When he was younger, James never really knew what was in those strange trash bags his dad would take out to the dump. He always wanted to go with him, but learned not to ask after the 4th time.

(Turns out that 'Daddy' had quite the temper.)

So he'd tried to ignore every time his father would leave, 4 or 5 large bags of foul smelling trash in the back of the truck, until he walked in on him.

He was 15 then, and it had been years since he'd mentioned or asked about the bags, and all he'd wanted was to get a school permission slip signed.

There had been blood…there had been blood everywhere in the room James had always assumed was his fathers, blood and hunks of hair and scraps of cloth all over the place, and his father was shoving what looked like fingers and internal organs into a big trash bag.

"What are you doing in here, James?" his father had roared at him, and James found it hard to reply. There was…something about the colours, the smell, that didn't frighten him. He'd simply waved the permission form, before going out to sit at the kitchen table.

When his father joined him, he had different clothing on, a different face, and a pen. As he signed the paper for James, he explained.

"They were late with their rent."

"She'd just had a baby, and left it up in the room."

"They were just going to leave."

For each explanation, James would nod, able to understand exactly. After his mother had run off on his father, James knew that his father needed to do everything to keep the both of them afloat.

He stayed quiet for a moment, before asking "Can I help next time, Dad?"

He'd been helping his father with the disposal for several years when he first met Mary Shepherd. He'd been passing through Shepherd's Glen at the same time as their annual fair when they met. She'd been sickingly sweet, covered in cotton candy strings, but when she offered him a bit of the spun sugar, free because she was having suck a hard time with the machine, he fell.

He'd claimed her name, her phone number, her heart, and eventually her life.

She had been sick, so, so sick, and it was growing harder and harder for him to hold them both afloat. There where bills, expenses, and his father had left the duty of cleaning up unsuitable tenants to him. The ones that where alone, had no one to rely on, had no one to miss them where his favourite, because he could take his time, imagine it was her under the knife, in the plastic bag.

But when it came too it, he was too cowardly. He loved her still, and even though she was dragging him down, killing him as well, he couldn't even think of hurting her that way.

So it was no surprise that he'd forgotten what he'd done, when they traveled to the town they both loved. Their first date, taken the very day they met, had been to the lake, the park, where she would stand against the railing and tell him about all the people who died deep beneath the waters.

Only with what he perceived as a letter to guide him, he met a girl with a knife, a boy with a gun, a child unaffected by the horrors around her, and Maria.

She looked like Mary, sounded like Mary, but when James looked at her, all he saw was a fake, someone he could put under the knife. Like he never could with Mary. He had waited for her to say something about the lake, the dead under it, but nothing.

She was nothing like Mary.

But still he found himself confusing them, found himself calling Mary's name instead of Maria's, remembering her as his wife. He would admit that they were a little similar, but the double didn't have the same flare for the morbid that Mary used to, didn't know the same details about the town that Mary had.

Maria had been uneasy and refused to enter the bowling alley.

Mary would have followed after, eagerly detailing the murders that had occurred there years before.

She had tried to appeal to his…basic need, but he didn't care. What should he? She wasn't Mary, wasn't the woman he'd hoped to grow old with.

Even so, when the Pyramid thing got her the first time, he was upset. The second time, blasé, and the third? The third time he was angry. Angry and upset that he wasn't going to get to take care of her like his father had taken care of some many, like he had taken care of so many.

So instead, he stood up, faced the Pyramid things, made amends, and destroyed Maria.

But not Mary. No, never her.

He loved her so much, and he'd let her down in the end.

The car took in so much water, so fast, he was surprised it took him so long to black out.

A/N: The next Killerverse fic- In which James kills people! Woooo