This is One of my favorite pieces I have written in a long time. It came out at the end of 2024, and i always comes back to it. I really hope you all enjoy. Features a selectively mute nonbinary reader and a male grim reaper. Has elements of 80's slashers, horror comedies, and some time travel romance mixed with western music.
-Momo
One
I can’t die, and that really sucks. It’s like having an itch you can’t scratch. It’s annoying beyond all reason. Sometimes it’s painful. Other times you can’t think. Being unable to die is like being bitten by a mosquito who grants wishes. Doesn’t matter how good it is, it’s still annoying.
I’m not sure when it started or why it’s even lasting. I’ve been shuffling along this mortal coil, hoping to find ways to end this torment. Perhaps at the end of the world it will only be the cockroaches, Cher, and me. But for now, it’s me and the rest of the world, rat race and all.
I remember that song my grandpa used to listen to. He’d play it over and over, annoying everyone in the house. Well, everyone except me. It was about a cowboy out herding cattle when he saw this band of riders who warned him about hell. I used to sit and listen to it with grandpa on loop, picturing the cowboy, the spectral riders, and what they meant by hell. I was fascinated by it, the imagery of the song and its lesson. I never truly understood what it meant. Even when my mom yelled at my dad in the hospital beyond grandpa’s bed how that ‘old moron is going to hell.’
While they fought, I hid under grandpa’s bed, humming that old song to comfort him and myself. It never occurred to me my parents didn’t know I was hiding, not until they got home anyways. So I was there as the nurses turned the light out and the world became this melodic quiet filled with breaths and beeping.
Outside, I heard the old church bells ring at midnight. I opened my eyes, staring out across the dimly lit room. I lifted my head, hearing something strange amongst the quiet drone of the hospital. It was footsteps, heavy ones. Along with them was a slight jingle.
Stomp! Clink.
Stomp! Clink
Stomp! Clink.
A red glow caught the corner of my eye. Standing in the doorway was a figure, tall, strong, and wearing black cowboy boots with spurs.
Stomp! Clink. Stomp! Clink.
The figure walked into the room, illuminating my grandpa’s hospital room with the red glow emanating from their body.
“Let’s see here,” said a man’s deep voice. He picked up grandpa’s chart and hummed to himself. “Yup. Got the right room.” He set the chart down with a clatter. “Okay, hoss, time to get up and go.”
I saw a hand come down to his side, reaching towards his boot. The hand was thin, and wide, but mainly, it was mainly bone.
I gasped and the figure stopped. The hand reached up, grabbing the side of the bed as he knelt down to peer down under the hospital bed. Red glow met my eyes and I found I could no longer breathe, let alone speak.
“Looky here,” a low southern drawl greeted me.
Everything locked up in my chest. My pulse, my breath. My voice. It all snuggled tight into a box.
“Funny. I ain’t ever been seen before. Must be special,” he said with a low chuckle. The bony hand reached out, patting the top of my head. “Nothing to worry about here, pardner. Just doing my job.”
I stared hard at those red glows.
He chuckled. “You know this fella?”
I nodded.
“Well, shame,” he murmured. His head tilted one way then the other. “Youngin’ ain’t ye? Well, double shame. Sorry about this, pardner. Cover your ears.” He stood back up, reaching for his boot again. From it he pulled a gun.
I didn’t cover my ears.
The red glow faded along with his footsteps.
Stomp! Clink. Stomp! Clink.
I didn’t come out from under the bed even as the beeping from grandpa’s monitor went monotone. When the nurse came I stayed under the bed. I was eventually found and pulled out, but I wasn’t the same.
Death came and shot my grandpa.
I stopped speaking after that, and frustrated as they were, my parents sent me away. It was a camp for troubled youth. And, well, it was supposed to be for kids more troubled than me, I just couldn’t talk. So, to say the very least, I was out of my element.
Right away it was well known I stood out amongst everyone else. I was smaller, weaker. And oh yeah! I couldn’t talk, so I couldn’t stand up for myself or rat people out, not exactly anyways.
The camp was right beside a huge lake, right out in the middle of the woods. It was supposed to be therapeutic for us kids. Us oh so troubled kids. All people did was isolate a bunch of people who needed help, not nature. I needed counseling, better parents, other kids here needed medication, a stern hand. But yeah, nature.
One day I was locked in an old storage shed. Which was one of the weaker punishments I had been given. At least I was left alone, at least I wasn’t being cornered in the showers. It was dark though, very dark. Beyond the shed I could hear voices and laughter. It was movie night, and I could smell the popcorn. I loved popcorn.
I sighed heavily and just accepted my fate. When one of the adults came to get something from the shed in the morning I’d be found. I sat there, staring down through the darkness. Then I heard it.
Stomp! Clink. Stomp! Clink.
I stood back up, standing on a bucket to see outside. There was a red glow at the edge of the lake.
Stomp! Clink.
It got closer, going towards the end of the dock. That’s when I saw him. The red glow hovered around him as he stared down into the lake. He wore a cowboy hat and a jacket with fringe flowing from the sleeves.
I stood on tiptoe, trying to see why he was standing at the edge of that dock. He looked up, almost towards me, but his red eyes went further. Voices approached from beside the shed.
“-just for a while.” A guy said.
“Ugh, it smells like shit down there,” a girl said.
It was two of my main aggressors, Alex and Alex. Yes, they both had the same name, and they had tag teamed together out of some weird narcissistic bond. Boy Alex was feeling up Girl Alex as they walked past me. His hand was on her butt while she was eating popcorn. They were heading towards the dock.
