#tales from texas

[crazycrucifix]

imagine a wall covered with them

[big-boah-2]

I was at Walmart and saw a huge truck with a white back window sticker of a cowboy on his knees praying at a grave, with a horse standing behind him. Upon closer inspection the grave had a circle around it. We didn't have time to grieve we were just trying to get paper plates

[fanofspooky]

Scream King - R. Lee Ermey

[delaneytalks-tostatues]

Sometimes you just need to sing One-Eyed Jacks in your best Texan accent

[melodrama-ticcc]

— “ 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞 ” ; 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐗

𝐀 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝘈 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴.

𝙄𝙛 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙𝙣’𝙩 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨!

𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘢 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘺.

𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫. 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧. 𝙣𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧.

ʷᵃʳⁿⁱⁿᵍ: ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵃⁱⁿˢ ᵐᵃᵗᵘʳᵉ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉᵐᵉˢ. ⁱ.ᵉ. ᵈᵒᵐᵉˢᵗⁱᶜ ᵛⁱᵒˡᵉⁿᶜᵉ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵃᵇᵘˢᵉ, ᵍʳᵃᵖʰⁱᶜ ᵛⁱᵒˡᵉⁿᶜᵉ, ˡᵃⁿᵍᵘᵃᵍᵉ ʷᵃʳⁿⁱⁿᵍ, ᵐᵉⁿᵗᵃˡ ⁱˡˡⁿᵉˢˢ, ᵐᵉⁿᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵘʳᵈᵉʳ, ᵐᵉⁿᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ʳᵃᵖᵉ, ᵐᵉⁿᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ˢᵘⁱᶜⁱᵈᵉ, ᵐⁱˡᵈ ᵍᵒʳᵉ, ʳᵉˡⁱᵍⁱᵒⁿ, ˢᵉˣᵘᵃˡ ᵗʰᵉᵐᵉˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ˢⁱᵗᵘᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ.

—

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑: 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐨. 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞. 𝐕𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐝.

—

“Dang nab it boy, lookit the dog gone mess you stirred up! And you, you aughtta get your side of the family under control! I ain’t seen a mess like this since them college kids showed up!”

“Don’t patronize me Drayton, I think I know to raise my boy.”

“Then why’s this always happenin’ on your side huh, and the hell we gon’ do now? Your boy ain’t know how to stay outta trouble. Johnny you got any idea the position you’ve put your brothers ‘n I in? Aughtta be ashamed of ya’ self.”

“Now now, don’t you worry Johnny, we’ll get this straightened out.”

“Like hell we will.”

“What I’d like to know my dear, is what that Payne girl from down the way was doin’ there with you.”

The room fell silent.

Not even a peep.

Only the muffled sounds of chickens broke that quiet, and still the three stared to one another expecting an answer from the other. Drayton a way to solve this mess, Nancy an explanation from her boy, and Johnny, who’d been sat right on the tattered sofa like he was just a boy.

“I know you lookin’ out for me, but I fail to see why that concerns you ma’.”

“Oh just wait till your grandpa hears ‘bout this one.”

“Now hold on a second.” Nancy extends her arm to Drayton, whose one word away from letting the entire family in on it. Nancy herself bubbles with aggravation, masking her rage through this bothersome tender mother act. “Oh Johnny,” she sighs, having the seat beside him with her hand placed tenderly against his knee. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten, family comes first baby. We can’t keep no secrets ‘round here, gotta make sure we know everythin’ to get this squared away. Now tell me, what’s this pretty lil’ thing doin’ out with you like that, hm?”

Perhaps the only time Johnny’s charm didn’t work was when it came to his folks, they never failed to see right past his guise. He knew better than to fool them.

“I was right when I told y’all ‘bout her bein’ like us, ya’ know? I got a, a real eye for these things. Lemme tell ya’.” He peers to his mother at his left, and Drayton cooped up on the right side of the living room. “I’ve known since that day they had us for supper ya’ know? The very second I saw her. She’s got a fine taste for huntin’, does a real good job of it too. Why, she might even love it more than me. See, she just learnin’ still.”

“If this ain’t hell in a hand basket I don’t know what is boy! You are out of control, now you out givin out information to everybody ain’t ya’!”

“If you did your job and ran this damn family like grandpa did, she’d be one of us already!” Johnny huffs. “She don’t know ‘bout us, just me. Been takin’ her out for weeks and she’s gotten good, we could use her.”

“I’ll be damned if I let my boy get taken advantage of by some lil’ hooker!”

“I’m tellin’ you, she like us. Have her over for supper you’ll find out.”

“You’re out of your god damn mind!”

“You can kill her if she ain’t. But I’ll tell you right now that ain’t gon’ happen.”

“I’ve had enough of this Bonnie and Clyde act, what’s got you’s so fixated on this damn girl?”

“She’s mine damnit, ain’t like nothin’ you’d ever seen before I promise you that.”

“Johnny you ain’t know what you’s talkin’ ‘bout! She’s, why she’s just some tramp! I mean come on.” Nancy can only scoff. “This is real silly.”

“Tch, just like them university girls you’s said was yer’s, the ones that damn near drove this family into the ground?” Drayton laughs at him.

Fury burns in him and turns him red, a frustrated grunt leaving his lips when he slams his fists against the coffee table and stands up all at once.

“I said she’s different! This one’s different!” He screams. “You’re a damn fool if you ain’t see it, this one’s different — she’s different!” He huffs, leaning in real close to Nancy’s face, still seated on the couch and laced with shock, fear, maybe. “And she sure as hell ain’t no damn tramp.”

“Enough.” The room quiets and Nancy stands. “I ain’t hostin’ no supper for some no good lil’ girl messin’ with my baby’s head.”

“Finally you say summin’ that does anythin’ ‘round here, now handle your damn boy.”

“Y’all really think grandpa ain’t gonna want to get s’more hands ‘round here, huh? Like your time ain’t runnin’ out?”

“What in the damned hell did you just say?"

“You heard me, cook.” He snaps. “Ain’t nobody messin’ with my damn head, specially not after what you did to me.”

Nancy’s expression fades from that of indifference to a look of betrayal and hurt.

“Now Johnny baby that ain’t no way to talk to yer’ mother.”

“I’ll talk to you any way I damn well please, just like you gon’ talk to me like I’m some kid. Well I ain’t no more, and I ain’t gonna sit here ‘n let you talk me outta this. She’s comin’ to supper.” Nancy’s countenance softens, sours, like someone had pissed in her cheerios for the last time. Some amalgamation of hurt and anger.

"I’m fixin’ to clean yer plow here soon. We do what’s best for each other, not for your lust. Gon’ end up in the shitter if we ain’t keep this place up tight.”

“You best watch yer mouth ‘fore I ring yer’ neck for even lookin’ at my boy like that.” Nancy coos, a fake smile hiding her heartache. “Johnny my dear, I trust you. Let’s see what this here girl is like, maybe we’re wrong.”

“You fool-”

“Tomorrow evenin’, have her over. Till then you ain’t get out so much as a foot outside that door you hear me?” Nancy storms out quietly, warranting a stark glare from Drayton who then goes back to Johnny.

“Now we aught to lay low. Yer selfish act costin’ all of us the good meat, we got scraps till this blows over and that’s that. ‘N you just wait, Nubbins’ll have your head when he finds out.”

—

“Rebecca . . . .” Worry laces his call, domineering her attention from the dishes to exchange glances with him from across the room, as he shuts the radio off and rises from his seat.

“Yes, daddy?”

“What’d y’all get up to last night?”

“Headed down to the diner in Pfluegerville for some malts and caught a movie at the drive in. The usual, ya’ know? Why do ya’ ask?”

“Curious, you’s never tell me what you two get ‘round to.” Raymond’s voice shakes, congruent with the anxieties that riddle his body. He had no reason to believe the reports made had been them, no matter how closely the description aligned with their appearance had. Johnny was a fine man, he was sure of it, and did a good thing keeping his girl safe. “That all, then?”

“That’s all daddy,” Becca laughs, too loud for his own comfort and he sighs.

“You think I’m lyin’?” She questions, astounded. “Ask Johnny then, he’ll tell ya’!”

Raymond has to take a step back, reigning in his thoughts and quelling the fears within him. It was foolish of him to believe such a thing, that his daughter and he comely partner had committed murder in an entirely separate way region miles away. He felt guilty, perhaps he’d not given the girl enough credit. It was all just some, peculiar coincidence.

“No, no, Becca I ain’t callin’ you that.” Raymond nods. “I believe you, I just like to check in. It’s a father’s right to make sure his baby’s safe now.”

“Yes well daddy, I’m quite safe, peachy keen you’d say.”

“Right, well,” reluctantly he does refrain. “Let’s just make sure we stayin’ ‘round the house instead of headin’ out every night. You still under my roof, after all.”

It would come as no surprise that Johnny neglected their staunch orders, for he always had a mind and manner of doing things according to his own agenda. Caution never did suit him either; there’d been a track record when it came to things like this. The Pfluegerville incident, what happened with Maria, those college kids that came looking for her, and now the case with the imbecilic drunkards from Cedar Canyon. The one thing that remained constant between them all was the way in which he deceitfully maneuvered his way clear of every single one; he hadn’t been caught once.

Due to the bold nature of his work it was only expected they’d come across these complications, none but Drayton had ever done what Johnny had. While they’d wait for prey to come knocking on their door step, he went out hunting. A provider and a damn good one; and even they were not the same. His family would only ever understand it as that; a family affair. They’d hunt for survival and that was that, where, he took great pleasure in killing, hunting them down and watching the life drain from their eyes whilst he strangled them to death. It was no wonder the frustration bubbled and stuck out like a sore thumb, that with the loneliness that would be accompanied by it.

The mockingbirds sing a mawkish song to the storm clouds that sweep in from the north sky, their bolsterous heads an ominous omen in the distance. Fall had settled into the air, the summer heat fading to a soft warmth and then, cool. The winds would blow in, picking up the reddened leaves of autumn and dusting them over the hills to form a crimson sea. They brisk against the dirt and kick up dust, crisping faintly as they get caught in the brush where the tumbleweeds too would bung to the thorny exteriors of sickly bushes. He can hear the crinkling of those leaves from the inside of the truck, just feebly, when he pulls to the front of the Payne estate. It’s there that the air becomes still and the sugary songs those birds once chirped become deafened by the heaviness that fogs the place. Thick and muggy, as though the area itself had been swallowed up by a musk that wreaked of depravity. With it the sunshine fades in the cloak of those thunderheads, there’s a storm on its way.

The hollowed knock he lands on the front door falls on deaf ears, so there is a second, and a third. All harrowing sounds which go unanswered to further perpetuate the persecutory void the pensioned estate had adopted so peculiarly. The wait imparts annoyance from Johnny, who’d never been considered a very patient man. Thus the inclinations to go poking his nose about the place with a somewhat disquieting phenomena burgeoned in the low of his stomach. He decidedly moves to wander towards the pasture out back particularly certain he’d find his objectives buried up to her chin in work. There the gloom outstretches the earthed hills, cattle grazing on grass in the midst of the shadows and nothing but hay bales and hills as far as the eye could see. There he finds Raymond, busied with a preparatory work reinforcing the fences in the fields. He must’ve seen him, for he’d gestured his head Johnny’s way the way he typically had and kept on with his work. He’d only traveled about half way before Raymond called out, rather bluntly.

“If yer’ lookin’ for Rebecca, she’s up in ‘er room.” There’s a stagger to his canter, one that leaves him stopped in his tracks. “Been up there since breakfast. Think she’s upset I told ‘er to stop goin’ out so much.”

