Page 104 of Crybaby

I know who I’d choose to keep in this world. She’s had a good life. Maybe we’d be doing her a favor? Dying from whatever ailments old people end up with can’t be fun.

“What then? You want to go to jail? I don’t!” I cry, almost talking to myself as he just stares back at me.

He knows we’ve gone too far now. And I know it too, but once you start telling lies, deceiving people, and shooting heads off, you’ve gotta see it to the end.

“Let’s just drive her to another state and leave her at a bus stop, then?” I offer as a compromise.

I picture her sitting at a dark bus stop, holding a bag, a stranger coming up and ripping it off her, hoping to steal cash. Her starving to death in the middle of nowhere and getting her eyes pecked out by crows. I swear it would be nicer to just shove a pillow on her face in her own bed.

Rev smirks back at me. “Let’s find out where the one-armed fuckhole went and then decide, okay?”

We look over at the truck, and Carson is booting the back door with his legs and hollering like a banshee.

That’s right, scream harder, you sick fuck. This isn’t even a pinch on what I’m going to do to you later.

“We better bring fuckface inside, or he will rouse attention with all that shit he’s doing in there.”

Rev sighs and calmly walks to the car while I go to greet Granny. She’s not smiling like she did the first time. Instead, she whips the wire door closed, trying to lock herself inside, and starts screaming for Harold.

I just kick that damn door in, and my foot slides through the lazy mesh easily. I tear it open to the handle and unsnap the useless door.

“No dinner tonight, Gran?” I ask, trying to pretend she’s my bitch of an aunt so I can stay focused, but it’s not working.

She’s off, and I’m not sure where she went, but I doubt it’s far. I race around the house to see who else is home but don’t find anyone.

But I can hear moaning—like those zombies from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video. Not even my era, but I’m well versed in the ’80s.

I start humming the tune and searching for the rogue zombie. I think I’ve lost all ability to feel afraid after everything I’ve been through. I just don’t care anymore, and the numbness is great.

I pounce upstairs with my hands gripping the rickety wooden railing. The moaning is getting louder as I make my way down a musty corridor, and fucking hell, it stinks. I have to hold my nose, and for anyone who’s ever said to me, it’s okay, just breathe through your mouth—like that’s gonna work; they’re lying.

I swear, I can smell it through my mouth, and I’m gagging. It smells like dead pigs down a well.

I find the sound and push open the door. Buckets’s father is balled up in the corner of a teenager’s bedroom covered in posters, just rocking and moaning. This is a new one. He can’t be freaking out over us, surely?

These farmers are brutal on a regular day. I would expect him to have a shotgun out and…holy fuck, look who has gone nigh-nighs.

Lying in the bed next to the rocking lunatic is Buckets. His mouth and eyes are wide open, and he’s so dead that the flies are doing a sermon around his missing arm stump.

The moaning continues like a tribal ritual, and Granny bursts in, telling the boys dinner is ready. I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone has lost their minds, and nothing they say would stand up in court anyway.

What the fuck is Buckets doing in bed?

I really need Rev to see this.

“Go get Harold!” I yell at Granny.

“Is he coming?” she beams and suddenly looks delighted.

“Yes! Go set another spot!” I say, rushing past her to race back downstairs to find Rev.

Carson and Rev are outside having a fistfight in the dirt. Why the fuck are his cuffs off?

“Hey!” I yell and search around for a hose to cool down the dogs.

They keep fighting, and watching them, I can see how similar they actually are. One might be dark and the other blond, but they have almost the same movements and build.

Rev is a dirty fighter, though, and ends up pinning him to the ground in a headlock within his legs and punches him with all his might in the dick. Even I flinch at the sight.

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