Chapter Text
It had been a wild night. None of your friends had been available to go out, but that hadn’t stopped you. You were young and looking for action, excitement, something to spice up the humdrum of everyday life. You found yourself at a small bar that you didn’t typically visit.
It was late, certainly later than you had planned to be out by yourself. Last call was breathing down your neck, and you could tell that the cantankerous proprietor and acting bartender was chomping at the bit to kick those of you still finishing your drinks out. Any minute he would tell you to settle your tabs and clear out.
You looked around the small bar, better able to take it in now that your inebriation had dulled to a slight buzz. It was all old wood panelling and aged furniture. A haze of cigarette smoke seemed to hang in the dimly lit space despite the numerous No Smoking signs posted on the walls and doors. A single light above the jukebox flickered on and off as the machine spun out the mellowed jazzy sound of a guitar that hung in the air thicker than the smoke.
The remaining patrons of the establishment were a motley crew, each varying levels of drunken and haggard, and each sure to be sporting a fierce hangover in the coming hours. You found that you were the youngest person left in the bar, and the one that fit in the least. You were a young woman looking for a good time and rounding out her night of bar crawling, not a hardened alcoholic looking for an escape amongst strangers.
The space had gone through quite the shift over the course of only a couple hours. When you had rolled up to the bar, the gravel parking lot had been packed with cars. Those populating the building were a mix of regulars and people drawn in by the flickering of the near ancient sign illuminated by neon letters. You recalled thinking that they had to be breaking some sort of fire code when you had forced your way into the middle of the mass of bodies dancing to the twangy notes of some southern songstress on the dancefloor. You had danced and laughed and drank, making new friends for the night with the girls exchanging drunken compliments in the bathroom as they did more harm than good while trying to fix their makeup in the tarnished, cracked mirror.
Your fleeting friends had long since disappeared into the night, and now you sat alone at one end of the dingy bar with one hand propping up your chin and the other wrapped around the once cold glass of a half-finished beer mug. Your arms and legs felt heavy, and your skin was coated in a layer of dust and dirt adhered by your own cooled sweat. You didn’t dare even glance towards any reflective surface, sure that what had once been an alluring smokey eye now gave you the appearance of a raccoon and that your hair was a tangled mess. You knew that you should settle up and head home, the softness and warmth of your bed calling to your exhausted body, but you couldn’t bring yourself to motion the barkeep over.
The relative quiet stillness of the bar was shattered by what sounded like a chainsaw revving outside the door. Around you, the barflies all looked up. You weren’t familiar with the area, but you had a feeling that chainsaws weren’t an average occurrence at this time of night.
“What the hell is all that racket?” The gruffness of the bartender’s voice cut through the roar of the unexpected saw.
He rounded the bar, brushing by you and making a beeline for the door. The thump of his boots covered both the din of the mechanical growl and the already drowned out lilt of music. All the patrons were silent, watching with curiosity and confusion as the old man went to confront whoever was disturbing the tenuous peace that can only be found at the end of a long night. The chainsaw had only gotten louder as the moments rolled on, and as the proprietor drew closer to the door it sounded like whoever was wielding the dangerous implement was basically already inside.
You watched the old man’s sure steps falter as he neared the door. The initial rage he had felt must have died when he realized the implications of facing an unknown person with a potentially deadly weapon. He hesitated, hand reaching for the knob but frozen mid air. The bar itself seemed to hold its breath with anxious anticipation of what would happen next.
Then the door exploded.
A shower of wood and splinters flew through the air, pelting the old man and startling everyone. Someone dropped a glass, but the sound of it shattering was masked by the roaring buzz of a chainsaw that echoed through your head and vibrated through your body. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as you watched him fall to the ground and debris fly through the air.
The man that stepped through the ruins of the door was massive, easily nearing six and a half feet tall. He loomed over the now terrified old bartender with the chainsaw you had heard prior raised above his head. He appeared to be wearing some kind of mask. There was little time to consider him further before a smaller man scampered in behind him. This new man seemed jittery, twitchy and somehow scared you more than the one with the literal chainsaw .
The chainsaw ground to a halt, and the bar was suddenly almost unnervingly quiet. You, along with the other patrons, were frozen with shock as this all played out before you. The small man stood over the old man, tittering excitedly and pointing what appeared to be a bent metal coat hanger at the prone male.
“Do you remember me?” He seemed to struggle with the words, stuttering slightly. “You kicked me out after taking my money. I was just trying to listen to music, man!”
