Chapter 3 -The Man with the Mask
A recurring pattern of thuds reached Fred-Fred's ears. She lifted her head off of her knees, looking towards the entrance of the attic. Someone was coming up the stairs. Damn it, she must have forgotten to lock the door in her hurry to get away. Her body instinctively tensed, but her muscles soon relaxed as she realized who had come up the steps.
A massive, terrifying figure of a man, a good bulk of his body composed of muscle, his attire consisted of tattered slacks, a dirty dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a leather apron stained with blood. She could barely make out his face from where he was standing, but she knew who it was.
Walking through the valley of bones on the floor, the man stepped closer to where Fred-Fred sat. Closing the distance between them, the menacing figure knelt down in front of the small girl. Fred-Fred was finally able to see his face.
A greasy, unkempt mess of black hair framed his head, his wide eyes staring at the young girl on the mattress, his mouth agape, head tilted, most of his nose was absent, revealing a severe deformity that had eaten away at his face.
"You're not wearing your mask," stated Fred-Fred softly, her voice surprisingly lacking the Southern drawl the rest of her family spoke with.
The man uttered a cross between a whine and a groan, incapable of coherent speech, an obvious hint to his poor mental state. He began to pet the girl on the head. Fred-Fred understood the gesture as a question.
"I'm fine," she said, brushing his bulky hand away with her smaller, fragile one. He must have heard the loud snap of when she had closed the book and tossed it against the wall, mildly worrying him. Noticing the somber look in Fred-Fred's eyes, the monstrous figure of a man groaned once again, standing up and walking over to her dresser, retrieving something, his large person blocking her view. He came back to Fred-Fred, holding a doll wearing a pink dress, a macabre creation composed from the skeleton of an infant. He pushed it towards the diminutive girl, encouraging her to take it.
"I told you, I'm fine. I don't feel like playing with Sally right now," said Fred-Fred, gently refusing the offer. The man's head sank against his shoulders, carelessly tossing the doll aside into a pile of bones.
Reaching towards the precocious girl, he began to pet her once more, running his thick fingers through the shaggy mass of black hair. Fred-Fred didn't bother with brushing his hand away again, allowing him to pet her for the time being.
As frightening as he was at first glance, the deformed monster of a man was really the only family member Fred-Fred felt no contempt towards. Unlike her other relatives, his mannerisms and attitudes were not manifested from deliberate stupidity. It was plain to see that the man was mentally retarded, an affliction since birth. It was something he had no control over.
It came as no surprise that he was often abused and ridiculed by the other members of the Sawyer family. Fred-Fred had endured her fair share of relentless teasing from her relatives, be it for her pale appearance or outright refusal to speak to them, but the level of abuse she suffered was only matched by the torment endured by the deformed man in front of her. A beaten dog received better treatment than he did. She felt sorry for him.
Though Fred-Fred never admitted it aloud, she felt some level of enjoyment whenever she saw him hunting down "prey" that had somehow managed to escape from the homestead, the thrill of the chase as she heard the roar of his chainsaw enticing her; it was the only time she ever saw the man break free of his childlike state of mind.
In all honesty, the monstrous man was an overgrown baby, whining and throwing a tantrum whenever he was afraid of something or simply didn't get his way. He didn't know any better. He was incapable of taking care of himself. Little Fred-Fred looked after him, taking on the responsibility of being his caretaker.
He proved to be annoying to look after from time to time, even frustrating, but Fred-Fred never had any feelings of hatred against him. He was the only member of the family that didn't intentionally tease and torment her, and because of this, he was the only one she felt comfortable talking to.
However, being his caretaker was also a responsibility that saddened her. There was absolutely no way he could survive here all alone. She was only person in the the family who showed him a small glimmer of kindness, the only person who made an effort to make him happy. She couldn't leave him with this clan of sadists all by himself. There were some days Fred-Fred wished she could run away and take him with her, but she knew that would only create a new set of problems for them to deal with.
The scenario played out in her head. There was no doubt the deformed man would be frightened by the "outside world" and end up going on a killing spree, triggered by overwhelming fear. It would only be a matter of time before his acts would result in the forming of an angry mob, armed with the dangerous combination of rage and weapons. They would chase the massive beast of a man, hunting him, killing him. Fred-Fred sighed. Either way, she just couldn't leave. She was trapped.
The man stopped petting her head and began to tug at the shoulder of her shirt. Fred-Fred blinked in response. What did he want? The man pointed to the window, then towards the entrance/exit of the garret.
"Outside?" asked Fred-Fred, "You want to go and play outside?" The man nodded with a high-pitched groan and grabbed her by her wrist, pulling her up to her feet as he stood up. She pulled her arm out of his grasp.
