Jogger/Machete 3:forks and daggers
I'll not be wasting any time with intro's this week. Straight into the story we go. . . . enjoy
jogger/machete cont.
Butters stumbled over his jaw, which is now resting firmly on the floor after what that girl had just said. “What the fuck…?” He says, this being perhaps the most bizarre thing he has ever seen in his brief 18 years. When the girl has access to all her senses, her vision must be the thing that controlled the desire to kill, and... Eat people. With that sense taken away, smell is now the most powerful. The really, really fucked up part is: she spoke. How the hell did she do that?
“Bbbbbbaaaad word. That’s a bad word!” she said. Some of her more cognitive functions must be returning. The girl walks into the bathroom and sniffs again, “Have you seen my mommy?” she asks.
“So what do you do now Butters?” he thinks to himself. This was absolutely not what he had expected. Sure, being blinded would have impaired the girls hunting instinct, but what the hell is up with this? Butters is definitely not about to start having a conversation with a corpse.
“Umm. I know where your mother is, yes. Do you want to see her? “Butters asked tentatively. He feels like a fool, of course the girl wants to see her mother, but then she can’t really SEE her mother ever again. Not if her mother wants to continue living without chunks missing. Not if Amy wants her mother too continue living. “Amy, do you know where you are right now? Do you know what’s happened to you?” Butters continued to ask. “I’m sure your mother wants to see you, but can I trust you around her?”
“Of course, Silly Boy” Amy says, a slight sense of what seems like sarcasm lingers behind her words. “Mommy will be safe, I already have food. I just want to see my mommy. Then she needs to leave.” Amy says.
“Umm… What?” Butters says
But Amy’s done listening; she’s already heading down the hall towards an extremely pink door. Butters follows at a short distance behind the little girl, not entirely sure what the girls doing. As he approaches the door the first thing he is struck by is the irony acrid smell of blood and stomach bile. At the door to the fairy princesses’ room the small bloody footprints now have a reason for being. The girls been standing in pooled blood, which appears to belong to what’s left of the babysitter…
Amy was bent over the body of a teenage girl, pulling chunks of soft flesh and intestine from the corpse. The large intestine was mostly gone; Amy appeared to be moving on to the small. The girl was careful in a way, almost . . . Dainty about how she removed the intestine wrapping each bit within a piece of outer stomach muscle and skin and then dipping it into the area of the stomach cavity. This practice while quite fascinating also nearly made butters vomit. He managed to hold it back, and Amy finally noticed him standing there.
“Do you want some Rachel? She’s really good, I ate most of this part,” Amy points at the large intestine, “but I’m sure there’s something here you may like.”
“No. That’s ok Amy, I’m not the same as you, remember? I don’t eat Rachel’s. What would your mother say if she saw you eating your….?”
“Babysitter...”Amy says, “I didn’t like Rachel, so it’s okay to eat her. Mommy wouldn’t let me…you’re not gonna tell, are you?
“No, I won’t but we need to go get your mom and talk to her now. Can I wipe some of the blood off your face first Amy? You wouldn’t want to scare your mommy, would you?’
Amy agrees, so Butters takes the fancy towel from earlier and wipes most of the blood from Amy’s face and hands. He notices just how strange the girl’s skin feels. It’s as if the girl is running a fever of sorts: her skin is clammy and moist but….there’s an intense underlying heat that seems unbearable when Butters touches the girl, but radiates nothing noticeable like a fever would, very strange... He looks Amy over and decides the girl is about as good as she going to get. For a moment he feels bad about the machete he put in the girls chest. The wound still trickles blood slowly, but it appears to be scabbing over. Butters takes the girls hand and walks over to the door to backyard…..
From the tree house she can see the back of the house. The mother wonders just what is going on in there. Without the lights on, she’s only seen the occasional flash of movement, then nothing. Getting young Jacob up the rope ladder to his tree house was not easy, but given the circumstances… She would have fought her way through hordes of these “things” to get up that ladder. Now, Jacob is lying on a sleeping bag in the corner. She cleaned his face off the best she could with a shirt she had scolded him leaving in the tree house that very day. She feels horrible for doing that now. In fact, she feels terrible for being the bitch she has been to her son for the last few months. Ever since he turned ten, she’s noticed her boy becoming more like his father every day. It’s not fair of her to punish the boy for taking after his father even if Jacob hasn’t seen the man in three years. So now bruised, battered, and very scared, Jacob sleeps
“His father was like that. That man could sleep through anything,” the mother thinks to herself while she looks at her son. She smiles briefly; perhaps it’s the trivial things about the man that’s no longer in her life that she truly does appreciate now. His lack of concern, even when things look bleak. His faith in all things being pre-determined. His….
She hears the backdoor open.
The teenager stands in the doorway, holding Amy’s hand. However he did it….the guy did it. Her daughter, her Amy…she’s back. Wait, why does she have a towel wrapped around her eyes? Butters and Amy slowly walk over to the tree house and stand underneath it
“Ma’am, do you think you could come back inside the house? I don’t think your son wants to see his sister right now, but she wants to see you.” Butters said. He stood under the tree, still holding Amy’s hand. The girl seemed docile, albeit a bit strange. She appeared to be looking around trying to get her bearings as to where she was in the yard in relation to the tree. The mother agrees and climbs down the rope ladder. When she reaches the bottom Amy takes her hand and the three of them walk back into the house.
Amy stops her mother and butters in the kitchen. Her mother kneels down, takes her daughter by both her hands and says “Amy, honey, are you alright? You scared me so badly earlier. I…I just don’t know what happened to you. What you did to Jacob… Honey, I’m so scared… How? How are you standing here now when you were…like those things out there?
