the killing of a sacred deer - carl grimes

ALTERNATE ENDING

scar tissue
"this love is good, this love is bad,
this love is alive back from the dead."

They walk along the beach. The water, the sky, the sand all different shades of a gloomy grey. It is not yet spring, the air is still chilled. She thinks it might be her favorite time of year. Especially since his hand feels so warm in her own.

Benjamin doesn't care that the water is cold. They watch as he splashes along the waves, dunking down and then reappearing with a gapped tooth smile, shaking out his dark curls. He's a child of the ocean. He was born near the water. This is more his home than any other place ever could be.

"Come on, Benny. You'll catch your death if you stay in that water any longer." Carl says. Lucy had often heard him use this phrase, she thinks it's a little odd. Because isn't death the one that catches you?

Benjamin springs onto the shore, streaking towards his mother as she removes her jacket to wrap the wriggling child in it. Lucy likes being his mother. She sometimes thinks it's the only thing she's ever really been good at. She doesn't even mind his wet little body clinging to her and chattering with a dimpled grin like his fathers.

"I think there might be storm tonight." Carl warns her with a tinge of humor.

"How can you tell?"

"I think I must be getting old. I can feel it in my bones."

She looks over the boy's head to see Carl with his own matching smile. He's such a beautiful, marvelous thing. She's spent the last few years watching him grow into a man, although she would not yet classify him as old. His boyishly youthful features still become him, but there are other things that mark him as aged. He's taller, broader, more defined. He doesn't cover his eye anymore. He even lets her cut his hair regularly.

In fact, Lucy gives him a trim that night, in front of the crackling fire place. Carl sits patiently as she cleans up the edges and the nape of his neck, she likes keeping it longer on top.

This place had, at one point, been an expensive beach front vacation house. Now, they lived in it freely. They had cleaned it up, they had made it theirs. They're alone here. No one trespasses. No one visits. No one knows this is where they made their home.

They taught themselves to fish and hunt and collect fruits and vegetables to preserve. They never go hungry, even in the winter. They stay clean, warm, and fed.

The dead don't bother them here much. The brisk, damp air ensures for quick decay. Most corpses they see have lost all flesh to the elements but continue to walk until the cartilage holding them together wears out, sinking down into a pile of bones on the spot. Their brains rot and are eaten away over time. She thinks its the most nonviolent way for their kind to die. Slowly becoming one with nature. She hopes their souls are free somewhere nicer than the body they were trapped in.

A record plays from the kitchen, all chores are done for the night. There is a soft beat of rain against the roof and windows. They are all full of warm soup and homemade bread.

Benjamin is sprawled across the hardwood floor, filling in a page from a coloring book with heavy handed crayon. He kicks his legs and hums along to the tune. He suddenly looks up, his eyes meeting his father's lone one. Pale blue eyes. His father's eyes and his father before him. The eyes of a Grimes.

"Did you ever have a daddy?" Benjamin asks with no other provocation aside from childlike curiosity. Lucy read once that the average five year old will ask between two-hundred to three-hundred questions a day. Benny has proved this to be true.