I'd rather be in outer space đ¸
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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Show & Tell
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will byers stan first human second
Keni
NASA
wallacepolsom

Kiana Khansmith
Monterey Bay Aquarium
noise dept.

if i look back, i am lost

Origami Around
trying on a metaphor

JVL
almost home
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

izzy's playlists!
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@melan-leggin
Brokenly live on. [x]
"To be lost and to be found, that is the lifespan of love"
FRANKENSTEIN (2025)
Happy GDT Frankenstein (2025) streaming day ;)
Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein" photographed by Jacob Elordi
Wilhelm Kotarbinski
I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel
more creature content from the exhibit!
trying to categorise these posts in a way that makes sense so you can just look for what you want to see
(i apologise for poor camera quality i am fighting a dying iphone 8)
MEAT - thomas hewitt (leatherface)
a/n: i had to be a little silly ehe <- delusional
(cws: fem!reader, DDDNE, extreme violence, blood, gore, broken bones, a whole array of weaponry, domestic abuse, forced relationship, evolution of victim -> perpetrator, psychological torture, mentions of very dubious consent, breeding, huge size difference, ownership marking, protective tommy, implied cannibalism, unnamed victims of the tcm.)
wc: 10.7k
Lungs burning in your chest with the humid Texas heat, you forced the corn stalks aside as you stumbled through them in a frantic sprint. Each leathery pod whacked against your shoulders, your hands, your chest, and your bruised-up legs, but you wouldn't stop for nothing.
You couldn't stop. The people you'd hitchhiked with were all dead, or at least very well on their way to being soâthey had been hunted one by one, by bear traps and shotguns and hay hooks, and you were sure you were the only one the family were left hunting. It'd taken all night to spread you thin and weaken you all with sadistic tortures of every kind. Now your group was down to one. You. Hauling ass was not enough to describe how frantically you were tumbling through the crop field, practically hand-over-foot crawling with how dizzy you'd gotten. Blood loss and a few hits to the head would do that to you.
Finally, the maize parted one last time to spit you out into the dewy grass, the labyrinth of sameness finally coming to an end. But when you tilted your head up to the starry night sky, your heart dropped into your feet at what laid before you. The farmhouse. You'd run in the wrong direction. Warm light glowed from within the drapery behind the windows and you spotted the older woman standing on the porch, a rag tucked between her hands as she called out a name. Terrified and hoping for the blessing of going unseen you army crawled your way right back to the cornâ
Thunk. Only halfway there, the grass split with the force of a sledgehammer dropping into it. A boot stepped into view right by your head; attached to it was an enormous calf, and your eyes trailed upwards slowly to reveal the whole of that crazed maniac you'd seen manhandling the others into that house of horrors across the lawn.
Greasy hair hung down in long tresses, wary eyes pierced into your skull, an apron sat snug around his midriff stained with dark blood. Up close, you could listen to the way he breathed heavy through the mask that obscured his lower jaw, only the bridge of his nose and his forehead visible through it. He stunk of sweat, rot, and fresh meat. His weighty hand tightened round the handle of the hammer he'd set down, veins popping out with the sheer size and strength of his enormous, hulking body.
âTommy!â The woman's voice cracked out in the night, the name finally ringing clear enough for you to hear. His head whipped around to the source and he stared in her direction; you watched her turn a blind eye to your predicament in the grass and step back inside the house. It felt as though your heart might burst in that moment, the fear and tension running through you like a taut wire about to snap in two.
The giant grunted overhead. You looked back at him again and squeezed your fists against the dirt, expecting him to lift that hammer and crush your skull into the ground with it. But upon resting his palm on the blunt end of it, the monster instead used it to lower himself to one knee. With a hand outstretched, he slowly, carefully brushed your damp hair aside, and pressed his fingertips firmly into your cheek. You shuddered as they moved downwards, probing around the soft spot beneath your ear and the curve of your jaw. He tilted your chin back and slid his whole, grubby hand down your neckâŚand with the most tentative squeeze around your throat, you swallowed and he all but jumped back. Your skin ran cool again as his warm hand ripped away from you, but with just as much hesitation he grazed your lips with his knuckles and trailed them across your forehead, leaving smudges of wet blood behind.
âTommy!â A harsher voice tore through the quiet night, yanking his attention away from you again. The sheriffâthe fake sheriff, that isâcame stomping up from around the back of the barn, the shotgun hanging at his side causing you enough panic to scramble to your knees. But you wouldn't get far. Not even a couple feet. Your body hit the earth within moments of you climbing to your feet, and you heaved out a pained moan at the mountain of weight that pinned you down and crushed you underneath him. The giant had thrown himself forward and taken you down without thinking twice; his beefy arm came around your neck and tightened, his muscles flexing under the coarse fabric of his shirt for him to hold you in place.
âAttaboy, Tommy.â The older man came around his side as you struggled, clawing at the bicep that was crushing your windpipe with barely any effort. The sheriff kicked your flailing leg with a holler, cackling at the way you squirmed under his nephew's brute strength. âStupid bitch. Gonna learn your lesson now, aint'cha?â
Dying squeaks for mercy escaped your throat, your words barely tinged with any discernible syllables. Thomasâ grip only grew tighter. Your arms went slack, then your legs slowed to a trembling haltâŚand before long your head slumped forward as you passed into unconsciousness, hoping to god this would be the last time you woke up in this sweltering Texas hell.
Clink. Clink. Clink. The chatter of voices melted into the gentle clatter of silverware. It wasn't the sounds that stirred you from your sleep rife with nightmares, thoughâit was the sliver of a sunbeam cast through the window that shone gently on your face. You blinked blearily as your head lolled in a stuttered circle, slowly and quietly coming to. Clink. Clack. Eyelids cracked half-open, you raised your head up despite the weight of a pounding headache, and watched a pair of wrinkled hands set down a teacup on a saucer in front of you.
Although there was much to see, you instantly turned your gaze to the woman you'd seen on the porch. Your nerves jittered and you flinched as she reached out to touch you, but it passed with her gentle shushing as she tenderly caressed your cheek. The age showed in creases all across her face, her eyes soft but wet with something terribly uneasy behind them.
âSuch a pretty girl,â She crooned, a smile like nothing had happened plastered across her face. The eagerness with which she watched you unsettled you to your very core, but it would be second to the nightmare that was waiting to explode on you across the table. âI always wanted a little girl. Never seen one so pretty.â Despite the sweetness of her words, a shift of your hand rattled the chair you'd been tied to; both wrists buckled under the tough ropes used to bind you, indented where you could see dry blood crusted over the fibers. Either you moved a lot in your sleep, or someone really wanted to punish you for trying to get away.
As tenderly as if she was your own mother, the lady brought your teacup up and tilted it for you to drink, which gave you a moment to let your eyes wander. With a glance around you took a mental sweep of the place. Your chair sat at the end of a dining table, and aside from the woman you spotted two other older men; the frightening man with the shotgun, and an elderly man in a wheelchair. Framed photos hung around the room against peeling wallpaper, and aside from a decent amount of clutter and antique decorations of a house long lived in, nothing struck you as out of the ordinary from the cutlery to the frayed rug that cushioned your bare feet.
The aging woman tottered around the table to pick up a plate and slid a few eggs on from a saucepan in the middle. That and a few strips of bacon made their way down to your placemat, still sizzling.
âWhy're you givinâ this bitch special treatment, mama?â The fake sheriff glared you down from his seat at the head of the table, spitting off to the side with his hands still clasped in front of him. âAlready got enough mouths to feed.â
âHush.â She finally snapped, and gestured with the spatula still in hand. âThis is your fault. You wanna play sheriff so bad, Charlie.â
âIt's Hoyt, mama, for god's sake!â
âDon't you cuss at me!â The old woman warned, aiming the spatula right at his chest.
âU-Um,â You whimpered softly, and drew the attention of all three of the frightening strangers, who turned their heads in your direction. The focus on you made you falter, but the problem at hand was far more pressing than fear. âTh-The ropeâŚplease..â You managed to squeak out, and only then did they seem to notice your hands were changing colours. They were so tight the blood wasn't circulating, and you feared even a few moments more of the ache would result in something very unpleasant in the near future, especially when you knew there was a chainsaw floating around here somewhere.
Just then, the floorboards creaked at your back. Too afraid to turn your head you only shifted your gaze, and in your peripheral you saw it. Two thick, fat-fingered hands reaching downwards to tug at the binds round your wrist. For someone so huge, he made short work of untying you even without the aid of one of the knives scattered round the table settings. The rope loosened and dropped to the floor in a coil like a dead snake, but as he reached over you to undo the otherâand you got a whiff of soap amidst his sweat in the processâthe man naming himself Hoyt grumbled and slammed his fist down on the table, rattling the plates and silverware.
âGoddammit, boyâwhat'd I say? We ain't keepinâ her, for Christ sakes!â
âWatch your mouth!â The womanâmamaâshrieked, and her fist shook as she dumped the spatula down on the table with a thunk. The other cuff came loose and you released a sigh of relief as you touched your wrists, wincing at the open cuts that had only half dried over. And while the two continued to bicker about one thing or another, a great shifting of clothes and a thump beside you caught your gaze. Thomas, the giant that you'd watched haul the others off to the slaughter, had knelt down by your chair like a dog and still came up to eye level. God, he was just massive. Somehow it made him less intimidating though, since he looked at you like he was waiting for scraps from your plate. It was somewhat pathetic, butâŚendearing? Was that a word you could even consider using for a maniac like him, or was it beyond all common logic to even think of him in such pleasant terms?
âA-Are youâŚhungry?â You whispered, only to be met with a slow shake of his head. Thomas raised a melon-sized arm and pushed the plate closer to you, as if to say âeat up, it's getting coldâ. Emboldened by his tender gesture, you shakily plucked your fork off the placemat and leaned in to examine the bacon. It looked likeâŚbacon. Hot, crunchy, cut in strips like you would see any day in the supermarket. Still, you tentatively went for the eggs first, and raised the tiniest bit to your mouth as the two older ones finally managed to settle down whatever argument they'd been having.
âBoys, time to say grace.â Suddenly flushed hot with embarrassment, you lowered your fork in an instant and followed their lead. You bowed your head with them, listened to mama say her standard prayers of thanksâand then, when everyone else began to eat, you cautiously lifted the bite to your lips and chewed thoughtfully. It felt like forever for you to discern whether or not it was normal, if it tasted like it should, but after a while of chewing you had to relent to the fact that it didn't taste abnormal, so it was about as fine as you could expect. You ate in silence alongside them, but just when you pondered whether the food might be drugged or other awful possibilities, the sheriff cleared his throat and drew your attention to him once again.
âNow,â Mama scowled at him, but he continued to speak nonetheless. âYou got two options here, kid: eat, or be eaten. Them's the laws of life.â He reached up and scratched the back of his neck, readying himself to say more, but an interruption came with a grunt from your side. Hoyt raised a hand and waved the wordless concern off. âDon't you mouth off, boy. Gettinâ to it.â
You shifted your gaze to Thomas, who only nudged your plate closer to you to urge you into eating more. Something gnawed at the back of your mind. Their behavior was so strange, the looks exchanged even strangerâthere was something that wasn't being said, like a plan was brewing right under your nose.
