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108garys · 1 month ago

Text

Ensnared

Manny Sherman's first murder? A chance to illustrate all the character work I've done on his background? Its just shy of 2000 words, blood, violence and heartbreaking horror, this is a murder fic largely from an oc pov

On that I'll say the 70s were a different time in a lot of ways...

[End of summer, 1974]

Typical. One more night in this town and she ends up stuck in the middle of nowhere after her last shift.

She puts her head on the steering wheel, the sun's last light already fading and darkness closing in around her. Take a breath. All her plans for the future just a day away…

"I'll get through this, I can do this." she whispers to herself until a knock on the window brings her back to reality, she startles at the sight of a stranger but quickly calms as she catches the name embroidered on his uniform 'Stephan's garage'. Thank God. Stephan is a good man and one of his showing up when she's broken down fills her with relief.

She rolls down the window as the stranger gestures for her to do so. He leans in, bending due to his height, hands draped over the edge of the door, he must be around her age. In this light his pale blue eyes and the way he smiles gives him an almost dangerous rough around the edges type of charm. She clears her throat and smiles. "You have excellent timing." she thinks she's seen him at Stephan's before but can't recall his name… "I appear to be in a bit of a predicament."

"Had errands a town over. Manny Sherman." introduces himself offering his hand a gleam in his eye. "Bunnie…" she hesitates, taking his hand. "Just Bunnie." He laughs, his grip firm, lingering as he asks, "Well, Miss Bunny Rabbit, mind if I take a look?" He shoves his thumb towards the front of the car. "Please." she agrees, grateful as he steps away to grab his tools.

Bunnie stays behind the wheel as he goes to work under the hood, his beat up old truck parked ahead of her to give him more light. She takes a breath, telling herself everything will turn out and tomorrow would be a better day… Just one more hurdle to jump. "How long since it's been in the shop?" Manny calls out, the hood hid him from her sight as he digs around in the engine bay. "No clue, it's on loan from Mr Herring, he'll be expecting it back tomorrow."

"Herring? He's across town from Stephan's, right?" He asks, "I'll have to give him a talking to about all the work I'm doing here." he grumbles sarcastically, she rolls her eyes despite his inability to see it, everyone knows the old man is a sweetheart… especially to people like her. "Go easy on the old man will you, he's in his seventies."

…one more night and tomorrow her life begins, Bunnie worked very hard to get to where she wants to be and this time tomorrow this town will be just a memory…

Manny shuts the hood. "You're running on fumes here." She groans, rubbing her temples. "The fuel gauge is a bit faulty… I didn't realise I was cutting it that close." He walks back to the driver's side, leaning against the door. "Need a ride? Let me save you the hassle of walking all the way to the nearest truck stop and back in the dark." He offers with that same smile plastered on his face, she matches he's grin. "What, no Friday night plans?" He steps back allowing her to get out, the height difference is much more pronounced standing in front of him, even in platform heels he's looking down at her. "I do now."

"Charmer." Bunnie jokes as he starts packing up his tools and she heads to his truck. They'll have to turn back the way she came…

Bunnie settles in, looking out at the uneventful scenery passing by, the radio plays quietly, he doesn't seem to mind her messing with it but she gives up on finding something interesting after landing on the classical station. "How long have you been in town?" She asks to fill the air between them. "Under a year, passing through on my way to better things… No offense." she scoffs rolling her eyes. "I've been passing through for a good eighteen years, been dying to get away forever." Bunni shut her eyes for a moment, leaning back before turning her head to him, looking over his profile, his intense focus on the road ahead. "There's nothing for me here."

"Not on good terms with your folks?" He probes. "Honestly? They've been out of the picture for a while… Their choice." She shrugs like aging out before her parents got their act together wasn't deeply painful. "My old man took off back to his home state when I was small but damn, both of them? I figure my father had his reasons but I can't imagine what that must be like."

"I suppose they probably had their reasons too," resentment clear as she leans forward and starts going through the glove box to occupy her hands, "not that I know what their deal is, I don't even have family in this area-"

Bunnie stops mid sentence as she pulls out a large knife, she looks at him as he gets ahead of the inevitable questions. "One of my uncle's hunting knives, got this truck from him too." She looks down at the knife, curiously pulling it partially from it's sheathe, the initials R.K. are engraved on the blade. Manny grabs the knife before she could ask about it. "Hey! That's a good way to go about getting cut!" He stashes it in the centre console, "Just one bump in the road and, whoops! My interior is ruined, do you have any idea how hard blood is to clean?" Bunnie realizes how much she's been pushing her luck. "I'm sorry, you're going out of your way to do me a favour, I should've been more respectful." he sighs as she closes the glove box, "No. No, don't worry about it. I got that same speech at half our age… we don't all have knife safety drilled in at an early age."

