Antecedent (Tex Sawyer)

Antecedent 15

"Lori."
Through the darkness of my closed eyes I heard the voice pierce and call my name once more urging me to wake up. Jolting forwards again, I felt my fingers quake and breathed in deeply and with difficulty. Nothing was remaining still, the ground shaking around me, colours swirling as the room changed from Grandpa's to the kitchen and back again where Roger's body remained slumped. "Lori." I could feel myself scream, the anguish and inability to focus knocking me back and forcing my chest to heave, my heart beating in the very claustrophobic place it left me with. The voice spoke again calling my name as tears tracked and fell down my face, my fingers unable to move and clench as I eyed them up and the thick bandage that quoted every finger. Breathing shallowly I glanced at my other hand seeing another two. Fear and panic struck at every pulse of blood before I screamed once more for the world to stop, to stand still.
It did.
Gasping in confusion at the sight of Grandpa's room once again I noticed that he was gone this time and turned my head to look in the direction just to be sure that my mind wasn't playing trick on me but as I glanced forwards I pushed back, the binds that held me releasing with not much effort and fading as I knocked the chair back with me at the sight of Roger leaning over the table and attempting to grab me with outstretched hands. Throwing my own hand up, I curled myself up on the floor unable to prevent the pain which flooded through my being as I squeezed my eyelids closed again. It couldn't be happening. I knew he was dead, I had seen him die.
"It's not real." I tried to reassure myself but it did frightfully little. With a heavy and shaking breath, I looked again and felt only a small wave of relief at the fact that the body of a friend wasn't right over me, his head back on the table where it had been festering in his own blood. My lips trembled as the tears fell and focusing on the bandage I found myself questioning what truly was real. The kitchen, had I been there or had I never left this room? What I was staring at conflicted with what I had thought to be reality and with quivering legs I made myself stand, hands feeling sensitive and fragile against the push. With difficulty, I remained till as I straightened up, the agonising discomfort resting from my shoulder blades and back from where Tinker's device had pinned me still. "It's not real." I repeated again trying and failing to sound more confident. Feeling my ankles give way, I kept a tight grip as my body crumbled and fell as Roger's dark head of hair raised, grey hues staring at me wide and accusingly as I did. Catching myself with my arms I shook my head refusing to believe it and once more the head was down in blood only this time it was different. "It's not fucking real!" No matter how many times I told myself, I couldn't hold onto shards of reality. The world flickering around me like a dying bulb. One moment here, one moment there and then back here in the coldness of the room. Back before the corpse.
Black hair was longer and draped over the wood and through the blood but even without that tinting I saw the auburn strands against the flickering light of the room. I spied the exposed and bruised flesh of a more womanly figure and terror captivated me as a bandaged hand slammed onto the table followed by another. Like spiders the fingers snaked and coiled towards where her head was briskly crawling under a bruised chin to push the face up. This time I let myself fall as a more demented version of myself stared back with eye hollow and black. Veins pulsing as the fingers that held the head stretched closer, the neck extending to do so as if for a closer look. With a widened mouth she croaked and choked, the bruises Tex had inflicted around my neck forming onto her own as if she was being strangled at this very moment. Landing on a heap in my legs, I urged myself to back away but was unable to do so. My lips gaping wide at the sight of the face which stared back at me in a haunting but calm expression.
"Lori.." It sang my name like some haunting lullabye and holding up my arms as their hands grew closer, I yelled once more feeling the rush of air as it grew determined and faster to reach me. "Lori."
"No!" I wanted to scream but like hers before, my voice was hoarse and came out as a croak or gargle. "Go away!" Squeezing my eyes shut I tried to comprehend what was happening, how any of it was possible.
"Damn girl!" Tink's voice hollered as the room moved once more, the ground rushing against my feet testing my balance as it brought me to a halt. Fearfully I opened my eyes and only gasped and stepped back at the sight of a person before me. Blood seeped and splattered their face from the knife wound they had sustained to the heart caused by the very thing that was in my grasp with the three fingers of my left hand. Pushing myself away from it, the pupils of the woman began to dilate, her jaw swinging open as if capturing her last scream. Applauding happened immediately after, the boiling of pains and smell of meat once fresh to my senses. I didn't understand, I wasn't sure I wanted to but as I stared at the woman who breathed her last weak breath, I knew only the horrifying realisation that I had killed her. With a quivering breath, I stepped back once more, my back colliding with arms that stretched before me and pressed my hands together to clap. An excited giggle of glee coming from Tex who stood behind me. "Now that was one impressive hit, especially with some of your hands out of action! Real professional in the making."
"That's more like it sweetheart, just like that!" He praised the feeling of his lips against my cheek forcing me to ask myself what in God's name was happening. "Had me all worried you were about to hurt yourself then." He whispered as his face caressed mine from the side and turned my head as much as he allowed me to in his grasp. "But then you wouldn't leave me all alone like that would you?" I recalled how I had intended to stab myself, how I had hurt Tink. All of that seemed erased as the elder of the siblings sat on a chair which I had thought myself to be with his legs outstretched onto the next one as he cheered and called for his Mama to come and see. "One clean shot Mama, what did I say? It's like she was made for this family."