âSee here, this is how it is. You got choices. Now, my nephew here happens to like you,â His honeyed southern drawl couldn't hope to mask the hopelessness that stirred in you at those words. âUgly as sin, but he's a good enough boy, ain't that right?â He looked to Thomas, but the âboyâ in question stared right at you when he nodded. âSo you choose. You wanna eat-â
âI'll eat,â The answer flew from your mouth without hesitation, so much so that even the most uninterested of folks around the table caught your gaze. Your breath hitched in your bruised throat. âI'll eat, I swear. I'll eat.â
âMm-hm.â Hoyt eyed you and nodded. Something about the way he watched you made you feel overexposed, like your skin had been stripped raw from the bone and he was peering into every inch underneath. âFine then. Whore's all yours, Tommy-boy.â
At those words, your world shifted with a violent blur of motion. Before you could even gasp there were huge, strong hands under your armpits, and you were lifted out of your seat like a child who weighed less than nothing. You'd be thanking yourself later that you at least polished off most of your plate, because aside from an accidental thump of your foot hitting the table on the way by, you wouldn't be touching the rest of your breakfast again. Thomas slung you over his shoulder and cradled your lower half in the crook of an enormous arm, and with a shriek you felt yourself being carried off by the giant and taken away into another world.
The basement.
It had been a month and a half since you'd been taken in, now. Life had gone on despite you vanishing from the world you knew, and regardless of whether or not you woke up each morning and wondered why you were still kept alive, the earth continued to turn. Time went on and you adjusted, albeit shakily, to the routine of a life in the backcountry of rural Texas. You learned to help on the farm and Luda Mae, or momma as you were taught to call her, passed on her generations-old knowledge of cookery and cleaning and caring for the household. Sometimes you'd get driven out with momma and one of the uncles to tend the store, but that was on the rare side since they didn't trust the locals not to mess with you. Pretty things like you didn't come by often and you had values to uphold, now.
Plus, you had a man at home. Tommy was the reason you survived that awful first night, but now it was expected that he was also the reason you kept on living.
The rest of the family kept out of your business together for the most part, but you'd long been perplexed by the dynamic that had ensued since you'd first arrived. For as hulking and strong of a beast he was, you came to find out that Tommy's appearance was a shell that sheltered a soft-natured, sensitive boy at heart. His penchant for murder was not so, rather it was a duty carried out regardless of will in the service of a family he was lucky to have, despite you certainly thinking otherwise. He liked to work, and eat, and make things. His rage could certainly be a problem, but it was a rare thing that only cropped up once in a great while. He would endure more than ten times a normal person before he finally snapped, and even then he wouldn't ever let you see it. The few times he got mad, he would stomp out to the barn or head to the now-abandoned slaughterhouse, and take out his aggression on the thing he knew best. Meat. And most of the time it was a beating from Hoyt or a few too many bouts of yelling before he felt the need to get away.
After all, it wasn't anger that led his interactions with you. It was odd; he'd pointed you out specifically as the one he wanted to keep, but he seldom showed any entitlement in taking whatever it was he wanted from you. He'd lean in for kisses but most of the time he missed anyways. You weren't exactly sure what you could call your one occasion of intimacy with him that you recalled, because he didn't ask if you wanted it, but you didn't really tell him outright that you didn't. Would it have even mattered? Maybe not. But he barely managed to find the hole he was looking for anyways, and by the time he did it was obvious he had no clue what he was doing. Fumbling hands and a bit of awkward thigh-humping later and he'd finally left you be, albeit soaked and sticky with sweat and the residue he'd clumsily left behind on your bare stomach. Since then, it'd been just a few fingers on your thighs and some tame through-the-mask kisses, nothing more.
Not that you should really be questioning the love of a serial chainsaw butcher, but as the days passed it grew harder to see him in that light alone. You witnessed too much of the deformed, mentally-disturbed man who refused to eat before you did, who wouldn't lay a hand on you like he'd had laid on him all his life. Thomas showed affection in odd ways but they were more endearing than you thought they would be, from picking you flowers off the side of the road to cleaning up the small room you shared so you'd feel more at home. Sometimes his arousal would grow against your back while you laid in his arms, but a bit of shuddered hip-rocking through your pajamas while he thought you were asleep and the moment would pass. He was pretty easy to please.
There came a time when new visitors drove through town, however, and you knew what was going to happen as soon as Hoyt came home and called for Tommy to come upstairs. You stood at the sink washing dishes while you peered through the window; out in front of the same cornfield you'd crawled out of nearly two months ago, a van sat parked next to Hoyt's stolen Dodge. You watched with your breath held tight in your throat as five people hopped out the sliding door one by one, all seemingly chipper for where they were. Three girls, two guys. Their sunbleached hair and fancy beach clothes said all you needed to know about what type of people they were. One of the girls had a pendant hanging round her neck that caught the light just right, and you found yourself staring at it as it jostled against her sweat-soaked collarbone.
Chnk, thuuunk. At the sound of the basement door sliding open you turned your head, and there stood Tommy in the kitchen. Quiet as ever he came walking up and placed his thick hand on your head. The look in his burning eyes said it all. âEverything's okay. Don't fret.â He touched your hair a moment until Hoyt's voice rang out again, and with a silent huff he stepped away and made his way out to the lawn.
The light in each and every one of their eyes left the moment they spotted him approaching. One of the girls even grabbed her friendâs arm, stepping behind him halfway out of fear of the hulking giant that couldn't sleep without cuddling you at night. A dish slipped from your hand into the sink and splashed you, but as you pulled a rag from your apron pocket to dry the counter a bang and a high-pitched scream cut through the peaceful din of your quiet afternoon. You hopped up to see what was happening, but struggled to piece together the aftermath of the last five seconds.
On the ground lay one of the girls with a cavernous opening in the back of her head, collapsed in a steadily-growing pool of her own blood. Her lifeless eyes stared through you from across the lawn, they pierced into your very soul as she choked listlessly on her own blood, and you dropped to your knees behind the counter. Hands clamped over your mouth, you heaved each breath and hoped not to puke all over the freshly-mopped floor. Momma would have a fit if you ruined your own hard work.
Blind to whatever senselessness resided in their screams, you held back the churning of your stomach on your own bruised knees while the two of them took care of the rest. Within a few minutes you'd managed to pull yourself back up on shaky feet and finish washing the dishes. Within the hour, Tommy and Uncle Hoyt had gathered up the remaining survivors and taken them in. Two in the barn, one in the guest bedroomâŚand one locked up in the basement.
âMomma?â You called out softly into the hallway, wiping your fingers on your apron. Your chores for the day were finished, and the sun was starting to set on the horizon. Now would usually be the time you headed out to the chicken coop to lock it up, but with new visitors around, you didn't know the protocol. The last time this happened wasâŚwell, you didn't like to think about it.
âDown here, darlinâ.â Luda Mae popped her head out from the living room, and you hurried down the hall with your skirt fluttering around your legs. All your dresses were pretty modest and most of them were out of a trunk stored up in the attic, since momma had a whole collection of clothes she'd worn in her younger days that she figured would suit a young lady just fine. When you stepped in, you weren't expecting to see what you saw lying on the couch near uncle Monty's favourite spot.
It was one of the guys from the hippie van. His long hair had been soaked with blood and he was gagged, his face sporting bruises from an undoubtedly rough encounter with uncle Hoyt, who stood on the opposite side of the living room glaring at him.
âFucker tried to escape.â He sniffed, nursing a bloody nose with a hanky as he spoke with momma. âOther one's putzinâ around somewhere. You two keep an eye out, you hear me?â He pointed in your direction and you nodded out of instinct. Your eyes flicked towards the bound man on the couch as he made muffled noises of panic, but he was soon silenced by Hoyt whacking him over the head with the butt of his shotgun before he left to continue the search. Meanwhile, uncle Monty sat in his wheelchair unbothered, listening to the radio as it played on the windowsill and reading without a care in the world.
âMomma-â You tried again, but she turned to you with gentle eyes and gripped your shoulders lightly.
âGo clean up the kitchen for me, sweetheart?â She asked in earnest, and the plea you had to beg her not to make you take part died on your lips.
âYes, momma.â
âThat's my good girl.â Your hands fell at your sides, while she petted your hair lovingly and turned you away from the scene, patting you on the back as she ushered you back towards the kitchen. Blowing your hair out of your eyes, you resigned yourself to at least being a bystander to the horrors that were about to come, and made your way down the hall with your arms crossed over your chest in contemplation. Was there nothing you could do? No way to get out of playing a part, or at least ensuring they wouldn't ask? You had no doubts that you didn't have the stomach to do anything to the visitors, but then again, momma didn't have to do much either. Maybe you'd be saved by the tradition that dictated the six generations-deep household, and be regulated to the homely chores you'd tended to since first becoming a part of the family.
As you pushed through the door that led into the kitchen, the sounds of pots and pans clattering already grabbed your attention. It would be too late to do anything, howeverâbecause before you could even take a breath, someone's chest hit your back and there was a knife pinned to your throat.
âDon't you fucking move!â An unfamiliar voice whispered harshly in your ear. Your fingers scrabbled for purchase on the hand he had at your neck, but he jolted and the blade sunk deeper into your skin, causing you to cry outâand immediately be hushed by the stranger now holding you hostage. The bruising grip he had on your wrist now moved to clamp over your mouth, his body moving with you as you struggled in a momentary panic. Despite his warning, you brought your elbow backwards and loosened his grip on the knife as he choked in pain, throwing his arms off you as you stumbled forward and tripped over one of the dining chairs. Your skirt ripped as he tried to grab ahold of you again, but in his scramble to pick his weapon back up you kicked it away; and that was when fear truly started to pulse through your limbs like a heartbeat, when he glared daggers into you with a murderous rage, and you cried out the one name through tears that came to mind.
âTommy!â You sobbed, crawling away and trying to use the table to hoist yourself up, only to be kicked down again with a harsh shoe planted in the middle of your spine. Coughs ripped through your lungs as they seized in desperation, the wind having been knocked clean from your chest, and the sticky wetness of blood started pooling under your chin from hitting the floor face-first. Your nose wept with scarlet-red blood into your trembling palm, but that realization couldn't come close to the terror you felt at being grabbed by your hair and painfully lifted up off the ground.
âYou fucking bitch!â He screamed, voice hoarse and frighteningly loud so close to your face. âI'll kill youâI'll kill all you psycho motherfuckers!â He brought the knife so close to your heart you felt it cutting through the airâbut before he could bring it anywhere near your skin, a muffled thump from close by yanked him right to attention. He turned his head frantically towards the source, and you took the opportunity afforded to you. You brought your foot up hard into his groin, and released his grip on you for the second time for you to drop to the floor in a heap. Your dress smeared the blood you'd left on the pristine, freshly-mopped floorboards as you shuffled away from him, fearing the worst of retaliation from the panicked, indignant captive.
That is, until the thumping grew so loud you heard it clearly coming up the stairs, and without so much as a hint of ceremony your savior burst through the kitchen door; his eyes wild, his fists clenched with indomitable rage. His gaze swept over the scene to you, so small compared to him, huddled in the corner between the cabinets with a blood and tear-stained face. What could only be described as a growl erupted from his broad chest, and he grabbed the legs of your hunched-over assailant and dragged him closer between his feet.
