#I will never understand angela's need to sit/lay down/eat from the floor and that is okay

[hipsternumbertwo]

The Spud Hut🥔

[docholligay]

What hobbies or activities would your OW crew each try and pick up during corona quarantine?

Tracer

Lena is going to try and learn a second language. She took French in school, didn’t she? And didn’t she graduate school? Right! So this should be an absolute walk in the park. French it is. Her first choice was Arabic, as it was, in fact, the prospect of Amari drama that made her embrace the wisdom of being a polyglot in the first place, but Mercy’s gentle suggestion that she start with something a bit closer to home base made her try for French. Arabic could be her third language. 

And it isn’t that Tracer is stupid, so much as she has the full confidence that she can try hard and find success. This has been true so many times in her life, that she was simply the one most dedicated to the outcome, and so she managed to wrench it from the hands of fate. She is quick, and clever, and capable! What’s FRENCH got that she can’t handle. 

Lena, five minutes in: Oh, right, I hated school. 

She tries, god love her, but it just doesn’t hold her attention. She’s trying so hard to write verb forms and study and study, but she doesn’t honestly care much to KNOW French. It reminds her of Amelie, for starters, and that always gives her a little bit of a pit in her stomach, and without Amelie, there seems very little reason to know it. Only one in the house who speaks it is Mercy, really. 

So she takes account of the languages her team knows. 

Hana...Korean, of course, and at least some Japanese, mostly for promotional reasons. Lena takes one look at the Japanese rules of politeness and deference and gently sets the language to the side. She thinks about Korean--Korea’s been so much help since the omnic crisis, and it’s a good thing to converse with your allies--but the daunting aspect of having to ask Hana, who seems not even to know herself whether she likes everyone in the house or not, overcomes her. 

Fareeha, well, that’d be Arabic, and that’s it, so far as Lena knows, and Ang’s already warned her off of that one. Fareeha’s feeling a it pricky about the whole Arabic situation since her mother’s come back, anyhow, and all her workout music has turned to English, and Lena’s not certain why she seems to be blaming the entire Arab world for Ana, but then again, Lena doesn’t understand Fareeha in the best of times. 

Winston, he’d of course help her, but a lot of his knowledge is tied up in Latin and Scholarly Greek, and she’s not sure why anyone would take all the effort when you couldn’t even properly go on holiday. He does know a fair amount of German, she figures, but if she’s going to do that, she may as well go to Ang, and besides all that, Winston dos so much for her. No need to throw in another thing. 

Ana: No. 

Jack: No, but a bit softer. 

Angela seems the natural choice, as she knows so many languages, comparatively. Her father was a linguist of sorts, to hear Ang talk around the edge of it, and so German, French, Italian, Latin, Hebrew, at the least, all come to her quickly and easily. It’s English she likes the least, and she’s better at it than she gives herself credit for, near perfect but for a few stange tenses. It really only Ang who notices. But Angela is, well, Ang, and with all the troubles of the world, she’s lost her mind, a bit. 

So there’s no real help to be had, and Lena buys a few Muzzy tapes in French and learns how to say “I am a young girl” and “I like apples” before deciding that her quarantine time is better spent ensuring that she can actually climb the drain to the roof, jump from the roof into the pool, and other extremely valuable information. No one was hiring her for the language department anyhow. 

Winston

WInston is more used to solitude than the rest of them, and as far as he’s concerned, it’s not really loneliness if Tracer is with him. THough he feels bad for her, and how stir crazy she’s getting. It makes him sad to see her so bored and glum, though she is trying to make cheer of it. 

And so Winston has a genius idea. Tracer LOVES gymnastics, and Winston loves a project. So the idea for the super bounce trampoline is born. 

You cannot tell Winston this is a bad idea. You cannot tell Winston this is a bad idea, because, on some level, he already knows. He knows, but he sees Tracer doing her little cartwheels in the yard, running laps, trying to create little games for herself where she creates time trials around the house, trying to improve on each activity lap. At the time where she breaks three plates trying to see if she can beat her time for table service, it even starts to sound like a GOOD idea. 

He’s fine making little picnic lunches together and watching TV and having her ‘help’ in the lab, but she is becoming despondent with the boredom of it all. It has been ten days. 

And so, he looks at the metals he’s engineered for use in his prosthetic limbs. Couldn’t they also be used to create a spring that would double your strength and energy return of a normal spring? Than Lena could do all kinds of maneuvers on the trampoline, and besides, it’s always important to know the limits of engineering. 

