(A/N: this is based on the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre that came out in 1974,

with the Sawyers. It's kind of hard to get the story flowing because there were so few characters then, and so i reckon i'd just get some of the Hewitts to drop by. And i warn thee; it's a long chapter. For any questions, comments, suggestions, flames and/or violent reactions, kindly post them up as R&R thank you! :D)

Chpt. 3

Mommy, despite herself, begins screaming when Leatherface tries in vain to sit Girl onto a chair.

"Damn that girl's frozen so bad; look at 'er! Straight and hard like firewood!" Cook laughs at Leatherface's insistent attempts to sit Girl down, "Go on, boy! You can do it!"

Leatherface looks up at him, eyes bright from the encouragement, and he nods and tries harder, grunting as he pushes and pushes the frozen Girl onto the chair. His efforts were repaid when there was a loud sort of cracking sound as the frozen hips separated from the frozen back, bone and muscle and all.

Mommy screams Girl's name hysterically through her gag as Leatherface sighs contentedly, miming the wiping of sweat from his mask's brow. Cook compliments him for his efforts by laughing and clapping his hands.

"You brought the daddy, Bubba?"

Leatherface nods enthusiastically, holding up Daddy's head, jaw hanging open.

"Well howdy there mister!" Cook says.

"Hwny!" Leatherface squeaks through Daddy's head, moving his jaw. He makes a few more sounds that might have sounded like his version of human words while using Daddy as a puppet before Aunt Mae reprimands the two of them.

"Oh just quit it, both of you." she says, "You're making 'er all and upset."

True. Mommy is upset; she is bawling at the top of her lungs, struggling against her bonds. She pauses to breathe a bit but begins shrieking and crying when Leatherface put Daddy's head on the table right across her. Her sudden shriek and movements startles Leatherface and the head drops to the floor.

"Bubba you clumsy dingwat!" Cook snaps. "Put 'im up right an' proper! Now then, where's the girl?"

Leatherface gently places the head on the table, propping it up with a fork and knife after it had rolled off a few times (much to Mommy's distress) and brushing the head gently with his hands as if saying, stay there, don't move. He pretends to have ignored Cook's question and heads for his place at the table.

"Where's the damn girl?" Cook demands and Leatherface cowers a bit and anxiously twiddles his fingers together, eyes darting around the room. It is evident that he is thinking. Hard.

"Leatherface," Cook says silently, seriously and Leatherface, recognizing the hushed, deadly tone, keeps still, chewing at his lips nervously, "Where's the girl?"

Leatherface cocks his head, looks around and points at Girl repeatedly as if saying, There's the girl, there's the girl.

"No, dammit! The other one!"

Leatherface takes a few steps backward and shrugs and makes gestures with his hands and communicates to Cook using his own mumblings. What other girl? He seems to imply. There's no other girl. That's the girl. He points at Girl again, hoping to convince Cook that Girl was the only...

"Don't you dare wind me up, boy!" Cook stands up and produces a big wooden spoon from somewhere in the drawers and begins to wave it threateningly at Leatherface, who cowers to a corner and tries reasoning out. Nuh-uh, nuh-uh he seems to say. No more girl, no more girl.

Cook's face twitches and he walks closer, "Why you little--" he pauses and looks past Leatherface. "Why lookie here!"

Everybody looks. There is a small girl by the basement door, on her hands and knees, rags on her head. She had crawled up from down below, probably curious about the racket.

"And you were tryin' ter fool me, boy?" Cook whacks Leatherface soundly with the spoon and Nails giggles as Leatherface howls and tries to protect himself with his arms.

"Dreyton!" Aunt Mae says and Cook saunters off, now cheerful, to the table.

"Why don't you go put her in a chair, darlin'?" Aunt Mae says to Leatherface who had been trying to hide Nails by trying to push her back into the basement with his foot. "So we can start with your brother's chili. These people must be hungry."

Leatherface nods and whimpers as he ties Nails to a chair. Nails looks around and sees Mommy and Boy and Girl all strapped to their chairs and figures that tying visitors up in chairs is what these people do during dinnertime. She sees Daddy's head and wonders why he's sitting so low with the utensils on his face...

Cook ladles out the chili after Auntie Mae has said grace; Boy, who had been too tired to scream earlier, screams again, upon realizing that the hot meal had once partly been his brother. Mommy keeps on crying and this confuses Nails a bit. Mommy was always crying during dinner, but only when Daddy was screaming...But Daddy's behaved this time.

