Chapter Text
The unexpected, or rather, the unbelievable, would and should never be believed. For goodness sake, it’s unbelievable. With that logic, the unexpected very well might happen, but who would like to think that? It’s not a very comforting thing to think of, and it is certainly much easier to live with the expected, the known, the blatant facts, and the truth.
Let it be known that Barbara doesn’t think of herself as that black and white of a thinker, to fully believe deep down that the unexpected cannot and will not happen–fate is a cruel and fickle thing after all. But, of course, why would the truly unexpected thing happen? She lives more or less a simple and regular life. Wakes up as anyone else would, goes to work, then sleeps. And on the annual occasion, Barbara would drive out with her brother to put a wreath on her late father’s grave. Regular mundane things that would make unprecedented, irregular things illogical.
Unbelievable doesn’t always mean real, however. Small things, like how convenient it would be if summer and the bi-annual time changes lined up, or if their coworker would finally pick up a spare shift instead of you. Then again, that's just wishful thinking for order, in the schedule of the world.
“They ought to make the day the time changes the first day of summer.”
Barbara breaks the comfortable silence in the car that she and her brother are in, then continues with her remark, “Then two good things would happen at once.”
“What?” Johnny responds with mild confusion and a light chuckle, slightly readjusting his tie, hand lightly gripping the steering wheel.
“Well it’s eight o’ clock and it’s still light out.”
Honestly, it was quite annoying that that fact stood. As much as she loves long days and sunshine, things are much better lined up in a nice structure.
Evidently driving for three or so hours did nothing to satiate Johnny’s habit of snide remarks.
“A lot of good the extra daylight does for us. We’ve still got a three-hour drive back. We’re not going to be home until after midnight.”
This irked Barbara minutely. Obviously, he was not physically forced by any means to do this–and yet he still did. If it was as dreadful as Johnny was making it up to be, he wouldn’t even be here. She tells him as such.
As their mother has gotten older she has lost the ability to make the trek from Pittsburgh to her late husband's grave. Evidently, the job has fallen onto the children. Barbara didn’t mind it too terribly. Car rides were nice–clear start to finish–and she usually purchased candy beforehand. That was always nice.
Johnny sighed looking at the overpriced wreath they had bought on their way over, “Just look at this thing,” He points at the flourished We Still Remember painted on, “I don’t. I don’t even remember what the man looked like.”
“Johnny, it takes you five minutes-”
“Yeah, five minutes to put the wreath on and six hours to drive back and forth.” He interjects, “Mother wants us to remember so we trot 200 miles into the country while she gets to stay home.”
Quite annoyed at this point, Barbara rolls up the window.
“Well we’re here, John. Alright?”
She opens and closes the door as she has done countless times, and steps out, shoes crunching through the cemetery gravel below.
The radio spews a staticky message, which they evidently both don’t even bother to care enough about to listen to as it's shut off.
Graveyards didn’t scare Barbara, that would be illogical. It would be so childish to be afraid of nothing more than a bunch of stones. This echoed like a mantra in her mind.
That didn’t stop her from tightening her jacket a bit though, hugging the sleeves even closer. Not for protection, far from it, it's just cold out, that's all.
Despite coming here a handful of times before, the two still don’t quite remember what row the grave was in; forcing them to wander around in the general vicinity like lost souls searching for their place.
Said vicinity was eerily empty. Of course cemeteries and things of the like weren’t usually hotspots for people to hang out, excluding the occasional odd delinquent teenagers, but the utter vacancy was uncanny. Usually one would see a mourner or two a few rows over, the occasional gardener or landscaper, even the highly unlikely scenario of finding grave robbers in the act. But it was empty. Devoid of life- painfully so.
On the entire walk Johnny went on and on complaining, until they eventually found the grave and placed the wreath on the slightly crunchy dry grass.
Johnny adjusts it unceremoniously, mind you. “I wonder what happened to the one last year.” The wreath topples a bit. “Each year we spend good money on these things. We come out here and the one from last year is gone.”
“Well the flowers die and the caretaker or somebody takes them away.” It only makes sense, afterall. It isn’t like they can leave dead flowers and wreaths out. It would be ugly.
“Yeah, but a little spit and polish, you can clean this up- sell it next year.”
I can’t help but agree Barbara internally thinks, but would never say that to her brother’s face to give him that level of satisfaction.
“Wonder how many times we’ve bought the same one.”
Barbara brushes her jacket lightly with her hands and kneels down to show her respects, much to her brother’s dismay. Johnny is under the impression that “praying is for church” and what-have-you. He is obviously bored and trying to fill in the silence with halfway mindless chatter of their childhood and recalling their grandfather’s rage after a particularly rude prank.
Signs of an oncoming storm makes itself apparent, thunder cracking in the distance. Much closer in the distance, however, is a well dressed man walking around, almost limping and a twinge bit irregular. He looks older, so the blonde doesn’t initially pay him much mind.
“Johnny-” She sighs to shut off his rambling.
“You’re still afraid.”
“Stop it now, I mean it!”
“They’re coming to get you, Barbara.” And wow, the condescension in his tone is nearly palpable.
“Stop it! You’re ignorant.” She wishes she could just say that she is a regular amount of annoyed, and as much as she would like to say that she wasn’t even the slightest bit afraid it's all nothing more than stones is getting a bit worn out.
“They’re coming for you, Barbara.”
“Stop it. You’re acting like a child!”
