Freedom (Finally)

Mia was always a bit of a flighty one. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like her. Mom and I were predictable and steady. We fit into our lives quite well despite my displeasure in it. When my older sister ran off to elope with Ethan I hated him. Loathed the man who took the woman I worshiped away from me.

I was homely. Fat. At least that's what daddy said before running off with his cock in hand. Just like mom I guess but not as steel spined, despite wanting to be. My emotions were enraptured instead in paper and not in such rage and freedom of Mia. I couldn't hope to live the wild life she did, not as I worked my whole to achieve the grade she breezed with, not when I had to pay mom's medical bills while she ran away.

Despite it all, I miss her. I missed when the days were not quiet and solemn. When the home was not just my mother and I, a woman who was stern and strict and while not unloving was quite cold. I wished for freedom but freedom came at a price and poverty could not afford it. The day she went missing her husband, the man I loathed with every fiber in my body, called the house. I remember it clearly and completely.

I had finished cleaning the trailer after a shift at the dive bar down the road, plants watered and one eyed stray fed. I was humming along and, embarrassingly enough dancing along to a Britney Spears song that did not age well in my ratty Walmart underwear and camisole while mom was starting her own shift at the hardware store.

The yellowed phone rang on the sagging divider wall, tarnished floral wallpaper even uglier next to the now yellow wall phone and its frayed coil. Picking at a spot that may have been gum residue from some years ago I bring the receiver to my ear.

"Thompson residence, this is Ginger speaking."

I fiddle with my namesake hair for a moment as I listen to the hitched breathing on the other line. About to hang up I'm stopped by a strangled 'Mia'.

"Who is this?!"

A sloppy sniffle.

"Mia. She's gone. She's gone."

Ethan blubbered over the phone for a good minute while we made plans to meet later in the week. The dead tone of the phone rang shrilly in my ear after he hung up and I left it like that for probably longer than the conversation until I slid down the sagging, age stained wall at my back. Staring at the water stains that the ceiling I watch the sun line move about an inch before my heart breaks.

I sobbed. I wailed. I couldn't breathe through the salty water and the snot. I couldn't see through the swelling except to see the deep red flush of my freckled arms crossing over my face. I wept as cold tears slipped over my rounded cheeks and slipped down between my heaving breasts. Everything prickled on contact with my skin, as if needles dug into every pore.

I memorized the floral pattern by my head, like the night Mia left. It was during mom's well years when she was a bartender and a waitress and she was on an early morning shift. I woke up to a note on my bed and no sister. I had only seen her 5 times after and now I might never see her again.

We met at a cheap cafe in between our cities. She went all the way from a tiny town not even on the map in Virginia to New York. She promised to take me someday, when we were older. Half baked plans that never came to life just like the ones tossed between the air over that wobbly wooden table.

Half a year later she was declared dead and the search was over. The funeral was a dignified and largely empty affair. Wild though she was, I never realized how little friends she knew along the way. At least ones that knew her name. Unable to pay for most of it, the widowed and blank faced man helped pool together funds, just so we could lower it 6 feet down in an empty casket.

I never assumed or dared think that I would see or hear from the allusive man again. 2 ½ years stretched like an empty road, one more funeral left like a deep pothole in the gravel path except this time the much too light casket was filled with a wasted body from illness and disease, above it a wooden marker reading simply "Penelope Thompson nee Young". She never did get rid of daddy's name. Perhaps she wished he would come back.

Tossing back the disgustingly hoppy beer I look over the chipped rim, through the hazy bar air, to see the uncomfortable Ethan leaning against the counter as if he wished he could be anywhere else. Bastards probably only been in a places that refuse to serve drinks under 30$. Waving away the potbellied and mutton-chopped leather clad bikers gripping their pool sticks too tightly I wipe my mouth.

I serve the boys every Friday and they keep passing tourists off my ass. Charlie's wife just had twins, they can't afford bailing him out over a petty bar fight.

"You're telling me,"

I tossed my head back to swig the rest of brew, the yellowed lights making it glow like amber from within before leaving behind a simply unromantic trail of froth and fingerprint smudged glass. I slam it down with a grimace of disgust. How I wished for a couple fingers of whipped cream vodka at the moment.

"that Mia sent an e-mail. At least someone using her e-mail address did, telling you to "look for her in Dulvey Louisiana". And this doesn't seem suspicious at all?"