Angela tries to remind him hospitals  are full. 

Dva

The first day of quarantine, Hana Song pops a soda in her pj shorts and says, “It’s a pandemic! Why do we have to improve ourselves? God, isn’t it enough to be alive?” She takes a deep sip. “I’ll do some charity streams, okay?” 

As she’s walking away Tracer asks her if she’ll help paint the upstairs den. Tracer is making little physical projects for herself in varying levels of horror, sometimes while watching the Muzzy tapes to convince herself she hasn’t given up on the bilingual dream. Painting seems tame. Hana stops for a moment, then agrees. 

She is the only reasonable person in this house. 

Mercy

Angela is in a panic. The entire world seems to be crumbling at her feet, and though she is no epidemiologist, she knows that none of this is good. She wants to go. Pharah begs her to stay. She is afraid for Angela. To put her in some ICU where she could get the illness, where it could be, as such, that Fareeha would not be able to come to her. She understands Angela’s need to help, but also, she says, what if something happened to you? You are the only doctor with any real knowledge of Tracer. What would be come of her. 

Angela only looks at her for a moment before her face darkens, and Fareeha shakes her head, ashamed. “I was using Tracer to excuse my own fears. I am selfish. You should go.” 

And in that moment, Angela does not leave not because she is the only physician who can properly work with Tracer’s condition, but for the great love of Fareeha Amari, who for the first time since Angela has known her, is truly afraid. 

The days pass with difficulty. She is writing guidelines and ideas to anyone she can, coordinating donations and writing out thank yous and pleas, sitting in the bay window of their bedroom as the sleeting snow and rain fall against the window one bleak afternoon. The sun and storm come in patches, she’s noticed, but the grey seems to speak to her most all. 

Fareeha comes to her one day. She has a mug filled with hot chocolate and whipped cream and brandy and love. She gently places her hand on Angela’s knee. 

“I hear you crying in the night,” she says, though she cannot look to Angela’s face, “You should go. You must go.” 

She loves Fareeha so very much. 

She goes. 

Pharah

Which immediately drives the sort of disconnected and floating morass of ennui that is the Overwatch household into Von Trapp style whistle blowing order. 

Pharah’s project, you see, is everyone else. 

Fareeha is a lovely person in most respects, all of them would say in one way or another, but she has certain control issues, and these never become more pronounced than when her life seems, well, out of control. 

No more laying about. There is a kitchen to be reorganized, there are drills to be done, when was the last time you lifted? There is a color coded schedule posted in the kitchen and we should all take note of the way Fareeha has scheduled our time. Tracer balks, of course, that she’s the leader as well, and Fareeha has a terrible habit of assuming that it’s her who’s the leader entire and complete, and you know what else--

Winston pulls them apart. Neither of them, he tries to say, are actually angry with each other. He shakes when he says it. 

And so Pharah tries. God love her, she tries SO HARD. She improves herself, and tries to let others be. She reorganizes the entire kitchen. She labels every bulk container, She scrubs every floor in the house to a gleaming shine. Her clothes, and Angela’s all washed and organized by sshade and season. 

One night Lena comes downstairs and sees her looking out the window, drinking a Labatt, rubbing at her wedding ring. Lena wouldn’t embarrass her by asking, but her eyes seem to beglistening, jsut a bit. 

The next morning, all three of the rest of the OVerwatch team are lined up, at the bottom of the stairs, at 6 am sharp. 

It’s true that Fareeha takes herself on three hour runs across the prairie in all weathers to give everyone some down time where they don’t have to be doing anything, but they broker a sort of peace wherein they spend a certain amount of time doing Fareeha Amari’s Twelve Point Improvement Plan every day, and time doing their own thing, and Fareeha seems genuinely cheered to be plotting out their workout and meal plans, their online seminars to listen to. She and Lena even watch a few Muzzy tapes together. 

She even forgives Tracer when the first test of Winston’s trampoline finds Lena sailing through Pharah’s (Thankfully open) bedroom window. 

Ana and Jack:

 They spend all of quarantine watching 90 Day Fiancee and eating TV dinners.

