[ ONE ]
[ THE NEW RANCHERS IN TOWN ]
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An Indiana fall was much warmer than a Texas fall. Not that falls make a boring, rural town any different than the rest of the latter; Indiana was just another state filled with its rural towns that mirrored all of the other ones. Its fall was just warmer than the ones that the Suttons were used to.
All throughout Brandi's life, she'd never been to Indiana. In fact, her classmates thought that all of the Midwest was the center of incest and bad music. That's what they told her when she announced that she was moving there. All twenty-five of her classmates advised her to not spend too much time there because she'd get sucked into the horrible disease of pop culture. All twenty-five of them had never been to Indiana in their lives either, but she appreciated their concern and promised she'd stick to her small town beliefs—or, more specifically, her Earnest beliefs.
Earnest, Texas, the stereotypical farm town, was a place where the Suttons felt at home. It was safe to say that it was where they all were their happiest. Brandi had grown up there up until after the accident. She had a childhood on a farm; she grew up with horses to rant to in times of trouble instead of actual friends, and she learned how to milk a cow properly instead of choosing the right lipstick to wear. The Earnest farm life was something they didn't want to let go of until they had to.
Until the accident.
The sun was barely peeking its head over the vast fields of the Southern part of the Hoosier State. Brandi's blonde hair was beginning to show off its glowy nature as the light hit through the driver's window of her Chevy pickup truck. The more the light seeped out of the sky, the more time went by before she'd arrive at their destination: Hawkins, Indiana.
The pickup truck in front of her had a license plate like hers, claiming "TEXAS" on the rear end of it. Brandi was quite familiar with the rusty vehicle, for it was her dad's. In the trunk was visibly almost everything the Suttons owned: couches, chairs, boxes of clothes, and other miscellaneous things that Brandi couldn't list even if she tried. Eric's bike could be seen on the side of it; the thing almost fell out of the truck every time it would take a left turn. The rest of their belongings was in the back of Brandi's truck and the trailer behind her dad's (it was supposed to be for horses, but they converted it into a little makeshift U-Haul). Their horses were in their other trailer, which was straggling behind Brandi's truck.
Brandi took a hit of her cigarette in between her fingers while the radio in her truck started to play Cyndi Lauper. She immediately cringed at the song, exhaled out the cigarette smoke angrily, and changed the station. Another Cyndi Lauper song blasted, and Brandi hit her hand on the headboard in disgust. "Goddammit!"
Just as Brandi was about to break the radio station into pieces, she noticed a sign on the side of the road that read Welcome to Hawkins. She gave out a sigh of relief as she lifted the cigarette to her mouth once again. People in Hawkins just love Cyndi Lauper, don't they, was the only thing that drilled through her mind as she entered city limits.
After the sign had passed, almost immediately her dad's truck veered to the right, turning into a dirt road. Brandi followed behind slowly, looking back at their horses behind her through the rearview mirror to make sure they were okay. Her truck waddled itself off of the main highway, creaking as it went. The dirt road that she just entered was surrounded by trees taller than Brandi had ever seen in her life. Back in Texas, there weren't any trees at all. She felt sort of refreshed for a second until the trees started to clear and revealed a large, flat field.
In the center of the field was a decent sized house and a couple of yards away from it was a barn. There was a small used-to-be-irrigated area meant for farming behind the house, sitting there as if it were waiting for them to occupy it. The whole part of it was fenced in as if it was its own little world that nothing could break through.
Her father led the way through the gate into their new land, only getting out of the truck to unlock the gate. Brandi followed, stopping when he jerked to a standstill at front of the house. She put out her cigarette quickly and changed the gear to park before she opened the door to get out.
Danny got out of his truck quickly and slammed the door shut, taking a puff of his cigarette while he was at it. The passenger door swung open as well, revealing Eric, the youngest Sutton. He bounced out of the vehicle wildly, bounding his way around the truck to get a closer look at their new home. "Woah," he breathed at the sight of the house.