âNo!â He cried, but it was far past too late. Tommy grabbed him by the back of his head, yanked him upwards to the height of his shins, and slammed the guy's head so hard into the floor that you could hear the sickening crack of his skull. Dazed but still semi-conscious, he fumbled for the knife he dropped or for anything that could save him, but it wouldn't be enough even so. With his nose ten times as smashed up as he'd done to you and his eye sockets bruised, Tommy's grip trembled on his head like he was considering whether or not to end him right here, right now. Evidently he figured that would be too easy, and before your very eyes he hauled the man up and carried him screaming down into the basement, where you heard the thwacks of him being cuffed down to the workbench before footsteps came echoing back upstairs. He found you in the same spot, still shaking like a leaf, and pushed the table aside to waste as little time as possible getting to you.
âTommy..â You winced, touching your own face for your fingers to come back bloody. He knelt down like a mountain sinking into the sea and felt around your neck, his concerns for the shallow slash you'd gotten in the struggle that you hadn't even noticed was bleeding. He grunted in reply; one hand slid up to cradle the back of your head, while two meaty fingers lightly pinched the sore bridge of your nose. Knowing what he was about to do wouldn't make it hurt any less, but you still gave him the go-ahead to do it anywaysâhe forced the bone back with a gut-churning twist, and you squealed out in pain, but it was momentary and the ache that followed was a dull one, thank god.
But still, you sat with a face full of blood and bruises and cried, half out of pain and half out of pure misery. This wasn't the life you wanted to lead, and you hated that you had no choice in the matter. You wanted to go but you knew it would mean the end, and you hated that whenever you thought of all the things you despised about this life, your mind would always wander to Tommy and you'd feel guilt over hurting him or leaving him behind. You hated it all, but somehow you couldn't really hate him, and it left you trapped in this cycle that you loathed to think would never, ever end.
While the tears continued to streak down your face, Tommy took to patting your cheeks gently. He held them and squeezed them carefully, so tender and cautious when it was you that was the meat between his destructive hands. He moved in close, his breathing hot and stifled beneath the mask he never took off in front of you. His head tilted, tongue wetting his lips in anticipation, and he-
âBoy!â Uncle Hoyt roared as he burst through the kitchen door, alerting you both and tearing Tommy's reverent gaze away from you. He stood fast and took you with him, your elbows cupped in his rough hands as he hauled you singlehandedly to your feet. âYou find that fucker yet?!â He swung his shotgun around and you flinched at the way he aimed it so carelessly. The âboyâ in question tucked you under his arm out of habit and shielded you almost entirely with the sheer enormity of his titan-esque frame. Wordlessly, he gestured towards the direction of the basement door with your trembling self still pinned tightly to his chest. The pseudo-sherriff narrowed his eyes at the both of you, namely the blood caking your otherwise pretty face, and scoffed. âHose her down, Jesus almighty..â He muttered that last blasphemy under his breath as he moved past out the back door, leaving the two of you wide-eyed and uncertain; his arm squeezing you tight against him, and your calloused fingers digging into his dirty sleeve as the crickets chirped outside the screen door.
âYou..â You swallowed dryly. The words came to you when no others did the same justice. âYou're a good boy, Tommy. You did a good job.â
Your praise hit his ears just right, as it always did. Tommy nuzzled his face into yours just so gently, barely grazing your skin with the damp leather as he tended to your wounds. With your broken nose already re-set, he rummaged through the drawers around you without taking his hand off your arm, sparing little time before his hand clasped around a roll of familiar gauze and he nudged the drawer closed. Though it was shallow enough to have stopped bleeding already, he wrapped some around your neck for the cut that would surely leave a scar, and used a clean rag to mop up your face with a bit of water from the tap. As he moved down your body to your waist, clearly concerned by the generous bloodstain marring your pretty, cotton dress, something caught his eye that froze him in place and sent a throbbing anger right into his dense fists. Worried, you set your hand on his shoulder, but it would do no good at comforting him after what he saw.
Your skirt. Torn like it had been yanked apart, desperately, and it had. Was he worried you'd be upset over the damage? You wondered for a passing moment, but as his fists shook with rage and your dressesâ hem balled within them you knew it to be a different reason entirely. He thoughtâ
Oh. So that's what he thought. You sought to comfort his fears but he'd had enough. Your delicate hands tugging at his mammoth arms made barely a dent in his intense march towards the basement, your begging too saccharine to even reach his ears. He walked with purpose into the hallway, wrenched open the sliding door with a force that bent it slightly, and with a palm outstretched to ward you off from following, he slammed it shut with an enormous bang that rattled the whole house. Standing there in shock and horror, you listened to his footsteps pounding the stairs before turning away and heading back towards the kitchen.
You had quite the mess to clean up in there, and there was nothing better to distract yourself from the howling screams of agony that would persist until dinnertime.
Maybe this was exactly how awkward it was when you'd been sat in that familiar chair. You remembered little of your first meal, the very first breakfast of many you would share with the family that had adopted you in to their home.
This was a lot lessâŚfriendly, though. Out of the five people who had arrived, two of them were dead. The one that had attacked you in the kitchen had grown silent in the basement. The other twoâthe hippy with the long hair and a redheaded girlâhad their wrists bound to two chairs diagonal from each other. The guy sat at the very end where you'd once been, and the girl to his right with tears streaming down her cheeks, sobbing softly as you filled everyone's bowls. Luckily for you, Monday was chicken soup night, so you had no worries over what kind of meat Hoyt would want to prepare for the special occasion. You'd been the only one to stir the pot, and the only one who made it at all for every Monday that rolled around. It had quickly become Tommyâs favourite, hence why he was only a few minutes late to arrive outside the dining room for dinner. Though you could tell that he'd barely cleaned up, his apron and his pants still soaked liberally with clotted blood.
âHands?â You questioned, your ladle poised over the pot of hot soup, and waited until the hulking giant tentatively stepped in the doorway to hold out his massive hands for inspection. When it was your turn to cook, you learned that you held the authority over the table for that evening. So you rarely followed the lead of uncle Hoyt or the others, and wouldn't wait until after grace to invite Tommy into the room. You checked over his knucklesâbruised, but scrubbed cleanâand only then did you nod towards the seat you saved for him and waited until he settled uncertainly into the chair to pour him a bowl and set it down in front of him.
If not for the whimpering captives at the table, it would be a better-than-average night. You'd improved on your recipe with a bit of creative seasoning, and the night had cooled off considerably to offer a bit of respite from the oppressive heat. You led grace, and smoothing out your fresh dress to fan out under your thighs as you sat, the table commenced with clinking spoons and bread being buttered that you thanked the stars hadn't gotten stale yet. Though of course, the unexpected visitors weren't so keen on your homemade cooking and didn't so much as look down at their bowls.
Tommy was too distracted to be frustrated by it, though. With his head dipped down to the table like a mutt, he slurped up his soup through the mask and chewed noisily on bits of chicken and corn. You'd saved the biggest roll for him and he tore into it like it was nothing, ripping chunks of bread off with his teeth and enthusiastically gulping down broth to wash it down. You hadn't even had time to butter his bread for him first like you usually did, but it pleased you to see him enjoying your cooking even more than usual.
âPlease,â A wobbly voice pricked at the tense silence. The redheaded girl pulled at her restraints again, shaking the table in the process. âWe didn't do anythingâŚplease, please, let us go!â She sobbed, wailing even louder as she thrashed against the stiff arms of the old chair.
âC'mon, man! We won't tell anyone, swear!â The hippie chimed in, only for Hoyt to slam his fist down on the table to silence the whining of his two captives.
âShut the hell up!â He snarled, whipping out a revolver from his holster to point at each one of them. âHad enough of your shit today. Shut your mouths.â He motioned towards his still-bloodied nose, and endured yet another scolding from momma for cussing at the table as he tucked the gun back into its place. You peered over at the two of them, but regret came immediately when the hippie's green eyes locked on yours like he saw a glimmer of hope within them. You forced your gaze back down to your bowl. You couldn't be their saviour, no matter how much they wanted you to be.
âLovely soup, sweetheart.â Momma smiled over at you, while uncle Monty nodded quietly in agreement.
âMm-hm. Momma taught you all her secrets, eh?â Hoyt added with a slurp off his spoon, the irritation from earlier having vanished. You thanked them politely, keeping your pride to yourself at the coveted praise directed your way. In a household where anything could go wrong at any time, you had to hold the good things as tight to your chest as you possibly could.
From beside you, Tommy lifted his head from an empty bowl and sighed softly with satisfaction. The remnants of spilled soup dribbled down his mask and his grimy neck, so with your own cloth napkin you reached over and did the job that was normally momma's; you wiped his face clean with a gentle hand, and he sat still for one of the only people he didn't flinch away from when you touched him.
âGood, Tommy?â He wasn't used to being asked his opinion, much less on something as scarce as food, when you didn't have much choice on what you ate. He nodded slowly, looking at you like you held the world as you finished wiping up the mess he'd left on the table.
Just then, one of the captivesâmaybe both of themâkicked their legs out in frustration, and shifted the table with a jolt that sent hot soup splashing out of the pot. The redhead's bowl tipped over and dumped her untouched meal all over her lap, but the porcelain shattering as it hit the floor wasn't what had Tommy rising out of his seat.
Wasteful. That's what they were. Insulting your cooking. You saw it in Tommy's eyes as anger overwhelmed him again, and for the second time tonight your reassurances weren't enough to halt him in his tracks. His chair legs scraped the floor loudly as he got up and maneuvered around the table, the tense quiet peppered by the screams of the girl as he grabbed the back of her head and slammed it down into the slick tabletop. Not nearly as hard as he'd done to the other guy, but enough so that he brought her back up with a nose gushing blood and a harsher sob on her lips.
âYou teach her a lesson, Tommy!â Hoyt eagerly encouraged the violence, but you reached your hand out over the table and pressed your palm flat against her forehead. At the resistance you gave her, Tommy's grip grew slack and a look of panic came over him at the distress etched clear on your face. He looked conflicted, peering over at Hoyt and then back at you. Was he being bad, or being good? Was what he was doing right, or was it wrong? Hoyt started shouting and cussing at you for stopping him, but Tommy skirted back around the table to your side and put himself between you and his furious uncle. A swat to the back of the head wasn't totally uncommon for you, even if it didn't happen often, but the punishments Tommy received were always far worse. The belt or a two-by-four were considered light work in Hoyt's sadistic mind, but after what you'd been through today you were certain Tommy wouldn't be keen on letting you endure any more pain. He would take punishments and beatings for you whenever he had the chanceâsometimes Hoyt had even asked him what he preferred, and not once had he put you up for the chopping block if he could take it for you.
âEnough of this shit!â Hoyt finally roared. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the basement and shoved both you and Tommy towards it. âTake these sons aâ bitches downstairs, and don't come up until they're meat!â
Both of the captives shrieked and flailed in their chairs at his demand, but you managed to undo their binds despite the struggling and let Tommy haul each one up in his arms; one over his shoulder, and one tucked up under his armpit. Your heartbeat thudded in your throat as you followed Tommy's lead towards the stairs, and when it came time to shut the door, you had to swallow your fear with a gulp as the metal scraped on metal and a heavy thunk pitched you into darkness.
The only times you'd watched Tommy work before was when he'd taken you to the slaughterhouse. It was an aging, now-abandoned building that had seen generations of hard workers come and go, and despite it no longer being in business he still came by to do some work when he wasn't needed for chores at the house. You weren't sure why he didn't usually take you along or why he decided to on those few occasions, but regardless of the stench, the blood, and the intensity of chopping and cleaning meat, it was easy to tell that Tommy was good at it. Real good.
