Man-Eat-Man World: a Texas Chainsaw Massacre Fanfic

The Visitor

        'Oh my god' he thought. He had offered Sunshine a place to stay for the night, completely forgetting that his brothers might mistake her for a meal. Drayton felt awful that he had made her feel scared. He briskly walked outside to the payphone, looking back at the girl with her hands on her cheeks in the window. He accidentally made her cry which broke his heart. He offered to take her home over and over until a single tear fell from her eye as she admitted her home was a car in a scrap yard.
        Brown rocks cracked under his boots as he reached the payphone, dialing his house number and pinching the bridge of his nose; he knew this call would be interesting. He pushed a nickle inside the slot with a bony finger and waited for the tone.
        Meanwhile, at the house, two slender men pushed each other out of the way to see who could answer the phone first. Their shadows danced on the walls of the warm living room. A giant shadow from a sliding door watched anxiously as the two wrestled to answer the ring. The hitchhiker was one of the men, who was swiftly knocked off his feet and lay breathless and laughing on the ground. The other man had patches of long hair, but was mostly bald with a metal plate covering a section of his head on his right side.
          The plate-headed man answered the phone, still giggling, "Sawyer's residence!" He jerked the phone away from his ear as his older brother yelled over the phone.
          "Waduya mean 'clean up'!?" he yelled back. The hitchhiker lay on the floor listening to the conversation with the shadow in the doorway leaning in the room to hear better.
          "Ya mean dinner!?" he said excitedly, though his posture slouched after the voice answered.
          "S-she ain't..?" he continued,"Oh! A visitor? Ya mean like a real one? Not the dinner kind? A friend, huh? I didn't know you had friends." He pulled the phone away again as the voice yelled on the other end.

          "An' make sure ya'll cleaned up before I get back!" Drayton yelled, red-faced, as he slammed the payphone back on the receiver. The streetlight blinked above him as he made his way back to the fluorescent building. Sunshine heard his yelling and became worried, though she decided not to provoke him. She walked out of the building with her little bag with her non-work clothes and other personal belongings, the door's bell ringing after her, warning her to stay.
          "Ya ready, girlie?" he said with a hospitable grin. She nodded with a genuine smile and hopped in his truck after he had opened the door for her. He shut the door behind her and climbed in the driver side, the seat squeaking under his weight. The stars were beautiful tonight, and the moon casted its beautiful rays like a spotlight on the road. Drayton sighed and proceeded to tell Sunshine about his family at home, hoping she wouldn't already think about declining dinner. Yet, she sat there listening to what he had to say; it was a quality he loved about her.
          He glanced over at Sunshine who sat nonchalantly in the passenger seat. So far, so good.
          "They all seem fine. I'm excited to meet them. I hope I don't scare Bubba..."
          "Why's that?"
          "You said he was shy and that he hides his face."
          Drayton mulled it over in his head. That was awfully considerate of Sunshine. He never really put much thought into how shy Bubba was with new people. Bubba was the youngest, he explained, and he was very fond of dressing up and wearing masks, even for his age. It didn't take Sunshine long to realize that Bubba probably had some sort of mental disability.
          "Soon as he warms up ta ya, yer never gonna get rid of him." He couldn't decide whether he liked or hated that about Bubba. He hated his clinginess but goddammit that boy is so eager to please. Bubba's fat little face when he was a baby flashed in Drayton's mind, making him reminisce. That same baby in a splintered high chair watching him cook is the same one waiting at home. 'The big, big, shy baby' he thought.
          The rest of the ride was sat in comfortable silence until Drayton pulled to the right, the truck bumping into a dirt driveway. Sunshine craned her neck to get a better look at her surroundings. It was pretty dark outside, but she could tell that this was a nice little farmhouse with a good amount of land. This seemed to be a perfect country sanctuary. She smiled at the amusing thought of Mr. Sawyer feeding hungry chickens at the wooden porch.
          Shadows peeked and fluttered at the windows, making her nervous. He had said he lived with five other people, and her shyness was peaking. She shuddered, shifting her weight on the leather seat, and Drayton put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
          "They don't bite," he jested. She smiled back and reached to open the truck door.
          "Now hold on a minute. Lemme go inside real quick and make sure they did a decent job of cleanin'."
          "I'm sure it's fine, Mr. Sawyer. You don't have to do that for me."
          "They had chores anyways," he sighed,"better make sure they did a decent job. An' don't call me Mr. Sawyer here..uh.. they-they'd probably think it's funny.."
          Sunshine giggled,"Will they make fun of you?" Drayton scoffed and didn't answer. So that was a 'yes'. She stayed in the truck while he ran inside and did trouble-shooting on his brothers' job. She swore she heard him yell a few times, but hey, she wasn't judging. She checked her brown-auburn hair in the cracked side mirror and waited patiently for him to return.