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TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (THE UNNAMED ONE ch. 2)
0 reviewsLeatherface and his entire family are being stalked by something summoned from beyond in this reverse-horror action-thriller. Full story available at Archive of our Own.
0Unrated
Chapter II. LEATHERFACE (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE)
by Roger "Cobb" Trujillo
“...fearing neither chainsaw…”
_Return to the Country Road_
The screams go against the beautiful landscape. There is no reason to gag her; no one else is around for miles except the family. If anything, they seem to enjoy it.
The truck speeds off, kicking a cyclone of dust through its wheels. It races back to the nightmare of a young lady, a lone survivor, who fought so hard to escape only to return. The two sadistic leechers in the front are laughing at her every scream, at her every tear. Bound with butcher string and no escape, she is at the mercy of those who have none.
This will not stand.
_A View from the Hill_
The sheriff (known as Hoyt) appears, walking up our hill. He is having radio interference and tries to get a better connection on higher ground. He checks the chest radio again. “Monty, how’s this?”
“Better.”
[The view splits into two simultaneous perspectives:]
[POV from the evoked pillar] “Roger that. Over and out.” Hoyt head stops as he hears something behind him. With curious, squinted eyes, he turns his head towards us as his whole face widens. “Hooolysh…”
Kronnnk
A quick black and gray rotting mass slams Hoyt jaw into the back of his mouth. It is completely crushed and melded to the upper jaw’s throat-edge.
Still alive, Hoyt instinctively pulls his gun. The oddly-rotting mass grabs the armed hand, crushing bones and metal into junk. Trying to scream from a blocked mouth, tension only escapes through the nose and blood-wrenched eyes. While the thing seems to have only two limbs, it somehow grabs his nightstick and breaks it in half while still securing him. Hoyt’s forearms are pinned backwards against his sides. The splintered ends of the club drive through the forearms, into his obliques, and out the corners of his kidneys. Hoyt starts loosing consciousness. He isn’t sure if he is still screaming, but he feels himself thrown him down the other side of the hill into the woods. He flies and rolls a long distance.
Loosing grasp of where he is, Hoyt stumbles up and tries to find the way back. Running over lofty ground and slipping on rocks, he manages to stay on his feet hitting an occasional tree. Everything is so blurry and glaring. The blood loss is too much, but he must get out. “(Where am I?)” he thinks to himself over and over while everything looks the same. He looks around for any hint of an exit, but it’s all just endless woods. The forest starts to spin as his gaze is magnetized upwards. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real. It’s just a residual dream. “(This can’t be real. This can’t be real.)” Everything is so blurry except for the suffocating marigold light eating the silhouettes.
Out of nowhere, the thing ceases him. Tiny bites surround its grip. Upon contact, he sees all of the people he victimized and their suffering. Blurred lashes blast out of the darkened mass and latch into his skin. In one fierce pull, they rip his skin off.
Everything sears. A black and gray mass rips his lower jaw off and shoves a roll of flesh down his throat. The rest hangs outside. Hoyt falls from his feet, maximizing the pain by uncontrollably rolling over the sharp particles of the ground.
He can’t pull the skin out. He can’t bite it off. He can’t throw it up. He can’t breathe.
His eyes become bulged and blood-filled. He is gagging to death on his own flesh, and no one can stop it.
The throat bloats unnaturally in attempt to live. It slows down. And slows down. And slows. And stops.
Covered in the shadows, the thing pulls the flesh from Hoyt’s mouth. Lots of blood and guts eject with it. The darkened black and gray masses activate the radio.
And Hoyt’s head.
---
“...on…y, Mo…ty!
The elderly, double-amputee Monty answers the radio. “This is Monty.”
“Monty, ther… nother one. H… tole my ca… hind me and burn.. Luda Mae’s to… cinder! Send Vilmer… store, now!”
“You’re breakin’ up. Now, your car was… towed?
“Stolen! S…olen! S…nd Vimer… store!”
“I’ll send Vilmer. He’s not too far from you. Who stole your car? Where are they headed?”
“...n…ther kid. He… your way.”
“Gotcha, Hoyt. We’ll keep a look out for him and call Vilmer out that aways.”
“Ro..er. Over ..n… out.”
---
Vilmer will be there soon, but first, the store.
_Miles to the Store_
Still baked in the heat, a massive tow truck with a feast of headlights pulls up next to the lonely Sawyer store.
Beep, beeeeeep!
A man looking like a young Matthew McConaughey keeps chewing a thin, plastic tube while look at the store entrance. “C’mon! I don’t have all day!”
Beep,
---
beeeeeep!
The view begins on a dirty tiled floor. Sun beams pierce at near-horizontal angles, highlighting rows of browning, filth-encrusted textiles while the rest remain in shadows. At the top of the view are the beginnings of two feet. The view slowly rises, revealing the slow pour of drying blood running down the ankles. Next are the calves and knees in warped outlines. The sun-planks are separated, and the absence between them darkens the flesh. The view continues, revealing legs impaled with gleaming metal and draped with severed intestines and other unraveled organs. Next begins the missing chunks of flesh crested with animal bite marks. Extending below the marks run trenches of dissolved flesh. We rise further to witness the exposed liver sinking incrementally; then it falls and splatters on the ground.
Beeeeep! beeeeeep!
An electronically-enhanced voice resounds through a loudspeaker “Hoyt! Luda Mae! Let’s go!”
We continue upwards to see the inside of a ravaged stomach, the roots of remaining organs exposed and sinking. The view sprints back to reveal the elderly Luda Mae hanging from a suspended meat hook, her face stuck in a permanent shock. Among the devoured dwellings, the body is slayed throughout with cleavers, knives, hooks, and skewers. From this new perspective, the sunbeams reveal that her darkened skin hue is not the result of encasing shadows. The darkened hue is the result of a body unnaturally rotting at a supernatural speed.
The view shoots straight into the surface of her eye. Burned into her retina is the image of a flat cyclone bending the properties of the room’s tiles. Things like tentacles leap forward from it. Their ends are encrusted with fanged thorns.
The body sinks a few times and then falls from the hook, splattering into a mushy blob, barely solid. The only remains still hanging from the hook are the shock-struck face and the spinal cord.
Beeeeep! Beeeeeep!
A facetious voice continues through the loudspeaker. “I’ve got an order of two dumbass, shrivel-faced, slow as dick rednecks to go. If you do not come forward and claim your order in the next few minutes, it will go to the next available customer.”
---
Vilmer stands between the truck and its door, one leg on the ground and a black radio communicator in his hand. “I can’t believe this,” he says while looking around.
[POV from the hill] The sheriff’s car creeps next to the pickup truck as the siren lights engage. Vilmer sees it and jumps into his seat as the stolen car ramps up and speeds out of the lot.
Vilmer grabs his favorite tape and shoves it in the player, setting his truck into high gear. “Buckle up your seat belt boys and girls ‘cause papa’s gonna take you for a ride!” The drums and electric guitar start a pumping rhythm. “Alright racing fans, here we go! Hee haha ho!” The truck jumps onto the main road while leaving a blast of dust behind.
It’s a close race, but the super-powered tow truck catches up to the sheriff’s car. Vilmer gets along side and tries to knock it off the road, but the car retaliates and gives Vilmer a tough fight. Vilmer gets up to the driver’s window to see who the hothead is… only to see Hoyt driving it. “Hoyt! What are you doing?!”
“He hehe he he! Come on! Let’s see what you got!” Vilmer tries to slow down, but his electronic knee malfunctions and steps on the gas. Hoyt entices, “Come on, boy! Hurry up!” Vilmer tries shifting the gears and hitting the emergency break, but nothing works. The truck only accelerates. “There you go boy!” Hoyt slams into Vilmer again and again.
Vilmer can’t make sense of this. “What are you, crazy?! What are you trying to do?! Hoyt speeds up, and the truck uncontrollable speeds up to him.
“That’s it! I knew I could count on you!” Hoyt continues ramming Vilmer, narrowly knocking him into a set of the scattered trees. “Hey Vilmer! How many people have you killed today?! What about this week?!” Vilmer sweats while frantically trying to stop the truck. “How about ever! How many?! Hee hah hahahaha!”
“Stop it! Just stop it!”
Hoyt’s car grinds against the side of the truck. “Hey, I got a surprise for you!” He turns his head away and points to its back. The skin ends in loose, frayed edges wrapped around a macabre, rot-enveloped skull of something inhuman. “I’m dead! Hee hah haha! Hey, and guess what?! You’re dead too! Hee hah hahahaha…!” Hoyt’s face falls off the host, and Vilmer glimpses the hideous thing behind it, the face of something long decayed, a human-beast of unknown origin. What it was was too decayed to tell, but its elongated jaw and sharp,furrowed forehead were ready to devour.
Vilmer quickly reaches for his shotgun and shoots the front tire, causing the car to overturn and explode. Taking a deep breath of relief, he returns his attention to stopping the truck.
[Until noted later, the view will remain a side view focusing on the truck]
The pickup truck continues to speed down the semi-arid terrain. The dirt road remains below while the mid-sunset remains above. (Music plays: an updated version of the Lake Monster battle theme from Splatterhouse 2.)
From the left, a continuous series of spurting dirt races towards the truck. The flowing spurts look like an earth-formed shark fin seeking its prey. It reaches the edge of the truck door, and the source of it erupts from the ground.