“Mind if I check in with ‘er? Don’t mind comin’ to help out afterwards if it’s a problem.”

“Be my guest,” Raymond motions his hand towards the house. Only veering his vision up from his work when Johnny pivots and begins walking back that way. “Say uh, ya’ heard ‘bout those brothers goin’ missin’, out in Cedar Canyon last night?”

He slows, then halts again, a tick tocking in his head as his brow raises. He peers just over his shoulder, able to make out a blurry image of Raymond watching him incredulously.

“Pardon?”

“Ah, nothin’, just summin’ I heard on the radio.”

“Must’ve missed it.”

“Right. Say uh, where’s you ‘n Becca run off to last night?”

There’s a moment of shared silence, and it’s then that Johnny turns to face Raymond in what he could only understand as repudiation. He was suspicious.

“Same as always, sir. Just that drive in out in Pfluegerville. I’m sure you understand, she’s got a real passion for those movies. Tells me she’s loved watchin’ ‘em with you at home.”

“Ah, good.” Raymond smiles. “Just makin’ sure, she’s still my girl after all.”

“Yeah well, she’s a real fine woman.”

“Right.” Raymond stands with a grunt, hunched over nearly. “You go in and speak to ‘er then, and uh, here.” Raymond traverses laggardly, fishing a five out of his pocket and handing it to Johnny. “Say uh, you two go ‘n pick me up sum’ more of them nails.” Raymond tosses the box into his hand. “There’s a storm comin’ in, best to get these sturdy now ‘fore it gets here. Take the truck, keys are on the stand by the door.”

“Sure thing,” Johnny nods his head ploddingly, then he’s on his way back toward the house with a less than ebullient expression. One that’d look sour milk if given the opportunity.

The house is quiet, so much so that the sound of the front door shutting behind him echoes about the chamber. Still silence, the eery and portentous kind.

“Darlin’?”

The cacodemonic sound phases through the home and back to him, and it’s just when he’s about to head up the stairs of the foyer she appears, like a grim shadow in the corner of the graveyard, Ghoulish and Cimmerian. The viscid black sullied over her eyelids and cheeks like soot shadows her beauty. Those pretty features veiled by the severity of her mania.

“Yes, dear?” A desolate gasp for air fuels her quiet call.

“Well lookit’ you,” Johnny muses. “Your father sendin’ us into town for some supplies, best we get a move on now.” It seems futile in that moment, the method of which she agonizingly scales down the steps to him; as though she were an apparition in its desolate descent to hell.

“To town?”

“Look I know it ain’t ideal, but sooner it’s over sooner we can lay low, let’s get on with it.”

“Right. I take it you’ve heard it then, the radio? They got us huh?” She reaches him, slow and laggardly as she comes to rest her head at his chest. “Johnny boy, they saw. I, what’re we’re to do?”

“Tch, come on darlin’, this ain’t my first rodeo. You think I ain’t end up in this kinda pickle before? We’ll be just fine.” The steady hand on her back nudges her forward. “Let’s just get this on over with so we can put it to bed.”

Silence was bliss, except for when it was filled with the incessant anxieties that plagued one’s head. His affirmation hadn’t been taken at face value, and the thoughts that troubled her prior had only begun to swell. Sitting in the passenger side of that old truck, with nothing but the empty grasslands to distract her. His ignorance was her hell, and she could only hope to find some solace in raising her concerns once more.

“Ya know, daddy asked me ‘bout last night I, I think he suspects summin’ of us.”

“I know,” he sighs. “Asked me ‘bout it too.”

Rebecca turns to him, shifting in her seat quickly for his response had stirred a whole heap of worrisome thoughts to further pick at her insides like vultures.

“Oh god he knows it, what’d you tell ‘em? What if we told ‘em summin’ different I, Johnny, what’ll we do?”

“Would you settle the hell down? You’re scatterin’ all over the damn place.” He warns. “I ain’t told him any different than you, only added onto it, aight?”

“Surely you don’t know that.”

“Darlin’, let me worry ‘bout these damn things and just focus on lookin’ pretty. You got that?” She can hear the annoyance in his voice, the aggravation begin, and she takes that as a warning to cease for the time being despite her growing sense of dread.

She settles, still wary and bug eyed when she flips the radio on in an attempt to ease those thoughts. The thoughts that, despite her forlorn efforts tore down her every sense of stability and peace, she couldn’t know for certain. And, until he could prove that to her she wouldn’t find peace. Especially when every station had the report blaring, while she vehemently clicked through radio stations in search for an escape. It seemed no matter what she’d done, the consequences of their recklessness had followed.

The hyper awareness of that damned mistake, toppled with the blaring radio station in the old hardware store downtown had made her to belief they were done for. Shaking there beside her boy, partly clinging to the bend in his arm while she look about like a lost puppy. There, where the eyes of the shop clerk stared into the back of her skull and the few patrons seemed to have their eyes peeled to her every which way.

“Johnny . . . everyone is starin’.”

“Shut the damn hell up would you?” Johnny quips back, causing her to recoil into him. Her eyes still looking sporadically between the three others in the building.

It had seemed like the entire world was against her, when the eyes of many wouldn’t leave her in peace and the radio inside the station began blaring about the same old story, the one they’d so carelessly created last night. That had been enough, enough to push her over the edge and spill the tears hiding behind those eyes. She hits Johnny’s arm, shaking it and pulling and anything she can to get his attention and draw him out.

“Johnny they got us- we gotta go they know they all know.”

“Go sit in the damn truck and shut the hell up.” He shoves the keys into her, an act that has her stumbling back and clutching them to her chest. “Go on, go!” His loud voice only draws more attention to her, more eyes, and when her own gaze makes eye contact with the others in the room she scurries out like a scared little mouse. Clumsily and pathetic, throwing herself into the truck and bringing her knees up to her chest. It was all over, they’d been had.

“What in the damn hell is wrong with you? Makin’ a scene like that?” It wasn’t until Johnny had climbed in yelling that she realized he’d done it just fine, nails in hand. “I told you and I told you, there ain’t no god damn thing to bitch about. Quit your whinin’ and get on with it.” Perhaps he should smack her he thinks, to quell her irrationality.

Aggravation bares an ugly head in him, feasting at his frustrations. She’d not comprehend the grievance of their situation, at least not how he did. She’d make it out to be some big thing, but for Johnny it was a nuisance, and the longer they sat there twaddling with their thumbs the more indignant he became. The frustration turns to virulence, then his face goes red with lividity. His patience wearing thin there is little attempt to withhold his harsh words, she’d know soon enough.

Even as he drives the truck off the main road and back down the way they came she shakes in her place, eyes red and wide, and limbs weak and heavy. It’s as though the world around her spins; she feels nauseated, sick, in a blind panic. It’s then that she begins to cry, silent and painful tears. And Johnny he says nothing, despite her silent calls for help and his callous attitude, speeding the truck down the highway and scrunching his face up in a less than gracious manner.

“They gon’ catch us, ain’t they?”

“I’ve had enough of this god damn act you hear me?” His scream pieces the metallic interior, causing her cries to become vocal. “I ain’t gon’ tell you ‘gain, we’d be just fine if you shut the hell up already.”

“I can’t! Not when they out there lookin’ for us and everybody knows just exactly what we’s look like Johnny, damnit!”

The truck jolts forward when he shifts it into park, and he only stares forward, not making eye contact.

“Go inside and figure out whatever the hell it is you need to shut up while I go on ‘n get these to yer’ pops.”

“Johnny?”

“I said now damnit!” His yell is the last warning that sends her inside without another peep, before he goes off looking for Raymond. Whose leant up against one of the rotted fences out back sipping on some ice cold sweet tea.

“You find ‘er?”

“Yeah, she’s all right.”

“Got them nails?”

“Right here sir,” Johnny plants them in his palm. “Listen uh, got summin’ I need to ask you ‘bout?”

“Go ‘head boy. If you’s askin’ to take ‘er out again tonight my answers no. Needs to stay in ‘fore that storm gets here.”

“Nah, my folks uh, they’d like to have ‘er over for dinner tomorrow night. That all right?”

There’s a long pause, hesitance.

“Dinner huh?”

“You’ll have to excuse my mother. See she’s real skeptical ‘bout Becca, just wants to get to know ‘er is all.”

“Normally I’d say yes, but,”

“Please, sir,” Johnny sort of chuckles. “It’s real important to me, I promise I’ll have ‘er home early if that’s what it takes.”

“Mm.” Raymond hums, thinking. “She ain’t been home much lately, ya’ know?”

“It’ll be a few hours, at most, not more than yer’ out here in them fields. I’ll pay you back what I can in labor. Though I’d do that anyways.”

“All right Johnny,” Raymond sighs, clearing his throat of the sugar from that tea. “Best hope you ain’t disappoint me.”

“You got my word, sir.”

The house is quiet when Johnny recenters, impatiently searching for a troublesome Rebecca who emerges down the stairs with a distressing visage. Viscid black sullied over her eyelids and smeared rouge over her cheeks and nose, she hyperventilates like she’s hard of breath, gasping for air like she’d been strangled.

“May as well run if they gon’ get us, we gotta run!” She screams, clutching onto her messed head of hair. “Run like hell! Now now! We have to go!” She pleads with him, met with a stoic impression by him.

“Now don’t go talkin’ like that on me. You sound pathetic. You give up that easy?” He quips back instantaneously, coming up those steps to meet her midway up the bannister. It’s there her blackened, tear-stained cheeks seem muddy and bedaubed. An angry red peaks out through the smeared makeup, as though she’d been galling at it for some time. “Quit your cryin’. Ain’t no use whinin’ now. We got bigger problems.”

She begins to cry, quietly, her gaze avoidant and peeled to the ground her feet stood over. Those weeps become more and more hysterical, as she clings to the skin of her cheeks for some sort of relief. “I can’t- Johnny, what’re we gon’ do? It can’t end like this, no, it can’t!”

The feeling is anomalous, uncustomary; and yet she feels as though it is normal to experience such a strange sensation. Nobody knew just how deprived one became when their way of life was threatened, and the solitude of their lives became compromised. It felt as though the world itself had ended there, as though Christ himself had come to judge them all and yet he did no saving. For the feeling was real and uncouth, viciously tearing apart all that she had come to love. In its wake a coarse, hollow body in mourning. How pitiful, she might believe those words. Maybe she was pathetic.

“The hell did I just say?” There’s a sharp incantation in his pitch, one that thwarts her head from her mind and draws her to him. His eyes watch over her like he’s studying, an attempt to pull together the pieces and gather his messy thoughts. Then his roughed hands reach to her face, clasping either side of her cheek and staring a hole into her. Straight through those frightened irises and into the darkness that had taken her and plagued her with such terrors. “You aught to learn how to get these thoughts of yer’s under control, shit, just shut up a second. That report ain’t nothin’, station’s pumpin’ those out all the time cause ain’t shit else goin’ on ‘round here. Don’t mean nothin’, we just lay low for a while and everythin’ll blow over like it never happened.” He’s watching her with a fervent intent, one evident in the way his eyes peruse her for signs of doubt. His thumbs glazing over dampened cheeks in a feeble attempt to rid the black smeared about her face. His stern voice quiets to a hushed, more subtle tone. One that matches the touch of his fingertips against her velvety skin. “Actin’ like this ain’t my first time, tch. Come on now darlin’.”

Her lashes flutter open and her sight fixates on him, then, languidly her arms stretch from her face to his. A trembling palm, clammy skin pressed against the sharp line of his jaw. Her hold is a weak and pitiable one, and her whines of desperation shameful. Then she quiets, a polarized decorum haunted by the uncertainty of their fate. Blue eyes wide and wet with fear and lip quivering.