[fumeiiyo]

〘 犠牲 〙

“Do not seek D E A T H, it will find you. Rather seek the 𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐃 which makes D E A T H a 𝕗𝕦𝕝𝕗𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥”

           From the time of birth, to the last gasping moments of ones death, humans struggle and fight. Every reason is different; changes as the human grows and blossoms into age and supposed wisdom. Yet, some reasons do not come to us until the soul is weary and heavy; bending with the weight of all the heart now knows. Genji had not been born with a reason of his own, nor had he found one as he grew. Life was hollow, empty in its twists and turns, leading the young Shimada to a future he just could never see. He’d been drunk and fuzzy headed enough times in the back of some alley to wonder if slipping away in darkness was really such a bad way to go, especially when he had nothing and no one to live for. It’s a dark world, one that swallowed him further when the only family he’d had betrayed him. 

            It had never crossed his fear-ridden mind in youth that Hanzo might have just been the reason he’d kept going. Hindsight is a cruel mistress, showing you only after the deed is done just what a different path would have looked like; the path that a person might should have followed. The cyber ninja had more regrets than he cared to count, choosing frivolous pursuits over his brother for one. Though he’d been starved for love and a gentle touch, there was little excuse for the hell he’d surely put him through, but then if he’d never ‘died’ perhaps many others would not be alive. Zenyatta spoke often of fate and one ‘ending up exactly where they are meant to be’ but the words had not yet stuck in his machine-fueled pulse. 

          There were many lessons he had yet to learn--but loving had been the hardest; was still so difficult. McCree was an enigma; a puzzle that he’d never encountered nor had to crack. Despite their dark days in blackwatch and the emptiness that still haunts their eyes, the cowboy reaches out to touch his skin, calls him beautiful, and captures his heart. It isn’t easy, he’s damaged in a way he cannot properly explain. Genji expresses his anguish in poor ways and they’ve had their fair share of fights; sometimes he wonders if the tender brushes of fingers is enough. He’s incomplete like this--cannot please another in a way that someone who is whole might be able to. He doesn’t need to eat or drink, barely has to sleep--he feels anything but human. 

           Hanzo’s presence should be a comfort, but it only stirs some anguish in his soul. He is no longer the brother that his sibling still mourns, nor is he a proper lover for McCree. The thoughts keep him restless no matter the time of day; pacing and stretching til his faux muscles ache with the strain. Yet, there are good days. There are days when Hanzo comes to sit with him over a cup of tea, or meditate with him. There are days where McCree surprises him with some random flower he picked or little kisses on his scarred skin, muttering sweet nothings. Yes, he is pained and burdened by the past, but with this small family he’s slowly beginning to feel at peace. Family is all that Genji has ever wanted; has yearned for since he was young. 

             Yet it cannot last, not when they have a journey to complete. The recall is urgent, Winston desperate to restore peace. There is no doubt that he would rather continue in these moments of bliss, but the hybrid knows better than to believe remaining neutral will be sustainable in the face of such a crisis. So he, McCree, and Hanzo wander away from their lives of peace and serenity and into the arms of Overwatch once more. The world is slowly falling apart, crumbling and breaking in a way that they just can’t keep up with, but they keep trying. The operation is still small; barely functioning as it is and he’s been on more missions than he can count now. The cowboy and his sibling get upset over it, but he always just gently reminds them that he doesn’t require as much as the others. Certainly he needs maintenance and some nourishment but it’s hardly on the level the other agents require. 

              It’s not a big deal, he can take it. The words echo almost mockingly in his head as he winces at the minor pain in his leg, fluid still dripping steadily. He probably won’t die from something so minor--especially when his leg comes off, but the feeling is unpleasant and there’s still a mission to see to. If it was just Genji, then perhaps he could handle it--but Hanzo and McCree are also here and if the static is any indication their comms are down. The mission has gone wrong, there’s no time to worry about completing it. Pulling out his sword he sucks in a steadying breath, preparing for the rush he’s going to have to make on a bum leg. Once upon a time he might not have cared; would have told the two other agents that they were on their own for being careless. 

                That is not who he is, not anymore. The pain is starting to get to him a little, so he shuts down the nerves in his legs and keeps going. Angela will likely scold him about the damage he’s causing later, but he can’t care. That’s his family out there and he isn’t putting it on the line because his synthetic body doesn’t handle bullets well. Tracking them down isn’t easy, takes a while and he is worse off than the other two agents. Hanzo has a bruise on his head and McCree looks like he had to roll in some dirt to escape. A sigh of relief escaped the youngest shimada, happy that it was just misfortune that lost the comms. “We need to abort the mission.” he mutters, glancing warily around the seemingly empty hanger. It doesn’t feel right that such a large space would be devoid of anything. 

