#johnnysslaughter

leland scrapes his fingernails against his inner wrist. digs. his teeth are chattering, despite the sticky sweat beading at his hairline. he’s filthy. blood-spattered. grimy and dirty and he can’t scrape it away.

johnny is leaning by the wall in his peripherals. like he knows better than to get in range of a frightened animal.

‘ how'd it feel, leland? ’

leland.

his head snaps to the side.

boy, pet, buck. never fucking leland.

with his hands coated in blood, he’s leland.

he feels like crying.

—

this wasn't a rabbit. wasn't an animal. this was different.

unlucky, unsuspecting prey, nonetheless. a couple — out traveling these backroads, just like he and his friends had. in the wrong place, at the wrong time. found themselves in this god-forsaken basement.

a boy with dark shaggy hair and glasses, and a girl with auburn hair, loose and falling from a bun at the back of her head. leland can’t remember what they said their names were.

and they had thought he was one of them. some poor soul trapped down here in the basement. not all wrong. not all right. he looked the part. they tried to save him, from his cell. as they worked off his restraints, the guy had told him it would be alright, if they just stuck together.

for a little while, leland entertained the fantasy that he was, like them.

he watched them struggle and fight and scramble like rats into dead ends. he watched his own story play out.

oh, of course he'd tried the old ladder through the cold room. oh, of course he'd gotten so close to getting that locked gate out back open. he had hidden, unable to breath, in the trunks of cars in the yard. each time, met with the monster with the chainsaw. or met with johnny, who was fucking worse. pulling him from his hiding place. dragging him back down into the basement.

over, and over. ad nauseum.

there was no point hiding, from johnny. you could run, but he'd track you down before you got far. leland was trapped from the moment johnny set eyes on him. he was trapped in that sunflower field. in that cold room. he wasn't ever getting out of here.

these people, who were here at the wrong time. they would find out, too.

‘ please — please, you don't have to do this. ’ the victim tries, voice quaking.

leland was sick of hearing it. they all said that.

he had said that, again and again, until it lost its meaning altogether.

please, please. fucking please —

and all it had taken was one hard crack of the boy’s face into the ground. it had dazed him enough for leland to get over him, pin him down with a knee against the base of his spine. the boy hissed, cursed, struggled. but quickly realized he wasn't going anywhere.

realized he had been wrong. wrong to trust leland.

leland’s eyes fixed on the other one. the girl. how she had frozen there wide-eyed in the middle of the tunnel. how johnny’s shadow had come up from behind, eclipsed her.

his eyes flicked up, sharp. locked against johnny's.

because leland knew what happened now. knew that johnny would ask him to use that knife he has, gripped white-knuckled. leland would tell him no, i can’t, i fucking can’t.

would beg him. would tell him he doesn't need to do this.

and johnny would gut these people like deer, in front of him, anyway. he would make them suffer slow, and —

johnny would make it his fault. his fault these people didn't get a kinder death. a quicker, less painful death. all because he wouldn’t pick up the knife, himself, and do what needed to be done.

his fault.

johnny had once told him, you don’t help the family, you’re better off dead.

leland looked at the boy, pinned under his knee. gasping in the dust. maybe he knew he was dead, too. because he wasn’t begging, or pleading anymore. just drawing in these scratchy, laboured breaths.

leland realized he was speaking. rough, low. to the girl.

‘ it's okay — it's okay. i'm here. i'm right here. ’

the girl was just blurry lines of her ginger hair in leland’s vision. crying for the boy as johnny wrapped an arm around her throat to keep her still.

for a moment, leland thought he saw someone else. in this girl. in this boy.

leland— leland— help me

his ears were ringing. his head was just white noise.

' i'm right here. it's okay. '

his stomach twisted. cold, stinging bitterness. panic, pins and needles.

he tried to imagine it was johnny.

he imagined what it would sound like to hear that cruel laugh choke out into horrible, bloody gasps. would it feel good?

sees the boy again. sees a different boy, that makes his heart crunch inward like a ball of paper.

he counted to five in his head.

he forced an even breath.

