CHAPTER ONE: ROTTEN TREE

"Hey, hey! A shot of rum and you're already hanging over the bar at happy hour? Who are you and what did ya do with Two Hand?"

Revy grumbled at Eda's obnoxious jest. The gunslinger lifted her head, bloodshot eyes attempting to focus on the blonde nun in sorority slut attire.

"Don't fuckin' tell me you've been poppin' yaba like candy again," Eda drawled, draping an arm over Revy's shoulders while her other hand dangled a glass of whiskey from her fingertips. "Didn't you pay attention in school? Drugs are bad for you. You're getting just as bad as that maid." With a laugh, Eda took a sip of her drink.

Behind the bar, Bao's brown eyes looked down lazily, transfixed on the glass he was polishing. He silently hoped banter between the gun women was all he had to deal with tonight. The wet heat, miserable as it was, served as a tempering mechanism. Not a single gunfight broke out in his bar within a week since the heat wave struck. The humidity sapped any motivation the would-be ne'er do wells had to brawl, and the Vietnamese bartender made note to hold off on fixing his air conditioner for perhaps two weeks longer. The incentive mattered.

"Don't fuckin' compare me to glasses bitch." Revy gripped her own empty glass to the point Eda swore she saw a crack forming. With a sudden inhale, a drop of Bao's sweat fell onto the dirty shot glass in his hand; it wasn't caused by the heat. "Hate her type. Seekin' redemption in a black hole, blowing up the fuckin' city for a vendetta no one gives two shits about."

"What are you bitching about?" Eda took her hand off of Revy and spread her arms wide. "Thought you were used to people bringing bad blood to this part of the woods. C'mon, Revy, we're the wretched hive. If newcomers didn't come to shake things up every once in a while, Roanapur would just be a tin crab shack on a mound of sand."

"There's a difference between shaking things up and going apeshit," Revy droned with a curled lip. Eda shrugged.

"You really have been taking too much yaba," Eda observed. "Two Hand having a jab at reason, it's not normal. Why don't you go back to talking about money and guns?"

"Fuck you." Revy placed her forehead on the bar and extended the finger that counted.

"There we go!" Eda said, seemingly satisfied. However, the blonde's smile was short-lived and she set her drink back onto the bar.

"You know, speaking of shaking things up..."

Revy looked back at the faux nun.

"I've been hearing something about a bitch in daisy dukes trolling around the city, asking about a cleaning woman with a chainsaw. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" The pink sunglasses Eda wore did nothing to hide the sudden darkness in her eyes.

Revy shrugged.

"Hell if I know. Why should I care?"

"Really?" Eda asked lowly. "I know you and that chainsaw woman don't have the best... relations. That old fiasco with the kids on the boat. But I know you well enough to know you're not the type to go talking about old business. So I like to think."

"Then what the fuck are you suggesting?" Revy raised her head and sat up straight, eyes straining with a scowl.

"Just sayin', out of common courtesy-"

Revy snorted. Eda's face remained unreadable.

"The fact is: there's word out that a bitch in denim shorts and boots with guns is running around thinking to cause trouble. There's a score to settle and whether you're involved or not isn't the issue. There's something going on that's making you look like you have something to do with the drama."

"Doesn't concern me," Revy said. "I don't know anything. And why're you acting like it's some hot gossip if it sounds like I'm finishing up old business. I'm Revy Two Hand, no one gives a shit if I'm waving 'round a gun. You're being fuckin' paranoid, and if this is about Spooky Chick, I can tell you that I sure as hell have nothing to do with it."

She swung around on the bar stool and stood to her feet with a light sway. The long breath Bao had been containing since Revy cracked her shot glass was released.

Before making her way toward the doors of the Yellow Flag, Revy looked back at Eda one last time.

"Really. Don't know. Don't care. Sayonara."