Behold, The Unnamed One--the undeciphered X--flies before Vilmer and all of us in his supernatural glory."""
Body: The body is compiled of distilled decomposition, patterned into abrasive cords and unmelding webs. The necroflesh contains different strains of black, ash-gray, and glowing white tissues. Deep depressions lurk between the ridges. The twisting flesh-cords end in great whirls around the feet and hands. The feet are barely-formed slops, while the hands are more developed with swollen fingers breeding through defusing webs. Towards the ends, the fingers separate into hardened, snapping beaks. The structure of this bizarre necroflesh does not look like an accident. It looks like it’s on purpose.
Head: Its head is something truly bestial and unknown. Covered in thin, scant necroflesh is a skull that could barely be approximated to a wolf, but that is still too far. The rectangular, straight-edged jaw of its elongated face is quite symmetrical, forming a depressed abutment to the base--a back-spanning skull with a sharp, low top. Its two death-seeking eyes are white with a slight green-yellow tinge. Behind each eye is a row of two empty sockets. Meanwhile, the mouth contains double-layered teeth, one within the other. They are like shark’s teeth with extra tips. The outer layers are gray, while the centers are dimly-shining white with passing shimmers like streams.
Clothes: The dirty, tattered remains of basic clothes were originally black but now have a lighter hue from rot, debris, and dust saturation. It has white flashes when exposed to light, as though feeding on it.The cloth tatters away at the shoulders and thighs. The middle is ripped open from his neck to his waist, exposing something monstrous within.
Tentacles: Within its core coil and writhe his tentacle lashes--an extension of his own exposed viscera. They bulge and spread like those of an octopus, but they are not gelatinous. Rather, they are composed of flat, hardened, moving plates like tank tracks, shifting in all directions. They are born from necroflesh but harden like steel. The ends eject four needle-fangs, always extracted to pierce their way in. Something lies hidden underneath these limbs, something mystical, something glassy, something quite luminous and kaleidoscopic."""
The Unnamed One continues to hover in the air for Vilmer to awe… and fear. While staring in shock and having no other answer, he continues to try and outrun this thing. X flies around the truck several times at lightning speed, leaving a ring of its own faded images. It stops in its original spot, and opens its mouth wide while its chest convulses several times. It is laughing silently. Then, it flies around the truck again. But this time, it tears parts of the truck off with it. Vilmer comes to his senses after the wild display. He reloads his shotgun and shoots the flying, rotting werebeast. It stops and curls up, falling out of view.
Vilmer wipes the sweat from his forehead and slows his panting. X returns.
Somewhere between mocking and displaying his ability, it keeps track with the truck, this time doing multiple back-tumbles at great stride to keep pace. During his acrobatics, he tears through more of the car with his latching limbs. The dirt road becomes one with signs of life. X does a handspring from a large rock, then a handheld whirl around a tree before projecting onto Vilmer’s hood.
They pass through a short set of woods. Vilmer trembles while trying not to hit anything at this high speed. X ricochets between the tree while tearing at the truck.
The barren road returns as X jumps off the last tree and onto the roof. Vilmer manages to load the shotgun again before the ceiling can be breached. He blasts at the unknown thing, but nothing happens. It does its bizarre, silent laugh, then flies up and out of sight into the distant sky.
[Vilmer’s POV] We look up through the windows to see where it is and if it’s gone. Relief. It’s all clear. We look all around for options to stop the truck, but nothing works. We scan the scene before us to see if there’s a safe terrain ahead to slow down or stop the truck. Maybe some mud. Maybe a stack of cargo. Maybe…
Creach, creach
It’s coming before us. “(What’s that sound?)” Those dark and glowing colors rise up and into the edge of the hood. The cadaverous hands proceed up the hood until X’s face appears. It claws further in, ripping the hood in two and throwing the halves aside. It sets its hands on the overheating engine without a wince while proceeding to gnaw into it. The saliva begins dissolving the metal. Before Vilmer can use any weapon, he hears the thing say to him in his own voice, “Buckle up your seat belt boys and girls ‘cause papa’s gonna take you for a ride! Alright racing fans, here we go! Hee haha ho!”
For whatever it’s worth, Vilmer begins reloading his shotgun before X can destroy the engine and whatever else it has planned. He readies his weapon when the werebeast drops under the grill of the truck, revealing not only that he is somehow back at the store despite a mostly straight drive, but his tow truck and Hoyt’s sheriff car are peeling out of the lot before his. Impulsively, he blurts out, “Don’t do it! It’s a trap! Stop! STOP!!”
Kaboom!
The truck explodes in a firestorm and flips over. From outside, the fires litter the underside while the wheels continue to spin in the air. The doors finally opens. Vilmer, very disoriented from the head trauma, pulls himself to the ground and starts crawling. His charred hand reaches up to a window frame with remnant glass and pulls himself up. Smoke and coughing follow. He turns around as he falls sideways to the truck. Much of his face and clothes are scorched and blackened by fire. His right eye is hanging out of a busted socket.
[Vilmer POV] Everything is blurred through sweat and tears. The vision is incoherent. Something forces us back the way we came towards a large spinning blackness. The blackness focuses into a spinning tire.
[side view of X and Vilmer] X’s abrasive hands and biting fingers force Vilmer towards the tire as his back stiffens and his neck bulge. The all-terrain tires are designed to run through anything: sand, gravel, ice, and sludge. And a human body. Vilmer quickly slams his hands forward; one hits the truck’s frame, the other misses and is ground through the tire. A tentacle from X’s torso strikes into the car and presses the accelerator all the way down. Vilmer puts up a tough but loosing fight as his tense body slowly gravitates to the tire. He suddenly sees all of his victims and senses their suffering. The veins in his head bulge and swell from the intensity. A few begin bleeding.
Vilmer’s screaming face hits the tire and continues to squirm. As it grinds through, splashes and flat chunks of flesh and blood (and then bone) fly out of both sides like a breaking river. Vilmer still moves a little until the tire reaches his neck where it bursts from X’s abrasive hands.
X raises his hand and telekinetically recalls the splattered remains of Vilmer’s face into a solid (but sloppy) structure.
---
“Monty! Monty! Pick up!”
“This is Monty. What’s the story? Did you get him?”
“Waa hoo! We sure did! I introduced him to my truck, and I did it over and over and over again!”
“That’s great! Now get over here. We got a lot to cook from that group they brought in today. Young and tender, they’ll make real good barbeque! Oh, and that young, skinny thang they brought in… she’s a real screamer! She ain’t stop since they brought her in! We’ll have some real fun tonight.”
“Roger that. Just don’t kill her till I get to have some fun with her first. I got a few tools I been itchin’ to use again.”
“Good, now bring Hoyt and Luda Mae with you! We ain’t got all night!”
“Roger that, we’ll be right over. 10-4.”
_Blood-Claws and a Darker Sun_
The sun stands vibrant in the red sky. Streams of dark-purple clouds run across it as X carries three bodies through the open road.
A closeup of the sun overtakes all as dust settles behind it.
Within the woods, The Unnamed One kneels before a primitive and hypnotizing altar created from trees and wood… and the bodies of his enemies. Before it, he invokes a sung-chant. His monastic voice is juxtaposed with that of a harsh, gutteral beast.
The canticle is brief but powerful as some unknown purpose is completed. Then, after quick silence, X bellows in an all-consuming, simultaneous two-tone voice (one piercing and echoing, the other like a deep behemoth) that stops the distant Sawyer family dead in their tracks with shock and dread.
The sun nears the horizon.
_The Beast in the Cellar_
Something is out there. He heard it. He can feel it. He can sense it. It’s come for all of them now.
Monty readies his shotgun on his lap as he spies from the porch’s corner. Not sure what to think, he passes his hand over the grip for assurance. The breeze blows.
Something is drawing him to the cellar. No sight, no sound, but something feels present. “(Maybe it’s just my imagination.)” His gaze searches the vista and the horizon, then is drawn back to the pitch dark of the cellar. The breeze blows again.
Just in case, he angles his wheelchair to easily aim and fire his weapon.
The breeze increases. It keeps increasing. It envelops.
The wheel chair is moving with the leaves towards the cellar. Monty pushes back on the wheels, but they won’t reverse. He turns the chair sideways to deflect the flow, but the wind blows him over. He grabs at the ground, digging into loose dirt that will not save him. Still, he pulls and pulls. Dirt and grass rip out in his hands as the wind forces him back. His clothes ruffle, crawling over his skin. He hears his chair and weapon hitting the wood behind him, followed by a muted thud. He see the cellar door, opened like a trap to consume him. He looks forward to find some way back. The wind is too strong and dries his eyes. Then, he feels his body lifted. His weight is no longer an anchor.
In his wild thrashing, he catches the cellar’s outer frame. His old muscles only allow a little resistance from the darkness. That’s when he notices that none of the objects outside his path have moved. Everything was set outside his perimeter.
Bang, bang, thud!
Monty hits the dirt floor with a bleeding chin from the stairs. His neck and back are stiff from the hurt, but he manages a partial situp before turning on his side. His struggle is interrupted by the dwindling red light coming through the open door. There is no wind; he has a chance. He quickly scans for his shotgun, but it’s nowhere close.
Rruuhrrr
“(What was that?!)” Monty scurries up the steps as best he can, but age hinders his progress. He makes it a few steps before he hears a mysterious snarl. He can’t help but look. In the dark behind him, he sees two odd but ferocious eyes looking at him; then, four more eyes open directly behind them. The darkened outline shifts and lets out a faint but unnerving sound.
