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This shouldn’t have happened. It was only supposed to be a quick visit to your new husband's old apartment to retrieve the things he had left behind. It wasn’t supposed to result in you getting locked inside the apartment for three months under the pretense of needing to be quarantined (which you already knew was bullshit, seeing as how you worked for the company locking you up). It wasn’t supposed to lead to you becoming a criminal, and obviously, it shouldn’t have led to you knowing you needed to live like a runaway with your new “stepson”.
Both of you have found refuge in a rundown, crappy little motel that probably hasn’t been remodeled for decades. You have been traveling to different motels to find one that doesn’t require an ID for almost the entire day. All on foot, as neither of you has access to a car. Douglas had convinced you that only one car would be enough for the two of you; you should have fought him harder on that. God, you feel so stupid about it now.
Right now, you're sitting on the couch while your “stepson” Andrew is busy watching the news. It has only been a few hours since you escaped from the apartment, but he’s already terrified about the prospect of getting caught. There is just something so strange about him that you can’t explain. If you didn’t know any better, you would have assumed that he was just a normal, if a bit nerdy, college student. All that's changed now. You stumble for a bit, you should say something, shouldn’t you? You can’t just sit in silence forever.
“So uh…see anything interesting?” you ask, staring at the TV showcasing news stories you aren’t at all interested in.
“Nothing that's about us. I’m guessing that it's too early for the police to have noticed what's happened yet,” Andrew sighs, “All that we can do right now is wait.”
You wonder if you should say what's currently on your mind, not like it could make anything worse. “I think we should call your dad. He’d probably know what to do.”
Andrew stops looking at the TV and looks towards you. It looks like he’s resisting the urge to facepalm. “For the last time, Betty, we can’t call anybody that we know. Besides, Dad hasn’t done shit for us during quarantine, what makes you think that he’s going to do anything now?”
“Well…I just think…”
“You think that he's somehow going to be your knight in shining armor and take you away from this shithole? He can’t even take care of his own family, much less perform any miracles.” His voice is starting to strain; he’s trying to stop himself from yelling. You know that Douglas and Renee’s separation could have gone smoother, but you know your Douglas. He would never want to hurt anyone, especially you.
“You know that Douglas really does care about us, right? I’m sure that...” you find yourself getting cut off again by Andrew, his voice rising.
“What makes you think that Dad actually cares? He ran off with you, leaving his wife and son behind, and then he couldn’t even be bothered to pick up your phone calls. Would a caring man do something like that?”
Andrew clearly isn’t going to hear you out over Douglas. A part of you knows that you can’t really blame him. You didn’t want to tear their family apart, you genuinely thought of Renee as a friend after all, but it seems like that's just what happened anyway. Douglas hasn’t really been making this easy for you; you wished he could have been more involved.
“Then, do you have any ideas on what you think we should do? Once the money we have runs out.” You try to speak clearly, but you feel your voice starting to crack.
“I don’t…I don’t know Betty,” His voice softens as he sinks further down into the couch, looking back towards the TV.
“Well then…I guess I’ll go to bed. We... we’ll have a lot to talk about in the morning,” you get up from the couch and walk towards one of the beds. Andrew doesn’t say anything to you; he just keeps looking at the TV. Both of the beds feel disgusting, and you dread actually trying to sleep on one. You pick the one closest to the wardrobe for no reason in particular. You wish that you could be able to connect to Andrew better; it would at least make this experience slightly more pleasant. After what feels like forever, you start to fall asleep.
——————————————————————————————————————————
“Alright, and now you,” says the voice of an extremely bored-sounding nurse as she jams a needle straight into you. You’ve never been a fan of needles, and this one seems to especially hurt. You can barely hold yourself in as she’s finished piercing you with it. “Theeere we go!”
“Listen to me, please. I don’t live here. I haven’t had anything to drink. I was just picking up my husband's things! That’s all.” All of this illness and quarantine stuff sounds like utter nonsense to you. They aren’t seriously going to just leave you here, right?
“This is just a precaution, ma’am. If your bloodwork comes back fine, you’ll get to leave. If not, then you’ll just need to stay here for a few weeks, not a big deal at all, don’t you think?” The nurse doesn’t wait for your reply. After she has both your and Andrew’s blood, she starts walking out of the apartment.
You look towards Andrew. Once he sees you staring at him, he looks away, and then he goes back into his room. You wished he could have been more polite, but he’s a young man; what can you do about it?
~
“Betty, you know how much I’m worried about you and Anders being stuck in quarantine, but you know I can’t help you in that way,” Douglas reminds you. You know he’s just being honest, but it still upsets you. Neither you nor Andrew has received supplies in weeks, and quarantine keeps getting delayed for longer and longer. If this keeps up, you're worried that neither of you will have anything to eat.
“I know… but can’t you please think of something? It's pretty scary here. The guards are all really mean, and the neighbor is really creepy. He’s like a satanist or something, and he keeps trying to summon something. I just…I want to go home, Douglas.”