It was a little different today. About a week had passed since the visitors came through town, and by now all five of them were taken care of. You'd barely eaten since you couldn't stomach the fresh meat, and with you excusing yourself to throw up that first dinner after you'd had guests, the rest of the family had been looking down on you. Momma was sad for you, and Monty was mostly indifferent when he wasn't straight up disappointed in you. But Hoyt was vindictive and angry. He thought you were turning your back on the family, judging them, acting âall high and mightyâ and worst of all, risking your family's safety. You'd gotten caught leaving the locks loose on the two survivors' shackles, and they'd nearly escaped out the basement before Hoyt caught both of them in the cornfield and finally shot them dead.
You swore it was an accident. Hoyt thought otherwise. He would've killed you right then and there if Tommy hadn't stepped in for you, and even then the air had been strained in the house ever since, as uncle Hoyt demanded you be properly punished for your sins.
That's why you'd been dragged along with Tommy to accompany him to the slaughterhouse. By the end of the day, Hoyt wanted a proper apologyâone in the form of a bloody limb, an organ, or maybe just your head on a platter as recompense for betraying your family. And worst of all, he wanted Tommy to be the one to do it, to decide what would be a fitting price for you to pay. To âgrow some balls and be a manâ, as Hoyt put it so delicately.
But since morning, he'd just been chopping meat. Tommy hadn't even looked at you the whole time you'd been here, not even on the walk down the side of the road to get here in the first place. He'd picked you up under your arms and sat you up on the table behind him, and then he'd turned his back to you as he brought down his cleaver on the piles and piles of dripping meat. Sometimes he would turn around and hand you chunks to wrap up in butcher's paper, but for the most part he indicated nothing towards the task he had primarily been sent here to do. Somehow it just made it all worse; you felt on the edge of snapping from the anxious terror that tightened up all your muscles, wondering what on earth Tommy would do to you before the day was done. Was he just procrastinating? Because if he arrived back home with nothing to show for it, it wouldn't save you in the endâit would just make it worse for both of you when he got punished too.
âTommy.â You gnawed on your bottom lip. He brought the blade down on the chopping block with a thunk. With the bone separated, a squelch hit your ears as he slid the sections apart and dragged over another hunk to slice through. âI'm sorry.â
Thunk. Not even a passing glance over his shoulder. And it was hard to tell if he was mad when he wouldn't even look at you.
âI didn't want to get you in troubleâŚâ
Thunk.
âI was just scared.â
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
âTommy-â
The slow escalation of his measured cuts finally culminated into an uproarious clatter, his cleaver smacking down on the soaked table before he turned himself to face you. Blood marred the clothes you'd taken off the laundry line for him that morning, apron slick and sticky with viscera as it almost always was. Sweat poured down his arms and his hairy chest and beaded at his dense forehead. Every inch of him was dirty, and yet you didn't cringe away from it when he closed the distance between you and came up harrowingly close. The stench of blood and meat wafted off of him from barely an inch away. His hips edged in between your knees as you sat on the lip of the counter, keeping personal space far from his mind when he grabbed your arms and dwarfed them under his massive fingers. Each breath heaved beneath his mask like swallowing a bubble, ready to pop.
This time, Hoyt was nowhere around to interrupt him. Momma wasn't there to scold him. Nobody would hear for miles what he would do to you, and you had no idea what he'd had brewing in his mind since he'd choked you out in the cornfield that first meeting. That intense stare of his was like a bear honing in on a rabbit, and if you had the thought to run, it was already too late.
Thick fingers clamped down around your neck, dug into the scar that had formed from the asshole that had sliced you, and you felt your heart stutter as Tommy pulled you along the length of the table and slammed you down into it by the throat. This way you were laid out like a cow would to be butchered, plenty of room for him to work as he held you down and reached over to pull a leather strap over your midsection. He affixed the buckle tight to the opposite side and tightened it more when you squirmed against the pressure, but not quite enough to be as painful as the ropes that dug into your wrists at your first family meal. With that in place he didn't need to hold you down to keep you pinned against the table, and although you whimpered in fear and fought against the bindings he paid your resistance little mind, instead looking through his tools on the cutting table to find a decently-sized paring knifeâdrenched liberally in bloodâfor him to hook under the neckline of your dress and make a cut down the middle. Once he hit the tough leather over your stomach, the tool skittered across the table as he abandoned it in favour of ripping your skirt apart with his bare hands, the thin layer of cotton offering no resistance to his brute strength.
Why did it make you so wet? You couldn't shake the feeling of arousal from how animalistic he was behaving, nor the sheer, overwhelming musk of man and sweat and blood. Tommy was never rough with you but he was certainly making up for it now; you flinched at the firmness of his fingers digging into your skin, leaving trails of thin blood and dirt behind as he tore your cotton bra into loose pieces. His hands trembled at the sight of you exposed like this, too much skin to handle, and such soft flesh that filled out his palms when he cupped your breasts in each eager hand. A hitch of breath was enough to show him that you liked it, whether it was the attention itself or exclusively because it was him touching you. It didn't matter.
Tommy massaged each one with such eager reverence, his handwork clumsy compared to the ease with which he handled so many other forms of meat. He wasn't keen on ripping these off your body and eating them; although he did want to test how they would feel in his mouth, especially those plum, soft nubs of yours that perked when he brushed his thumbs over them. By now you weren't completely certain he wasn't going to butcher you, but you had a pretty good idea that this was his plan Bâtake out that inner aggression on you that would not make his god-fearing family proud.
A deep, weighty groan slipped out of him at the taste of sweat on your skin. Every bruise he left with his teeth would have to be covered up and powdered, but god, god it was so easy for him to undo every vestige of purity you'd put on for show. Your back arched and your worn shoes squeaked against the steel table as you wiggled, the globes of fat he held in his palms jiggling with a mesmerizing glow every time you moved. As much as you wanted to wrench yourself free in some moments, in most others you couldn't bear the breaks he took to catch his breath, leaving your chest prickling with goosebumps as a draft hit your spit-sticky skin. He squeezed and kneaded to his heart's content and took a twisted glee out of making you squirm, especially when you made those gurgly noises that were so traitorous to the pristine image you painted for momma. She'd made it clear that you weren't to go off messing with boys when they came strolling up to the store's counter, or return any of their flirtations no matter how many times they called you pretty.
Obviously she didn't think her son would be the one you had to keep from tempting, but that train had long left the station now. Thomasâ index finger tore through the thin fabric of your panties with a swipe, and there you laid bare and naked to his wandering eyes while he yanked the shreds of them down the rest of your legs. He probably didn't know what positions were which and how girls had their periods, but he knew enough to slide those thick fingers through your folds and to keep going when you moaned like a dying animal. âTommy, Tommy, Tommyâ, it was a mantra that hit his ears just right and urged him into clambering on top of the table with you with wild eyes. They drank in every inch of your sweltering body, the pulse of your heart through the hole he was jamming his fingers into, and on instinct he was guided to push down his waistband and throw off his apron as he knelt back on his haunches.
You might've thought he was nothing but hair if he wasn't so thick. Clearly he'd never shaved in his life with the erroneous bush he sported, curly hair matting down his thighs and his belly too once his shirt started riding up. But that fat, drooling knob of his swayed to hit his thigh, and you got an eyeful of pure, veiny, gut-smashing terror that you were sure would kill you if you didn't manage to relax. The further he leaned over your body, the more you felt like he was going to crush you as soon as he lined himself up with the hole he'd be stretching out like a little homemade cock sleeve. His hands slid under your knees to prop them up, but rather than sling them over his shoulders he bent them back and pinned them to your chest. An aching burn raced up your thighs but he paid no mind to your trembling; Tommy knelt over you and settled between your legs, and without warning, started sinking slowly into that hot opening he'd been dying to get deeper inside.
âH-Holdâwait, T-Tommy, hold oh-!â
Were you really so convinced he would play nice with you? Maybe you'd become complacent with the gentleness he showed you at his best, because when Tommy finally pressed in past the tip, he was gone. Forcing your knees back even further, he let out a groan and pushed himself up higher over you; all just to settle himself into your deepest pits and trap you in a violating mating press. After doing nothing but enjoying your heat, smushing his hips down against yours in a grinding motion, he soon seemed to realize he could moveâand move he did, drawing back just to crush your hips with a deep, stomach-punching stroke.
âUnh,â What most resembled a moan fell from his scarred lips, and he fumbled around the back of his head to unclasp the leather from his face. This was the first and only time he'd ever felt safe enough to take it off since you'd met, and it was when he'd finally listened to his body and acted on his need to force every inch of him inside you. To be one. Now you finally were, and his synthetic face dropped on your chest before slowly sliding off to hit the floor.
If your jaw hadn't already gone slack from his violent thrusting, it would probably fall from the realization of what hid under that mask day after day. The sallow, sunken nose, the scars, the jagged skin and self-inflicted woundsâŚwhy wasn't it as scary as you thought? You figured, in the moment, you'd just gotten too used to him in personality, or maybe because you were just too distracted at the moment, butâŚ
âTommy-!â You squeaked out. The wet smack of his balls on your ass stuck in your ears, the strings of creamy slick linking you flesh-to-flesh as he went to town on your pussy. If he truly was losing his virginity to you, then all that pent-up frustration must be the source of him absolutely ruining any semblance of tightness you might've had. âA-Are you tryinâ toâyou wanna gimme a baby? S'that it?â You slurred, slowly losing your good sense the longer he showed you your place.
Though you thought it would be to your horror, his slow nod only sparked something dark and tremulous within your loins. Something more than sweat and slick and the vile squelching of his seldom-washed dick rubbing up to your womb. It hit you then; this was your punishment. Every clap and sticky smack of flesh on flesh was a promise, an urge fulfilled to tear your meat from the bone and thrust a new purpose unto you. A homemaker. Tommy's little bride. A momma. Make his momma a grandmama like she was always praying for.
Shluck. Shluck. Shluck. Shluck. No doubt in your mind that was exactly what he was doing, and exactly why he brought you all the way out to the slaughterhouse to do it. The leather strap over your stomach kept you from wriggling away, but that would only be if you could somehow get him to pull out, and that for sure wasn't happening. He didn't bother with long strokes and leaving the tip in, your cunt was a home for him to bury himself in and he wasn't about to waste a second of this. His thick thighs trembled over yours, and he ground the swollen head of his cock deep against your cervix. So deep it was painful, but why would he care? He was doing a good thing. He was being a good boy, giving you what uncle Hoyt told him all women wanted, even if they didn't say it out loud.
Tommy's moans grew to a higher pitch once he affixed his hand like a necklace round your throat, swelling with the faster, faster, faster pace of his thrusts downward. He pressed his other meaty hand into your knees and shoved each one further apart, which made you whine but gave him easier access to pound you into greedy, delectable mush. Whereas it might've turned off weaker men, your nails digging deep, long scratches up his back made Tommy groan and tilt his head back in delirious pleasure. His knees kept you pinned at your sides and his weightâhis stomach squishing into you from aboveâheld you down where you belonged, where you'd be the most beautiful and of best use. Beneath him with a womb spilling over with cum, sown by his seed and his seed alone. His picturesque, pretty little wife. Hewitt property. He wouldn't stop, and you wouldn't beg him to even if you weren't being choked of any air you had left, and the world started to spin as the ecstasy took hold and Thomas was squeezing your moans out of you with trembling fervour. It felt as though your lower half exploded and left you with a warm, full, tingly sensation, marred by pearly-white globs of a load he'd had saved up since birth.