“I don’t too much like repeatin’ myself but perhaps you ain’t hear me.” Johnny is angry, his voice deplorable and cruel. The forceful handful of hair he takes between his fingers and tugs toward his lips sends a sharp sting to her scalp. Met with an ireful groan when she winces into his hold. “Quit yer cryin’ and show me your damn capable, not just sum’ painted up bitch. I said we’d get it straight and ‘less you don’t trust me, and, ha, you’d better trust me, this lil’ pity act of yer’s better get cleaned up real quick.” Each word as cruel as the last it bites, teeth sinking in to create an even deeper wound. She yelps, and in the slew of their shared words she wastes no time in throwing him off of her. Her apoplectic guise becomes her, boiling blood pinks the tips of her ears and makes her hot. Her eyebrows arching down to a furious grimace. It seems she would always forget how angry he made her, how downright loathsome he would become. How his impatience and temper ignites her own and turns her into something she despises. The incensed and shameful, the downright disgusting. Johnny’s back collides with the wall, a thundering sound in its wake. The frames and decor hung so neatly shake and tremor. The collision sending a photograph crashing down to the steps, the noise of shattered glass ringing in the entryway.

“Would you shut the damn hell up!” Rebecca screams, a feverish appearance overtakes her once solemn features. Her limbs still shake, only now with the adrenalized presence of her fury rather than mourning. “Don’t ever speak to me like that, I told you and I told you.” Her hands clench to fists, waning at her sides for the words to leave his stupid mouth.

They were eyes he hadn’t been on the receiving end of in some time, ones enraged with rabid madness and incurable choler. Scrunched up the way they did when she was riding the fine line between composure and a blown temper. It arouses him, gets him so excited he smirks some deviant way. Only this time the looming presence of their little fiasco far outweighed his willingness to play along with her charade.

“Stupid bitch.” He grabs her arm, sending her scrambling to fetch up one of the broken glass shards as he drags her up the stairs despite her protests. The wood edges bang up her knees and shins, grunts of pain and groans leaving those bitten lips. As they reach the top of the bannister she sends the glass blade sinking into the skin of his arm, prompting his grunt and release. She wastes no time in stumbling away from him, leaving him to pull the thing out and clench his arm whilst the blood drips down it.

There she stands, legs widened and hunched over at the end of the hallway where her figure is outlined by the white light that shines in through the window. She breathes erratically, huffing out through an open mouth and seething in her indifference.

“I don’t like too much repeatin’ myself either. For a man who prides himself on respect he don’t do too much to earn it from me. I told you and I told you, quit speakin’ to me like I’m yer’ dog or I’ll cut yer’ tongue out yer throat and you’s ain’t gonna talk at all!”

“God damnit, you done pissed me off now, we got bigger things to worry ‘bout you know that?” He saunters over, not before she’s grabbing the lamp off the stand in the hall and using it to throw at him. “You real keen on me teachin’ you a thing or two, so here’s summin’ to take note of.”

Just as she turns to flee he grabs her wrist, yanking her backwards and into his arms when she trips over her own feet. There he holds her body to his, a hand pulling back that hair with a firm grip. She cries out in pain, her fingers clinging to his wrist as she winces. Thrashing her body about to loosen his hold does little to relieve her position. Especially as he wanes into the crook of her neck and laughs.

“Don’t start summin’ you can’t finish, darlin’.” His whisper is sickening, that and the hot air he breaths to her neck. The scratchy fondle of his chapped lips scraping at her, with his teeth that nip and his torrid tongue. Her vain efforts dwindle, fists pushing and clawing at anything she can reach. In a desperate attempt to create a gap between them and sever him from her. Regaining her footing she kicks her leg forward, followed with a swift knee to his crotch.

He lets go, leaving her to crash against the wood floors flat on her back. Both she and him wince and groan, writhing around in pain like fools. She has not one spare moment to recover herself, before he’s on top of her and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. It isn’t then, no, it’s when he uses his strength to pin both her wrists down beneath him that it floods in. All the times he’d so senselessly fucked them, had he thought her no better?

They flash about her vision like a picture show, and as her exasperation nears its peak she’s hopeless for any sort of salvation. Still kicking and screaming, thwarting around her body like some squeamish little thing.

Rancor consumes her when he presses a messy kiss to her lips and he frees his arm just to grope at her. It’s a long enough opening for her to reach for the shard of glass, fumbling with it for a moment before grasping it tightly. The ragged edges dig into the skin of her palm, procuring blood from it, the sharp sting the edge she needs to do such a thing. Her fist comes crashing downward with a purpose of vengeance, the sharp tip stabbing into his back again, and again, and again. Until he buckles over her and gives her leeway to wiggle out of his hold. She’s freed herself, shuffling to her feet just to kick into him. His scornful grunts and expressions leave him in a state of shock, weakness, for Becca kicks him to his back in time to straddle him. Her jeaned thighs on either side of his torso, she holds the makeshift blade to his mouth shakily.

Her body rattles with emotion, her eyes the keeper of her heart — and the bitter feeling of betrayal that leaves her heartbroken. Tears prick at them, forming a river that graciously falls down her stained cheeks.

“Gimme one good reason,” she huffs. “One damn good reason not to sever that damn tongue so you ain’t ever speak to me ‘gain. Or better yet, let’s slice off them damn fingers or cut you up and bash yer skull in god damnit Johnny boy.” She holds her stature over him, watching him puff out hot air and catch his breath. When he only laughs she screams something incoherent, pressing the knife into the corner of his lip to draw blood. “I’ll do it god damnit I swear!”

“You wanna reason?” His question is met with a look of disdain, horrified by his blatant ignorance. “Cause both you and I know a damn good reason girl.”

A nasty sob that leaves agonizing cries to elicit from her pink lips, as she drops the blade and hangs her head in defeat. Love, love was a pertinacious affair.

Rebecca gets to her feet, not so much as sparing him a glance when she turns her back to him and begins walking towards her room. Johnny soon gets up, examining carefully the newly acquired scars and wiping the fresh blood from himself.

“Clean up this damn blood, ‘fore your daddy gets in here. I got the glass.” The back of his hand smears the blood over his mouth and cheek, and he has to spit to the ground to keep from swallowing it.

Johnny only sighs, looking to her with a cynical sort of expression, as though he were trying to figure her out. His brows raise, and for a second he looks mean. That is until he remembers being in the same place she was. Afraid, shaken up and alone. Before he just couldn’t understand why she didn’t get it, and it still fired him up for it was just as much as nuisance as it was annoying. But then something made sense, for he’d again seen the pieces of himself imbued in her and was reminded of why she was so unique.

There came a time where Johnny had been the outcast, poked fun of by his family and made to feel foolish and pestilent by his own mother. He’d never forget that day, for the scar that gouged the left side of his face would never let him. He resented mother for that, for robbing him of that freedom, a chance at normalcy that wasn’t so confining.

“And for heaven’s sake get yer’ self presentable! I’m takin’ you out!”

Devoid of emotion, numb, as she sits petrified in the passengers seat trying to make out something of what had happened. It lets itself play over and over again, and she finds herself reliving the experience. Her body still shaking, hands still balled up into fists. Her eyes are wide, the residual tears still staining the reddened skin around her lashes. Hastily done makeup does little to mask it, only makes her seem like an old porcelain doll.

They’re both silent, the only sound filling the cabin that of the wheels against asphalt coming in from outside. She thinks he’s heartless, not checking in on her after such a ruckus and leaving her to grasp into scraps. Her palms hurt, gashed open by the glass; the dried blood of both of them still coaxed into her nail beds. She picks at them, finally some movement in an otherwise motionless car ride.

“You really hurt me, ya’ know? Makes me think twice ‘bout everything you’ve said.” Her doddering voice breaks the silence, her eyes unmoving from her own hands. “I was scared of what might happen, us bein’ caught. I ain’t ever done this kinda thing, you gotta understand.” She is met with uncomfortable quiet, his stare unyielding from the road.

“You pissed me off, should know better to watch yer mouth and listen as I say. I told you we’d be fine. Now what we gotta handle is the fact that yer’ daddy is awful suspicious of what we been up to, and my folks ain’t to keen either. We’re in a real shit show there, I told ya’ we aughtta lay low for a while ‘n stay in and yer’ pops had us out runnin’ his errands. Top of that, family wants you’s over for supper tomorrow night. You need to learn to get those thoughts under control and listen, cause while you’re havin’ yer way I’m tellin’ you how it is. I ain’t hurt you, was yer own damn fault.”

Searing tears prick at her eyes, her face souring. She sniffles, gasping for air and throwing her face in her hands.

“I’m sorry! I ain’t mean to make such a mess of things.”

He remembers being so distraught running off to the back fields while dusk set in, clutching at the wound on his face and wallowing in his own shame and pity. There was no one there to save or comfort him then, no one to explain or help him understand. Instead, pure and unbridled rage and despair at the hands of his insufferable mother. He remembers collapsing to his knees as the blood spilled from his face and into his hands, staining his jeans and the white t shirt that clung to his skin. The scene that played before him was just that, a mirrored image of himself. Whilst he too sobbed helplessly into his hands.

That had been the last time he cried, displayed such a weakness that could be exploited by those around him. He never wanted to give her that power, so he buried it and acted as though it didn’t bother him. The birth of his disdainful love and hate.

It’s funny then, as just thinking about it made him feel those same feelings, made him feel the tightness in his skin, the burn of his wound, the searing brand her hand left upon his face. He could feel it then, the indentation of his past and the ugly it left over his once unscathed facade.

Within those passing moments his gaze softens as it watches over her, and maybe then he feels a pang of empathy and guilt, one which he pushes so far down he’s nearly choking on it. Fixing his eyes back on the road as they narrow in thought, the sound of her cries fading in the static of his brain. Whilst he preferred to leave her to her own devices, he found it uncomfortable to sit idyl whilst she battled those feelings of illegitimacy and fear, loneliness.

Begrudgingly he sighs, a hand carefully reaching for one of those hands in place of her face.

“It’s alright,” he doesn’t stagger from watching the road, and after removing the hands from her face does his find it’s place back on the wheel. “I’ll fix it.”

For a moment there’s silence, whilst she dries the tears from her cheeks and tries her best to remedy sullied makeup. Trembling with a strange cultivation of feeling, but if the calm in his voice is any indication of solace, those worries are quelled. She’s partly shocked, that he’d calmed so quickly, as though he saw her agony. Only the right turn he makes off the highway pulls her away from her thoughts. There he pulls off to the side of a shabby old gas station boarded up and rotten, a typical mom and pop convenient store advertising Texas barbecue and Coca Cola on its edifice. There’s a large plot of land out back, fenced in by barbed wire and rotten wood planks. Rebecca only looks to Johnny, a questioning look behind her glossy eyes.

“Relax, thought we could make a date out of this ‘n get some pop. ‘Sides, this is the old man’s place.” He stares ahead, putting the truck in park and moving to hop out. Then he saunters off in his usual manner, coming up the passenger side to pop the door open and caress her chin with a calloused hand. “C’mon darlin’, let’s say I treat you.”

Johnny would never admit it, that he felt some type of way about what had happened. That he too could relate to that same scared, secluded feeling. Instead he’d rather fancy her up with miscellaneous little things, make her feel like he wasn’t so uncouth.

