The Family: Ties That Bind (VOL. 2)

Chapter 8

Drayton had to have been rambling for at least a good half hour but I haven't heard a word. My mind was too preoccupied with creating morbid fantasies of being eternally trapped in this hell hole. My parents must be worried sick...Matt's parents too. Could they sense their son was dead? Maybe it's best I'm trapped here forever, now I won't ever have to face them and try to assemble some sort of explanation as to what's become of him. I've always heard people use the metaphor of a shattered heart, but through all this, I've come to realize it's so much more than a figure of speech. When I think of him and all the moments we've shared–meeting at the library, going on our first date, having our first kiss–my heart shatters. I can feel it breaking into jagged shards that shred my insides. Yet, I have to keep on keeping on. I won't let my grief consume me for his sake. I will survive this.

"Grandpa never went back to the slaughterhouse after that day," Drayton said, looking toward the slumbering man in his wheelchair by the window as he soaked up the last bit of sunshine for the day. The toasty yellow light filtered through the lace drapes, casting obscure shadows and warming his colorless skin. "they forsook 'im and 'is technique for the newfangled way of killin'."

I hadn't realized the old man was in the room until Drayton acknowledged his presence. He never made a peep aside from the occasional moan when he's been jostled around too much. Any random person would take a glance at him and assume he's dead but somehow, someway, the old man's still hanging on. 

"But he showed them alright, yes sir, he sure did." Drayton chuckled and patted his grandfather on the shoulder. "Ain't that right, grandpa?" 

Of course, grandpa didn't respond unless you count the stream of drool that spilled out of his mouth then I suppose that meant "yes!" 

Bubba sat on a footstool–a literal foot-stool with the skeletal remains of human feet attached to each leg– in front of the shredded stuffed armchair I was curled up in. His thick calloused fingers traced each line in my palm, seemingly fascinated with every detail of my hand and how petite it was compared to his. I began to wonder if, like me, he wasn't paying the least bit of attention to his eldest brother's speech. 

"Why?" I spoke out, interrupting his rambling with a random question that I felt was more pressing than the debate between the old and new ways of slaughtering animals. "Why do you do it?"

"Come again?" Drayton asked, cupping a hand around his ear and knitting his ungroomed eyebrows.

"Why do you do what you do? You know, kill innocent people and..." I didn't want to say it, the thought had my stomach doing somersaults. "Is it fun for you or something?"

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned accentuating his deep crows' feet. "There's just some things ya gotta do, don't mean I take no pleasure in it. You see, it's a dog eat dog world, honey, an' from where I sit there jus' ain't enough d@mn dogs."

A clock chimed from somewhere in the home, a hollow gonging sound I'd learned meant dinner was approaching. Supper with the Sawyers was always a challenge. I longed to grab a slab of meat off the table, to sink my teeth into something of sustenance, but then again, I knew that "meat" wasn't meat– well, meat of animal origin at least.

One...two...three.

Bubba counted out the number of chimes on his fingers. With no television or phones, it was the only way besides watching the sky we could find out the time around here.

Four...five...six.

Six o'clock. Dinner time was soon approaching and I was starved. The last time I'd eaten was yesterday morning and my stomach groaned in protest.