                    He lends a spare comm piece to his brother, allowing his doting boyfriend to fuss over the wound on his leg when there’s a piercing grind of metal, so loud it shakes all three men to their core. Omnic. It’s difficult, knowing that some omnics are kind and warm--while others just stick to their programming. Even if it’s not a bot he knows, it still feels wrong to cut them down. Still, this one is huge and stands up nearly to the ceiling. It fires before any of them has time to react, knocking them all back. Hanzo is lucky and has time to brace for the impacat, Genji is alright despite the twisting pain in his spine, but McCree hits a sharp edge and collapses on the ground like a sack of moldy potatoes. 

                  Panic wells in Genji at the sight, he tries to get up to help his boyfriend but his right side tilts and he almost falls. Bitterly he realized his leg is twisted and mangled, having taken the brunt of the blast. He can walk and stand, but only just. McCree needs medical attention now, but there’s no way that Genji can carry him. An alarm sounds in his helmet and suddenly it’s hard to breathe. Yanking his helmet off he lets his dark hair flop in around his wounded face, gasping as his body breaks down. The systems keeping his lungs and heart working are failing. He’s not getting the oxygen he needs and his heart is racing far too fast, even for him. He’s dying, there’s no way Hanzo can save them both--couldn’t save Genji even if there was no robot to fight. A decision has to be made; a difficult one. 

                “Anija...” It’s a soft plea to listen, one that his sibling answers as they cower behind a corner in the hanger, the omnics feet scraping closer with a loud screech. Touching his shoulder their gazes meet and he sees the pain almost instantly. “No...” It’s panicked, a rush of air as their hands tangle tightly, almost painfully. Genji understands, Hanzo would rather die himself than lose his beloved younger brother once more, especially when they’ve finally both found happiness. “Anjia there’s no time. McCree isn’t going to make it if he doesn’t get help soon and I’m too injured to take him. It has to be you.” There’s another warning blare as his suit flashes red briefly and he gasps on almost nothing, his heart leaping in his throat so fast it feels like it might fly right out. Dying was horrible the first time, but this time he’s ready. 

                McCree, his brother...they’d been his reason to stay, to live--without either of them he would be lost; if just one of them died he would never recover. It was selfish, but the truth was he was living on borrowed time already. He wipes the desperate tears from his brothers eyes and hugs him as gently as he can, feeling the shake of his shoulders. “I am at peace--now go, find your peace.” His own eyes fill with tears as he presses a final kiss to McCree’s still lips. “Goodbye Jesse.” He whispers. “Live to find that ranch you always wanted--live to see peace.” Then he’s standing, his joints almost shrieking with the effort as his synthetic systems try to keep his human parts alive. He’s a mess--but he’s never felt more human. 

                “We will come back for you--” Hanzo knows that this is goodbye, but the anguish in his eyes tells Genji that he cannot say it out loud. His brother is bidding him farewell the only way he can and he is grateful for that. There is no second guessing as he charges the omnic, forcing his body past every limit he’s ever know. It tears him apart til he is nothing but a torso, yet it falls. Genji’s not breathing, unable to take in anything as he lays on the cold metal floor, fluid and blood leaking from him with the force of his life. He had a very shaky start, a rocky middle, but the end? Yeah, even like this, he can’t find it in himself to feel anything other than peace. He welcomes death like an old friend, his face a gentle smile as he closes his eyes for the last time. Finally, he’s free of all the pain and anguish. Finally he is whole. 

                Hanzo is torn apart. However foolish, he held onto the hope his brother might live as he had before; prayed to every god he knew that they’d make it back in time. His brother is so still, his body almost a ruined as the day he’d thought they’d been torn apart. His tears are quiet, falling on the still face of a man who died happy. It aches, even if he knows it was likely the end his sibling wanted, that he failed him once more. McCree is beside himself, sobbing into the chest, begging for a heartbeat as he clutches at hands that will never hold his once more. Their lives had been a mess, a tangle of ghosts and regret, but it had been theirs and he cherished it. “Darling I’m sorry...” he gasps out. “Please come back to us.”

                Genji does not respond, not even as the saltwater soaks his skin. He lays in peace and tranquility, calm in his final sacrifice.

[trulyhappy2025]

If the Trees Could Talk

Uncle Will won’t get up. He just sits in bed, with that odd, dead-eyed stare. “Uncle Will?” Amy says, the words seem to fall flat in the eerie silence of their shared bedroom. Amy watches him, her legs hanging over the edge of her bed.