Monty hurries up the steps with the adrenaline pumping. His right hand reaches another step as something below bites into it through the wooden plank. It pulls him into the corner darkness as his screams reverberate.
Monty’s left hand slams on a broken step, splatting blood all over it before being drawn in. The hand strives again with fingers missing and bone exposed before it scratches back. After much begging, two splintered bone stab through the wooden step.
_Metamorphosis (Completion)_
Through a darkened view, something glistens and breathes. The darkness lightens to reveal a red and orange-yellow cocoon pulsating in the corner ceiling like a giant organ. It continues to throb as the image darkens again, first to a vague outline with glints, then to pitch black.
The dark lightens again, revealing the foreboding, breathing cocoon. The colors are lighter in tone, but black lines have formed on the edges like spiderwebs. The black lines begin growing at a staccato rhythm, encompassing the cocoon.
The sack bursts as a growling, monstrous moan protrudes. We see through The Unnamed One’s eyes as it swims through the air and out the cellar door.
_Beyond the Hallway_
[The view swims through the air like a shark swaying side to side, searching for prey.]
The hallway is filled with an ever-present red, neon glow that saturates the beige walls and wood-planked floors while brushing all human images in a waxy, cyber-yellow coat.
We move towards Leatherface standing against the right wall. He drags a body to the other side, and we follow him to the door. Drayton comes out the door and quickly walks ahead of us as we both head right. He stops to say, “Put him next to the fat one and salt him up.” He moves before we reach run into him. He stops at the wall further ahead with Nubbins and says “Knock that racket off and get movin’!” We reach the wall where Nubbins is and follow him to the left, but he cuts around us as Chop Top takes his path, carrying a dead body. He makes it to a door and asks “Did you check to see if they had any heavy tunes!? Hehhehe, hehhehe that’d be great if we could get some Iron Butterfly!” He enters the door before we reach it. At the door, the view swims back to the right. Drayton steps out of a further door and yells, “Will you two idiots knock it off and help your brother?! He can’t do it all by himself!” He goes back inside as we sway once more to the left.
The view reaches the end of the hallway and glides into the last door. As we enter, a large mirror stands in the center. We continue right and see the mirror’s reflection of Nubbins’ limbs pinned to the floor and ceiling by elongated meat hooks. Something is hidden before him. We move beyond the mirror to directly see Nubbins’ impaled feet shaking. His head falls to the floor. The right top and most of the left jaw have been eaten away. His neck bears the same bite marks as the others. Saliva from the bites devours deep into the skin. The nerves are still active as his mouth starts widening (oozing spit and bile) and his remaining eye twitches rapidly. Bloody chunks and corrosive saliva continue hitting the floor. The view enrichens to a red and yellow haze.
_Protect the Innocent_
HENRIETTA AND THE TEA LADY
The view crystalizes from a dreamy haze to a portrait view and floats above the first floor. We pass through the floorless opening and towards a worn door in the inner balcony of the second floor. We continue through a large gap in the wood.
Henrietta arranges her clothes next to the vanity mirror while the large woman known as “The Tea Lady” goes through her closet.
Henrietta continues looking into the mirror as they begin their slow, soft conversation. “I was helping them bring those people in, the ones that came in today.”
“Oh, did they have a baby with them?”
“No. They were childless.”
“Ah, that’s a shame.”
“It’s a shame.”
“I wish we could get another baby, one we could raise as our own.”
“Yes, a beautiful, young, healthy baby.”
“Oh course, if they brought in two, we could choose. We could take one for ourselves, and the other one… Drayton could use to make some tender ribs.”
“I do miss those ribs.”
“Yes, that would be beautiful, holding a new baby while we have some of those sweet ribs. We could have them with those little chocolates. I sure do love those and…Oh! Oh my Gohhhhhaaaaa!”
Two severed hands land near Henrietta’s feet with a slopping sound. Henrietta stands and turns to immediately see The Tea Lady staring back at her while something swipes half her face off. She’s shaking and bleeding from her partial forearms and half face. Her eye is stuck in shock. “Hhheelp meee. Hhheelp…” Her loaded stomach bursts, exploding blood all over the room. Bright gleams jet down, quartering her body immediately. A naked spine stands for a few seconds and falls.
[view from the closet floor] In the distance, Henrietta cowers and folds. The creature steps forward and obscures nearly all sight. We only glimpse its legs:"""
Two bulky, widened legs seek forward. The thighs are surrounded in sleek, glaring cloth with baggy folds. The wrappings end in well-crafted tatters grazing the calves. The ridged necroflesh still remains, but the previous trenches have been filled with something pliable. The thick, widened calves now expel long, grooved spikes from the vertex. Below, the outline of its feet squirm and wriggle. Above the legs is a fattened tail, stopping a few inches from the floor. It is lined with three rows of squatted spikes and ends with a double-chevron tip. Above everything, something shifts like tarp in the wind."""
Henrietta screams and runs for the door. It won’t open. It won’t unlock. It won’t budge. She keeps pulling and pounding, but its frail structure won’t give. She continues to scream and tussle as nothing works.
The view slides out of the door through the wooden gap. We see Henrietta screaming, but no sound comes through. Nothing comes from her voice nor the pounding. It is silent. The only sound existent is the remaining Sawyer family laughing and traumatizing their last victim. The view slowly retracts, showing Henrietta’s face slammed against the gap and sliding down as splinters drive into her cheeks and eyes while a rust-eaten bracket cuts off her nose. Finally, a bloody hand bangs against the door as it slides down the remaining splinters.
The view returns to the floorless center of the second floor.
THE FAMILY TABLE"""
[perspective 1]
The view slowly descends below. We cross the balcony relief as something bulges in the foundation, creating a swell of cracks.
The mass continues from under the relief to the wall below. As it moves, the areas behind it collapse back into place.
[perspective 2]
Sally wrestles and squirms against the butcher string as it chafes into her skin. The chair is too solid to break, and nothing will give. She begs for them to stop, to let her go. She begs to live. “PLEASE!! Let me go! I’ll do anything! PLEASE!! Don’t let them kill me! You gotta make them stop! You gotta… AAAAHHHH!”
She begs, and they can’t get enough.
[perspective 1]
The system of cracks become smaller as it reaches the first floor. Its movements become too subtle for the casual eyes.
The hidden force stops just short of the dinner table, right next to Sally. It collects.
[perspective 2]
The remaining Sawyers all mock and laugh at her suffering. “Huu huu huu! ‘Don’t let them kill me! You gotta make them stop!’ Huu huu huu!”
[perspective 1]
A hill of cracks forms.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top and Leatherface bang on the table and play with her face while Drayton looks on with sadism."""
A blast of exploded wood stops their fun. Before the last shards fall, several human bones with little meat spew onto them. Before they can react, something breaks out of the floor and spreads itself opens in a warrior’s glory. They can’t believe it. All the security, all the pleasure, all the power they had ever built is crushed underneath this revelation… underneath the devastation of this incredible gargoyle:"""
Body: The stout body retains the grooved striations in their original colors and patterns, but they have matured into something articulate like scales. The deep depression are filled with a strange gray (almost army-green) putty substance.
Head: The basic shape still remains, but the completed necroflesh has formed over everything, including the mouth--which bears a short, gentle slope at the end, uninterrupted by an absent nose. The necroflesh has also added two serrated ridges over the skull, starting near the eyes. The six eyes have filled the sockets.
Clothes: The clothes are like a warriors suit designed for movement. Neither too loose nor too tight, they flow and shimmer through their inherent folds. Like the calves, the crafted tatters wrap and slither around the forearms as if alive. A white emblem adorns the neck--the solid base descends into thick, twisting striations like fattened lightning. The clothes are permeable, allowing the tail, wings, and tentacles to pass freely between.
Wings: It has two rows of wings. The top row starts between the shoulders and spans seven feet across. The top frame contains the same necroflesh, but the webbing underneath is like putty stretched to rubber. The bottom row starts just below the other and is simply its mirror inverse. The wings span open into a large X.
Limbs: The forearms and calves bear the long, grooved spike extrusions. The fingers and snapping beaks are more pronounced, while the feet bear three stout digits ending in squatted spikes. The bottoms and sides of the feet are spongy cilia like oversized paramecia."""
Sally just stares with her mouth open. Should she be scared? Should she be relieved ( “(Yes)” )? She doesn’t know. She is at another’s mercy.
The Unnamed One looks at Sally, then he looks at the cannibal family and fumes.
Drayton backs away, pathetically shielding with his shaking hands. “Look! I never killed anyone! I just… I just cook ‘em! I never did nothin’! OK! Maybe I helped them, but I…I never…I…”
Leatherface runs at X with the chainsaw raised. X lifts his hands, passing its sides."""
[perspective 1]
The chainsaw comes down as the end disappears into a white and blue rift surrounding X. Blood spurts from the rift as X stands unmarked. The chainsaw hits the floor and recoils.
[perspective 2]
The elderly grandpa, the famed “one-hitter,” begins to feebly mumble as, from nowhere, a baseless chainsaw hacks through his torso. Grandpa’s cleaved body sinks down and flops over the chair like a rubber mat.
