Sometimes, the old man's hold on Drayton Sawyer began to break down. It would start small - a defiant thought slipping through like a hog wiggling out of its corral - and would build until for a few brief seconds, Drayton would be in control of himself. He never had enough time to do something about what was happening, but one day, he swore, he'd stop it.

How he would do that, he didn't know. The old man was powerful and Drayton was weak. That's why he reckoned the old man sought him and his brothers out. None of them were strong in the head. Nubbins heard voices and got strange thoughts, and Bubba…well, Bubba didn't have any thoughts. He was retarded. He knew enough to do farm work but he couldn't speak or think right. You could only give him simple stuff, nothing too hard. Drayton's flaw was being moody. One minute he'd be happy as a lark, the next he'd feel like crying for no reason at all. He wasn't too smart and had trouble learning new things, but if he put his mind to it, he got by alright. His father left him the house and the service station when he died and they had a little bit of money stored away. Nothing much, but enough that Drayton didn't have many worries.

Except for his brothers.

Nubbins wandered the roads at night and Bubba needed close care. Drayton did his best but sometimes - God help him - he wanted to leave, to have his own life free from the burden of his brothers. He couldn't do that, though. Before Mama died, she made him promise that he'd take care of them, and Drayton wasn't the kind of man who broke promises to his Mama.

So he stayed. He kept up the gas station and the house, he paid the bills, he kept his brothers fed and clothed and busy so they didn't get into trouble. Life wasn't perfect but they did oka.

Then the old man came.

Calling him a man wasn't quite right. He wasn't a man though he looked like one. He was something else…something worse. Drayton found signs of him weeks before he actually saw him. There'd be footprints in the mud where no one else had walked, and things would be broken. One morning, he found a strange symbol smeared across the screen door in rust colored liquid that looked like blood. Drayton couldn't make anything out of it, but he figured it was hippies. Hippies all have a screw loose, and that meant something coming from him.

One night, he woke to thumping on the foot. He listened, then his blood froze when he realized what it was.

Footsteps.

He grabbed his shotgun and crept downstairs. Shadows flickered across the windows and Drayton's heart pounded. He wasn't proud of his, but he was too scared to go out there, so he didn't.

Maybe if he had, none of this would have happened.

Every night for a week, things got a little worse. Doorknobs would turn in the night; the TV would turn on by itself and the static would sound like hissing voices; Drayton would wake from nightmares of eternal damnation. The smell of sulfur lingered in the air, and the animals went crazy. Most of them broke out, but Drayton found a few gutted and hung from trees like gruesome decorations.

It all came to a head the night he was drawn to the cellar. The old man was crouched in the corner, hugging his legs and facing the wall. When Drayton saw him, he got up and turned. He was bald save for tufts of white hair on the side of his head, his eyes sunken and his sallow corpse-face crisscrossed with deep wrinkles. His skin was deathly pale and rotten in places, and a dusty burial suit hung from his emaciated frame. The old man opened his mouth to reveal rows of crooked fangs. Darkness rushed out, and ever since, Drayton and his brothers had been under the monster's command. They carried out his commands and did whatever he willed them to do.

And what he wanted them to do was kill.

The old man - whatever he was - drank blood, like Dracula. It had to be young and fresh. Drayton didn't know how he knew this, but the creature was infinitely ancient and had been old when the earth was young. It wasn't dead, but it wasn't really alive either. It could take you over if you were mentally weak: It worked through the crazies and the lame. How many times it had lurked behind a killer like a puppeteer behind a dummy, Drayton didn't know, but he knew its age, knew its wisdom, and knew that it wouldn't stop unless he did something.

Most of the time, Drayton slept, and when he began to wake, the world was shadowy and dim. He would fight against the old man's pull but it never lasted.

It happened infrequently. The last time was the previous night. He was aware but not in control as he watched himself beat a poor girl senseless with a broom handle. Her blood and cries of terror sickened him and he summoned all the energy he could muster to wrench control from the old man. In the truck, driving her back to the house, the old man delighted in making him poke her with the broom.

