Echoes of Bedlam- Chapter 2a
Title: Echoes of Bedlam
Author: thecrncmeltodown (OR, the Chronic Meltdown)
Pairings: Faberry, Brittana. Brief Quick, vague Finchel.
Rating: PG-13, borderline R for this part.
Length: 6,016.
Echoes of Bedlam
Chapter 2: Lost
“Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate.”
-“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”, Smashing Pumpkins
The worst part about it all is that Rachel -yes, that Rachel - is actually a nonviolent person.
She isn’t vicious. She hates that she has to do this. She loathes it. But there’s something so absolutely necessary about the whole thing, so, “If I don’t do this, they’re all going to decimate me.” about it all, that she can’t bring herself to regret it. She should feel remorseful. She should find a way to avoid the confrontation and slip away, unnoticed, or if not unnoticed, then at least unharmed. It would be the nice thing to do. She’s a sweet girl, and the good inside her is telling her that they have families too, that this is why they’re doing these things.
But they’re such brutal people, and they say such sadistic things, and she thinks that she should maybe put an end to them, because if they don’t trap her, it’ll be someone else (perhaps more innocent than she is). That maybe, if she kills them for this reason, it’ll actually make her a better person. Some part of her believes that she’ll be making a difference if she rids the world of these people. That she will be loved, will be appreciated, if she does these things.
As the male Slaver swings his sledgehammer towards her head, as she ducks, she begins to think that this maybe isn’t such a good idea. But his eyes are dark, and his smile is fierce, and she feels it. She can feel something blossom in her chest, something that rises and wells up in her throat as he lets out an angry cry when he misses. She does not falter as she steps close, her hand steady on her knife as she drives it firmly into his abdomen. She twists it.
This is the end to her beginning.
-o-
Back when her fathers were still alive, things had been relatively safer.
It wasn’t like they’d had everything they’d wanted, but they’d been perfectly comfortable. They’d owned a small house almost smack in the middle of the swampland in Point Lookout, where they’d had a machine used to brew Moonshine. It was how they’d made a living, and how they’d kept from being fatally raided by the swamp folk. Rachel had often been told how her parents had “inherited” both things from an older woman they’d helped out several times, with chores and several other things. They’d been lucky to have stumbled upon her when they had, since if they’d continued farther north, they would have encountered several hostile encampments and probably died.
The whole story had been fairly reassuring.
As a child, Rachel Berry had been unsurprisingly active. Her fathers had taken it upon themselves to teach her how to wield weapons from an early age as a sort of precautionary measure. They hadn’t really thought anything would happen to them, but they’d wanted to make sure that, if anything did, she would be prepared to face the wastelands. So she learned how to use small guns, like her lever-action rifle and her father’s old 10mm pistol, and the occasional knife, and the sad part was that even though she disliked violence, she was good at it. But, then, she supposed one had to be, nowadays, if they wanted to survive.
Her Daddy also taught her how to climb trees, which branches to use, which to watch out for. He pointed out animals and made sure she understood which were territorial, which were automatically hostile, and the few that weren’t dangerous if you knew how to deal with them. Her Dad, meanwhile, taught her to barter. He taught her prices, showed her how to repair a couple of things, made sure she learned to distrust anyone overly friendly and with seemingly good intentions. He made sure she understood that some battles are not worth it, that sometimes, to survive, it isn’t necessary to fight, that compromise is possible.
Then there are the things she learned by herself, between the ages of twelve and fourteen.
She learned that feral ghouls run faster than humans, that mirelurk aren’t restricted to water, that it is possible for them to spit at a person, and that said spit can burn through clothing faster than it is possible to take the article off. She learned that the world is actually far darker than what she could see, that the swamp folk are not to be trusted, that when something begins to beep, it is safer to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible than to sit there and see what happens. She learned that it is never a good idea to approach a cult, especially if one has ideas they don’t agree with.
She also learned that it is very useful to be small, particularly if the gene also makes one fast as a jackrabbit.
-o-
A snapshot.
She was running. She was running.