The bartender seemed to remember his prior rage, though he seemed much less intimidating on the floor. “Yeah, I remember you! You almost broke my damn jukebox!”
“Music is my life, man, and you were disrespecting it!”
The old man began to attempt to struggle to his feet. “I’ll kick you out again! You and whatever the hell that is,” he growled, jerking his chin in the direction of the mountain of a man that now cradled the chainsaw with a surprising amount of delicacy.
Faster than your eye could follow, the jittery man pulled a ball-peen hammer out of thin air and with a loud crack! he brought it down hard on the other man’s balding head. With this single violent action, the entire bar erupted with activity. You sucked in a harsh gasp, hardly able to grasp what exactly you bore witness to. The men a little ways down the bar from you shot to their feet, moving to assist the man that was now under attack. This prompted the grinding growl of whirring teeth as the chainsaw was coaxed back to life.
“Get ‘em, Leatherface!” The rat-like man howled, shaking the bloodied hammer in the direction of the bar.
You were on your feet and running for the back before your mind could catch up with your instincts. You sprinted towards the cramped hallway that housed the bathrooms and what you had assumed was a back door. It was mere seconds before you heard screaming and the horrible wet sound of flesh being carved through. You whimpered as you threw yourself at the back entrance, becoming more and more desperate as you realized that it wasn’t budging.
To your horror, as you examined the door, you found a thick padlock sealing it shut. You pulled uselessly on it, knowing that it was futile but not knowing what else you could hope to do. The screaming quieted to moaning, which died into silence in the main bar room. Your struggles with the lock grew more desperate, but were still just as ineffective.
“Where’s the girl? Go get the girl!”
Your heart was in your throat when you heard those words from the strange man. An affirmative noise came from the other man. You were crying then, though you tried to quiet your sobs. The lock was going nowhere and your only option was to hide.
You ducked into the bathroom, cursing the way your boots slipped against the smooth tile. You ran to the last stall in the row, closing the door behind you, locking it, and balancing on the edge of the toilet seat with your knees pulled up to your chest. You knew it was silly, that the large man with the chainsaw would find you easily and hack you to bits, but you were scared, still slightly intoxicated, and completely out of ideas.
You heard the bathroom door slam open and had to stifle a whimper with your trembling hands. The chainsaw was turned off, and the only sound was his heavy footsteps on the dirty tile. There was a loud bang! as the door to the first stall was thrown open. The same happened with the second, then the third, and then you could see his boots underneath the door in front of you.
He pushed lightly on the door, probably expecting it to swing open as easily as the others had. When it didn’t budge, he pounded against it with a single meaty fist. The flimsy lock did not stand a chance. You yelped and tried to push yourself even further back, coming dangerously close to tumbling into the toilet bowl.
As the stall door slammed against the wall, you got a good look at the large man for the first time that night. The fluorescent bathroom lights haloed his bulky form. He was dressed up in a nice black suit, white button up shirt soaked with sweat and dust from his destruction of the front door. You realized with a sick jolt that what you had thought was a halloween mask of some sort appeared to be a second face worn over top of his own, a human face.
He pulled back on the cord of the chainsaw and it made a grinding sound but did not start. You knew that you had reached the end of the line. If he could get the mechanical tool going, you would become quickly and intimately acquainted with the acute pain that the whirring metal teeth of the saw could cause. As a last ditch effort, you did the only thing you could think of.
“Stop that!” You said as sternly as you could, trying to look as confident as a person cowering on a toilet was capable of.
He looked at you with more than a little confusion, but he didn’t pull the ripcord again. You took this as a good sign. You swallowed thickly, adrenaline still buzzing through your veins and fear tingling across your nerves.
“What’s your name?” Your voice sounded tremulous in your ears.
He looked around in a way that almost seemed nervous. He half shrugged and fiddled with the chainsaw. It seemed like he wanted to answer your question, but that he couldn’t find the words.
“You don’t have to tell me. I’m [Y/N],” you continued, not wanting him to get upset.
He lowered the bloodied chainsaw a little further, and hope swelled in your chest. He babbled something that was near incomprehensible, but the more optimistic part of your brain translated it as a repetition of your name. You smiled and nodded with more force than was necessary.
He seemed conflicted, shifting his weight and glancing back and forth between you and the door. When he was looking at you, you could feel his deep walnut colored eyes travel over you. He seemed particularly appreciative of your bare legs beneath your denim shorts when you slowly lowered them to the ground to steady yourself, as that was where his hesitant gaze lingered the longest.