Death in his western regalia stepped aside, letting them go to the foot of the dock. Boy Alex was whispering to Girl Alex, and the next thing I saw was them taking off their clothes.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Girl Alex said. She went in to kiss Boy Alex, but he instead shoved her into the water. He stood there laughing, dick wagging as he stood over the dock.
Girl Alex never came up.
“Come on! You’re faking it!” He leaned over. “Alex?”
She jumped out of the water and grabbed him, pulling him by his hair into the water with a wild shriek.
Death shot Boy Alex. He was pulled out of the lake in the morning. Girl Alex got out of the lake without him and never said a word.
But before all that, I was still watching from the shed. Death came towards it, opening the shed and looking down at me as I approached.
“Got your back, pardner.” He winked at me and gave me finger guns.
I couldn’t say anything, so I nodded at him.
He extended his hand. “The name is Butch!” Tassels hung from the side of his glove as well. “Put ‘er there.”
I took Butch’s hand, shaking it, but he grabbed hold of me, squeezing me tight in a way that made me warm inside. Made me feel safe.
“Like I said,” he whispered. “I’ve got your back.” There was a tone to his voice, a softness and care that was different from my grandpa. There was more to it, more that my young, fragile mind couldn’t understand. Butch gave my hand an extra squeeze, and then and there I knew I didn’t want him to go. But he had to, so I let go.
He turned, walking away from me.
Stomp! Clink. Stomp! Clink.
I tried to follow him, but as I headed towards the lake I saw Girl Alex rise up out of the water. She looked angry, beyond pissed. Our eyes locked and for a moment it was silent. She roared at me, screaming like a monster. So I ran.
Like I said, Boy Alex was pulled out of the lake in the morning and everyone was sent home.
I was instead sent away to a school for special needs kids. Where the kids were kind, but the adults were cruel. I wound up taking on a role of protector rather than victim. Well, both I suppose. I don’t want to get too much into my time at the school. The damage was done. Let’s move on.
I was sent back to that camp, a few years after it was shut down it was reopened. I guess enough parents complained they didn’t have a ‘good setting’ for their kids. I was older then, just a month away from being eighteen.
I thought it would be different.
But no. Girl Alex had been hired on as one of the counselors. From then on, my life became a nightmare.
Girl Alex was a success story. She turned her life around when Boy Alex was discovered dead in the lake. She was wonderful. She was beautiful. She was kind.
You know where this was going. The girl was a monster, plain and simple. Always was, always would be. But now she had power, she had authority. Which, for a monster, is not a good thing to have.
At first I thought she never remembered me. Surely she remembered the night at the lake, but maybe she didn’t realize I was the one she roared at. Things were calm and quiet, camp seemed to be okay.
But that was all a cover. Girl Alex was just waiting. It wasn’t until the Monday after camp started that things changed. Something was wrong, supplies were low, or a generator was busted, I can’t remember. So a group of counselors left to go into town. They’d be back the next day. Girl Alex was left in charge.
It was dubbed the Cruel Monday. By the time the other counselors returned, there was not much they could do. The camp was torched, bloodied, and no survivors were found. At least, not at first.
They found Girl Alex’s mask near the lake where I had ripped it off. She was somewhere at the bottom of the lake. I’m sure they found her when they drained it some years later. Meanwhile, I was attached to her, held on by a rope with cement blocks. She’d got caught in her own trap.
“Geez, pardner. Look what they’ve gotten you into.” I shouldn’t have been able to hear that, but I did. I shouldn't have been alive at all, lord knows I wasn’t breathing. I was pulled from the lake and laid out on the shore opposite of the dock.
“This isn’t fair,” Butch whispered. He sat beside me, a piece of long, dried grass sticking out of his dark face where a mouth would be.
I was staring up at the sky, watching smoke flow into the abyss above me. There was no sky, it was a vortex, spiraling and pulling at me. Butch kept his hand upon my chest though and it kept me from rising. I saw people in the vortex, no, souls. I saw Girl Alex clawing at the edges, using large teeth to keep herself in place.
“You can’t go yet,” he voice called me back and I turned my head to look at him. He looked lost in thought, deeply troubled. “I don’t want you to go.”
I opened my mouth to try and say something, but a shout covered me. “Over here! I found someone!”
Butch’s hand slid lazily from my chest as someone picked me up. I reached for him, but his trouble remained painted in his glowing red eyes. I was carried away, taken to the hospital where I was treated. My inability to speak labeled me as an unreliable witness, an idiot as my dad called me, so the massacre of Cruel Monday was never solved.
Being the lone survivor of an unsolved massacre at least gave me cushion when I turned eighteen. Without my parents I could agree to interviews, I could be studied, given money to appear at true crime conventions. I doubt my story would be believed, and part of me didn’t want Girl Alex to receive the credit, so I made up the Monday Ripper.
Books. Movies. A TV show. Various and endless podcasts all told the story, or some facsimile to the Monday Ripper. And I was the final survivor.
Of course, my parents tried crawling back. My dad’s health was suffering and, oh no, they didn’t have the money. But guess who did? Me! For once, I had the upper hand.
“Monday Ripper,” my dad bemoaned from his bed. I had agreed to give my parents money, but under the stipulation I had control. Dad was in the same shitty nursing home they left grandma, the place that killed her. I didn’t allow mom to visit. He never let her visit me wherever they sent me anyways.
I looked at my dad, knowing exactly what he was going to say. I sat beside him some days, hoping to hear a thank you or something from him.
“You should have died that day. Things would have made sense then,” he said between wheezing breaths of oxygen.
Oh, how wonderful modern medicine was. Without that oxygen tank, why, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Next step would be a ventilator.
“You were never supposed to exist-” he started coughing hard, and something on his monitor began to beep. One of the nurses should have been alerted and came, but they didn’t. Exactly why he was here.