   “Go away.” Uncle Will groans, taking a long swig from his bottle, amber liquid sloshing around inside as he lifts it. Amy watches, entranced, as he drinks. Like a baby would drink from a bottle. His dreadlocks fan out in a halo around his head as he lays there, his dead eyes looking at nothing and everything at the same time.

Amy watches him for a few moments, her legs swinging back and forth. It’s cold, and goosebumps are already forming on her arms. She shivers in the early morning chill. She can see frost on the window panes, white swirls obscuring the outside world.

Finally, she stands, the pink soles of her feet touching the chilly, rough-hewn floorboards. She tiptoes over to the dresser. She needs to get dressed. She’s got to go to school. Amy quickly strips off her frilly nightgown, shivering when the cold air touches her skin, throwing on her clothes as quickly as she can.

Amy heads down to the kitchen. She passes Great-Grandpa’s room. She does her best to not look at him. He looks like a corpse, pale and sick, with tubes sticking out of him all over, hooked up to machines. She rushes through the hall. Her feet feel like blocks of ice in her socks as she tramples down the stairs, carefully avoiding the third step, which always squeaks “We really should figure out a way to stop that squeaking.” Amy says to no one in particular, her voice echoing through the cold, empty stairwell. The soft wheezing of Great Grandpa’s machine playing like some sort of horrible record stuck on a loop in the background.

Amy continues padding down the stairs in silence, making her way towards the bathroom. The temperature drops nearly twenty degrees when she steps through the threshold into the grimy little cell-like room. The bathtub is ringed with dirt, which lines its outside with streaks of red and brown. Back when Amy’s Mama was still around, she and Uncle Will used to spend whole days trying to clean the bathroom, scrubbing the tiles and washing the floors. Prying black mold from the grout, leaving behind the sharp smell of bleach. But even at its cleanest the bathroom always had a little dust gathering at the corners. A little red in the bathtub. A little mold in between the tiles. No one’s cleaned in here for a long time. Not well enough, anyway. Uncle Will tries, but the bathroom has always been a two-man job.

Amy brushes her teeth. Cleans her face with chilly tap water- there hasn’t been hot water in the bathroom in a long time. So long that she can’t even remember a time when there was hot water. Her Mama used to beg Grandpa to fix it. He never did.

Amy brushes her hair too, which always takes longer, on account of how thick it is. Black and curly, floating up above her head like a cloud. Her Mama’s did the same. And Uncle Will’s, too, before he started his dreadlocks.

Amy then heads for the kitchen, walking quickly. If she looks hard enough she can almost see her breath puffing out in clouds in front of her. The Funny Man is already there, reading an old newspaper from two weeks ago that no one has bothered tossing out yet. “It figures you’d already be up,” Amy mutters. The Funny Man glances up at her momentarily before returning to his newspaper. He mutters something in reply. Amy ignores it. She doesn’t understand him. She doesn’t think anyone can understand him. He always sounds like he’s talking from underwater, his voice echoing and burbling. Like a quiet waterfall, or a brook.

“Are you hungry?” Amy asks. The Funny Man nods. “Cereal or toast?” Amy asks. She gets out some bread for herself out of the ancient bread box, shoving aside a mason jar of old, rusty wedding rings The Funny Man points at the toaster.

“How many slices?” Amy asks. She gets herself two, placing them gently in the toaster and pressing the knob down. There’s blood on the counter, she notices. She gets out a washcloth and wipes up the small pool on the counter. The Funny man holds up one dark finger. Everything about him is dark. When Amy was little she used to think she was someone’s shadow, torn free of their body. Like Peter Pan’s. She pulls out another slice of bread before stowing the bag back in the breadbox. She glances at the wall clock, which has been sitting on the kitchen table for the last two months ever since it fell off the wall. The hands sort of look like a mustache. 6:25, it reads. The school bus should be here soon. She wonders where Grandpa is. Probably still in bed. He doesn’t get up until later. Mornings were always Amy and Mama’s time. Sometimes Uncle Will’s too, but that was rarer, and he never seemed to get up early anymore. So now mornings are just Amy’s. Hers and The Funny Man’s. Her toast pops. Amy snatches both slices out of the toaster quickly. It feels no nice, and warm compared to the rest of the chilly house. Like two squares of pure sunshine. Amy wonders if Grandpa will finally let them turn up the thermostat. He’s always been oddly finicky about the temperature, so she doubts it. She stands there, letting the toast burn her fingertips until she has to drop the slices on the table, tossing The Funny Man’s bread into the toaster. Amy quickly slides the chunks of hard butter over her toast, letting it melt on her slices before she eats them slowly. She savors the warm, buttery taste. The Funny Man lets out something that sounds vaguely like a whine. Amy sighs and rolls her eyes, pulling a bit of crust off of one of the slices and tossing it at him. He catches the crust and gobbles it quickly, greedily cramming it into his mouth, white fangs flashing against the dark, shadowy flesh of his mouth. “Do you even need to eat?” Amy asks The Funny Man.