She was skipping over roots, scrambling up the trunk of a tree before the snap of a jaw scraped the edge of her ankle. She hauled herself up unto a branch, heaving with the effort, the dog’s crazed snarls echoing in her ears.
-o-
As a little girl, when she was five, or maybe six, she would ask questions about her mother.
Her fathers were honest with her, mentioned the name of Shelby Corcoran, mentioned that the last they’d heard, she was alive and hiding out in the Capital Wasteland, somewhere in downtown D.C. They told her that she reminded them of her, of that woman, with the way she’d sing, with the way her eyes had a certain gleam, with the way she behaved. They told her that her mother was intense and dramatic, that she’d inherited that from her.
It had made her a little happy. It was only later on, as a pre-teen, that she began to wonder why the woman had left.
-o-
A snapshot.
Hiram hefted her up on his shoulders. She was four, and small, and eternally bright and clever, and even then, loquacious. She grinned as she tugged on his hair, as per usual, and giggled delightedly when he dropped on his knees and began mock-roaring, like he was angry at her.
“You’re silly, Daddy! This doesn’t hurt!” She tugged at his hair again. “See?”
Sitting over at the still, Leroy quirked an eyebrow at them, before smiling, shaking his head, and continuing with his work.
-o-
Rachel loved her fathers.
She loved them when they were harsh with her, like that one time when she’d snuck out of the house without supervision and had gotten herself chased up a tree by a pack of wild dogs. They’d been frantic that time, not having found her anywhere, and had it not been for Leroy’s good hearing, she might have remained up there several days and ended up starving to death.
She loved them when they were silly, like all the times they would be just to make her laugh, just to make her smile. She loved the way they were with each other, so obviously in love and so willing to show it to the world. She loved the way they stood up for each other in times of need, like the time the swamp folk threatened to come back and destroy their house if her fathers didn’t lower their prices. She loved that they loved her, and protected her, and cared for her.
She loved that they kept her, that they raised her, even though she’d often wonder what her life would be like if her biological mother had kept her. She loved that they hadn’t abandoned her when they could have, like that woman had; she loved that whenever she asked them why they kept her, they’d tell her, “Because our lives were incomplete without you.”
So Rachel- she really adored her fathers.
That was why it hurt so much when she lost them.
-o-
A snapshot.
“No, Rachel.” His hands encircled hers, gently guiding them into position. He let go. “You can’t line up the sight exactly if you’re shooting long distance targets. There are factors to take into account, like wind interference and speed, and if it’s too far away-”
“The bullet drops a little, I know.” she finished for him, squinting to make out the tin can twenty feet away. “I know, Daddy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s okay.” he said, his hand dropping to rest on her small shoulder. “Just concentrate.”
She nodded and, when everything was quiet, fired.
It hit the target. Her father smiled proudly.
“That’s my girl.”
-o-
It was night when it happened.
She’d been sleeping on her small mat on the floor when the knocking came to wake her. She blinked rapidly, trying to chase away the sleep, the distorted images from her dreams, and rolled onto her side to speed up the process. She was halfway to the door when her Dad put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. In one of his hands was his double-barreled shotgun. The sight of the gun sent a sharp, sobering tendril of shock straight through her. His brow was furrowed.
“I don’t like this.” he told her softly, as the harsh knocking continued, “Go wait in the other room, Rachel.” He turned to her Daddy. “Get your gun.”
The other man nodded, already on it, and she just sort of stood there, unwilling to leave but also hesitant to disobey.
“Rachel.” Leroy muttered warningly, and she shifted in response, frowning but treading backwards through the doorway.
She turned quickly and stepped around the corner before slipping out of her nightshirt and sliding one of her only good white shirts on. The knocking became even rougher.
“Open up!”
She reached for her white work pants just as her Daddy murmured, “Fuck. They’re swamp folk.”
She slipped them on, and dashed over to the back door in order to grab her long brown boots. She hurriedly tugged them on and laced them, cursing under her breath when she messed up and had to start over. Her fathers rushed about in the other room, carefully setting mines on the walls on either side of the door.
“Open the door or we’ll blow the whole damn place up! We know yer in there!”
This time, her Dad replied. “I’m coming!”
Abruptly, the knocking stopped.