For a moment she watches him, his suave smile and calming voice. And she can all most forget the fact he’d so blatantly overpowered her and ignored her pleas. Perhaps that was a part of the reason he loved her so much, because she didn’t just sit and take it. That idea simmers, the same type of estranged feeling she elicits when she’s yearning for the men to beg and plead and cry, and even fight back. And all the things Johnny’s said, about liking the chase. Only she was still around, a part of her could reconcile with that fact. So, she smiles, clasping his rugged hand as he helps her out of the truck like he always did, strolling in casually with her on his arm like some trophy. All which is met with Johnny’s ecstatic grin and sense of relief, and an pleased “that’s my girl.”

She wasn’t half as surprised to find Drayton waltzing up to the front door to greet them there, Johnny with a fiery look Rebecca could only describe as heinous. Something wasn’t quite right there, for when he looked to her it was as though his entire demeanor changed back to the lovable old cook.

“Nice to see ya’s, how’s you and that old man of ya’s doin’? Fixin’ to see this storm I reckon.”

“Mighty fine seein’ you too sir, we been doin’ just fine. Daddy’s out fixin’ them fences right now. How you been?” There’s that certified one of a kind smile, faker than the front Drayton and anybody else put up.

“Ah, works work. You two come on in and get you’s sum’ lunch.” Drayton’s smile fades when he looks to Johnny, instead a grave look overtaking his features and a hasty tone in his voice. “Your cousin’s in there, back home ‘till thanksgivin’, oh and uh, I ‘ready filled ‘em in on yer’ lil’ problem.”

A nasty scowl on his face Johnny groans and pushes past Drayton, swinging the front door open and stomping in there without another word. There the scent of smoke and meats radiate about, a deliciously sweet scent that has her stomach growling. Still attached to Johnny’s arm, she follows him about whilst looking the small room up and down. Not much but the smoker and some old shelving and benches, and the red headed mullet sitting up against the smoke room door. He doesn’t say much, just grunts and makes a pointed gesture towards Johnny who seems delighted. The biggest grin over his face and an eager nod.

He’s a large man, easily towering over both she and Johnny. His clothes are something out of a rolling stones magazine and his hair kinked and greasy. There’s a mean look to him, angry, and even the sounds he makes seem displeased. Rebecca can only smile, watching Johnny as she waits for his call.

“Well I’ll be, lookit you! How ya’ been?” He’s like a child excitedly trying to make friends with the cool kid on the playground. She’d never seen him so elated, desperately trying to show off. “Got someone I’d like ya’ to meet.” That sentence snaps her away from her thoughts and calls her attention to them as opposed to his words. He pulls her forward, to which she obliges and smiles graciously.

“This is my girl, Rebecca. She’s uh, been a real jewel ‘round here.” Her introduction is met with a crude look from the man, who leans forward as if to examine her and nods his head in acknowledgement. All before leaning back up against the creaky boarded wall. His arms plant on his knees and he looks to Johnny, not a word, just a slight hum.

“Rebecca, this here’s my cousin Hands, he’s one of ‘em truck drivers, been out on the road for weeks. Real funny once you get to know ‘em.” He pulls her forward, showing her off like a toy and snaking an arm around her waist. It would be a shame if she didn’t relish in it, just like she had been, an overwhelming sense of accomplishment blossoming in her.

“Pleased to meet you sir, any friend of Johnny’s a friend of mine.” Sweet southern tongue pretties her words like icing on a cake, and despite Hands’ lack of words and acknowledgment she offers her hand as a sign of respect.

Hands looks at her hand, long slender fingers with painted white tips. It takes some time, but he finally moves. Reaching into his pocket to fish out some old trinket and placing it into her palm. The silence is loud, but she kindly looks to her palm to find an old coin that had been pressed through one of those old penny presses. The design untidy and choppy, on it is a scrounged up image of a man who faintly resembles Johnny, one which she was half sure he’d done himself.

“Well I’ll be,” Johnny cuts in, taking a look at the smashed penny in her hand. “Ain’t that somethin’,” Johnny nudges her with his elbow. “Means he likes ya’ darlin’!”

“Ain’t it?” Becca grins. “Real nice of ya’, mister Hands. Johnnys a fine young man, I bet you’s aughtta be real proud of ‘em.” Johnny steps away, removing himself from her to head towards the ice box and grab a few bottles of pop. To which her gaze lingers, not before snapping back to Hands with a smile. “Ya’ know I bet you and my Johnny got lots of memories together, can’t imagine what he was like when he was just a boy. Guess you could say I’m real fond of ‘em ya’ know?” Her attempts at small talk are left on deaf ears, for Hands only grunts and groans or hums in responses leaving her to awkwardly smile and nod. That is until Drayton steps back in and looks to her with a knowing expression.

“Say uh, Johnny tells me you’ll be joinin’ us for supper tomorrow, grandpa’ll be real excited to meet you ain’t that right boy?”

They each exchange a look of disdain, Drayton towards Johnny and the other way around. Glaring holes into each others head whilst Johnny takes three of the cold Coke bottles and tossed them onto the counter.

“Oh yeah, he’ll be real fond of ya’ darlin’.”

“Boy ain’t ever brought a lady home for supper before, must be gettin’ real close eh’?”

Left out but not oblivious, she’d be a fool to think something wasn’t afoot between the two. That with their less than enthusiastic attitudes toward one another and the sly words which injected Drayton’s words. Instead of feigning innocence she politely plays along to their game, making it clear she was no stranger to this coy act of his and more than anything proving herself.

“Oh yes, matter of fact I was just tellin’ Hands I’m real fond of ‘em, and don’t you worry daddy thinks he’s real nice too.” Rebecca turns round with a grin and moves to Johnny, grasping his bicep knowingly. “Ain’t that right dear? Now, shall I bring a pie? I’d love to help anyway I can. Real kind of you folks havin’ me over and all.” She looks up to Johnny, already staring back at her with a wild grin. Her attention diverts quickly to Drayton with a snap of her head, Johnny watching her with a proud look.

Drayton is unusually disoriented, fixing his own head on pulling the barbecue from the smoke room. The ebullient chuckle that falls from Johnnys lips only rubs salt in the wound, and while Drayton responds to Becca’s offer with a slight nod and a hum, distracting himself with the cutting of meat bits whilst he glares through Johnny.

The sound of the blade against the wood of the cutting board and the soft cracks of open bottles of pop sound the air, as Johnny passes a bottle to first Rebecca, then Hands and finally one for himself. If his distaste for Drayton wasn’t clear then, it was abundantly apparent in those moments. Much of their lunch was spent that way, with Drayton’s passive aggressive comments towards Johnny and their mischievous banter. Rebecca found herself at the center of the old man’s soured mood, and her innocent enough but coy smart ass comments only made matters worse. It sure did keep the shit eating grin on Johnny’s face nice and wide, though.

“Well, I’d be lyin’ if I said you ain’t have a fine talent for cookin’ sir, I’d love to get the recipe sometime.” Rebecca stands, taking the plates from the three men and moving to wash them in the dingy sink off to the side. “Thank you very much for the treat, I’ll have to pay back the favor.”

“Oh no need, nice surprise havin’ you stop on in, slow business today. You tell that father of yours hello and tell ‘em not to be no stranger. We’ll see ya’s tomorrow, stay safe in that there storm.”

“Oh yes,” she smiles, putting the dishes up to dry and wiping the wet hands against her jeaned thighs. “Of course, have a good afternoon would y’all?” She’s met with Johnny at the door, who escorts her out before getting a smack to the back of the head. Half enraged he turns around, clutching the back of his skull as he stares to the old cook.

“Your mother’s gon’ have a cow ‘bout this one you nitwit.”

“Watch your mouth old man, I’ll make you eat those words.” Without another word does he shove the door shut, marching out to where Rebecca leans up against the truck with a pleased expression.

“Rebecca Payne, you’d like a honeysuckle full of poison, you know that?” His jubilant smile brings one to her own face and she laughs, shaking her head as he greets her with his hands at either side of her waist. He leans into her, a freed hand coming to swipe at her ear. “Sweet and deadly, just how I like it.”

“Well I’m happy to please,” she teases, a hand glued to his chest and the other pressing at his chin when she forced him to look at her.

“I bet you are.” Johnny’s tall frame hangs over her, closing her into the cage he’d formed around her. It’s hard to say no to him, to object, when his hand is at her hip and lips against her mouth. One of the many things she felt naive in, and helpless, when his mouth would traverse over the tender skin of her neck and his touchy hands would snake under the warm skin of her blouse. It’s nearly there, at her breast when she grasps at his wrist. Her head tilted up as he prods at the pristine and untouched skin over her collar bone. Soft and warm, velvety, not like the cold and dead ones he was so used to.

She wishes, partly, that he’d have her right there. Yet, guilt festers in her like maggots to decaying flesh, stopping such lustful desires in their tracks and picking at her gut. It’s just hard to say no, when his body is pressed up against hers and he leaves bittersweet bites over the plains of her body. Rebecca’s values were always strong though, as was her desire to remain pure, so when her grip on his lingering wrist tightens she instructs him to stop. Her free hand pushing at his jaw, holding it there, forcing him and his handsome mug to look at her.

“No, no,” Rebecca coos out, a whisper, plagued by the pleasures he so lavishly laid onto her. “You know me, guess you could call me old fashioned. I prefer those older values, traditionally, it’s more special that way.”

He’s annoyed, as seen in the way his hands ball into fists and he huffs. He watches her, grasping her wrist and pulling her hand away from his face. Instead he presses it to his sickly sweet lips, watching her through it all.

“Fine,” he hums. She’s right, there’s something special about having the forbidden fruit, taking something that wasn’t allowed. Maybe that’s how she was different too, she wouldn’t give it up so easily, and she was, she felt, different. Special. Impulsivity was written in her nature, as is clear when he grasps at her throat, not enough to harm her, just enough to pull her forward. Close enough for his lips to graze her ear, for his fingers to dig into her flesh. “Let’s say this; if you were mine, my wife, what would happen then?”

Rebecca can only laugh, finding his silly little hypotheticals unserious and teasing. She shakes her head, despite his fingertips pressing into the smooth matter of her neck. She flashes a toothy smile, and she feels his hold loosen when she hangs her head.

“Did I stutter?” His staunch tone causes that smile to fade, and he’s now holding her head up much like she had done to him. She can’t tell, if he’s angry or simply serious. Either way, he had captured her attention. “I need to repeat myself? I told you I ain’t like that.”

“Johnny, please.” She breaths out. “I don’t take these things lightly.” It’s a warning, anger pitching in her voice out of fright, fearful he might’ve been acting a fool.

“What makes you think I do, darlin’?” He pulls back, his hands each falling to hold her waist. “What’s stoppin’ me from marryin’ you one day, you?”

“I ain’t say yes.”

“But you would, wouldn’t ya’?” Johnny smirks, thinking he has her feated.

“Not unless you gave me your word, that you truly cared for me,” she looks to him with all seriousness, steadfast, all most a glare. She leans into him, her hands resting over his chest the way she liked so much. She’d eye him up and down, battering her lashes and resting her head atop one of the hands she’d laid over him. “And that I’d be the only one you ever, ever kept alive.”

He holds her in silence, in thought, while he pieces together her conditions and considers what that meant, how it effected him, and everything else.