I was about to lean over his bed when I heard footsteps approaching.
Stomp! Clink.
Stomp! Clink.
Butch’s hand rested on my shoulder. Oh! I knew he would come. I stretched out my hand, placing it upon the valve of the oxygen tank. I looked my father in the eyes as Butch’s hand squeezed tighter upon my shoulder.
“Do it, pardner.” His voice was so deep in my ear. My skin tingled from my ear down to my spine. I took a shuddering breath and twisted the valve closed.
Death shot my father.
I turned, looking Butch in the eye. He tilted his hat to me. “Long time no see, pardner. I know you’ve been looking for me.”
I nodded, holding my breath in my chest.
“Don’t worry,” he winked at me. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for you.” He slipped his fingers under my chin, his thumb pressed to my lips. “You worry me, kiddo.”
What did he mean? He sounded like he was talking about something I should already know.
He sighed softly. “Can’t stay too long.” He motioned behind me. “These little meetings, they gotta be brief. Understand?”
No, I thought. I looked back into his eyes. Why was he always there when I needed him the most? After Grandpa died, he had appeared at all these strange times in my life. When I should have died, when I shouldn’t have existed.
“I’ll be back. Can’t say when, but, yeah,” Butch chuckled. “I’ll see you around, pardner.” He walked away, fading behind a large nurse who looked annoyed that my dad was dead.
“It’s so strange,” my mom said the day after his funeral. She was washing dishes, looking outside at the yard. “Not having him around.”
You can say it’s nice mom, I understand.
She turned and looked back at me, her brow knitted together. “Is that why you chose that nursing home?”
I just looked at her and shrugged.
“I wish you could talk. It’s weird.” She went back to washing dishes. “Wonder if we’ll get any more free food today.”
I went back to my room to continue writing. Sequels to reboots simply don’t write themselves. I don’t know why I’m allowed to write movies, it feels wrong.
At one of the conventions, I had met a fan and we had got to talking. Layla would message me all the time, and I’ll admit, I got attached to hearing from her. Occasionally we would meet, share a hotel room and do stuff normal adults would do.
“You can tell me,” she whispered under the sheets one night. “You know who did it right? The Monday Ripper?”
I laid there staring into Layla’s eyes. I would be speechless even if I could talk.
She rose up slightly, tenting the sheet with her head. “Tell me. I can keep a secret.”
She knew I didn’t talk, why was she asking me now?
Layla began to get on top of me and straddled me. Her hands slid up my chest towards my neck. “I’ve always admired you, you know? I wish I had the guts to do it sometimes.”
Did she think I was the Ripper?
Her hands clutched around my throat. “It would be so exciting. Tell me about it. Please. All of it.”
I grabbed her wrist and pushed her hands back.
Laughing, Layla tossed her head back. “Let’s do it together! A real reboot.” She leaned down as if to kiss me. I escaped her, leaving the confines of the sheet. Of course I attract the crazies. I’m used to that much. But she put on such a good front.
I began getting dressed. Meanwhile, Layla got off the bed, the sheet still draped around her like she was a ghost. “I’m serious!” She replied.
I grabbed my things, leaving money for the cleaning staff on the TV. I then opened the door to leave.
“Don’t go!” Layla screamed.
I went. I even started to pick up speed.
I heard footsteps behind me, chasing me down the hall. But they weren’t the ones I longed to hear.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Rapid succession of tiny feet as Layla ran down the hall to get me. The naked girl was still clad like a ghost in a sheet. Her arm rose up under the sheet, extended a knife towards me. She got it into my shoulder.
I won’t get into the gory details, it’s boring for me to talk about. But I had managed to get to the stairwell, locking Layla out from getting to me again. I slumped against the door, breathing what I feared might be my last breath.
I thought about what my dad had said, how I should have never existed. Boy. Was I feeling that right now. All the times I could have died, probably should have died. It felt like the universe was out to get me for escaping it.
Stomp! Clink.
Stomp! Clink.
He’s here! I forced myself to open my eyes, seeing Butch come up the stairs towards me, gun drawn.
Oh good, I thought. Finally.
I held my hand out towards him.
“Welp, this certainly is a mess.” He checked his gun, spinning the barrel before pointing his gun at me. “Won’t be much longer there.” He closed one eye to aim.
My breath shuddered as my hand extended to him. “Butch…” It was the first thing I had ever said since I was little.
Hesitating, Butch’s eyes widened as he looked at me. “What did you say?”
“I love you!” Layla’s hysterical scream ripped through the stairwell.
Butch turned around, terrified by the sudden intrusion and shot Layla. She fell backwards, tumbling down the stairs until she reached a landing. Her naked body was splayed out against the white sheet, stained red by her blood and mine. Exactly what she wanted.
“Fucking hell!” Butch stared down the stairs at her. “Well, today is your lucky day. I only had the one bullet.” He looked back at me. I was still reaching for him, all my strength going towards that motion.
Kneeling down before me, Butch took hold of my hand. “It’s weird enough you can see me. But you said my name.”
Was this the same Butch I had seen so many times?
“I’ll stay here till you're found. It’s the least I can do.” He held my hand fast in his. “Strange. Have we met?”
I nodded weakly.
“I see then,” he breathed. “Well, pardner, I’m sorry I forgot your lovely face.”
This wasn’t the same Butch I had seen several times before. But he would be. That much I could feel. Don’t ask me to explain the feeling, I just knew.
Before I knew it, I was everywhere again. Not only had I survived the Monday Ripper, but now I survived a psycho fan. How lucky was I to survive so much. Someone must have wanted to keep me alive.
Yes. Someone did want to keep me alive.