Every time Drayton came awake, he was disgusted by what the monster had done to his home. Chairs made out of bones and lampshades crafted from human faces decorated the once stately interior. Mama had been so proud of her home and never allowed a mess; the monster, then, took special pleasure in desecrating the place. The buzzing of flies and the rank smell of rotting meat permeated the air, and the sight of what had become of his kin disturbed him. Bubba wore a blood splattered apron and a mask made of skin, Nubbins had broken down to the point of being feral. Draytona could not control himself as he and his brothers sat down to their awful meal, but the girl's hysteria slowly deepened the cracks. He wrestled for control of his body and tried to tell the others to let her go, but only managed somehing about not torturing her and doing it quick.

"You can't be helped," he told her and that was true. He didn't mean to say those words…the old man still compelled him in some fashion…but it was all true. She couldn't be helped. None of them could. The least he could do was make it quick so she didn't suffer.

The monster sucked blood from her finger and then they bent her over a tub. The whole time the monster tried to hit her with the hammer, Draytona pulled with all his might against his bonds. He felt them fraying; the creature was too weak to do two things at once.

When the girl broke loose and crashed through the window, Drayton pulled free of the monster's hold. Bubba and Nubbins went after her, and for a moment, Drayton stood there, dazed and weak.

Now was his chance.

He grabbed a knife from the table and lunged at the old man. The old man turned his head up and fixed Drayton with cold, dead eyes. Drayton could feel the old man's fingers brushing over his brain, looking for a way back in, but there was none. Drayton had made up his mind and nothing could stop him. He knew everything he would do not even God himself could prevent it. In that moment, he was strong.

Screaming, he brought the knife down and plunged it into the old man's chest. The old man let out an inhuman shriek and began to flail. Light shot from his eyes and his body began to crumble into dust. Drayton watched in horror, and suddenly it was over, the creature dead at his feet.

Drayton looked around at what the monster had done, at the dead faces staring down at him from the peeling walls, at the bugs and death and pain, and the strength ran out of him. He sat heavily in one of the bone chairs and gazed into space.

Eventually, Bubba came in, dragging the chainsaw behind him like a child with a security blabnket. He looked confused and afraid. He grunted something unintelligible.

Drayton understood.

"He's dead."

Bubba hunched down. His eyes were big and questioning. He gripped Drayton's knee. "It's over," Drayton confirmed. He hesitated, then asked, "The girl get away?"

Bubba nodded.

"Good. Your brother?"

Bubba grunted.

Dead.

Tears welled in Drayton's eyes and he blinked them away. "Just as well," he said around a lump in his throat. "There's…there's no gettin' out of this one." He laughed humorlessly to himself. "They'll be along soon. You don't just chase someone with a saw and get away with it." He thought of all the things he and his brothers had done. All the teens, all the bodies.

Nope, there was no getting out of this one at all.

Getting up, he went into his bedroom and came back with his granddaddy's old Colt. He wore it on his hip when he served Texas in the Confederate Army. Family legend says he killed 58 bluebellies with it, but Drayton never believed that figure. He sat next to Bubba, and Bubba rested his head on Drayton's knee like a small, tired child. Drayton stroked his brother's greasy, unwashed hair and looked up at the water stained ceiling, the atmosphere suddenly thick and oppressive. He could feel his mother's gaze on him, and he burned with shame. "I'm sorry, Mama," he said, "I tried."

Sirens rose in the distance.

They were coming this way.

Drayton pressed the barrel of the gun to Bubba's head and pulled the trigger.

POW.

The big child slumped over, dead.

Drayton jammed the gun under his chin and closed his eyes. He thought of life as it had been when he was young, when Mama and Daddy were still alive, long before his home had turned into the slaughterhouse it was now. They were happy then and life was good.

With that image firmly in mind, Drayton jerked the trigger, and the crimes henceforth known as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came to an end.