The Family (VOL. 1)

Chapter 14

Bubba and I walked out on the porch and took a seat on the edge letting our legs dangle over the side. The sun brutally beat down on us at full blast and I wished someone would turn it down. We just stepped outside and already my shirt had begun to cling to my back. Heat licked at my skin like I was in hell. Oh, wait! Silly me, I almost forgot. I am in hell. God, I hate summer.

Grandpa slumped in his wheelchair behind us, eyes closed and limbs as still as a cadaver. Drool seeped from his pale lips, trailing down his chin and soaking the collar of his button-down shirt beneath his suit jacket. I'm surprised he hasn't had a heat stroke out here wearing two sets of long sleeves...or maybe he has...Is he even alive?  Flies swarmed his head and crawled across his face, but he didn't even so much as twitch. I stared at his chest for what felt like an eternity trying my best to make out some movement, my heart dropped to my stomach. A faint wheezy breath slipped through his lifeless lips breaking my intense concentration and letting me know that he is in fact still living.

We sat in silence listening to the birds' chirp and cornhusks rustle as they swayed in the hot breeze.  We were completely secluded from the road. No traffic, no people, no nothing. Just endless empty fields concealing the house. I could make a run for it. What's the chance I'd actually make it to the road. Even then, I'd have to run all the way to town and pray they don't catch up with me before I can get there. There's no way I'll make it. He's faster than me. I learned that the night this nightmare began. You have to be smart about this, Tilly. You get one chance. Don't waste it. I'll wait until the timings right, break Matt out, and we'll escape together.

Bubba turned to me and raised his hands up as if he were about to sign something, but the screen door opened behind us and Nubbins came bounding out with a backpack in his arms.  He wiggled his way in between us and plopped down with the worn-out backpack in his lap.

Bubba threw his hands up and grunted before shoving his brother's shoulder hard enough to make him fall into me. "Go away," he signed over and over waving his hands as if he were shooing him away.

" What's that supposed to mean? " Nubbins shot back, furrowing his brow and shoving Bubba in retaliation.

" He wants you to leave. " I said absentmindedly while swatting at the flies that had left grandpa and started swarming me.

He gasped sarcastically and threw his hand against his chest. "Oh, I know why you want me gone, baby brother. You want her all for your self." He made kissy noises at his brother making him duck his head and hide his face in his hands. "That's why I'm gonna sit right here and make sure y'all don't start neckin' again. " 

I couldn't roll my eyes far enough." Oh, Bubs, I think we've been visited by a green-eyed monster named Jealousy. " I know we've NEVER kissed and will NEVER kiss, but I'm not gonna say that to Nubbins and embarrass Bubba even more. Sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

Bubba chuckled into his hands trying to suppress his laughter. His brother, on the other hand, kept mumbling something under his breath about how he's not jealous and throwing in some obscene curse words. 

"Hey, wanna see somethin' cool?" Nubbins asked changing the subject. He pulled out an old switchblade from his back pocket and twisted the blade in the daylight as if he could slice through the sun's rays. I'm all too familiar with that knife. It's the one he threatened me with while I was locked up in the barn.  "It's a good knife. My- my brother gave it to me. He got it when he was in the war." 

His brother? I know it couldn't have been Bubba so that means he must have another sibling. Maybe that's who's in the attic. I wonder if he's just as crazy as they are. Probably. One bad apple spoils the whole bunch, right? Once a Sawyer always a Sawyer. I can't trust any of them.