Here's a little preview of what's coming up this fall. A slasher story I concocted from my love of nineties' teen cinema. Be on the lookout for "Blood River."
"Breathe." That was all Alexa Bliss could tell herself as she ran, listening in horror as the intense footsteps behind her drew closer and closer. In the distance, the raging inferno of her childhood home grew larger, hotter, and more oppressive. She glanced over her shoulder, her heart jumping as she saw the massive silhouette gaining ground on her, despite how slow the unnamed man seemed to be moving.
The screams coming from the inferno sounded so familiar. Alexa knew the names and faces of every solitary voice emanating from that disaster. Turning slightly, again stealing a peek at her pursuer, she gasped lightly at the sight. A giant, horizon-consuming figure, arm raised with knife in hand, no more than ten feet behind her. As she observed, in sheer horror, a ghastly smile parted the lips of her attacker, though she couldn't make out his face.
Alexa let out a scream. A blood curdling roar of sheer terror, hoping to scare away the wraith. No dice. The terrifying apparition brought the huge blade down toward her as she heard every distant scream emanating from the raging blaze scream "no!" At the exact same time she felt hands shaking her, swaying her from side to side forcefully.
…..
"Alexa! Alexa!" Mickie James gently called, softly shaking the tiny blonde awake. After another minute of convulsing in her sleep, the waifish beauty sat up with a start, gasping for breath while wiping the accumulating sweat from her brow. At the foot of the miniscule girl's bed, a young looking golden retriever began to stir, before whining a bit and licking her distressed owner on her face, trying to comfort whatever was ailing the poor girl.
"Did you have the dream again, babe?"
Alexa nodded, fighting back a tear. "Yeah, Aunt Mickie, I did. I could feel the heat on me this time. It was so vivid."
The brunette woman slid an arm around Alexa's slight shoulders and rubbed her far forearm slightly. The aforementioned puppy jumped down from the bed, crossing the room to a large laundry basket stuffed with blankets.
"It's ok, Lexi," she half cooed, hoping her soothing voice and use of Alexa's nickname would remind her subconsciously that she was safe now.
"I'm sure it's just nerves. It's the first day at a new school." Mickie didn't believe this for a second, but she was hoping to calm Alexa's spirit before the minuscule young woman's emotions got out of control.
It had been a season of change for Alexa, and her aunt, and her Uncle John, and their 3 children. They'd taken in Mickie's sister's daughter the previous spring, moving her from Ohio to Georgia. They'd stepped up after the girl had been released from inpatient psychological rehabilitation. She'd been too late to finish the school year at the local high school, but she'd made the cheer squad at prestigious Blue River High through a special tryout the team's coach arranged after seeing video of her prodigious talent. The special treatment hadn't endeared her to a segment of the "Raiderettes" team, but she'd been embraced by a few of them, too.
Her train of thought was viciously derailed by her aunt Mickie's soothing voice.
"Sweetie?" She called, hoping Alexa wasn't suffering a complete psychological break.
"Sorry," Alexa returned, an embarrassed smile parting her lips. "I'm just overwhelmed. It's been… a lot of change."
"I know, Lex," Mickie answered sympathetically. "I can't imagine how rough the last year has been on you. With," she paused, trying to tread lightly around the devastating recent past events of Alexa's life. "You coming here to live with us, and what happened with your parents." She stopped abruptly, feeling Alexa tense up and begin shaking in emotional distress.
"It's just been so hard." Alexa managed to groan out, desperately trying to maintain her composure. And it really had been. As far as the tiny girl's situation was concerned, it had not been a particularly good calendar year.
"And you are so strong for having come through all that. And," she continued, pulling Alexa close to her and planting a playful kiss on the top of her head, "your cousins look up to you. You're the strongest person they've ever met."
Alexa rolled her eyes and wiped away a tear.
"Yeah right. I've been a blubbering mess all summer."
"I'm serious," Mickie countered, squeezing the tiny girl tighter under her arm. "Brynn told me the other day she wanted to be tough, just like Lexi."
Alexa couldn't suppress a small laugh. "Well, if she could see me now…"
Mickie chuckled. "You're gonna do great things. Blue River High is an incredible place. I know some of the kids from Ryder's, and John works with them a lot. Also, don't forget that you're an insanely hot blonde cheerleader. You're gonna be super popular." She started rocking Alexa gently from side to side, feeling the shivering in Alexa's body beginning to calm. "I love you. You remind me so much of my sister, and she was a rock star. There's so much of her in you, and I know she'd be proud. She was proud," Mickie added, arm still around her niece. After another moment, Alexa steeled herself, exhaled deeply, gave her faithful canine friend a few scratches behind the ears, and scooted toward the edge of her bed.