-0 – 0 – 0 -

The light flickered above, the bulb centered in a black, cone-shaped lamp attached to slim black cord, dangling from a crusty ceiling. The tiny room was an awful tint of yellowish-green, the wallpaper, or what little was left of it, crumpled and showed signs of black mold. Pushed against one of the walls were three large, black filing cabinets. In the center, a rickety table. At the table, a small woman with pale skin and dark blue eyes, gathering up a sizable pile of papers and sorting through the organized mess of words and numbers.

Body disposal at UG Pork wasn't all blood and gore. It was a legitimate meat packing business, after all. There was always a considerable amount of paperwork that had to be done.

Sawyer "the Cleaner" attempted to scratch at the jagged scar about her neck, only for a sharp nail to bump into her electrolarynx collar. She weaved a finger underneath the leather strap and scratched as she curled her lip, tempted to say to hell with it all and cram the paper work into a not-so-faraway crematory. Her hand moved from her neck to her head and she proceeded to scratch the side of her scalp, spidery little fingers moving through a mass of black hair. Her mouth moved in a silent groan and she leaned back in her chair, a few pages falling haplessly to the cracked concrete floor as her arms hanged limply at her sides.

"Stupid..." droned the static monotone from the speaker mounted on her neck. She simply loathed office work. The pale woman absentmindedly wondered if she should have put out a classified ad for a paper pusher.

"Enough..." Sawyer stood from the table and the papers scattered about. She was tired of office work. It was time to clean up.

Hanging next to the door of her office was a set of cleaning gear: surgeon scrubs, goggles, apron and rubber gloves. With lackluster, she stripped her gothic attire and changed into her work clothes. She stretched her hands above her head in preparation, mentally readying herself for the task ahead. She didn't have any bodies to butcher, unfortunately, but the walls and tables of her "cleaning station" needed a secondary scrubbing and her additional saws needed to be cleaned, lest they rusted.

Lazily, she shut off the light in her office and closed the door behind her. As she walked down a creaking metal staircase, past archaic meat hooks dangling from the ceiling and into a dark hallway, she had the menial tasks mapped out in her head. Cleaning, back to paperwork, more cleanup, locking up. Perhaps there would be a rush call in the middle of the night and she'd have to drive the van to pick up the meat. It was nothing. It was normalcy. A work schedule. Just an everyday routine for Roanapur's friendliest cleaner.

-0 – 0 – 0 -

"OHMYGOD, PLEASE, YOU GOTTA HELP ME!"

It took a moment for Sawyer to register what was going on when she opened the door.

In the center of her abattoir, in her cleaning station, amidst wooden crates packed with dismembered bodies and blood-stained (ironically) stainless steel tables, stood a distraught young woman in her mid-late twenties. Her dirty blonde hair was piled atop her head in a scraggly fashion, her midriff bare and an endowed bosom straining against a hot pink tank top emblazoned with what could only be discerned as the state of Texas colored in with the its iconic flag design, with an "I" and a large red heart placed above the shape. A tight denim mini-skirt hugged her lightly tanned hips to the point it seemed it was going to rip off at any given moment. Her bra straps and thong, peeking unapologetically from her top and skirt, were black. She stood bow-legged in desperation, her red Converse sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor. Her long, magenta nails clasped sporadically at her face, baby blue eyes wide in panic and pink lips speaking in tongues, only a second later to be decoded as gibbering.

Sawyer silently cursed herself for leaving her chainsaw on the table, which was inconveniently behind the garish woman.

Sawyer wondered immediately how she got into her plant, and as if reading her mind, the dirty blonde spoke.

"The door was open, so I let myself in." The woman said it as though the sentence explained everything.

"... Do I... know you...?"

"Fred-Fred! I'll be damned! You sound just like Mama Sawyer!" the mystery woman chirped with a Southern drawl. She smiled for a brief moment. "Had a bad run-in with a boyfriend or somethin'? I get it. Shit happens. Hahaha!"

Sawyer sneered behind the mask of her surgeon scrubs. The laughter hit her like a truck. She knew that obnoxious sound anywhere.

"Jenny..."

