Teeth sinked into Craig's skin as worms traveled around his body. Two were doing the job of tying him down to the dirt floor so the maggots could eat.
She was doing it again. Craig clenched his jaw as the tiny mouths of the bugs were feasting on him. He got a small look at what one of them was doing and regretted it. Somehow, they had gotten to the bone unless she helped him take those bites that caused them to get down to his bone.
Craig groaned, feeling her bite down on him, he had attempted to throw himself loose by twisting his limbs different angles but that caused her to take her long nails and stab them deep into Craig's lower forearms and hold him in place.
Craig bit his tongue at the pain, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to even look at the blood he felt flowing out of him. He couldn't do anything but let her and her bugs chew at his skin, yet the whole time, while he impatiently waited to awaken from this nightmare, he wondered, what could Jason be doing while all of this is happening?
...
...
Jason breathed in the air in his dark room, hugging Vitamin close to him while the blanket covered his body. Jason made a quick grab for his phone and let the date 'Janurary 30th' stare at him. He was ready for this month to end. This year had already started shitty and already, he was ready to give up.
Oh, had he finished his homework?
Jason tossed himself over to the other side and tried focusing on his phone. Despite it being a school night, Jason was wide awake at 1am. He couldn't sleep with his mind reminding him of the things he learned just a few days ago.
Jason held Vitamin closer to him as a shortcut to comfort. He felt desperate to go back to sleep, but his thoughts wouldn't allow it.
A part of him wondered what Craig was up to, if he too was having trouble sleeping. His phone was right there. Maybe give him a call-
'No,' Jason sternly scolded himself and turned his phone off, and plugged it back up. He turned the opposite direction to where his phone charged and hugged Vitamin close to his chest to shed the desire to even look at the phone.
Vitamin was all he had left of the father he thought was his, or was that his father?
Jason relaxed his muscles, and the hug he had on Vitamin became less tense. Now he was wondering what could have happened if the man Rosemary cheated on his so-called father with was his father, could he have ended up filling the role of a father figure all his life rather than Mr.Durchdenwald?
Well, if he never knew him, there had to be a reason. Maybe he was in the same boat as Eleanor. Maybe he never wanted a child but liked Rosemary enough to ignore that fact and did what he wanted to her even though she was married. Or maybe that guy is his real dad, and he just didn't want to be a father, so Rosemary lied to Hunter for years just so she wouldn't be doing this parent job alone.
Either way, nothing could make the pain he felt go away. Nothing could bring his mother back. Nothing could convince his father to go back to being his father, and Rosemary will never undo the mess she left behind for Jason.
A sudden hint of anger washed over in Jason, and he was taking one arm from around Vitamin and was gripping his bedsheets.
This is her fault.
It wasn't fair, Jason didn't even know about what his mother was doing behind his father's back. He was just a forest scout who wanted to collect all the badges he could with his friends. He just wanted to sit on cushions and let his mother brush his hair. He wanted his father to take him to his job so he'd watch him work, no matter how many coworkers he bragged to him about, he wanted to eat eggplant parmesan while his mother spoke Italian, he wanted to play with his train sets in peace without his parents screaming in an argument he had to listen to.
It wasn't fair.
Jason let the angry tears drip from his eyes, and he was using his lower forearm to wipe them. A few wetted Vitamin, but he didn't care.
It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair that Tony got to play with his toys in his room without anyone screaming at the top of their lungs in an argument, it wasn't fair that Craig didn't need to do something impressive just for his father to remember he existsd only to waste that on looking like a big shot in front of his coworkers. It wasn't fair that Boris could ignore his parents fighting easily, and it wasn't fair Jason couldn't be spared any of that.
Eventually, Jason was sick of trying to control himself, and he let silent tears roll down his face, wetting Vitamin in the process. He gripped his bedsheets tighter this time, so tight he felt like he could put holes in them with his nails, and his knuckles were getting sore by the tightness of the grip.
Based on how much he wrapped up in his own emotions, it was a surprise he heard the noise from the first floor.
Jason flug his upper body up at the noise. He felt doubtful his father was home, but what if it was him? Usually, when Mr.Durchdenwald came home on a late night, he was quiet as a mouse, and to make so much noise coming home was out of character. Or maybe it's an intruder like his father told him to be prepared for.