Rachel, boots now on, leapt lightly to her feet. She quickly rounded the kitchen counter in order to walk past the stove, towards the wall beside the fridge. One of the two hooks there held her light brown, almost cream colored, brahmin-skin jacket. She pulled it on and zipped it up, but didn’t use the hood. She reached for her gloves just as she heard the lock click. Her father opened the door.
“What do you want?” she heard him say, as she hastily finished putting on the gloves.
She was out of sight, pressed against the wall, and she felt utterly naked without the knife she always carried with her. It was currently underneath the hand-made pillow her Dad had given her when she’d turned five. Still, she didn’t dare move.
“You know what we’re wantin’.”
There was a pause.
“No, I don’t,” her Dad replied, cautiously, almost placating in his tone, “I’m afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory. What can I do for you?”
“I sent some ‘o my young’uns to talk to yer last week. It’s about that there prop’sition.”
Her father’s voice hardened. “And as I recall, I said no. Firmly.”
There was a breath. She heard her Daddy inhale sharply. Her hands clenched into fists as her heart pounded in her chest, and she turned her head, leaning forward to peek around the edge. She wanted to cry out at the sight that greeted her.
Her Dad’s chin was tilted up, his expression angry as the barrel of a shotgun pressed against his throat. From her vantage point, she could see the other man’s face, slightly disfigured and undoubtedly unattractive, and she was sickened to see that he smiling. Several of his teeth were missing.
“Well, we was just wondrin’ if you’d happened to change…” he trailed off, a little, his head tilting as he gazed past both her fathers and towards the kitchen. His eyes met hers, and his smile turned into a vicious grin. “...t’change yer mind. She a pretty girl, there, Leroy.” he said delightedly, putting unnecessary emphasis on the Le part of his name, so that it sounded as though he’d said Lee-roy instead. “Ma boy’s been wantin’er.”
Her Daddy shifted immediately, tensing. His hand tightened on his gun. From her spot, Rachel could see the tendons in his arm flexing, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen either of them this angry. Her heart rose to her throat as the hairs on her body stood on end. Her fingers twitched, and she took a step back, and then another, and another, until she couldn’t see what was going on. She dropped to her knees beside her bed, her fingers reaching underneath her pillow.
“No, Shamus…I’m afraid I haven’t changed my mind.”
“We’re not letting you take her.” Hiram finished, and for a few seconds, she didn’t dare move.
Though her fingertips were right against the handle of her knife, she didn’t dare move.
“That…is a great darn pity.” She hunched down, hand moving to cover the knife fully, at the same time straining to hear what was being said. “M’afraid we’re gonna have to do this by force, then.”
Her hand clenched convulsively around her knife, just as there was a loud pop. There was a cry of outrage, of pain- more shots exploded, and then there was the sound of a closing door.
“Dad!” she cried, and jerked backwards, so scared, so terrified, and she struggled to scramble to her feet because her body wouldn’t move right, it wouldn’t move correctly, but then-
Hurried footsteps as the pounding against the front door resumed.
Hands gripped her shoulders and hauled her up, and her body was twisted towards the back door.
“Move, Rachel!” her Daddy shouted in her ear, and she did, shaking, and gripped the doorknob and twisted it so it would swing open. It did and someone cried out as it hit him in the face, and then Hiram was pushing past her and onto the back deck, gripping the edge of the door and pushing it out of the way so he could get at the person.
She ran out after him just as he tumbled into the river, pinned underneath one of the hillbillies. And then her Dad was coming up behind her, grabbing her by the wrist, and in her shock she could see the detonator in his other hand. They heard the front door crack and she cringed reflexively. Her father looked at her.
“Rachel.” he said, his grip on her wrist painfully tight. They heard the door give away. “I love you.”
He shoved her backwards into the water. She flailed in reflex and one of her legs caught the edge of the sunken rowboat that had been there since she could remember. She choked on her gasp, cold, murky liquid making her gag.
And then there was heat as her whole childhood exploded.
-o-
A snapshot.
Rachel laughed as her Dad swung her around, the light of the sun warming her face. His eyes twinkled.
“I love you, Rachel.”