"Thank you, Aunt Mickie," Alexa said softly. "I think I'm okay now. I just have a lot on my mind."
Mickie nodded. "I get it. How 'bout John gives you a ride on his way to work instead of you taking the bus? And then one of these weekends we'll go find you a good car? Something you can have so you're not depending on us to get from cheer practice back here." She grinned at her niece. "And you can go to all the parties and social events I just know everyone is going to invite you to."
Alexa rolled her eyes again. "Yeah right. Because I was such a party animal in Ohio."
Mickie stood from her perch on Alexa's mattress. "I'm telling you. It's different here. You're going to be popular. In fact, I worry that you might be a little TOO popular. Some of the boys here are-"
Alexa raised her hand to cut her aunt off. "You don't have to worry about that. I'm nowhere near being ready after what happened with Buddy."
Mickie tried not to betray the pant of sadness she felt when Alexa mentioned her former boyfriend from her old life. In every correspondence she'd had with her sister, Alexa's mom, Mickie read about how Alexa and Buddy were "the kind of young love that makes anyone around them pine for the days of their youth." Mickie had once written in response that if the two youthful lovebirds were demonstrative enough to make Monica write "like Lord Byron," they must've been pretty cute together. It genuinely made Mickie's heart ache to know that Alexa would never see him again.
"I know," Mickie returned. She tried to keep her speech patterns as even as possible, though she really wanted to remind Alexa that it had been almost a year since the incident, and that socializing with some of Blue River's cutest and most eligible boys might be exactly what the tiny cheerleader needed.
"When you're ready, though, Lexi. The boys in Georgia are a little different. The manners, the accents…" Mickie trailed off.
Alexa's face now morphed into an amused smirk.
"Sounds like you should date one, then."
Alexa turned toward her armoire. It was one of the few articles of furniture from her old house that survived, and she treasured it. Carefully, she began selecting clothes for that day, and setting aside a change into athletic wear for after school practice.
…
A few minutes after Mickie traipsed up the stairs from Alexa's basement bedroom into the kitchen area of the bustling Cena family home, Alexa trotted lightly up the same stairwell, her faithful puppy only a step behind her, hoping to grab a bit of breakfast before the fateful journey to her first day at a new high school.
Breakfast hadn't always been easy for Alexa. No meal had, in fact. She'd developed a debilitating eating disorder at thirteen, and it even became life-threatening at one point. Her parents, her brother, and Buddy had all worked very hard to help her overcome her bulimia. Even with the four of them constantly watching over and praying for Alexa, she'd still needed professional help to be able to eat again without feeling self-conscious or like she was surrendering control of her own body.
Mickie was well aware of Alexa's past struggles. She'd been filled in by Monica, Alexa's mom, as the situation developed some years back, and now she felt somewhat prepared to accommodate her niece's dietary needs. In particular, Alexa ate a lot of egg whites. A LOT. It was a food that would give Alexa much of what she needed nutritionally without upsetting her extremely fragile stomach. So Mickie, her compassion for Alexa shining through again and again, had a fresh egg white and honey on wheat bread sandwich waiting for the slight young woman. It was calories, protein, and carbs. Everything she needed without forcing her to take in more than she wanted. Monica had recalled to Mickie more than once what Alexa's counselor advised; forcing her to eat will only cause purging later.
That's why Mickie was embracing Alexa's dietary requests. The ultrafit tiny young blonde was as conscious of her body as Mickie was the life and well being of her children, and Mickie wasn't about to fight her on her preferences, given everything that'd happened in Ohio, so she just cooked what Alexa liked and smiled while she did it. "After all," Mickie reminded herself, "Alexa is family, she's been the least imposing houseguest ever, and she's very good at changing diapers, and taking care of the twins, so she deserves a few concessions when it comes to what she eats."
Breakfast time at the Cena household was almost always chaos. There was Brynlee, John and Mickie Cena's oldest child at ten years of age, and the twins, Ansleigh and Anson. All three were vocal about their hunger, and that noise was enough without the small TV camped on the linoleum kitchen counter. At the moment it was blaring the morning news, with the local Atlanta anchor going on about a triple murder in Northern Kentucky, or a traffic jam that would delay trips through the city for hours, or a school budget crisis in Tampa. There was no telling, And Alexa was only half listening as she sat down anyway.
Her breakfast was exactly how she liked it, which made the tiny high school junior smile. It would be the first of several smiles that day. In fact, Alexa would later conclude that she'd smiled more that day than she had since she'd moved from Ohio.