[perspective 1]
Leatherface strikes again as X grabs the chain with his raw hands, stopping the sawn. He breaks the chain off and hits Leatherface so hard with the severed ends that it knocks him through the back window.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top grabs the butcher knife, turning the blade under his forearm. He trips over some chairs while moving towards Sally--his chance to leverage his life."""
Before Chop Top can get to Sally, X casually lifts his inverted, resting palm at him, telekinetically shoving him away and off balance. He hits his plated skull on the floor, making him dizzy. He keeps repeating “That’s heavy, man. That’s heavy.”
Drayton pulls a Magnum revolver from under the table and tries to aim at X as X drags Chop Top to the table. X stabs the butcher knife into Chop Top’s right hand, then grabs the butcher fork. While shaking with fear… and disbelief… and rage, Drayton’s hand catches the edge of the table, shooting directly at the gargoyle’s ankle. He falls over from incredible pain. He looks to see the worst: he literally shot off his own foot."""
[perspective 1]
Drayton, powered by adrenaline, gets up and uses the table and walls as a crutch. X telekinetically causes him to trip.
[perspective 2]
Leatherface barrages through the woodshed, searching for his other chainsaw.
[perspective 1]
Then X opens his hand, magnetizing Drayton’s attached foot towards it. X drags him to the kitchen while the fingers bite.
[perspective 2]
After throwing a fit and smashing the clutter, he finds it. He powers it on, does his stomping dance, and shakes it over his head."""
Drayton’s face goes right into the oil fryer . He squirms and gurgles with no avail. He tries pushing on X, but the surface shreds his hands like a wall of broken glass.
Chop Top wrestles to free his hands: a knife through one’s palm and several tines through the others’ nails. “It’s ‘Nam, man! It’s ‘Nam, and Charlie ain’t gonna stop me!” The tines rip through the ends of several fingers until they are free. He pulls the knife out and runs to the kitchen.
X raises Drayton’s burned face from the fryer. It’s an inhuman color of dark grease, fried skin, large blisters, and exposed sinews, and it’s all beginning to melt off. But he’s still breathing.
“You can’t do that to him! Take that, Charlie!”"""
[perspective 1]
Drayton can barely stand. He’s barely even conscious from all the nerve damage.
As X leans forward, a tentacle wraps around Drayton’s body to replace the hands standing him.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top jumps on X’s back, stabbing him repeatedly. X leans forward, causing his calf-spikes to slice between Chop Top’s metatarsals and cleave his feet into thirds. X thrusts his arms back, stabbing his spikes all over Chop Top’s sides. The tail smashes into the back ribs.
[perspective 1]
X opens his mouth and blows out a blue flame onto Drayton. Then X throws him into the meat freezer. The compartment bangs several times, then a few times, then once, then it stops.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top falls down as the gargoyle thrusts the human hand into the meat grinder. One of X’s tentacles proceeds through the mystical shroud and operates the handle.
X turns around and keeps grinding into the forearm as chuck and gristle mound on the counter. X stops, steps aside, and stares out the kitchen door. He’s waiting for something."""
The monster continues to stand as if reading the story from afar. Eventually, a chainsaw rips through the front door, cutting a large triangle before being kicked open. The gargoyle stands quiet.
TWO BROTHERS
"""
[perspective 1]
Leatherface charges into the room with his chainsaw ready to impale. X effortlessly passes the chainsaw while Leatherface walks right through him as if he were a dream.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top tries desperately to free his remaining arm, but the mutilated flesh is still connected and will not break. His knife is gone, and he is stuck.
[perspective 1]
A tentacle pushes Leatherface towards the counter and forces his hand into the disposal unit. The disposal activates, trapping Leatherface for now.
The disposal continues to eat away at his arm.
[perspective 2]
X forces Chop Top’s head level to the counter. Chop Top’s eyes shock open and glaze at something invisible. “Is that, is that why you’re doing this, man? Is that why AAAAHHHH!!” The chainsaw rests on the counter, grinding against Chop Top’s metal plate. Sparks fly as he keeps screaming. The fight subdues as the plate turns orange. Two tentacles take over and hold everything in place."""
X grabs the leather mask off the brute, revealing an unkempt, girthy “bubba” face--a face confused and scared. X’s claws reach up, bite, and rip the squalid face off. Some facial muscle comes with it. X bites an accessible split in the back, causing the skin to rot and discolor morbidly. Leatherface screams at the ceiling as X grabs a grater and strikes both sides of skinless cheeks. Then, he seals the new mask onto Leatherface while telepathically transferring a mocking thought: “It’s a good fit. It’s definitely you.”
The disposal stops, allowing Leatherface to retreat into the main room, bracing his twisted and splintered bones and hiding his face. X grabs the oversized meat hammer (nearly a sledge hammer) and hits Leatherface in the back of the head, causing his eye to shoot out. He frantically spasms on the ground, cuddling to his side. X throws the hammer to smash the eye and enters the main room.
The tentacles retract, and Chop Top is released. He hangs from the counter with a golden plate cooking his head and melted brains flowing out of his mouth.
YOU’RE THE LAST
The Unnamed One proceeds towards Sally.
(Was she still screaming all this time, or was she struck silent? To tell you the truth, I seem to have forgotten myself in all the excitement.)
The chainsaw roars. He’s back, and he’s filled with rage. X turns around as the chainsaw gores right into his guts with no concern. As it runs to the base, X touches Leatherface to reveal all of the people he terrorized and killed, seeing and feeling everything they did. Leatherface seizes.
X reaches into his opened gut to remove a hidden weapon: a two-foot, convex, stretched-triangle of a blade set atop a horizontal rod. His fingers wrap around the rod, erecting the warped triangle as an extension of his knuckles. He slices downward with a reverse fist, cutting a giant slit down Leatherface’s torso. X teleports behind him and kicks his back, causing the guts to fly long from his body onto the floor.
Leatherface falls to his face. With the last of his functions, he begins to crawl and falls down, dead. X grabs his corpse and throws it through the kitchen wall, bringing the entire wall down with him. The falling rubble crushes his body.
The outside stands full and saving, ready to embrace her. The fortress has been defeated, and the family has no power anymore.
It is mysteriously daytime, just like the day Sally arrived. Under the golden light, beyond the front lawn, is the family van… and her brother Franklin… and all their friends… alive!
The sun dissolves all the darkness. The horrors of this monstrous family are gone. Righteous indignation has been satisfied. There will be cosmic justice against the dark.
Sally looks at X, hoping he will free her. X holds up his hands, showing the butcher string used to bind her. She looks down and sees it is gone. She looks back at X as he drops the strings, burning into ashes before hitting ground.
Franklin cries out to her, “Sally! Let’s go! Let’s get out of here! Come on, let’s go!” Everyone is running into the van. She runs towards them as the engine roars a call to safety.
Sally runs past the debris, hitting the open field with nothing else restraining her. X’s wings expand, propelling him forward in an arch resembling a hop. He lands on the edge of the house and drops something near Leatherface’s body.
Sally stops a few feet from the van and turns around to look at the thing that saved her. He opens his hand to reveal something glowing. It floats softly towards her and into her hand. It’s a stone made of pure light, a white light with a flowing tint of many colors. She can feel its healing energy as it begins to flow into her body.There’s something she wants to do, but her mind is still healing from all this trauma.
The people cry out for her. “Come on, Sally! We have to get out of here!”
“Salllyyy!”
There’s something she wants to do, but her mind is still walled in. The guardian’s visage communicates an understanding and an acceptance in gratitude. She feels it is done and runs into the van, which speeds off for escape.
X understood what she wanted, and he accepts. She wanted to tell him “Thank you.”
The sun shines over the exposed rubble and X’s glossy scales.The glare is so bright as to blind in its glory.
We see X from behind, standing before the fallen Leatherface amidst the toppled rampart. X performs a small hop-flight, lands on top of him, and looks down. He begins devouring him.
[closeup of the ground] Blood spurts everywhere among the earthen floor and broken stones. The view pans left, stopping over the dropped objects: the leather mask and a chainsaw. Everything around these objects turns black and disappears into darkness.
_The Vortex and the Tome_
The darkness around the mask and chainsaw begins to fill with the image of the desk in the vortex. At the height of the desk is the mysterious tome. It is open to the first page showing the country road.
“We have completed our first story. Behold.”
By itself, the tome begins writing and drawing its own text and images. The Unnamed One is drawn into the hill of the set image, followed by the woods and Hoyt’s death. Strange pictographs and an esoteric language complete the first page.
The page turns over automatically as the literal ghost writing continues. Some images already exist on the page while others are created. The strange writing and images continue to the next page and the next. More and more, faster and faster. It continues to the last page of the chapter and stops. The mask and chainsaw are saturated with a flashing yellow light and disappear. They reappear inscribed on the page.
“Yes, that was the beginning of our tales. Soon, all of the chapters will be fulfilled, and the tome shall be completed.”
The page turns to the next chapter, the crude altar in the forest is set before a network of levitating squares with misty surfaces. Looking closely, there are people within them. One wears a white, rubber mask. “Let’s take a look at another masked killer. One who works alone and will be easy to collect for a group of witnesses.”
[The full The Unnamed One story is available on the Archive Of Our Own website.]
by Roger "Cobb" Trujillo
“...fearing neither chainsaw…”
_Return to the Country Road_
The screams go against the beautiful landscape. There is no reason to gag her; no one else is around for miles except the family. If anything, they seem to enjoy it.
