she reminds him of somebody. couldn’t ever place who – never had enough exposure to her to place, exactly, who. had to’ve been somebody believed in the good of men. somebody believed in healing. every time he’s seen her, it’s ate at him; he’s searched a million memories squashed down with his boot: dug and dug until he found something that hurt so much he had to stop trying. wanted to remember. couldn’t remember. couldn’t get a proper scent on her.
it hits him when she stands in his doorway, her small fist closed around the handle of an icebox that looks about half a lifetime too old to function. the beast’s eyes are bloodshot with lack of sleep. they haven’t given him a perch, and the first time he’d dug his claws into the foam lining of the ceiling, ruth’d just about had his head for it. thought he was being malicious, didn’t seem to understand that he’s got this – this urge to be up. always gotta be up. up was safe; no one ever looked up. no. ruth hadn’t understood, so what rest he has gotten was in a corner, tight-jointed and painfully crouched. ain’t his house, so he don’t feel right laying down. hasn’t stretched, hasn’t decompressed his back. the smell in here is terrible.
and susan’s still there, talking sweet to him, smile on her face – like they’re friendly. she don’t hold no fear of you, no fear of you, no fear …
[ INT. MEDICAL WARD - OLD WEST - GOLD-MINING TOWN - NIGHT. ]
It is a moonless evening, all darkness filtering in through glassless windows. A TALL MAN lies alone on a bed of knots and straw. We can only see him from behind. His clothes, black as coal and partly shredded, do not betray his injuries – but a white blood-soaked linen clings to a mural of shrapnel littering the space between his shoulderblades.
[ EXT. ROADVIEW (LONG) - OLD WEST - GOLD-MINING TOWN - NIGHT. ]
THE OLD SALOON SMOULDERS DOWN THE STREET. It is in ruin. WE ZOOM TO FOCUS ON THE WRECKAGE. A few men pick through the ashes, but they don’t find much. Bone and empty shell.
[ INT. MEDICAL WARD - OLD WEST - GOLD-MINING TOWN - NIGHT. ]
A PRETTY, YOUNG WOMAN enters the dusty red excuse for a hospital. She is in nurse’s garb – as close to white and uniform as her wardrobe’d allow, the collar high and the skirts low, cap covering hair, socks covering skin. She sits by the tall man, who groans in response. While he doesn’t stand, or even sit upright, the shot of them together shows us that he dwarfs her by comparison. Her tiny hand enters his mane of hair, and after a moment, we hear him start to snore.
susan, all grey and pink and pastel. all gentle. but she’s seen hell, he knows – can smell it on her – and in spite of himself, he goes lax. those lashes sweeping over his eyes are too long, those eyes too pretty to belong to a thing like him.
the creeper stretches, lazy cat, and rolls onto his back. shows her his belly with a trumpeting sound. his jaw hangs open, when he looks at her: pleading. he can feel the stab of pain below his ribs. is he desperate? is he lonely? is he actually glad for the company? who’s to say – he’ll only say one thing, one thing. the one thing his brain will let him think.
Some monster, Susan muses. Not because she looks down on him, or because she has any doubt of what he’s capable of, but because of how he’d greeted her. No hissing, no spitting, no threats or hostility; just a frightened, hungry creature asking for his meal. And even if he had greeted her with anger, Susan would have understood. For all the trouble he’s caused, she doesn’t think this is the solution for getting him to behave — or, more importantly, getting him to trust them. You can’t punish someone without first explaining what they’ve done wrong, or else they won’t recognize the action as punishment in the first place. ( “Because I said so, Susan,” are words that still ring in her ears to this day. )
The last thing this man needs is reason to believe they’re hurting him for the fun of it, and as much as she respects her mother, Susan knows Ruth’s patience with this entire situation has been worn thin. Between the the rescue of Belial Bradley, the stress of trying to keep an entire household calm and Belial’s subsequent injuries at the hands of his captor, Ruth doesn’t much have sympathy or understanding to spare. And that’s where Susan comes in.
“It’s alright, I’ve got exactly what you need,” she soothes. Carefully setting the handle of the cooler down on the ground, Susan kneels to undo the cable lock, then the latches of the cooler itself. Meets the eyes of the beast — intelligent eyes. Human eyes, both figuratively and literally. Perhaps at one point they’d been wild, glazed over with bloodlust and fury, but Susan does not see that now. Does not recognize a wild animal staring back at her. She gives him a simple nod, opening the lid and pushing the insulated container towards him. Right there, sitting atop a pile of ice, is a freshly-acquired liver.
“We saw that yours is failing,” is all Susan says. She steps back, sure to keep a wide berth between the Creeper and herself. He’ll surely be excited by his feast, and he’s much bigger than her — not to mention that massive wing still attached to his back. Susan’s been knocked over enough times to know when and how to avoid it by now. “So Granny Ruth had that ordered right away.”
She does care about you, she wants so badly to tell him. She may not like you very much right now, but she does care about you.
“I know you’ve been very sick. This may not fix everything immediately, but trust when I say it’ll make a difference.”