She sat contentedly, eating her simple meal with her young cousin and half-listened as Mickie and John ran through their normal morning banter, with him reminding her about Brynlee's softball practice and Mickie asking John if Alexa could bum a ride with him to school, since her assigned bus was currently steamrolling by the Cena home with no sign of stopping for the new student.
"Sure," John asserted, snapping Alexa out of her trance. "But it's not gonna help Alexa socially to be dropped off by a cop for her first day at a new school. They're gonna think she's a 'narc.'"
Mickie pondered this for a second, before shrugging. "There's that clump of trees out front of the student parking lot. Drop her off behind those. Nobody sees her, and she doesn't have to ride the…" the maternal brunette stopped for a moment, then looked at Brynlee. "Bryn, cover your ears for a second."
She waited for the precocious girl to make a big show of pressing her hands against the sides of her face. Mickie continued. "...shitty yellow bus."
Alexa giggled before quickly finishing her breakfast. At that moment, something that terrified the towheaded pixie sparked within her for the first time since she'd left her home state. A spark that maybe things were going to be better than she'd left them in her home state. A spark that allowed her to dream that regardless of the horrors she'd left behind her, that new hopes, friends, and opportunities awaited her at the other end of a short ride in a squad car. She quickly stood from the breakfast table, grabbed her trusty, well worn, and slightly charred backpack, and followed John out of the kitchen, stopping briefly to tightly embrace her aunt Mickie, and trotted down the outside steps and into the passenger's seat of squad car number "three eight seven five."
…
"Can you turn that up please? I love this song." Bayley Martinez's attention was divided, but there was nothing on earth that could've completely taken her away from THIRD EYE BLIND's "Semi-Charmed Kinda Life."
Dean Ambrose shook his head, but obliged, reaching toward his console and turning the appropriate knob.
It was a common routine, carried over from the year before. Dean would wake up before the crack of dawn at his mom's house, avoid whatever random dude or, even worse, significant other was shacking up at the residence that particular evening, and get ready for school. Then he'd hop in his SUV and drive, often at least twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, to pick up his stepsister from his father's house. This part wasn't necessary, but Bayley was the one member of his dad's new family that Dean actually wanted to be around. His stepmom seemed nice enough, and Bayley's older sisters were...fun, but Dean deeply resented the lot of them for causing his dad to take off on his mom, and so his interaction with the new Ambrose clan was limited to the smiley hugger.
From their vantage point, Dean could survey the entire front profile of Blue River High School. He especially enjoyed the banner across the school's front entrance that read, in big, black letters; "Welcome back Senior class of 1999 and all students." Dean shook his head and scoffed. "They don't give a shit if we feel welcomed or not."
He, Bayley, and Brock Lesnar, her tutoring subject and the third occupant of Dean's Explorer, had been on school property since around six AM. Because of his various other school commitments, Dean had to take weight training at that time of day if he wanted to play football, and so he was there. Himself, Bayley, and a handful of teammates.
"Brock, could you get your feet off the seat, please?"
Lesnar grunted his half-hearted agreement, but moved his massive boots to the floor of the vehicle. From the seat next to Dean, Bayley was giving the heavily muscled teen last minute instructions for his algebra exam.
"...remember, Brock, the key is 'x.' X is the quarterback. You have to get him alone before you can take him down. Got it?"
The oafish boy nodded, taking another healthy bite of his chicken biscuit.
"Got it," Lesnar returned in the affirmative through a mouthful of breakfast.
Bayley visually scanned over a sheet of printed notes.
"Ok, Brock. I think you're ready." She turned back toward him, forcing him to make eye contact with her.
"Remember, you have to pass this summer final before you can move up. If you don't, say 'bye' to football. They're already making an exception letting you take your final after the summer has ended."
Brock shook his head wryly. "I know. English makes sense to me. History? Shit already happened. When the shit am I ever gonna need to know what x equals?"
Bayley pondered this a moment. "So you've gotta buy five hundred feet of two by fours to repair your barn because Dean burned part of it down again."
Deans head jerked toward the other two occupants of the vehicle.
"Why you bringing that up? It was a total accident."
Brock shook his head, glaring at Ambrose.
"You're lucky my dad believed that bullshit cover story about someone tripping over a gas can while they were smoking. Otherwise they'd be dedicating this season to the memory of our dear departed starting linebacker."
Dean threw his arms up at his sides and shook his own head animatedly. "Who the fuck keeps gasoline in a hay barn? That's an insurance fraud lawsuit waiting to happen."