"Looks painful" Heather stated happily before repeating the same to her toddler sized stack of bones. "Doesn't it Sally? Auntie Lori isn't holding back her punches anymore."
"Now there's a good girl." Tex breathed down my ear as I flinched but failed to feel my body move as he only held me tighter.
Not real, not real. I tried to chant it repeatedly in my head, to hope that while it wasn't much of a better conclusion that I would wake up once more in Grandpa's room but it did and I felt my legs grow weak again before a flash of light blinded me and forced me to turn my head. More cheering and laughter came from around me as I blinked out the circular object the flash had caused me and noticed that Alfredo stood in the doorway with a camera. Mama kissed her hands and opened them as if gesturing to me. Heather just giggled manically and loudly, Bubba made noises of approval from the door which led out into the garden. Not real. NOT REAL! Desperation burst and gnawed at my bones as I tried to push away from the blonde that held me still but I wouldn't budge. All I could hear was noise, all I could smell was blood and meat. It wouldn't bring me to my senses, it didn't wake me up. Nor did blinking which I kept coaxing myself to do, not wanting to accept this as reality. I wasn't a murderer, I wasn't one of them. I couldn't be. I was still in that room, I was still bound. I hadn't killed someone.
I couldn't have done! Surely I couldn't have...
"Right in the damn heart!" Alfredo cheered, walking past myself and Tex to grasp the knife that held edged tightly into the blonde woman and whistled. "Still look good to me honey. Still looking pretty damn good. Stuck like a damn hog bitch though, ain'tcha?" Smacking the new fresh corpse across the face, he then tenderly caressed it and poked his tongue out beneath his teeth. "I wanted to have fun times with you."
"Jesus boy, we have to eat that!" Tink exclaimed disgustedly. "We know where your hands have been, go wash up and make sure the other asshole gets no ideas on escaping."
"I wouldn't worry about that" Alfredo sneered, turning his head in my direction with a wicked sneer. "Ain't no one tried to escape for a little while now. No one is having ideas anymore." Feeling my eyebrows furrowed together in confusion at just how long it had been I thought of my fingers as a time scale. "Are they?"
Seven days.
Had it really been a week? Had I been like this for a week just stepping in and out of reality? Had I hurt someone else? The questions piled one after another only breaking clear from my thoughts when I felt Tex's hands lower from my own and down to my thighs.
"Think that means we can celebrate later sweetheart, just you and me." I wanted to scream again, to cry out once more, to force him off and away from me but my body refused to move in a way of which I desired. "However you want." My heavy feeling hands captured his once more to hold them and in the reflection of the window I saw the figure I had seen before that had looked right at me from the table staring back, her blood splattered lips pouting at me almost mockingly before she lifted her head to kiss the cannibal cowboy who was so proud of her. He sunk on back holding her,and threading his fingers through her auburn locks. The voices continued to clamber excitedly for dinner as they returned to what they were doing. I closed my eyes, my body hadn't moved but the feeling of being held so much against my will certainly had and staring in through the window at them I found myself for the first time being at peace, silence filling me as the bulb of the kitchen flickered and I stood out onto the grass.
"This isn't real." I informed myself feeling the strands against my feet, the gentle breeze in my hair. There was no noise other than myself and I hung my head. "It's not real."
No, my mind agreed, willing to allow myself to remain in the dark as I turned away and walked towards the swingset, aware that what had just happened and continued to happen inside the kitchen was the truth. I was certain I had lost my mind but for the first time since we had been driven off the road that night I was at peace.
If death would not come, if God did not hear my prayers for the end then I would accept this release for it was better than to endure a moment longer fully aware of what was happening around me. I would seek shelter in a small corner of sanity my mind had left and allow what appeared to be another part of me take over. Or maybe it wasn't another part of me at all. Perhaps they were fully me or not at all. It was possible through the trauma that they were created to replace myself...I didn't know. I knew that much and shut off my mind to think more of it. I was too tired to care, too pained to try and fight back more than I had done. Each protest had been met with a punishment so cruel that I was okay in this tranquillity. For the first time I was at peace and the world was still. Allowing myself to walk to the rusted over swingset I sat with difficulty and closed my eyes breathing in gently. I thought of Joel, the memory I had left of how he looked and felt and smelled. My fingers gripping against my leg as though I could feel his hold there as opposed to Tex. I remembered Troy and his motor mouth which would annoy the life out of me. I recalled Sherri and how beautiful she was and lastly I thought of Roger and how in such a brief time he had given me comfort. It was too much, everything was too much but the more I dwelled and lamented on it, the more my head clouded over into a thick fog. The faces began to slowly fade and leave me in the abyss.
Taking another step forwards, the garden spun beneath my feet and led me instead into the bedroom. The sounds of grunts and bedsprings echoing in my ear as I kept my back to the scene behind me. If life was to take something from my memory I'd rather inhumane moments like this was one of them. I could barely stand it.