AN: I thank one of the reviewers who recognized one of my plot devices; since I'm on vacation I'll make well to update more often during the duration of my grace period. Also, this is a filler chapter
Chapter Nineteen: The Scarf
She is eight...Or maybe seven.
Her mother has been crying for hours now, tucked on the couch, dressed in her bathrobe. The bitter scent of alcohol and smoke permeate the air. Blackens her lungs.
Carmen coughs as she exits the house.
She can play in the backyard instead.
XXX
At fourteen, she stands in the center of a quarry with foam stuffed in her ears, eyeing her mother through these cheap plastic glasses. The woman fetches something from the car's glove compartment.
The day is dreary and it drains out the shades of the trees and the grass. The red of her mother's scarf tied around a slender neck is the only thing which catches her eyes. Carmen also catches herself looking at the garment often.
Her mother's singing penetrates through Carmen's earplugs as she returns to her with a metal object in her hand. It is silver and it looks heavy. It is more menacing in real life.
"Why do you have a gun?" Carmen asked wearily.
Guns made loud noises. Loud noises made Carmen nervous.
Her mother stops singing. She is no longer idle. In fact, she is quite serious now.
"Because, maybe one day knowing will come in handy."
XXX
"Carmie, mommy's so sorry."
In the dead of night, Carmen stirs awake. She finds her mother's head resting on her lap.
"I just can't let you go." Her voice is muffled. Mumbled. Slurred. Carmen immediately knows it is another one of these nights. Ceaseless rambling from an incoherent woman who has an unfathomable hate for something Carmen cannot relate. "You're the only good thing that he can take away from me."
He. She has never mentioned a "He" before. Carmen assumes it's her father.
"I'm not going anywhere," she assures sleepily.
"No, no, no," her mother sobs. Alcohol laces her words. Carmen had long come to terms that this would always be the smell of her mother's perfume. "They'll take you because of me and I won't be able to stop it. Because...you're his…you'll always be his. It runs in the blood. And you'll be going back to that slime of a town, Haddon-fucking-field, with all those lunatics. His fucking disease."
Tears seeped through her covers.
Carmen propped herself on her elbows and ran a hand down her mother's head.
When mother uses dirty words, Carmen worries that she had helped herself a little too much to the brandy in hidden in her wardrobe. The girl sighs. She has school tomorrow.
"As long as you're here, I'll never go to Haddonfield. I'll never leave you."
XXX
"Three days ago in the quiet town of Haddonfield, Warren County police arrested a man who had allegedly killed twelve people on Halloween night. The killer was identified as Michael Audrey Myers, an escaped patient of Smith's Grove Sanitarium who was clinically diagnosed catatonic. After having restrained him, the police have announced that quote "he will be serving life in Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium, where he is to never see the light of day again." That, of course, will be determined during his trial."
The television blinks to black and Carmen looks over her shoulder to her mother gripping the remote in her hand.
"Mom?"
"It's over…" she says hauntingly.
Her brow furrows. "What's over?"
XXX
Memories melted like cobwebs to the wind. Their colors streaked and gave way to a lifeless sky, void of light. Dew from the bed of grass beneath her body soaked through her clothes. With breath stolen from her lungs, she lay on her back winded, unable to scream at the shape towering over her.
She felt so heavy, it was becoming impossible to breathe. Though, she could not say that this was fear.
Madness. That's what she's starting to discover of him the longer they're near each other. The mask sitting so prominently on his face, untelling, yet hiding such insidious thoughts and actions all the more terrified her because she knew he'd act on them if he wanted.
It's the nature of all monsters to make well the ruin of others.
Then, the shape lifted his fist and opened it.
Mama no.
Scarlet fluttered like a fallen leaf from his hand.
A sob tore out of Carmen's throat like a cough as her dead mother's scarf landed on her collarbone.