He shrugs and mumbles something. His toast pops. They both glance at the toaster. Just as Amy is about to go pull it out of the toaster he stands, shoving his chair back, lunging at the toaster and snatching the toast, balling it up and shoving it whole into his mouth. Amy grimaces. “That’s disgusting.” She informs him. He rolls his eyes and continues shoving it into his mouth. Amy wanders into the chilly living room, her small sock-covered feet sinking into the soft carpet. It’s cold in here too. She eats the last of her toast, peering out of the window. “I guess I should get walking, huh?” Amy says to no one in particular. Her voice feels too loud in the eerie silence of the cabin.

It’s a long walk to the highway, through a long, thin driveway surrounded by trees which loom over Amy as she walks, like dark, silent giants. Watching her hungrily, their long branches stretching to brush her. The Funny Man watches from the front window as she walks away, waving, his black eyes boring holes in her back. Amy walks a little faster.

Before long she reaches the bus stop. The bus is already there, waiting for her. The Bus driver glares at her when she walks up, opening the bus door slowly as it creaks. Amy glares back at the bus driver.

“Mrs. Morris,” Amy says coldly.

“Amy.” Mrs. Morris replies. If Amy’s voice was cold, Mrs. Morris’ is freezing. Amy steps into the bus, walking as slowly as she can, just to spite the old bat. She can’t stand Mrs. Morris. She’s horrible. She’s always been horrible- and not just to Amy, but to other kids too. There doesn’t even seem to be a method to whom she hates, other than the kids all being, well, kids.

There’s Angela Davis, who always sits in back and reads Harry Potter, and who Mrs. Morrison once made cry when she took her book. There’s Ty Jefferson, who is always talking with his friends, and Mrs. Morrison yells at every day for being ‘too loud’ no matter what he does, and there’s June Renkin- poor June Renkin. She had to quit riding the bus after Mrs. Morris kept harassing her about her dreadlocks.

The school day passes by slowly, in a dull haze which seems to drag out every moment for hours. Amy slogs through math, and music, and social studies, and every other class, glaring at her teacher, Mrs. Thompson, who stands at the front of the classroom in her stupidly bright dress, chirping every word like she’s some sort of songbird- Amy can’t stand her. She wonders, all throughout the day, if Uncle Will has gotten out of bed yet. She hopes he has. Grandpa hates it when Uncle Will has a sick day. Amy remembers when Mama was still around, and she’d rouse Uncle Will. She’d lay in bed with him and hug him, whispering something in his ear. After a while, Uncle Will would stir. He’d set aside his drink- whiskey, vodka, wine, champagne. Anything he could get his hands on and sit up, look around and go cook breakfast. But Mama isn’t around to fix Uncle Will, and the last time Amy had tried to wake him like her Mama had, Uncle Will had screamed. A furious, guttural scream and shouted at her to get out. She’d spent the rest of the day in the Car Graveyard behind the house after that.

The Car Graveyard is exactly what it sounds like- a massive expanse of land, all covered by hundreds and hundreds of ancient, rusted automobiles. Well, probably not hundreds, but it certainly seems like it. The Car Graveyard must go on for miles- Amy once walked a whole hour and she couldn’t find the end of it. The Car Graveyard has always seemed infinite. Amy likes to keep her toys in an old truck out there, hidden away from The Funny Man. He likes to pull her barbies heads off and tear their limbs out of their sockets.

Before long, the final school bell rings, and Amy rushes outside. She needs to hurry to the bus. Otherwise, Mrs. Morrison might drive away without her. She’s done it before, and Amy had to call Uncle Will in the office so he could have Grandpa drive to the school to pick her up. Grandpa was furious at them both for that, the hand shaped bruise on Uncle Will’s face had lingered for days. Amy gets her backpack out of her cubby, pulling her sweatshirt on and hurrying towards the door. “Don’t run in the halls!” Mrs. Thompson chirps. Amy ignores her, shoving past quickly and darting towards the busses, the soles of her sneakers slapping against the concrete.