“Rebecca Payne my word ain’t taken lightly.” He groans, flustered. It’s an oddity, how he cannot begin to think of another, someone who’d beckon to his will and call or do anything to please him, any other worth keeping around, worth bringing into the hell that was this family, any one who’d make being there just a little more tolerable. He found every part of it deplorable, the way she’d so easily infected every inch of his mind, his life. How little she had to work for it, how much he felt tied to her. He hated the way it made him feel, the fact that he felt at all. Despised the bludgeoned feeling of not having the control over someone, the ability to play with them like they were his food. He couldn’t fathom the idea of killing her, no matter how much he would’ve liked to. If he wanted to rip her apart limb by limb he couldn’t, couldn’t strangle her and watch the life leave her pretty blue eyes, couldn’t even tear into her with his favorite knife. The worst part of it all is he hadn’t the slightest clue why, and no matter how deep he buried the emotions they’d choke him out each time he saw her. It was why he felt so angry, so pent up, so different all at the same time. And he couldn’t figure out why it was he felt so futile, whenever she came about with her homicidal desires and her prim and proper intentions. She was just too much, too much like him. He was staring back at his own reflection, and he was too much in love with himself to salvage it.

“If I gave you my word?”

“Then I’d say yes.” Rebecca smiles, planting a kiss to his lips which he can only return with great satisfaction. His own chapped ones moving against hers soft, with intensity and roughness her own tender touch lacked. He kisses her, and there’s a time where the insatiable appetite for human flesh subsides, and he can forget about his family and the endless killing and blood and guts, he can forget about what his mother did to him, he could even forget how much it tormented him for all these years and the neverending pit of loneliness this life had condemned him to. It all fades away and there, just the passionate feeling of her skin against his can not just numb but take, take it all away. What was left was something lively and whole, a warm light that never goes out.

The second she pulls away he’s reminded of those things though, and his bloodlust floods in ten fold. Where he craves the hunt and the slaughter, and he can see it in her too. The desperate look in her eyes for something sickening and disturbing. He can only smile at her for it for he is the same, and then they go on their way.

As they made their way back to the farmhouse on the highway, they each found themselves in an overcrowded heap of their own baggaged thoughts. Johnny silent, trying to sort out those uncomfortable and isolated feelings and Rebecca, considering his uncharacteristic display of emotion and what it meant to become family.

“You’s got alotta family, huh?” Rebecca wonders aloud, her eyes peeled to the clouds forming in the distant sky.

“Summin’ like that,” responds Johnny. “Just got alotta cousins, that’s the way it’s always been.”

“It must be real nice,” she muses. “Havin’ a big happy family like that, I always wanted to have one of my own. Momma just . . . it just ain’t work out that way.”

“It ain’t always easy.” His calloused hand finds a home on the top of her thigh, warranting her attention. “Most of the damned time we ain’t see eye to eye, fact I ain’t too much like bein’ home for too long. We just got eachother’s backs, is all.”

“You mean you don’t like havin’ all that family?” She shifts her body to face his. “What’s it like Johnny boy?”

“Nah,” he sort of chortles. Then he pauses, thinking. “My family, to them, that’s the most important thing in this life. Family. We was raised with a certain respect for that, no matter our differences. It’s grandpa who ties us together, keeps the family goin’, you’ll see, we gotta whole lotta respect for that man.”

“He loves y’all, then?”

“Yeah sure, summin’ like that.” Johnny shrugs. “It’s just the way things are, it always been that way. I ain’t too much like the way my mother and the old man like to run things but I go ‘long with it any matter. We got a pretty good thing goin’, they say.”

“You ever want a family of yer’ own, Johnny?” She ponders, watching him with doll-like eyes, a certain innocence to them. “I wanna be a momma one day, better one than mine ever was that’s for sure. Settle down with a real man in a big pretty house, with children runnin’ a muck, a big happy family. Like yours, I reckon.”

Johnny chuckles, watching her and the genuine smile that forms on her lips.

“I got family ties I ain’t get rid of, that’s where those loyalties lie. Always has, always will. Guess you could call me a family man.” Johnny shakes his head. “I gotta protect ‘em, provide for ‘em. If I ain’t do it no one else will.”

In awe she smiles, looking over him with some newfound respect and admirable affection. His sense of dignity and loyalty to such morals would closely tie into her own, making the feelings in her stir. Perhaps she’d felt like the world had brought them together for that very reason, like the lord above had made him just for her, that this was fate, they were meant to be. It was that that excited her, made her eager to pursue and cater to his every need, do all that he asked of her and then some.

“I think that’s mighty fine of you, Johnny boy. You’s a real man.”

Thunderheads still cloud the sky when Rebecca shows up on the doorstep to Black Nancy’s home, a quaint blue house with a beautiful front garden abundant with flowers. It was there that Johnny would greet her with a neutral look in his eye and a half-assed kiss, ushering her into the loud foyer where the echoes of his family could be heard bickering with one another.

“Listen uh, there’s summin’ i aughtta tell you ‘fore you come in here meetin’ grandpa and the rest. You seen the brothers before, ‘lot of ‘em ain’t all there in the head. Can’t give too much into what they say, and as for grandpa well, you just be that charmin’ southern ‘gal I know you to be and it’ll be just fine.”

“You reckon I better introduce myself ‘gain? Ain’t wanna impede as rude.”

“You leave that to me.”

It’s with a boisterous smile she follows him, to the right of the foyer where the kitchen and dining table sit. Drayton and Nancy are muttering obscenities to one another under their breath as they prep the meal on the stove, the burners making the interior of the home warm and stuffy. Then at the table the rest of his peculiar family sits together, giggling and whispering to one another as they eagerly anticipate Johnny’s words. Nubbins sits on the far side next to what she can only assume is Bubba, now dressed in a navy blue pants suit adorned in a feminine mask that dons some messily accomplished makeup. And beside him a woman who she has never seen before, a frail girl with blue eyes and light hair tied back neatly. Her sharp features are striking and her little polka dotted dress rides up a little to high for Rebecca’s liking. Though she seems faintly familiar, her gestures something reminiscent of something Rebecca had seen before.

Then at the near side sat Hands, who looked just the same as the day prior, fidgeting with some gadget on the set dinner table. His grunts were easily drowned out in the noise of the kitchen, that and the scratchy groans of the elderly man in the rocking chair at the tables head. She presumed the crotchety looking old man had to be Johnny’s grandfather, or what was left of him, for he seemed partly diseased. His skin pale and puckery, void of any color or movement. Even his shrouded eyes looked partially lifeless, the only sign of life had been the faint rise and fall of his chest and the lewd sounds that fell from his open lips. Still she smiled, her housewife act overtaking her judgemental gaze with a pretty smile and persona.

“Grandpa I got someone here I’ve been waitin’ for you to meet.” Johnny’s voice calls the attention of everyone in the room, commanding their eyes with delighted silence. Even Drayton and Nancy take the cue to turn back round and watch the ordeal, as Johnny saunters over to his grandfather with his trophy as his side. “This is Rebecca Payne, her and I’ve gotten real close.”

“Now Johnny Sawyer I-” Nancy’s vicious tone is cut off by the gentle words of Rebecca, who frees her right hand from the pie she’d brought to extend it out to the wrinkly.

“Delighted to meet you sir, you done a real fine job with this young man.” Her charismatic charade is interrupted by the outburst of laughter that it earns from Drayton and the three at the far side of the table, one which goes on for some time and causes the smile to falter from her face and her hand to retract slightly. She can only look around clueless, then to Johnny whose look is soured rotten. He takes the pie from her, walking over to slam it against the kitchen counter.

As the laughter dies down Nancy speaks up once more, a fake grin of her own directed towards Rebecca’s presence.

“Real nice of you to join us girl, why ain’t you take a seat. Supper’s all most ready.”

“Thank you for havin’ me, miss,” Rebecca nods. “Anythin’ I can help y’all with? I don’t mind one bit.”

“No, no,” Nancy hums, now turned the opposite way. “You’re our guest now, sit.”

“If you insist. Thank you, miss.” Reluctantly Rebecca takes her seat, leaving the space between her and Hands for Johnny presumably, whose still cooling off from his families’ insult. One which she’d still found herself cautious of, and somewhat perturbed. She can only brush it off for the time being, playing the game until there was chance to open conversation.

Her cautious stare carefully removed itself from her Johnny and Nancy to across the table, where she is met with the wolf stare of the woman seated across from her. Once more she smiles, gesturing her head that way.

“Pleased to meet you, names Rebecca.” The girl beams with excitement, and despite her off putting stare smiles and nods her head.

“Well hello! Aren’t you just a doll. Wonder how Johnny managed to lure you in, he ain’t ever had any girl stick around long enough to eat dinner with us. You can call me Sissy.”

“Well,” Rebecca only laughs, the wheels turning in that brain of hers in an attempt to piece together the strange family dynamic between the ragtag group. Their words, their mannerisms, their behaviors, all of it seemed so surreal and artificial. “I’d ask myself the same, but he just real at takin’ care of me is all. Been real kind to me, believe it or not.”

“Hmm,” Sissy hums in response. “So where he been keepin’ you?”

The manners of which Sissy speaks in, as though Rebecca were a prisoner chained to Johnny’s beckon and call, one of his little whores, a victim, it’s a striking concept, one Becca can only brush off as misunderstanding. He must’ve not said much to them, for he hadn’t said much of his family to her either. Presumably for good reason, as they’d all seemed like backwoods hicks.

Still she’d respected them, or at least tolerated them. She cared not particularly what they were like, just that they take a liking to her. That she was impressive and obsolete, the finest young woman they’d ever like for their Johnny to be with. If they were to be family, she’d like to like them, too. So despite her charming smile and charisma, her intentions were not entirely shallow. She did care, about as much as Johnny cared about keeping up appearances with her own father.

“Dang nab it girl quit talkin’ nonsense.” Drayton chimes in.

“Your real pretty you know,” Sissy looks away from Drayton and back to Rebecca, her change in topic sudden. “With that long blonde hair.”

“Y-yeah, looks like one of them girls in the pictures!” Now Nubbins pipes up, rising from his seat whilst Bubba hums and rocks too and fro.

“Why like a movie star even, say, you sure you ain’t in any of those lewd films girl?” Nancy’s comment is laced in bitterness and spite, even the insinuation sparking Becca’s anger to pique in the pit of her stomach. Her face falls and her brows crook downward.

“Pardon me?” She’s nearly in disbelief, why would such a coy little bitch insinuate such a ludacris idea. “I’m no harlot, if that’s what you’s askin’.” She spits back with just as much spite and venom. Disguised by the innocent canter in her voice. “My daddy raised me right, I’d rather be caught dead then loose my morals miss, with all due respect.”

Two women, sat on either side of the room with maleficent gazes fueled by predation, leeching off one another’s acrimonious and defamatory clauses. Acting catty was below Rebecca, and she’d been sure to make a point of that. It’s in those moments though that it becomes clear something isn’t quite right, about this family of his, and his caustic mother. She makes a pointed stare to the woman, her eyes narrowing as she watched that bitch with purpose and strategy, trying to figure out just what it was was going on beneath these people’s facade.

“Right.” Nancy muses. “Johnny baby, why ain’t you come have a seat at the table.”

There’s some lull to the conversation then, even as Johnny sits beside she and Hands at the table. A piercing silence overcomes the home, seldom for the thunder that punctures through the evening sky, and the lightning that follows in quick sporadic flashes out the window. The approaching storm had been the only thing to fill that void, that is until Rebecca’s benevolent smile returns in a quick attempt to lighten the mood. She decidedly takes the high road, presenting niceties and focusing on her perfect persona in order to get in good with the others. The precious little housewife act was her saving grace, the sole thing she could fall back on in tests of true poise. And here was just that, handling the deplorable hosebeast of a woman Johnny dare called his mother.

“Say Nubbins, been leavin’ them traps alone for ya’, catch anythin’ good lately?”

“Oh yeah, real good. I-I got some pictures too uh, you wanna see?”

“Boy you ain’t showin’ pictures of no road kill at the table, put them damned things away.” Drayton huffs, not before he’s serving bowls of chili to each member of the table.

