by Stephen Hand
“They’re all dead.”
Another memory. Another flashback. The words were the suicidal girl’s but the voice was Erin’s. Misery was repeating itself in Travis County.
Her words scared the hell out of him. “Who?”
But she didn’t answer, which unsettled him even more. No problem, he was about to get some help.
Bob had done this route so many times, he knew every stop, diner and bar along the way. And he remembered that just about a couple hundred yards past the barbecue sign, there was a hillbilly general store or something. He’d never been inside before, but he knew it was there and he reckoned it would be a good place to stop and get some help.
No . . .
Not possible . . .
Erin leaned forward and saw Luda May’s general store in the near distance. And it was getting closer.
He’d taken her back. The idiot had taken her back!
“Noooo!” she screamed, and then she was at him, kicking and punching. She scratched his hands, and tried to grab hold of the steering. It was the crazy hitchhiker and Kemper all over again, and Erin would do anything, anything to save the trucker from becoming another desiccated mask in Hewitt’s sick collection.
“You can’t make me go!” she raged, struggling at the wheel.
Bob couldn’t believe how strong she was. She fought like a hellcat. But if he didn’t do something about it, they’d probably jackknife—and with the truck as bundled out as it was, it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Get the hell off me!” he shouted, and he pushed her back into the passenger seat.
She leant forward again, but he managed to hold her down, keeping the rig under control with his other hand, while slowing on the approach to the general store.
“Take me home!” she shouted. “I won’t go back!”
She was begging him, begging him, but all she’d done was piss him off like some kind of vicious little crazy woman.
“I don’t know what the hell your problem is,” he rattled, “but it’s more than I can handle.”
Erin curled up in her seat and cried.
He was braking, getting ready to turn right into the dirt lot outside Luda May’s. It wasn’t possible. What the hell was he doing?
Suddenly she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview.
Oh God . . .
She looked again.
Those eyes. That face. The dirt. Blood. Her hair. How pale she was. The dark rings. She was the teenage girl after all—the crazy girl who’d shot herself rather than go back to this place.
Erin reached out and touched the silvered glass, tracing the lines on her reflected image, trying to see if there was anything about the girl in the mirror she still recognized.
They were almost there now. The old gas pump, the yard sale, the used tires and auto spares—Erin could remember it all. Only there was something else outside the general store building right now: a police car.
Sheriff Hoyt.
“No!” screamed Erin, and she threw herself across at the trucker, and hit him with everything she had.
The truck had already decelerated most of the way, but Bob couldn’t keep hold of the wheel. He hit the brakes, but the rig went sliding past the dirt lot and came to a stop on the highway further on.
“Please don’t stop!” cried Erin. “Not here! Keep going! Please!”
And she beat on his chest, her blows becoming more and more feeble, her weeping more desolate until she was just gulping air and shivering.
This was getting too much for Bob. He wanted to help the woman, but this was more than he could take. She was weird.
He took one more look at her tear-streaked face and then climbed out of the rig. She held her hand out towards him. She was drooling, crying, but it was no use. The sooner he got her to a hospital the better.
Bob was almost touching the ground when he realized he’d just done something plain stupid. He shook his head, got back on up, and took the keys out of the ignition. And then he left the truck.
It was still raining pretty hard and the dirt was turning into mush. Bob hunched low and walked quickly across to the store, his boots splashing in the water. Behind him, Erin jumped down from her side of the cab and didn’t give a damn about the rain as she looked for a place to hide.
She had been safe. She’d escaped. She’d been free. But now here she was again. Here she fucking was again!
Was the trucker one of them? Was this all part of the game? Is this how they wanted to finish her off—give her one last false second of freedom and then squash her like a damn cockroach?
Erin didn’t want to be seen prowling out in the rain, but she couldn’t help but look on as Bob entered the store.
Oh my God, she could see them . . .
The sheriff, Luda May and Henrietta.
What the hell were they all doing here so early in the morning? What kind of redneck-hillbilly-fuck middle-of-nowhere shop opened at dawn? But she knew the answer already. They were there because she was there. They’d probably left the farmhouse as soon as Morgan and her had broke free.
Morgan . . .
Jedidiah . . .
Bob went straight to the sheriff and started to talk, and soon all three of them were listening to him. She could see them soaking it all up, hanging on his every word. And when he pointed out the window, they all turned to look at what he was pointing at. They all turned to see the hysterical woman he’d picked up a few miles back along the road.
Erin bolted behind the cover of the rig.
She watched as the four of them shuffled through the store to the open doorway. The screen door remained shut, protecting them from the rain as Big Rig Bob gestured back in the direction of his truck. From his manner, there could be no doubt that he was telling them all about Erin and, though none of the Hewitts had ever asked her name, they possessed enough cruel cunning to know exactly who the trucker meant.
Sheriff Hoyt in particular seemed mighty concerned—which was only natural when it was the job of all police officers to handle any emergencies that might occur in their district.