"Bingo!" the dirty blonde said with a snap. "Betch'a didn't recognize me without the pigtails and prairie dress, huh? Guess ya wouldn't what with you runnin' away 'n' all. We never did see each other much after Uncle Tech made that hammer gizmo for me and our guests went all loony with the shotgun 'n' stuff."

Sawyer still eyed her chainsaw; it was beckoning behind Jenny.

"You got lucky, y'know," Jenny pointed out. "We were all at the house party while you were hangin' out in the trailer with Aunt Luda Mae and Aunt Kathy 'n' her kids. Ya'll got to avoid that mess with the cops afterwards."

"I thought... You were stuck... in juvie..." Sawyer said. "Heard they... took you for a ride... in the car..."

"And a few others in the family, but y'know how we are," Jenny shrugged, as if it were a well-known secret between the two. "It wasn't that bad. Sent me to a mental facility and then I got released to some relatives near Waco. Figure that. Ah ha!" Jenny snorted.

"Uh huh..." Sawyer began to creep along the side of wall.

"They was alright, I guess, even with Uncle W.'s crossdressing thing," Jenny said, chewing on her lip. "Though Uncle Vilmer and Aunt Darla were kinda weird with their conspiracy talk 'n' stuff. Somethin' wasn't right with 'em. After livin' with 'em for a couple years, I could kinda see why the rest of the family disowned 'em. Soon as I hit sixteen, I got outta there. Just in time, too. Heard Uncle Vilmer got in an accident with an airplane or somethin'. Slit his neck open with a propeller! Can you imagine?"

Sawyer only nodded and continued to inch along the wall. Jenny always did like to hear herself talk.

"Heard you and the family back at the ol' house got a run-in with some Chinese bitch. Nasty business. Sorry to hear 'bout your daddy, Fred."

Jenny didn't sound sorry.

Sawyer's hand twitched. Her solid, dark blue eyes were strained. Only a few more steps to the chainsaw.

"So, I'm guessin' you're wonderin' why I'm here, right?" Jenny said, putting her hands on her hips. "Why is long-lost cousin Jenny all the way here in some stinky crab shack in Thailand to talk to Fred-Fred? Well, I'll tell you."

One step. Two steps. Sawyer only listened half-heartedly, making her way around a wooden box pressed against the wall. Her foot slipped and she almost lost her balance on the blood leaking out of the bottom.

"Careful there," Jenny said unhelpfully.

Sawyer was almost at the table now and her precious weapon was within reach. One more body to clean. It was nothing. Just a routine.

"Now, what was I sayin'?" Jenny looked to the ceiling and absentmindedly swiped Sawyer's chainsaw off the table.

The small cleaner's spirit broke a little. Two black gloves formed fists at her side.

"Oh, such a lovely piece of work," Jenny appraised, holding the saw up. Light gleamed off the guide bar. "What was I sayin'? Oh, right. Why I'm here. Y'see, there's this bitch with a shotgun. Real crazy bitch. You remember that time when Uncle Chop Top and your daddy got those guests from the radio station? You know, at the amusement park where some of the clan sorta got blown up? Not that it was a big deal or nothin'. We always spring back from stuff like that and-"

"Get... to... the point..."

"Lord, you're impatient," Jenny snarled. "Anyway, one of the guests, the DJ with the daisy dukes that stole Great-Grandma's chainsaw and knocked ol' Uncle Chop Top off the paper mache Matterhorn. Her name, I can't remember it real well." Jenny scratched her head.

"Verdita... Vernita... Vanita "Stretch" somethin' or other. I don't really care; it don't matter. Now, see, she disappeared for a couple years. Just some nut we forgot about. Well, I find out while the family was havin' a nice dinner with a lovely couple from California some time back, this bitch goes stormin' in with guns blazin' all over the damn place and the house is shot up to kingdom come. Killed everyone in sight except for cousin Gunny, on a counta he was probably runnin' away and pissin' his pants. He didn't add that part in when he track me down and tell me, but I know it from the look in his lazy eye."

Sawyer started at that statement and lost herself.