Two
It came as no surprise to me that my former camp was bought and opened up as a sort of resort, museum, reenactment theater. People would actually pay to stay the night there and act in a sort of mystery dinner party fashion. They didn’t do the story I survived, no they said that would be tasteless. They created a new story, but the Monday Ripper was still the killer.
I was invited to join on the anniversary of the actual event. It felt crass to me, but I joined anyway. I had nothing better to do. So I signed books, posters, etc until the main event. Everyone seemed to be excited, meanwhile all I could do was look at that lake. I was surprised they filled it back in, it seemed like a bad idea. Kids died there, you know?
“What was it like?” A young man asked me as we went towards the dining hall. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t talk but uhm…I always figured you gave a watered down version of your experience. I mean, I always tell the soft version of my dad,” he laughed nervously.
I glanced at him and took a deep sigh. I signed to him. “My killer is gone. Don’t go easy on yours.” I walked away from him, diverting my path away from the dining hall and going to the lake.
I sat on the dock, looking down into the water as I remembered watching Boy Alex go under and never come back up. Girl Alex’s roar still haunted me, more than any of the things I had gone through.
Stomp! Clink.
I held my breath tight into my chest.
Stomp! Clink.
I turned back and looked up, seeing Butch standing there behind me. The lake turned red with his glow.
He sat down beside me, looking out over the lake. He pointed across the way to the shore where he had laid me. “That was when you should have died the first time,” he said gently. “But I stopped it.”
I looked at him, hoping he would turn his eyes to me. “Then, at the lake when that girl and boy tried to kill one another for fun, you would have been forgotten.” He pulled a knee up to his chest and held it. “Then I saw you in your grandfather’s room.”
I furrowed my brow at him. “That’s not the order things happened.”
He looked at me with a laugh. “Confused? Don’t be. Death exists everywhere and anywhere. Right now, I'm here with you, but I’m also on the other side of that lake with you as well, making sure you don’t die.”
I scooted closer to him, resting my head upon his shoulder.
“I won’t let you die, not yet anyways,” Butch whispered. “There are things I can’t tell you now. But just know pardner, I’m with you always. Everywhere and anywhere, all at once.”
It was then I decided that, no matter what, I was going to do what I could to see Butch again. If he really was everywhere and anywhere all at once, then he would be waiting on me to do something.
But if he’s here now, then there must be a reason he’s out here now.
I looked back towards the camp where everyone must be gathered in the dining hall now and waiting on me.
Butch sighs. “Yeah. I gotta get to work.” He stands up, smoothing out his jacket then holding up his gun. “I’m technically not supposed to be here. But eh, call me crazy.” His red eyes flick down to me as I gaze up at him. “Don’t worry,” he finger guns at me. “I’ll be back for you, pardner. You can bet your sweet ass on it.”
Whatever that meant.
He went back up the dock and vanished into shadows. I went back to looking at the lake, gazing down at the dark waters.
Someone slipped and fell at the dinner party. They fell right onto one of the Monday Ripper props, and well, that’s all she wrote. The camp shut down, again, but probably not for long. Much like me, it can’t die.
“Would you say you’re a bad luck charm?” The question came from a crowd, from a face I couldn’t see due to stage lights.
I was taken aback by the question. Not because it was offensive, oh no, I’ve heard far worse in my day. Moreso, I was impressed by it, and the fact it had taken someone so long to figure it out. Hell, even I hadn’t thought of that.
The question and answer segment was part of a documentary filmed about me. It was a sort of indie project created by fans of the Monday Massacre story who wanted to get the true inside scoop on me and what became of me after the massacre.
I’ll admit the documentary was done extremely well, using clips and bits from my own personal collection, plus from those affected by the many tragedies that followed me. It should have been obvious from the body count in my wake that I was a ‘bad luck charm’.
“Interesting theory,” I signed and my interpreter spoke. “Shall we put it to the test?” Laughter rippled through the crowd, but in all honesty, I did want to test that theory. I wanted to see Butch again.
“I would say luck is an uncommon force surrounding our little survivor here,” the director of the documentary suddenly perked up.
I glanced his way, and noticed a slight smile on his lips. I could tell he had been holding this in for a while.
“The luck they have is very good, but that same luck doesn’t rub off on others the same way. Almost like God is using all the luck in the area to keep them alive.” He laughed, the crowd laughed, but he had no idea how his answer was more than likely correct. By all accounts I should have died decades ago when I was young. I should have died several times by now. But Butch has defied the odds, has defied the powers that be, just for me.
That’s when I knew for certain I was not affected by death. I couldn’t die.
By this point I was used to being in the spotlight, so when the documentary became an underground hit I was ready for what was to come. Luckily, the makers of the film got their due. They deserved it, they worked hard and made me into some believable folk hero.
“I don’t know if there is much left for them to go through,” the director said in an interview I was watching. “A massacre, an attempted murder, geez, all they’ve been through. It’s amazing really. But I don’t think much else will happen to them at this point. They’ve learned to traverse this world in such a way, they won’t come across much more danger.”
I hope he’s wrong. Sweet guy, but he doesn’t know the complete story. I never told him that bit. Well, if he knew where I was now he’d think differently. I was chained up inside my old cabin at the camp.
Yes, that camp.
Apparently, Girl Alex was never really dead. Who knew? I thought she’d been dredged up as a bloated mass from the bottom of the lake. But I was wrong. She’d suffered amnesia until she saw my documentary, now she’s back from the grave and who knows what else to seek her revenge on me. Cool I guess
Girl Alex tapped the TV screen with her knife. “Why didn’t you tell them? Huh?” She came towards me, looking like an unhinged soccer mom. Which she was now, apparently. Amnesia had been good for her. Too bad it didn’t last.