In contrast to the violent lovemaking he'd just shown you he was capable of, you were slowly brought back to life by small, soft little pecks. Kisses like the fuzz of a bumblebee brushing by your cheeks, pressing into your lips with a sweetness you weren't used to. This felt like Tommy again, like the gentle touch he used when nobody was around to laugh at him for being so sweet on you. He shuddered with bliss as his cock pulsed with your heartbeat and milked him of what little he had left, but with his chubby fingers rubbing at your jaw and brushing your sweaty locks aside he managed to drag himself off of you. Slowly, like molasses on a cold day, he brought himself back down off the table and let his feet hit the floor, having to brace himself against the table to keep from stumbling to the ground. Click-shuuunk. The leather belt snapped back into its holder as he released it, which left a sizeable indent across your abdomen that you'd have to hope would be covered enough not to show bruises. All you could do was watch as Tommy did up his pants on his way around the table, only to return to your side with the biggest, sharpest knife you swore you had ever seen. You flinched away and nearly cried out-
Shlip. With a strand pulled taut, Tommy made quick work of separating a lock of your hair from your head. Just a short one, so as not to make much differenceâbut he held it to his face and sniffed deeply, and it ashamed you to say that the gesture in itself just made your clit throb with need you thought you'd been completely overdosed on. Despite that, you laid still while Tommy reached over and retrieved his mask, tucking the tuft of hair inside it so he could smell it all the time. To calm him down, to cool him off, to just enjoyâŚall the things that you brought to him when no one else did, or could. From his pocket he produced something small and shiny, and dangled it over your face to show you before he set on fixing it around your neck. The pendant you'd seen that girl wearing a week ago now hung against your collar, the gleam of gold in it polished clean of the blood spilled to take it.
You barely let out a moan as he set on rearranging your limbs, turning you over, letting his cum spill down your thighs and all over the table like the blood from a fresh cut of beef. His calloused digits traced down your spine and up again til he found a sweet spot, and padded down your springy flesh that separated bone from his fingers. The carving knife had tinged when he'd sharpened it but he didn't show it to youâthat would be too much for you, given what he was about to commit to.
Every arc, long and curved or short and straight, burned. The tip of the blade dug into your flesh like a red-hot needle, but Tommy's warm palm on the back of your neck kept you from moving out of his reach. He needed to start and to finish and his hand was already unsteady, mostly from the way his breath still hitched and his cock stirred all over again at the sight of your writhing body. Your blood turned him on. He hadn't touched any of the victims before you, not in that way, but you weren't really the same as themâno, you were special. If you weren't, Tommy wouldn't be carving those words into your back, and putting on display his ownership over the one and only thing he would ever see as more than meat.
If you didn't get pregnant this time, then this would surely be enough for the family to forgive. The letters scrawled in bloody ecstasy that would heal over, scar, wounds to be reopened over and over again.
Tommy's girl
forever
Make This House a Home [Tommy Hewitt x Reader]
Title: Make This House a Home [Tommy Hewitt x Reader]
Synopsis: Youâre not killedâbut what is the life inside this house, anyway?
Word count: 8000ish
Notes: Descriptions of death and violence; descriptions of sexual assault (not against reader); abuse in general, kidnapped reader.
All of your friends are dead.Â
Mary Ann died first. Her face burst wide open, red gore and brain matter seeping out the back edges of the passenger headrest. Something grey and gooey landed on your cheek and there wasnât enough momentum in your brain to screamâyou just knew to freeze. Something dark and awful happened, and thatâs all you could doâfreeze.Â
At least, until John screamed. Until John screamed and tried to grab the gun that the stranger had used to make a mess of Mary Ann, shoutingââWhat the fuck, what the FUCK is wrong with you, man?! Thatâs my sister, my SISTER, you FUCKâ--and he was fumbling over Mary Annâs body in a pitiful attempt to grab hold of the weapon.
When that didnât work, he jumped out of the van. You and Linda followed, stumbling, bodies shaking and numb, and as you peered around the driverâs side you could see that Mary Ann no longer had a face. A gory crater was all that was left against the headrest. But her body was there. Blood splattered, but there. Like it was just napping. She was still wearing her grandmaâs gold braceletâa birthday present from last year.Â
John died second. Not in the van. It might have been nicer, if he died in the van. Might have been easier. Instead, the man shot him in the thigh, bringing him to the ground. He howled, like an animal, like twenty minutes ago he wasnât waxing philosophical about the state of the government and how itâs âall going to fucking hell, man.âÂ
John didnât die in the van. Neither did Linda.
John and Linda died at the house, where the man dragged the three of you after forcing you into his truck. He took Linda away, and she screamed a lot, and you knew what was happening to her even before it all ended with a distant gunshot and terrible silence.Â
You and John had been tied up to the ceiling of the garage and you wondered, almost numb but not quite, if the man was going to drag you away like he did Linda. If you were going to end up violated and murdered in some rotten bed in some rotten house in some rotten town.
All of the nerves in your body sparked at once when the man shouted something in the houseâ
âTommy! Go take care of that garbage out there! Make sure you clean up after!â
And what came through the squeaking garage door was not a person, surely, but a big hulking monster of a man. Like the kind you saw in horror movies you werenât supposed to watch, that greasy-faced guys with unshaven faces told you were like, actually snuff films disguised as movies, man. His hair was greasy but thatâs not what stood out, no. It was his size and bulk and a mask strapped over his face, revealing only his eyes, wild but determined.
It must be Tommy, you thought, dimly, your feet scrambling for purchase. As if you could get away.Â
This is where John died. It was not a nice death. Tommy had grabbed an axe from the wall andâyou began to heave, throwing up a diner breakfast onto the floorâchopping at Johnâs body like he was a tree to take down. Whacking at his stomach, his legs. His flesh flapped down like so much meat.Â
Chop.
Chop.
Chop.
The screaming came from John. And you, too. And maybe the whole wide world had been screaming this whole time and it took watching your friends die in front of you to finally hear it.
John was dead. You knew it, because his torso was hanging from the ceiling now, and his legs had fallen to the ground in a tangled heap. If you had more time, maybe you would have been able to process the full horror of this. But as it was, all you could do was think about what was about to happen to you.
It was your turn.
Your friends were dead, and now, you were going to die. Horribly, probably. Getting axed to death or worse.Â
The thing, the creature, the murderer approached you, bloody axe in hand, and you squeezed your eyes shut and began to murmur some prayer youâd learned as a kid and hadnât said in years. A pitiful thing that you couldnât even fully remember. But what did it matter, when your life was going to be nothing but a heap of blood and viscera in mere moments?Â
âPlease make it quick,â you whispered, to the killer, to God, to yourself. Then you went back to your mumbled prayers, hoping it would all be over soon.Â
You waited for death.
And waited.
And waited.
And death never came.Â
Someone was breathing, hard. It couldnât have been Johnâhe had no breath left to give. It couldâve been you, but it was lower, harsher, and when you let your eyes slowly open he was standing right in front of you.
Tommy. The killer. With an axe in his hand. Breathing. Staring.Â
Maybe he wanted you to watch while you died?Â
Maybe heâ
He swung the axe suddenly and your heart soared and some half-assed last word pushed itself out through your mouth, but the axe didnât hit. At least, not you. Instead, it hit the ropes above your head, and you crumbled to the ground like Johnâs lifeless legs.
Later, you will turn it over in your head. Why didnât he kill you? Why did he cut you down?Â
At the moment, though, nothing went through your head but renewed terror as he grabbed your jelly-like leg and began to drag you away from the garage. Away from Johnâs mangled body and the blood still dripping from his torso, over rough ground, kicking and yelping like the scared little animal that you were.
A house of death and grime, a house where Lindaâs body still lay, somewhere, probably just as faceless as dear Mary Annâs.
The house would, later, be called home.
â
Youâre still on the floor, leg held tightly by the man who killed John without a hint of remorse, when an older woman with glasses looms over you and tuts.
âSheâs filthy, Tommy.â A look of horror in her eyes, not because youâve got blood and brain matter on you, not because this manâTommyâis covered in blood and she had surely heard all the screaming from your dead friends. But because youâre messing up her kitchen floor with your filth.
Is she going to help him kill you? Thoughts try to land inside but nothing sticks in your brain. The shock is too much.Â
But then something seems to click with this strange woman, and she sighs, murmuring, wringing her hands. She looks up at Tommy and he jerks your leg towards her, making one of your muscles cramp. She sighs again, nodding along. âWell. Alright. No need to beg now. If sheâs going to stay, sheâll need a bath.â
He drops your leg to the ground. It hits the kitchen floor with a thud but you donât have the presence of mind to really feel the pain; thereâs too much terror coursing through you, unable to properly think about whatâs happening at all.Â
âWell,â the woman says, hands on her hips. Sheâs talking to the man, to Tommy, not you. âHelp me get her up now. Sheâs got to get a bath before anything else.âÂ
Something that might be a protest bubbles out of your dry lips as the man reaches down and scoops you up by the armpits. A thought claws its way upâheâs going to take you into the bathroom and strip you and hurt you and then youâll be with your friends, dead, some bloodied silent corpse that no one will ever discover.Â
So when he begins to haul you away from the kitchen, you struggle, kicking your useless legs and struggling against the rough rope that still keeps your wrists bound.Â
âDonâtââ
You donât get the rest of the words out before your head smacks against the kitchen doorframe, and thereâs a dull grey buzzing in your head as youâre slowly dragged up a flight of stairs.Â
Thump, thump, your body thumping all the way. Youâre aware enough to see the woman following behind, mumbling one thing at Tommy, tutting something else at you.Â
The pain in your head fades away as youâre dragged down a wooden hallway, which is, at least, some small relief. It was shock from the sudden pain, then and not a serious injury.Â
The bathroom he drags you into wasnât as dirty as it ought to have been. Thatâs the strange thought that comes to mind as youâre leaned up against a cold porcelain tub, as his rough hands finally move away from under your armpits.
Yes, you think. The bathroom is all wrong. A bathroom in a house of death should be filthy, grimy. There should be blood caked into the grout that wouldnât come out even if you scrubbed for years.
Instead, itâs a modest bathroom that reminds you a bit of your grandmaâs house. Blinking, you can see a decorative soap sitting on the sink, next to the well-worn pump soap filled with the stuff people actually use. Thereâs a doily on top of the toilet tank. A bowl of potpourri.Â
The only sign that anything is amiss is the bloody killer with a mask covering his face standing over you, breathing.Â
Is this where he takes you? Where he forces himself on you, and kills you after?Â
âTommy, you git nowââ The woman is in the bathroom, too, hands back on her hips. âAinât right for you to be in here with us ladies.â She waves him on and itâs the strangest thing to see him nod, to hear some sort of grunting mumble in response. He leaves the bathroom like a puppy being told to stay out of the kitchen.
Youâre left alone with a woman wearing a floral print dress, hair pulled back into a bun, wisps of hair framing her face in an achingly familiar way. She looks like anyoneâs grandma, the type of woman youâd see rocking on her porch in the evening, drinking lemonade and watching fireflies.