“I dunno mommy” Amy said, “I remember sitting on the couch with Jacob and Rachel. I was eating cookies and watching a movie. Then my tummy started to hurt. Then my eyes started to hurt…then mommy….my brain got. . fuzzy. After that, I just remember standing in your room; I didn’t know where you were. I could smell your perfume though. So I looked in the bathroom. Then he said a bad word…bad word! “Amy pointed a finger at Butters, he shrugged.
“Amy , we’re going to find a way to fix this honey don’t you worry, I’m sure there’s doctors looking for a cure right now, I’m sure the city has people looking for us right now I’m sure nice policemen like Mr. Chapman are out looking for us right now. You remember Mr. Chapman right Amy? He’s that nice police officer who talked at your school?”
“He’s not coming mommy, nobody is. This is just how things are now.”
“Wha…what do you mean Amy, no that can’t be. Somebody has to, somebody has to stop this …you’ll see Amy …Amy somebody will come and save us. Somebody will be able to fix you…”
“Mommy,” Amy says staring directly into her mother’s eyes. The towel wrapped around her eyes pulled tight, yet her mother knew and remembered what the girl’s eyes looked like before all this. Before this nightmare came through and ruined her world. “Mommy, nobody’s coming, they’re all too busy trying to save their own families and you can’t save me mommy. I don’t want to be saved you need to go mommy. You and Jacob need to go.”
“But Amy, I can’t leave you honey. Amy I thought I lost you, when I walked out the door a few minutes ago I thought I had seen you for the last time. Honey, I thought you were gone. I thought I would never hear your voice again… Amy I don’t want to lose you again. Amy you’re still human, you’re still…
“No mommy, I don’t think I’m normal anymore, I don’t know what’s happened mommy, but that’s why you need to leave me. I may not want to eat you anymore mommy, but that doesn’t mean those people outside don’t. . . I can hear them mommy. They’re looking for anybody like you, or Jacob. You need to go somewhere safe mommy. I can’t be around you guys. I don’t want to eat you now…but what about when I run out of food? What will I do then?? I’m not a human anymore mommy…. I’m not like you, I’m not your little girl anymore…
“DON’T you dare say that, Amy!! Don’t you say that! You’re always going be my baby Amy and I won’t leave you. Not gonna happen Amy.”
“You have to go mommy!! You have to!!! Think about Jacob! I don’t want to hurt him mommy!!!! Something in my head says I need to, something says Jacob looks tasty. Mommy you need to go…” And with that Amy turned her back on her mother.
The mother stood, tears now streamed down her face. She wanted to give her daughter a hug, a never-ending hug. Never let the girl go again. Never feel anything but her little girl safe in her arms. Always safe in her arms and nothing to fear, nothing to want. Simply safe. But she can see now, that dream is over. How could she leave her daughter behind though? How could she just abandon the girl to roam and feed like the rest of these things? But that’s what Amy is now. Not human, not like them anymore, something else entirely. Human and not at all human, a flawed species of its own making… “Amy, I... I guess we will go… I don’t want to Amy, but if you think it’s the only way, then I guess...
“Find out what happened mommy, and take the Silly Boy with you…he’s smart mommy. I bet he can figure it out. Now… hugs? Amy held her arms out in front of her gesturing to her mother. For a long moment, the mother’s dream came true. But only for a moment. Amy gave her mother a small peck on the cheek, this freaked her mother out at first, and given the situation Amy didn’t blame her mommy for it. And with that the two adults left the house…
Sitting in the tree house the mother stared out one of the two windows, the north window, looking in the house, watching for the briefest of glimpses at her daughter. She just couldn’t let her go. She could let her girl go the same way she did when she thought the girl was dead. How could anybody? How can you just walk away from someone you love knowing they still love you? Knowing, that they still exist, they still live and breathe, knowing Amy was a monster was a cold comfort. Comfort that at least the child didn’t know what she was….now …” my god this is going to tear me apart. “the mother thought. She looked over her should to the other window, facing south where Butters sat. The mother says “So. What now?”
“South,” Butters says, “We go south”
“Why south?” the mother asked
“Six hours south of here there’s a hermit in a veritable fortress; I owe him a punch in the nose.”
--------------------------End scene--------------------------------------------------------------
In the “my life as fiction” file, I found the inspiration for the end Amy and her mother came to. All of us have experienced loss in one way or another, be it through death, moving away from friends, a painful end to a relationship. Whatever the case may be. Perhaps the best way to explain the influence for this scene is to simply tell the story.
When I was around twenty, a girl moved up to Illinois from Florida. Being new to the area and not having many friends she naturally gravitated toward kindred spirits. I was amongst that group and we quickly became friends, at that time nothing more. Well a few years passed and here we are the best of friends, constantly telling ourselves its cool that we can simply be friends when we both know what the other one is thinking. Then it happened, my job decided it would be great for me to go work in Pittsburg. So yes, our relationship officially started the day I left. As I’m sure any of you who have experienced the joys of a long distance relationship can attest, difficult does not even begin to describe….
In the end, I left that job. Returned home and found a new job, returned to school and yada yada…those are not the important details, the important part is we were together, and for the most part very happy. Happy for around six years in fact, then one day somewhat out of the blue, it was over.
And by over, I mean over……….throughout all of that. All the things we overcame, all the things going against us. It simply ended. We split up and said our final goodbyes and that was it. We have not seen or spoken to one another since that day. And yes, I do mean zero contact…nothing in six years now. It truly brings a new meaning to my username. As far as she is concerned, and as far as I am for that matter, Todd is dead.
So that little nugget from my life was the inspiration today, the story of the hermit’s true origins. It’s simply the path I’ve chosen….next week, our tree house trio will choose a path of their own…………stay tuned
Todd out