I had my hands chained up, what the hell did she expect me to say?
Lunging at me, Girl Alex snarled in my face. “About me?” She tilted her head to the side and giggled. “I was the Monday Ripper. You knew that! You saw me.” She placed the point of the knife against my temple. “Why didn’t you tell them?”
I’ve already mentioned she didn’t deserve the notoriety. Victims of serial killers get dick-all attention compared to the killers. That was the fate she deserved unlike her victims.
Her blonde bob swayed as she pulled away from me, turning off the television set by stabbing through it with the knife. She turned back to me, taking in deep, slow, purposeful breaths.
Ah, I can tell she does yoga from that breathing.
She waves her hands down her face. “Deescalate, don’t hyperventilate.”
I bet she uses essential oils.
“Seeing your stupid, blank face again brought it all back you know.” She sounded perky, cheery even. “My daughter simply insisted we go watch that documentary. She loves the Monday Massacre films, you know?” She grinned at me. “Little does she know it’s Mommy! Little did I know,” she cackled.
Please, don’t monologue. Anything but the monologue.
To my surprise she lunged at me, carving that knife into me like I was the crust on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Oh no, excuse me, one of her kids must have an allergy, so a sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwich.
Glaring into my eyes, Girl Alex looked at me, prim, proper, completely fucking batshit crazy. Aside from some blood on her face, she looked like anyone. She pulled the knife back and stabbed it down into the bunkbed post.
“Stay there,” she murmured. She gathered up my clothes. “I just have to burn these, then I’m gonna put you back into that lake where you belong.” Her voice was sing-songy.
She was creative once. Maybe years of motherhood have dulled her edges. Or it was the amnesia and brain damage, who knows? Well, I certainly never expected this, so good on her for surprising me again.
The shock was wearing off and the pain from her slicing and dicing into me was setting in. I could barely catch a breath the way she had my arms chained up. It hurt, it hurt bad. Maybe she had a point. If the lake didn’t kill me the bacteria in it infecting these wounds would.
Why am I being sarcastic now? What’s the point? My dad must be laughing at me. His shoulders shaking, arm crossed against his ribs as the guttural, deep laugh rose up from the pits of hell.
Girl Alex stepped back into the room, wearing her Monday Ripper outfit. The mask was mass produced, the outfit was probably from Gap. “Do you know how many of these I bought?” She grasped hold of her face through the mask. “Never once realizing it was me? I couldn’t stomach watching the movies.” She strutted towards me. “All I knew was that my kids and husband loved them. Maybe that’s why they loved me so much.” She tried pulling the knife from the bedpost but was having a hell of a time.
“I’ve got a real nice rock to hold you down with. You won’t be escaping that lake again anytime soon.”
I really wish I knew how she did that in the first place.
Girl Alex gave up on pulling out the knife and squatted down before me. “Hope the follow up documentary does me justice.” She slapped me, hard, across the face then stood up to try and remove the knife she embedded in the wooden post.
Stomp! Clink.
Holy shit, no way.
Stomp! Clink.
“Moterfucker!” Girl Alex snarled as she tried to yank out the knife. “What the fuck is holding this piece of shit!”
Stomp! Clink.
I closed my eyes and relaxed. Butch was here.
The knife wiggled and Girl Alex laughed. She yanked again, dislodging it a bit more. She laughed in triumph as she pulled it out.
Bang!
She stumbled, tripped backwards. Waving her arms in the air she tried to hold herself up. Instead, she fell, the back of her head colliding with the corner of the dresser the television set sat upon. She fell onto the knife too for good measure.
I opened my eyes and watched as Butch stood there in the doorway. He was watching Girl Alex on the ground for a moment before he stepped into the room.
“We have got to stop meeting like this, pardner.” He swooped into the room, kneeling down before me. He made quick work of the rope and picked me up, laying me down on the bunk bed. He opened my clothes, looking underneath at Girl Alex’s art piece.
“Dammit pardner.” He touched my face, holding it gently. He leaned down, placing his lips upon mine. Oh, how lovely. I couldn’t have asked for a better, more romantic moment than this.
Of course I’m joking, I’m bleeding out.
Or maybe not. Much like Snow White, I suddenly felt better because of a kiss. I didn’t feel so weak, so gross. I looked down, seeing that Girl Alex’s pumpkin carving was gone. Just dried blood remained.
I sat up, smoothing my palm down my chest.
“Much better.” Butch took off his jacket and draped it around me. “Now, let's take care of this mess, if you don’t mind.” He motioned to Girl Alex dead on the floor.
We drug Girl Alex out to the lake, tying her to the rock she had intended for me. How funny it would end up this way all over again? I never expected this. I gazed up into the sky, seeing the moon was full and beautiful.
“Ready pardner?” Butch picked up the large rock.
I nodded.
Butch chucked the rock into the lake, aiming for the middle. The rock pulled yanking on Girl Alex’s legs and dragging her along the shore then…plop. Into the lake she went.
“Lots of memories at this place, ain’t there pardner?” Butch chuckled.
I tackled him. I kissed him, hungry and wanting to devour him. He grasped onto the ground, gasping for a breath as I stole each one he had. His hands grabbed hold of me and I’m not sure which way he’s gonna move me. There was a softness to his face, that the shadows under his hat were a smooth, cool flesh. Shadow flesh. I straddled his hips, looking down at him as I pinned him to the ground.
Butch relaxed upon the ground, his hands going up my hips. “Gonna ride a cowboy, eh pardner?”
God he’s stupid, I love him.