Instead sheâs living in a house of horror and has no apparent problem with it.Â
âWell,â is what she says eventually, looking you over like some wayward child come in covered in mud before Sunday dinner. âBest to get you cleaned up before supper.âÂ
Cleaned up? Supper? Maybe you did hit your head harder than you thought. Because what the hell is she talking about? What the hell is going on? Why arenât you dead like the rest of them?
Your frantic thoughts and potential concussion donât matter, though, because all she does is ignore the unanswered questions written all over your face and lean over the tub. A moment later, the sound of rushing water bombards your frazzled nerves and makes you flinch.
A bath. Sheâs going to run you a bath.
Her arm hooks under your armpits and she hoists you up with surprisingly little effort. Some noise escapes you, but if it was a protest, her suddenly stern expression shuts it up. She sits you down on top of the toilet seat and begins to pull off your dirty jeans.
âDonât fuss,â she says, not that you have much energy to continue fighting her movements. âIâm not gonna have you in my house in these filthy clothes.â She holds up your loose jeans like theyâre something truly awful and chucks them in the trash.Â
Itâs impossible to take your shirt off with your arms tied, and she hums about it for a while. Finally, she says, low and slow. âIâm gonna take these ropes off you, honey. But if you do anything but sit there nice and pretty, Iâll have Tommy come and break your neck. Okay?â
You canât do anything but nod.
So your shirt comes next, the swirling floral print looking almost obscene now, with blood on it. Mary Annâs blood. Johnâs blood. Your own, probably, from the scrapes you got being dragged around like some ragdoll.
And then itâs your socks and underclothes and really, you ought to fight. But something dull and heavy and numb takes over as she helps you out of your clothes, gentle as anything. Like the way your mom used to give you a bath.
The way she leads you to the tub is familiar too, as is the way she bids you to hold onto her as you step inside it. The water is warm and achingly inviting and you sink down into it. Your body does, anyway. Youâre not entirely sure if your mind is actually inside it now, because none of this can be real.
Only it is. Because the woman turns off the tap and hands you a washcloth with a faded embroidered flower and a well-used bar of soap.Â
âIâm going to grab you some clothes,â she says, standing in the open doorway. âYou just wash up real good. Get all that muck off you.â The muck is your friendâs brain matter, but you donât say that. âThereâs shampoo on the shelf there.âÂ
She leaves you alone and itâs the pure, unadulterated desire to rid yourself of the blood sticking to your skin that propels you to begin scrubbing.
By the time she returns with a pile of clothes in her hand, the water is a startling mixture of brown and red, all bubbling with soap. Little flecks of brain, the last remnants of Mary Annâs thoughts and everything she ever was, float with the bubbles.Â
You donât say anything when she helps you out of the tub. You donât say anything when she sits you back down on the toilet seat and begins to dry you off. Itâs only when she starts rubbing at your head that something escapes youâ
A hiccup. A whimper. The beginnings of pitiful, whining, childlike tears.Â
You expect her to yell at you. Tell you to shut your fucking mouth, like that man probably would have.
Instead, she coos in the back of her throat.
âOh, sweet girl. Hush now, hush, hush.â She murmurs that plea over and over as she dries you off, and you lean into her touch, gentle, almost familiar, if you can ignore everything else.Â
By the time sheâs pulling a loose dress with a floral printâfrom her own wardrobe, you thinkâover your body, youâve managed to bring yourself down to the occasional sniffle. She dabs at the last of your tears with the rough towel and hoists you up again.
âI think you ought to take a nap before supper. Or just lie down for a spell, if you canât fall asleep. Doesnât that sound nice?â
It does, in fact, not sound nice. It sounds like she means for you to stay here. Or maybe supper is the place where youâre going to die, maybe in some more fucked up way than your friends. Wash you, dry your tears, then tie you to the dinner table and sacrifice you to Satan.
Satan worshippers were real; you knew that much from TV.
But that numbness overtakes you as she leads you, your newly socked feet warm and toasty, out of the bathroom and down a darkened hallway.Â
The room youâre shuffled into looks like a guest room. Impersonal, with ironed sheets and doilies on the side table and a generic alarm clock ticking away on top of them.Â
The bed is hard and not terribly comfortable, but you let her push you down onto it, let her lift your legs so that youâre curled up on your side.
She leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead.
Would she kiss you, if they were going to kill you later? You didnât know how these things worked. Or how anything in life worked, apparently, because you never thought a road trip would end with your friends brutally murdered and you laying in some womanâs guest bedroom wearing a dress that smelled faintly of mothballs.Â
âWhen I call for supper,â and her voice is all matter of fact, âyou just come right on down.â She takes a step out the door, then stops, looks straight at you. âAnd honey?â
When she doesnât continue, you force yourself to make some sort of questioning noise in the back of your dry, horrified throat.
âDonât do anythinâ stupid.â
â
âSupperâs ready!â
Youâre not asleepâhow could you beâbut the shrill words that come from downstairs startle you anyway. Thereâs lead in your body as you force yourself to slowly sit upwards. One foot in front of the otherâthen you think about Johnâs legs laying in a heap on the floor and the lead turns into helium, tingling and numbing.
Are you going to be laying in a heap on the floor soon?Â
A noise in the doorway turns you into a startled animal, even more so when you see what the noise was:
Him. The killerâwell, one of them. The one who killed John. Tommy, the older man had said.Â
Maybe they sent him up because you were taking too long. Or maybe he was your escort down into hell, where youâd be sacrificed to Lucifer or whatever terrible god these people worshipped.Â
âIâI was sleeping.â A lie. âS-Sorry,â and the words stumble out. âIt just took me a minute to get up.â Not a lie, at least.Â
If this bulky man with an obscured face hears you or cares about your excuse, he doesnât say anything. He just stands there, breathing, staring. His eyes seem to linger over the dress the woman gave you as you awkwardly walk towards the door, and thereâs a few brief awful moments where youâre face to face before he sidesteps and lets you outâ
Only for you to stumble over the threshold, nearly flying into the floor. A strong grip lands around your upper arm and youâre suspended, balancing on one shaky leg, taking a moment before you realize that heâs kept you from smashing your face into the wood below.
âUm,â you manage. âThank you.â Because it is probably a good idea to be polite to a serial killer. And youâre not even sure if your mind is being sarcastic with that particular piece of advice.
Tommy says nothing. Maybe he stares at you for too long, and he might say something. Instead, though, he gestures for you to go down the stairs before letting go of your arm. He stares at his hand for a moment and you donât think much of it, now. That will come later.Â
For now, you take the staircase one step at a time, out of fear, out of necessityâyour body aches all over and your hands grip the rickety railing as hard as you can to keep from slipping or tripping or flying and smashing your nose against the ground below.
The dining room is homey, set just off the kitchen. It seems that everyone but you and the axe-wielding murderer behind you are already seated at the table. Thereâs the older woman, of course. A man youâve never seen before. Andâhim. The one who killed Mary Ann. Who hurt Linda. Who ordered you and John to be killed.Â
Something hot twists inside your stomach as you hover in the doorway. When youâre finally spotted, the woman smiles, and gestures for you to come insideâbut the man who killed and hurt your friends scowls.Â
âWhat in the hell is that dumb bitch still doing here? Tommy, I told you toââ
The woman steps in, hand on her hip. âCharlie Hewitt, you will watch your mouth at the dinner table.âÂ
To your surprise, he ducks his headâmurmers, âSorry Mama.â
She begins to dole out spoonfuls of steaming food from a pot onto his plate, and so on down the table. âTommy thought she ought to stay, so she ought to stay.â
The manâCharlieâonly shakes his head at this. âSince when does Tommy make decisions?â He wipes the back of his hand against his nose, and the woman bats his arm with the spoon. âShe ought to be tied up, at least.â
The woman sighs. Your wrists ache.Â
A compromise is made, and your ankle is tied to the chair. Not that it makes your situation any less horrifyingâany less difficult to comprehend, as you find yourself seated between the woman (Luda May, she says, finally) and the man who killed Mary Ann and Linda (Charlie, Luda May addressed him as Charlie) and another man who didnât object to any of it (Monty, Luda May calls him).Â
You expect the hulking, breathing Tommy to sit down at the table. Thereâs almost a curiosity that prickles in youâwill he take off the mask to eat? What would he look like, sitting down at this deceptively cozy dinner table?--but to your surprise, he leaves, footfalls heavy as he skulks outside the dining room door and simply stands there and watches.Â
The food that night is not well seasoned, not that it matters. Youâre eating it only to stay alive. The hastily chewed globs of it sits heavy in your stomach along with the sight of your dead friends, along with the knowledge of Tommy standing outside, watching all of you eat.
âNow, sweetheart,â Luda May begins, interrupting the buzzing of your thoughts. âWhy donât you tell us your name, seeing as youâre fixinâ to stay?â
â
Charlie and Luda May argue that night about letting you stay. About letting you live. They do it right at the dinner table, with you, captive, ankle bound in rope to the table. Itâs hard to do anything else but feel the way your scalp tingles, wondering if this will be your last night on Earth. If Charlie will grab a knife from the kitchen and simply stab it through your chest. Or your head. He seemed to like the violence of it all.
âWell,â Luda May offers, pointing at the open doorway where Tommy still stood vigil. âTommy thinks sheâs sweet. Donât you, Tommy?â
All headsâyours includedâswing doors the doorway.Â
You almost, stupidly, because what do you have to lose at this point in your short life, ask how Luda May even knew what he thought. He didnât talk. But fear bites your tongue for you, and you simply stare with the others at the strange, unkempt man who, hours ago, lopped your friendâs top half from his bottom half with an axe.
Tommy gruntsâ
Luda May smiles and claps her hands together and Charlie rubs the back of his head with his hand.
âWell,â he says, a drawl. âIf Tommy wants to keep her, then heâs responsible for her.â He gives you half a glance and shrugs. âLike taking in a stray dog, is what I say. A stray dogâŚâ
Stray dogs, you think, sometimes get put down.
â
They let you live. A compromise is made, though, after Charlie insists that they canât trust you not to attack them for a good while. âWouldnât let some roaming mutt sleep with your baby, would ya? Same damn thing.â
So you get tied up at first. By the ankle, usually, and youâre at least a bit grateful for that. Even if the skin around your ankle starts to rub raw, and Luda May (âCall me Mama,â she says, and you do not) rubs cream on it after your weekly bath. Luda May is the one who takes you to the bathroom, to pee or bathe or whatever else you need to doâand youâre at least a bit grateful for that, too.Â
The soap always gets in your eyes when she washes your hair, dunking water over your head from a filled up gas station cup; you donât mind, because when it burns and stings and you start to cry, itâs easy to pretend that youâre crying from the pain, and not your new normal.
What is normal, anyway? Normal is what you become used to; and you do become used toâthis. This life. Or whatever it might be called.Â
Because after a while, it gets easier.Â
You donât get tied up to the table for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) and Luda May hovers outside the bathroom door and finally lets you pee and bathe all by yourself. Though she still likes to help you wash your hair, humming and drying your hair for you afterwards, and you donât fuss about it.
Because sheâd only get madâand because, well. Because it feels nice to be cared for, sometimes. Because itâs easier to pretend this isnât a horror house when sheâs humming and talking about how youâve been so good lately, so helpful, as she pours a dollop of cheap strawberry shampoo into her hand.Â
The chores come with your newfound freedom, freedom that doesnât extend past the threshold of the front or back door. Do the dishes, pick up after yourself, help fold the laundry when Luda May brings it in from the clothesline outside.