Silence stretches out awkwardly for a few minutes before she speaks again. "You hunt?" he nods. "It's all but mandatory in my family, killed my first rabbit before I learnt how to ride a bike." she relaxes again, "I always wanted to be an author, what about you?" she sees him glancing at her in the rear view mirror, shrugging. "My father always said to leave my mark on the world, was never sure what he meant by that," he thinks for a moment before saying. "An artist, that's what I want to be."

"Yeah?" she leans forward, genuinely curious. "Tell me about it."

"There's this painting I saw in a book once, dogs piling on a larger animal, tearing into it, you take a normal person hunting and they will pass out at the sight of blood, you make it into a painting and suddenly it's art… 'A powerful statement', that's what was said about it." He grips the steering wheel, a serious look on his face as he attempts to explain. "I need to do something like that, leave my signature on society. Make people feel something they've never felt before… Something profound."

"I wouldn't have pegged you as the philosophical type." she looks him over again with this fresh lens, she leans her face on her palm. "Do you really plan to stay on as a mechanic instead of going after your dreams?" he furrows his brow, deeply contemplating something, she looks out the window… She could have sworn that they'd be there by now, she's passed that truck stop twice a day every week for months. Even with the radio playing quietly an unsettling silence fills the space between them, a thousand words catch as a lump in her throat as she looks at him… More a stranger than he had been, she can't think clearly, she reaches to turn off the radio but he knocks her hand away, turning the volume as loud as it can go. She instinctively yells at the sudden ear splitting noise but can't hear her own voice-

Bunnie is thrown back into her seat as Manny makes a hard turn off the road. Speeding down rough dirt. Her heart pounds violently in her chest, she can barely breathe. He hits the breaks as she attempts to grab the wheel, sending her flying forward at the sudden stop. Pain bursts in her wrist as she instinctively throws her arms out to protect her head. She throws herself out of his truck as fast as the door will open, falling on her hands and knees on the rough gravelly dirt she doesn't look back as she scrambles to her feet running.

Adrenaline and fear pushing her forward, unable to process the world around her. She twists her ankle putting a foot wrong, sending her tumbling into a ditch. She hits the ground hard, the air knocked from her lungs. As she struggles to move she sees him… The glint of moonlight on the hunting knife caught her eye, his gait untroubled, Smug… The look in his eye, that intense gaze… Blood ran from a cut in her brow, mixing with tears on her cheek. __

[…as the Rabbit struggles, the snare tightens preventing escape, constricting in the desperate fight for freedom, strangling the animal in the process…] __

Manny had killed his first rabbit before he learned how to ride a bike… It had far less blood. He lay at the bottom of a ditch, the familiar knife handle gripped white knuckled as he caught his breath… Blood soaks into the dirt, sticks to his skin… Stains the soft fabric of her dress, his blond hair slick with sweat and blood like hers… as he gets too his feet, looking down at his work, at that look etched on the face… He can't help but laugh as his life suddenly made sense, he let the knife slip from his aching hands with a dull thud…

Clarity. He felt neither remorse nor damned for his actions… This euphoric feeling washes over him, pure catharsis. Getting high with misfits back home doesn't compare… His mind is clear and he feels a profound sense that this is what he was meant to do… That this is who he is.

[Monday]

The two old men sit out front of the garage, the morning passes at a crawl as the apprentice mechanic works on the older of the two's car… "It hasn't seen that much ware in years," Mr Herring leans back in his chair, watching passing cars. "It was a good thing you did for her," Stephan reassured, taking a sip of his coffee. "It gave her one less thing to stress about over the summer."

"Shame she didn't stick around to say goodbye." The older man sighs, Stephan puts a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure she wanted to, you know she was cutting it close before the start of her studies." Herring nods, the old car he'd been loaning was in his driveway when he woke on Saturday morning, it hasn't done that many miles in a good decade but it was a good thing, he smiles. "I'm going to miss that girl." he looks up at the vast sky, not a single cloud drifting over head, a gentle breeze cools the summer heat. "She deserves to be happy," Stephan finishes his cup, getting up from his chair. "She's worked hard enough for it." He looks back into the shop, calling out. "How's it looking?"

Manny had been in an upbeat mood all morning, he walks to the doorway, as professional as the boy can manage. "The fuel gauge is faulty, I suggest getting it fixed before you end up stranded on the side of the road."

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