A part of Jason didn't trust himself, but then again, Jason couldn't really trust anyone.
Just to be sure, Jason slowly got out of his bed. He softly threw himself on the ground to form a crawling position. The rough carpet brushed up against his knees, and his palms were ready to get a move on it.
He pressed the left side of his face against the floor to get a better listen for any suspicious noise or unfamiliar voices. There was no talking, but he heard glass breaking and a loud slam of the sliding door being opened or closed violently.
The noise almost made Jason jump back. That didn't sound like his father at all, yet he still wasn't sure.
Jason slowly raised himself upwards and rushed to his phone. He placed it in his pocket and went back to his bed to hide Vitamin.
With a shaking hand, Jason slowly opened his door and stepped out of it. He planted his mix match socks into the carpet floor towards down the stairs, but when he heard more glass breaking, he took a large step back.
Jason turned his head towards the stairs, leading to his parents room.
With slow steps, Jason was rushing up the stairs to the 3rd floor.
To his surprise, the bedroom door was wide open, and the light was still on. The light drew the attention to the photo right above the bed.
Jason recalled exactly what his father would tell him when he started being left by himself for longer hours and if someone breaks in.
Jason climbed onto the bed and stood on the mattress. He carefully held the false photo frame of him and Eleanor. The day of their wedding.
As much as Jason wanted to take the photo and throw it across the room just looking at the matching red yarrows on the pair, he ignored his urge and anxiously opened the frame.
The steel handgun with the silencer stared back at him. He cringed at the sight, but if there really was someone, he had to do something. Besides, no one was here to save him, or if he chickens out and calls the police his job of protecting the house would be fulfilled either way.
Thankfully, the safety was on, and Jason could easily put it in his large pajama pants pocket without worrying about accidentally shooting himself like a dumbass. He pointed the position of the gun away
from himself and Jason made it out of the bedroom and towards the first floor.
He took slow and soft steps down the stairs that led him to the first floor. He looked at the picture on the wall next to the stairs.
Jason almost fell down the stairs, seeing the glass part of the frame with an obvious crack it in. The damage looked to be the job of a hammer. The rounded cracks were in a specific spot, not so strangely enough, Rosemary's face. But oddly enough, one of the cracks extended across Hunter's neck.
The work had Mr.Durchdenwald written all over it.
By now, Jason assumed he had moved on from Rosemary since he rushes Jason to get past her death. But that could be him still being mad about the cheating scandal.
Jason gave more slow steps down the stairs, and broken picture frames of Rosemary were scattered across the floor. Some even scribbled out with Marker, dear God, he even got their wedding photo. Jason grabbed the side of his pajama pants leg and kept walking. He was starting to wish he had brought shoes. Jason took a look around and found nothing that could work. He had no choice but to run back to his room for a second and grab the shoes by his bed in case of an emergency.
(So sorry, this is off topic. But I love imagining there's an earth quake, Mr.Durchdenwald and Eleanor are suffering cause they stepped in a bunch of glass and bleeding a bunch and then there's Jason, unharmed in his shoes looking down at them all smug. I know it's ooc for Jason, but it's still a funny thought cause most of the adults in Jason's life suck)
Jason grabbed the shoes quickly and got back to his journey around the first floor. The glass crushed over Jason's shoes into smaller pieces, and the gun made its presence clear in his large pocket. Despite the safety being on, it felt as if one wrong move could easily have his leg blown off.
Jason made it to the living room, then the open sliding door.
Thankfully, there was no intruder. Just Mr.Durchdenwald standing in the backyard in front of the rock, holding a shovel.
Jason watched as he was preparing to dig the shovel into the ground, Jason felt his guts be pulled at when the shovel was perfectly aligned with the rhododendrons. "Dad! What are you doing?".
Mr.Durchdenwald nearly dropped the shovel just hearing the lispy voice behind him, his grip on the shovel remained firm as Jason attempted at keeping a distance between them. "Jasaginae, it's a school night. Why are you not sleeping?!". Mr.Durchdenwald stepped inside the home, the shovel still in his hand as if Jason was the one getting buried.