He bounced his leg and cleared his throat. If it was Mia in my seat she would have packed her things immediately and gone charging in blindly. Not for me though. For the adventure it would bring her. I am not Mia Winters, I like to think I have a mite more sense than her.

"When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous. I just thought her last living relative should know."

Jesus Christ.

"I'm coming."

I may not be Mia Winters but with nothing holding me behind except a broken trailer and a dead end job, I feel the freedom fill my lungs. Perhaps I am just as selfish as her, because while she is the beginning of this adventure, she is not my end. ******

Maybe I need to make a new saying. 'When one goes looking for something different, don't go complaining when you find it' maybe? Although I felt very much like complaining when I found myself trudging across swamp mud to some kind of crack house in the middle of nowhere. I already harped once about this trip and once was all he gave me. I felt like stretching that rule a bit when every good womanly sense in my body screamed in rage with every step closer.

Sighing, I swat another mosquito and wonder if adventure was really all that as it's said to be. After sleeping in the car, a couple unflattering pictures came of that that he saved to his phone, I have a crick in my neck that could strangle a donkey and coffee stained jeans. My tits got in the way of brushing my teeth again, the girls too big for their damn britches seeming to shove up and catch any falling paste.

So here I am, unwashed, tired, in stained clothing a couple days old and my heart has never beat as fast. Maybe there's merit in this? *******

Once again I have to reevaluate the situation when my crazy ass sister chased Ethan and I all over the the rotten house our panicked screams and fear sweat saturated the dusty air. I am not proud to say the only thing holding my bladder was the fact that I already pissed on a tree up the road.

Wheezing through the frog in my throat I try not to wonder about the cell we found her in, needing to find Ethan first. We got separated after the whole fiasco of putting an axe in my sister's neck.

Bile burned my esophagus and I coughed a little more wetly, tears running freely down my cheek. Mia….oh god Mia. Bloody and gray, face twisted in hatred and sickness. Oh god above, Mia..in this moment I wish it were me instead.

Gripping the bolt cutters firmly I tear open the only place I haven't looked for a fuse. I cried openly when I found it, clean of filth and stains unlike the mold encrusted ones in place. Sweat slippery fingers fumbled to even pick them up, growing stronger when I got closer to the fuse box. The strength left when I left the room to be ambushed by a walking dead woman.

"Hey! Hey Gin. I know you guys didn't mean to hurt me. God I've missed you baby girl."

Too late I noticed the shadow against the wall and I was pinned to it a second later.

"IT FUCKING HURT YOU FAT BITCH!"

Howling I clocked her upside the jaw instead of taking it, bar fights and liquor infused blood burning at the monster wearing my sister's skin. The hard clacking and squelching from her bloody mouth met with numb ears as I began to struggle with the screwdriver in my palm. The buzzing chainsaw cut through the muggy air as well as it cut through my arm, taking my hand with it when I tried to protect my face. She wandered away, mumbling about containing the infection or something after that.

"Mother fucking bitch! Fuck, fuck, fucking shit!"

I wrapped it and limped up to my doom, finding a gun conveniently.

"Alright. Fine."

The words were much less firm and more mourning. Anger drained as I looked down the chamber and realized I will be loosing my sister all over again. I was chased by the demon in familiar faces as I finally put the last bullet in her head, sloppy sobs escaping when she drew her last breath to say 'I love you'. Rubbing away the blood and snot I limp away.

"I love you too sis."

I was not expecting the fist to the face when I rounded the corner, hard knuckles cracking over a slightly upturned nose and probably breaking it from the mind numbing pain, only catching a flash of balding maniac hillbillies in an ugly plaid and hoody holding up a K. Ethan. The one in the hoody whistled and crouched by my head, finger flicking the tip of my throbbing nose.

"Ohhhhh, she looks fun. Can ah keep 'er pa?"

The other grunted and the skeletal face twisted in sickening glee. The hollows in his cheeks and temples stretched as much as the bags under his eyes, chapped lips are bloodless and pale glistening crocodile teeth glimmering behind them. A beaky nose scrunched up as glassy blue eyes looked me up and down.

"Ah have a feelin' we're gonna be goooood friends."

He stood up swiftly, only to bring his muddy boot down on my head.

So instead of making new chapters for my other fics I decided to make another one. Yay!