-o-
“Leroy!”
She surfaced with a gasp, lungs burning for air. She coughed violently, growing desperate when she found she couldn’t see well. The smoke made her eyes water, the flames made everything too bright.
“Leroy!”
Her Daddy, sobbing, wounded in a place invisible to the human eye.
She struggled up the opposing bank, slipping twice on mud, and tried to catch her breath. She wanted to call out, to yell, but found she couldn’t. She couldn’t get out a word. All she could feel was a crushing, crumbling sensation in her chest, like she’d built a sand castle and it was now disintegrating, grain of sand by measly, golden grain of sand. (Like the time her fathers had taken her to the beaches south of this place, like the time they’d gone to the pier of Point Lookout, by the House of Wares run by that sweet lady who’d given her a snack for free, by the ancient, untouched Ferris wheel.)
Her life had slipped right through her fingers in a matter of minutes. She couldn’t breathe.
“Rachel, where are you?! Rachel!”
Her father’s voice was frantic.
“Rachel!”
She forced herself to inhale, making painful, gasping noises as her teeth chattered. “Daddy!” she croaked, having intended to scream, having intended to say something else, but being unable to. “Daddy!” she repeated, and she heard a splash in response, and as soon as she could perceive his soot-covered face, her own crumpled and she began to cry.
When he reached her, he gripped her arm and tugged her to her feet, and told her, “No, sweetheart, no, not now, later.” and pulled her along after him. He was shaking, and tense, and limping, and it was only then that she noticed the red stain on his shirt. It was only then that she noticed he’d been shot.
“Daddy…” she whispered helplessly, but he didn’t look at her; he continued marching onwards, quietly, crouching when he thought he heard something, and she couldn’t cry, not really, not anymore.
Something cold settled in her throat, made her body numb. She could only follow his lead in the darkness of the night, and they made progress for about an hour before he finally collapsed. They were nearly out of the marshes. His body slumped down face-first into ankle-deep water.
“Daddy!” she cried softly, rushing forward and tugging him up by the back of his shirt so he could breathe.
She cradled his head in her lap tenderly, her hands shaking. She was alarmed to find that he’d gone almost completely limp. His eyes fluttered as he teetered on the edge of consciousness.
“Rachel…” he whispered, his voice impossibly soft.
She laughed a laugh that walked along the border of hysteria. “Yes, daddy?”
“I want you…to go to the pier.” he seemed to struggle with the words, and he gritted his teeth, letting out a moan of pain when he shifted. “I need you to go to the pier…do you understand me…?”
“Yes, sir…” she breathed, her eyes growing moist, “I understand…”
“South…always south…” When he took in a breath, a shudder wracked his body, and then blood was rising, spilling from his mouth like darkness. He choked against it, grimacing, and with a final burst of strength, raised himself to a sitting position and gripped her arm. He looked her in the eyes, his nails digging into her skin. “Wait for a ship, and for the woman named Nadine. Trust no one else.”
“Okay…”
“No one else, Rachel.” he insisted, desperately, and she nodded, tears free-falling now, and she caught him again as he went limp and sank back into the marshes.
His breathing was quicker, labored. She stayed with him as it slowed, as his heart atrophied. She stayed with him there, crouched down, for longer than an hour, until she could feel the cold within her bones, until it hurt to move. She stayed with him until his breaths were few, until they were shallow, until he stopped breathing altogether.
She stayed with him for minutes afterwards, her heart wrenching as she revisited the night, as she played back that tape, and each and every time, she thought, “I could have acted differently.”
“I could have stopped this.”
She stayed with him until he grew completely cold. She stayed with him until his body began to grow stiff.
And then she let him go.
-o-
A snapshot.
Hiram’s arms encircled her small body, lifting her up against him. His boots were stained with the wild dogs’ blood.
“Rachel…” he whispered tenderly, almost sagging with relief, “Oh, Rachel…”
She answered him with a sob. “I’m so sorry, Daddy...”
“It’s okay, now, sweetheart…it’s okay…” he stroked her head, trying to reassure her, “You know I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
She nodded against his neck.
He didn’t let her go once during the rest of the day.