Brandi wished she had the excitement that Eric had when it came to moving to Hawkins. It would make it a lot easier to cope. Eric was always like that with everything, though. He was the optimist of the family. If everything seemed like bullshit and would be falling down, Eric could always find something positive, and it would rejuvenate the family, even just for a little bit. He could be a pain in the ass, but when hard times came, Brandi couldn't help but admit that she needed him.
Brandi caught up with them and stared at their new home. It wasn't anything special; it had a door and windows and all the normal shit that regular houses had. The front porch had a couple of rocking chairs that the previous owners seemed to have left behind, and there was a deteriorating plant that was holding on for dear life in a vase next to the front porch. The weather vane on the top of the house creaked a little as it barely moved. A horse from their trailer neighed in the middle of their silence.
Danny put his arms around both of his children and patted them on the back. "Nothin' like a good farm house to remind ya of back home. Hawkins will treat us well, I'm sure of it." He said the words so surely that it almost seemed like it was a fact.
Brandi lifted up her eyebrows skeptically as she kept staring at the house. "Yeah, are ya sayin' that 'cause Mom's friend said so, or are ya sayin' it from deep down in your heart?"
His jaw twitched when she said the word 'Mom.' "I'm sayin' it," Danny simply responded. He patted them on the back again and made his way to the truck to start unloading their shit.
The only sole reason that the Suttons moved to the place that they did was because of Karen Wheeler. She apparently knew Cheryl Sutton quite well; Cheryl would make trips to Hawkins many times for her job before the accident. Karen was one of the people that Cheryl would talk about a lot. She would say that the Wheeler was so nice and they'd get coffee at the café on Main Street every time she was in town. She'd talk about her children and how they'd get along so well. Karen called after she heard about the accident and placed the idea of going off to Hawkins in Danny's brain, and so he listened.
Eric was still beside Brandi, his eyes still fixated on the house. "I think Mom would really love this place."
"Dude, she worked here for like, ever," Brandi reminded him. "She was here almost every month. I think someone who was in this shithole for that long probably grew an attachment to the place."
Eric rolled his eyes. "Ya can't just say a place is a shithole after bein' in it for five whole minutes, Bran."
"I sure as hell can. I just did."
He sort of got worked up from her short comment, and his eyes narrowed. "You like boys, right? Maybe there's some hot boys here that will boost your shitty attitude. Maybe you could get a boyfriend for once in your goddamn life."
A crashing noise came from the back of their father's truck. "Eric, don't say 'goddamn,' goddammit."
Brandi's eyes narrowed at her little brother. "Fuck you."
Eric held his middle finger up right in front of her face with extreme force. Danny lifted his head up from the back of the truck. "Calm the fuck down over there, you two. The neighbors might think there's a fight goin' on or somethin' and they might call the police."
Eric looked at the empty field around them with his arms open wide. "What neighbors are ya talkin' 'bout?" Brandi stifled a laugh at his comment.
"Y'all come help me unload or I'm not takin' ya out to dinner tonight," Danny warned as he threw a box out of the trunk carelessly, dust evaporating off of it when it landed on the ground.
His comment got both of their attention, so they sprung to action and helped their dad get ready for the biggest chapter of their lives—little did the Suttons know.
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Brandi took a bite out of her burger, thanking it silently for being there. Danny's truck almost ran out of gas before they even got into town, so it took them twice as long to get dinner as expected. Brandi's stomach was growling by the time they got to the restaurant. She ate the burger with glee as her father began to list all the shit they needed to know.
"Alright, I've gotta job interview tomorrow morning, so I need ya to take Eric to school," Danny told Brandi as he wiped a piece of food off of his mouth with a napkin. The word 'job' made her raise her eyebrows for a second. She'd almost forgot about the whole job part of moving to a new town. In Earnest, her father was the Sheriff, so she figured he would go about something like that here in Hawkins. What she didn't like about his statement was the word 'school.'
Brandi nodded slowly, expecting him to say something about school sooner or later. "Yeah, that's fine, as long as I don't get to go either."
"You're goin' to fuckin' school."
Eric gave a snicker after he popped a fry in his mouth. "Sounds fair to me."