“Oh I don’t mind, really.” Becca replied.

“You ain’t no fun, cook, tch. I uh, I got my camera here instead I, I take real good pictures. Johnny’ll tell ya’, yeah, real good. You want one?” Nubbins’ response is met with some grave countenance from his elder sibling, followed by a slew of mumbles. Something about beating him upside the head after supper was had.

“That’s real kind of ya’.” She smiles. “I’d love to see yer pictures sometime, I’ll have to come by more often. I’m sure they’s lovely. Johnny ain’t tell me you was a photographer.”

“Oh yeah,” Nubbins grins, his crooked teeth muddied with brown bits of grime and decay. He brings the camera that had been hung around his neck up to his face. “H-here, smile!”

A soft chuckle falls from her pretty lips, and she smiles gently in time for the flash of his camera to go off. The photo prints, and he excitedly wraps the it up in some crinkled piece of tin foil.

“Sissy, is it? That dress of yours is real pretty, you make it ya’ self?”

“Oh, why thank you sug’! I did. Got a machine and everythin’. Say, you got a sewin’ machine at home?” Sissy asks, resting her sharp chin against her palm. “I love makin’ clothes, be nice to have another girl ‘round here who likes makin’ frilly things.”

“My momma taught me how to sew some time ago, still got her machine cooped up somewhere. Ain’t made nothin’ in a long while. I’m helpin’ daddy out in the fields when I’m not homemakin’, ‘spose I forgot what it was like to have a hobby.”

“That’s a shame.” Sissy sighs, “You can use mine, I think you’d find it real fun!”

“Oh a real shame,” Nancy hums. “The fields ain’t no place for a young lady, ain’t no wonder you got all them muscles. Why, someone might lookit you and think you’s a dyke.”

“I’m sorry?” It’s caught her off guard, and her flagrant stare moves to pierce the smug eyes of the woman across the room. Her sly, cuntish smile.

“Oh it’s just, a woman’s place is in the home. My Johnny needs a nice girl like me to take care of ‘em, be a homemaker, you understand.”

“Now ma’.” Johnny hushes.

The way her ugly voice and patronizing attitude digs into the skin irks Rebecca, and it takes every bit of self restraint to keep from lashing out at her like she had Johnny all that time ago. It’s clear then where his brutish behaviors came from, and it was no easy beast to feat. Collecting herself, keeping her composure, she inhales a sharp breath. Her vexation building and face becoming hot with upset. Johnny must’ve seen it too, for he placed a hand against her thigh in an attempt to keep her grounded. Something her fiery temper proved to be increasingly difficult.

“Well a home needs to be built, and it sure as hell ain’t built on sewin’ n’ cookin’ alone. Now if you’ll excuse me, may I use your washroom?” Rebecca, as poised as ever, calmly responds and rises from her seat.

Her gaze meets that despicable woman’s satanic smile, and then she feels rage.

“Go on ahead love, down the hall last door to your right.”

Hurdled over the white porcelain sink both hands grip either side of it, heaving shaky breaths from her parted lips whilst she glared at the reflection of a mangled, fragile mess in the mirror.

“Fucking bitch.” The growl leaves her mouth lowly, a sullen scowl formed over her once coming features. She has to bite her tongue to keep from letting it all go, battering that cunt’s head into the oak table over and over again until she was unrecognizable.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been in there, nor how long she’d left the water on the faucet running. Time then seemed irrelevant, for everything was sped up and slowed down all at once. As if the world around her was moving in slow motion and she one hundred miles per minute.

It’s when there’s a knock at the door she’s pulled back into reality. Feeling the flesh gripping cold glass and the sweat dripping down her hot face. Fuck. It’s happened again, and it was all that abomination of a women’s fault.

Quickly snapping her head towards the sound and turning the faucet off, the echoed sound of water down the drain fades and she calls out. “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

The lock clicks and the handle turns, opening the door laggardly to Johnny. He’s taken a lax position lent up against the door frame, eyes flicking up to meet hers as she watches from below through painted lashes.

Your mother’s a ungodly old crone and a reprehensible host.

He’d must’ve seen the putrid amount of revulsion in her, for he smiled and laughed. Fixing the strands of hair that had gone astray and stuck to her face, he pulls her chin beneath his fingertips.

“Why ain’t you come on back and join us, keep that beautiful head of ya’s screwed on straight a lil’ longer, aight darlin’?”

She’d realized then just what had happened, where she was and what was going on. His touch quells her vexation, and as a result she’s beaming with pride and delight. A vibrant pearlescent smile domineering her face as she eagerly nods.

“Oh yes, anythin’ for you dear.”

It’s the same veil she brings to the dinner table, reseating herself and making a point to lock eyes with each and everyone of them, saving the old hag for very last. Meeting her prideful smirk with a delightedly unsettling and toothy grin.

“You’ll all have to forgive me.” She pauses. “You’ll find I’m not myself when my dear momma is mentioned. Oh I miss her so dearly, now, where were we?”

Aside from the rocky beginnings of her introduction, the entirely of dinner remains lax and civil. Small talk is made between she, Sissy and Nubbins, with Bubba occasionally replying with an excited nod or some abhorrent sounds she couldn’t make out. Johnny tuned in from time to time, but hadn’t much to say, his focus was with Hands. When it wasn’t, it was on observing Rebecca’s every move and word. Drayton and Nancy would ask questions, and Rebecca would respond with a souringly sweet response. Meeting Nancy’s blatant attempts at ruffling her feathers further with the most idyllic and perfectly crafted answers she could muster. At some point, the brothers had fed the grandfather from an old bronzed bottle of what looked to be emulsified meat.

“Dinner was real nice, mister Drayton, that chili was the best I ever had.” Becca rises from her seat, collecting the tables polished dishes and silverware and taking them to the sink. “You’ll have to give me the recipe sometime.”

“Oh well,” Drayton laughs sheepishly, “there’s no secret, it’s all in the meat. We- I got uh, a real fine eye for prime meat.”

“I’ll have to repay the favor one day, oh, maybe we’ll have you folks over for Thanksgivin’, wouldn’t that be real nice?” She smiles, and takes the initiative to wash the dishes with her back turned to the group. When no one can see her, when her mien is hidden and shadowed with the dark of the night coming through the window does her visage fade, forming a demented and twisted face full of hate and lividity.

“Y-yeah! Real fun, huh Bubba?” Nubbins laughs, matching Bubba’s deep and disoriented giggles.

“It does sound just lovely, Johnny wouldn’t mind that one bit.” Sissy clasps her hands together.

“Well now, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.” Nancy hums. “Becca, sweetie, don’t you worry ‘bout those dishes will ya’? I’ll take care of ‘em.”

“No, no,” Rebecca hums. “I’ve finished.” The faucet shuts off and she turns back round, her expression some odditied cross between the devil and and angel. Her chin tucked in and her brows screwed downward. Her eyes are half lidded as she looks to Nancy, an eery smile painted over the lower half of her grimace. “Please, my name is Rebecca, miss.” Without dropping her line of sight she retrieves the fresh cherry pie she’d made just before heading over, holding it with both palms.

“Say Rebecca,” Nancy muses, having her seat adjacent to grandpa. She dusts her hands off against the apron tied around her waist. “What ever did happen to that mother of your’s? I don’t recall your daddy mentionin’ nothin’.” A volitional look of scrutiny hides behind those glazed, cloudy eyes of hers. A narrowing state with a coy little smile. It’s ironic, in some ways she’s just like her son once was.

The mention stirred her, for the whirlwind of thoughts that swirl about shakes her up, hearkening back to the day she’d watched porcelain shatter over heads and bedside lamps cause blunt force trauma. The day she watched her mother and that dastardly boyfriend of hers scream at one another like wild animals, ripping eachother apart while they scrambled to protect themselves against their demise. The blood and the bits of flesh, the smell of iron and the tears.

“Oh, momma?” Rebecca looks ahead, stoic, pale, as though she��d just seen a ghost. “Well, she died just a little over a year ago now. We was livin’ back in Oklahoma when I found her.” Events of the past still bounce about in her head; walking through a bloodied and mutilated massacre. Her bare feet against soggy shag carpets, trudging through gallons of blood and brain matter. The house had been torn limb from limb, coaxed into a sanguine picture of the horror and macabre.

“She uh-,” she feels faint, blood rushing up to head and painting her face bright. And her ears, burning with anger and resentment, as she feels her body sway and begin to shake. Her eyes grow wider, just before they narrow and she looks down to her hands, seeing the blood pull in them and drip over her lap where the body lies. She clenches them, laughing madly in the mess of it all. Knelt onto the ground in the middle of a uxoricidal entanglement.

“She deserved it.” Rebecca smiles, in a frantic and awkward sort of way. Clenching her bloodied palms into fists and clasping them together. Then she laughs, shaking her head. She can no longer feel it, her limbs trembling and body swaying. Her head no longer spins, but her consciousness is quick to catch onto the hell she’s stuck herself in.

“I’ve brought a cherry pie, still warm from the oven. I’ll go ‘head and get you all a heapin’ slice, why don’t I?” She snaps around, hot tears pricking at the cusp of her eyelids. She had tried to be the bigger person, she truly had, but it was when wenches like her stooped so low she’d need to put a bitch like this in her place.

“Oh please, yer’ Johnny’s honored guest, let me take care of this.” Nancy rises from her seat.

“No, no. Sit.” Rebecca removed the dirtied knife from the counter, bits of raw meat and drippings still tainting it when she cuts into the pie. Once more she’s turned round, face cold and void of the sugary sweet she’d once presented. Into it, she cuts seven slivers, saving the eight chunk for the lead woman of the estranged family.

“Sit. Back. Down.” Rebecca warns once more, her voice now threatening, a warning of sorts. Nancy does not oblige, only pushes further.

“At the very least-”

“Sit down and do as your told, sweetie.” Rebecca’s body stirs in its place, the cut pie placed neatly in the palm she holds up near her head and the other at her side, tightly gripping the handle of that rusted knife.

It is met with astounding silence, and awed looks from all but Drayton and Nancy. Even grandpa, whose stare settled onto her with a faint groan. It does little to stop her, though. Rather, it fuels her incessant need to have her way, to prove herself to her Johnny, to not let bygones be bygones.

Her frightfully deviant expression says it all, too. Beady eyes wide and pupils shrunk, they stare a void into all. The twitchy, faded smile of a crazy greets her audience with a discomposing ambience.

“Excuse me, young lady?” Nancy’s fury struck the room like lightning to the great state of Texas. “I’d advise you to watch yer tone with me.”

She says nothing, instead, carefully carves out each sliver of pie with the muddied knife and cautiously places each helping onto the bare table in front of each character. She takes her serving on the knife, leaning over the table and tossing the large hunk of pie left in the tin to Nancy’s place at the table. It lands with a piercing sound, bouncing bits of cherry filling up to splatter over the flowery fabric of the woman’s dress.

Nancy is astounded, as is their table mates, watching between the two eagerly with worried thoughts. Her image is somewhere between animosity and shock, with Rebecca’s words and unsettling display digging the grave six feet under.

“Eat. It. Up.” Blazing blue orbs deadlocked on the crone’s on the opposing end of the table, it was only a matter of se ones before Nancy herself blew her top. But Becca can only laugh, finding amusement in the pissing contest she’s so gloriously won. I’m a celebratory fashion she pulls the knife up to her lips, licking up her share of sweet and red cherry pie off the knife.

“That’s it! I’ve had ‘bout enough of this, get the hell outta my house!”

