Ah, Summer Break, a time for relaxation and fun in the sun.

Unless you'd been grounded for a week and sent to Great Uncle Barney's lake cabin in the Ozarks because you and your shitty twin sister couldn't stop fighting and ended up wrestling in a pig pen over who hogged the shower.

And the couch.

And the backseat.

And the bedroom.

And the radio.

And so on until Grampa had dragged them out of his distressed sow's pen and all the way into the living room as a small, gassy dog bounded around their feet. As angry as he was, Grandpa had to congratulate Dollface on her far cradle pinning combination and tight ankle pick, but quickly regained his senses, willow wand in hand.

Gramma was even more pissed, as the squealing girls had scrambled to evade punishment inside the house, tracking mud all the way from the backdoor to the front, ruining the freshly cleaned kitchen linoleum, hallway floorboards, and the living room wall-to-wall carpet was fucked.

And guess who had to clean it up?

Not her!

Making the shameful trip out the door for a last minute trip to Barney's all the more embarrassing.

Gramma scolded all three, Courage still yapping and bounding around, tracking even more mud as he did, and made all of them get showers.

Via hose.

Outside.

Regina wailed the entire time as she was power washed with a garden hose, frizzy perm ruined. Dollface stood and glared, getting a third scolding from Michael behind her eyes as she got an ice-cold bucket of water to the face.

The twins were now to be sent to Great Uncle Barney's for a week as punishment, all chores done would make up for Dollface's recent tardiness and absences.

Gritting her teeth, Dollface wrenched the wheel, golf cart rattling as it hit another root.

"Couldn't ya keep yer damn mouth shut fer once?!" She yelled at Regina over the rattling tool boxes in the back box of the suffering cartalong with a worn paperback copy of Stephen King's 'The Shining' and 1974's, 'Carrie'.

"What?" Regina yelled over the approaching moters of the much faster ATVs that were roaring up behind them

"Ya never know when t'shut up, do ya?" Dollface snapped, white knuckling on the wheel, "Ya complained since we got here, then when we finally get t'go t'the lake, ya call Bently's gal a 'ho!"

Regina wasn't sure what 'ho' meant, but she could get a guess from an off-hand comment.

"An'now Brayden, Bently, and Dakota and all their friends r'gonna kill us!" Dollface spat. The loogie flew in the wind, flying past the cart at light speed.

A boy on an ATV shouted indignantly when it splattered on his bare chest.

"Look, Grunkle Barney's grand nephews are trashy as HELL, but ya still related to them!"

Regina shuttered at the thought, practically biting through her stolen Marlboro, expensive Swedish cigarettes having already been smoked weeks ago. She'd been so disappointed when the Dairy Park didn't sell her favorite brands, but common and disgusting packs were better than none.

Regina gripped the hand bar, chest heaving under her designer bathing suit as the opening chords of 'Unfortunate Son' started blasting from behind them.

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Dollface growled, voice deepening, "This is all yer fault, ya should've known better than t'be so damn entitled. This ain't a fairytale, this ain't some damn movie, and ya ain't some DAMN storybook princess!"

In a flurry of brown feathers and cigarette smoke, Regina sobbed, "What do we do?"

As the cart went flying over a rock, Dollface side-eyes Regina, "We're gettin' t'Montoya's truck, that's what. We kin outrun 'em with that."

"You can drive?" Regina asked, holding on tighter as the boys hooped and hollered like monkeys. Eminem blasted through their speakers.

Regina blinked.

That wasn't right.

Weren't they playing 'Thunderstruck' earlier?

Or was it something by 6ix 9ine?

Shit, now's not the time!

"I've been drivin' since eleven, now hush it, Reggie!"

Regina couldn't even protest. She was too bewildered.

Nearly flying out as the cart made a sudden turn, Regina screamed. "They're only getting closer!"

"Well duh, ya dumb bitch!"

Regina recoiled at the name-calling but had learned that Dollface used the word more liberally than their mother did with money.

Dollface's sweating brow furrowed, (Ew!) black eyes narrowing at the wood's exit and slammed her boot even further onto the gas pedal, motor sputtering. Flying out of the woods, Regina screamed.

Dollface jabbed an elbow into Regina's ribs, neon string bikini top somehow managing to stay on.

Montoya, a tubby Puerto-Rican handyman stood in front of Grunkle Barney's newest shop, a tourist trap full of cheap taxidermy. He watched the ancient golf cart fly out, then the ATVs bounce close behind and dropped the box of merchandise for the gift shop.

Dollface lept from the cart, Regina tottering behind, barefoot, and he shouted, "Y'all need a truck?"

Dollface, not even stopping, snatched the keys from his outstretched arms, ATVs close behind.