The truck speeds off, kicking a cyclone of dust through its wheels. It races back to the nightmare of a young lady, a lone survivor, who fought so hard to escape only to return. The two sadistic leechers in the front are laughing at her every scream, at her every tear. Bound with butcher string and no escape, she is at the mercy of those who have none.
This will not stand.
_A View from the Hill_
The sheriff (known as Hoyt) appears, walking up our hill. He is having radio interference and tries to get a better connection on higher ground. He checks the chest radio again. “Monty, how’s this?”
“Better.”
[The view splits into two simultaneous perspectives:]
[perspective 1]
The view tracks Hoyt as he paces from side to side, back and forth, never looking towards the woods behind him, only towards the area around the store.
[perspective 2]
The view is locked on a mound facing the woods. Hoyt walks before it several times as he paces.
[perspective 1]
Hoyt continues. “Good. We got the last one. Her name’s Sally, according to her license. She’s a skinny one but she sure does squirm! Took all three of us to tie her down. I figure we let grandpa have her.”
[perspective 2]
The trees rustle in the wind as a large, dirt-covered mess rises from the bottom into view. It continues rising and looks like a fat pillar of dirt and roots. Hoyt stands near the side of it without looking back.
[perspective 1]
“Yeah, grandpa’s a one-hitter. Be great to see him take someone out for old times’ sake.”
[perspective 2]
The dirt begins to dryly melt off the surface and its various shoots in the Texas heat.
[POV from the evoked pillar] “Roger that. Over and out.” Hoyt head stops as he hears something behind him. With curious, squinted eyes, he turns his head towards us as his whole face widens. “Hooolysh…”
Kronnnk
A quick black and gray rotting mass slams Hoyt jaw into the back of his mouth. It is completely crushed and melded to the upper jaw’s throat-edge.
Still alive, Hoyt instinctively pulls his gun. The oddly-rotting mass grabs the armed hand, crushing bones and metal into junk. Trying to scream from a blocked mouth, tension only escapes through the nose and blood-wrenched eyes. While the thing seems to have only two limbs, it somehow grabs his nightstick and breaks it in half while still securing him. Hoyt’s forearms are pinned backwards against his sides. The splintered ends of the club drive through the forearms, into his obliques, and out the corners of his kidneys. Hoyt starts loosing consciousness. He isn’t sure if he is still screaming, but he feels himself thrown him down the other side of the hill into the woods. He flies and rolls a long distance.
Loosing grasp of where he is, Hoyt stumbles up and tries to find the way back. Running over lofty ground and slipping on rocks, he manages to stay on his feet hitting an occasional tree. Everything is so blurry and glaring. The blood loss is too much, but he must get out. “(Where am I?)” he thinks to himself over and over while everything looks the same. He looks around for any hint of an exit, but it’s all just endless woods. The forest starts to spin as his gaze is magnetized upwards. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real. It’s just a residual dream. “(This can’t be real. This can’t be real.)” Everything is so blurry except for the suffocating marigold light eating the silhouettes.
Out of nowhere, the thing ceases him. Tiny bites surround its grip. Upon contact, he sees all of the people he victimized and their suffering. Blurred lashes blast out of the darkened mass and latch into his skin. In one fierce pull, they rip his skin off.
Everything sears. A black and gray mass rips his lower jaw off and shoves a roll of flesh down his throat. The rest hangs outside. Hoyt falls from his feet, maximizing the pain by uncontrollably rolling over the sharp particles of the ground.
He can’t pull the skin out. He can’t bite it off. He can’t throw it up. He can’t breathe.
His eyes become bulged and blood-filled. He is gagging to death on his own flesh, and no one can stop it.
The throat bloats unnaturally in attempt to live. It slows down. And slows down. And slows. And stops.
Covered in the shadows, the thing pulls the flesh from Hoyt’s mouth. Lots of blood and guts eject with it. The darkened black and gray masses activate the radio.
And Hoyt’s head.
---
“...on…y, Mo…ty!
The elderly, double-amputee Monty answers the radio. “This is Monty.”
“Monty, ther… nother one. H… tole my ca… hind me and burn.. Luda Mae’s to… cinder! Send Vilmer… store, now!”
“You’re breakin’ up. Now, your car was… towed?
“Stolen! S…olen! S…nd Vimer… store!”
“I’ll send Vilmer. He’s not too far from you. Who stole your car? Where are they headed?”
“...n…ther kid. He… your way.”
“Gotcha, Hoyt. We’ll keep a look out for him and call Vilmer out that aways.”
“Ro..er. Over ..n… out.”
---
Vilmer will be there soon, but first, the store.
_Miles to the Store_
Still baked in the heat, a massive tow truck with a feast of headlights pulls up next to the lonely Sawyer store.
Beep, beeeeeep!
A man looking like a young Matthew McConaughey keeps chewing a thin, plastic tube while look at the store entrance. “C’mon! I don’t have all day!”
Beep,
---
beeeeeep!
The view begins on a dirty tiled floor. Sun beams pierce at near-horizontal angles, highlighting rows of browning, filth-encrusted textiles while the rest remain in shadows. At the top of the view are the beginnings of two feet. The view slowly rises, revealing the slow pour of drying blood running down the ankles. Next are the calves and knees in warped outlines. The sun-planks are separated, and the absence between them darkens the flesh. The view continues, revealing legs impaled with gleaming metal and draped with severed intestines and other unraveled organs. Next begins the missing chunks of flesh crested with animal bite marks. Extending below the marks run trenches of dissolved flesh. We rise further to witness the exposed liver sinking incrementally; then it falls and splatters on the ground.
Beeeeep! beeeeeep!
An electronically-enhanced voice resounds through a loudspeaker “Hoyt! Luda Mae! Let’s go!”
We continue upwards to see the inside of a ravaged stomach, the roots of remaining organs exposed and sinking. The view sprints back to reveal the elderly Luda Mae hanging from a suspended meat hook, her face stuck in a permanent shock. Among the devoured dwellings, the body is slayed throughout with cleavers, knives, hooks, and skewers. From this new perspective, the sunbeams reveal that her darkened skin hue is not the result of encasing shadows. The darkened hue is the result of a body unnaturally rotting at a supernatural speed.
The view shoots straight into the surface of her eye. Burned into her retina is the image of a flat cyclone bending the properties of the room’s tiles. Things like tentacles leap forward from it. Their ends are encrusted with fanged thorns.
The body sinks a few times and then falls from the hook, splattering into a mushy blob, barely solid. The only remains still hanging from the hook are the shock-struck face and the spinal cord.
Beeeeep! Beeeeeep!
A facetious voice continues through the loudspeaker. “I’ve got an order of two dumbass, shrivel-faced, slow as dick rednecks to go. If you do not come forward and claim your order in the next few minutes, it will go to the next available customer.”
---
Vilmer stands between the truck and its door, one leg on the ground and a black radio communicator in his hand. “I can’t believe this,” he says while looking around.
[POV from the hill] The sheriff’s car creeps next to the pickup truck as the siren lights engage. Vilmer sees it and jumps into his seat as the stolen car ramps up and speeds out of the lot.
Vilmer grabs his favorite tape and shoves it in the player, setting his truck into high gear. “Buckle up your seat belt boys and girls ‘cause papa’s gonna take you for a ride!” The drums and electric guitar start a pumping rhythm. “Alright racing fans, here we go! Hee haha ho!” The truck jumps onto the main road while leaving a blast of dust behind.
It’s a close race, but the super-powered tow truck catches up to the sheriff’s car. Vilmer gets along side and tries to knock it off the road, but the car retaliates and gives Vilmer a tough fight. Vilmer gets up to the driver’s window to see who the hothead is… only to see Hoyt driving it. “Hoyt! What are you doing?!”
“He hehe he he! Come on! Let’s see what you got!” Vilmer tries to slow down, but his electronic knee malfunctions and steps on the gas. Hoyt entices, “Come on, boy! Hurry up!” Vilmer tries shifting the gears and hitting the emergency break, but nothing works. The truck only accelerates. “There you go boy!” Hoyt slams into Vilmer again and again.
Vilmer can’t make sense of this. “What are you, crazy?! What are you trying to do?! Hoyt speeds up, and the truck uncontrollable speeds up to him.
“That’s it! I knew I could count on you!” Hoyt continues ramming Vilmer, narrowly knocking him into a set of the scattered trees. “Hey Vilmer! How many people have you killed today?! What about this week?!” Vilmer sweats while frantically trying to stop the truck. “How about ever! How many?! Hee hah hahahaha!”
“Stop it! Just stop it!”
Hoyt’s car grinds against the side of the truck. “Hey, I got a surprise for you!” He turns his head away and points to its back. The skin ends in loose, frayed edges wrapped around a macabre, rot-enveloped skull of something inhuman. “I’m dead! Hee hah haha! Hey, and guess what?! You’re dead too! Hee hah hahahaha…!” Hoyt’s face falls off the host, and Vilmer glimpses the hideous thing behind it, the face of something long decayed, a human-beast of unknown origin. What it was was too decayed to tell, but its elongated jaw and sharp,furrowed forehead were ready to devour.
Vilmer quickly reaches for his shotgun and shoots the front tire, causing the car to overturn and explode. Taking a deep breath of relief, he returns his attention to stopping the truck.
[Until noted later, the view will remain a side view focusing on the truck]
The pickup truck continues to speed down the semi-arid terrain. The dirt road remains below while the mid-sunset remains above. (Music plays: an updated version of the Lake Monster battle theme from Splatterhouse 2.)