Hoyt looked out into the heavy rain and smiled. The rig was parked on the road, about twenty yards in front of his own car, which was on the lot. He couldn’t see inside the truck cabin from here. But it was gonna be a real pleasure to walk over there and tie up some unfinished business.
Henrietta and Luda May had done a good job of keeping the trucker talking; Bob never once noticed Hoyt sizing him up from behind, just in case.
* * *
Outside, Erin had already moved away from the giant vehicle.
Although they’d all stood looking through the screen door, the terrified young woman had been able to crawl unnoticed down the length of the rig, and then across to the side of the store building.
She threw her back flat against the peeling whiteboard wall, the rain trickling down her face. She didn’t know what the hell to do, but there was an open window nearby. If she could just sneak up to it, she might at least be able to hear what they were saying.
She wasn’t thinking too clearly right now, but she couldn’t just let herself be captured again. She couldn’t give up. She had to think of something. She had to!
Clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle her worried breathing, Erin bent low and sidled her way up beside the window. She could hear them, but their voices were muffled—they were still over by the door. Slowly, she raised her head and peered over the window frame.
The window was at the back of the store, opening right above the counter. None of them knew where she was. She could see all of them, looking at the rig.
The driver kept telling them over and over about how the poor young thing done nearly drove them both off the road. Hoyt kept saying everything was under control.
Just then, Erin heard another voice—the baby!
The baby they’d stolen from Jedidiah’s parents was lying unattended in a bassinet on the counter. The moment Erin realized this, everything became clear: the Hewitts a
nd their sick world of inherited violence and their depraved cycle of beatings and murder.
Poor Jedidiah, the son they’d wanted to carry on the family name before they killed him with a fucking chainsaw. Erin and the teenage girl, both crying for mercy on a remote Texas highway. And now, the baby.
Suddenly everything became clear, and Erin knew the perfect way to beat them.
When she’d attacked Thomas Hewitt, she’d become Thomas Hewitt. Now, she had a chance to reclaim her humanity and, at the same time, to break the chain of death that forever linked father to son in the dank squalor of the Hewitt basement.
Hoyt looked outside.
If he wanted to get her, he was going to have to get wet.
He adjusted his belt, then pushed open the screen door. As long as the two women kept the dumb trucker busy, there’d be no witnesses to what the sheriff said and did. He didn’t want to shoot the girl. No, she’d cost them too much to die quick. But, if she was gonna make a nuisance of herself, then she’d be shot while resisting arrest. Maybe the trucker too.
God damn, where was that dumb prick Leatherface when he was needed?
The sheriff stepped out of the store and into the rain, and was annoyed to find Big Rig Bob following straight behind him.
Erin ran as fast as she could, her broken shoes slipping in the mud.
Back inside the store, Henrietta and Luda May kept watch through the open doorway. They saw Hoyt walk over to the rig with that loud mouth trucker alongside him. The sheriff wasn’t going to like that none.
Henrietta cast a glance back over at the counter. Her darling little girl had slept like a charm through all the commotion. They’d not heard a peep out of the beautiful—
“Sweet baby Jesus!” she shouted. “The child is gone!”
Luda May turned and saw that the hooded wicker cradle on the counter was empty.
Erin lay down low on the seat and pulled the Swiss army knife out of her pocket. The last time she’d done this, she’d busted two blades, but this was a different ignition in a different vehicle.
She was running out of time. She couldn’t afford to make a single mistake. They were coming. She could hear their footsteps splashing in the rain.
Biting her lip, she dug into the steering column and popped open the ignition casing. Her hands were shaking all over.
Quick. The wires.
Hoyt reached down and put a hand on the gun in his holster. It wasn’t a standard issue weapon—it was the snub nose the girl had shot herself with.
He was standing outside the cabin of the truck. Both doors were closed and he couldn’t hear any movement from inside. So, keeping one hand on the revolver, he reached up to open the driver’s door—but pulled back.
He had a better idea.
He listened again, to make sure she hadn’t heard him, then started to walk round to the passenger side, where she’d be moaning and whining. The engine was dead, and the truck driver had the keys, so Hoyt didn’t think twice about walking right out in front of the enormous rig.
Her fingers worked frantically at the ignition wires. If she could just . . .
She’d wiped the rain off her hands and had already begun to strip away the sheathing with her army knife. There was just one stubborn piece of casing left.
Erin turned the knife in her fingers and began to chip at the last bit of plastic, when suddenly she slipped and stabbed the cutting tool into her thumb.
But she took the pain—it was nothing compared to what she was already feeling. She just kept her mouth shut, let the knife fall to the floor, and reached for the exposed leads with her bloodied fingers. All she had to do was make the right connection and the engine would be up and running.
Then, by God, she’d hit the gas!
The sheriff passed in front of the cabin and took out the gun from his belt.
Big Rig Bob was hanging back round the driver’s side, so there was no way for the trucker to see what was going on.