"I don't think we should go," she reasoned, "Uncle Charlie brought guests. They're probably busy in the shed. We shouldn't bother them." Fred-Fred tried to hide her discomfort. The true reason she didn't want to go outside was because she knew Gunnar was in the shed. A sense of nausea welled up in her stomach as she imagined his loud, grating voice singing off-key as he dismembered the bodies.
The large man whined, pounding the air with his palms and stomping his feet up and down, breaking a few bones on the floor as he did so. He was throwing a tantrum. Fred-Fred sighed, defeated.
"Okay, we'll play outside, but only for a little while," she said, not wanting him to tear the attic apart. He stopped stomping and uttered a sound of glee, obviously content with Fred-Fred's agreement. Placing her small, pale hand around a large, bulky thumb, the diminutive girl led the massive male down the stairs.
"We'll go out through the back door. You probably left your mask by the porch again. I'll help you put it on, Daddy."
--
"I was going to start with rape and sodomy," Gunny Tom said caressing Revy's cheek. He was breathing heavily. "But, death and dismemberment always come first. It's a family thing."
She turned her head away. Gunny Tom chuckled. "You're a trashy little animal. The second I saw you sashay with that piss poor attitude into the roadhouse, I knew I'd have to bring you home. You make me all weak inside, all sort of twitchy. You and your girlfriend here, no one will miss ya. She was just the warm-up."
The man stood up and tossed the shovel aside with a clatter by the tractor. "Speaking of that, I better clean up." He bent over and grabbed the ankle of the corpse and pulled. The mangled head slid by. Gunny Tom was dragging Jasmin to the back room for disposal. Revy's face contorted.
Revy was incapable of thought or action until the whine of the buzz saw started. Then she shifted as best she could around the pole so her actions were blocked from Gunny Tom's view if he chose to look out the door of the small room. She was able to position her arms around so she could see her hands and the lighter. With her thumb she flicked the button.
The nylon began to burn slowly, too slowly, with a smell like plastic. There was a puff of smoke and Revy dropped the lighter with a wince and a frantic look. She picked up the lighter and started over, and finally with a twist was able to snap the strips. She was free.
Gunny Tom was out of sight in the back room, there was a clatter of tools and the horrible sound of something being spilled into a bucket, the man was singing in an off-key tone. The open doorway beckoned, a quick sprint across an open field and to the cover of the woods. Revy coiled her legs underneath ready to bolt and looked at the bloody smear on the dirty concrete.
"The hell," she muttered.
She crawled over to the pile of tools by the workbench and picked up a pitchfork. The Gangster Disciples would have been proud of her choice of weaponry. Moving as quietly as she could she sidled to the back of the shed.
"… Break another little bit of my heart now darlin' yeah, yeah, yeah," Gunny Tom broke out into song, his voice rising. "You know you got it, if it makes ya feel good! Yeah, it sure does…"
Revy stood and pressed up against the wall of the back room. She was opposite the open door. She flexed her fingers against the handle of the pitchfork as feeling returned to them. She raised the thick rusty prongs. The middle one was broken, barely a quarter the length of the outer two. Her eyes narrowed to slits.
"Come on, come on, come on!" warbled Gunny Tom. "Hey, China girl? You like my singing? Come on, come on..." Revy's lips curled, keep singing, you won't know what hit you, she thought
The meat-hooks hanging from the roof of the metal shed clanked together. Revy lowered the pitchfork like a lance and spun around the door jam, digging the toe of her lead foot into the ground like she was putting out a cigarette.
Gunny Tom was partially turned away from the door at the front of the table. He had put on a leather apron that was soaked through with gore and viscera. The man held something dark red and soft in his hands as he stepped back from the table, aware too late of Revy's charge.
"Come uuuuuuaggh!" Revy thrust the pitchfork with a maniacal strength into his abdomen. The leather apron provided no protection as the prongs tore into Gunny Tom, puncturing the muscles and intestines. The impact almost tore the pitchfork from her grasp, but she kept driving with her legs, using the momentum of her lunge to push the man back into the wall.
"Stick around," Revy snarled, twisting the handle down enthusiastically as Gunny Tom tried to scream but could only muster a pathetic gasp. Whatever the man had held in his white knuckled hands now dropped to the floor in bloody red strips. She quickly wedged the handle of the pitchfork against the thick metal leg of the table, pinning the man against the wall.
Jasmin? What had he done to Jasmin? Against her better judgment Revy looked over at the desecrated body spread on top of the table. She threw up instantly, stumbling about in a berserk dance, the vomit dripping between the fingers raised to her mouth. Something ravenous and dark and insane crawled into her mind then.