I leaned down to kiss him again as something poked into my thigh. Perfect. I kissed down his chest, his shadow flesh curled up along my face. I kissed further, opening his chaps up and laying aside his massive belt buckle. A dark shaft came up from inside, it curved and shadows licked off the tip. I took Butch into my mouth, sucking him generously as his moans and sighs came out rather loudly. I was surprised. But his low voice just made them sound all the better.
I had been waiting for this moment for so long, I wanted to do all I could to him.
The air was cold, clinging to my body as I pushed him down into the damp earth near the lake. His eyes were glowing bright, illuminating me, us, together in that place. The water lapped at the shore, followed by my deep breaths. Inside me I could imagine him as raging fire, reigniting the light inside of me for the first time in decades.
I let out my voice, a moan here, a grunt there. I had to still for a moment, breathing out thick clouds in the cold airå as I looked down at him.
Butch reached up, touching my face and brushing away my thick hair. “I remember the first time I saw you,” he muttered.
It took me aback at first.
“Sitting there in that stairwell, bloodied, cold-” his voice drifted and a tremor clutched his throat. “You said my name.”
It was his first time seeing me, but it had been one of many for me.
“I wanted to know you. Why you knew me.” His palm pressed to my cheek, sliding so I could kiss the center. The shadows were soft, the bones were as close to his soul as I could find.
A soft, low chuckle escaped his lips. “I pissed off a lot of people loving you, pardner.”
My eyes widened and I lifted up my head, staring down at him as the chill wrapped more around my naked body. Did he say what I think he said? My mind reeled, but it was also the calmest it had ever been.
“Butch,” my voice crackled.
A smile came through his eyes, and another gentle laugh rippled from his throat. “When death comes for you, it will be an army that I will have to fight off.”
Tears came to my eyes.
“But I’ll do it.” He closed one eye, raising his finger gun to me. “Bang, bang.”
That’s so stupid. I laid over, kissing him passionately and starting the motions again. I didn’t want him to leave me, ever. I wanted him inside me. This idiotic desperado with his finger guns and fringe, he’s mine, only mine. And he’s taking on the very nature of death for me, for some foolish reason.
“I can’t hold on much longer, pardner.” His voice was strained, not in a painful way, more like he was trying to desperately hold on. “You’re too good at this.”
I take pride in my work, but this is the greatest compliment I ever received. I wanted him undone and struggling. I wanted to suck the very breath from his bones. Well, if he breathed at all I mean. I cranked up my efforts to beyond ten, I was aching but pleased as I roughly shook him to his core. My core was awakening also. The flame from him was filling me, spreading to every nerve, every forgotten piece of myself.
“Fuck! Fuck!” He was holding onto me so tight, like he needed me to survive the storm I was bringing upon him. Good, he needed a life preserver apparently.
The only word I could think of was blossoming. I blossomed. All those years hiding under my dying grandfather’s bed hadn’t been for nothing.
Yippie-yi-o. Yippy-yi-yay.
I’m the ghost rider.
Butch didn’t move or speak for a long while. We laid there by the lake, staring up at the sky as my breath began to settle.
“Been many a moon since I felt that,” Butch whispered. He stretched out his arm, laying it over my belly. I place my hands over his. “Might be many more.”
Don’t say that! I turned my head to look at him, seeing his eyes focused upon me, a smile glistening inside. He didn’t want it to be long, but unfortunately, it would have to be.
Three
With Girl Alex gone, my past was all but erased. No one from before existed anymore, and thus, it would seem like a fitting conclusion to the story. Wouldn’t it? But that is not how most stories end, not when they’re good like mine.
The camp was purchased, yet again, only this time it was bulldozed. Thank god. The lake was filled. An even bigger sign of relief. Now it was a prosperous little subdivision of tiny houses. Okay I guess.
Any idea that it was the location of the Monday Massacre was heavily edited and a new storyline was pushed to see these adorable tiny houses. Nothing bad ever happened there, no sir, they promised. Everything was squeaky clean. No skeletons in any closet. Maybe in the ground. But certainly no one was to know that.
I never even knew until a few years after its completion when I had the nerve to go and visit the lake. But to my surprise there was no lake at all. I simply stood at the spot where the lake had been. Now there were tiny houses covering it with pristine lawns, raised gardens, blah, blah, blah.
I don’t know what I was feeling as I stood there. Disappointment? Relief? Anger? Really, I had no way to sort through them. It was strange. I was ready to lay things to rest, to put my past behind me and finally, fucking finally move forward. But I couldn’t? Or maybe it had been forced for me. Wow, I’ve gotten so good at processing shit that it’s like a computer error going off in my brain now.
“Looking for a home?” Someone with too big of a smile approached me.
I had a home, but what did she know? Idle chit chat was nothing I cared about, I simply knew how to do it. I nodded.
“Oh! My! Gosh! We have so much to sell! We’re building new lots everyday!” She motioned to the house before me, right where the dock would have been before. “This place is wonderful, isn’t it?”
Would’ve been better with a lake, I thought snidely to myself. But she probably would’ve popped a gasket had I said that. “Yeah it’s cute.”
“Oh! My! Gosh! Cute doesn’t even begin to describe it.” She grabbed me, triggering a response that made my blood run cold. “Let me show you!”
“So, I wasn’t aware of this property,” I muttered while trying fervidly to ignore her hand grabbing my arm. “What used to be here.”
“Oh! My! Gosh! It used to be this big property that belonged to this old man. Poor thing couldn’t maintain it anymore. It became so overgrown that even the poor little animals couldn’t live here!”
I don’t think this woman knows how nature works.
