The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

by Stephen Hand

  But now all of them could see the small figure of a boy climbing off a hammock that was pushed up against the far wall, near to the sunken closet. Surely this wasn’t the kid’s home?

  As soon as he had both feet on the ground, the boy scurried away into the shadows and tried to hide but Kemper could hear his scared, labored breathing.

  “Who are you?” asked Kemper, sounding a little more angry than he meant to.

  “What did you do to her?” came a reply, in a thin reedy broken voice.

  Kemper didn’t know who the boy was talking about. “Huh?”

  “The girl,” came the voice again. “The girl in the van. What did you do to her?”

  The kid knew about the dead girl!

  But how the hell could he? The five of them had been sat slam in front of the open doorway from the moment they’d arrived at the mill. There was no way the kid could have got out and seen the body without them noticing. But then, he must have, somehow.

  “We didn’t do anything to her,” said Kemper cautiously.

  Erin had been paying close attention to the boy’s voice. It had a peculiar “distant” quality to it. He seemed to be emphasizing his words in all the wrong places, as if he’d almost forgotten how to speak. Erin couldn’t quite tell where the kid was from, but judging by his accent, he sure as heck wasn’t from Travis.

  She stepped forward to try and help Kemper.

  “She did it to herself,” Erin said, and in her mind’s eye she could clearly see the moment when the frightened teenage girl shot herself.

  There was a pause and then the boy shuffled forward where they could see him.

  “Oh my God,” Erin couldn’t help it, it just escaped from her lips.

  The poor boy looked so hungry—no, he looked starved. His skin was all dirty and his hair was a wild mess of badly cut dark hair. But the strangest thing about the kid was that he seemed to have no eyebrows to speak of, making his face seem more . . . cadaverous. But he was still just a kid.

  “You promise you won’t hurt me?” he asked.

  Erin could see he was frightened. Okay, when the kid first appeared, he’d scared the life out of the five of them. But now . . . Kemper was holding an iron bar and the kid was surrounded by strange faces, of people much older and stronger than him.

  Something about the boy touched Erin’s heart. It might have been her prenatal hormones or it could have been the simple sight of this famished kid, dressed in torn soiled clothing, lying in a bunk in the darkness of a ruined mill, out in the heart of the Texan wilderness. God, if she ever found the boy’s parents . . .

  Erin held out her hand.

  At first, the boy didn’t want to go, but then he took it and she led him outside into the light.

  It was long past noon by now and the temperature had clawed its way even higher. Although the beleaguered friends were all soaked through to the skin with sweat they preferred to sit back outside in the heat, rather than the dank shade of the mill.

  Erin sat down beside the boy. She didn’t know how the kid could bear to stay in the old ruin like that. The others too found the sight of the boy strangely intriguing. What the hell was he? A circus freak? Some kind of local birth defect? A runaway?

  Morgan was feeling quite himself again, now that they were no longer standing in the old dark house, jumping like jack rabbits at every tick and creak. How he saw it, their whole day was unfolding like a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Finding the dirty little spaz-kid was just the next chapter. Morgan wanted to skip straight to the last page, where the five of them cleared out in Kemper’s van and lived happily ever after.

  Pepper, on the other hand, felt like Erin. The sight of the boy upset her and she wanted to help him any way she could. But she would have felt more comfortable if the kid didn’t keep looking over at the bloodstained broken window at the back of the Dodge.

  As for Andy . . .

  Andy was just Andy. He had no interest in any of this right now. He’d made his feelings clear earlier; dump the body and go. He couldn’t care less about the boy. Finding the boy made no difference. The only person Andy wanted to see right about now was the sheriff.

  It was the same with Kemper. That crazy old witch down at the store had told them to meet the sheriff at the old Crawford Mill—that’s what she said, the old Crawford Mill—and she’d told Erin how to get to the damned place. But the sheriff wasn’t here which meant either he hadn’t arrived yet, or he’d already been and gone, or this wasn’t Crawford Mill. Either way, Kemper guessed that the weird kid might have some of the answers.

