Page 6 of Shadowface 1979

Hell, she’s a psycho.

My dick throbs now as she blows smoke from her lips, giving me a sultry look. I love that look; I need that look. I unbutton my trousers, pulling out my dick, not giving a shit that more people are arriving or can see us.

She smiles and pulls out a vial from her pocket and scoops a healthy size bump onto the spot between her index finger and thumb and pulls it up her nose.

She sniffs it before pouring some for me, too, which I greedily inhale. I’ll be turned up all night now. This shit makes me horny as hell.

I lay my seat back as Talia leans her head down and deep-throats me. She takes me in so deep, I grip the side of the seats.

My eyes roll to the back of my head—damn can Talia give some good head. I run my hands through my hair as the drugs kick in; my senses sharpen, then dull, and my heart races.

We don’t kiss—we never kiss. We don’t have that kind of relationship.

She’s made it clear that she will fuck whoever the hell she wants, whenever she wants, but she always seems to want to fuck me. So I’ll take it.

I drop my head back as my hand finds her hair, fisting it, nudging my cock further into her mouth. Her eyes water, but she takes it as I shove it in further, hitting the back of her throat. I’m not overly gentle about it, either.

My eyes drift outside to someone walking by, wearing that burlap mask that’s become a part of my identity. He disappears behind a tree, and I lurch up.

What the hell?

Whoever’s got it on isn’t one of us, but that’s the point of all this. The fact people wear it means it’s working. Whether they know it or not, they are part of a movement. They recognize power when they see it and understand the end is coming.

I close my eyes and enjoy Talia’s soft lips slowly teasing along my shaft. But it isn’t Talia I think of when I come inside her mouth. For months, every damn night, I see my firefly.

DIDI

APRIL 1979, SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER

The fresh morning breeze hits my cheek as I make my way to the well at the edge of our property. The soothing sound of wind in the switchgrass that surrounds the house whispers to me—the quiet and silence that comes with living on the edge of society. Just fields and fields of overgrown weeds and the odd barren row of trees.

No one else lives this far out of town. We are alone out here.

I grip the rope and drop the bucket ten feet into the shallow dug shaft until it reaches the waterline, using all my strength to pull it up again using the crank once the water fills. The pain in my arms temporarily masks the sting in my groin.

By the time the bucket is up, my arm is sore and sweat drips down my back. I repeat the task three times, so Mama has the water she needs to get through her day. The well, from what I’ve learned, doesn’t always have a lot of water, and it fluctuates by the day depending on how much rain we get. Today it’s nice and full.

By the time I’m done, I give myself an outdoor bath, stripping down until I’m nearly naked, cleaning my wounds. I hiss as the water hits the open gashes from where metal meets flesh from the chastity belt Mama makes me wear.

I sigh and head into our new one-story dilapidated farmhouse.

Well, it’s new to us.

This house was a happy home once—I can sense the remnants of love beneath the layers of darkness—but that happiness is gone now. There is something off about it, something sinister. A stench of death lives in the air. I felt it the moment I walked in and during the night as I slept on the coiled mattress left in the bedroom. The girl who lived here before me hasn’t left; her dolls are still here, her blankets, her diary…everything.

The house itself doesn’t have electricity or a working pump system, but whoever lived here before left all their furniture, including a mustard-colored couch. It is almost as if time suddenly stopped and the people who once made this their home ceased to exist.

It doesn’t matter, though; I’ve learned not to get too comfortable anywhere. It’s only a matter of time before the landlord will clue in that Mama doesn’t pay rent and her cleavage only gets her so far.

That’s why we moved here. Our old landlord in Mystic was waiting outside our house with his arms crossed and the door boarded up, and Mama tried to bulldoze her way in.

He told us about a house near Kinsmen, a town half a county over, and how no one wants to live here, so the rent would be cheap. Said he could make a call and get us in, then handed her an eviction notice.

Mama and I came here three days ago, and he wasn’t kidding, no one wants to live here because it’s filthy and half broken. The soul of this place seems to have shattered some time ago.

Once inside, I move past the tattered shag carpet and the dented walls with bits of green wallpaper still clinging to them. I slowly make my way, making sure not to trip.

I see the blurred outline of Mama, who is finally awake, and as I move closer to her, I find her leaning against the laminate counter in our small kitchen. Her breasts are hanging out of a night gown beneath a burgundy housecoat, and the small cross she always wears sits just above her cleavage. The cross is the only evidence that she is a devout Christian, because her actions certainly don’t show it. A cigarette is already hanging from her lips.