A/N: I only watched this movie for the mutants. I just thought I'd tell you. Well, actually I initially watched it because of Robert Joy, but then I found myself liking the mutants more than the Carter family, which was odd because even though I was scared out of my pants throughout the entire movie I was still half-hoping the mutants would win.
I think I need therapy…
Anyways, I thought I'd start my Hills Have Eyes writing spree with a quick fic about Goggle. Because I want his nose.
Or lack thereof.
These are little snapshots of Goggle's past, and they include all the members of the mutant clan (all except Cyst and Big Mama – because they didn't really have speaking parts. Or really big parts, for that matter. And also Big Brain, because I just realized I left him out. Oh well. Some other time).
Anyways, I hope you enjoy my story, which was written in exactly two days! Joy.
Disclaimer: The Hills Have Eyes (2006 remake) and its characters do not belong to me. They belong to Wes Craven/Alexandre Aja
Goggle liked watching people. As a child he would sit in the middle of his living room floor and watch his mother rock back and forth in her old spindly chair. As a child, with a pair of binoculars stolen off a forgotten duffel bag left behind in the chaos of the nuclear testing, he would observe his mother through them: up close, she was a blur of colours and shapes, and if he spun the little knobs on the sides he could see everything – from the stretch marks on the insides of her elbows to the little lines by her eyes and the stains on her apron.
Nobody had the heart to explain to Goggle at the time that his mother, already sick with cancer from the nuclear fallout, had gone insane when she gave birth to such an ungodly creature – so after a while, when watching his mother rock back and forth and stare at nothing became boring, he watched other things. He watched the fly on the windowsill buzz against the pane, as if throwing itself one more time towards the bright outside world would successfully take it there. He watched the shadows cast by the furniture shift as the sun moved across the sky.
When his mother died in her chair one afternoon, he watched the fly from the windowsill crawl across her face, feelers twitching and rubbing together with anticipation.
When he was four, Goggle wet the bed. Lizard gave him hell for it since he was sharing the bed with him at the time and pushed Goggle out, swearing up a storm. Goggle had fled and hid in the upstairs rooms of Big Brain's house (Big Brain didn't use those rooms anyways), crying with embarrassment. It wasn't until he was finished crying did he realize he had run into Pluto's room. The hulking man was sitting up in his bed, staring at him with his droopy, child-like eyes. Goggle snivelled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, watching him. Like all the children before him he feared Pluto, who would suddenly burst into shouting fits, flinging his meaty fists and exposing his crooked teeth in such a forceful yell that Goggle was afraid he would break something. Instead, Pluto crossed the room gently, hunching over to tap Goggle on the shoulder with one thick finger. Goggle watched the pus dribble out of a sore on Pluto's face and the eerie ring of moonlight halo what little hair he had.
"Okay?" the giant whispered hoarsely.
"'M okay." Goggle whispered back, drying his eyes. Pluto grinned and brought him blankets and a pillow.
Goggle spent the rest of the night on Pluto's bedroom floor.
When Goggle was eight, Lizard took him out to the desert to scavenge. Lizard, a mangy young adult at the time, had plunked him down on a rock, snarled at him to stay put and skulked down the hill towards a crowd of scavenging birds who looked like they had something to hide.
Goggle took out his binoculars and watched his cousin lope over the uneven terrain, close to the ground and already fingering his spike belt. Goggle watched the sunlight illuminate the sun-bleached tips of Lizard's hair and he watched the strip of metal spikes whistle through the dry desert air as the birds, frightened, took flight towards the endless blue of the sky.
Lizard came back triumphant, dragging the carcass of a coyote behind him. Goggle put his binoculars away and took hold of his cousin's shirt as they walked back to the village.
Lizard immediately swatted his hand away and said something along the lines of, "Fuck off, ya little shit," but when Goggle replaced his hand Lizard let it be.
When Goggle was ten, Papa Jupiter took him to the mines and let him look around the gravesites. Placed on top of one of the rickety homemade crosses was an old bowler hat, covered in a thick layer of chalky dust and grime. When Goggle pointed it out, Papa Jupiter picked it up, thumped it against his thigh to rid it out the dust, and placed it on his head. It had belonged to Goggle's grandfather, he was told.