Brock couldn't suppress a chuckle. One of the main reasons he hung out with Dean was because of how funny the larger boy found Ambrose. Brock quickly fell silent, however, as he felt Bayley glaring back at him.
"Can we get back to this problem please?" She asked, the annoyed sound of her voice causing mild grief in Dean's soul.
"Sorry, Bay," Dean muttered quietly. Brock also halfheartedly gestured and grunted something resembling an apology.
Bayley grinned. "Thank you." She pointed back to the equation before. "So, what if you need to buy wood to rebuild the missing part of your barn? And Home Depot only sells twelve foot planks of two by four wood for eight dollars each. If the amount of wood you need is divisible by twelve, you'll know exactly how much you need, right?"
Brock nodded, following the logic of his tutor.
"But what if you need to figure length times height for how much wood you need? And THEN figure out how many planks you need? Then you're solving variables. That's all algebra."
Brock scoffed and reached into the white paper to go bag next to Dean, pulling out another biscuit. He unwrapped the delicacy from its foil and took a giant bite.
"Dammit, Lesnar, that was for Roman," Dean protested.
"Fuck him," Lesnar immediately countered, mouth still of chicken biscuit. "He should get off his girlfriend for five seconds and get over here if he wants breakfast."
Ambrose and Bayley both chuckled. Brock wasn't wrong. Their friend, Roman Reigns, had been conspicuous by his absence since he'd begun dating Natalya Neidhart. She was a senior, a year older than Dean, Roman, and Bayley, and she'd monopolized his time since walking up to Roman last spring and more or less told him that he was taking her to her Junior Prom. She knew what she wanted, she went for it, and Roman was undeniably caught in her web. As a matter of fact, Roman and Natalya, or "Nattie," were currently just three parking spaces over from Dean's SUV, engaging in what Dean liked to call their "Monday morning makeout." Roman's mom didn't like how serious Natalya wanted to be with her baby boy, and so she'd forbidden him from seeing the voluptuous blonde during the week. As it often did, the restriction did nothing but stoke Roman's desire to spend time with his forbidden infatuation, and Roman had spent every Monday morning since the beginning of his relationship with Nattie rolling around on her backseat, their lips constantly engaged and their hands continuously roaming.
Dean let Bayley's soothing voice guide his train of thought back to the present.
"...yeah. Brock, you got this. Your problem is eighty percent mental. You can do this. You're smart. You had twenty three sacks in fifteen games last year. That takes smarts. If you get lost, just take a deep breath. Remember, we talked about all of this. Yeah?"
Brock nodded. "I know. Thanks Bayley." The giant flat-topped young man began stuffing papers and his math book into his backpack. "You gonna DJ my party after the game Friday?"
Bayley grinned and nodded vociferously. "Yeah. Can the band play?"
Brock sighed and shook his head slowly, before levelling his gaze at Dean. "I dunno, Bayley. Can they?"
Dean laughed, though it was mostly to keep from crying. "Dude. That was one time. And Seth has worked all summer to get better. If you let Elohssa rock your barn party Friday, I guarantee everyone has a great time."
Now it was Brock Lesnar's turn to shake his head. "I can't fucking believe you named your band the word 'asshole' backwards."
Bayley giggled. "I don't like it either, but Dean got shitfaced over the summer after Sasha dumped him and came up with it. We all felt too bad for him to tell him how shitty that name is."
Dean shook his head and gave Bayley and Brock the middle finger. "That name is not stupid. That name kicks ass." He paused his rant momentarily to glare at Bayley. "And she didn't dump me. It was mutual."
Bayley scoffed incredulously. "So y'all mutually agreed that she should suck that quarterback from Central's dick in the back row of the movie theatre?"
"Yeah, what was that kid's name?" Lesnar asked, pretending he didn't know.
"Adam Page," Dean muttered to himself. He wasn't actually all that sad to be rid of the girlfriend he'd put up with since second semester of Freshman year. He'd dated plenty over the summer, and actually had a really good time for most of the break with a girl from the next county over named Melina Perez. She, not Sasha, had swapped "v-cards" with the eager Ambrose during Blue River's Fourth of July celebration, but the two ended up calling their relationship off in mid August when it was clear that neither saw the relationship going further.
What bothered Ambrose, however, was the fact that Sasha cheated on him publicly. She'd made a fool of him and expected him to forgive her just because they'd had an argument the day before. She'd strode up to him, all smiles, and when he confronted her with the information he'd been given from a friend who'd seen Dean's supposed girlfriend enter an empty theatre with a rival suitor, she'd tried to laugh it off as a natural consequence of a "lover's quarrel." Dean saw the situation a bit differently,
"That's right! Adam Page," Brock crowed victoriously. "The very same Motherfucker we'll be seeing at this weeks game. Quarterbacking our opponents. I know you'll be extra anxious to whip his ass, Dean."