Then Amy sees the truck. A vast, rusted, metallic, monster that roars at her, nestled between two buses. Amy glances behind her, back at the door of the school. But it’s too late to run back in- he’s already seen her. He rolls down the window. “Amy!” Grandpa rumbles threateningly. She flinches, staring at her shoes. He sounds angry. Why is he here? Did something happen? Amy can feel her heart, about to leap out of her throat as she slinks towards the car.

“Hi, grandpa.” She says quietly.

“Get in.” He says, in a voice like suppressed thunder. Amy pulls the car door open, tossing her backpack up into the seat and crawling into the car. He watches her closely, with bright blue eyes like chunks of ice that seem to seek out every small crack, every weakness, every flinch.

With a roar, the monstrous truck pulls out from the school driveway. Amy sits in silence in the car. It smells like coffee and stale, greasy pizza. Amy spots an empty pizza box on the floor beneath her feet. She nudges it slightly, and something darts out from under it. Something small and black and distinctly fuzzy. Amy pulls her feet up quickly, pulling her knees to her chest. There are empty coffee cups all over too- the cheap ones you get at a gas station, their labels faded and peeling, the remains of the actual coffee dribbling out onto the seat. Then Amy sees the knife. It rests between her and Grandpa. It’s a big knife- the sort of thing you might see in a butcher’s shop. A meat cleaver. “Grandpa? What are we doing?” Amy asks. She can see her breath in front of her, lingering in the air in clouds. She already knows what they’re doing.

Grandpa does not reply. They’re on the highway now, and Amy can see the trees, tall and dark that surround the road, gazing down at them hungrily. They’re waiting for a meal, she realizes. There’s no one else on the road, and Grandpa cruises down the highway, searching. “Grandpa?” She asks again.

“Shut up,” Grandpa says. “It’s all your fault we have to do this anyways.” Amy glances at him, her knees still pulled to her chest.

“Grandpa, we don’t have to-” Amy starts

“I said shut up.” Grandpa interrupts. The trees begin to sway in the breeze, branches scrape along the hood of the car. It’s silent. Terrifyingly silent. Amy is so cold. Grandpa picks up a knife- it’s a pocket knife. The sort of thing Amy’s Mama used to carry around.

“I want to go home,” Amy says pathetically, hugging herself. He hands the knife over.

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” Grandpa replies gruffly. Amy takes the knife silently.

By the time they finally find someone, the sun is sinking below the tree line. The trees themselves growing hungry and impatient, their branches scraping along the car harshly. This time it’s another young couple. Not unlike the last ones, except for the woman’s odd hair. It’s bright pink, and short. “It’s awful cold out, isn’t it?” The woman says. “My name is Emily.” She adds. “What’s yours?” She speaks with a sort of southern twang.

Amy looks balefully at the woman as Grandpa goes to help the man with whatever is wrong with the car. “It’s usually easier to dispatch the men first.” He once told Amy. She disagrees- it’s usually the women that give people the most trouble. They’re always the ones that seem to fight and scream for help. The men usually just beg. The men always grovel and cry. Amy always tries to block them out.

“Mel.” She says, quietly. Never give out your real name. Uncle Will has told her that enough times. Her ears strain for the sound of a thud, a scream- anything. A signal from Grandpa that they have what they need and they can go. Emily begins chattering at her. Something about her and her boyfriend.

“We’re on vacation, you know,” Emily says, grinning ear to ear. Amy feels a sharp flash of annoyance. How dare this woman be happy. Doesn’t she know she’s about to die?

Grandpa glances at Amy. She stares at her shoes as Emily continues talking. What follows is quick. Precise- Amy tries her best not to look at Grandpa pulls out the knife. In one fluid motion, he stabs the boyfriend in the neck, blood spurts onto the asphalt. Amy frowns. Evidence. That’s evidence, and evidence is bad. Emily screams. A loud, piercing scream. Grandpa sighs, the boyfriend’s blood dribbling down the front of his shirt, like a scarlet bib. “Shut her up,” Grandpa mutters to Amy. She looks fearfully at Grandpa. He glares back, his blue eyes boring deep into her soul, like ice-covered steel picks. Emily continues screaming, running towards the car. Grandpa sighs, and grabs her before she can make it, shoving her to the ground and kicking her in the head, over and over. Amy turns away.