The door of the truck flew open, and Dollface had it running in seconds.

"Ya gettin' in, or are ya just gonna get run over?"

Regina snapped out of her frozen haze of fear and forgot about the hot uneven pavement to fly into a dead run.

She plopped into the seat next to Dollface and off they went, down the road and to the nearest highway exit.

Once on the highway and safe, Dollface mumbled to Regina, "Why?"

Regina stayed quiet, not wanting to give the real answer. She was used to Grampa's shitty old '73 Ford, not a nicer, newer used 2011 F1-50 that didn't need duct tape and staples to hold the upholstery together.

She was nervous.

This wasn't right.

Regina turned on the radio as if that would give her an answer.

Dollface grumbled behind the wheel, "If yer gonna ignore me, at least play somethin' good."

Regina nervously fidgeted in her seat, smelling like lake water and wearing just her bathing suit.

Something was wrong, but she couldn't place it.

"I'm serious, turn that crap off."

Regina searched the cab, then submitted, flicking through stations. Dollface finally grunted approval at an oldies station playing Blue Oyster Cult.

Regina nervously looked out the window, thinking about lunch.

The entire week, she'd been heckled by her cousins, while Dollface seemed fine with it. She would even join in on tormenting Regina, even dropping crap pulled from a gutter onto her head and laughing loudly.

That morning, the boys who were brought as guests had jeered down at her from the roof they were repairing, and while Dollface played along, Regina felt belittled. At lunch, while Regina was politely eating with a fork and spoon, her sister and all the boys had smashed their faces into barbecue and gobbled, complete with mouth sounds and slobbering.

After that, Grunkle Barney let them all have the afternoon off since they'd spent the week doing everything from roofing the shop to wiping down cabin windows, all of which Regina loathed.

Even as she stuck to Dollface because she didn't know what she was doing.

So to the lake, with Dollface wearing a surprisingly revealing swimsuit and refusing to get in, instead, reading trashy paperback novels about a creepy hotel.

Or something.

Regina didn't like Stephen King, you could buy his drivel from a gas station.

Regina lit a new cigarette, calming herself as she opened a window.

"If Grampa ever catches ya, yer a dead girl."

Regina grunted.

Things had been said, Dollface grabbed Regina and they were zooming away in a tackily customized golf cart, ATVs dripping with rough, shirtless boys chasing behind.

A feather landed on Regina's lap, confusing her.

How could a feather get in?

Had it fallen into her hair somewhere in the woods?

"Call Grampa."

Regina looked up, being ordered. "How?"

"Y'all got a phone, not me."

Regina looked down in her hands.

Had this been here the whole time?

"They'll have our asses over th'fireplace 'cause o'you, but it's better than goin' back." Dollface said, "We got work t'morrow. We'll get home 'round eight if I timed this right."

Regina nodded, quiet for once, and opened her iPhone.

"Dollface?"

"What?" her sister snapped.

Regina huffed, looking out the window, not quite ready to call Grampa and needing a distraction, "Can you tell me a story?"

"Why?"

Regina toiled with a lock of blue-black hair, shivering in the AC, "Well, I'd like one. Like the scary ones you told me."

Dollface side-eyed Regina, "Ya didn't sleep fer days after I told ya 'bout Siren Head."

"Well, I know, but I'd like to hear another one." Regina said, "And it's just too quiet in here."

Dollface sighed, turning the AC unit off and turning up the volume, and ignored Regina.

Grumbling, Regina looked at the bag of quarters she'd been handed for when they found a payphone.

Wait, that's not right. She'd had something else.

But what was it?

Frustrated, Regina clenched the handful of change, trying to figure out what was wrong here.

"Please?" She found herself begging, something she'd never thought she'd ever have to do, "Please Dollface, we both need to calm down."

Dollface sighed, hands relaxing on the wheel, "Fine."

Regina turned the radio down in anticipation, watching her sister expectantly.

"There's this thing called, hell, how can I even explain this one?" Dollface asked no one, "I think it's called 'no-clippin'. It's where, shit, it's where ya should be somewhere, but ya aren't"

"Well, that doesn't help." Regina rolled down a window, having found Montoya's pack in the driver's seat and lighting up.

Wait, hadn't she just..?

Dollface grumbled, then tried again, "I'm not great at explainin' things, but like, imagine fallin' from a doorway into nothin'. An'right b'fore ya go 'SPLAT!', yer in this room."

"Oh, I think I get it," Regina said, not sure what Dollface even meant.

"Again, I'm not great at explainin' stuff. Gets all mixed up in th'coconut." Dollface said, "Anyway, imagine ya no clipped out of reality and are in this set of 'Backrooms', under harsh LEDs an'surrounded by beige walls."

