quick to act coldly due to feeling rejected or insulted. However, she is shown to genuinely care about the well-being of Billy, telling him to hide when Neokalus Burr strikes, and grieves after Jack for the remainder of the night.

### History

Sarah is a high school student and part-time freelancer, working as a babysitter for families in the suburbs on the weekends to make enough money to buy a motorcycle for a cross-country trip. Just hours before the events of *Babysitter Bloodbath*, she was summoned at short notice by Mark and Linda Johnson to watch over their son Billy after they saw Sarah's ad at a grocery store.

## *Babysitter Bloodbath*

Arriving for her stint at the Johnson residence in the evening, Sarah can only briefly talk to the parents to receive instructions, or lack thereof, on how to deal with Billy's troublesome nature before they make for a hasty exit for their nightly outing. She keeps Billy occupied by turning on the TV and making him cereal for dinner, eventually carrying him off to bed when he finally falls asleep.

Early into the night, she receives a bizarre death threat over the phone, which she disregards as a prank call. Bored, and with the house to herself, she is inspired over the phone by her friend Jill to invite over Jack to hang out for the night, luring him over with the promise of liquor. Jack spooks her when she opens the door and finding him dull to talk to, she prepares to drown out her disappointment with beer from the fridge, but then hears a noise coming from the back garden. Sarah unwittingly instigates Jack's doom, when, unwilling to go out on her own, she asks him to look for its source, only complying at her continued urging, to meet his end at the hands of escaped mental patient Neokalus Burr. She discovers his mutilated carcass impaled with a screwdriver before attracting the attention of Burr. Sarah is able to get Billy to open the door, orders him to look for a hiding spot and begins searching the house for items that may aid in her escape, all the while evading the intruder.

In the end, she manages to gas up the Johnsons' car, gun Burr down with a revolver, and get herself and Billy out of the house safe and sound. Sarah is last seen being interviewed at a police station by Lt. Breaker, who reveals that Burr's body was not found, meaning she would be sent to the local hospital to be kept under protection by the authorities there for the time being.

## Babysitter Bloodbath: The Book

As main character, Sarah is better characterizatized and given more development in the novel.

* Sarah's personality is largely unchanged, but given more depth.
	+ Sarah approaches many aspects of life with an immediate, thought-out, but typically hamfisted action.
	+ She is thoughtful, empathetic and a very good judge of character, although still easy to annoy, despite being aware that most of the people around her are well-meaning and inherently good. As such, her relationship with Billy, while rocky, is somewhat more positive, being clearly aware of Billy being a spoilt only-child, but knows him to be be a good kid at heart.
	+ Sarah's crass side is downplayed and limited primarily to her interactions with Jill. For example, when she coaxes Jack into going outside, she does so by emotionally appealing to him by acting vulnerable, instead of simply demanding he do it.
	+ During the home invasion by Burr, she is shown to be extremely resourceful, calm under stress and determined, displaying a readiness for quick adaptive reaction.
* Sarah was already familar with the Johnson family and regularly took on the role of chaperone for Billy when they were away. The physical release sticker contradicts this, stating that the Johnsons had hired her for the first time after coincidentally seeing her advert.
* It is shown that Sarah's father gave her the ride to the Johnson house. The physical release sticker of the game instead mentions that her mom had dropped her off,
* Sarah is stated to have a crush on Jack, who is actually a schoolmate of hers rather than an acquaintance she just met at the mall.
* The friendship between Sarah and Jill, due to the latter taking on a bigger role in the plot, is explored in more detail. The two often butt heads and tend to make vulgar, snide remarks about each other. Ultimately though, they are shown to share a close, sisterly bond, with Jill going as far as to selflessly sacrifice herself more than once for Sarah, who would also constantly put her own life on the line to protect the former.
* Sarah finds Burr's clown mask and knife in a crawlspace of the house, as the novel canon has the Johnsons living in his former residence, where he killed his wife and kids, one of whom was wearing the mask, with said weapon. After throwing them out, Burr equips both for nostalgia's sake, before breaking into the home.
* The gun she takes from the cabinet is a semi-automatic pistol, rather than a revolver. She is also mentions having no experience with firearms, other than seeing them in movies and watching her uncle's target practice when she was younger.
* Sarah is canonically hit once by Burr, when his knife nicks her shoulder inside the tool shed. She bandages herself up using her knowledge from a first aid course and even breaks Burr's nose while she flees through a window.
* The final showdown is much more climactic than in-game: Sarah is overpowered by Burr as she goes for the garage door, but fights back with great resilience, managing to gain the upper hand on Burr when Jill shoots him, allowing her to hack her downed opponent in the back with the axe, then splashes Burr with gasoline for good measure. Before escaping via car, Burr, having recuperated from his wounds from the previous fight, tries blocking the way, only to be rammed and hurled onto the lawn by the speeding vehicle.
* After their rescue, the Johnsons not only give out Sarah's babysitting fee in full, they also clear their debts for previous, unpaid hours, as well as extra cash for saving Billy's life
* In the end, instead of driving to the police station, Sarah is found while still on the road by a police convoy, who were responding to an unrelated call about vandalism next door, unknowingly caused by Burr when he parked his stolen car over an elderly woman's flower bed. Her exchange with Lt. Breaker is much more tense, as Breaker is portrayed as less than competent, half-heartedly commending Sarah's supposed valor and becoming defensive when she lashes out at him after finding out his officers did not find Burr. He sents Sarah off to a hospital in an ambulance for her injuries and safekeeping, while Sarah herself, only now fully coming to terms with tonight's events, wonders if she could ever feel safe again.

## Trivia

* Sarah is based on Laurie Strode, one of the main protagonists of the *Halloween* franchise.
* Over the phone, calling Jill a second time will result in her incredulously responding to Sarah giving her name with "Michelle Gellar?", which is a reference to American actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, known for her work in the horror genre, famously portraying Buffy Summers in the supernatural TV series *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*.
	+ This is an intentional anachronism, as Gellar, born in 1977, did not have any significant roles in horror movies during the game's setting in the early 1980's.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://puppetcombo.tumblr.com/post/179212325995/the-babysitter-bloodbath-cd-rom-is-here-this-has
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1053270867898175489
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1020351031010635776