“I know you do, sweetheart, just try to follow what the staff are telling you, and everything will be fine,”
“But what if they extend the quarantine period again? What if they don’t give us any more supplies? What are we supposed to do then?” You feel your voice getting louder; you didn’t want to be here in the first place. Douglas was the one to insist that you come here by yourself; you should have spoken out, you should have been stronger.
“Crap…I have to go now, Betty. I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you.” Douglas says, maybe he has to go to work? Not like you would be able to find out.
“I…I understand. I love you, honey,” Douglas hangs up, not even saying that he loves you back. You put down the phone, trying to hold back tears. He’s become so distant lately. Did you say something that offended him? You miss him so much, but you feel like he doesn’t miss you back.
“So, how was your romantic call with dad?” Andrew says, standing directly behind you. How have you not noticed him before? “Let me guess, he talked about how he can’t do anything to help us, is that right?”
“Andrew! You know it's not polite to spy on someone while they are on the phone,” you feel embarrassed, why should you be though? Is talking to your husband really such a weird thing to do?
“He’s a lost cause, don’t expect him to try and help you.” His voice lowers. You know that he and his dad still aren’t on the best of terms, but there is no reason why they can’t still get along. Family is family for goodness' sake! You’d never turn your back on your mom or dad, so he shouldn’t either. He’s clearly just upset that quarantine has been going on for so long, yeah, that's it.
~
You and Andrew have just broken into the neighbor's apartment after seeing whatever the hell he managed to summon. You two are both looking over his body; you can barely move. You’ve never seen something like this before. The room is covered in some strange ritual signs, and everything smells so bad. You want to cry, you want to vomit, you want to scream, but you find yourself doing nothing. Just looking over a freshly dead body with your…
“That's a lot of meat,” Andrew blurts out. You look over towards him, hoping to God that he’s not actually implying what you think he is.
“Huh? Andrew, what are you talking about?”
“God…don’t make me spell it out loud for you,” he stammers, not looking directly at the body. “It’s just, fuck. We’ve already broken into his house, and those guards definitely aren’t going to admit that they let us starve. And so help me, I don’t really want to end up like him anytime in the future,”
“So you're saying we should eat him?” You know that he’s clearly losing his mind. Your hunger really is killing you; you haven’t eaten anything in god knows how long, but you can’t do this. If you do this, then it's all over.
“Well, what other choice do we have? Just go back to our apartment and rot? Waiting for help that's never going to come?”
“But we can’t just do something like that! Surely this is all just a big misunderstanding, right? If we just tell the guard about what’s happened, they will have to understand.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,”
You feel yourself falling down to the floor. You know he’s right. The guards aren’t going to do anything to help. Why would they want to help you? They are the ones who’ve kept you trapped in this horrible, horrible apartment. You don’t want to do this, but you have to do something, or else you’ll just end up dying. “…”
Andrew stays still for a bit before lowering himself down to your level. He lets out a noticeable sigh before he starts talking again. “Listen, Betty, I don’t want to do this any more than you do. It’s fucked up that we have to resort to this, but what other option do we have right now?”
“But…are you sure you really want to do this?”
“I’ve already made up my mind. I…we deserve to be fed, are you with me?”
“...” You pause for a bit. Andrew stares at you, waiting for your response. You feel like the world is crashing down, and you don’t have any other option. You two deserve to live just like everyone else.“I guess…I guess we have no choice then. Let's get this over with.”
You and Andrew both get up from the neighbors' probably pissed stained floor. Soon after, you find a cleaver in his apartment, which is the one you two will use to cut him up with. How ironic. You two of you then processed to cut up all the neighbors' limbs until he’s just left with a head and a body. You notice that when it's Andrew's turn to cut off a limb, he tenses up for a bit just before hacking into the guy. It reminds you that he’s in the same boat that you're in.
Soon after that, you gather up all the limbs, and Andrew has to somehow put away the rest of the corpse inside the neighbor's own refrigerator. You're glad you don’t have to deal with the rest of the dead body, but that still leaves you with managing dinner. You decide to cook the right arm on the countertop, having chopped off all the flesh and weird bits. You keep reminding yourself that it's just meat, and that you and Andrew both need this in order to survive. It's not your fault that you're hungry, right? It doesn’t make you feel better about your actions. Just as you finished cooking, Andrew came back from the neighbor's apartment. You don’t ask him how he managed to put away the rest of the body. You just plate the meat like it is any other normal type of food.
You're both sitting at the table, and neither one of you is touching your plates. You need to break up the tension somehow. “I don’t think you know this, Andrew, but my friends tell me that I’m a great cook. I’ve been making meals for others since I was a kid; it's always been a hobby of mine, well, that, and also reading.”
Andrew doesn’t say anything back; he’s probably too focused on what the meat is rather than your awesome cooking skills. You realize that you need to stop prolonging the inevitable. You pick up your fork and eat a small piece of the meat. It's disgusting, just like how you’d imagine it being, but you keep eating it, you can’t stop eating it. Tears run down your face.