"Yeah, I think I can," Regina said, imagining herself diving in the heated swimming pool of St. Giles' and landing on the scratchy carpet floor of an office building. "What's so scary about that?"

"Yer trapped, forever." Dollface said, "Every exit is false, an'people have been there since, hell, since that monkey fell outta tree. Hell, he's still there."

Regina thought about that.

Anyone could enter, purely by accident, but could never leave. Reality didn't exist there, so neither did concepts like hunger or sleep deprivation.

"It only gets worse, too, animals get trapped, rooms keep building themselves, all th'borin' places you've ever seen, any place ever left empty at night… An'there's monsters, too."

"Like what?"

"Ya sure ya wanna know?" Dollface asked, checking her mirror again. She asked Regina, "Do ya recognize that car?"

Regina turned, "I think so."

Dollface's brow furrowed as she continued, "Monsters. You'll never see 'em, but they're there. Things in closets an'stuff like that. Even th'people you'll see will look off. Somethin' as simple as a bird unfortunate enough t'no-clip with start lookin' a lil off."

"What exactly are the Backrooms?" Regina asked, no longer scared of Dollface's stories, but fascinated by them.

"Some say Hell, others Purgatory." Dollface said, "Jeez dude, get off'a my ASS!"

Dollface switched lanes, turn signals clicking.

"Wait, Dollface, that's William!"

"What th'Hell?" Dollface asked, "He can't see me!"

Dollface watched him switch lanes and follow her, "Why'd he be here?!"

"Over there!" Regina pointed to an exit, "Hurry!"

With an unexpected jerk of the wheel, Dollface complied to the chorus of several horns.

"He's off, we're in th'clear." Dollface said with a sigh, "When we get off in this next town, yer findin' us a telephone booth an' gettin' us outta this mess!"

Passing a sign for the nearest town, Regina nervously rubbed her hands and shifted.

Dollface sighed, easing up on the wheel.

"Reggie, I've been wantin' t'leave this damn place even more than ever."

Regina opened her mouth to protest the nickname, then stopped. Dollface was about to tell her something.

"I've always thought about buyin' a truck, like Gramapa's, packin' up m'tools an'some clothes an'just goin' west."

The opening of a Jimi Hendrix song quietly hummed through the speakers.

Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum... RATTLE!...

…..Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum... RATTLE!

"As far as I kin go." Dollface said, almost sounding sad. Her hard face was strangely softening, and Regina thought she looked almost delicate, "An'I know damn well I ain't some pretty lil screen queen."

Regina turned to look at her sister, shivering in the AC.

"There must be some kinda way outta here." Dollface said, eerily in sync with Hendrix, "I'm good wit'm'hands, I might be able to do it. Just… Drive away. There's just too much confusion nowadays, an'I can't get no relief."

"But… What would you do, exactly?"

Dollface tottled her head, saying, "Well, lotsa thangs. Rich people are always payin' t'git new toilets replaced with even newer ones every so many weeks. Always need a wall torn out, or a chair refurbished."

Regina's eyes widened, "You can do that?"

"Easily. Can't you?" Dollface said, voice softening as she changed the subject, "Do… Do ya think yer here 'cause Ma 'n Pa are…"

Regina looked out a window as Dollface tried to say the word.

"...Divorced?"

What little Regina remembered of her mother from three Easters ago was a tall, frail woman with big, blue eyes and an eerie smile. She was a runway model, afterall, and when she wasn't on the runway or on magazine covers as some famous influencer, she was training to be smaller and smaller.

"No." Regina said, "They haven't."

"And ya still haven't met Pa?"

Regina grumbled, 'no' miserably. She'd still never met him.

Maybe Grampa's rant about spoiling your children was right. It did seem that he was raising his grandkids.

That was embarrassing.

Maybe a break from social media and celebrity culture for a while was good for her. It was terrifying though, seeing as Regina had always been in the limelight due to her unknown father's reputation and Mother's career. It was such a funny feeling to not be recognized.

This was how her sister had been born. No glamor, no pampering, no people in the streets calling your name.

And yet, Dollface was more popular and beloved here in Elmore, Missouri than Regina had ever been in her life.

"Here we are."

Regina was roughly pulled away from her thoughts and thrown back into reality when Dollface smoothly turned into a strange, unfamiliar town. She quickly found an empty parking lot and pulled in, telling Regina to get her quarters and hurry.

"Wait, what's their number?"

Dollface scowled and dug around in the truck's compartments and finally found a bank pen. She grabbed her sister's hand and wrote in ink on the pale skin a series of numbers and sent Regina on her way.

Soon after, the two would be going down the highway, back home to Elmore to start packing early for their stay on the ever-growing event horizon of the black hole that was Freddy Fazbear's.