Finally, he seemed to decide what to do with you. He dropped to his knees in front of you, motioning for you to stay where you were with one upheld hand. He yammered and babbled at you, and while you couldn’t understand what exactly he was trying to say, you could surmise his general intent and stayed put. Even kneeling, he was nearly eye-level with you as you sat on the edge of the toilet seat.
Maybe it was the alcohol still left in your system or maybe you were finally losing your mind, but at this proximity you could make out some of his features beneath the stolen face and you found yourself admiring what you saw. He had wide, dark eyes that followed your every move and searched your face. You could just see the shape of his mouth through the hole in the mask. Every time he babbled at you, you were granted a glimpse of misshapen and misaligned teeth. However, his lips were full and plump, glistening where his pink tongue darted out to lick nervously.
You watched him peel off his black gloves. His hands were much like the rest of him, meaty and strong. His fingers were short and stubby, but nearly as thick as two of your own. You nearly slapped yourself when you caught your mind wandering to how those fingers would feel against and inside you. All you could hope was that he wouldn’t notice the way your face suddenly reddened. You needn’t have worried, as he was focused on his new task. He dragged those same fingers you were admiring across the bloodied guide bar, collecting the cooling red substance on their tips.
When he reached towards you with his now blood-soaked hands you fought against all of your instincts that screamed for you to recoil. You could not suppress, however, the shuddering breath that left you when you felt the odd sticky warmth of blood smeared across your face. You wanted to grasp his wrist, to stop him, but he looked at you with such focus and intensity that you did not. Once your cheeks, forehead, and chin were sufficiently covered, he collected more of the macabre paint and spread it over your neck and chest. You whined in protest when he smeared the crimson over your shirt, surely ruining it, but he cut off your complaints with a huffed noise of warning.
Once he was done, he took a moment to sit back on his heels and admire his work. You were sure that you were now just a bloodied mess of gore and viscera. He nodded slightly before standing and lifting the chainsaw once more. You watched with confusion as he fumbled with it for a moment before yanking on the ripcord. You screamed then, sure that after all the hope and whatever had just happened, he was going to kill you anyway. He yelled too, waving the tool above his head before swinging it back and forth.
The whirring teeth never found you. He destroyed the wooden stall doors and broke the porcelain tiles. Your screams quieted as you watched the swathe of destruction he cleaved through the space. You realized he had no intention of hurting you, but that he was making a show of it for someone, probably the other man out front. Finally, when he was content with the scope of his demolition, he let the motor sputter and die. Then there was silence with the exception of his labored breathing.
He made a series of hurried motions which you somehow understood to mean “play dead”. Your intention was to slump back against the back of the toilet and go limp, but before you could do that one of his muscled arms found your waist and he was hoisting you over his shoulder. You nearly shrieked at the sudden motion, but remembered just in time that you were supposed to be dead. You let yourself go slack, arms dangling down his back as your knees pressed into his chest and his shoulder dug into your midsection.
He carried you from the bathroom and back into the bar. If he bumped your pliant form into a doorway or two, or if the steadying hand on your thigh was just a bit higher than you suspected was necessary, you didn’t say anything. You squeezed your eyes shut so that you would not have to see the carnage that you were sure was spread across the dancefloor. Your willful blindness did little to prevent the assault of the scent of copper from invading your senses, you could all but taste the blood on your tongue.
“Bubba!” So that was his name. “You got her?”
You felt the man-- Bubba-- nod.
“I got mine too! Let’s get ‘em in the truck.”
You kept your eyes clamped shut and your extremities limp for the entirety of the process. You were laid gently on the hard surface of what you surmised was the bed of a truck, followed quickly by a number of heavy thuds and disgusting squishing noises. You felt the vehicle shift under the added weight. Idly you wondered how they planned to dispose of the bodies. That was what you assumed they were planning, to hide the evidence of their crimes.
Blood pooled as it spilled from the multitude of wounds on the corpses, spreading to where Bubba had placed you. The warmth of it seeped into your clothing and hair, you fought the urge to gag. Someone patted your leg comfortingly before a tarp was thrown over the grizzly scene in the back of the truck, trapping you in with the smell of death. You were too afraid to open your eyes even when the engine started and two doors slammed shut.
The vehicle jolted forward, across the gravel of the parking lot and out onto the open road. You did not think to pay attention to the direction you were travelling or the times the truck turned. For the most part, your mind was blank. There was only one thought repeating itself in your head:
This was not the kind of excitement you had been looking for when you left your home earlier that evening.