After they’ve loaded the Boyfriend- or, his corpse- into the back of the truck, and covered it with a large tarp, they put Emily in. Grandpa grabs the knife, holding it over her jugular. “Wait, can’t we-” Amy starts. Grandpa glares at her, and Amy folds in on herself, the words vanishing from her mouth as though he’d snatched them away with his old, wrinkly hands.

“Can’t we what?” He asks mockingly, sneering at her. “Let her go? Are you stupid? There’s no way we can do that. Not now.”

He brings the knife down. Amy can’t bring herself to look.

They drive. They drive for such a long time, that Amy is almost certain that they aren’t even driving to The Place. The sun has long since set. Amy leans against the window, her forehead pressed up against the chilly glass as she peers into the windows of the cars that they pass. A family- the mother driving as the father dozes in the passenger seat, behind her two children are curled up in their car seats. One, a little boy, looks like he’s a few years younger than Amy. Maybe five or six, his curly blonde hair disheveled and drool coating his face. Amy would give anything to be in that car in his place.

Grandpa doesn’t talk to her as they drive. He doesn’t even glance at her. Amy doesn’t try and talk to him. She’s long since given up with him.

Finally, they make their way to The Place. It’s just a small driveway, off some back road. Grandpa follows the well-worn path in the truck, the huge wheels chewing up the thin grass on top of the muddy soil. For a second, Amy is worried that they’ll be stuck, when the truck revs, but they don’t move forward. Then, as if allowing them entry, a tree branch smacks the windshield, and they enter The Place.

The Place looks about the same as it did the last time they were here. Yellowing bones litter the grass of the clearing, half covered in dirt as they sink into the ground. The only tree in the waves of uninterrupted grass, about the size of a football field, is a tall, stout pine, slightly bent, with green branches that seem to droop with old age. “Come on,” Grandpa says gruffly, turning off the radio, which broadcasts the tinny, static-filled voice of a man, reporting the weather. Amy hops out, shivering when she leaves the warm confines on the car. Her foot collides with a femur, glowing white in the dim light. Amy kicks it aside.

Grandpa tosses the two bodies out himself. “Help me drag them towards the tree.” He orders, grabbing onto Emily’s cold, dead hand. Amy forces herself to grab the other one, dragging it closer to the tree. The tree is motionless, and for a second Amy is worried that they have the wrong place. But then, branches extend forwards, grabbing onto Emily’s stiff, dead body, drawing her close as the trunk peels open, the bark receding, the wood peeling open to reveal pink, pulsating flesh studded with white teeth. Amy doesn’t hang around to watch, and neither does Grandpa. They retreat quickly to grab the other corpse, returning just in time to watch the tree spit out several pale white bones. Amy shudders, turning away as the tree lifts one thick, smooth root to pick up the other corpse, shoving it into its maw. She doesn’t watch. She doesn’t ever watch. She and Grandpa wait in the clearing, the cold seeping deep into Amy’s bones. “Well?” Grandpa asks, expectantly. Amy wants to shout at him to not talk to that monster. To run, get in the car and drive her out of here. She hates this and she wants her Mama. She wants Mama to hold her, warm arms wrapped around Amy, holding her close.

Moments tick by, and there is no reply from the tree. Grandpa coughs. Amy focuses on the forest floor, littered with bones, and her breath which floats out in front of her in clouds. Finally, the tree speaks, one gargantuan eye popping out of a knot in the trunk. “More.” It groans, so deep and ancient that it gives Amy chills.

“But we’ve given you so many-” Grandpa starts. Amy wants to reach out to him and drag him towards the car.

“More.” Groans the tree, yet again, and then the fleshy trunk closes, another area opening up instead, the bark retreating and the wood splitting to reveal Amy’s Mama.

Amy stares, wide-eyed as Mama pukes, green and red bile that splatters on to the forest floor. Christmas colors, Amy thinks absently. “M-more.” Amy’s Mama croaks, before vanishing back into the trunk of the tree, which closes with a wet splat.

They drive home. The silence is welcome as Amy shivers in the cold of the car. Grandpa won’t look at her. That only makes sense. When they pull into the long gravel driveway, Uncle Will is already on the veranda, drinking from a huge wine bottle. “Is it done?” He slurs. All Amy can do is nod. “Good. Come in an’ eat.” He slurs, stumbling inside. Amy glances at Grandpa. He’s frowning, his icy blue eyes following Uncle Will as he stumbles into the house. He looks at her. Amy follows Uncle Will into the house, tearing her eyes off of Grandpa.

It’s so cold.