"You took her eyes, you shit!" She stepped inside his grasp, letting the desperate man pull her close to him - his hands tearing at the back of her jacket. But her arms were raised up in front like a mantis, the wrists curled forward so she could gouge his eyes out.
Now Gunny Tom screamed as her left thumb thrust into the right eye socket and tore across. He whipped his head away from the violent intrusion and saved the other eye from a similar fate. Revy was thrown back against the table.
Revy's thoughts were in fragments: Gunny Tom; convulsively flailing about and shrieking. Jasmin; torn and ruined on the table. She was out the door, bursting out the open entry of the shed into the back lot, skidding to a halt, blinking stupidly at the light and at the two figures by the porch stairs.
A large hulk of a man had his back turned to the shed. Fred-Fred's pale face peered over one of the massive shoulders. She was standing on the flat top of a tree stump, on tip toes, one hand on the man's shoulders. As Revy stumbled out into the lot, Fred-Fred reacted quickly. She barked a command and hopped off the stump, picking up a chainsaw propped against it.
The man swung around. The last of Revy's sanity dribbled away. The man's face was covered by a patchwork mask of cured flesh. Fred-Fred handed the man the chainsaw.
Something skipped in Revy's head. She was pelting down the driveway, away from the house, legs and arms pumping. Looking back, she saw the two come around the corner of the house, trotting together side by side in pursuit as if this was an everyday chore. Giggling hysterically, she plunged into the cut rows of the cornfield and made for the woods.
Branches slashed at the girl's face, she flailed wildly and stumbled on a log. Looking back she saw they were closing the gap. The chainsaw coughed and roared to life in the hands of the leather-faced man as he bore down on her. Revy wasn't a distance runner, she clutched her side gasping. Perhaps smoking wasn't a good life choice. "Bam, bam, kapow," she choked , pointing a finger back at the two pursuers.
She broke out of the undergrowth and reeled up to the edge of a shallow slope overlooking a dark boggy morass. Her foot flew out from under her as she slid on a patch of still frozen earth and rolled down cursing. She tumbled into the cold water among the reeds.
The bog was shallow. Revy floundered about, unable to stand up, stirring up the thick mud into a chocolate-tan froth. Trying to push up from the bottom her hand gripped an irregularly shaped object, probably a rock. She pulled the object up from the muck with the intent to use it as a last defense.
It was a skull. Several leeches clung to the empty eye-sockets. The flesh had been picked clean. "Of course it's a skull," Revy tittered, shuddering violently. Something broke to the surface and rolled in the water beside her. A severed torso with one arm partially attached. The stench was overwhelming, like stale flatulence.
A muffled roar came from above. Revy didn't look up, hugging the skull to her breast. The leather-faced man had slipped on the same patch of frozen dirt and likewise came rolling down the slope. The chainsaw flew through the air with an angry buzz and splashed into the bog, cutting off suddenly. Water sprayed as the leather faced man tumbled in within arms length of Revy.
Fred-Fred capered, waving her arms about wildly. She was yelling something incomprehensible, eyes bugging out. Revy swung the skull and broke it over the leather-faced man's head as he thrashed about in the muck. Then she lurched out of the bog and staggered up to the frantic girl on the shore.
"He can't swim!" Fred-Fred shrieked.
Revy dropped Fred-Fred with a punch to the jaw.
--
The gasoline pump dinged, the man pulled the nozzle out of the fuel tank of the red Honda CBX motorcycle. In the distance there was the approaching wail of a police siren. The man glanced up, the helmet dangling from the other hand.
The girl scrabbled up from the drainage ditch and staggered across the parking lot of the gas station. She was Asian, probably sixteen and thin. The scuffed leather jacket and torn blue jeans were plastered with drying mud, the sole of one sneaker flopped with each step; strands of matted hair hung over bloodshot eyes. The man couldn't decide if the girl was smiling or snarling when she walked up to him.
"Give me that," she snapped and grabbed the fuel dispenser out of his hands. The next moment, he was cursing, jumping away as she doused him with fuel.
"Keys, helmet now. Otherwise I torch ya'," she flicked a lighter that suddenly appeared in her hands. "I don't have time asshole. NOW!"
The police car came to a scrunching halt at the end of the dirt access road across the field from the gas station. The tall dark shadowed figure of the sheriff got out and stood by the car. The road was too well traveled, the pursuit had come to an end.
Revy left a trail of smoking rubber and a cloud of exhaust in her wake. She revved the engine up, ran the clutch full throttle and headed west.
Next Update: April 24th - "Copycat" - sorry for the break