She dragged me inside. I was standing right where the dock would have ended. One more step and I would have been in the lake again. That dark, decayed water full of death. It had swallowed boy Alex and Girl Alex. Now, I was standing on top of them. If I went a little to the left, well, I was where Butch and I had been.
I didn’t hear what ‘Oh! My! Gosh!’ Was saying. I was too fascinated by where I was standing and what it meant. My heart was racing, my palms sweaty.
I bought the tiny house, not that I needed it or anything. More out of obligation and sense of respect to Girl Alex, Boy Alex, all those pulled under by the lake that was now filled in. I was the only one who knew of this resting place, of the history this land holds. Only I knew how much blood was spilled on this earth.
“We’re holding a Halloween decor competition,” a neighbor of the tiny house subdivision told me. “Best house wins a really awesome prize.” They seemed so excited about it. I found it hysterical. Halloween was on a Monday this year.
This place is either filled with old people trying to escape clutter, but still have too much money for their own good, as well as supposedly alt couples who prefer the color beige to educate their kids. I could be judgy, but I don’t get out much.
“Here! Look this over.” They handed me a flier that was decorated in so much halloween clipart I could feel design majors everywhere crying.
“You seem like a spooky one.” She said in a warbling tone to mimic a ghost.
I looked at her and her pristine beach waves, peasant dress, and turquoise jewelry. I’ve seen her a million times in different places.
I started signing to her and she looked scared for a moment.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-” Her eyes were wide, watching my hands as I pulled them back from signing.
“It’s a Halloween contest!” She said loudly while doing exaggerated movements with her arms to get the point across.
I scowled at her. I didn’t talk, I could hear her just fine. I tapped my ear.
She gasped again. “Oh! I’m sorry I-” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I’M SO SORRY-”
I slammed the door in her face and turned my music way up. I watched her from between the shutters on the door. She looked mortified, then angry, then scoffed as another neighbor came by her.
Holy shit Butch, where the hell are you when I need you the most?
I looked at the flier, after having kept it rather than shove it back at her. A Halloween contest to see who could have the best decor around their tiny house. Well, I knew some people in the production side of the movies. I bet I could show them a thing or two about spooky.
I never really cared for Halloween much. Then again, I never liked many holidays. I liked the food that came with them and that was about it. Halloween was always the time I was busiest anyways, what with meet and greets, conventions, book tours. People love my scary ass tales when it's October.
Anyways, friends I had made through the years came to my tiny house to give it the horror treatment. They were all too happy to show off their talents and turn my tiny house into a haunted house. In retrospect, I might have let them go a bit too far, as everyone else in the tiny subdivision were putting up things from Home Depot, Wal-mart, etc. There were a couple of giant skeletons, but it was all the work of dads with not much to do, or moms wanting to impress their kids, somehow. My house looked like it had risen up from the lake to come and torment all the other houses.
“That certainly is…unique!” A mom said to me.
“You can’t seriously think this is okay?” This old man had been yelling at me about anything and everything I did to my property. My flowers had been too colorful. My porch wasn’t painted enough. My doormat was too far from the door. So this fell on deaf ears.
A child who had been gawking with an open mouth and zero expression suddenly burst into absolute joyous squirming. “It’s so cool!”
Ah good, the reactions I wanted. To be left alone and judged in silence.
“I know who you are.”
Not good! I bristled, turning cold from my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes. Please. I don’t want to be known. I barely want to be perceived.
The man who stood before me didn’t look like he fit into this tiny subdivision either. He was wearing cowboy boots and everything else was jeans. I just looked him up and down until his hands signed.
“Monday massacre.” He signed with a huge, smile on his overly tanned face.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
He held up his hands. “Hold on there,” he chuckled. “I’m a fan!”
I’ve had fans. My eyes remain firmly narrowed.
Oh wait. I can actually talk to this guy. “I’ve had fans before,” I signed to him.
He shrugged. “I know. And I ain’t intending to be one of them. I’m just surprised to see you back here, that’s all.”
“You know where we are?” I said with my hands.
He smirked. “How can I not? My family used to own this place after all. Well, before I was ever a twinkle in my dad’s balls.”
Crap, that was funny.
He chuckled. “We sold it to the people who turned it into a camp, you see.” He leaned against my stair railing. “I used to spend summers with my grandparents in that old house across the road.”
I knew that house. I used to think it was abandoned by how much stuff piled up around it over the years.
“I’ve been fixing the place up, hoping to sell it too,” he sighed.
“How bad was it?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hoarders leave a challenge, I’ll give ya that. But for the time being, a tiny house ain’t so bad.” He nodded at me. “What about you?”
My eyes returned to their natural narrowed and judgemental state. “What about me?”
He places his hands upon his overly jeaned hips. “Why are ya here of all places again? Wouldn’t this be the exact place you’d wanna get away from?”
I shrugged at him and turned to go back inside.
“Name’s Billy.”
Of course it is, I think to myself as I close the door behind me.
Halloween came, and with it, the whole tiny subdivision gathered together to make sure the night was a success. They would be inviting people in to come trick or treat while also voting on the best decorations in the neighborhood.
I knew what I was about. I didn’t expect to win, I only decorated in order to get all the ‘community’ off my back. I also didn’t expect trick or treaters at my house of horrors but I still bought candy anyways. Maybe I am a bit of a dreamer, who knows?
I had been fooling around with Billy on and off through the month. His cowboyish nature did things to me, and like Butch said, who knows when we could be together again. Billy was a replacement, a toy hidden under the bed in a small box. Nothing more, nothing less. I didn’t need him, but he was fun to keep around for emergencies.
“You ain’t in costume,” Billy said as he walked up my stairs. That overly tanned face of his was painted to look like a skeleton. Faker, I thought. You aren’t my cowboy.
