we're all just meat

so the hewitts are left with absolutely nothing after erin escapes. no money, no home, and clothes other than those on their back. this fact doesn’t really change when you add eddie into the story. in fact, erin gets into a fight with him while in the basement and ends up shooting his left pinky and ring finger off! so fun!

they’d be on the road for a long, long time afterwards, homeless and just trying to survive. i figure that they could’ve taken two vans (they had taken a lot of cars from victims over the years, after all) and lived in them during this time, fleeing the state. they’d be starving again, and i think that’d send them back into this constant state of intense stress, like the one they were in before the killing started.

luckily, eddie would have connections to people that create false identification. prior to meeting the family, eddie had a fake i.d. made with the name “jackson hughes”—the same people who provided him with that i.d. would offer falsified birth certificates and SSNs too. this would cost a lot of money, however, so i imagine the family spent a long while lying, stealing, and begging all across the country to gather it all up. of course i’ve never gone through the process of being declared legally dead and buying a new identity in the 1970s, so i have no idea how much it would cost exactly, but let’s just say it takes three years to save up all the money.

so by 1976, the hewitt family legally does not exist anymore, having been killed off and forgotten. that same year, the “howard” family moves to the small, rural town of elksville, wyoming. here are all the name changes i came up with! (for the hewitts who don’t have canon middle names, i made those up too) (can you tell i took on a lot of creative liberty here)

thomas brown hewitt → raymond “ray” paul howard

luda mae hewitt → evelyn ann howard

montgomery “monty” lee hewitt → ernest john howard

kathryn ann hewitt → noelle helen howard

henrietta louise hewitt → virginia “ginny” lynn howard

jedidiah paul hewitt → william lee howard

eddie amar reid → eugene joseph roberts

i actually don’t think the family would fully go back to their cannibalistic, murderous schemes. without hoyt there, and after all they’d experienced, i think luda mae (who was already the head of the family before, but would now have the final say over everything) would just want to be left alone? having her first son die would really take a toll on her, i think. perhaps she’d see it as god himself coming down and trying to teach her a lesson by taking charlie away from her (and taking thomas’ arm, too). so she’d order that the family just keep to themselves. “this is our chance to start anew.”

don’t be fooled, though. none of the “howards” are normal folk. i feel that they’d have an eerie reputation among their small number of neighbors, especially since they’re known for being aggressive with trespassers (i can see them having “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT” signs on their fence). “eugene”, their “family friend”, would be the only one consisently seen around town, making minimal social interaction with other people. even he seems… strange, when you look at him. most folks choose to keep their distance.

design/character details:

eddie would cut his hair and grow out his facial hair in an attempt to separate himself from his identity as the rockstar killer. he's a much calmer person now, sort of more grown up? mellowed out? he still deals with violent urges, but he's more restrained. he takes his anger out on trespassers.

thomas grows his hair wayyy out to better obscure his face, since he can't wear masks anymore. i debated giving him facial hair, and settled on a patchy mustache and absolutely no beard hair. as a character, i think thomas would become so much more tired. for the first couple years, he'd be quicker to anger/frustrate. with the second chance his family's been given, he doesn't really want to interact with anyone from the outside world. he's done with it.