Note: This story contains racism, violence, and offensive ideology not shared by the author.
THOSE HATEFUL
Way back when, Brockstone County was the kind of place folks talked about leaving, but few ever did- outside of a coffin, that is to say. Nobody rightly remembers where exactly that hellhole was, on account of - well, I'm getting to that. Can't start a story by giving away the end, can you? My Ma could've told you, on a good day. 'Cept, of course, she had so few good days towards the end.
Suppose I ought start by telling you why, exactly, Brockstone County was best described as God's preferred target for divine retribution. You'd think, after a while, folks would get the message: Don't live here. The soil was shit, the dust was always blowing, and you could be forgiven for thinking the weather personally hated you. People can be pretty God-damned stupid, though, and live there they did.
Now, about stupid people: Brockstonians were, yes, both stupid and people. They were also the vilest, meanest, most stubborn and hateful sons of bitches you would ever have the misfortune of meeting. Must be on account of living in Brockstone County. Now, that isn't to say they were born under bad stars, or cursed - no, I'd like to think at least some of them people were decent at some point. Didn't stay that way for very long, of course. I'd be willing to bet it's all because one man decided that day was a good day to be an asshole to somebody else; and, well, that man must've decided to be an asshole right back, and it never stopped.
Danny Hebert, that was one such man. Had a good pa who never hit him, a good ma who patched up all his clothes, went to Church every Sunday. He was a choir boy at one time; hoped to be a preacher some day. Well, Annette Rose Brown, the county's teacher at the time, didn't like that idea much. Preachers can't marry, you see, and she fancied Danny something fierce. He fancied her right back, and decided God could forgive him for falling for an angel. They got married on a Sunday, of course. It was the first Sunday since Danny could remember he wasn't part of the choir singing.
They had a baby girl; Taylor Anne. Awful young they were, when she was born - it was the talk of the town for years. That is to say, people had nothing better to do than gossip about the Heberts in all that time. Now, Taylor Anne was a special kind of girl, especially in a place like Brockstone. She was kind, and friendly, and all those things people just weren't in that county. Pa told me once she could walk into the county jail and make friends with everybody there, Sheriff included. Ma hit him for that, and told me not to believe tall tales.
Danny still sang on Sundays, and sang to his little angel every night, too. She used to tell him he sounded like the morning's rooster, but still begged and begged for another song, every damn night. He'd done given up on being a preacher; decided to try his hand on working the land instead. Well now, like I said- Brockstone County's soil was shit, and didn't care how sweaty that farmhand got - it wasn't gonna give you a damn thing. Still, he managed to get a little patch of hay growing, and some onions, too. Everybody's breath stank to high Heavens, of course, but they weren't starving. He even managed to afford a pair of cows, and a horse.
Now, that horse was a true Brockstonian. Mean as a hornet and stubborn as a mule, she wouldn't let anybody but Taylor so much as look at it. That sweet child named her Lippy, on account of her fat lip. Would make all sorts of awful jokes about it, too - would tell that horse 'don't you get too lippy with my Pa!'
I'm sure that little family had all sorts of happy days, despite their poor choice of land. Of course…. This story isn't about happy days. This story isn't about happy people, or happiness in general. In fact, I'd wager this is the kind of story that spits on happiness.
There are monsters in this world. The Bible itself couldn't prepare us for the kind of hell those beasts brought upon us. Devastation, death and insanity - those are the kinds of things we live with. Well, Brockstone County had never heard of the Leviathan. They'd never heard of Endbringers, or Scion, or the damned Slaughterhouse. The postman must've forgotten to deliver those papers. Perhaps he'd been warned to stay the hell away from Brockstone County, and took that warning to heart.
Brockstone County had its own monsters, starting with Billy 'Britches' Hinckley. He was stupid, mean, a damn sight ugly, and always had a hole in his trousers. Ma used to say it was wide enough to see his little willy through, and his ma hated him so much she refused to patch it up. Well, Billy Britches was as dumb as a rock, and didn't do so good with Annette's lessons. He didn't take too kindly to failing, and shot her dead. Nobody knows where he got the gun, and if anybody knows where Danny Hebert buried the boy when he was through with him - well, they never did say.
Danny had lost all that was bright and good in his life that day, save for little Taylor. He never did sing for her again, and never did step foot in Church on any other Sunday. He'd lost the music in his world, and truly believed God might knock him dead for what he'd done in revenge.
That wasn't the end of the Heberts' misfortune, sadly. Danny wasn't such a good pa after that, and never could remember to tend his fields. He'd sit on his big armchair and paw over his lost darling's school books, though they had no lessons to teach him. Taylor couldn't bear to see a good man so beat down, and resolved she'd never let a bad day get the best of her, no matter how awful. Satan must've taken that as a personal challenge, seeing how things turned out.