"Really?" Brandi breathed with a sigh. "Can I just get one day of restin'? I've been drivin' just as much as you have and I haven't got a lick of sleep." She really hadn't. The drive to Hawkins took about two days because they stayed in various ramshackle hotels on the way there for two nights. Even when they did stay in the hotels, Brandi couldn't sleep at all. The accident would always be stuck in her mind, repeating itself like it just couldn't let her go.
Danny sneakily took one of Eric's fries, and the younger kid scoffed at him. He pursed his lips impatiently after he swallowed. "Look, Bran, I haven't got any sleep either. I've got a job interview for bein' a cop tomorrow at eight in the goddamn mornin'. If I can survive that, then you can sure as hell can survive a goddamn school day."
Eric slapped his hand down on the table, his eyes glinting with amusement. "Boom! You're going to school. Loser."
Brandi was just about to bring up that an interview wasn't nearly as long as a school day, but the waiter at their table appeared so she decided to shut her mouth. His green eyes scanned the table, bored. He was about Brandi's age, and he was cute, she had to be honest, so she sort of perked up a little more and studied his features. Black hair sprung up from his head like he hadn't brushed it in awhile, and his face seemed like it came from a goddamn movie. He picked up the cash from the table that Danny had put down, nodded his head, and left. Brandi watched as he put the cash into the register and poked some of the buttons on it, which caused a ring to echo throughout the place.
Eric caught her staring at him and immediately took advantage of it. He gave her a teasing look. "Quit starin', Bran, you'll burn a hole through him."
Brandi gave a small scowl his way. Danny didn't seem to notice anything that was going on, and took one last sip of his soda that made a horrible bubbling sound. He placed the cup back on the table and crossed his arms. "Bran, I think I need ya to start workin' these next couple months."
Knowing that 'working' was probably regular ranch duties, she nodded her head. "Yeah, yeah, checkin' the garden and feedin' the horses, got it." Back in Earnest, she'd do much more, like tending the fences around the cattle and feeding the pigs. Now, though, they didn't have a full ranch, so they all didn't have to do as much work as they did in Texas. That was a relief for her because—
"Your receipt. Have a good day."
The waiter was now back with the slip of paper in his hand with an impatient look on his face. Danny took the paper from him and stared at it. The waiter started to walk away, but Danny Sutton's larger than life voice stopped him in his tracks. "Are y'all hirin'?"
Brandi's eyes rolled to almost the very back of her head. So this is what her father wanted for her? An actual job? Her home body was the ranch and he knew it.
The waiter's eyebrows lifted at the question and glanced between Danny and Brandi, who was staring daggers at her father. "We are, actually. Do you want me to get an application?"
"Yessir, that would be perfect," Danny replied with a smile, his eyes not leaving Brandi. The waiter looked back and forth between them once again, then sighed and walked off into back behind the kitchen.
Brandi scoffed at her father's look at her. "Are ya tryin' to fuckin' torture me?"
Danny slid out of the booth smoothly with Eric following him. He paused after he stood up, and his head was down. "I'm not torturin' ya, Bran. Ya need some friends." He glanced back up at her again with a look that Brandi couldn't decipher. "Try and get some." With that, he started to walk away and raised his arm up. "We'll be waitin' for ya in the truck."
The waiter appeared once again and watched Danny walk out of the restaurant, the ding ringing as he opened the door. He broke off his staring and put a paper and pencil in front of Brandi. "I'm guessing this is for you."
Gripping the pencil firmly, she nodded. "Yeah. Unfortunately."
The waiter, to Brandi's surprise, slid into the booth across from her and started to eat the leftover fries that Eric left behind on his plate. Brandi raised her eyebrows in amusement. He looked up at her with curiosity. "So, who are you and what are you doing in this shithole?"
Brandi almost broke her pencil in surprise of the question and language he used to ask it. She put a piece of her hair behind her ear from habit. "I'm new here."
The waiter, Brandi now noticed his name was Jeffrey from his name tag, nodded his head slowly. "I see that. Can you answer my question now?"
She blinked at his straightforwardness. "I'm fillin' out this application, that's what I'm doin'." Brandi started to write her new zip code on the paper like she was trying to prove her point.