They keep you busy. They keep you from pretending that you donât hear the screams, now and then, of people that they kill. Usually Charlie. Sometimes Tommy. They die, all the same, and what happens to them after thatâyou donât want to know.Â
Sometimes you think about running. But where would you go? You wouldnât make it past the front yard, anyway. Charlie would get you. Kill you, surely, after telling Luda May that he was right all along.
Orâmaybe Tommy would grab you first.Â
Tommyâs always there, it seems. At the edge of your vision. Watching from the doorway at meals, only dipping in to grab his own plate and wolf it down once you leave. The thought came to you once, when heâd shook his head at Charlie encouraging him to come on in and grab his plateâ
Maybe heâs shy.
The thought hit you like a shotgun to the face. Shyâshy? The hulking man who killed your friends? Who could break you like a branch, if he wanted. Who might still kill you, if you step out of line. Whoâ
Who is the only reason Charlie Hewitt didnât murder you right then and there in the kitchen.
And who is the only one in the house who hasnât threatened you at least once.Â
(Even Luda May has her moments, when you arenât being a good girl. She threatened to box your ears once, when she caught you swearing. At least she didnât threaten to cut out your tongue like Charlie, or say you ought to be taken over someoneâs knee like Monty. Though at least a spanking wouldnât have resulted in the loss of a body part.)
But not Tommy. (He cut Johnny in halfâbut not you. Not you.)
So.
So this morning, when youâre sitting alone at the table eating a late breakfast because Luda May let you sleep in, and you see Tommy standing in that doorway again, his own plate cold and untouched on the table, you clear your throat.Â
He doesnât stir.
You clear it again.
âThomas?â You ask, then, feeling stupidly formal, correct yourself. âTommy?â
Thereâs a loud shifting sound. The thud and tread of his shoes on the floor. And there he is, standing in the doorway, awkwardly staring to the side like thereâs something particularly fascinating there that only he can see.
What are you doing? The question repeats itself in your buzzing brain, but, fuck if you know. Being in this house has made you⌠something. Crazy. Stir-crazy. Itching to do something, anything, to get yourself out of this tension-filled rut youâre in. Maybe being nice to the sort-of-shy quiet (killer, a small voice pipes in, heâs a killer) will change things.Â
Everyone needs kindness, after all.Â
âDo you um,â you start, digging up the courage like itâs stuck in the mud. âDo you want to eat breakfast with me?â
Thereâs a noise from behind his mask. A sort of breathy thingâlike surprise.Â
He hesitates. Then he stalks forward and leans down, ready to wolf his food in a minute like youâve caught him doing before, being a sneak in the doorway yourself. But you swallowâ
âI mean, do you want to sit down with me?âÂ
He pauses. Another sound, this time, like wariness.
âIfâif you wantâI mean, you donât have to,â you correct, suddenly feeling stupid and anxious rolled into one. What were you even thinking? That you owed it to him, maybe, because he did save you. Youâre alive, because he wanted you to beâbut why?
And then he moves. Stalks forward, like heâs unused to the idea of simply taking a seat, yanks the chair so hard that you flinch a little. Then heâs sitting, legs parted too wide, with a plate in front of him.Â
He stares at it. Then looks at youâand itâs maybe the first time youâve looked eye to eye in a while. He blinks and looks away first, and again, that word comes to you. Almost stupidly, but still: Shy.Â
So you look away, now, and itâs only then that he parts his mask and scarfs down the pancakes. You donât lookâhe doesnât want you to look, and neither do youâbut you can hear the sound of it.Â
Itâs a bit startling, really, the sound of his eating; the weight of him so close, and not hovering in the corner of your life.Â
When heâs done, he takes his plate to the sink, and thereâs something so normal about it that you almost laugh.Â
He goes back to the doorway and you get another idea. A silly, weird, stupid idea. But itâs something different. Something to shake up the tight, tension-filled world you live in.
âTommy?â
He stops.
âYou can help me do the dishes, if you want.â
He turns. Questioning. When you get the nerve to look into his eyes it makes you feel a bit dizzy, how human they are. Because he is a person, after all. Even in this house.Â
You lick your lips, and your voice is too dry, but you ask anyways:
âIâll wash⌠you dry?â
There is a long awkward moment in which you think youâve finally lost your damn mind. And then, slowly, Tommy moves to stand to the side of the kitchen sink, still filled with breakfast dishes.
And after you wash them up, with the same hands that once chopped your friend in two gory pieces, Tommy Hewitt carefully dries off Luda Mayâs breakfast china.Â
â
The next morning, you wake up to find flowers at the threshold of your bedroom door. Not particularly pretty ones. Wild ones, the kind you find on the side of the road, the kind that will tickle your palm while you walk on hot summer days with friends, eager to find trouble or fun or something in between.
Theyâve been pulled up right from the root, dirt clumps, beetles and all. And there they sit, adding a splash of white and purple to the dull wooden floor. All wild and dirty, with a touch of rot underneath.Â
Just like this house.
Still. Stillâsomething in you flutters at the sight.
Thereâs only one person who could have left them. As if on cue, you hear his footfalls, edging down the hall. Was he watching while you opened the door? Maybe. And maybe thatâs partly why you smile, just a little, and reach down to scoop them up.Â
In the kitchen, Luda May is frying up baconâthough it has a funny smell, this week, and your brain takes a moment to connect the smell to the screams you heard a few days ago before shutting off that train of thoughtâand only turns away from the hot stove when you clear your throat.
You hold out the clump of flowers, like a kid presenting dandelions at lunchtime. âUm. I found theseâon the floor.â
She smiles a crooked smile, but itâs not a mean one. âI think someoneâs got a shine on you.â Something seems to cross her mind, a thought that wants to stick, and she shakes her head. You donât dare ask what she was thinking.
Instead, you sheepishly ask if you can borrow a cup to keep the flowers in. To make your room brighter. (To make your life brighter, too, but you donât say that part out loud. Though maybe with the expression on her face, you donât need to.)
âSo they can live a while longer,â you add, as if you need to explain.Â
âOf course, honey.â
It makes her smile, and she stands on her tiptoes to retrieve a dusty cup from the back of the cupboard. The kind she wonât miss when it inevitably stays upstairs. She rubs off some of the grime with the back of her shirt and hands it to you.
She really is kind to you. All things considered. Washes you up and gives you extra helpings of vegetables if you donât eat much meat and tells you that you look nice in her dresses, though you probably donât.Â
âThanks, Mama,â you say, quick, easy as she hands you the cup; the words come without thinking, as you turn away to head back upstairs with your flowers and dusty cup.
âOh,â is the sound she makes, and you canât see the hand that goes to her chest with your back turned, but you imagine it all the same.
As you walk up the stairs, you realizeâand donât, at the same timeâyou canât ever go back now. Not all the way. Even if someone finds you and a sheriff-at-arms kicks down the door to rescue you, you canât ever go back. Not with Tommyâs flowers in your hand and Mama on your lips and the way youâre actually looking forward to supper tonight.Â
After filling the cup with water from the bathroom, you drop the flowers inânot before shaking them over the sill so the bugs fall out, landing on your windowsill and immediately crawling away to find a safe spot.
You wouldnât want to drown them, after all.Â
â
Thomas Hewitt watches you while you sleep. You know this. You donât know if he knows you know this, but youâve woken up more than once to sense him standing in your bedroom. Thereâs a certain presence about him, one you can never miss.Â
That presence used to be something youâd feel in the corner of this new bizarro world, while you did dishes or tidied or read one of the battered romance books Mama let you borrow and shut your ears to whatever you heard outside.Â
Something you could almost-but-not-quite ignore.Â
But not anymore. Not when heâs taken to finishing up the dishes with you, or sitting in the same room with you and Mama while you work on embroidery or drink tea and watch her stories.Â
And nowâ
When you sleepâwell, when you wake in the middle of the nightâthat flicker of a shadow in the corner is something far more looming. More heavy.Â
Once, you carefully peeked, letting just the slits of your eyes flutter open, and saw him. Or the outline of him, his shadows, what was visible from the bit of moonlight that made its way through your bedroom curtains.Â
Tonight, you brave it again. Letting your eyes flutter just enough to look. And there he is, standing over you, watching. You can just make out his fists clenching and unclenching, wavering, like he wants to reach outâfor what?--but doesnât.Â
You squeeze your eyes shut again and by the time you fall back asleep, youâre alone again.
â
The first time Tommy touches you againâafter that first day, when he dragged you into the houseâyou flinch. Not because heâs being rough or hurting you, exactly. But because your body remembers the feel of his hands. Remembers the way you were dragged, remembers the way you thought, body and soul, that he was going to kill you.
But now?
âSorry,â you mumble, drawing yourself inward in apology. Someone you used to be screams inside you, a whiny, tiny noise like a tea kettle: Youâre apologizing to a fucking murderer?! And you tell her to shut her mouth, because the person you are now has to survive, and surviving means that this has to be normal.
It has to be normal, it has to be right.Â
So when Tommyâs rough, large hands reach back up, you will your body to stand still. Will your face to remain neutral. Will yourself to think of this as okay.
All he does is brush at your cheek, at your hair. Itâs a strange sensation. Rough and softârough in the texture of his callused fingers, used to killing animals and much more besides, and soft in the way he seems like heâs afraid youâll break you.
He could break you. But he didnât. And he doesnât. And thatâs something you can hold onto.Â
His other hand reaches up, and soon enough heâs cupping both your cheeks, staring straight down at you, his mask obscuring the bottom half of his face. Itâs rough-hewn, like him. Maybe he made it himself. (He has other masks, worse masksâyou know this. He doesnât wear them around you, but youâve seen them all the same.)
That tea-kettle of a voice says: Maybe heâll carve your face off and make it into a mask, you dumb bitch. You push her down, down, down where she belongs, just as Tommy pulls you against his body.
Heâs warm. Thereâs musk about him. Sweat and butchering and oil. He holds you firm; not to where it hurts, not like when he dragged you into the house over all the bumps and grooves and you hit your head and went fuzzy for a while.Â
But firm. He wonât be letting you go, and maybeâmaybe thatâs okay.Â
It must be normal. It must be right.Â
If it wasnât, you might lose your fucking mind.
â
Thomas Hewitt doesnât watch you sleep anymore. Now, he gets into bed with you. And you let him. Not every night. But enough that it becomes enveloped into your slowly broadening new-normal. Enough that you go from trembling all night from a sick feeling in your stomach to almost looking forward to the warmth, the tightness, the way it shocks your system into forgetting the world before.Â
Because when Tommyâs in your bed, you can pretend. Pretend that youâre really part of this family and werenât brought here by an awful, blood set of circumstances. And that makes it nicer, makes the world blur around the edges.
Is it so bad to want to feel good?
He holds you like a teddy bear, all cradled and close against him. If you needed to get up in the middle of the night, you couldnât; so far, at least, you havenât had to figure out the logistics. All you know is that by the time you wake up in the morning, heâs gone.
His chores start earlier than yours, after all
â
Mama notices that the two of you are getting closer. Of course she does. She sees just about everything that goes on under this roof; at least, thatâs what she says, hands on her hips, confronting you in the kitchen when the two of you actually walk in together for breakfast.