Taylor threw her little heart into every last thing she did. She tended the fields 'til the sun went down, made sure Lippy and the cows and every last chicken was fed, clean and happy, and wasn't afraid to kick any touchy boy in the tenders. She didn't make too many friends - the girls didn't like that she wore dirty overalls, and the boys didn't like that she wasn't an easy lay. Well, joke's on those damned kids - by the time she was older, Taylor was the only woman in all of Brockstone not to have warts and itches in unfortunate places.
She might've been the closest thing to a happy person in all of Brockstone County. That, of course, could never have lasted.
She never could forget that night, no matter how spotty her mind grew. The wind was whipping something fierce, and Lippy was awful nervous. The cows wouldn't eat a thing. Windows rattled in their flimsy sills; shutters banged against the walls. The whole house was shaking. In hindsight, it was probably telling them to get the hell out while the going was good. The Heberts were the best thing to ever happen to that land, and it did what it could to save them. So, Taylor was wide awake when the first fire came alight. By chance, she was looking out the window, keeping an eye on the cow's pen to make sure it didn't blow open. She'd fastened the gate tight, but wasn't the kind of girl to do anything by halves. She'd have sat there wide awake all night, just to be sure. So it was, she saw the first orange flicker in the distance.
Unlike most every other Brockstonian, Taylor wasn't stupid. She knew what orange lights in the dead of night meant. So little grew in those parts, she knew it wasn't a wild brush fire. Where there was fire in Brockstone, there were people. And this fire was getting closer, and closer. So she shook her pa awake, and he went and grabbed the gun, and took up sentry by the cow's pen. Danny Hebert might've been a sad, broken old man, but he still had a heart. If anything were to come after his home, he'd damn well stand in front of it.
That fire kept coming closer, and kept growing bigger. Before too long, sound came with light. Deep, throaty bangs! and booms! unlike any gunshot he'd heard before. Much too loud, and the air hummed and crackled with the strangeness of whatever weapon could be heard over the howling of the wind.
Like the howling wind, the source of the flame roared through the farmstead. Horses stampeded through, along with some un-Godly chariot of war. Taylor's eyes were wide with fear, and she swore her Pa was shaking in his pajamas. In those scant moments, she saw so little, but what she could see stuck with her a long, long time.
Leading the horse-riding bandits was a man in white, with a finely tailored suit and bowtie, and low-sitting hat. Everything about him was white, white, white, from his skin, to his moustache, to the pearl on the handle of his revolver. He rode on the blackest of horses, a steed of death and despair. His smile was beautiful and cold, pearly whites reflecting the torchlight.
Ripping and tearing and roaring through the dirt, trampling over painstakingly-grown hay and onions, belching dust and fumes came a metal monstrosity on wheels. With the appearance of a roofless carriage and lacking any horses to pull it, the mechanical insult to order and cleanliness came careening towards the farmstead. Bedecked with rusted plates and spikes in all directions, the painfully loud vehicle was crewed by a single woman, her cruel grimace so different from the Man in White's. Her teeth were jagged bits of metal, sharp as could be and polished to a shine. She wore oil-stained rags, torn and worn to the point one full breast was bared to the world.
Pulling up the rear came a steady, deep tha-tha-thump! tha-tha-thump! of horse hooves, loud enough to be heard over all the other stampeding horses. First, she saw the twin orange lights, burning like embers pulled fresh from Hell, couched within a metal horse's skull. That naturally led her to see the rest of the entirely metal steed, made of gears and wires neatly arranged. Plates of metal curved to form a skeletal, unearthly figure, supporting a man in armor - like the princes from her mother's story books. All Taylor could see of his face was his jaw, growing a proud beard.
The stampede came closer and closer, the firelight growing brighter and brighter. In the distance, Taylor could see the township burning, smoke rising high against the clear sky, blotting out the stars in its black, choking fingers. Danny cocked his gun, holding it threateningly before him, though his arms shook.
For all his stubbornness and anger at the world, Danny Hebert couldn't do shit against an army of bandits. A storm of gunfire rang out, mostly from the metal chariot. Taylor couldn't bear to count how many pierced his frail body, though she heard the single shot he managed to get off before falling. A strangled scream was torn from the man on the metal horse as his jaw was blasted apart, Danny's buckshot having found at least one home.
Taylor, too, screamed, and ran for her father's body. The woman with the metal teeth kept firing from her chariot, twisting the handle on a massive, unwieldy weapon which spat out bullets like Emmaline Barnes spat out kids. The farmhouse was cut open like a tin can, roof collapsing inwards as the bullets broke apart each wall and beam, one by one. The man in white leveled his revolver at the farm animals, and made three unerring shots- cow, cow, Lippy. Each fell dead, leaving Taylor as the sole survivor. The chickens had flown coop during the storm.
It was seconds, at most. She scarcely had time to roll her father over before it was over and done with. The bandits kept right on going, not caring that a single, insignificant little girl was left all alone, surrounded by dust and blood.