From the left, a continuous series of spurting dirt races towards the truck. The flowing spurts look like an earth-formed shark fin seeking its prey. It reaches the edge of the truck door, and the source of it erupts from the ground.
Behold, The Unnamed One--the undeciphered X--flies before Vilmer and all of us in his supernatural glory."""
Body: The body is compiled of distilled decomposition, patterned into abrasive cords and unmelding webs. The necroflesh contains different strains of black, ash-gray, and glowing white tissues. Deep depressions lurk between the ridges. The twisting flesh-cords end in great whirls around the feet and hands. The feet are barely-formed slops, while the hands are more developed with swollen fingers breeding through defusing webs. Towards the ends, the fingers separate into hardened, snapping beaks. The structure of this bizarre necroflesh does not look like an accident. It looks like it’s on purpose.
Head: Its head is something truly bestial and unknown. Covered in thin, scant necroflesh is a skull that could barely be approximated to a wolf, but that is still too far. The rectangular, straight-edged jaw of its elongated face is quite symmetrical, forming a depressed abutment to the base--a back-spanning skull with a sharp, low top. Its two death-seeking eyes are white with a slight green-yellow tinge. Behind each eye is a row of two empty sockets. Meanwhile, the mouth contains double-layered teeth, one within the other. They are like shark’s teeth with extra tips. The outer layers are gray, while the centers are dimly-shining white with passing shimmers like streams.
Clothes: The dirty, tattered remains of basic clothes were originally black but now have a lighter hue from rot, debris, and dust saturation. It has white flashes when exposed to light, as though feeding on it.The cloth tatters away at the shoulders and thighs. The middle is ripped open from his neck to his waist, exposing something monstrous within.
Tentacles: Within its core coil and writhe his tentacle lashes--an extension of his own exposed viscera. They bulge and spread like those of an octopus, but they are not gelatinous. Rather, they are composed of flat, hardened, moving plates like tank tracks, shifting in all directions. They are born from necroflesh but harden like steel. The ends eject four needle-fangs, always extracted to pierce their way in. Something lies hidden underneath these limbs, something mystical, something glassy, something quite luminous and kaleidoscopic."""
The Unnamed One continues to hover in the air for Vilmer to awe… and fear. While staring in shock and having no other answer, he continues to try and outrun this thing. X flies around the truck several times at lightning speed, leaving a ring of its own faded images. It stops in its original spot, and opens its mouth wide while its chest convulses several times. It is laughing silently. Then, it flies around the truck again. But this time, it tears parts of the truck off with it. Vilmer comes to his senses after the wild display. He reloads his shotgun and shoots the flying, rotting werebeast. It stops and curls up, falling out of view.
Vilmer wipes the sweat from his forehead and slows his panting. X returns.
Somewhere between mocking and displaying his ability, it keeps track with the truck, this time doing multiple back-tumbles at great stride to keep pace. During his acrobatics, he tears through more of the car with his latching limbs. The dirt road becomes one with signs of life. X does a handspring from a large rock, then a handheld whirl around a tree before projecting onto Vilmer’s hood.
They pass through a short set of woods. Vilmer trembles while trying not to hit anything at this high speed. X ricochets between the tree while tearing at the truck.
The barren road returns as X jumps off the last tree and onto the roof. Vilmer manages to load the shotgun again before the ceiling can be breached. He blasts at the unknown thing, but nothing happens. It does its bizarre, silent laugh, then flies up and out of sight into the distant sky.
[Vilmer’s POV] We look up through the windows to see where it is and if it’s gone. Relief. It’s all clear. We look all around for options to stop the truck, but nothing works. We scan the scene before us to see if there’s a safe terrain ahead to slow down or stop the truck. Maybe some mud. Maybe a stack of cargo. Maybe…
Creach, creach
It’s coming before us. “(What’s that sound?)” Those dark and glowing colors rise up and into the edge of the hood. The cadaverous hands proceed up the hood until X’s face appears. It claws further in, ripping the hood in two and throwing the halves aside. It sets its hands on the overheating engine without a wince while proceeding to gnaw into it. The saliva begins dissolving the metal. Before Vilmer can use any weapon, he hears the thing say to him in his own voice, “Buckle up your seat belt boys and girls ‘cause papa’s gonna take you for a ride! Alright racing fans, here we go! Hee haha ho!”
For whatever it’s worth, Vilmer begins reloading his shotgun before X can destroy the engine and whatever else it has planned. He readies his weapon when the werebeast drops under the grill of the truck, revealing not only that he is somehow back at the store despite a mostly straight drive, but his tow truck and Hoyt’s sheriff car are peeling out of the lot before his. Impulsively, he blurts out, “Don’t do it! It’s a trap! Stop! STOP!!”
Kaboom!
The truck explodes in a firestorm and flips over. From outside, the fires litter the underside while the wheels continue to spin in the air. The doors finally opens. Vilmer, very disoriented from the head trauma, pulls himself to the ground and starts crawling. His charred hand reaches up to a window frame with remnant glass and pulls himself up. Smoke and coughing follow. He turns around as he falls sideways to the truck. Much of his face and clothes are scorched and blackened by fire. His right eye is hanging out of a busted socket.
[Vilmer POV] Everything is blurred through sweat and tears. The vision is incoherent. Something forces us back the way we came towards a large spinning blackness. The blackness focuses into a spinning tire.
[side view of X and Vilmer] X’s abrasive hands and biting fingers force Vilmer towards the tire as his back stiffens and his neck bulge. The all-terrain tires are designed to run through anything: sand, gravel, ice, and sludge. And a human body. Vilmer quickly slams his hands forward; one hits the truck’s frame, the other misses and is ground through the tire. A tentacle from X’s torso strikes into the car and presses the accelerator all the way down. Vilmer puts up a tough but loosing fight as his tense body slowly gravitates to the tire. He suddenly sees all of his victims and senses their suffering. The veins in his head bulge and swell from the intensity. A few begin bleeding.
Vilmer’s screaming face hits the tire and continues to squirm. As it grinds through, splashes and flat chunks of flesh and blood (and then bone) fly out of both sides like a breaking river. Vilmer still moves a little until the tire reaches his neck where it bursts from X’s abrasive hands.
X raises his hand and telekinetically recalls the splattered remains of Vilmer’s face into a solid (but sloppy) structure.
---
“Monty! Monty! Pick up!”
“This is Monty. What’s the story? Did you get him?”
“Waa hoo! We sure did! I introduced him to my truck, and I did it over and over and over again!”
“That’s great! Now get over here. We got a lot to cook from that group they brought in today. Young and tender, they’ll make real good barbeque! Oh, and that young, skinny thang they brought in… she’s a real screamer! She ain’t stop since they brought her in! We’ll have some real fun tonight.”
“Roger that. Just don’t kill her till I get to have some fun with her first. I got a few tools I been itchin’ to use again.”
“Good, now bring Hoyt and Luda Mae with you! We ain’t got all night!”
“Roger that, we’ll be right over. 10-4.”
_Blood-Claws and a Darker Sun_
The sun stands vibrant in the red sky. Streams of dark-purple clouds run across it as X carries three bodies through the open road.
A closeup of the sun overtakes all as dust settles behind it.
Within the woods, The Unnamed One kneels before a primitive and hypnotizing altar created from trees and wood… and the bodies of his enemies. Before it, he invokes a sung-chant. His monastic voice is juxtaposed with that of a harsh, gutteral beast.
The canticle is brief but powerful as some unknown purpose is completed. Then, after quick silence, X bellows in an all-consuming, simultaneous two-tone voice (one piercing and echoing, the other like a deep behemoth) that stops the distant Sawyer family dead in their tracks with shock and dread.
The sun nears the horizon.
_The Beast in the Cellar_
Something is out there. He heard it. He can feel it. He can sense it. It’s come for all of them now.
Monty readies his shotgun on his lap as he spies from the porch’s corner. Not sure what to think, he passes his hand over the grip for assurance. The breeze blows.
Something is drawing him to the cellar. No sight, no sound, but something feels present. “(Maybe it’s just my imagination.)” His gaze searches the vista and the horizon, then is drawn back to the pitch dark of the cellar. The breeze blows again.
Just in case, he angles his wheelchair to easily aim and fire his weapon.
The breeze increases. It keeps increasing. It envelops.
The wheel chair is moving with the leaves towards the cellar. Monty pushes back on the wheels, but they won’t reverse. He turns the chair sideways to deflect the flow, but the wind blows him over. He grabs at the ground, digging into loose dirt that will not save him. Still, he pulls and pulls. Dirt and grass rip out in his hands as the wind forces him back. His clothes ruffle, crawling over his skin. He hears his chair and weapon hitting the wood behind him, followed by a muted thud. He see the cellar door, opened like a trap to consume him. He looks forward to find some way back. The wind is too strong and dries his eyes. Then, he feels his body lifted. His weight is no longer an anchor.
In his wild thrashing, he catches the cellar’s outer frame. His old muscles only allow a little resistance from the darkness. That’s when he notices that none of the objects outside his path have moved. Everything was set outside his perimeter.
Bang, bang, thud!
Monty hits the dirt floor with a bleeding chin from the stairs. His neck and back are stiff from the hurt, but he manages a partial situp before turning on his side. His struggle is interrupted by the dwindling red light coming through the open door. There is no wind; he has a chance. He quickly scans for his shotgun, but it’s nowhere close.