Ambrose nodded. He didn't really need any additional motivation to play hard. He loved football. But getting a measure of payback against that smirking, disease-ridden asswagon would make his efforts extra rewarding. He was playing all the scenarios out in his mind when he heard the back passenger door open.
"Thanks again, Bayley," Brock called quickly, sliding with a purpose out the open hatch. He briefly placed his massive hand on Dean's shoulder.
"Eat shit, Ambrose."
The smaller boy snickered in amusement.
"Only if you're mom's cooking, Lesnar." He stopped to make sure the vehicle's door was closed before adding "you big dumb motherfucker."
Bayley covered her mouth as she giggled. It still tickled her when her stepbrother cursed like that. Furthermore, Dean knew that, and so he often purposefully uttered phrases under his breath that would get a chuckle from her. Her train of thought course corrected, as it often did.
"Dean," she began, initiating a new line of communication, "why don't boys like me?"
"Boys love you, Bay," Dean responded, only half involved in the conversation.
"Nuh uh," the lovely latina countered, "I haven't been frenched since May."
Dean's face twisted into a mask of disgust. "Why do I need to know that?"
Bayley giggled, and was ready to respond, but both of the suv's occupants were distracted by a Blue River police car coming to a stop directly on the other side of the street of their vehicle.
Dean would always remember that first time he saw Alexa, because he would swear later that she just kind of elegantly unfolded from the passenger's seat of the black and white cruiser, and also because "6 Underground" by the SNEAKER PIMPS had just begun pulsing through the state of the art speakers adorning his Ford.
"Who the fuck is that?" Dean murmured, not caring that his stepsister could hear him. Bayley squinted slightly, unsure of who Dean was talking about. After a moment of pondering, her face lit up with recognition.
"That's Alexa! I met her over the summer at girl's open workouts. She just moved here."
Dean's face didn't change expression, but he peered over at his faux sibling, incredulous at her nonchalant nature. "You didn't think I'd want to know that a girl that looks like that-" he gestured wildly toward her as she walked toward the building, "is going to school here now? Holy shit."
The police roller gently coasted away, it's driver waiting to see that Alexa made it safely off the street and toward the school. Dean took another minute to fully process what he was seeing.
"She is…" He trailed off, trying to find the right word.
"Breathtaking?" Bayley cut in, as Dean nodded vociferously.
"You swinging both ways now, Bay?" Dean kidded.
"No!" Bayley shouted, offended by the assertion. "I'm just saying. From a purely objective standpoint, she's super hot." She watched, her smile growing, as Dean kept his eyes glued on the mysterious new blonde. "Dean has a crush!" She playfully punched her half brother on the shoulder. "You want me to talk to her for you? I heard she's in choir with us. I could get to know her there."
Deans first instinct was to refuse. Not because he didn't want Bayley to do exactly that, but because it was in his nature to deflect any outward appearance of attraction to a girl. Or, for that matter, any appearance that he might not believe that girl might not immediately be as into him as he was into her. The truth is, the incident with Sasha had deeply shaken his confidence. Where he once had a certain kind of dumb swagger, he now had a paper-thin bravado that hadn't yet been tested by Blue River High's complex and ruthless social scene.
"Uh, sure," he finally allowed, purposely slowing his train of thought down. "Just don't like...make it obvious."
Bayley giggled again, amused at the side of her stepbrother that so rarely showed itself.
"I'm serious," Ambrose continued. "Nothing obvious. Just something subtle, like 'that's my stepbrother Dean. As you can tell, he's ruggedly handsome. He enjoys candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach. He's also a gifted musician who feeds homeless dogs on weekends. I've also heard he has an enormous dong'..."
Bayley's laugh was more pronounced now. "You idiot," she finally choked out. "I'm not talking to her about the size of your...wang. That's weird."
Dean returned her bemused gaze with an incredulous one of his own. "It's not like we're related. I know you've seen the outline of my junk like a thousand times at dad's pool…"
He trailed off again as Bayley's laugh grew louder, before turning to groans of protest and mock revulsion. Deans unique repor with his youngest step sister was his favorite aspect of life at the moment, and her laugh soothed him, but he'd be lying if he claimed he didn't want her to follow through on her promise to get to know the mystery blonde who'd stride into the ordinarily mundane school and immediately set Dean's world upside down.
After another moment, the stepsiblings, brought together by a union neither asked for, gathered their belongings and reluctantly trudged into Blue River High School.