She tsks at you. She hums at Tommy. A word or two starts to come out, get stuck, and she sucks them back down her throat.Â
âYou two mind yourselves,â she says, finally.Â
Charlie notices, too. Of course he does. But he doesnât swallow down whatever his mind thought about saying. Instead, he chuckles, folds over the newspaper you are sure he doesnât actually read every morning.
âTook a real shine to her, didnât ya Tommy?â
Tommy doesnât answer. So Charlie prods on.Â
âNot saying I blame ya. Sheâs a pretty little thing, ainât she? You got to second base yet, Tommy?â He shakes the newspaper. âBetter watch out. Pretty sluts like that from the cityâŚâ He clucks his tongue, a sticky sound. âDonât know where sheâs been.â
Itâs enough to make your cheeks burn hot as humiliation coils in your stomachâand in an instant Tommy grabs your arm and yanks you right out of the kitchen, pulling you down the hall into the living room and its dull, dusty draperies.
âAw câmon, I was just fucking around!â Charlie says from behind you, voice softened as youâre being dragged further from the kitchen.
And then, Mama. âCharlie Hewitt, you watch your mouth.â
Tommy stops with enough sudden force that you almost topple over, but he steadies you. When you look up, his eyes look wider, wilder. His breath comes out more jagged. Not because heâs exerted himself, you realize, but because heâs upset.
About what Charlie said?
Yes. About what Charlie said. Because he doesnât like it anymore than you do. Because he⌠likes you? Wants you? Itâs hard to know, when there arenât words between you.
Sometimes you donât need words.
âI donât like it when he says things like that,â you finally say to him. Soft, quiet. The first time youâve ever had the courage to say anything about your treatment here. âOr-or when he calls me a bitch or slut,â you add, feeling stupid and brave.Â
Tommy nods. Then his rough hands, clean at least because he hasnât left the house yet, cup your cheeks and stroke downward. He humsâor tries to, it comes across more guttural, less of a sweet sound and something earthierâand itâs you, this time, who pulls closer to him.
You may be fucked in the head. But at least youâre not alone in the house, anymore.Â
â
âIâve still gotta finish the mending,â you say lightly as Tommy lifts you up as easily as a sack of potatoes and sets you down on a dusty work bench in the barn. âBut Mama said itâs okay if I stay out here for a little bit.â
Itâs nice to be with Tommy. Especially in the mornings, when the air is cooler and Charlie tends to leave the house. Not that he says anything too awful latelyâheâs not nicer, exactly, but you havenât been called a bitch, slut, or anything close to that in ages. Not since Tommy made it clear that he doesnât like it.
Plus, when youâre alone, it feels nicer. Without the weight of other people on him, Tommy feels different. Lighter, youâve decided. Like heâs capable of being more than this house and this family.Â
Sometimes you watch while he works. Butchering dead hogs on the table, rending the skin from the flesh, processing the meat into slabs or tossing it into containers to be ground up later. Itâs messy work. Itâs why Tommy always smells, vaguely, of blood, of butchering, of death.
Sometimes what he butchers are human beings. Sometimes they are still alive. Sometimes they are not dead corpses in the barn but are living, wriggling people hung up in the garage like you and John all those months ago. But none of them are dragged into the house and made part of the family. They all die.
You donât watchâyouâre not allowed, and you wouldnât want to, even if you wereâbut you hear it. Even with cotton stuck in your ears, upstairs in your bedroom, a pillow over your head. You hear it.Â
The nights when Tommy kills people, he holds you tighter. You wish you had the guts to ask whyâ
Why does he kill them? Why didnât he kill you? How can he hack someone else into pieces and come upstairs in the evening and act the same around youâcaress your cheek and hold you at night and let you, slowly, tentatively, touch his face above the mask.
And how do you bear it? Why donât you act differently towards him, knowing heâs just killed and butchered and Charlie doesnât care and Mama cares, maybe, but wonât say much about it. Why do you still want to hold him, despite the blood underneath his fingernails?
But you push all of that down into your stomach with the person you used to be.Â
Because âhowsâ and âwhysâ are luxuries that you canât afford anymore. Itâs best not to think on them for longer than a moment in the night.Â
â
Mama could use some fresh flowers for the vase on the dining room table, and she left some sheets on the clothesline in the back that will be too heavy for her. Itâd really help her out if you brought them in without asking. Heaven knows the men in this house wonât do it.
Itâs taken timeâthereâs a new calendar tacked up on the wallâbut youâre finally allowed to go outside. Not into town or even to the neighbors or even to the end of the street, heavens no. But in the backyard and to the barn. The backyard is mostly you helping Mama with the clothes, and the barn is mostly you going to visit Tommy, but stillâyou take what freedom youâre given.
Today, youâre taking your sweet time getting to the backyard. Taking the long way, a way that probably skirts the edge of where youâre allowed to beâbut unless someone tells you otherwise, youâll stick to sneaking out the side door of the garage and walking around the front of the house. Thereâs sometimes little patches of pink wildflowers near the front, and they look the nicest on the table.
Only this time when you step out the side door and walk down the three rickety stairs into the garage, you are not alone.
A young man is hanging from the ceiling, his arms bound in ropeâyouâve known that same rope, the tightness of it, the burnâthat keeps him on his tip-toes. Based on the groans coming from his mouth, heâs been hanging up there a while. His muscles are probably screaming at him.
Your eyes lock together and his go from squeezed and pained to wide andâafraid?
âDonât hurt me,â he says. âP-Please. I just want to go home. Please!â
âDonât⌠hurt you?â The first words youâve spoken to someone outside the family in more than a year. You blink at this stranger, tied up, and now that you step closer you can see heâs got bruising. And heâs bleeding. A gash on his cheek, some sort of wound on his stomach thatâs clotting blood on his polo shirt.
âUm,â you say, feeling small, voice small to match. âI wonât hurt you. I donâtâI havenât hurtâŚanyone.â It sounds stupid. But he seems to believe you, because his eyes go from widened in fear to something else.
Something you recognize that you once must have had, before. Hope.
âYouâre not one of them? Then untie meâquick, before they see!â
Untie him?
The thought has never crossed your mind before and honestly, honest to God, it didnât cross your mind even when you stepped down those stairs and saw him. Because it would only cause trouble, and no one in that house would be happy about it if you did. You were a good girl, a good daughter, who did her chores and ignored the screams and listened to what you were told.
So. So you fiddle with the sleeve of your dress, all nicely hemmed in now that you were allowed to use the sewing machine, and refuse to look at his manâs face anymore.Â
âIâm not even supposed to be in the garage,â you murmur, though itâs probably a half-truth. âSo I canâtâŚâ Canât untie you. Canât help you. Canât spare you from a butchering.Â
Your name is suddenly called from inside the houseâby Charlie. Loud. Then louder.
âSorry,â you finish, and you put a spring in your step when your name is yelled out a third time. You barely hear what he says, though you can tell it ends in âfuck you.â Not that you blame him for the expression.
When you reach the kitchen, only Tommy and Charlie are waiting for you. They're both staring with something different in your eyes that makes your stomach feel all tight and gummy.
 "You didn't let the fucker go, didja?â Charlie asks.
You shake your head at once. âNo, sir.â It's not often you call him sir, and he doesn't really bother you about it anymore outside of teasing, but the situation feels serious enough to warrant it. You lower your gaze and try to look as respectful and meek and small as possible. It's not even really pretending anymore.
He tsks, spits something into a cup. âWell, good. Gonna have Tommy here take care of him. Ainât ya, Tommy?â
Tommy breaths out something hard, and you do look up at him this time. You bite back whatever it was that some part of you, some long forgotten smashed down girl, wanted to say: Why do you have to kill him at all?
But that part of you doesn't surface. She's not strong enough. You're the strong one, the one who survived. The one who's adapted and come to make a life here. And if that life comes with the caveat that sometimes the man you snuggle with at night cuts people in half, well. That's life, isnât it?
âBet that guy thought you were a looker,â Charlie muses, cutting through your thoughts. âDid he flirt with you?â
Your brain itches to leave but you know better. So you shake your head. âNo, sir.â The truth is as sweet as honey. Or so you hope. âHe just asked me to untie him. So I said I couldnât, and came back in.â
Charlie hums, and itâs not as sweet as honey. âBet he thought about it, even if he didnât say nothin. Donât you think so, Tommy? He probably wants to make a move on your girl.â Thereâs a sadistic chuckle in his voice, all sticky tar; something youâll never understand.
Itâs Tommy that worries you more, now, though. His breath gets harder, and he suddenly moves too quickly. Stomping right past you and outside and down those three steps so hard that you think they might break.
Even from a distance, the sound of something metallic and sharp being grabbed from the garage wall catches your ear. You know whatâs coming. Charlie does tooâhe laughs. But not you. Itâs not funny, will never be funny, to hear people dying.Â
At the first scream, the first sound of metal hitting flesh, you dart further into the house, upstairs and away from it all. You find yourself in the bathroom where Mama is busy putting the clean towels away and you offer to help, to keep yourself distracted.
âAinât you a sweetheart,â she says, and gives you a kiss on the cheek.
Downstairs, a man is taking forever to die.Â
-
Tommy comes to you that night, smelling of blood and something you canât place. Something sharper and heavier than usual. He crawls into bed but this time he does not slot himself against your back and hold you close.
No.
Instead, he grips your shoulders, and abruptly rolls you from your side to your back.
Oh. Oh, now, you thinkâis it now that this happens? After he's killed someone and some sort of jealous fit? Is that what it took to push this (whatever âthisâ could be called) from cuddles and touching to something more? Itâs a detached curiosity that you force youself into; to keep yourself from agonizing over it.Â
He smells of sweat and hard labor. Of butchering. Of the dead man.
You smell of cheap shampoo and musty nightgowns and Mamaâs cigarette smoke from rocking together on the back porch before bed.Â
Tommy leans down and presses his face against yours, through the mask. Gentle and not gentle all at once. A bit of flesh and mostly fabric meet your chapped liips.
A kiss. A kiss that makes your guts feel all hot and strange, like they want more and also want to unzip your stomach and roll on the floor to get away from it all.
But you wonât let them feel that way for long. You canât feel that way for long, if you want to liveâif you want to stay intact.Â
So you lean forward and move your lips against the mask, pushing out something that might be a pleasant sound, vibrating against the fabric. It forces pleasantness inside you. If you think it, it becomes real. Doesnât it?Â
âTommy,â you murmur, in the night, in the dark, as he begins pulling at your nightgown with his butchering hands.
Tommy, who saved you all that time ago. Who decided you were worth keeping alive and worth protecting and worthâworth whatever this has become.Â
Tommy, who heaves you up on the work bench in the barn as you laugh and ask him to show you how some of the tools work, when theyâre being used on pigs and not people. Tommy, who brushes your cheeks when you canât take it anymore and go to bed crying.Â
Tommy, who is kissing you and whose hardness is pressing against your thighs. Tommy, who is making you feel good, making some spark light in you.
Itâs normal to feel this way. For warmth to spread from your mouth to your gut, burning out the words of that someone-you-once-were. For you to move your hands against him, wondering what you might find underneath his clothes in the end. Wondering if heâll take off the mask or keep it on and youâll never kiss more than cloth.
Itâs normal, this is all perfectly fucking normal, because if it wasnât, you might just scream.Â