Rruuhrrr
“(What was that?!)” Monty scurries up the steps as best he can, but age hinders his progress. He makes it a few steps before he hears a mysterious snarl. He can’t help but look. In the dark behind him, he sees two odd but ferocious eyes looking at him; then, four more eyes open directly behind them. The darkened outline shifts and lets out a faint but unnerving sound.
Monty hurries up the steps with the adrenaline pumping. His right hand reaches another step as something below bites into it through the wooden plank. It pulls him into the corner darkness as his screams reverberate.
Monty’s left hand slams on a broken step, splatting blood all over it before being drawn in. The hand strives again with fingers missing and bone exposed before it scratches back. After much begging, two splintered bone stab through the wooden step.
_Metamorphosis (Completion)_
Through a darkened view, something glistens and breathes. The darkness lightens to reveal a red and orange-yellow cocoon pulsating in the corner ceiling like a giant organ. It continues to throb as the image darkens again, first to a vague outline with glints, then to pitch black.
The dark lightens again, revealing the foreboding, breathing cocoon. The colors are lighter in tone, but black lines have formed on the edges like spiderwebs. The black lines begin growing at a staccato rhythm, encompassing the cocoon.
The sack bursts as a growling, monstrous moan protrudes. We see through The Unnamed One’s eyes as it swims through the air and out the cellar door.
_Beyond the Hallway_
[The view swims through the air like a shark swaying side to side, searching for prey.]
The hallway is filled with an ever-present red, neon glow that saturates the beige walls and wood-planked floors while brushing all human images in a waxy, cyber-yellow coat.
We move towards Leatherface standing against the right wall. He drags a body to the other side, and we follow him to the door. Drayton comes out the door and quickly walks ahead of us as we both head right. He stops to say, “Put him next to the fat one and salt him up.” He moves before we reach run into him. He stops at the wall further ahead with Nubbins and says “Knock that racket off and get movin’!” We reach the wall where Nubbins is and follow him to the left, but he cuts around us as Chop Top takes his path, carrying a dead body. He makes it to a door and asks “Did you check to see if they had any heavy tunes!? Hehhehe, hehhehe that’d be great if we could get some Iron Butterfly!” He enters the door before we reach it. At the door, the view swims back to the right. Drayton steps out of a further door and yells, “Will you two idiots knock it off and help your brother?! He can’t do it all by himself!” He goes back inside as we sway once more to the left.
The view reaches the end of the hallway and glides into the last door. As we enter, a large mirror stands in the center. We continue right and see the mirror’s reflection of Nubbins’ limbs pinned to the floor and ceiling by elongated meat hooks. Something is hidden before him. We move beyond the mirror to directly see Nubbins’ impaled feet shaking. His head falls to the floor. The right top and most of the left jaw have been eaten away. His neck bears the same bite marks as the others. Saliva from the bites devours deep into the skin. The nerves are still active as his mouth starts widening (oozing spit and bile) and his remaining eye twitches rapidly. Bloody chunks and corrosive saliva continue hitting the floor. The view enrichens to a red and yellow haze.
_Protect the Innocent_
HENRIETTA AND THE TEA LADY
The view crystalizes from a dreamy haze to a portrait view and floats above the first floor. We pass through the floorless opening and towards a worn door in the inner balcony of the second floor. We continue through a large gap in the wood.
Henrietta arranges her clothes next to the vanity mirror while the large woman known as “The Tea Lady” goes through her closet.
Henrietta continues looking into the mirror as they begin their slow, soft conversation. “I was helping them bring those people in, the ones that came in today.”
“Oh, did they have a baby with them?”
“No. They were childless.”
“Ah, that’s a shame.”
“It’s a shame.”
“I wish we could get another baby, one we could raise as our own.”
“Yes, a beautiful, young, healthy baby.”
“Oh course, if they brought in two, we could choose. We could take one for ourselves, and the other one… Drayton could use to make some tender ribs.”
“I do miss those ribs.”
“Yes, that would be beautiful, holding a new baby while we have some of those sweet ribs. We could have them with those little chocolates. I sure do love those and…Oh! Oh my Gohhhhhaaaaa!”
Two severed hands land near Henrietta’s feet with a slopping sound. Henrietta stands and turns to immediately see The Tea Lady staring back at her while something swipes half her face off. She’s shaking and bleeding from her partial forearms and half face. Her eye is stuck in shock. “Hhheelp meee. Hhheelp…” Her loaded stomach bursts, exploding blood all over the room. Bright gleams jet down, quartering her body immediately. A naked spine stands for a few seconds and falls.
[view from the closet floor] In the distance, Henrietta cowers and folds. The creature steps forward and obscures nearly all sight. We only glimpse its legs:"""
Two bulky, widened legs seek forward. The thighs are surrounded in sleek, glaring cloth with baggy folds. The wrappings end in well-crafted tatters grazing the calves. The ridged necroflesh still remains, but the previous trenches have been filled with something pliable. The thick, widened calves now expel long, grooved spikes from the vertex. Below, the outline of its feet squirm and wriggle. Above the legs is a fattened tail, stopping a few inches from the floor. It is lined with three rows of squatted spikes and ends with a double-chevron tip. Above everything, something shifts like tarp in the wind."""
Henrietta screams and runs for the door. It won’t open. It won’t unlock. It won’t budge. She keeps pulling and pounding, but its frail structure won’t give. She continues to scream and tussle as nothing works.
The view slides out of the door through the wooden gap. We see Henrietta screaming, but no sound comes through. Nothing comes from her voice nor the pounding. It is silent. The only sound existent is the remaining Sawyer family laughing and traumatizing their last victim. The view slowly retracts, showing Henrietta’s face slammed against the gap and sliding down as splinters drive into her cheeks and eyes while a rust-eaten bracket cuts off her nose. Finally, a bloody hand bangs against the door as it slides down the remaining splinters.
The view returns to the floorless center of the second floor.
THE FAMILY TABLE"""
[perspective 1]
The view slowly descends below. We cross the balcony relief as something bulges in the foundation, creating a swell of cracks.
The mass continues from under the relief to the wall below. As it moves, the areas behind it collapse back into place.
[perspective 2]
Sally wrestles and squirms against the butcher string as it chafes into her skin. The chair is too solid to break, and nothing will give. She begs for them to stop, to let her go. She begs to live. “PLEASE!! Let me go! I’ll do anything! PLEASE!! Don’t let them kill me! You gotta make them stop! You gotta… AAAAHHHH!”
She begs, and they can’t get enough.
[perspective 1]
The system of cracks become smaller as it reaches the first floor. Its movements become too subtle for the casual eyes.
The hidden force stops just short of the dinner table, right next to Sally. It collects.
[perspective 2]
The remaining Sawyers all mock and laugh at her suffering. “Huu huu huu! ‘Don’t let them kill me! You gotta make them stop!’ Huu huu huu!”
[perspective 1]
A hill of cracks forms.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top and Leatherface bang on the table and play with her face while Drayton looks on with sadism."""
A blast of exploded wood stops their fun. Before the last shards fall, several human bones with little meat spew onto them. Before they can react, something breaks out of the floor and spreads itself opens in a warrior’s glory. They can’t believe it. All the security, all the pleasure, all the power they had ever built is crushed underneath this revelation… underneath the devastation of this incredible gargoyle:"""
Body: The stout body retains the grooved striations in their original colors and patterns, but they have matured into something articulate like scales. The deep depression are filled with a strange gray (almost army-green) putty substance.
Head: The basic shape still remains, but the completed necroflesh has formed over everything, including the mouth--which bears a short, gentle slope at the end, uninterrupted by an absent nose. The necroflesh has also added two serrated ridges over the skull, starting near the eyes. The six eyes have filled the sockets.
Clothes: The clothes are like a warriors suit designed for movement. Neither too loose nor too tight, they flow and shimmer through their inherent folds. Like the calves, the crafted tatters wrap and slither around the forearms as if alive. A white emblem adorns the neck--the solid base descends into thick, twisting striations like fattened lightning. The clothes are permeable, allowing the tail, wings, and tentacles to pass freely between.
Wings: It has two rows of wings. The top row starts between the shoulders and spans seven feet across. The top frame contains the same necroflesh, but the webbing underneath is like putty stretched to rubber. The bottom row starts just below the other and is simply its mirror inverse. The wings span open into a large X.
Limbs: The forearms and calves bear the long, grooved spike extrusions. The fingers and snapping beaks are more pronounced, while the feet bear three stout digits ending in squatted spikes. The bottoms and sides of the feet are spongy cilia like oversized paramecia."""
Sally just stares with her mouth open. Should she be scared? Should she be relieved ( “(Yes)” )? She doesn’t know. She is at another’s mercy.
The Unnamed One looks at Sally, then he looks at the cannibal family and fumes.
Drayton backs away, pathetically shielding with his shaking hands. “Look! I never killed anyone! I just… I just cook ‘em! I never did nothin’! OK! Maybe I helped them, but I…I never…I…”
Leatherface runs at X with the chainsaw raised. X lifts his hands, passing its sides."""
[perspective 1]
The chainsaw comes down as the end disappears into a white and blue rift surrounding X. Blood spurts from the rift as X stands unmarked. The chainsaw hits the floor and recoils.