Part 2
Author: thecrncmeltodown (OR, the Chronic Meltdown)
Pairings: Faberry, Brittana. Brief Quick, vague Finchel.
Rating: PG-13, borderline R for this part.
Length: 6,016.
Echoes of Bedlam
Chapter 2: Lost
“Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate.”
-“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”, Smashing Pumpkins
The worst part about it all is that Rachel -yes, that Rachel - is actually a nonviolent person.
She isn’t vicious. She hates that she has to do this. She loathes it. But there’s something so absolutely necessary about the whole thing, so, “If I don’t do this, they’re all going to decimate me.” about it all, that she can’t bring herself to regret it. She should feel remorseful. She should find a way to avoid the confrontation and slip away, unnoticed, or if not unnoticed, then at least unharmed. It would be the nice thing to do. She’s a sweet girl, and the good inside her is telling her that they have families too, that this is why they’re doing these things.
But they’re such brutal people, and they say such sadistic things, and she thinks that she should maybe put an end to them, because if they don’t trap her, it’ll be someone else (perhaps more innocent than she is). That maybe, if she kills them for this reason, it’ll actually make her a better person. Some part of her believes that she’ll be making a difference if she rids the world of these people. That she will be loved, will be appreciated, if she does these things.
As the male Slaver swings his sledgehammer towards her head, as she ducks, she begins to think that this maybe isn’t such a good idea. But his eyes are dark, and his smile is fierce, and she feels it. She can feel something blossom in her chest, something that rises and wells up in her throat as he lets out an angry cry when he misses. She does not falter as she steps close, her hand steady on her knife as she drives it firmly into his abdomen. She twists it.
This is the end to her beginning.
-o-
Back when her fathers were still alive, things had been relatively safer.
It wasn’t like they’d had everything they’d wanted, but they’d been perfectly comfortable. They’d owned a small house almost smack in the middle of the swampland in Point Lookout, where they’d had a machine used to brew Moonshine. It was how they’d made a living, and how they’d kept from being fatally raided by the swamp folk. Rachel had often been told how her parents had “inherited” both things from an older woman they’d helped out several times, with chores and several other things. They’d been lucky to have stumbled upon her when they had, since if they’d continued farther north, they would have encountered several hostile encampments and probably died.
The whole story had been fairly reassuring.
As a child, Rachel Berry had been unsurprisingly active. Her fathers had taken it upon themselves to teach her how to wield weapons from an early age as a sort of precautionary measure. They hadn’t really thought anything would happen to them, but they’d wanted to make sure that, if anything did, she would be prepared to face the wastelands. So she learned how to use small guns, like her lever-action rifle and her father’s old 10mm pistol, and the occasional knife, and the sad part was that even though she disliked violence, she was good at it. But, then, she supposed one had to be, nowadays, if they wanted to survive.
Her Daddy also taught her how to climb trees, which branches to use, which to watch out for. He pointed out animals and made sure she understood which were territorial, which were automatically hostile, and the few that weren’t dangerous if you knew how to deal with them. Her Dad, meanwhile, taught her to barter. He taught her prices, showed her how to repair a couple of things, made sure she learned to distrust anyone overly friendly and with seemingly good intentions. He made sure she understood that some battles are not worth it, that sometimes, to survive, it isn’t necessary to fight, that compromise is possible.
Then there are the things she learned by herself, between the ages of twelve and fourteen.
She learned that feral ghouls run faster than humans, that mirelurk aren’t restricted to water, that it is possible for them to spit at a person, and that said spit can burn through clothing faster than it is possible to take the article off. She learned that the world is actually far darker than what she could see, that the swamp folk are not to be trusted, that when something begins to beep, it is safer to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible than to sit there and see what happens. She learned that it is never a good idea to approach a cult, especially if one has ideas they don’t agree with.
She also learned that it is very useful to be small, particularly if the gene also makes one fast as a jackrabbit.
-o-
A snapshot.
She was running. She was running.
She was skipping over roots, scrambling up the trunk of a tree before the snap of a jaw scraped the edge of her ankle. She hauled herself up unto a branch, heaving with the effort, the dog’s crazed snarls echoing in her ears.