I flicked my eyes to him. “Why would I be?” I took my bowl of candy and myself back inside. Billy followed behind me.
“I’m surprised to see you with candy.” He took a piece from the bowl and began to unwrap it.
I raised my hands again. “Do you really think you know me so well? Tell me what else you know about me?”
Billy popped the blue raspberry hard candy into his mouth, smudging the paint on his lips. “Why, I have the book on that,” he chuckled, inching closer towards me.
I swear to god, if this is another super fan situation, I’m going to-
“I don’t mean anything by it. I just, I dunno, I’m pretty reclusive my own self.” He leaned back, smiling out the window at the lights and line of kids coming up the road.
I watched him closely, he was relaxed.
He chuckled softly, gazing out into the distance. “You’ve been through enough to know your limits. I figured Halloween would be one of them.” He turned and smiled at me.
I shrugged. Maybe I was on high alert for nothing.
Billy leaned in, pressing a blue raspberry flavored kiss to my lips. Before I could respond, he gasped. I opened my eyes, seeing a look of terror on his face. He clutched his throat, gasping and choking for breath.
Oh shit! He was choking on blue raspberry! That was the least killer flavor!
Billy looked at me, eyes bulging, face changing colors from bright red, to purple. Veins appeared and he was thrashing around, throwing himself against the walls.
I was surprised I couldn’t move. It was my grandfather’s hospital room all over again. I was frozen, trapped there unable to do anything. Billy came to me, weakly throwing himself at me and clawing down my body as he fell. Billy didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve to come into my wake.
Stomp! Clink.
This isn’t fair.
Stomp! Clink.
Why do I suck so bad? Why can’t I move?
Stomp! Clink.
I looked up into Butch’s red, glowing eyes as tears appeared.
“So that was you,” Butch murmured as he stared back at me. “The kid under the bed.” He took his gun out and held it in his palm. “I know that look from anywhere, pardner.” He wiped away the black paint from my lips.
I looked down at Billy on the ground.
Bang.
The restoration on his grandparent’s place was going well. The smell of fresh paint and wood was everywhere. Or at least, it had been. I tucked myself away up in the attic. Apparently, no one knew Billy owned this place, so it had been left alone all this time.
“It’ll be soon,” Butch whispered to me.
I took in a deep breath and sighed, standing up to join him at the window. I placed my hand over his, gazing into the red glow. He squeezed my hand tight.
“Death is pretty easy though,” he murmured to me. He turned to face me, taking both my hands in his. The glow from the window reminded me of an altar in a church. The stained glass illuminated over a couple as they made their vows.
“Life is hard, but it’s what makes death worthwhile,” he told me in a smooth, even voice. He clutched my hands tight, raising them up to kiss my knuckles. “But this death, oh, what a show it will be.”
“Butch,” I whispered.
He nodded, giving me a big grin. “This has been a wonderful journey, pardner. I followed you in this life, now, I’m going to follow you into the next.” He placed his gun into my palm.
“Guns ablazing,” he whispered.
I opened my mouth, my tongue unsure, my throat unused, but I sang like my grandfather used to sing to me. “'Cause they've got to ride forever, On that range up in the sky. On horses snorting fire. As they ride on, hear their cry.”
Butch chuckled, leaning in and kissing me. “Are those your final words?”
I shook my head. Despite my silence I had so much to say. You wouldn’t be able to keep me quiet if you tried.
I heard voices fill the house, door opened loudly, footsteps began rattling about as if they were on the walls and ceiling. The horde of death sent for me was finally coming. Butch had told me all about them. Every time I almost died, it was death coming for me. But everytime, another death stopped them. All those grim reapers sent after me, were now fighting to be the first to take me. I was a game, a prize. All these years alive had made me the bane of the underworld. I was a royal in a palace, with Butch as the dragon guarding me.
I couldn’t die, but that was because Butch wasn’t ready to let me go. I don’t blame him. Had our places been switched, I would have done the same thing. Well, maybe later on we will switch. Maybe we’ll stand side by side and not behind separate lines. Kids growing up. Playing cowboys. Riding on forever in that range up in the sky.
I stepped forward, aiming one of Butch’s gun to the door.
Stomp! Clink.
Butch aimed as well.
The door swelled and bucked as death came for me. They reached in with long, bony hands, screaming my name over and over again. I pulled back on the trigger, holding in my breath and steeling myself.
Click. Click.
Bang.
The sky above the lake was beautiful. There were so many stars, so much light in what should be endless darkness. I laid there, feeling the moist earth against my bare back. I rose up, seeing figures standing on the other side of the lake with all their backs turned towards me. I stood, watching them without saying a word.
I took a deep sigh and walked to the dock, going to the edge and looking down at the black depths. I saw stars there too, lighting up a vast, endless abyss that should have taken all light and killed it.
There’s always hope, I told myself. There’s always Butch.
I stepped off the dock and sank into the deep waters. I fell down, going further and further until there were only stars above me again. A red glow lit up the area around me.
“It’s okay, pardner.”
I smiled, closing my eyes and breathing in the lake.
I smelled a campfire as I stirred. I opened my eyes to the red glow of it, and a vast horizon of endless stars before me. I sat up, looking into the fire. I guess it didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing. The death hoard tucked me somewhere. I reached towards the fire, seeing my hands were pale and my nails pitch black. I stared for a moment, seeing my bones begin to rise from the smoke of my skin.
Stomp! Clink.
I turned and looked up at Butch who was carrying a jug in one hand.
“Good morning, pardner.” He tossed a gun down into the dusty earth before me. He tilted his hat back, revealing more of his red eyes to me. “Today is just the beginning.”
I smiled and rose to be with him.