"Mhm," Jeffrey hummed. He leaned over the table a bit closer to her and she immediately backed away. His eyes glanced over her paper and read her name. "Brandi Sutton." He leaned back in his seat. "Pretty. I like it."
Brandi snatched the paper. "Could ya be any more of a creep?"
Jeffrey paused. "Yeah, probably. But I'm not going to because we really are short staffed here."
Her hand went back on the paper. She wrote vigorously now, her hand scribbling across the paper as fast as she possibly could. With her father waiting outside, she didn't exactly want to take her sweet time in the restaurant and stay in there for awhile. The wrath of Danny Sutton was scary enough. Not only was she on a time crunch, she also was a bit annoyed with this Jeffrey kid, even if he was sort of fun to look at.
Jeffrey seemed to notice her change of pace. He stared at her hand moving across the page. "Why are you writing so fast?"
Brandi glanced up at him and then looked back down, her hand still jotting down information. "My dad's waitin' on me outside."
"Why do you listen to him so much?" Jeffrey questioned casually. "Do his orders mean that goddamn much to you?"
"Could ya shut the hell up?" Brandi snapped, her eyes now glaring at him. "What the fuck is your goddamn problem?"
Jeffrey put his hands up defensively. "Just making conversation, is all."
"Yeah, sure," she drawled, writing down the last thing down on the paper that was needed. Brandi thought she had never wrote faster in her life. With a sarcastic smile on her face, she slid the paper across the table and got up out of the booth at the same time. "Have a nice day, Jeffrey."
"Jeff," he corrected loudly as she walked off towards the door.
She lifted her hand up without turning around. "Right. See ya around, Jeff." The restaurant was filled with the ding sound that was caused from Brandi opening the door and walking out. Jeff was left there picking up the application, smirking, then walking back into the kitchen.
Outside the restaurant, Brandi felt a cool breeze. It wasn't a normal breeze that would hit your skin and be gone like it came; it was more like a sickly change in the weather that was horrifying and made her have goosebumps. The once warm surroundings were now dark and gloomy. Brandi could feel her heart beating wildly. She couldn't move. All she could feel on her skin was the freezing horror pounding on her chest and the goosebumps that were now all over her body. Behind her, a guttural growl could be heard that was inhuman like. Freezing, she could feel her goosebumps expand, if that was even possible. The growl made her shiver with fear, and she wanted to scream and run, but she couldn't. She was stuck in place.
"Bran, come on, what the hell are ya doin'?"
Her eyes peeled open. All of a sudden, the cold was gone. Her goosebumps subsided. She turned her head around quickly where the growl came from, but there was just the restaurant. Turning back around, she found Eric and her dad in his truck parked in front of her with the windows down. Danny was holding a cigarette and toyed with it between his fingers impatiently. Shivering, Brandi gathered her composure enough to blink her eyes and make her way to the passenger seat of the truck. Danny sucked in a breath of his cigarette, eyeing her, then put the car in reverse and wheeled out of the parking lot.
As they made their way to their new home, Brandi couldn't help but think about her little episode. It gave her a shiver just to think about it. She'd never felt any kind of sheer horror like that ever in her life. The coldness wasn't just the weather that changed. It was a feeling.
"Did y'all feel the weather get colder out there?" She asked, just to make sure she wasn't fucking crazy.
Danny circled his thumb around the cigarette he was holding. "Nah, there's no breeze. Did ya feel anythin' or somethin'?"
Brandi swallowed and she tried her best to make her voice not sound like it was breaking apart. "Nah. I didn't feel anythin'. I thought I felt a breeze. I dunno."
She just figured that she was flashing back to the Earnest, Texas fall that she was used to. Hawkins' fall was warmer, right? Earnest's was much colder. Surely she was just having déjà vu or something.
Surely.
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author's note:
sorry if this is boring but this !!! is !!!! important !!! for !!!! my girl !!!! brandi !!!!! but really don't fret she'll meet steve in this next chapter sweeties. and i apologize bc this is short but i made it as long as i could ok