  Raising the visor of his cap, Kemper looked down at the boy. “Is this the Crawford Mill?”

  The kid didn’t reply. Instead he turned to Erin and said, “I used to play here with my friend Billy. But he died.”

  Pepper shook her head and started jigging her left leg. Why did everyone round here have to keep talking about death? And who put all those horrible animal skulls all over the place?

  “What’s your name?” asked Erin quietly, but her question was about as successful as Kemper’s.

  “Was she mad?” asked the boy. He was looking back in the direction of the van.

  Erin didn’t get it. All the boy seemed to want to talk about was the dead girl. Why? Was it just morbid curiosity or what?

  “Yes,” Erin replied. “She was real mad.”

  They fell silent, the boy straining to see the suicide corpse. At least he was talking to them, that was something.

  “My name’s Erin,” she ventured.

  “Jedidiah,” came the reply. And he looked plainly into Erin’s face, his dull eyes watching her, her eyes, her mouth, her—

  Morgan found the boy’s name just too much. He put his mouth close to Pepper’s ear and whispered, “Weren’t you in the Beverly Hillbillies?”

  The remark was, of course, aimed at Jedidiah, who didn’t seem to hear. But Pepper did and she swiftly elbowed Morgan in the ribs. Erin too shot him a dirty look before turning her attention to the boy again.

  He looked scared.

  “I like your shirt,” she smiled. Underneath his coarse jacket, Jedidiah wore a Felix the Cat T-shirt. “Felix was my favorite,” she said.

  “Who?”

  Erin pointed to the print of the cartoon cat on the front of the shirt. “Felix the Cat. You know? With the bag of tricks.”

  Jedidiah considered this information for a moment, then corrected her. “He don’t have no name.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, all very cozy. All very happy families. Andy pushed forward and looked down at the boy.

  “Listen, kid,” he said. “We’re supposed to meet the sheriff here. Have you seen him?”

  The boy raised his face to look up at Andy, “Yeah.”

  This caught everyone’s notice. Kemper in particular was now eager to hear what the boy had to say.

  “Where?” asked Erin.

  “Home. Gettin’ drunk,” was the downright disappointing reply. And he was still staring mostly at the van.

  “Cool,” said Morgan decisively. He was totally fed up. “Let’s split.”

  But Erin hadn’t finished; the boy could help them.

  “Does he live around here?” she queried, trying to find out everything Jedidiah knew about the sheriff.

  The boy pointed somewhere off to the rear of the mill. “Other side of that grove.”

  They followed his finger in the direction of an ominous mass of trees and bushes.

  “Can we drive from here?” Kemper asked, even though the boy still hadn’t made it clear whether or not they were actually at Crawford Mill.

  “The road don’t go to the sheriff’s,” said Jedidiah. “But it’s a pretty short walk.”

  They looked again at the shambling groves the boy had indicated. None of them cared much for the idea of walking through there. The way ahead looked just like the house—thick with dark shadows—and all it seemed to do was lead deeper off into nowhere. Hadn’t they already descended through enough layers of this Te
xan hell?

  When Morgan spoke up again, he was only saying what they were all thinking—besides Erin.

  “Hey, if the sheriff doesn’t give a shit, why should we?”

  Andy, Kemper and Pepper mulled this over. All day long, Morgan had been the devil on their left shoulder and Erin had been the angel on their right, but they all wanted the same thing. They all wanted to get out of the hole they were in—they just weren’t equipped to handle it. They just didn’t know how.

  “Look man,” pushed Morgan. “We just got splattered with brains, our dope is gone, we’re fucking around in this goddamn hick town and I’m not about to lose these Skynyrd tickets. So let’s just get out of here!”

  It was tempting. God, it was tempting.

  Pepper looked to Andy. Of all the people here she felt closest to him. She didn’t know any of them properly but she’d made love to Andy and he seemed like a real nice guy. And he didn’t have to shout to make himself heard like the rest of them. Pepper reached a quiet decision that she would do whatever Andy did.