Akin to a deer in headlights she froze, as though a bullet had shot right through her, rattled her to her core. In that moment she’d felt shame, failure, a slip that was not meant to happen. And for it, she loathed Nancy more than she ever had Johnny, more than she detested her own mother, more than any stupid boy that ticked her off.

“Get out! Out!” Nancy hollers, and if it hadn’t been for Rebecca’s father she’d of tried to kill her right then. “Johnny get this rotten lil’ brat out of the house!”

“No, no,” She vehemently shakes her head, as he approaches her with caution. “No!” She holds her hand out, those hot tears searing her cheeks as she squints.

“Darlin’, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“What?” Then there’s hurt, pure brokenness and helplessness. The break in her now softened voice gut wrenching to some, the rest of the family out of their seats as they watch in delight. The laughter of the boys drowns in the heap of her anguish, felt betrayed by the only one she’d known to be on her side.

The fight in her fades, when Johnny takes her arm to escort her out with not so much as a word. No, the moment he’d taken the side of his mother so hellbent on making her look bad. So she is a ghost, a shell of a woman who does as he pleases, following him when the world is moving around her in a still motion.

She turns her head to watch the loud scene of the family, rowdy and out of their seats and yelling over eachother in disarray. Some watch Johnny and how he has her by the arm, some seem timid, some bicker with one another, and she can only watch like an outsider looking in.

It isn’t until they’ve made it out to the drive way’s gate, down the windy gravel path through the garden, that she’s realized all that’s happen. When the pouring hot rain sizzles against her warm reddened skin and the lightning flashes across violently about the sky. The same burning tears still stung her eyes, and Johnny had begun to look over her with some mug, and she still felt the shame, regret, a forfeited sense of control. As the storm breaks out in unbridled chaos, with it, the fragments of calm that had been keeping her glued together all that time.

“Johnny?”

He only smiles, he can’t help but find the amusement in it all. Watching his mother get riled up about his choice in women and Rebecca’s intoxicatingly sweet bite back.

“Listen, darlin’, this ain’t personal. It’d be best if you’s went home.”

There it is, the sting she’d been looking for. Her body quakes with emotion, weakness, a hurt pride. Like she’d been fooled, just a pawn in his little game.

“How dare you.” Her voice low and broken, she looks to him from below through shrouded vision, blinded by tears and smudged makeup. “You told me I was special, not some stupid girl!” She screams, slamming her hands into his chest. “Do you have any idea how much of a fool I looked? A hoodlum? Huh?” She backs away from him, spinning around and throwing her head into her hands as she cries. Shaking fingers peel themselves away from her eyes, watching him through her tunnel vision. “I hate you!” She lashes out to him before collapsing to her knees in the dirt. “I hate you so fuckin’ much!” Between strangled sobs she screams into her shaking hands, watching him with his back turned to her whilst he makes his way back up the drive and into the house.

“So fuckin’ much.”

—

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨�� 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭! - 𝐓𝐚𝐠 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭

@yixxes @bdudette @nerdykat101 @kaymarnun @casually-in-love-with-madari

If you’d like to be added to this taglist for future chapters, please feel free to let me know!

[intheholler]

Hi!

You were asking for warm feelings, so: When I was a kid, we visited the region, and the thing I remember most after woods like something out of Frost is the music. Not just Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, but the smaller folk music and dance performances we saw between national parks. (I still can't figure out how to make my feet move like that, and not for lack of trying!) I've always wanted to do it again as an adult.

I'm not from Appalachia, but reading your recent posts, I feel the same way about my own home that frequently tries to set fire to itself politically (Texas), and I find it reassuring and validating to read about your deep love for where your roots are. It's an increasingly rare thing, and while the scarcity of people of our frame of mind makes me sad, I'm also all the more appreciative of reading posts like yours when they come across my dash.

Way too often, when we talk about deterioration or instability in our homelands, we're told "just move." People don't understand how our souls are tangled up in the tree roots, echoed in birdsong, that we're part of the mist on the backroads and the rush of bats out of a cave like fucking Dracula. It takes a degree of bravery to let yourself become part of a place, even more to choose to remain that way--especially if you're vocal about it. So, rambling as this is, it's all to say hang in there, because your love for your land is a rare and beautiful thing.

.

[falindankovsky]

Final girl icons

(Feel free to use these I don’t need credit but it’s always welcome!!!)

[tempest-melody]

Hello! I only have one account and I blog anything that makes me happy or needs to be said!

I’m also a travel writer and videographer with an emphasis on talking about places that people can actually afford to visit. There is also a bit of gardening and food related stuff thrown in.

All of my posts are somewhere in my tumblr feed but if you want to find them easier, check out my link.

Yes, I’m from Texas. Yes, there is a ton that is not good here. But there are good people and we work for and vote for things and people with the goal of a better future where everyone is equal.

If you have any questions feel free to message me!

Best,

Tempest-Melody

Every storm has a song if we can be hear it.

[mywifeleftme]

212: Blaze Foley // Live at the Austin Outhouse

Live at the Austin Outhouse Blaze Foley 1999, Lost Art (Bandcamp)

I wept over Blaze Foley’s grave. I didn’t expect to. I was visiting Austin at the beginning of a roadtrip, and my friend asked if there were anything around the city I wanted to see before we set off west toward Big Bend and the Rio Grande. It occurred to me that maybe Townes Van Zandt might be buried somewhere in the area, and I thought it’d be nice to go say my respects. It turned out that Townes rests in Tennessee, but the subject of doomed country singers and their graves brought to mind a story I’d heard about Townes and his friend Blaze, how after Blaze was murdered in 1989 Townes had had him temporarily exhumed in order to get at the front pocket of the suit he’d been buried, where there was a pawn shop ticket for a guitar the dead man had hocked shortly before his passing. I figured I wouldn’t mind seeing the place, so we drove down to the little green cemetery in Manchaca where his small stone faces a pasture of grazing longhorn cattle looking like myths or advertisements, and then I sat there and cried. I cried over the magpie offerings on the stone, earrings and poker chits and an empty beer can (literal trash elsewhere, but respectful in this context and careful placement); I cried at the big cows; I cried over the inscription of Blaze’s face and a guitar with the titles of his best-loved songs; I cried because I was hungover, and because I had done a bunch of fucked up things in the preceding years, and I was so full of shame, overwhelmed by the weight of amends; and I cried because this man had been fucked up and he was dead and people still loved him. I guess at the time I needed a sentimental image of a damaged man who does right more than I’d known. And so, the tears came.

My Blaze fandom has always centered on Live at the Austin Outhouse, the low-slung 1988 two-night stand recorded barely a month before his death that first saw wide release (in excerpted form) on CD in 1999. (The full four-hour-long tapes just hit streaming platforms this year.) Foley’s discography is brief, and all of it worth the listen, but he was never in better voice, or more warmly recorded, than he was at the Outhouse. If you’ve heard Van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, the experience is similar: amid clanking bottles and bar chatter, the most desolate, acoustic songs of yearning sit side by side with wry character sketches and a helping of the dumbest, most adorable stage patter yet recorded. The predominantly solo album is a showcase for Blaze’s remarkable abilities as a country blues picker, and that unmistakable worn, lorn baritone of his.

Though Foley lacked Van Zandt’s overtly poetic predilections (e.g. “Lungs”; “Silver Ships of Andilar”), at his best he was Townes’ equal as a romantic and his better as a wit. For my taste, there isn’t a more genuinely moving love song than “Oooh Love,” a song that sounds like an old junkyard dog surprised to find himself being stroked after years in the rain. There’s brilliance in the slow reveal of its opening verse, his lover complimenting this big hairy man on his “pretty blue eyes” rather than the reverse:

Blue eyes She said pretty blue eyes Said I had pretty blue eyes See me again She wants to See me again She's such a pleasant surprise

It puts the masculine speaker immediately in an unfamiliar, vulnerable position, the one feeling the wonder of being unexpectedly chosen. On the other side, there’s “Officer Norris.” Foley does the best job anybody’s done of lambasting the cops since Kristofferson’s “Best of All Possible Worlds,” dressing down the titular officer for everything from cribbing free coffee cakes to chasing after married women to being abandoned by his mother because he was an unlikable baby. Blaze gives us “If I Could Only Fly” too, a quintessential (and rendingly) sad country song, and “Christian Lady Talking on the Bus,” a wholly unsentimental look at faith and self-delusion. And above all, there’s “Clay Pigeons,” a song of disappointment and humour and endurance and crooked optimism that strikes something true in me like almost no other song has. As someone who’s started over quite a few times at this point, it’s become an anthem, and more than anything else, it’s why I convinced my pal to take me out there south of Austin to pay my respects in person. Music has never fixed anybody, but it can bring who you are into focus. Lord knows I needed that.

A note on the versions of this recording

Blaze played nearly 30 songs over the course of his two nights at the Outhouse. I’ve been going through the full tapes today (which contain at least as much audio of the Duct Tape Messiah goofing with his friends in the crowd as it does music). While of the original cassette that was passed around Blaze’s friends and fans in the late ‘80s contained 21 tracks, it’s now clear how much my sense of Austin Outhouse as an “album” comes from the work Lost Art Records did when they put out their condensed 12-song CD edition. Lost Art left in a smattering of the choicer bits of Blaze’s rambles and winnowed the tracklist down, turning what could’ve been a double-live record (or a for-true-maniacs boxed set) into a digestible introduction to the man’s work. In order to keep things on one disc, the 2020 vinyl issue (also from Lost Art) leaves out what stage patter had remained, which makes it a smoother repeat listen for those already well-familiar with Blaze’s bits. Still, the CD/streaming version remains definitive for me because it was how I “met” the man.

All that said, the chance to hear versions of other Foley classics recorded in the same space as the familiar cuts is a thrill. If you’re already a fan, I strongly encourage you to try out the live versions of the two studio cuts from the original, and takes on “Springtime in Uganda,” “Long Time,” “Oval Room,” “Someday” and many more. Be forewarned though; it is beyond eerie hearing Blaze talk with obvious affection about (and even do an impression of) his friend Concho January, the elderly pensioner whose son Carey would shoot Foley dead just a few weeks later. By Concho’s own courtroom testimony, the burly country singer died trying to prevent Carey from yet again robbing the old man of a welfare cheque. It was a squalid, hero’s death, and he deserved better.

212/365

[slpublicity]

SCREAMBOX October Streaming Line-Up Includes TALES FROM THE VOID, CRACKCOON, HAUNTED ULSTER LIVE

SCREAMBOX has revealed the new films that are joining the horror streaming service in October, including Tales from the Void, Crackcoon, and Haunted Ulster Live.

Just when you thought it was safe to take out the trash, Crackcoon kills! Described as "Rocket Raccoon meets Cocaine Bear," the SCREAMBOX Original horror-comedy is streaming now.

Who will survive The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and what will be left of them? Celebrate 50 years of Leatherface with Tobe Hooper’s indelible horror masterpiece, now playing on SCREAMBOX.

On October 8, Haunted Ulster Live will take viewers back to Halloween 1998. Drawing comparisons to Ghostwatch and Late Night with the Devil, the SCREAMBOX Exclusive film is presented as a live broadcast from a haunted house that goes terrifyingly wrong.

SCREAMBOX Original horror anthology series Tales from the Void will get under viewers’ skin with two episodes every Sunday between October 13 and October 27. Based on haunting viral stories from Reddit’s NoSleep community, the show features episodes directed by Joe Lynch (Mayhem), John Adams & Toby Poser (Hellbender), and more.

Other October highlights include: Halloween anthology All Hallows' Eve: Trickster; indie slasher Dark Windows; The Dark Zone's Balgonie Castle investigation with Star Wars producer Rick McCallum; and the eleventh season of Bloody Disgusting’s snack-sized horror showcase Bloody Bites.

