┊ 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮
Eric Lowell hated going into the woods.
Eric had the job for a few months now, more or less, working as a delivery guy for shitty pay and an even shittier boss. Tired of living at home, tired of living by the rules of his parents, he stormed out after another particularly noxious argument with his dad. The old man had wanted him to live a certain way, to find direction, he always said, and he always ended his shouting matches with the cliché of: “as long as you’re living in this house!” He always said it really proudly too, like it was almost a trump card. After a while, after the ninth iteration of this, it seemed obvious to Eric that he should call his father’s bluff. It seemed obvious to Eric that he should leave.
The blonde teenager didn’t think much beyond this. He didn’t think beyond the feeling of satisfaction of hearing his father wail for him, begging and bartering and asking for him to stay. None of his friends had allowed him to crash for more than a few weeks. Some were more willing than others. But, ultimately, each of them, at the insistence of their own parents, showed him the door. They thought this would help him get back to his senses. Get back to all that trust fund money, all that inherence, which was rightly his if he just learned to play by the rules.
He just went to his girlfriend, Harper, and that lasted about a month before she grew tired of letting him sleep on her couch. The breakup happened not long after.
Eric eventually found someone who would rent to him. A crappy apartment complex outside of upstate New York where he could swear the walls were coated in piss. The space was negligible, and the services were laughable. Still, the pay was manageable. And, in any case, it was only a stepping stone. Once he made it big, once he was nominated for an Oscar, they’d all be proud of him, and they’d all regret how they treated him. It was a few months since he last had that thought, not even good enough to play a corpse on Law & Order or a constipated student in a commercial for laxatives. It was probably when the rejection for that came in, when he had to hunt down the casting director, just to hear that he was “trying too much”, that he stopped thinking of making everyone proud and regretful. More often now, he was thinking about returning home.
At least for a few years. He could pay for acting classes. And anyway, he missed his mom.
Eric missed his mom, especially, when he thought of how excited he was to get a tip of $30. It was half that, really, since he had online tips which were automatically split. But still. It was enough that he was actually excited to deliver the pizza himself. Until, just a few steps away from where the cabin was, he felt an axe go right through his back. Eric was surprised that wasn’t the end of him. Turning around, whining as the blood seeped from his scrawny frame, the eighteen-year-old was surprised he’d managed to shove the attacker away from him. The much bigger man fell. And, instinctively, Eric reached for the axe. That was the last thing he could clearly remember doing. The rest was the muscle memory of a person who was already dead.
Eric had lumbered out to the cabin on trembling, blood-soaked legs. He was bleeding from his back. His hand was bleeding, with some of his fingers gone. He was bleeding from his throat, which was sliced open, as his other hand attempted to hold in the reams of blood that were already pouring out in drips and drabs. He could see two figures standing at the door. An older male. And a kid, probably around his age. He tried calling out to them.
With no voice to speak, With no voice to scream, He thought of his father, Begging and bartering and asking for him to stay.