  Andy looked at Kemper. They’d been buddies since school and they’d been through a lot together. Fights, girls, cars, you name it. But it had always been clear who was leader of the pack. Morgan and Andy were on the same level, but Kemper was the man. Andy trusted Kemper and he’d do whatever his friend decided.

  So it was all on Kemper.

  The young mechanic in question had gone with Erin when they’d first decided to pick up that insane girl, and look where that had landed them. But then he’d already gone with the guys on the marijuana issue and he supposed they could have been busted, in theory.

  He’d also stuck with the guys when they’d originally decided to dump the body here. Sure, he knew they always expected him to give into Erin but that was just their horseshit. What really changed things now was knowing that he was going to be the father of Erin’s child. That one fact alone pushed the two of them closer together and made him feel the need to be more responsible. Erin had been right all along but Kemper had been sorta holding onto the past—to his youth. Now, however, it was time for him to quit fooling and become a man.

  Kemper watched his girl.

  He could tell Erin was also waiting on his decision. He knew what she wanted him to do and he respected her for not saying anything. This time she was leaving him on his own, to make up his own mind. It wasn’t a test, things were too far gone for her to be playing games. No, this was real and it was a mess. So, should he go find the sheriff’s house or not?

  Kemper knelt down in front of the kid and said, “How do I get there?”

  Erin smiled to herself. Kemper had made up his mind and he’d made the right choice. He was going to find the sheriff and Erin was sure as hell going with him.

  SIX

  Following Jedidiah’s instructions, Erin and Kemper had gone round to the back of the derelict cotton mill and picked up a narrow track that led through a dreary mass of dying trees. The route was originally a horse trail, but now it wasn’t much more than a footpath lost in a tangle of vine. The lack of footprints of any kind suggested that the path wasn’t used very often—at least not by people.

  At first, Erin had been reluctant to go deeper into the woods, but now she was kinda glad to be leaving the old gin with its unnerving collection of mutilated junk. The thought had occurred to her that Jedidiah might have made all that stuff himself.

  Perhaps what she’d previously thought of as the products of a sick mind may have in fact been the results of a twisted, dislocated form of play. But almost immediately she dismissed the idea. She couldn’t see the little boy climbing up on to the roof to bolt those crazy bone sculptures in place.

  If Kemper had been a bit more patient, Erin would have spent more time talking to Jedidiah to see just exactly where the boy fitted into all this. But Kemper had wanted to get going which Erin understood completely. Like Kemper had said, the damn goal posts just kept moving on them.

  The original plan was that they were meant to be waiting for the sheriff at Crawford Mill—only now they had to leave the mill to go find the sheriff’s house. They could have gone by road but none of them were sure of the way round and Jedidiah had said it was only a short walk. So here they were.

  Save for the odd curse at being caught in some weeds, the two of them walked mostly in silence, their internal springs coiling tighter and tighter in an emotional holding pattern until they could finally get rid of the girl’s body then let it all out. And there was another reason—other than the heat—why the air was so heavy between them.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” asked Kemper, unable to contain it any longer.

  Straight away, she knew what he meant.

  “I wanted you to propose for the right reason,” she answered.

  “What do you mean?”

  Erin stopped walking and faced him. “I want you to marry me because you want to, not because you have to.”

  Which was pretty much at the heart of Erin’s previous dilemma whether or not to reveal her pregnancy to her boyfriend. If he didn’t know and they got engaged, it could only be for love. But with the baby . . . it could be for obligation. Kemper took his duties pretty seriously, and she knew how he’d react. He’d perform his duties as a father the same way he’d diligently check tire pressure at shop.

  But Kemper didn’t see it that way. He loved Erin. Okay, he might not always be the best at expressing how he felt, but she should know by now. She should know he’d marry her if he had to.

  “I will, I promise,” Kemper assured her. “I’m just waiting for the right time.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” replied Erin, seeming unconvinced.

