WARNING DO NOT READ IF......
Child abuse,Domestic violence,Misogyny,Murder,gun violence, parental coercion, Not very detailed but still graphic gore mentioned,
Fredrick was the only boy in a family of five. His mother was gentle, his two sisters playful and bright, and Fredrick? He was the child that the father put all the weight on, to do manly things like hunting and whatever back-breaking work Fredrick had to do. Hunting was something that his dad and he “bonded” over. Or more correctly, did together. They didn’t talk much during these times. But Fredrick knew that his father would scold him for talking, saying it would scare away the animals. Fredrick took note of those words, words that would later be used for much different purposes.
His father was a logger by trade and a hunter in his free time. Fredrick’s family life was questionable at best. Fredrick was homeschooled with his sisters. He was the middle child because his father had hoped for another boy but got another “disgustin’ girl.” His words, not Fredrick’s. Fredrick’s pa was a misogynist at worst, and at best he was just abusive towards them. Fredrick was lucky he wasn’t bothered that much, besides when he did something that was seen as unmanly or something a man wouldn’t do.
Fredrick was the “hard worker” of the family. He worked and worked. He couldn’t complain. If he did, then he would get slapped or, worse, told to sleep out in the forest for being a “sissy” unable to handle things a growing boy should handle. Over time, Fredrick mimicked his father, somewhat. He began to be mainly rude to the few women in his life, his mother and sisters, refusing to clean, refusing to help. But then it progressed.
Whenever the rare times came that he went into town with his father, Fredrick didn’t speak to strangers. Rather, he would give them looks as if they were some nasty animals, even make snide comments that would earn Fredrick a smack because his father was trying to keep him in line, even if Fredrick was only doing what he learned from his pa.
Over the years, Fredrick kind of just stopped being Fredrick. Sure, he would do stuff, but he would only speak when needed or demanded. Fredrick spent more time gutting his father’s kills rather than with his own family. Fredrick stood with his family, enduring every day as it ended and started.
But one fateful day, Fredrick came back from town after dropping something off for his pa. He saw the women in his life tied up and with bags around their heads. Fredrick felt wary. It was strange. But he wasn’t concerned either. His dad came up with the hunting rifle Fredrick knew so well, the one his father had threatened him with back when he wasn’t willing to kill deer or some young buck.
His old man spoke: “These damn whores thought they could run off. Thought they could leave us like we ain’t nothin’. But what happens in this family stays in this family, ya hear?”
Fredrick just nodded along and said, “If ya say so… If they’re tryin’ to escape, what could we even do about it? We can’t stop ’em, right?”
Fredrick earned a slap across his face as his father barked: “Stupid boy. ’Course we can do somethin’. Now quit jawin’ and help me.”
Fredrick realized the gesture was meant for him to help drag the kicking and muffled screaming of his sisters and mother to the muddy forest dirt floor. Somewhat deep, but not too deep, since his father was a lazy man. Lazy enough that he didn’t even want to drag his own wife and daughters too far. The three of them were propped against thick tree stumps, still tied and bound. His father handed him the rifle.
Fredrick felt unusual. He felt powerful. Was it because he held the rifle he had feared for so many years? Fredrick didn’t know, but he stopped his thoughts when he heard his father growl:
“Now then, boy, go on and show these women why they don’t go runnin’ off without us knowin’.”
Fredrick hesitated, and that hesitation caused his father to sneer: “What? You too much of a sissy to do this? Do it now, or God help me, I’ll tie you up and do to you what I’ll do to your ma and sisters.”
That was all the encouragement Fredrick needed. He lined up the shot. The rifle felt powerful in his hands, and he pulled the trigger. One shot was done in his mother’s skull. His sisters screamed, but their screams were muffled as the burlap sacks on their heads and their gagged mouths didn’t let much sound out. Fredrick did the same to his sisters as he had to his mother. Brain matter everywhere.
Fredrick felt nothing. His father didn’t even give his usual fake cheer of encouragement. He just nodded and walked off, likely back to their house to crack open a beer, clearly expecting Fredrick to deal with this. After all, he did somewhat the same with the kills his father brought home, like how every time his pa killed a buck, Fredrick would be forced to somehow bring it back to their garage where he gutted and prepared the meat. Surely, his father was expecting his son to just bury them.
But no. Fredrick dragged their bloody bodies back out of the dirty forest into the garage where he butchered them like game.
After a while, his father came out to see what was taking so long for his brat to come back so they could make up some alibi for why the women in the house disappeared. But he paused when he saw what Fredrick was doing. His fat, lazy mouth opened, likely to spit some curses only a Southern man could say, before his head went into bits. Fredrick shot him with the rifle he still had.
It was almost nostalgic seeing his father fall down like an animal. Fredrick dragged his father into the garage and did what he did to the women in his life, but this time to his father. After that, Fredrick felt giddy. Hell, he felt like he had just come back from a good hunt, as if he had gotten a golden deer or some rare beast.
But the giddiness didn’t last. He knew he had to leave soon, because people would come searching, for his father mainly, since while he was lazy, he was still a good worker when he was paid.
Fredrick gathered what he needed from his father’s garage: some hunting things, some other useful things to live in the woods. As Fredrick was about to leave the garage, he turned back to his family, or what was now his family. He took the burlap sacks off of the women’s heads and kept what he could before leaving officially.
He was never seen again, besides some incidents reported in the forest that was good for hiking trails.
(Fun fact: While my drawings don’t show this, the burlap sacks from the women in his life are what make his mask.)