A callous bastard grin creased its way onto Hoyt’s face, the age lines in his skin only half as deep as the booze lines. He was almost at the passenger door. There was no chance of her getting away this time. He wasn’t some mule-brained retard with a tree-cutter; he was a killer with a twenty-five yard aim.
If Luda May had just let him rape the bitch and cut her up with a bourbon bottle like he’d wanted, she’d have been put to sleep hours ago. But no, they’d had to go and put her down in the basement with all the other hippie student faggots. And she’d busted out with that little freak Jedidiah, or whatever the brat’s name was before Luda May adopted him.
But it was all over now.
Sheriff Hoyt climbed up, took hold of the passenger door handle and then raised the gun, ready to shoot the bitch right between the eyes. Then he swung the door open and shouted at her to . . .
The words died in his mouth and he froze.
The cabin was completely empty.
Hoyt just hung there, holding on to the open door, one foot inside the truck, the rest of his body braced outside.
Where the hell was she?
He looked again, but there was no one inside.
He looked through, over to the store, and could see Henrietta and Luda May running straight for him. They were shouting something. They wanted him to come over. Was the girl in there?
Hoyt turned his head, ready to step down—and saw his own car speeding straight for him!
The patrol car slammed into the sheriff, hitting him full on before crashing through the open passenger door, tearing it clean off the side of the rig.
Hoyt fell back and his body smashed against the windshield, creating a mosaic of cracked glass outlined by his seeping blood. Almost immediately, the sheriff bounced off the windscreen and fell onto the ground, his stout body hurled rolling through the mud.
Fragments of broken glass tumbled over the hood of the car, and trailed glistening in the vehicle’s wake. What was left of the windshield was now smeared with Hoyt’s blood.
The sheriff couldn’t believe what had just happened to him.
That face . . . behind the wheel . . .
It was the girl!
Erin had been inside the squad car all along. She’d hot-wired it, got it started and then ran the sheriff down the first damned chance she got.
And she wasn’t through yet.
She turned the car in a tight one-eighty, her hands gripping the wheel and her face set cold in a thousand yard stare.
Luda May and Henrietta were cussing and stamping in the mud and dirt, but Erin couldn’t hear them or have cared less. Neither the fat deranged lunatic or the mad old storekeeper would come after Erin. Nor would the truck driver.
No, the only real threat to Erin now was . . .
Hoyt scrabbled across the ground, trying to find his gun. It had been knocked out of his hand when that BITCH had ran into him. But she was gonna pay . . .
The sheriff snarled with pain and rolled over to where the revolver lay in the dirt. It hurt him to breathe—reckoned she broke his ribs—but he could still take her out. Gritting his teeth and trying to shake the damned rainwater outta his eyes, he grabbed the gun and rolled over onto his back.
He could hear her coming again, the whore.
He sat up . . .
She hit the gas, was coming straight for him.
His eyes went wide.
He raised the gun and aimed for her stupid little face and—
“Fuck you!” spat Erin, and she drove the police car straight over his body.
The vehicle bounced up and down on its suspension as the wheels broke his legs, pulverized his groin, crushed his ribs into his heart and lungs, and burst his head wide open like a fucking overripe melon.
Erin turned on the wipers—there was just too much damn blood on the windshield—then she was gone.
Luda May and Henrietta raged as the car pulled away from the store and tore off down the highway. Their arms flailed wildly, their faces contorted with hatred and sheer bastard in
sanity.
Erin had stolen their baby and the rain poured down.
There was a flash of lightning in the distance, and Erin could hear the brooding rumble of thunder overhead. The sky had broken and the fall had become almost torrential in its ferocity. But the water was purifying the car, washing away the final grubby stains of the sheriff’s death.
Erin had won.
Ahead of her, the sun was rising high above the horizon, casting more and more glorious light down upon the wide open prairie of Travis County—the new day undiminished, despite the storm.
Lying in the passenger seat next to Erin, snuggled in soft rabbit pajamas, was the baby girl.
Erin had snatched the child through the open window of the store, rescuing her from the living homicidal hell of growing up as a member of the Hewitt family.
The young woman behind the wheel of the police car had been to the slaughterhouse and back. She’d saved an innocent child and now they were both on the road to Dallas.
Erin looked grim and determined.
She was just passing through.
EPILOGUE
It was difficult to imagine the distraught middle-aged woman before me as the carefree teenager who’d gone with her friends to Mexico thirty years ago. If only half her story was true, it was half too much.
All her cuts and bruises had healed a long time ago, but the fact that she was talking to me from within an institution was proof that her mental scars would probably never go away.
Now that I’d heard Erin Hardesty’s story, I had even more questions that needed answering. Where was the baby she took? What happened to Luda May, Henrietta and Monty Hewitt? And just what did happen to Leatherface?
On August 19, she left him seriously injured at the slaughterhouse. On August 20, Leatherface killed Detective Adams in the basement of the Hewitt house, so where was Leatherface now?