“Okay, you have to slow down. Do you want to hurt yourself?” Andrew scoffs, observing your sad little meltdown. He grabs his fork and slowly starts eating the meat. “Ghhk–!!” You don’t think he likes it. He pauses for a second and then reluctantly starts eating more of the meat.
“Um..how is it?” you ask, knowing damn well that this meat is objectively revolting.
“It’s about as good as something like this could be. Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m grateful to have food right now, but god, this is awkward,”
“I understand, I’m feeling the same way. They don’t really accurately show this stuff off in books, you know?” The table is quiet again, and you both continue eating dinner. It takes a while, but soon both plates are empty. You take both of them and head towards the sink. Maybe cleaning will help take your mind off this.
Andrew gets up from his chair, “You know, there is something I need to talk to you about.”
“Uh-huh, and what is that?”
Andrew runs up to you and, without warning, puts the bloody cleaver used to cut up the body inches away from your throat. Your first thought was one of confusion; you absolutely don’t remember this happening, and this event had only happened, like, what, two days ago? Your memory isn’t quite unreliable yet. Your second thought was that of terror. You're going to die. Even if it's not real life, even if it's just a dream, it terrifies you. You don’t want to die, not know.
“Do you honestly think I would forgive you for the bullshit you’ve caused?” You can feel his voice cracking as he's talking to you, the cleaver getting closer and closer to your throat; it feels like it's starting to dig into your skin.
“I…I don’t know,”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. I guess I’ll see you in a bit,” You feel the cleaver dig into your skin. It hurts, it hurts worse than anything you’ve ever felt before. You would scream if your vocal cords weren’t being ripped to shreds.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Your screams echo across the room as you are bolted awake. You don’t know how long you’ve been asleep for, since Andrew is still on the coach, it probably hasn’t been for very long. Speaking of Andrew, he immediately looks towards you, turning off the TV. Seems like you screaming bloody murder had an effect on him.
“What the hell was that for? Are you trying to get us caught?” He stammers, clearly not prepared for whatever the hell your issues are.
“It's nothing important, just some weird dream. Nothing special, we all have had situations like that, right?” You give out a forced chuckle, trying to ignore the fact that the man who killed you in your nightmare is sitting in the same room as you.
“It clearly wasn’t just some dream,” Andrew can clearly tell you're full of bullshit right now. Does anyone scream over something that's just weird? “If you don’t tell me what's wrong, then at least promise to never scream like that again. Do you want someone to start asking questions?”
You pause for a second before you start talking again. “I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me about this.”
Andrew tilted his head towards you, guess he wasn’t expecting you to answer like that. “I mean, I guess I can,”
“Do you hate me, Andrew? Or just like heavily dislike me? I know we haven’t had the most stable relationship, and there are also a lot of outside circumstances to consider…”
Andrew gets up from the couch and walks towards you, “If I hated you, chances are we wouldn’t be in this situation together.” He sits down on the corner of the bed you're lying on. “What the hell was your dream about that made you start thinking that?”
“I mean, I guess it was more of a nightmare than a dream. We were back in the apartment, and you pulled the cleaver out on me. It was terrifying. I know this is stupid, but it made me think that there was a possibility that something like that could happen in real life. I know I haven’t entered your life in a very positive way, so…I don’t know. I mean, I’m not saying you would ever do something like that! It’s just a nightmare, a stupid one at that,”
“I know what you're talking about. Nightmares are a bitch, aren’t they? I still deal with a lot of them myself,” He puts his hand on your shoulder, he’s never done something like this before. You don’t know how to feel about it. “Just know that you aren’t alone right now. Yeah, sure, it's not much, but it's something, right?”
You let out a small chuckle, “You really can be a gentleman when you want to be! It's cute. This totally reminds me of this one book I read a while ago. In it, this girl was all freaked out over something she saw on TV, and then her boyfriend comforted her. It was, like, so wholesome. We should read it together sometime. I forgot what it was called, I’m sure we could find it in a nearby bookstore.”
“I guess we could try and find a library tomorrow, not like there are many other things we can do,”
“That would be lovely. You mentioned that you studied literature, right? You should tell me more about the things you write about. I know we aren’t really interested in the same things, but I would love to branch out into other types of writing. I don’t know much about poetry, but it seems really interesting!” You feel yourself lightening up a bit, you love talking about your favorite books, and you especially love people talking about books. It's why you always visited those book club meetings, even though some of the members in them always rubbed you the wrong way.
“Well…if we are going to talk about some of the things I’ve written in the past, we have to start with where I got my influences from.” He takes his hand off your shoulder and moves closer towards you. He’s probably trying to make himself more comfortable. “Stuff like poetry all dates back to prehistory, starting as cave paintings and myths spread via word of mouth. The invention of writing obviously had a big impact on how stories were preserved…”
And thus, you and Andrew spent the rest of the night talking about poetry and books. More accurately, Andrew does most of the talking, and you occasionally bring up something that relates to one of the many romance books you’ve read. You don’t think he fully understands what you're talking about, but at least he doesn’t make fun of you for it. After a couple of hours, both of you fall asleep on the same bed together. How scandalous!