"I-I couldn't sleep..." Jason remained looking downwards. He didn't have the slightest bit of courage to look at him. He felt like this guy was going to cut off his fingers if he so much even looked at him improperly. He hadn't feared his father so much since he cut his cut hair or when he screamed when he accidentally cut himself trying to make himself food when his father wouldn't cook him any, while he was on the phone.
Mr.Durchdenwald let out an irraited sigh, raising his left hand towards the bridge of his nose, lifting his glasses up. But that shined attention on the deep and long scar on the back of his lower forearm. "Dad, how did you get that scar?".
That question made Mr.Durchdenwald drop the shovel to use his formerly occupied hand to clasp it over the scar and draw it away from Jason's view, "Jason! What did I tell you about being nosy!?".
Jason struggled to answer at first, but he found himself testing his luck. "You barely tell me anything...Unless it's chores around the house or to get you coffee when you take me to work with you...".
Jason didn't know where he got the response, but the next thing he knew, it was on the tip of his tongue and kicked it out like how Mr.Durchdenwald wished to do to Jason. "I am just preparing you the real world. You won't be sitting on your ass like how you do at home. You're gonna have to do things for people and clean your own house. You'll have to do the dirty work yourself, that's how I learned".
"How is ignoring me all the time getting me ready for life?! I have to do everything myself without anyone showing me! You couldn't put a coworker on hold for a second to drive me to the hospital cause one of Eleanor's chihuahuas bit me!". "Why else do I send you to Forest Scouts? So you can take care of shit yourself and not bother me or Eleanor with your kid crap! Some of us have bills to pay to survive out here. You want to be selfish and keep us from keeping a roof over our heads, do you!? You think any of this is free? Forest Scouts, your braces, the shit Eleanor needs for her dogs, none of that was pulled from the ground for free, Jasaginae!".
"I'm not being selfish! Just cause mom died, that doesn't mean you have to forget about me!"
Mr.Durchdenwald almost choked him out for the sudden mention of Rosemary. He felt the tip of his fingers freeze as if he had frost bite. He still couldn't figure out how he could still feel Rosemary's thyroid cartilage on the back of his thumbs
as she was gasping for air.
She got lucky and broke free, she attempted to run away, dishes broke around the two, and Mr.Durchdenwald drunkness and anger made him more violent. Rosemary was grabbing at any piece of glass to defend herself with, but all she could do was make a large and ugly scar in Hunter's left forearm and another on the back of his neck. She never did get to talk about the demand for a divorce with him. Did she?
"Never mention her to me again" Mr.Durchdenwald spoke for one last time before looking away from Jasaginae. "You can't just act like she never existed..." Jason sighed, looking back at the shattered glass across the living floor, a mess only made bigger with every step.
Mr.Durchdenwald spun his head back around the direction of Jason, he looked at the broken photos that contained Rosemary as well as the ones with her face scribbled out.
"Jasaginae, I am your father. You will not decide how I handle what happened..." The words crawled out on Mr.Durchdenwald's tongue and towards Jason, he could feel his heartbeat thump and he was almost ready to drag Jason by the arms and make him sleep outside like a bitch. He stopped being in denial that Jason could be his son years ago, so the word 'father' felt forced. But he needed to keep Jason in check.
Jason put on a blank look, he was almost groaning thinking whether or not he should say what has been in the back of his head for years, "Well I thought my father was that guy I haven't seen in 3 years who read me bed stories every night, took me to the park and got me that orange plush doll".
"What the hell are you trying to say, Jasaginae?".
"I'm saying that you're not even my father anymore! It feels like you don't care cause you don't. I doubt you even cared when mom died. You think I didn't see you put that photo of her on your desk face down after telling me what happened while I was on my trip? You never comforted me about it, you left me to deal with it myself, and then you brought Eleanor home to replace her and let her be mean to me. You stopped acknowledging I existed and when you did it was only if it was to brag about me to your coworkers, at least you would still acknowledge I existed outside of work but you now you don't!".
The words almost made Jason breath harder, but he shoved down the action, believing it would have made him look less serious. This was a time he could have used to run back to his room, let his anger get the best of him and shoot that gun at the sky so it would rain. But he couldn't, Jasaginae Durchdenwald stood there.
But the word 'sorry' left Hunter's vocabulary years ago. "Well what else do you want me to do, Jason? Quit my job and let us lose the house?!". Jason's nails dug deep into the palm of his dry hands, his lips were curved, and he felt the air bubbles in his bones pop. "I want you to be my father again!".