It was right about then that Taylor's little heart decided: Today. Today was the bad day that got the best of Taylor Hebert. Something in her broke. Something that said, 'This person is good, and kind, and human.' She screamed and cried and hollered, and the sound was echoed by every cricket and fly and bee and spider for so far, all of Brockstone heard those hateful sounds.
Ten years. Ten years it took Taylor to piece together what had happened, to find a single damned clue. How hard could it be? she'd thought. How hard, to find a woman with metal teeth riding Satan's chariot, or a man with a machine steed? Pretty damned hard, it turns out, when there's nobody left alive to talk.
Now, that's not to say every last man, woman and child in Brockstone was put to death. Plenty of women and kids managed to run as the menfolk did what they could to slow down the tide of death. Fat chance they'd ever come back to Brockstone, of course.
Well, Taylor had managed to find a lead. Two of them, near enough at the same time, in fact. A black man from further south; a survivor, like her. Like her, he could do things no man made in God's image ought be able to do. Brian, his name was, and he arrived on her little camp alone in the wilderness like the breath of night.
He told her the story of the Man in White. A vile, racist man; the kind of racism that makes good folk nowadays sick to their stomachs. Brian was a paid farmhand, a rarity in the extreme in those days. A rarity the Man in White didn't take kindly to. That man put the ranch and every soul in it to the torch. Brian alone managed to escape, on account of being off in the woods for a quick piss. When he heard the trample of dozens of horses, he climbed the tallest tree he could find and sat there 'til it was safe. With such a view, he saw exactly how the Man in White butchered the men he worked alongside.
The horsemen surrounded the ranch, walking a circle around it with guns drawn. The Man in White alone approached, with nothing but a six-shooter. The ranch owner had stepped out, hollering up a storm, demanding to know just what the hell was going on. That's when the Man in White shot him- six damned times, right in the head. The workers swarmed over him, armed with pitchforks, scythes, hoes, all manner of tools. That man stood there, even as their weapons beat and pierced at him. He stood there, as the first pitchfork was withdrawn from his chest. He stood there, bleeding for but a moment - before the wound simply went away; gone, as if it never happened. He then killed all four dozen men with his bare hands; choking them, one by one, as his black-hearted men kept a single one from leaving. By the time he was through, not a drop of blood stained that damnably white suit.
Taylor and Brian made a deal, then. A hateful kind of deal, the kind that keeps the Pearly Gates shut to your soul forever more. 'I'll help you kill him, and make damned sure it hurts. And you help me kill the Woman with Metal Teeth.' And she told him, then, of her father's death, and the woman who killed him. And they spat and shook on the deaths of two others.
That morning came her second lead, as though led to the merry band of prospective killers by the hands of fate - or the Devil's own temptation. Like Taylor and Brian, she was possessed of unnatural abilities; strength, the likes of which a full-grown man couldn't hope to match. Her name was Victoria, and she, too, had a story to tell - of Brockton City.
It turned out, in the ten years of Taylor's exile, Brockstone County had undergone quite the change. A certain man had taken charge of the collapsed governing body, christening himself the Quartermaster. He'd introduced marvels of science to revive the town, turning dead soil fertile overnight and drawing in a new wave of settlers. What's more, Victoria would claim his jaw was made of solid steel - as was his horse.
Now, Victoria wasn't the only one in her family capable of unearthly things. Her sister, too, was capable of miracles. Amelia, her name was, with the power to cure any ailment or wound with a single touch. Of course, since Brockton City, much like Brockstone County, was full of stupid, hateful people - this was seen as a bad thing. With the revival of the town came the Puritans, and with the Puritans came accusations of witchcraft. The Quartermaster himself pointed the finger at Amelia. Clearly, only a priest should perform miracles - and only men can be priests. How, then, could a girl heal the lame? Those brainless, heartless bastards had their answer; the only possible answer in their small, simple minds: Amelia was performing selfless acts of kindness in service of her Dark Master. For all her miraculous abilities, she couldn't remove a bullet from her own brain. Victoria had torn the shooter apart with her bare hands, and was now, much like her present company, on the run.
Those three revenge-driven souls swore an oath together, to avenge the wrongful deaths of their loved ones, and to visit unholy fury on those that would make them sinners. The day would one day come when every last person spoke the names of Those Hateful Three in fearful whispers.
A/N: So this has been percolating in my brain for a while, and I decided to turn it into a one-shot, possibly to be re-visited in the future. The idea of a Hateful Eight-style retelling of Worm just seemed really interesting to me, not sure how it turned out. Anyways, I'm still alive, and really should get back to writing MtaF. Blame writer's block.
I had more planned here, including the shootout with The Woman with Metal Teeth- which involves Victoria using a cow as a meatshield, Taylor ricocheting a bullet off one dude's metal tooth into the engine block of the Chariot, and Brian going full Assassin's Creed on a horde of mooks - but promised myself I'd write this whole thing in one sitting before midnight, and I need sleep, so enjoy what I have written.