  Then she turned and walked ahead along the trail, making sure that Kemper couldn’t see her slight smile.

  Oh, the fun, the excitement and the sheer mind-numbing tedium of watching Andy do push-ups.

  Morgan and Pepper sat quietly near the entrance to the mill. What else could they do? Erin and Kemper had only been gone ten minutes or so. They’d have to find their way to the sheriff’s house, they’d have to explain everything to him all over and then they’d have to bring him here. They could easily be gone for half an hour or more. So now boredom had got the better of shock and fear.

  They had a dead girl in the van; they were stuck out by what looked like a cross between a taxidermist’s, an art gallery and a death camp; it was hot. None of them had anything left to say. They were bored. Bored. B-O-R-E-D.

  Though their minds had begun to adapt to the awfulness of their circumstances, Pepper still kept watching the doorway leading into the mill. Jedidiah had never actually said whether he’d been alone in there or not. In fact, everything he said was pretty much a riddle of some kind.

  Well, at least Andy wasn’t going to waste any time. As soon as Kemper had set off, he’d got down on the ground and started his exercises. His tense muscles gleamed with perspiration as he raised and lowered himself from the—

  “Hey!” shouted Andy.

  Jedidiah had opened the back door of the van and was poking the corpse with a stick!

  “You sick little mutant,” Andy called, climbing to his feet. “That’s police evidence.”

  What the hell was the kid playing at? Why wouldn’t he leave the dead body alone?

  Jedidiah stepped away from the door and looked dejectedly at his stick. He’d prodded the body but it hadn’t moved. And now he could see that the end of the stick was wet with blood. The girl was dead after all.

  Pepper saw the strange expression on Jedidiah’s face. She thought it was a look of sadness, but she couldn’t quite tell.

  “That poor boy,” she observed. “I’ll bet he doesn’t have many friends.”

  Morgan took in the abandoned mill, the sprawling thicket of the landscape, the kid with the stick and snorted derisively. “I wonder why?”

  “But to raise a family with you,” said Kemper excitedly, “and have a bunch of little tykes runnin’ around, teaching ’em about cars, go
in’ to car shows, taking ’em on vacation every year to the Indy 500—”

  Suddenly they were out of the woodland, and the air had become sunny and almost cheerful around them.

  Kemper had charmed Erin. He had spent the whole way convincing her that he was the right man for her. He wanted to be her husband. He wanted to be the daddy of her kids. And Erin loved it. This was the Kemper she first hooked up with all those years back, not the dope smuggling moron showing off for his friends—though she didn’t mind him messing with his buddies as long as he did it on his own time.

  Kemper had suddenly stopped talking and Erin could see why. They had reached the end of the trail and could now see the farmstead on the plains.

  At first, their eyes were drawn to the tall, water-pumping windmill. Most of the steel blades were missing from the wheel perched at the top of the tower. Nevertheless, the wheel turned slowly, creaking, evenly catching the wind that was now rushing in waves through the long grass that had grown unchecked over the gentle rise that led up to the house.

  Kemper took a good look at the place.

  The farmhouse was a large and imposing two-storied building constructed in the plantation style, but the design of the place was almost brutal in its flatness and complete absence of curves. Likewise, the walls of the house were plain, featureless surfaces that terminated on all sides in sharp, ninety-degree angles.

  Six broad rectangular columns, spaced equally apart at the front of the building, climbed up from the ground to meet a forward overhang that projected from the roof. Midway, the columns supported a crude clapboard balcony that ran the length of the upper story. Except for this front-facing balcony with its weathered wooden balustrade, and an attic room that protruded from the center of the sloped roof, the entire house was built from huge slabs of pale brick. The effect was to make the place seem more like a military bunker than a tranquil rural home.

  There were windows on both floors, tall rectangular panes of glass with hanging blinds inside that masked the interior of the house. The way into the place, however, seemed clear. A double screen door made mostly of gauze stood halfway along the lower porch, dead center at the foot of the house. Just inside the screens, a pair of tall wooden doors hung wide open.