-o-
As a little girl, when she was five, or maybe six, she would ask questions about her mother.
Her fathers were honest with her, mentioned the name of Shelby Corcoran, mentioned that the last they’d heard, she was alive and hiding out in the Capital Wasteland, somewhere in downtown D.C. They told her that she reminded them of her, of that woman, with the way she’d sing, with the way her eyes had a certain gleam, with the way she behaved. They told her that her mother was intense and dramatic, that she’d inherited that from her.
It had made her a little happy. It was only later on, as a pre-teen, that she began to wonder why the woman had left.
-o-
A snapshot.
Hiram hefted her up on his shoulders. She was four, and small, and eternally bright and clever, and even then, loquacious. She grinned as she tugged on his hair, as per usual, and giggled delightedly when he dropped on his knees and began mock-roaring, like he was angry at her.
“You’re silly, Daddy! This doesn’t hurt!” She tugged at his hair again. “See?”
Sitting over at the still, Leroy quirked an eyebrow at them, before smiling, shaking his head, and continuing with his work.
-o-
Rachel loved her fathers.
She loved them when they were harsh with her, like that one time when she’d snuck out of the house without supervision and had gotten herself chased up a tree by a pack of wild dogs. They’d been frantic that time, not having found her anywhere, and had it not been for Leroy’s good hearing, she might have remained up there several days and ended up starving to death.
She loved them when they were silly, like all the times they would be just to make her laugh, just to make her smile. She loved the way they were with each other, so obviously in love and so willing to show it to the world. She loved the way they stood up for each other in times of need, like the time the swamp folk threatened to come back and destroy their house if her fathers didn’t lower their prices. She loved that they loved her, and protected her, and cared for her.
She loved that they kept her, that they raised her, even though she’d often wonder what her life would be like if her biological mother had kept her. She loved that they hadn’t abandoned her when they could have, like that woman had; she loved that whenever she asked them why they kept her, they’d tell her, “Because our lives were incomplete without you.”
So Rachel- she really adored her fathers.
That was why it hurt so much when she lost them.
-o-
A snapshot.
“No, Rachel.” His hands encircled hers, gently guiding them into position. He let go. “You can’t line up the sight exactly if you’re shooting long distance targets. There are factors to take into account, like wind interference and speed, and if it’s too far away-”
“The bullet drops a little, I know.” she finished for him, squinting to make out the tin can twenty feet away. “I know, Daddy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It’s okay.” he said, his hand dropping to rest on her small shoulder. “Just concentrate.”
She nodded and, when everything was quiet, fired.
It hit the target. Her father smiled proudly.
“That’s my girl.”
-o-
It was night when it happened.
She’d been sleeping on her small mat on the floor when the knocking came to wake her. She blinked rapidly, trying to chase away the sleep, the distorted images from her dreams, and rolled onto her side to speed up the process. She was halfway to the door when her Dad put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. In one of his hands was his double-barreled shotgun. The sight of the gun sent a sharp, sobering tendril of shock straight through her. His brow was furrowed.
“I don’t like this.” he told her softly, as the harsh knocking continued, “Go wait in the other room, Rachel.” He turned to her Daddy. “Get your gun.”
The other man nodded, already on it, and she just sort of stood there, unwilling to leave but also hesitant to disobey.
“Rachel.” Leroy muttered warningly, and she shifted in response, frowning but treading backwards through the doorway.
She turned quickly and stepped around the corner before slipping out of her nightshirt and sliding one of her only good white shirts on. The knocking became even rougher.
“Open up!”
She reached for her white work pants just as her Daddy murmured, “Fuck. They’re swamp folk.”
She slipped them on, and dashed over to the back door in order to grab her long brown boots. She hurriedly tugged them on and laced them, cursing under her breath when she messed up and had to start over. Her fathers rushed about in the other room, carefully setting mines on the walls on either side of the door.
“Open the door or we’ll blow the whole damn place up! We know yer in there!”
This time, her Dad replied. “I’m coming!”
Abruptly, the knocking stopped.