Now it was Mr.Durchdenwald's turn to have the air bubbles in his bones pop all at once, and his jaw clenched to force his teeth together. "Well, if you want a father so badly, why don't you go look for that dick that was with your mother!" Hunter drew his hand back and slapped Jason's right check as hard as he could, so hard his bandage fell off and Jason's scar was staring right back at him.
Mr.Durchdenwald stood there, almost shocked at what was hiding underneath the square bandage. It was a shock how similar the scar he gave Rosemary before smashing that bottle into her head was to Jason's. He drank to forget her infidelity. Now, he was surrounded by reminders of it, including this.
But Jason couldn't know that fact, he was enough of a blabbermouth to Hunter as much as the possibility Jason was never his son to begin with.
"*Sighs* You're gonna grow up to be just your mother, aren't you?" Mr.Durchdenwald found himself sighing, "Dad-".
"The damn gardening even though I told you not to, you're exactly like Rosemary. You listen to yourself and yourself only, even if it costs you your fucking life".
"Shut up..."
"You don't care what your actions do to people, you walk around high and mighty thinking everything will just be given to you. You want to end up like her, don't you?".
Jason's nails went even deeper in his palms, but that wasn't long till his left hand was reaching into his pocket. All the way till his forefinger locked on the trigger, and his fingers twisted taking the safety off till it was aimed for Mr.Durchdenwald.
"I said, shut up!"
Jason's index finger pulled the trigger and Mr.durchdenwald's head was blown straight off.
Red was everywhere, blood stained the carpet and some of the couch. Jason's hand shook as his brain wanted him to drop the gun but he remembered the potential danger. So with shaking hands and the gun pointed at what was left of Mr.Durchdenwald, Jason put the safety back on and placed it on the couch. Jason felt his breath get heavy, he was looking around desperately. What to do, what to do?
He had done something awful, just terrible. He doubted they'll have mercy on him, and no one would save him. Oh, and Craig, he couldn't go to him or anyone. The Williams won't want anything to do with him, he'll just be a filthy murderer. If he wanted to see the sunshine in the creek or be able to feel the calming bristles of a hairbrush gliding softly in his hair by the hands of Boris, he had to take care of this. He was thankful for the silencer his father put on to prevent hearing damage, now that silencer had a new purpose.
Jason felt himself walk backward, what to do, what can he do?
The documentaries, the things Eleanor got him into. They taught him facts that would get him on a watch list if he knew, okay, he needed hydrogen peroxide, trash bags- Oh wait, how many trash bags? He needed a certain amount to get rid of the smell.
Jason took another step backward to think until the heel of his foot stepped on a rectangular object with rounded edges. With that step, one of the buttons turned on the Tv.
"In order to cover the smell of the corpses, he layered them with 3 trash bags".
What...What was that?
Jason turned around slowly and saw what was being presented to him on TV. The familiar face of a woman speaking on the TV gave light on his face.
This, this was it. These might help him...
Jason picked up the remote and restarted the documentary to the bits that were important for this moment. He followed her intrusions on what this killer did to cover the corpses, Jason had never in his whole life listened to something so carefully, so perfectly and with so much care ever before.
He drew the trash bags from under the sink, 3 like the woman said. Hunter was heavier, so it was harder. He couldn't go in the garage and see if they had an axe to chop the corpse into bits to make the job easier, so Jason sucked it up and layered Mr.Durchdenwald's body.
Okay, now for this mess...
Blood shows up in a black light with a mix of luminol, but hydrogen peroxide is the defender. It's the villain that can save Jason.
Jason returned to under the sink and dug for the hydrogen peroxide used to clean up the kitchen. This was a familiar chemical to Jason and Eleanor. Guess the chores came in more handy than Jason thought.
He drew a cleaning rag from under there as well and marched towards the dirtied space. He had to be quick before the blood started drying into a beer brown. The TV was paused to let Jason focus on the current step he was on. He rubbed in a disturbing rhythem, the blood coming out like a dream.
This will be a long night.
Felt a tad iffy bout this chapter dunno why. Also if you find spelling errors, don't worry I'll take care of them in the morning.