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[countesspetofi]

[crazycrucifix]

he would

[diazsdimples]

After the lightning, Buck downloads just about every weather app he can find. He doesn’t tell anyone - because he knows they’d immediately become concerned - he’s terrified of thunderstorms. If it’s forecast to be rainy, he’ll check, double check, and triple check that it’s only rain, and not a storm too. What he doesn’t know, is Eddie’s done the same thing.

The first storm happens a couple of months after Buck goes back to work, and he's ready for it. It's one of their nights off, so he gathers all the blankets in the loft, makes himself a little nest with his laptop, a hot water bottle, and some noise canceling headphones and he hunkers down for the night. He's just squeezed his eyes shut after the first flash of lightning when his phone rings. It's Eddie. Initially he doesn't want to answer, because he doesn't want to have anyone asking him how he is right now, but he also knows Eddie will just keep on ringing until he picks up. So he does.

Not once during that call does Eddie ask how Buck is. He immediately lauches into a long tale about Christopher's new crush, which turns into a story about the main characters on the telenovela he watches and "how the fuck have they not figure out they're in love yet", and finally they end up debating the pros and cons of having a smart fridge that shows you what's inside without having to open the door. Buck hangs up feeling a little confused, wondering what the occasion was for such a call, but the storm has passed and he didn't have a panic attack.

The next storm is in the dead of winter and Buck has been watching it brew for days, his anxiety mounting as it builds. He's planning on doing the same as last time, but then Eddie invites him over for dinner. It's not their usual night, and Chris is away with his grandparents in Texas, so Buck is a little confused but he says yes nonetheless. He's looking forward to some time with Eddie - the two of them have been toeing the line between friends and something more ever since the lightning, with long lingering touches and late night phone calls. When he gets there, Eddie has ordered them pizza, there's a case of beers on the coffee table, blankets on the couch, and a new sound system that looks like it could blow the windows out of the Sistine Chapel if given half a chance.

They have a really nice evening and Buck manages to ignore the way the clouds are churning outside, how the wind picks up and rain begins to splatter against the windowpanes. He's comfortable on the couch, with Eddie a warm line against his side from how closely they're pushed together. When the room lights up from the first strike of lightning, Buck jumps. He looks around wildly, just barely fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears as the thunder booms. Eddie looks up from their movie, and turns up the sound on the TV until the thunder is inaudible. He places a hand on either one of Buck's shoulders and gently guides him down until he's settled against Eddie's chest. Eddie's arms wrap around Buck, holding him from behind and Buck can feel the fear slowly receeding.

"It's okay," Eddie whispers in his ear. "I've got you. You're safe."

The storm rages outside, but Buck doesn't panic. He's safe, in Eddie's arms, and though he might jump and his breathing might speed up every time there's a flash, Eddie strokes his arms and pets his hair and finally, almost nervously presses a kiss to Buck's forehead.

"Is- is this okay?" he asks Buck, so quietly that if it weren't for the fact that his lips were brushing Buck's ear, Buck wouldn't have heard it.

"Yeah," Buck replies, burrowing closer into Eddie's chest as his heart blooms with love, the warmth spreading down to his toes. "I'm safe."

[mindmelter]

A Body Stealer Tale: Fugitive

"I only have four available at the moment. I don't hunt like I used to." I say, guiding the man to my basement, where four men are standing frozen in only their underwear.

"It's fine, they all look good." The man says.

He is a fugitive, one of the most wanted men in the country. The kind you see on the news, his face plastered everywhere, but no one knew the truth. No one knew the lengths he would go to escape. That’s where I come in. I don’t judge them—how could I? That’s not my role. My job is simple: I help them find a new body to hide in.

"Would you mind giving me their info?" The man asks.

"From left to right, we have Ethan. He's 19 years old, fresh out of high school, and I got him at a small beach town where he was spending his summer surfing and working part-time at a café. His bodysuit is smooth, with just the right amount of muscle definition, and that wavy hair makes him stand out. He's the perfect body if you like that carefree, beach vibe.

Next is Jake. At 22, he's fresh from the military, built like a rock. I picked him up after he finished his last tour. The tight buzzcut and his stocky build give him that no-nonsense, tough look. If you're into strength and durability, Jake's bodysuit is the one for you.

Then, we have Cole. He's 24 and hails from a small Texas town, hence the cowboy hat. I found him working at a rodeo—he's got that strong, silent type charm. His broad shoulders and muscular chest give him a powerful presence, perfect for anyone wanting that rough, country boy look. You won't be bothered by anyone if you pick him.

And finally, there's Luca. At 23, he's got a natural good-looking face that makes heads turn. I got him right after he graduated college—he was modeling on the side to make ends meet. His suit has that classic, athletic look, with just the right amount of body hair to give it character."

The man looked thoughtful, like he was having a hard time picking one. He inspected them from closer and pulled down the underwear of each one to inspect their junk. After a while, he finally decided.

"I think I’ll go with..."

[soapyghostie]

I love all these slasher posts✨ especially the Sawyer brothers ones ❤ can you do one where when sleeping on their bed their S/O literally falls off in the middle of their sleep and what their reactions will be?😭 idk why i feel like that would be hilarious <3

Here’s the request I promised y’all earlier. Another one that’s been in my inbox for months. Enjoy!

Bubba Sawyer

Bubba is a heavy sleeper: working all those long hard hours in that Texas heat results in extreme exhaustion for him by the end of the day. Once Bubba is asleep, he initially doesn’t even notice when you, unknowingly due to you also being asleep, roll off the bed onto the floor. 

When he eventually wakes up and feels that your side of the bed is empty, Bubba panics through squeals of distress, thinking something terrible has happened to you. He’ll scramble out of bed to end up finding you fast asleep on the floor. This makes Bubba feel so much better, knowing you're okay. However, sleeping on the floor just won’t due and he must get you back on the comfy bed so you can get more comfortable rest. 

Bubba bends down to pick your sleeping form off of the floor and back onto the bed. Then he rearranges the bed around you, ensuring there’s plenty of space between the both of you (just in case he accidentally pumps you off), fashioning a makeshift barrier of pillows to prevent you from rolling off. Bubba will also wrap your sleeping form in one of his homemade blankets he crafted in his freetime when doing one of his “hobbies.”

When he’s satisfied with tucking you back in, Bubba will crawl back into bed and drape an arm around your figure to secure you from rolling off the bed again. From that night forward, Bubba will train himself to become a light sleeper, allowing him to become subconsciously aware of your movements to prevent you from falling off the bed again. 

Nubbins Sawyer

Nubbins would initially sleep through your unfortunate sequence of events of you falling off the bed until he hears a loud thump. He’ll wake up to the sound, sitting up abruptly, blinking in confusion before realizing you're nowhere on the bed anymore and breaking into a mischievous grin. 

Nubbins will pull out his camera and start taking pictures of your limp sleeping form twisted in the weirdest and uncomfortable sleeping possible you’d ever see. Once he had his fun, he’ll shake you awake as hard as he can, ending with you probably getting angry at him and chewing him out for waking you up. When you realize you are laying on the floor, Nubbins will most likely start teasing you with playful remarks, joking about your “gravity-defying escape” from the bed. 

However, underneath the playful banter, Nubbins is genuinely worried about you, checking to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself on the way down to the floor. He’ll even offer to help you get back onto the bed. Nubbins will also use this opportunity to recount some bizarre bedtime stories of his brothers to lighten up the mood, helping you forget the initial embarrassment of your fall. His laughter will echo through the room as he regales you with tales of sleepwalking or bed-flipping mishaps from his experiences. 

Once you're all tucked in, Nubbins will settle back into bed, cuddling up to you with a twinkle in his eye and that goofy grin he always has, ready to take more peculiar adventures with you tomorrow. 

ChopTop Sawyer

ChopTop jolts awake to the sound of your body hitting the floor almost immediately, his wild hair standing on head as he assesses the situation. When he realizes you fell off the bed, rather than showing immediate concern, ChopTop will burst into a fit of laughter, finding the situation highly amusing and entertaining. 

You’ll wake up to him right next to you poking you. Once ChopTop notices that you're awake, he’ll start teasing the hell out of you, making crude dark and twisted jokes. He’s trying to push you over the edge to try and get a reaction out of you. It’s like him encouraging you to punch him at this point: I wouldn’t blame you if you did though. 

Deep down, he would be worried about you. ChopTop checks you for any bruises or injuries while making more jokes showing both concern and amusement. He’s really trying to hide that softer side of himself that he has for you. He needs to be manly and not all soft and mushy like a little girl. God Damnit (Y/N)! 

Once he knows you're alright and don’t have any sort of injury, ChopTop will go back to his normal self and brush off any sort of concern he had for you. He’ll even suggest turning the accident into a funny story, weaving a narrative about the legendary “bed diver” in his signature storytelling style. His laughter lingers in the air as he gently helps you back up into the bed. Is that a hint of nervousness that I hear in that laugh ChopTop? As you both settle back down, he will continue to try and entertain you with bizarre anecdotes and offbeat humor as he wraps a protective arm around you as you fall soundly to sleep. wink

[valtsv]

was thinking about this earlier but the dynamic of cannibalism being associated with high society and the culinary elite (hannibal comes to mind specifically) while also simultaneously being associated with the socially isolated and economically impoverished (as in texas chainsaw massacre) is so interesting to me i want to read 10 million books on why it happens so much in media....

i can only speak from a place of personal opinion and general knowledge, because i haven't read that many papers or in-depth studies on cannibalism, but i think it often comes down to an interesection between the themes of the story you're telling and class structures and divisions. cannibalism is a compelling form of narrative symbolism because it's undeniably impactful and hard to ignore. when portrayed as a practice associated with the culinary and social upper class, it might be used as a critique of the rich and powerful and their lack of ethics and willingness to consume and destroy others for their own self-interest by showing them literally preying on and consuming their victims, or a horror story/cautionary tale about how having everything can lead you to never be satisfied and turn to increasingly extreme measures to feel like life is worth living, or a dark fantasy of indulgence and excess. when associated with the poor, marginalized and isolated, it's often based in bigotry and harmful stereotypes of the "primitive" "inhuman" "savage" "other", however it might also function as a revenge fantasy where the most oppressed and exploited members of society turn on their oppressors and take "eating the rich" to its most literal extreme, exposing the fragility of class divisions and pointing out that those in positions of social and economic power are hardly the mythic titans their propaganda tries to make them out to be, but ultimately just as mortal and made of flesh and blood as any other human being, and not immune to being dragged down from their position at the top of the food chain and torn to pieces by the crowd (as well as reminding the audience of their own fragile mortality and precarious position in the social order, and the humanity we all share in common - however cannibalism often divides the perpetrators from both their victims and the audience, so this is rarer than the other interpretations mentioned).

cannibalism and power often go hand in hand. cannibalism has historically been used as both a means of displaying your power over defeated opponents and delivering a final, humiliating blow to their image by consuming their flesh, and a means of othering and dehumanizing your opponent by portraying them as the cannibalistic monster.

both the very rich and very poor also tend to be perceived as more distant from the people who make and consume these stories, making them easier to project fiction onto and transform into symbols and narrative devices (or, in the worst cases, dehumanize) than those who occupy the same social spheres as the creator. they can be held at an arm's length without discomfort and, depending on the target audience, may be a source of fascination due to the differences in their lived experiences. it adds to the fantasy, and makes any inaccuracies, exaggerations and fabrications feel more plausible because the majority of the audience probably don't have any personal experiences of being in those positions to draw on.