[perspective 2]
The elderly grandpa, the famed “one-hitter,” begins to feebly mumble as, from nowhere, a baseless chainsaw hacks through his torso. Grandpa’s cleaved body sinks down and flops over the chair like a rubber mat.
[perspective 1]
Leatherface strikes again as X grabs the chain with his raw hands, stopping the sawn. He breaks the chain off and hits Leatherface so hard with the severed ends that it knocks him through the back window.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top grabs the butcher knife, turning the blade under his forearm. He trips over some chairs while moving towards Sally--his chance to leverage his life."""
Before Chop Top can get to Sally, X casually lifts his inverted, resting palm at him, telekinetically shoving him away and off balance. He hits his plated skull on the floor, making him dizzy. He keeps repeating “That’s heavy, man. That’s heavy.”
Drayton pulls a Magnum revolver from under the table and tries to aim at X as X drags Chop Top to the table. X stabs the butcher knife into Chop Top’s right hand, then grabs the butcher fork. While shaking with fear… and disbelief… and rage, Drayton’s hand catches the edge of the table, shooting directly at the gargoyle’s ankle. He falls over from incredible pain. He looks to see the worst: he literally shot off his own foot."""
[perspective 1]
Drayton, powered by adrenaline, gets up and uses the table and walls as a crutch. X telekinetically causes him to trip.
[perspective 2]
Leatherface barrages through the woodshed, searching for his other chainsaw.
[perspective 1]
Then X opens his hand, magnetizing Drayton’s attached foot towards it. X drags him to the kitchen while the fingers bite.
[perspective 2]
After throwing a fit and smashing the clutter, he finds it. He powers it on, does his stomping dance, and shakes it over his head."""
Drayton’s face goes right into the oil fryer . He squirms and gurgles with no avail. He tries pushing on X, but the surface shreds his hands like a wall of broken glass.
Chop Top wrestles to free his hands: a knife through one’s palm and several tines through the others’ nails. “It’s ‘Nam, man! It’s ‘Nam, and Charlie ain’t gonna stop me!” The tines rip through the ends of several fingers until they are free. He pulls the knife out and runs to the kitchen.
X raises Drayton’s burned face from the fryer. It’s an inhuman color of dark grease, fried skin, large blisters, and exposed sinews, and it’s all beginning to melt off. But he’s still breathing.
“You can’t do that to him! Take that, Charlie!”"""
[perspective 1]
Drayton can barely stand. He’s barely even conscious from all the nerve damage.
As X leans forward, a tentacle wraps around Drayton’s body to replace the hands standing him.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top jumps on X’s back, stabbing him repeatedly. X leans forward, causing his calf-spikes to slice between Chop Top’s metatarsals and cleave his feet into thirds. X thrusts his arms back, stabbing his spikes all over Chop Top’s sides. The tail smashes into the back ribs.
[perspective 1]
X opens his mouth and blows out a blue flame onto Drayton. Then X throws him into the meat freezer. The compartment bangs several times, then a few times, then once, then it stops.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top falls down as the gargoyle thrusts the human hand into the meat grinder. One of X’s tentacles proceeds through the mystical shroud and operates the handle.
X turns around and keeps grinding into the forearm as chuck and gristle mound on the counter. X stops, steps aside, and stares out the kitchen door. He’s waiting for something."""
The monster continues to stand as if reading the story from afar. Eventually, a chainsaw rips through the front door, cutting a large triangle before being kicked open. The gargoyle stands quiet.
TWO BROTHERS
"""
[perspective 1]
Leatherface charges into the room with his chainsaw ready to impale. X effortlessly passes the chainsaw while Leatherface walks right through him as if he were a dream.
[perspective 2]
Chop Top tries desperately to free his remaining arm, but the mutilated flesh is still connected and will not break. His knife is gone, and he is stuck.
[perspective 1]
A tentacle pushes Leatherface towards the counter and forces his hand into the disposal unit. The disposal activates, trapping Leatherface for now.
The disposal continues to eat away at his arm.
[perspective 2]
X forces Chop Top’s head level to the counter. Chop Top’s eyes shock open and glaze at something invisible. “Is that, is that why you’re doing this, man? Is that why AAAAHHHH!!” The chainsaw rests on the counter, grinding against Chop Top’s metal plate. Sparks fly as he keeps screaming. The fight subdues as the plate turns orange. Two tentacles take over and hold everything in place."""
X grabs the leather mask off the brute, revealing an unkempt, girthy “bubba” face--a face confused and scared. X’s claws reach up, bite, and rip the squalid face off. Some facial muscle comes with it. X bites an accessible split in the back, causing the skin to rot and discolor morbidly. Leatherface screams at the ceiling as X grabs a grater and strikes both sides of skinless cheeks. Then, he seals the new mask onto Leatherface while telepathically transferring a mocking thought: “It’s a good fit. It’s definitely you.”
The disposal stops, allowing Leatherface to retreat into the main room, bracing his twisted and splintered bones and hiding his face. X grabs the oversized meat hammer (nearly a sledge hammer) and hits Leatherface in the back of the head, causing his eye to shoot out. He frantically spasms on the ground, cuddling to his side. X throws the hammer to smash the eye and enters the main room.
The tentacles retract, and Chop Top is released. He hangs from the counter with a golden plate cooking his head and melted brains flowing out of his mouth.
YOU’RE THE LAST
The Unnamed One proceeds towards Sally.
(Was she still screaming all this time, or was she struck silent? To tell you the truth, I seem to have forgotten myself in all the excitement.)
The chainsaw roars. He’s back, and he’s filled with rage. X turns around as the chainsaw gores right into his guts with no concern. As it runs to the base, X touches Leatherface to reveal all of the people he terrorized and killed, seeing and feeling everything they did. Leatherface seizes.
X reaches into his opened gut to remove a hidden weapon: a two-foot, convex, stretched-triangle of a blade set atop a horizontal rod. His fingers wrap around the rod, erecting the warped triangle as an extension of his knuckles. He slices downward with a reverse fist, cutting a giant slit down Leatherface’s torso. X teleports behind him and kicks his back, causing the guts to fly long from his body onto the floor.
Leatherface falls to his face. With the last of his functions, he begins to crawl and falls down, dead. X grabs his corpse and throws it through the kitchen wall, bringing the entire wall down with him. The falling rubble crushes his body.
The outside stands full and saving, ready to embrace her. The fortress has been defeated, and the family has no power anymore.
It is mysteriously daytime, just like the day Sally arrived. Under the golden light, beyond the front lawn, is the family van… and her brother Franklin… and all their friends… alive!
The sun dissolves all the darkness. The horrors of this monstrous family are gone. Righteous indignation has been satisfied. There will be cosmic justice against the dark.
Sally looks at X, hoping he will free her. X holds up his hands, showing the butcher string used to bind her. She looks down and sees it is gone. She looks back at X as he drops the strings, burning into ashes before hitting ground.
Franklin cries out to her, “Sally! Let’s go! Let’s get out of here! Come on, let’s go!” Everyone is running into the van. She runs towards them as the engine roars a call to safety.
Sally runs past the debris, hitting the open field with nothing else restraining her. X’s wings expand, propelling him forward in an arch resembling a hop. He lands on the edge of the house and drops something near Leatherface’s body.
Sally stops a few feet from the van and turns around to look at the thing that saved her. He opens his hand to reveal something glowing. It floats softly towards her and into her hand. It’s a stone made of pure light, a white light with a flowing tint of many colors. She can feel its healing energy as it begins to flow into her body.There’s something she wants to do, but her mind is still healing from all this trauma.
The people cry out for her. “Come on, Sally! We have to get out of here!”
“Salllyyy!”
There’s something she wants to do, but her mind is still walled in. The guardian’s visage communicates an understanding and an acceptance in gratitude. She feels it is done and runs into the van, which speeds off for escape.
X understood what she wanted, and he accepts. She wanted to tell him “Thank you.”
The sun shines over the exposed rubble and X’s glossy scales.The glare is so bright as to blind in its glory.
We see X from behind, standing before the fallen Leatherface amidst the toppled rampart. X performs a small hop-flight, lands on top of him, and looks down. He begins devouring him.
[closeup of the ground] Blood spurts everywhere among the earthen floor and broken stones. The view pans left, stopping over the dropped objects: the leather mask and a chainsaw. Everything around these objects turns black and disappears into darkness.
_The Vortex and the Tome_
The darkness around the mask and chainsaw begins to fill with the image of the desk in the vortex. At the height of the desk is the mysterious tome. It is open to the first page showing the country road.
“We have completed our first story. Behold.”
By itself, the tome begins writing and drawing its own text and images. The Unnamed One is drawn into the hill of the set image, followed by the woods and Hoyt’s death. Strange pictographs and an esoteric language complete the first page.
The page turns over automatically as the literal ghost writing continues. Some images already exist on the page while others are created. The strange writing and images continue to the next page and the next. More and more, faster and faster. It continues to the last page of the chapter and stops. The mask and chainsaw are saturated with a flashing yellow light and disappear. They reappear inscribed on the page.
“Yes, that was the beginning of our tales. Soon, all of the chapters will be fulfilled, and the tome shall be completed.”
The page turns to the next chapter, the crude altar in the forest is set before a network of levitating squares with misty surfaces. Looking closely, there are people within them. One wears a white, rubber mask. “Let’s take a look at another masked killer. One who works alone and will be easy to collect for a group of witnesses.”
[The full The Unnamed One story is available on the Archive Of Our Own website.]
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