“They’re coming for you. Look!” He points at the old man she noticed earlier, “There comes one now,”
It is quite rude to point at people in the first place, joke or not. Barbara wishes with quite a bit of her hope that the man does not see, nor overhear them. “He’ll hear you.”
The man evidently did, in fact, overhear them and is making his way to them, albeit a bit staggered and erratic.
“I’m getting out of here.” And off went Johnny, lightly running away to avoid confrontation, smile evident in his voice.
Before Barbara can even think of an apology to give the man, he grabs her, tearing at her clothes, her skin, her hair- and all she can think is no no no stop no no.
He is grabbing her and grabbing her and grabbing and she wants him to stop stop stop stop-
Panic and pure terror drown her entire being, setting deep in her bones, leaving her brain full of static. “Johnny! Johnny help!” Is all she knows what to say, all she can say, all things considered.
Johnny tackles the man, his arms wrapping around their torso. Hands, unclear of who’s who anymore, grip and claw at faces. If this were any other situation it would remind Barbara of two cats fighting, but it is not any other situation and she has to lean on a headstone twenty-five or so feet over to prevent herself from collapsing.
This is all Unexpected. Unbelievable. Things like this shouldn't happen. Not to Barbara, not to anyone.
When the assailant’s face is visible her fear almost multiplies. Their eyes do not look alive nor present at all, just cold and blank. The man’s mouth is open, jaw out of socket, and eyebrows almost comically raised. It all was utterly and sickeningly wrong.
Limping, the man rises. Very distantly she notes that Johnny isn’t getting up, but he must be fine, he has to be. That’s Johnny for goodness sake.
It's all more or less a blur from there. She runs, trips and falls, vaguely notices being in the car, however not how she got in there. The man banging on the glass window. Then a brick being thrown, glass shattering and leaving small scrapes in what little of her skin is exposed, driving, running and more and more running, pain.
She must have lost her shoes at one point, the pain of twigs and cement hitting the bare feet and her lungs almost steely with exertion grounding Barbara a bit more to the present in her adrenaline and fear-addled state.
After what might’ve been a few minutes, or an hour, who is to say- she finds a farmhouse, and at least from the outside, it's vacant. It really is a charming little thing, bright white vinyl siding and a barn with an oil pump nearby.
However small little pleasantries such as a house looking nice was not beneficial at all. The man was still chasing her. She didn’t know where Johnny was- nor what happened to him. She just had to move. To run. Barbara had to go.
It only took a few moments to reach the building, and even less to open the door, which was graciously unlocked.
Despite the adrenaline still coursing in her veins, the static was back- stronger. She couldn’t think straight, nor did she even really want to. Nothing felt real. Everything was empty and yet suffocatingly full all the same.
In any other case she might’ve screamed for help, might’ve taken a second to form a plan, find someone or something. But she couldn’t. If Barbara made her presence and location known, it might give away where she was to the man who it was to be assumed still following her. The chances that anyone would hear her, let alone help, were low. Too low to risk it.
Hunched in on herself and muscles wound tightly, she hesitantly walks deeper in the house. There are signs that someone lives here. It’s clean save for a plate with food not even worth the bother to identify, set out on a table in front of the door, and a few things lounging here and there. Whoever lives here probably does not have children. Children are fine and all, but messy and always do unexpected and quite unpredictable things. This house is evidently not messy by any means.
Three or so rooms deeper in the house is a drawer open, a kitchen knife glinting in the threshold. Barbara grasps the knife’s reinforced plastic handle before she can think any better of it. It's cold to the touch but is held so tightly to herself it might even crack a bit. The knife, splintering or not- is still safe. It can protect her even if only by a bit.
The next room over taxidermy animals hang on the wall, eyes starkly reminding her of the man. Now was really not the time to worry about the resemblance but it was not a comforting sight, nor did it do anything to satiate the ache of dread nearly bruising her ribcage.
Barbara will be alright even if she is drowning in the static and her lungs refuse to work. She will be alright even if she doesn’t know where Johnny is. She will be alright even if whoever might live here is not alright with her finding refuge for a bit. But that is okay, it was only one man after her afterall.
A terrifying man, a man probably mad out of his mind, and a man who is still very much outside, but only a man.
Just as a sliver of something, something lighter ever so hesitantly begins to twist its way into her conscience. Begins to, mind you, before it is shot down with metaphorical bullets and brutally beaten to a pulp then scorched with flames to a point beyond recognition at the sight just out the glass window.
The man unmistakingly followed her. Of course it made sense- you follow people who you were chasing. But any slight hopes that the man would have given up on her or found someone else to bother was eradicated.
The rotary phone by the window doesn’t work despite all her best, and subsequently frantic, attempts. It’s frustrating beyond any means.
Against Barbara’s own best judgement, she deathly grips the curtain and gazes, albeit hesitantly, through the window. Ice cold blood floods her veins. There are more people. All staggering, limping, and if she didn’t know any better mindless- and coming towards the farmhouse. Coming towards her.
Without much thought she runs, runs deeper in the house. Distantly she remembers that the house at least looked as though it had two stories on the outside, therefore a higher ground against the people. There are stairs 2 rooms over, and she nearly slips in the mad dash over.
In a much kinder world it would have been a comforting sight. Where at the top of the stairwell should have been plain floor, maybe a carpet for grip, but instead laid a corpse of a young woman, face torn apart from muscle, eyes wide and unlidded, hair sticking to bubbling flesh- and there was so much blood.
Bile crept up Barbara’s throat, and it was all she could do to not throw up then and there .