( these people don't care about you. they would have left you here to die, anyway. just like everyone else — )

— leland’s eyes closed, opened. vacant.

he leaned over the body beneath him, jaw tight, breathing raggedly. hand curled in the boy's blood-damp hair, and he forcibly raised his head from the dust. the boy got out one more word.

the girl's name.

leland dragged his knife across the boy’s neck.

one cut. jagged, shaking. blood spattered up leland’s jaw. blood poured over his hands, into the dirt. leland’s eyes fluttered, dizzied. white noise, nothing. he let the boy’s head lower to the dirt, slowly. near gently. leland’s hand rested on his cheek, at the back of his head.

he listened as the boy had gurgled and gasped and reached for the girl one more time.

a shriek, a sob, in leland’s ringing ears. another choked sound.

leland didn’t look up.

he heard the distinct sound of blade-to-flesh. johnny drawing the knife across the girl's throat without fanfare, mirroring leland’s action. heard when she hit the dirt, knees, limp limbs. falling forward as she, too, let out a few last wet gasps, and went quiet.

really quiet.

disoriented, leland pulled himself away from the unmoving boy. the one he had—

killed. slaughtered, bled out, like an animal.

leland knelt in the dirt beside him. for some reason, he felt the need to fix the boy’s sleeve, where a button came loose at the cuff. staring without really registering.

he fixed the button. now he’d gotten blood on the boy’s shirt.

there was nothing at all, except for the sound of his own stilted breath.

then, all at once, he came back to earth. struck into reality.

— how did it feel? — like it was only a matter of time. like nothing. like everything. like he was alone, now. like he always had been, down here.

❝ i don't know. ❞

leland answers, honestly. empty as his chest cavity felt. his hands shake, and he stares blankly into the pattern on the boy’s shirt, at nothing.

❝ i wished it was you. ❞ he bites out.

he says it just to say it. to have something of his own.

he hears the grin in johnny's voice.

‘ how romantic. ’ low, drawling, amused. leland's skin crawls.

johnny's by his shoulder, now. stood over him. leland doesn't realize he's started shaking all over. started crying. soundless, just blinking back tears.

you had finally done what he had wanted, hadn't you? finally lost something in you you were never getting back.

johnny hums, looks over the body of the boy. then, he speaks more soberly. almost gently.

' it's alright, y'know. to feel whatever you're feelin'. ' like he fucking cared.

leland doesn't say anything. but like a good dog, he heels. the knife slides from his hand, drops with a clatter on the ground. fingers flex, curl into palms.

then, a gloved hand settles in his dirty, blood-stuck hair, as johnny bends to collect the relinquished weapon. fingers card through the dark strands.

affectionate, maybe. leland thinks. if this man had any concept of it.

suddenly he feels hot and cold, in his hands, in his face. those people — they weren't allowed to live — but he was.

leland fucking hates it. hates that it made some twisted part of him feel special.

he knows he isn't.

the hand in his hair moves. johnny's brought it down to grip his chin between thumb and forefinger. turning his tear-stained face to look up. leland’s eyes stay lowered, away.

‘ ... but y' can’t outrun the truth. i told you. ’

the truth.

the truth.

he knows what johnny is saying to him.

he's angry and monstrous, just like him. anyone can do it. you're no better.

he knows he should feel something else. about the boy who lays bleeding out in front of him. but all he feels is his own name, like a bullet lodged deep in his heart.

❝ yeah,❞ he rasps, small. far away. his eyes stick to the bodies. remembering the way the boy had reached out, gurgling and choking on his own blood. the girl with the red hair, and the watercolour of her motionless silhouette. thick, dark red is pooling under her head, a halo in the dirt.

they had died quickly. that was good. that was something.

he thinks about how no one will know what happened to them. he thinks about his mother. about his sisters. he thinks about connie, and danny, and maria, and julie, and sonny, and ana.

they would be disgusted by what he's done. they would never forgive him. he would never forgive himself.

johnny drops his hand away. the momentary anchor of his touch is gone, and leland feels just cold, now.

‘ c’mon, now. help me move ‘em. then we can get you cleaned up. ' johnny says, after a long moment. and leland blinks out of another daze.

oh. the blood. leland looks up at him, owlishly. like he doesn’t believe him. he's never been asked to help johnny, before. johnny’s eyes are glinting with something unreadable. there’s a smile there, too. but it’s not cruel. it’s not as mean as leland’s used to seeing on his teeth.

‘ you’d like that, wouldn’t you, leland? little bit of fresh air, too. ’

it feels like a backhand. his name, hammering an icepick in his broken fucking brain, somewhere. and the dangling of something other than a dark, dingy cell in front of him. like some kind of reward.

leland tries to stand, wobbles like a newborn deer. he feels like he might be sick. knees buckle slightly, but he stays on his feet. he doesn't want to look weak.

and he waits for johnny to tell him what next.