"Dreyton, aren't you gonna bring down Grandpa?"

"Grampa? Oh he's had dinner early," Cook says, "Got woke up when these here people got here and I reckoned he got hungry and we've fed him already. And besides," he adds, wiping the sides of his mouth with the back of his hands, "the chili gets him wrong in the gut."

Aunt Mae nods and returns her attention to her meal. Mommy stops crying and screams audible words: "You're crazy! Why are you doing this? Why?!" She must have had come off as so pathetic that Dreyton laughs and Leatherface imitates her.

"Fuck you!" Boy shrieks through his gag, "Fuck you! You're all nutters, you!"

"Quit provokin's them Dreyton; tha's why they get so damn crazy," Aunt Mae says, and then to Leatherface, "Darlin', look at the poor thing." She motions towards Nails who had been trying unsuccessfully to reach for her spoon and had begun groaning in frustration. "Reckon you can't untie her, can you Dreyton?"

"Nah, she mighta' run off. Bubba, help the little runt out."

Leatherface looks up anxiously, now faced with the task of feeding the new visitor. He goes over, and puts a spoonful of chili up to Nails' mouth. He pushes the spoon in before Nails is ready and the chili dribbles down her chin and front. Nails protests as the hot variand comes in contact with her skin.

"Not that way, darlin'." Aunt Mae up and goes to sit next to Nails, wipes her face up with a napkin and proceeds in feeding her. "You gotta do it like this here, make sure nothin' falls out." Leatherface nods, watching closely, replacing Aunt Mae when he had gotten the feel of it. It was like a new learning experience and he carefully follows the instructions like a good boy.

Nails follows this procedure but wants to do it on her own; soon Cook allows to have her untied so she may feed herself.

"Say," Aunt Mae notes towards the end of the meal, "Look at them young 'uns. They don't look none like their momma."

"Well, not all things that pop outta the same place go look 'sactly alike, Aunt Mae." Cooks says. "Lookit; me an' Bubba. We dun' look none alike."

"Chop-Top an' Hitchie look alike."

"They're twins, Aunt Mae."

Boy screams at Nails' direction, probably instructing her to hop off her chair and untie him. Nails, who hates being screamed at by Boy, sticks out her tongue at him.

Cook and Leatherface find this funny.

"They dun' go along well too." Cook laughs.

"But I'm tellin' you; I've told you before, Dreyton," Aunt Mae insists, looking closely from each of the children to either Mommy or Daddy's head, "They dun' look nothing like their momma or their pop. 'Specially this 'un." She nods at Nails who is busy with the chili.

"I dunno Aunt Mae." Cook says, watching as Leatherface reaches out to pat Nails on the head, and after receiving negative reaction, goes and pats her again.

Aunt Mae notices the animosity in Cook's eyes as he watches Leatherface cheerfully patting Nails, and notes the interest Leatherface has for the little girl. Leatherface, she knew, has never even been so far as tolerated by people outside of the family. But seeing him tonight with the scrawny little girl was such a touching sight that for the first time she wishes that Cook would not consider her for the pot.

"She's too skinny." She says, beginning to clear up the table. "I figure she 'aint no good fer the choppin' board. All bones and skin, I reckon."

Cook glances at Nails, who had begun yawning. "Yer 'right Aunt Mae. Probably need fattening up, eh?"

"Naw; I figure Bubba can keep her."

Cook looks aghast. Leatherface, upon hearing this, abandons his dishwashing duties to join in, soapy hands clasped together, eyes bright, looking hopefully from Aunt Mae to Cook.

"He can't keep her!" Cook says and Leatherface moves closer to Aunt Mae like a puppy, almost pleading with her to convince Cook to please, please, please let him keep the little girl.

"Don't be a party pooper, Dreyton," Aunt Mae sniffs, gently caressing Leatherface's arm affectionately, "Besides, he needs the company 'round the house when you're not here. Hitchie's up and left us. Bubba needs a new friend; he can't go on all hyped up an' weird when nobody's in the house. Look at when he wrecked the door, Dreyton! The boy's in over his head!"

Nails watches as the two adults argue. She knows nothing of the nature of the argument, or of its importance in deciding her fate; its outcome would seal it. She looks around at the others; Girl was beginning to thaw, Boy still screaming, Daddy's still sitting low and Mommy had passed out. Their fates were already sealed. But what of Nails?

Unaware of such trivial matters, Nails curls up in the chair and falls immediately asleep.