"Gunny... ran away..?. But... he told me..." Sawyer quickly shut up.

Not quickly enough.

"What?" Jenny asked. "Told ya what? Did he visit you too or somethin'?"

"... A while ago..." That was all Sawyer said. No need to divulge in details about Hell Gardens and boat rides.

"Oh, let me guess," Jenny said with a curled lip and a sway of her hips. "He tried to come off all badass 'n' shit and told you he killed off the whole family, the traitor. I could smell it on him. Damn it, Fred-Fred, ever since that crap with your momma, you been scared stiff of him and he got off on it. Where is he? Runnin' around this shit heap and jumpin' out like the big bad boogy man to make you piss yourself while he gets his nuts off?"

"Vulgar bitch..." Sawyer snapped. "He died... drowned... that's all." No more details.

"Just as well," Jenny said carelessly and closed her eyes, the chainsaw hanging limply from her fingertips as she shrugged. "As Uncle Hoyt used to say, we don't need him contaminatin' the world. He was a dumbass anyway. Gross, too. Can you believe he tried to hit on me while I was at work? We ain't even kissin' cousins. Then he got all pissy when I said 'No' and stormed out. What a fuckin' loser."

"Well... you know how he got... around Roadhouse girls..." Sawyer said with a smirk underneath her mask.

"Fred-Fred, you best shut the fuck up before I rip off that voice thingy 'roud your neck," Jenny threatened. "I wasn't no damn hooker. I will have you know I had a very respectable position as the assistant manager at a Wuttaburger in Waco."

"I envy you," Sawyer said. The static monotone emphasized her sarcasm.

"Shut up," Jenny said, pointing the end of Sawyer's chainsaw at her. "I loved that job. I got free apple fritters. But anyway, back to the story. While I'm in the middle of dealin' with an unsavory customer, this crazy fuckin' bitch busts into the restaurant in broad fuckin' daylight and starts asking for me by name! Being a creature of survival, as we Sawyers are known to be, I gathered myself and ran out the back as she shot up the place. It was all over the news at the time. Cops never got her, though. That bitch is slick."

"And you... are here... because...?" Sawyer was silently contemplating on a strategy to get her chainsaw back. It wasn't that she didn't trust Jenny. Surely, her cousin was too weak to pull the ripcord effectively. She just didn't want the dirty blonde to contaminate her precious "pet" with her germs. Lord knew where Jenny's hands had been...

"Okay, so maybe your Roadhouse comment wasn't totally uncalled for," Jenny confessed. "I couldn't go back to my job, so I had to fall back into the bad places. You know the ones. Well, one night I was in bed with this stud-muffin with a bloodhound tattoo on his shoulder and he tells me about this place, a kind of place where'd I get good business. He had connections, see. Somewhere in underground Vegas, there was a murder resort, some sort of hostel business."

Sawyer's blood ran cold at the words. Jenny didn't seem to notice.

"If I could lead some healthy young individuals to this 'resort' and put them in a state of false security, well, I would get a rather good paycheck. Heck, you know our background, Fred. Leading some lambs to the slaughter would be just like scopin' out guests for us back home. So, I'm just a damn fine natural when I start workin' at the hostel. Somethin' 'bout a country girl on vacation that gets the guys all nice-nice."

Sawyer didn't like this story at all. It hit too close to home.

"Well, I work there for a couple of months and every now and again, I'd talk to the cleaners. Then, one day I hear about this legendary butcher in Thailand, a creepy little ghost woman with a chainsaw. Got a nice lil' feelin' in my gut it was cousin Freddy."

"...Blind luck... that was all..."

"No, no, had to be you. I got quite a bit of info to prove it," Jenny teased. "Betcha don't know it, but you got quite a lil' followin' goin' on in the hostel business. Most of the stories are pretty gruesome, but the ways a couple of 'em talk 'bout you... you gotta fucked up little fanbase, Fred-Fred."

"Enough," Sawyer said. "Why... are... you here?"