Rachel, boots now on, leapt lightly to her feet. She quickly rounded the kitchen counter in order to walk past the stove, towards the wall beside the fridge. One of the two hooks there held her light brown, almost cream colored, brahmin-skin jacket. She pulled it on and zipped it up, but didn’t use the hood. She reached for her gloves just as she heard the lock click. Her father opened the door.
“What do you want?” she heard him say, as she hastily finished putting on the gloves.
She was out of sight, pressed against the wall, and she felt utterly naked without the knife she always carried with her. It was currently underneath the hand-made pillow her Dad had given her when she’d turned five. Still, she didn’t dare move.
“You know what we’re wantin’.”
There was a pause.
“No, I don’t,” her Dad replied, cautiously, almost placating in his tone, “I’m afraid you’ll have to refresh my memory. What can I do for you?”
“I sent some ‘o my young’uns to talk to yer last week. It’s about that there prop’sition.”
Her father’s voice hardened. “And as I recall, I said no. Firmly.”
There was a breath. She heard her Daddy inhale sharply. Her hands clenched into fists as her heart pounded in her chest, and she turned her head, leaning forward to peek around the edge. She wanted to cry out at the sight that greeted her.
Her Dad’s chin was tilted up, his expression angry as the barrel of a shotgun pressed against his throat. From her vantage point, she could see the other man’s face, slightly disfigured and undoubtedly unattractive, and she was sickened to see that he smiling. Several of his teeth were missing.
“Well, we was just wondrin’ if you’d happened to change…” he trailed off, a little, his head tilting as he gazed past both her fathers and towards the kitchen. His eyes met hers, and his smile turned into a vicious grin. “...t’change yer mind. She a pretty girl, there, Leroy.” he said delightedly, putting unnecessary emphasis on the Le part of his name, so that it sounded as though he’d said Lee-roy instead. “Ma boy’s been wantin’er.”
Her Daddy shifted immediately, tensing. His hand tightened on his gun. From her spot, Rachel could see the tendons in his arm flexing, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen either of them this angry. Her heart rose to her throat as the hairs on her body stood on end. Her fingers twitched, and she took a step back, and then another, and another, until she couldn’t see what was going on. She dropped to her knees beside her bed, her fingers reaching underneath her pillow.
“No, Shamus…I’m afraid I haven’t changed my mind.”
“We’re not letting you take her.” Hiram finished, and for a few seconds, she didn’t dare move.
Though her fingertips were right against the handle of her knife, she didn’t dare move.
“That…is a great darn pity.” She hunched down, hand moving to cover the knife fully, at the same time straining to hear what was being said. “M’afraid we’re gonna have to do this by force, then.”
Her hand clenched convulsively around her knife, just as there was a loud pop. There was a cry of outrage, of pain- more shots exploded, and then there was the sound of a closing door.
“Dad!” she cried, and jerked backwards, so scared, so terrified, and she struggled to scramble to her feet because her body wouldn’t move right, it wouldn’t move correctly, but then-
Hurried footsteps as the pounding against the front door resumed.
Hands gripped her shoulders and hauled her up, and her body was twisted towards the back door.
“Move, Rachel!” her Daddy shouted in her ear, and she did, shaking, and gripped the doorknob and twisted it so it would swing open. It did and someone cried out as it hit him in the face, and then Hiram was pushing past her and onto the back deck, gripping the edge of the door and pushing it out of the way so he could get at the person.
She ran out after him just as he tumbled into the river, pinned underneath one of the hillbillies. And then her Dad was coming up behind her, grabbing her by the wrist, and in her shock she could see the detonator in his other hand. They heard the front door crack and she cringed reflexively. Her father looked at her.
“Rachel.” he said, his grip on her wrist painfully tight. They heard the door give away. “I love you.”
He shoved her backwards into the water. She flailed in reflex and one of her legs caught the edge of the sunken rowboat that had been there since she could remember. She choked on her gasp, cold, murky liquid making her gag.
And then there was heat as her whole childhood exploded.
-o-
A snapshot.
Rachel laughed as her Dad swung her around, the light of the sun warming her face. His eyes twinkled.
“I love you, Rachel.”