Later, curled up in his cot, listening to the eerie silence of the test village, Goggle discovered an old, aging photograph tucked on the inside rim of the hat – of a tall young man with wide set features and a toothy grin, proudly sporting the hat. The spindly handwriting on the back of the photo read, "To my Stella, because we'll dance all night. Love, Jake."
When Jupiter came the next morning to wake Goggle up, he found him in front of the cracked mirror above his bed, examining every inch of his flattened, frightening face for any resemblance to the charming, funny man in his bowler hat.
When he was thirteen, Goggle watched a one-year-old Ruby toddle down the dusty town road from the arms of Papa Jupiter until she tripped and fell on to the step of Big Mama's porch. As Jupiter chuckled, Ruby heaved herself to her feet, her lower lip trembling dangerously and her misshapen eyes wide. Goggle had dangled his binoculars in front of her face in an effort to distract her from more of her sharp cries and she had cooed as her chubby hands clutched at the shiny metal. Ruby loved Goggle like nobody else did. She loved everyone else in her family, of course, but when Ruby got older she was the one who brought his lunch out to him when he sat up in the hills, always watching.
When Goggle turned eighteen, no longer a youth but a man, Jupiter asked him to perform a duty for the family. He was to sit up in the hills and watch for travellers down the long lonesome road. The family had preyed on humans before but it had always been messy and usually costly, an unplanned, spontaneous attack if they happened across them in the desert. Papa Jupiter gave Goggle a walkie-talkie and told him that if he saw anybody coming their way, he was to contact them. Goggle was proud that he could help the family with such a dire need like food. Pluto and Lizard were the fighters, Papa Jupiter was the leader and Big Brain was the planner. Now Goggle could put a title to himself – the watcher. It was tough at first, sitting out in the hills all day and feeling the sweat trickle down his collar but Goggle enjoyed the solitude the hills had to offer, the silence that enveloped him every day until Ruby appeared to give him his food.
When Goggle was twenty-eight he watched a father of two stumble across the rocky face of the hills, his lip busted and his eyes fearful. He watched the hulking form of Pluto following close behind in the dusky purple shade of desert twilight. Goggle remembered the man looking up and screaming when he saw him crouched on a cliff, binoculars in hand. Then there was just a confusion of noise and movement as Pluto reached him and swung his axe, again and again and again. It was their second kill since Jupiter had gone and recruited the Gas Station Man, and already they were all working like a well-oiled machine (except for Ruby who, after seeing Cyst drag the body of a twelve-year-old girl into the storage house where they kept their meals, had refused to take part in the "hunt").
After, Goggle and Pluto went through the man's pockets. Pluto kept the man's ring of keys and his wallet, and Goggle kept his lighter and his pack of cigarettes.
Goggle didn't smoke. Nobody in his family smoked – their health was bad enough already without help from things like cigarettes. But, after Pluto left, Goggle tried it. As the screams of the wife and children bounced off the cavernous hills Goggle lit the nicotine stick and inhaled.
After he finished hacking from the unfamiliar sensation of smoking, Goggle decided that if humans were willing to kill themselves slowly from the inside like this, then his family were really doing them a favour, weren't they?
On the fourth month of his thirty-third birthday Goggle sat on his hill and watched a truck pulling a trailer collide with a boulder on the side of the road. Lizard had done his job well, and all that was left was the eventual slaughter of the entire family. There were six of them that Goggle could see through his binoculars, plus two dogs that streaked from the trailer the moment everyone was disoriented. Goggle licked his lips – they were two German Shepards, lean and tasty-looking. The younger boy eventually started after them, calling irritably as the rest of his family tried to sort everything out.
Goggle shifted in his crouching position, brought the binoculars up to his eyes again and did what he did best – he watched and waited.
He might get hell from his family for killing the dogs so early on in the game but really, what harm could it do?
FIN
A/N: I kinda like Goggle. I want his bowler hat.
If you could just press that little review button at the bottom of the page there, I would be so very, very happy (does a little dance).
Please??