"Ah! Well, y'see, when I was getting' all comfortable with some Swedish tourists in a hot tub, guess who comes in to ruin the mood? Yup! Shotgun bitch with her daisy dukes. She's got this crazy fuckin' look in her eye and I'm runnin' 'round in nothin' but my birthday suit while those tourists are reduced to red soup. Then she got slowed down by some big guys in leather jackets and that was the last I see of her. Yet..." Jenny paused. She gulped loudly and a droplet of sweat broke out onto her brow. "Fred-Fred, I was lucky to get outta there alive, but while I was running away she was saying she was gonna get me like she did the rest of the family. She wasn't gonna stop until every Sawyer is dead, and people who say things like that don't die easy."

"Uh... huh... and what... do you want... me... to do about it?"

"Were you dropped on your head or somethin'?" Jenny scolded, slamming the chainsaw back down on the table. Sawyer took note of this as Jenny took a step toward her. "Didn't you hear me the first time? I need your help. I tracked you down because I can't take that crazy bitch down all by myself. I know we were never on the best terms with each other, but we gotta forget all that nonsense. We need each other right now, Fred."

"Why don't you... ask... some other members?"

"Because all the family members that coulda helped are either dead, in prison, or in a mental facility," Jenny stated matter-in-factly. Jenny placed her hands atop Sawyer's shoulders. "You are the only one who can help. The fate of the Sawyer family rests with us!"

Jenny lifted her hands off of Sawyer, and the small ghost-like woman took off her goggles and facemask. She stared deeply, contemplatively into Jenny's eyes, then turned her attention to the chainsaw on the table. Sawyer drifted to her weapon and gently picked it up, looking at her reflection in the guide bar.

The fate of the Sawyer family, huh?

Slowly, with her chainsaw in hand, Frederica Sawyer turned around and took a deep breath. Jenny clasped her hands together in anticipation and smiled brightly, nodding hopefully.

"Not helping."

Jenny's face dropped.

"What?"

"I said... I'm not... helping you."

"Fred, what-?"

"I'm not... helping you," Sawyer repeated. She walked past Jenny with the chainsaw in hand, her head hanging low.

"Bullshit, you ain't helpin' me!" Jenny barked. "Don't you be givin' me the same crap you were back on the homestead, Fred. You may act like you're some fuckin' house cat that can live on her own while she licks her own ass, but that ain't you. You're a Sawyer, Fred. We're pack animals. We need our own beside us. There ain't no other way we can live. We die out quick if we scatter."

Sawyer gave her a blank stare.

"Fred-Fred," Jenny hissed pleadingly. She placed her hand on the engine block of Sawyer's weapon. "The saw is family. It is in our name. It is in our blood. You cannot turn on the clan now. We need each other."

"No... You need... me, and I... will have nothing... to do... with your problems..."

"Fred-Fred," Jenny said through clenched teeth. "You selfish bitch. You're turnin' your back on family."

"I have... no family," she said. "Fred-Fred ran away... a long time ago... It's just... Sawyer... now."

"You claim you got no family, and yet you're still using the name? Sounds pretty fuckin' dirty, Fred," Jenny spat.

"The name just... has a … nice ring to it," Sawyer admitted with a grim smile. "That's all... I have... to say." The cleaner placed her hand on the knob.

"Fred, think about what you're sayin'," Jenny said now in desperation, eyes flickering in a silent plea. "You're gonna regret this!"

Sawyer ignored her and opened the door. Her cold, apathetic, half-lidded eyes grew as she found herself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

Vanita Stretch grinned.


A/N: How ever will Sawyer get out of this one? Why, magic and friendship, of course. And ponies. Lots of ponies.

Doc Gonzo brought to my attention that in the third film's commentary, Vanita "Stretch" Brock decided to make it her mission in life to hunt down the Sawyers after the events in the second movie. Well, damn, there's a mighty fine story right there.

Cousin Jenny – Name derived from the actress, Jennifer Banko, who played the little girl in the third TCM movie. "Crush that nice man's head with a hammer, sweetie!" Yeah, that kid.

Cheers.