-o-
“Leroy!”
She surfaced with a gasp, lungs burning for air. She coughed violently, growing desperate when she found she couldn’t see well. The smoke made her eyes water, the flames made everything too bright.
“Leroy!”
Her Daddy, sobbing, wounded in a place invisible to the human eye.
She struggled up the opposing bank, slipping twice on mud, and tried to catch her breath. She wanted to call out, to yell, but found she couldn’t. She couldn’t get out a word. All she could feel was a crushing, crumbling sensation in her chest, like she’d built a sand castle and it was now disintegrating, grain of sand by measly, golden grain of sand. (Like the time her fathers had taken her to the beaches south of this place, like the time they’d gone to the pier of Point Lookout, by the House of Wares run by that sweet lady who’d given her a snack for free, by the ancient, untouched Ferris wheel.)
Her life had slipped right through her fingers in a matter of minutes. She couldn’t breathe.
“Rachel, where are you?! Rachel!”
Her father’s voice was frantic.
“Rachel!”
She forced herself to inhale, making painful, gasping noises as her teeth chattered. “Daddy!” she croaked, having intended to scream, having intended to say something else, but being unable to. “Daddy!” she repeated, and she heard a splash in response, and as soon as she could perceive his soot-covered face, her own crumpled and she began to cry.
When he reached her, he gripped her arm and tugged her to her feet, and told her, “No, sweetheart, no, not now, later.” and pulled her along after him. He was shaking, and tense, and limping, and it was only then that she noticed the red stain on his shirt. It was only then that she noticed he’d been shot.
“Daddy…” she whispered helplessly, but he didn’t look at her; he continued marching onwards, quietly, crouching when he thought he heard something, and she couldn’t cry, not really, not anymore.
Something cold settled in her throat, made her body numb. She could only follow his lead in the darkness of the night, and they made progress for about an hour before he finally collapsed. They were nearly out of the marshes. His body slumped down face-first into ankle-deep water.
“Daddy!” she cried softly, rushing forward and tugging him up by the back of his shirt so he could breathe.
She cradled his head in her lap tenderly, her hands shaking. She was alarmed to find that he’d gone almost completely limp. His eyes fluttered as he teetered on the edge of consciousness.
“Rachel…” he whispered, his voice impossibly soft.
She laughed a laugh that walked along the border of hysteria. “Yes, daddy?”
“I want you…to go to the pier.” he seemed to struggle with the words, and he gritted his teeth, letting out a moan of pain when he shifted. “I need you to go to the pier…do you understand me…?”
“Yes, sir…” she breathed, her eyes growing moist, “I understand…”
“South…always south…” When he took in a breath, a shudder wracked his body, and then blood was rising, spilling from his mouth like darkness. He choked against it, grimacing, and with a final burst of strength, raised himself to a sitting position and gripped her arm. He looked her in the eyes, his nails digging into her skin. “Wait for a ship, and for the woman named Nadine. Trust no one else.”
“Okay…”
“No one else, Rachel.” he insisted, desperately, and she nodded, tears free-falling now, and she caught him again as he went limp and sank back into the marshes.
His breathing was quicker, labored. She stayed with him as it slowed, as his heart atrophied. She stayed with him there, crouched down, for longer than an hour, until she could feel the cold within her bones, until it hurt to move. She stayed with him until his breaths were few, until they were shallow, until he stopped breathing altogether.
She stayed with him for minutes afterwards, her heart wrenching as she revisited the night, as she played back that tape, and each and every time, she thought, “I could have acted differently.”
“I could have stopped this.”
She stayed with him until he grew completely cold. She stayed with him until his body began to grow stiff.
And then she let him go.
-o-
A snapshot.
Hiram’s arms encircled her small body, lifting her up against him. His boots were stained with the wild dogs’ blood.
“Rachel…” he whispered tenderly, almost sagging with relief, “Oh, Rachel…”
She answered him with a sob. “I’m so sorry, Daddy...”
“It’s okay, now, sweetheart…it’s okay…” he stroked her head, trying to reassure her, “You know I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
She nodded against his neck.
He didn’t let her go once during the rest of the day.
Part 2